Havoc Snow

I could not be more excited for the Au Ra unless they were coming out today. I love dragonkin type races, or dragons in general, so to see a race like this getting added is pretty much a Twelvesend. I am name/race changing the moment they release the expac, I'll likely just make Ashren into an alt instead. As far as a beast or alien race, one thing you really have to consider is how much work that requires. It's not as simple as just making the new race and throwing it into the game, if they have a different body type or head shape than the other races then they now have to go through and edit every single piece of gear in the game to fit that new shape, as well as make sure that every new piece of gear they design has two versions that can fit all the other races, and that race. Because of that I can say with relative certainty to never expect a new race to come out that doesn't fit the Human+ mold.

Are you asking if people play classes without any abilities other than the ability to use a weapon, or are you asking if anyone plays classes without the use of Job abilities? All classes have special abilities that could only be explained as using Aether. Gladiator is able to produce a magical barrier that causes them to take less damage (Ramparts, Sentinel) or are able to cause massive aetheric explosions from their swords (Rage of Halone, Circle of Scorn). Likewise Pugilist can do similar things with Arm of the Destroyer, and it's Pugilist who gets Fist of Earth and Fist of Wind, two abilities clearly fueled by Aether if for no other reason than their obvious showy and somewhat spell-like appearance. The way I see it, Aether is just a tool of the Adventurer, as much a part of their training and skill as wielding a sword or a staff.

You're telling me you can find quest dialogue on that site.... If you search for the quest, then scroll down a little you'll see three tabs; Information, Dialogue, and Journal. This has the quest log text, and the actual dialogue from receiving the quest in it.

So I'm completey surprised that the only time we have ever really seen weapon skins was with the FFXIII event, and I thought it would be amazing if they started doing this more often, particularly with the different holiday events. Every holiday they release costumes and things to play with, usually something unique each year, but the one thing that they tend to lack is a weapon to go with the costume. So how cool would it be if this year while dressed up as Mr. or Ms. Clause (or a Reindeer) you could get a glamour for your weapon, such as a candy cane for Black Mages, a sprig of Holly for White Mages, a christmas tree sword and sled shield for Paladin, presents for Monks, a north pole sign for Warriors, and so on! If you guys agree, here's a link to my original thread over on the OF, give it a like and see if we can't get it noticed and possibly implemented in future holiday events!

I guess you could consider it a reservation fee perhaps?

I don't really see how it's "giving away" when the person leaving the house already intends to leave it and the person buying the house has to buy it from the game anyway (not you). It is giving it away though, because whether they intend to move out and go elsewhere or not, until they do it is still their plot.

I think the only thing that could fix the problem would be if SE added some way to sell the deed itself, instead of just the plot. Then you could charge the amount the plot is worth for the deed and no one feels like they're being ripped off or having to put themselves in the hole to buy a house.

Given that I've decided to return to the RPC (and RP in general) after like a year away I figured I'd post my glorious face for you all to enjoy! <3

That's actually not what I'm suggesting at all. Tea~ didn't simply relinquish their plot for anyone to pick up. They coordinated with Tylwyth Narah so that we could pick it up when they relinquished. They did so because we're both part of the RPC community, and they wanted to do something nice to help another RP FC. We'll likewise do the same thing when it comes time for us to move into a larger house, because we also want to do something nice for another RP FC. While I find that sort of thing to be endearing and very generous, I also don't feel that it should be a standard that is set and enforced. The mindset that people should be giving away what they spent a ton of gil on just because we're all in the same community is a poisonous one, not because it's a bad thing, but because it would only endeavor to make the people who want to earn back some of the money they invested into the house initially into pariahs. Ultimately as I put in my previous post, it should be up to the individual or FC, not up to the RPC community. I could think of a lot of different ways to giving away a house, such as an IC auction, a raffle, some sort of event like a scavenger hunt, or simply just selling it.

You assume that the RPC community has even a modicum of sway in how things are done on Balmung or Gilgamesh. The fact of that matter is this is merely how things are done in FFXIV, and by trying to make a stand and saying "we as an RP community shouldn't do this!" you're only excluding yourself from an already acceptable practice (as you yourself pointed out). I've seen people on here who have sold their plots and offered a discount to any players from this community, or were willing to negotiate prices to a lower amount than they would have ask of any outside of the RPC, and to me I think that is more than reasonable. Asking for anything else I feel is a bit greedy, and this is coming from someone who worked his ass off to get enough money for a small house only to have the opportunity taken from him by SEs poor choices. Whether a person wants to sell their plot (and for how much) or give it away should be up to them, not dictated by the community.

Personal Profile [align=left] Character Name: Ashren Snow Gender: Male Race: Miqo'te (Seeker of the Sun) Domestic Profile Civil Status: Immigrated Resident Place of Residence: Unknown (See below) Occupation: Merchant Free Company: N/A Social Profile Ashren moved to Limsa Lominsa nearly a year ago after being forced to go on the lamb. Since then he has taken up permanent residence within the city of privateers. Mostly keeping to himself, he has set up a small shop in Hawker's Alley where he buys and sells pilfered Magitek devices taken from Garlean ships. Meta Profile Ashren is a bit hard to approach at times due to the secretive nature of his work (both his business in Limsa, and his position within the Order of Nald'thal back in Ul'dah). This makes him a tad paranoid at times, though despite that he is not lacking for charisma and once you can get close enough to engage him he is quite the charmer. My FC house is located in Lavender Beds, though despite this I treat my private chamber as being located in Limsa and not an actual part of the rest of the house. [/align]

Ultimately no amount of theorycrafting will matter or really help if there are no canon explanations to work with. At best you can hope to perhaps come up with a bandaid fix that works for a while, but essentially it probably won't become widely accepted simply because the game doesn't say it's fact or canon. The best hope you can get really is "it works because it works, until SE tells us how it works" and then just go on with your day.

So this is a bit off topic but still relevant to the idea of playing a Dragoon. What happens if in the future they decide to do away with Classes entirely and you just start out as a Level 1 Dragoon instead of a Level 1 Lancer? Similar to what they are doing with the new 3.0 Jobs (Dark Knight for example), and Yoshida has stated in the past that he has considered at some point in the future removing classes entirely from the game so that they weren't limited with what they could do with Jobs.

Because this is relevant as well, I'm gonna go ahead and post the Heavensward teaser at a particular point in the video. note that as the Derplander steps up after donning the Kain Highwind-esque armor, there are now not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR Dragoons all standing side by side decked out in the AF armor (counting the Derplander) and not only that, also all wielding the Gae Bolg. So yeah, there's that too... Edit: Since the forum won't let me post it as a link, just skip to 1m 13s to see what I'm talking about.

One thing I would like to point out, and this may have already been discussed before, is that really the only thing that is required to play a job ultimately is a Soul Crystal and a bit of training/research. In a sense, I always saw the Soul Crystals as something similar to Holycrons from Star Wars, since they are described (I believe specifically in the Summoner story) as being the crystallized memories of someone who once wielded that power. In the Scholar story when the character touches the Soul Crystal is manifests into a fairy almost immediately, which could also imply that the dormant powers become awakened through prolonged exposure as well, though in the case of the Ninja you are trained in each of the different mudra and what have you. Just because Dragoons typically only come from Ishgard does not mean you couldn't come up with a story where your character uncovers an ancient Dragoon Soul Crystal (Ishgard has been at war with the dragons for what was it, a thousand years now?). The same can be said about pretty much any job, so long as you can come up with a reasonable excuse for how you came into possession of the Soul Crystal.

[align=center][/align] [align=center]Ashren and his lil' voidsent[/align] [align=center]...does this count as a couple?[/align]

I think it's difficult to say. As far as fairness goes, I'd say that there needs to be a level of realism and ability to detect the person hiding, however we see in numerous cases where stealth is pretty much used to vanish into thin air. For example: All these things considered I'd say the game lore treats Hide as being a form of invisibility more or less. Think perhaps something akin to Prism Powder from FFXI, the Rogue/Ninja is capable of using Aether to bend light around them and turn them invisible, though perhaps to prevent being completely undetectable it would work similar to the cloaking device the Predator uses, causing the user to shimmer faintly when they move. One thing to keep in mind is that there are some mobs immune to Hide, typically creatures that use non-visual methods of aggro, so it could easily be said that a keen sense of hearing or smell could defeat a skilled sneaker.

Like Warren said above, it's not really limited to MMOs, more to the internet. Distance and anonymity make it far easier to forget that you're not just dealing with some pixels on a screen but an actual person. This is also probably a broad generalization, but you can also assume that if someone spends a great deal of time online they probably aren't very good at social interaction to begin with. That may not always be the case, but in my experience it has been more often than it has not been. Many people turn to MMOs as a method of escape, and more specifically people turn to RP as an even deeper method of escape. Because of that I think it's easy for people to simple fall into the mindset 'out of sight, out of mind.'

This is only further demonstrating my point of why having this kind of information being handed out for no good reason is bad. I didn't specifically list any admin however because the person who posted the blog didn't. The person in question merely states that they asked an admin on this site about an IP address and was given it. The context of the situation is that they were asking for the IP address after having a fight with my friend, which to mean sounds like it could only be for malicious purposes and my primary concern here is that this person is going to attempt to do -something- with this information, otherwise I can't see a reason for requesting it.

I didn't name any specific staff member either though. I'm pretty certain that personal information was given out, that much is not in question since the person who said it had no reason to lie about that part, my real concern is what is considerable a justifiable reason to give out that information. If I piss off the wrong person will my email be given out? I'm not attempting to attack the site or its admin, but perhaps it's an issue that needs to be looked into for all our sakes if it's so easy to gain access just by asking and being friends with the right person.

The person making the claims are a respected member of the community, though I won't list names for the sake of not turning this into a witch hunt or causing other issues. The only reason I bring that part up is because it makes it unlikely that someone who is an active member of this community would slander it (especially when the mention of receiving said information was made offhandedly). It wasn't even the focus of their post, they merely mentioned that they were given someone's IP address by a member of the staff and that part concerned me. If it isn't true, then good. If it is however I would like to know what the staff believes is a justifiable reason for giving any information to an outside party? I understand that offering someones IP means very little, but it's still personal information and it's a small step away from giving out stuff like emails or what have you. Ultimately it's the principle of the matter for me. This information is intended for in house use only and shouldn't be given to or used by any member that is not staff, and using it for the purposes of the RPC. Giving someone your IP address for their own personal reasons does not seem justifiable as is the case being mentioned.

So I'm not usually the type of person to worry about this sort of thing, and this is in no way trying to stir up any sort of drama or spark a witch hunt. I'm merely concerned for my own privacy, and the privacy of others that are part of this community and I felt it was necessary to bring this to peoples attention in hopes of getting some kind of official response from the staff to put any fears to rest. While I'm not entirely active on the forums these days, I do still lurk about and keep track of what is going on in the RP community. I also follow a lot of RPer blogs just out of curiosity when I find people who have interesting characters or the various people who run FCs, I enjoy keeping tabs on the RP politics and what not, especially since my character is/was an information broker. So you can imagine my surprise when I came across a post on a blog that was essentially someone airing out their dirty laundry because of recent events that happened in their FC and they mention that a member of the RPC Staff gave them another members personal information (in this case their IP Address). While I'm not here to tell you how to run this site, isn't that a bit unethical? Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the purpose of being able to see a persons IP only intended to be used in case of needing to take disciplinary actions and the like? This information shouldn't be given away to anyone who isn't a member of the staff and using it outside of this site seems like a blatant abuse of power. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the person who made the blog post is full of it, but I feel a little upset knowing that if the right person asked someone might give away any information linked to my account such as my email, where I live, my IP address, or my password. Hopefully this is all just a misunderstanding but I for one would like some assurance that the staff aren't giving out our information to their friends or anyone else for that matter.

Final Fantasy has always used dual natured deities pretty heavily in the past. The first and more obvious example being Yevon from FFX. Even the whole Hydaelyn and Zodiark thing screams dual nature to some degree, where the Twelve could be associated to her and the Primals are their darker counterparts tied to Zodiark. While it may be more difficult to draw connections from the other Primals to a member of the Twelve, the similarities between Halone and Shiva are impossible to ignore. In the past Yoshida stated he wants to add a playable Draconic race to the game, which makes me think that if not whatever Yugiri is, then perhaps some day we'll see more humanoid denizens of Dravania appear. While this isn't proof of my theory, it does add strength to the idea that we'll likely come to a peaceful solution someday with Dravania instead of just wiping them out.

Who is to say that the Twelve even exist? When Louisoix attempts to summon the power of the twelve at the end of 1.0 to defeat/recapture Bahamut the only thing we see is a powerful spell with fancy symbols that are ultimately very easily brushed aside by a Primal, which you've essentially just said are fundamentally lesser (and presumably weaker) than the Twelve. Considering the Twelve have never spoken to us, or anyone that we have actually spoken to, and their presence in the world is almost entirely non-existent, and the fact that they basically described summoning them into the world would be almost identical to summoning very big Primals, it could be speculated then that the Twelve are actually just the Primals, perhaps the real Primals. In other words, Shiva could very well be the real Halone, or perhaps an aspect of her. There are other parallels you can draw here too but I won't go into that, my strongest evidence is still that Halone is based on the real world Shiva.

Going to quote myself to add emphasis to this one point, if a group of maybe 10 people can potentially summon Rhalgr, I don't see why I small group of zealots in Ishgard couldn't summon "Halone." The Ascians were even attempting to help the Ala Mhigans to summon their God, though for all we know they could have ended up summoning another Primal that just convinced them it was Rhalgr. Same thing could be happening in Ishgard, they attempted to summon Halone, got Shiva instead though no one was the wiser and she just convinced them all she was Halone. The resemblances between Shiva and Halone are relatively uncanny, even the fact that Halone is supposed to be based off the Hindu Goddess Parvati which is the female aspect of the Hindu God Shiva.