Skae

The only one of the Eorzean states that curently have much in the way of nobility is Ishgard. They have quite a bit of it on the other hand. You could be from some obscure minor house there, which would grant you a title and little else. See the level 51+ BSM quests for some ideas of how life can be for a minor, impoverished Ishgardian noble.

Will they? While the load will most likely drop somewhat a few weeks after SB is released, keep in mind that right now we are likely in an extremely calm period - so even after the initial expansion rush has calmed down, player activity will still remain higher than it currently is for many months to come. The risk of a server split has been mentioned. Another possibility is that the currently locked down servers will remain locked down until their population has decreased to more managable levels. That could take years. It is of course possible that SE will open up the servers again 1-2 months after the expansion launch, but I wouldn't count on it.

Of course all those things exist on Balmung - how widespread they are is another question. They are hardly unique to Balmung though. To at least some extent they can be found in nearly any community of sufficient size - and quite a few smaller communities as well.

Main difference would be that it is impossible to get onto Balmung right now and for an indeterminate future. Therefore any new people will HAVE to go elsewhere. This combined with the promised incentives for moving to the coming new servers should result in a good chance of getting enough players to be viable. No guarantees that it will work, of course, but probably a better chance than it would have at any other time.

Many other MMOs have more than one RP server - each with an active community. The idea that FFXIV - one of the more popular MMOs right now - could not support more than one RP server is simply not realistic. Right now few of the events or Free Companies on Balmung are suitable for EU-players anyway - so even if all the EU players moved off to another server (which isn't going to happen) it would not impact the NA players all that much.

If there are going to be a "second" RP server in addition to Balmung I think one of the first things to be considered is making an EU-based RP server. That there exists interest in such a server is undeniable - if there is enough interest is less obvious. That of course does not preclude adding another US-based RP server as well - assuming the RP population is large enough to support it. (Talking about a second RP server is a bit misleading since there historically has been a second un-official RP server: Gilgamesh. RP there appears to have died down over the years though.) One problem with creating an alternate US-based RP server is that it will compete with Balmung (assuming Balmung opens up again eventually) and many RPers will choose to move to the largest one for obvious reasons. An EU server would have less problem with this since then people would choose largely based on timezone.

I could offer my main character on Balmung, Fennella Barlowe, as a contact. She is a female Hyur of about the same age as your character who has grown up in the Twelveswood (Black Shroud) and currently lives in Gridania proper, so it would seem quite possible they would have met at some point while growing up. Fennella currently makes a living as a crafter, mainly woodworking but also works with leather and bone occasionally. So if your character ever needs a new bow (or other items) they might meet that way. (I too play during EU times, so timezones should not be a major problem.)

The prices people are asking do not always reflect the actual market value. Check the history on the MB to see what kind of prices people are actually paying for an item. If you want to sell quickly, then you will likely have to join the undercutters - few people are willing to pay more than they have to. If you have patience you can often get stuff sold for a higher price though.

Not quite correct. There are actually several different positions that in English are all called Prince/Princess. The first is of course children/grand-children/other descendants of a monarch. Those are indeed neither elected nor do they usually have any formal authority attached to the prince/princess title. But there are also rulers of smaller independent territories (principalities) that have the title prince/princess. One real-world example is the Prince of Monaco. Such a prince/princess does have quite a bit of authority attached to the title. (There are also a bunch of other uses of the prince/princess title. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince for the whole silly mess.) There are such a thing as elective monarchies, so there have been elected kings etc. throughout history I am not familiar with any elected rulers using the title prince/princess, but they could certainly exist. On a related note: So far I do not believe we have seen anybody use any of the king/queen/prince/princess titles in Eorzea.

I would tend to agree with your points there. I think though that there is one thing that can validate travel for craftsmen, and it is companionship, something that almost all apprentice craftsmen used to do centuries ago where you learned your craft by going from workshop to workshop during years unti' you made a good tour of the country. Of course it only works for apprentices. Former apprentices actually. That rank was called journeyman - a person who had finished his apprenticeship but was not yet a master. And in many parts of Europe journeymen did indeed normally travel around quite a bit.

Taverns are far from the pinnacle of meaningful RP, but they are a good place to meet people and make some contacts that might lead to some nice RP elsewhere further down the road.

I have been around for a while on both this forum and Balmung so I am not really new anymore, but since I have never actually intoduced myself or my characters here I thought I'd finally do so and say hi. So ... Hi! I first got into role-playing with pen-and-paper games way back in the dark ages when it was still unusual to have a computer at home. Later on I added single-player computer RPGs such as Ultima V, Bard's Tale III, Baldur's Gate 1&2 , and Planescape: Torment. (I guess this does date me. Guesses about my age will neither be confirmed nor denied.) Eventually I also got into MMORPGS. My first was LOTRO, but I have also played SWTOR, Age of Conan, The Secret World, and now FFXIV. (I have also tried WoW, Archage, DDO, and Rift but quickly decided they weren't for me.) It has not been a case of jumping from one game to another as a case of "Oh, that also looks fun!" which when added to being an altoholic means I tend to advance slowly in each game, but since I am not much interested in "end-game" activities I do not consider that much of a problem. :roll: I still pop into SWTOR occasionally for RP but otherwise I have pretty much given up on that. Same with AoC. I still play LOTRO and TSW on a regular basis, but most of my gaming time these days is in FFXIV. Now, I am one of those introverted players who have trouble finding RP and tend to spend too much time standing awkwardly quiet in a corner during events, but can be quite active and talkative in small groups, so do feel free to walkup and initiate a conversation if you see one of my characters with the RP tag on. I'd guess I would classify myself as a medium style roleplayer. When I RP I am fairly strict with lore and trying to act in-character as much as possible and so on, but much of the time (such as when doing PvE stuff) I am OOC. I mostly play during EU times (CET timezone), so unfortunately I miss the majority of events on Balmung. Now over to my characters - and if you have suitable connections to offer, please do so. Fennella Barlowe (Most people seem to find the name too long and just end up calling her "Fen". Feel free to do the same - she is used to it and don't really mind.) She is a young female Midlander Hyur. Born and raised within the Twelveswood she lost both home and family during the Calamity. Though she has mostly gotten over it, it is not a subject she likes talking about. Having tried her hand at many things in order to make a living she currently lives in Gridania and works as a leatherworker and woodworker. She can sometimes also be found traveling the lands equipped with bow and/or hatchet in search of raw materials for her craft. She also knows a little bit of conjury and a thing or two about herbs. She tends to be quiet and a bit shy, but can be quite friendly once you get to know her. Skaenrael Marmannwyn (or just Skae for short) A female Seawolf Roegadyn, who grew up in a small fishing village on the coast of Vylbrand. While growing up she learned a lot about fish, and the care and handling of boats both small and large. She also became quite tired of fish and moved away to seek her luck as an adventurer once she was old enough. She has a slightly romantic and naive notion of piracy (but is aware reality is likely a bit different) and secretly wishes Limsa was still the pirate nest it used to be, so she too could join up as a proper pirate. Being on the short side for a Roe she still reaches a height of just over two meters. Proficient with both axe and dagger and bare fists she can more than hold her own in a fight. She can be a bit of a boisterous bruiser, but is generally good-natured and tries to avoid hurting others without a good reason. While somewhat impulsive and not much given to intellectual pursuits she is far from stupid. *looks back over text* Hmmm, that got quite long and a bit rambling. I should really learn how to write shorter one of these days....

First of all let me start by wishing you welcome to FFXIV, Balmung, and RPC from a fellow TSW player. This is indeed a very good place to start as a roleplayer in FFXIV, although there are many roleplaying groups that don't make an appearance on this forum. And Balmung is, as I presume you have already figured out, THE server for RP. A few thoughts on your character concepts: For a male miqo'te roaming the world is practically the norm. This is especially true for Keepers of the Moon, but I think it is quite common for non-Nunh males of Seeker of the Sun tribes as well. So doing it wouldn't be much of a rebellion The trouble with playing a quiet character who don't speak much and mostly observes is that it will be hard to get much RP or make IC contacts. Not impossible, but certainly much harder than it would be for an outgoing character who is ready to speak with any stranger. Not much Au Ra lore is known currently, but I suspect we will learn a lot more once the upcoming Stormblood expansion is released - since part of it will take place in their homelands. The one you should play as your main though is: The one you want to play. Unhelpful I know, but really - only you know for certain what you like or don't like. Much like in TSW each character can (potentially) learn and do everything so from a gaming point of view one character is quite sufficient. From an RP perspective more than one can always be nice, although it is hard properly developing more than one or two characters at a time. I do recommend creating one character in each of the three starting cities and going through the early quests in each of them though - there are some quests and information you will only ever see if you start in that city. That can be done in a couple of days though. If you want dark have no worries, things can get very dark and gritty in Eorzea as well. FFXIV does not highlight or spell it out to the same degree as TSW does but if you pay attention it is very much there. I do not know how far you have got in the game yet so I will not give examples for fear of spoilering things, but trust me when I say that if you want dark you can get it. The good thing about a large RP community like the one on Balmung is there is probably a group specializing in whatever type of RP you may be looking for. Only trouble is finding the right one.... Many can of course be found by looking through the Free Companies and LInkshells sections on this site, but others also exist.

Another reason is that before you can even set foot in Ishgard itself a player need to go through the entire 2.x MSQ. This prevents lowbie characters from entering the place, and thus everyone is reluctant to place any RP-events in Ishgard since it would exclude all those characters from joining. Result: Not much RP in Ishgard. (That it is a quite isolationist place IC does help.)

Biggest problem for MMOs right now is that there are too many of them, all competing for the same players. They also face competition from various other sorts of multiplayer online games (MOBAs, First Person Shooters, etc., etc.) This makes it hard for any of them to get enough players to be profitable, and player communities will also often be a bit too small to be really self-sustaining. This leads to the games and playing experience not being as good as it could have been, with the result that when something new comes around a bunch of players will jump at the newest shiniest thing hoping that this time things will be better. It won't be better, and now the older games have even fewer players.

Depends on what you mean by RP. If they are RP-ing in a public RP event, then I'd say they are (morally) obligated to at least respond to others attempts to RP with them - even if it is only to tell the others to go away and stop bothering them. That too is RP - brief as it may be. Much like real life really - you are not obligated to have long conversations with anyone who may approach you, but not making any response (verbal or otherwise) when they address you is typically considered quite rude.

Because people want to RP the theme/atmosphere of the event and want to take part in it, want to support the event/hosts/community, and typically still want to keep the potential for new/unexpected interactions open, but also want to ensure they don't miss posts from the people they're RPing with and don't want to cause themselves any extra stress or pain. I did this. I don't get a lot of time for any one on one RP with a certain person due to their OOC schedule and this was a nice event so they went together and mostly paid attention to each other. It's not a crime. I responded to every walkup as well. Did I initiate any? No because that wasn't what I was there for. I doubt anyone has any problem with that behaviour - I know I don't. It is when people don't respond to any walkups or don't pay any attention to people apart from their chosen company that it gets a bit iffy.

That's a really good way of making people feel welcome......not!

If they deliberately turn off /say and /em (as some people say they do), then the ignoring is most certainly intentional - and quite rude in my book. Are you really saying people go to big events just to use all the other player characters there as scenery backdrop?

The padjals are indeed well respected among the Gridanians. People from other parts of the Eorzean Alliance will probably not have quite the same degree of respect for someone who looks like they are still in their teens. Nanamo may look young, but then it is hard to tell the age of a Lalafell by looks alone. Fernehalwes is one of the developers - in particular I think he is involved with localization into English - who often answers lore-related questions on the official forums. Over to the original question: While I haven't played through everything in the game yet, I don't remember anything that would indicate how old moogles can get.

Well, there is piracy and then there is acting as a privateer - which is pretty much the same thing, except you are limited in whose ships you may attack. There is also the fact that quite a few "former" pirates are not nearly as reformed as they would like to appear.

In 1.0 you did get to see them! It was very fun, very pretty, but also very time consuming which I assume is why they took them out. Now you just sort of teleport from dock to dock. Here's Nako in 1.0 when she was typical-pink-haired-catgirl: The boat was decently large, sturdy and equipped with several cannons. You still get a short cutscene when you take that ferry - and it is still a big ship. (Well, you get the cutscene unless you have checked the option for 'Hide transport cutscenes I have already seen', in which case you only get it once) Besides, if you check the size of historical boats and ships they were often fairly small - and still capable of ocean travel. For example, the ships used by Columbus on his famous journey were all less than 20 meters long.

Minfilia? Well, she does occasionally get into trouble and needs to be rescued. She makes a few inspiring (?) speeches. And ... that's pretty much it. Anything else she does is very much off-screen. My own theory is that the reason she is the leader of the Scions is that she is the only one of them who could be spared - everyone else is needed elsewhere. No matter how huge the side-slits may be, it is actually tight shorts that Yda is wearing, not a skirt.

If the group did not wipe and people didn't complain openly about you, you probably didn't do too badly. The first few dungeons are quite easy for DPS: Don't stand in AOEs and kill stuff. Some of the later dungeons have mechanics that DPS need to handle, but that is more about knowing the dungeon than knowing your role. (Technically even the very first dungeon, Sastasha, has such a mechanic on the last boss where people are supposed to interact with the bubbles to stop reinforcements from arriving, but 99% of all groups just ignore that mechanic and focus on burning down the boss as quickly as possible.) The early dungeons aren't much harder for healers (keep tank alive, don't step in AOEs) or tanks (keep aggro, don't step in AOEs, try to keep mobs turned away from the rest of the party) Hall of the Novice gives a fairly good introduction on how to play each class.

All of the three city states have their problems and dark sides even if they are not always obvious. Limsa Lominsa is run by a bunch of reformed (well, mostly-reformed) pirates who are trying to figure out how to run a state and half of their problems with beastmen are self-created. Welcoming to strangers, but once there you are very much on your own. Gridania is largely, even if seldom stated outright, run according to the principle of "Do NOT anger the Elementals", and the Elementals in question and their rules have very little empathy or sympathy for humans. There is also quite a bit of covert (and not-so-covert) racism in Gridania against Duskwights and Keepers, and against beastmen of course. Highly insular place and wary of strangers and outsiders. Ul'dah is quite literally run according to the Golden Rule: He who has the Gold makes the Rules. Nice place if you are rich and powerful. Not so nice if you are poor. Loves visitors - as long as they have money to spend. All the cities all have their good sides and people too of course. You will see all the three traders (I think they are brothers) later on, but they are not very important. The two young elezen will be important later in the story and you will see a lot of at least one of them.