Ildur

I wouldn't follow NPC prices as the 'real' prices of the Eorzean economy, because those prices are thought to balance the in-game economy, not for lore accuracy. Using K'nahli's method (being vague or letting it be on the air) seems the most rational choice, to me. Since the game has no actual lore about the value of gil (remember: prices are balanced towards gameplay), it would be very easy to run into people claiming that your prices are really cheap/expensive because they don't line up with their particular microcanon economy.

As a member of both the Commerce Regulation Agency and Unity I can state they are both active.

Unless a specific scene requires a specific time of day, I prefer to pretend all scenes take place during the day. I try to keep it vague and not mention it unless someone else references it, though, and there are times when I just use Server Time (since it's easy for everyone to check it and it offers a more stable time than Eorzean whacky day cycles of Quickness.) I tend to ignore weather unless, again, someone makes mention of it.

If character journal's are akin to novels, the bulletin board is akin to a collection of unconnected short stories. While a character journal focuses on one character and their story (meaning it might get very, very long), the bulletin board is there to provide small snippets of plots or characters so that the community might choose to acknowledge, get involved in them or gossip about them at their discretion.

I wouldn't be surprised if people ignored you due to those explosions. Making things explode, or really making any kind of very noisy public altercation, in a city with guards will receive a big eyebrow raise because the guards/military would come running to see what is happening. But such a thing is not supported by the game. People will brush it off as "Explosions? In the city? And no guards around? These people are just show offs starving for attention." and carry on with whatever is happening. With that said, in my experience people in the taverns are there because they want to have 'socialization RP', so they will often ignore dramatic events even if they are less intrusive than explosions. I remember in another game a character of mine was dropped in front of a tavern, bleeding, and only two people decided to help/acknowledge her. One of them was part of my guild, so she didn't really count. So, yeah: tavern RP, "thou shalt not interrupt it!", apparently.

Take in mind that private interactions not only do not offer many hooks for other people to jump in, but they also don't offer many hooks for people to include other characters. The "closed-off-ness", as long as it's in-character, is then a reasonable consequence of the nature of the interaction. You wouldn't invite a random stranger when you are discussing personal matters, after all (unless you were really, really outgoing). This is, of course, if the 'brush off' is strictly in-character. Ignoring or telling someone to go away OOCly when you are roleplaying in the open isn't acceptable: if you don't want to get interrupted, use party chat. The least you can do when roleplaying in /say is to acknowledge interruptions IC-ly. Then you can be as rude as your character allows you to be.

My characters have different methodologies when it comes to religion and spirituality. In increasing order of faith: Ildur, as a garlean, has no interest in the Twelve. He has gotten used to curse in their name and to pretend to call them every now and then, but doesn't think they exist. And if they do, they will be just little more than Primals with good relations with Eorzeans. Thiereia is basically in denial. The Calamity happened and she's sure that the Twelve were too busy or weak to help. Thus, don't deserve any worship. She's very confrontational about it. Ulanan is a 'lite' follower of Oschon. Unlike Megiddo up there, she doesn't get lost on purpose. She thinks Oschon favors the feet that have a purpose and direction, and thinks he is responsible for any fortuitous coincidences along the way. Sometimes, this includes detours, but that's only if your direction was wrong in the first place. K'airos became devout after the Calamity as a way to cope with losing most of her family and tribe. She took the K-Tribe's religion (the only one she had contact with, really) and attached to it with superglue. The version of the ceremonies and devotion that sprung out from her might not be very accurate representation of what the tribe does, though.

There's also a Maelstorm soldier that hands a couple of quests in Aleport. She confuses random wild life being close to the city with attacks. Not a very serious portrayal, but it's more the game playing on the the charcater being unexperienced (and perhaps not very smart) more than on her race's sex appeal of 'cat-likeness'. Another fairly decent characterization is that of the huntresses of the U tribe who, during quests, are quite normal. It's somewhat offset by the fact you can also witness a couple of villagers doing the flirting animation towards an Immortal Flames soldier in their village... and let's not forget the "people are peeping on our bathing huntresses" quest. So I'd say that, yes, Miqo'te characterization is all over the place. They do get more emphasis on their sex appeal than any other race: the ammount of Miqo'te concubines and dancers is higher than that of any other race. The only place where I remember seeing non Miqo'te concubines were Costa del Sol, where their population was still largely Miqo'te, and two Midlanders at the entrance of the Golden Bazaar. Oh, and I guess all the waitresses in the Sastasha dungeon aren't all Miqo'tes, either.

Miqo'te NPC characterization is all over the place. You have a bunch of serious, non-sexualized Miqo'te around, but the ammount of Miqo'te that have weird "cat-like" quirks or who are sexualized in some way is kind of staggering. Lalafellin, on the other hand, seem to get played for laughs or for pure cuteness in only two occasions I can think of during the game. The first one is a Brass Blade soldier in Horizon, who is all cute and naive. The second is Tataru, who works for the Scions. There are probably a few more around, but besides their looks I never got the impression that Squee was playing lalafellin as cute most of the time. But all of their animation and looks scream "CUTE!" with capital letters, so that's probably why people play them as such. Also, they are a short race and if I have learnt anything from videogames is that short races are very often played for laughs. I'm not sure why.

It might be deliberate. Battlecraft leves spawn new mobs for the character/party doing them. If they were the go-to method of levelling, the fields would be filled with those untargeteable mobs. I'm not sure if that would strain the server in any way, but it could get really silly really fast if too many people used them.

OOC communication is something that is never frowned upon unless your OOC comments are very close to each other, or maybe if your comment is in direct opposition of the roleplay. Using your character as a waitress NPC isn't something bad per se but, as you may have gathered, it can get confusing if she is not really the waitress. Imagine your character goes as herself to the Quicksand but someone who witnessed her as the waitress NPC thinks you are still the waitress. Hilarity will ensue when he asks your character to act as such and give him some soup. I would recommend making a new character and using her as the NPC instead. No need to even give her a name since, as you said, she's only there for flavor. Something like "Quicksand Waitress" would work. It sends the message right away that you are an NPC. The disadvantage is that people are going to 'understand' that this character might not be fleshed out and, therefore, keep their interactions to the bare minimum.

That's what I do, pretty much. It can be adapted to encounters involving more than two people by just stating a turn sequence OOCly beforehand. It also helps if there's some kind of HP system to know when a character is unable to continue the fight. Something simple like "each character has 5 hit points, meaning they can only sustain 5 hits before being defeated". More complex systems don't really work without organization and, the moment you do stablish a system for combat, you are basically making a tabletop RPG. Which doesn't really have anything wrong with it, except you won't be able to use it with strangers. Simply because a complex system requires introductions, notes and explanations. You lack the time to do all those when dealing with strangers. Even if you had the time chances are they won't like the idea of investing their time into learning an RP combat system. For that reason, simplicity is best. Stablish turns (whomever initiated combat goes first), then his target. If there's more people involved, have them "Roll for Initiative". Then it's just a back and forth of actions and reactions. The (to hit) success threshold should be the same for everyone unless they are trying to do something that isn't in their expertise: like a character with no martial training trying to use a bow. Combat rules can get more complex if it's an scheduled RP event instead of 'on the field' RP. I'd say you still need to keep the system real simple in those cases, because people might be turned off if it gets too complex.

The Mamool Ja are 'canon inmigrants' from FF XI, I believe. They probably have a Primal, but it hasn't been revealed yet.

The current system ensures nothing more than people wasting their time. Low level dungeons will always have a steady source of players because people will A) Want gear from them for their levelling/aesthetic needs B) They have to do them anyway because the storyquest requires them (so even if you have them unlocked you still have to do them to register for the quest). C) People leveling various classes on a character will want to spam level appropiate dungeons as much as possible since it's the most efficient way to level up. Also, people would still have to do the storyquest that unlocks airships even if they had airships account-wide unlocked because, you know, you still need that quest to unlock the quests associated with the storyline. The only thing they wouldn't need to do is farming 2k GC seals to buy their chocobo or do the very meaningful and rewarding fetch quest needed for dyes. What a per-character unlock does on these things is demotivate the player from leveling alts in the first place.

Tempering isn't a matter of choosing, it's basically a magical brainwash. In more technical terms, and based on how Primals react when they fail to temper the Player Character, tempering is the claiming of the subject's soul. People with the Echo are immune to them because their soul is already claimed by Hydaelyn. I'm sure you could certainly pledge yourself to Ifrit willingly, but then you could change your mind. And the Primals don't like the idea of people changing sides and disobeying them, so they probably temper as many of their followers as they can anyway. Odin is left like a mystery. There are some quests in the Shroud about him. He was sealed inside a crystal by one of the trademarked ancient civilizations, but the seal on the crystal weakened and now he is free. He is not revered by any beastmen, though, so how he keeps coming back is a matter of speculation. And what do you mean by "the tribe of Deeper Noscea"? If you mean the kobolds, they worship Titan.

Out-of-map locations can work well for backstory only if those locations are mostly irrelevant on a large scale. Making up that you come from a village that is in an indeterminate "somewhere" is fine. Making up that you come from a city state hidden between the mountains borders traditional fan-fiction territory. Now, you might say "But NPCs can't acknowledge the existence of my irrelevant town, either!" and think that writes it off as a thing you shouldn't do. However, because the town is irrelevant and not the size of a whole city state or nation, the fact that the world can't acknowledge it doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means they are too irrelevant to be noticed by the general population. That's why making up that you come from a village (or, for example, a Miqo'te tribe that lives in X region) is fine. Even then, though, it is better if you can pick up an in-lore location for your backstory than to make one up. There might be some character concepts that don't work well with any of the in-game towns/cities/villages, but those concepts are kind of rare and chances are you will find a town/etc that fits the backstory already in-game. After all, we have quite a lot of in-game locations to pick from.

I think that's pretty much the thing that would fix any complains about the 'very meaningful' unlocks: make them account-wide unlocks. People who are levelling alts are seeing the exact same storyline anyway, so they won't get the same feeling of achievement they did when first unlocking chocobos or whatever. Personally, though, I wouldn't say that some of these unlocks make the journey more meaningful. You wouldn't need to unlock airships if the game wasn't designed to have the players level up in every area of the world. Dyes aren't a reward for your hard work as much as they are a fetch quest placed on an arbitrary level. It feels less like the game is saying "Now that you are level 15, you have unlocked the right to not look like a clown all the time!" They could have very well put a version of that same quest on every starting city at level 1 and it would be just as meaningful/meaningless. Then again, if the unlocks were account wide, nobody in their right mind would complain.

I'm assuming that the reason they took out the "Use the Echo?" prompt was because it was irrelevant. I never played 1.0, but it sounds like you really didn't have a choice about it: you either used it, or you didn't advance in the plot. Raya-O-Senna is a Padjal, though. They are known to have a natural affinity towards the elements and nature, so it isn't hard to imagine their affinity would pour a bit into 'understanding' Hydaelyn since she is basically the world's natural life force. The Echo isn't really explored in the current ARR storyline, which is kind of a shame. It's mostly used to explain why the Primals can't temper you, as a plot/world exposition excuse (seeing into the past) and...well, that's it, I think. I vaguely remember a hint about getting used to the Echo, which could imply being able to use it semi-freely but, again, it's never explored nor used in this storyline. On the Sylphs: Papalymo and Yda also talk with the Sylphs. They don't have the Echo. Later on, in Little Ala Mhigo, the refugee leader understands the Amalj'aa. This implies that the beastmen are capable of speaking in whatever common tongue Eorzeans use. But you are right in that the Player Character is very distinctly shown to understand all languages: every time one of the masked wizards speaks in purple text in a black dialogue box, they are speaking in another language. I think they even point it out at some point, but I'm not sure.

I have finished the storyline, and I do not think the interpretation of the Echo as reminiscence of a past were 'we died' can be supported for non-Legacy players (I have no idea if the Legacy storyline changes enough to justify it, though, but I do not think it does). I can understand where it comes from, though: the first Echo scenes with the Scions show Dalamud up in the sky before they use they Scion-Gadget-o Vision googles to notice aetheric disturbances and immediately head to the place where you have just met them. So it does seem like the writers were trying to hint at something, but the ball is dropped immediately and is never brought back. As far as the storyline is concerned, it's just something that happened 5 years ago too. A coincidence. With that said, apparently Hydaelyn can 'temper' people (or chose them, if you will) and give them the Echo, which allows them to 'connect' with people on a primordial level (kind of an empathic link, I'd say) and see their memories. It is not a voluntary ability, though, so your character won't be able to use it consciously. And when an Echo scene happens, your character will be oblivious of the world around her for quite a while. Judging by the storyline, the ammount of time you spend 'in trance' depends on how long the scene is. So keep that in mind if you RP an Echo user. Incidentally, having the Echo doesn't really give you any awesome ability beyond that (though I guess you could argue that all the feats you are capable of during the main storyline are because of it). The only 'Mary-Sue-ish' use you could do with the Echo is forcing people into revealing details of their characters to you. But you can easily solve that by giving them full control of what you are able to see. Ask them OOCly with a whisper if they are okay with your character having an "Echo-scene" about their character and then ask them to give you a description of what she'd see (because, remember, your character has literally no control over the Echo, so you wouldn't be able to interact with the memory at all). As long as you give the other player full control of what information you can gather with the Echo, I don't think there should be any problems with it.

There's an NPC out of the Sacrarium that tells you why you can't go in: the Calamity hit it quite hard and it is still undergoing repairs. I haven't seen any further details about that fact.

According to the info snippet describing Arcanists in the webby (as quoted by K'dath), the Arcanists need to inscribe gemstones to be able to summon Carbuncle. I'd assume that both summoners and scholars require a similar technique to do the same with their own creatures. I do not think they consume it, though. They are more likely used as catalysts for the wizard's own aetheric gauge (what mechanically we know as 'mana'). If I had to speculate as to what Carbuncles are, I'd say they are probably some kind of aetherical manifestation of mathematics/geometry. Based on the Scholar's questline, where the fairy is shown to have a personality of her own (kinda), I'd argue that this could very well be the case with Carbuncles. The egis probably do, too, based on whatever Primal they are based on. For example, titan-egi, in a cutscene, appears and blocks a magical attack with his face without you actually ordering him so. This implies that, just like Titan, the egi is kind of protective of those he recognizes as 'part of his team', so to speak. As to what the Elementals with a capital E are, they are basically spirits that excersise power upon the Black Shroud. Unlike the sprites, they can communicate in some way to certain conjurers (called Hearers), who basically act as priests (or maybe envoys) of their will. You can see a Hearer in the Aetheryte plaza, with a bunch of people sitting around, listening to him. Elementals also have a crapton more of implied power than any sprite. What the Elemental really are is never touched. Think of them as a very strict Mother Nature. Finally, the big glowing crystals you see dotting many of the landscapes are crystallized aether. The places that were hit the hardest by Bahamut's megaflare (or whatever that thing he did was called) present those formations. Though some of them could have a different story but, as far as I could tell, they were all caused by the Calamity.

If the game itself allows you to mechanically be a class/job/race/member of a faction, you have all the right in the world to use that in your roleplay. The problem with the Jobs is that, as you said, most of them are introduced as being incredibly rare. Roleplayers have to come with a handwave for why every Player Character can be a "very rare" White Mage (or whatever Job) despite of what the lore says. My personal take is that the jobs have been reintroduced into Eorzea for some time now, but not terribly long. Since all (or at least most) of the Job and Class quests exist in their own vacuum, not interacting at all with the main storyline (except for the odd cameo, like in the Summoner's last quest), it is safe to assume that, for example, the Padjal have been accepting and training new White Mages for a while. The same applies to everything else. Some Jobs need more thinking about how your character came to be one, but they are all perfectly doable. How they are treated during roleplay depends on each player and character. Some people might decide that you absolutely cannot be because the lore states that they are extremely rare or dead. Others might decide that it's alright as long as your personal backstory isn't a copy-paste from the storyline presented in the game itself. Others might not care either way. If the Black Mage storyline states that they are feared, then chances are other player characters will react according to lore. Or not. Again, it's something that depends a lot and you should probably not worry much about what their reaction will be.

The dragons have a primal: Bahamut. This alone is technically enough to qualify them as a 'beastmen' race. At least as far as Garleans are concerned. There's also a levequest where it is stated that the elders of the Dravanian Horde (that's how the collective of dragons is called by the Ishgardians) ordered an attack. Both of these things imply that they are indeed intelligent.

You don't need a decade to come up with a mechanic paradigm more interesting than "Spamable Single Target Heal, AoE Heal, Bigger version of those, Debuff Dispel." What I will say in defense of the system is that it works. It's not the most interesting system ever, but the lack of complexities have its advantages (for example, encounters are easier to balance). The problem is that healing is mindnumbing unless you are fighting a boss with interesting mechanics. But if there are no interesting mechanics during that combat encounter, like most fights against trash mobs, then spamming your class' spammable heal is sometimes the only thing you are required to do.

No, sadly. Ferries are basically teleportation. Sometimes you get a short cutscene of climbing in and then one for arriving. But you can't actually RP the travel. Closest thing would be to pick the one ship in Limsa and pretend it's not docked.