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Clover · **08-07-2013, 11:56 AM**

I'm... really surprised after reading all this. You mean the game gives you the chance to become certain jobs, while also giving you a lore that statesÂ that there's only a single special chosen soul of each job in the world?
Â
How does that work?? What kind of absurd lore is that? @A@;
You can't create a lore that makes certainÂ things so rare if you then give everyone and their mother the chance to use them! Are they trying to discredit player characters as if they weren't real or not a part of the world?
Â
I'd seriously have never guessed that no one is actually supposed to be a White Mage or a Dragoon. I'll keepÂ this in mind, but I find it absurd nonetheless *sweatdrops*.

FreelanceWizard · **08-07-2013, 12:21 PM**

The 1.x story seemed to emphasize the "you specifically are the one chosen one" stance that you typically see in other MMOs. Right or wrong narratively, that's the path they took and is why you have some who feel that you can't RP knowing a Job ICly, as that's akin to saying you're the personal bodyguard or lover of the Sultana or that you're the exiled crown prince of Ala Mhigo -- you're basically asserting you're a canonical character by doing so.

We don't yet know what the 2.x job quests will look like (the lore of the jobs is up on the main site, though). Given the way the main scenario quest is written, I have hope that they'll continue their commitment to a "you are but one of many chosen ones" theme and make it so that any PC can plausibly know a Job ICly, in much the same way that they make it entirely reasonable (or, really, mandatory for doing content IC without an IC workaround) for all PCs to have the Echo.

Of course, if they change the quests (which I find likely), that'll cause 1.x characters some heartburn, as they'll either have to retcon to the 2.x quest line or come up with some other explanation -- neither of which is very fun.

Rhan'ir Azal · **08-07-2013, 12:23 PM**

(08-07-2013, 11:56 AM)Clover Wrote: I'm... really surprised after reading all this. You mean the game gives you the chance to become certain jobs, while also giving you a lore that statesÂ that there's only a single special chosen soul of each job in the world?
Â
How does that work?? What kind of absurd lore is that? @A@;
You can't create a lore that makes certainÂ things so rare if you then give everyone and their mother the chance to use them! Are they trying to discredit player characters as if they weren't real or not a part of the world?
Â
I'd seriously have never guessed that no one is actually supposed to be a White Mage or a Dragoon. I'll keepÂ this in mind, but I find it absurd nonetheless *sweatdrops*.

Can anyone help with references and context? This would be really good to dig into.

Adelpha · **08-07-2013, 12:28 PM**

I'm going to start off by saying that I'm generally extremely in favor of adhering to official lore wherever possible, and not writing anything into your backstory that would contradict official sources. But.

I agree that the nature of most of the job lore in the game is sort of a sticky topic. Most of the job questlines that I've seen more or less state that the player character is extremely exceptional to be able to pick up the mantle of that particular long-lost Job, such that it's extremely unlikely that more than a very small handful of people (or just a single person) in Eorzea can canonically actually have undertaken that storyline.

But then, the main storyline in most of these MMOs have almost always been the same way: you are the chosen one, you are the one person that all of the rulers of the realm are able to trust, and you are the one person that's able to save the world from total destruction (and for good reason: if you were just a random schmuck who was milling around town while other people fought the big bads and saved the world, it'd probably be a pretty boring story!). Obviously, we can't ICly take these stories at face value, and have to either allow for some fudge factor ("there were actually many of us, not just me") or ignore them altogether ("someone in the world did that stuff, but I was nowhere near it"). We've already dealt with this to some extent with the Echo, where many players choose not to possessÂ it ICly, since they don't want to give their character that much cosmic importance.

In terms of game mechanics, this also creates a conflict when the job abilities and equipment that we get become canonically implausible for our characters to possess. If you're playing a Dragoon and you're jumping all over the place and wearing fancy Dragoon armor in combat, should that be considered IC? Or are you just a regular lancer, despite what the game makes it look like? If you're healing as a white mage, are you actually the chosen one? Or are you just a generic healer? If you're not ICly a White Mage but someone comments on the AF that you happen to be wearing, what do you do? Is there a way that you can be aÂ "White Mage" but not theÂ "White Mage?"Â Do we have no choice but to completely ignore all of the rich Job lore that SE has written, or is there some way that we can adapt it to make it somewhat less lore-breaking? (I don't have an answer or opinion on this, I just think it'd be an interesting point of discussion.)

It's obvious that the player-centric stories of MMOs, and even the game mechanics themselves, can often be directly at odds with the RP group canon that we try to create for ourselves, and because of this, it can be extremely difficult to not step on the toes of the official lore in some way. We should strive not to trample across the fiction whenever possible, but I think it's impossible to remain 100% lore-adherent, especially as new lore is written later on that may contradict an assumption you made years ago. As such, I believe that we should allow each other some wiggle room about it, and some understanding. (Just so long as we don't all go off and start making ourselves Archons and turncoat Legate!)

EDIT: For references, there should be videos of all of the 1.0 job questline cutscenes on YouTube. Most of that stuff is in there.

Eva · **08-07-2013, 12:28 PM**

(08-07-2013, 12:21 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: Of course, if they change the quests (which I find likely), that'll cause 1.x characters some heartburn, as they'll either have to retcon to the 2.x quest line or come up with some other explanation -- neither of which is very fun.

I may be a little off in making this assumption, but most of the people from 1.0 that I spoke with felt a certain amount of resentment about that whole "you are the single chosen one" element some of the job story arcs fortold. I don't think anyone strictly adhered to that, knowing full well that we are living in a world with multiple white/black mages and dragoons, etc. So maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think anyone's going to be really upset if they do change the quests to make things more sensible from an MMO standpoint (as opposed to being kind of geared towards a single-player console type questline which seems sort of like the angle they were going for with some of the 1.0 quest lines). I certainly hope they make changes like this!

Ildur · **08-07-2013, 12:40 PM**

References are on the main FFARR website, in the description of jobs. Basically, all jobs are supposed to be an ancient lost art that almost nobody can use.
This is the result of the storyline being planned as a singleplayer game: there, you don't have to worry about having thousands of player characters sharing space and all of them being masters of some ancient art that is canonically lost. It's a segregation between gameplay and story caused by poor planning.

You can get away from it in a non-roleplaying enviorement because, there, player made backgrounds don't matter at all. Only the game story matters and, as far as the game's story is concerned, the player character is a single one.
Not so in roleplay, though: if the game mechanically allows you to be a Dragoon, a White Mage or a male Miqo'te, then every player has a right to use it in their background.
Half-breeds, though, aren't supported mechanically. Hence why I think it's best not to make one. There are also other important consideration, that I think Freelance mentioned somewhere before: what does being a half-breed achieve story-wise or character-wise that other, more common trait wouldn't?.

We could handwave rarity of jobs and races with Asyria's way: saying that all Player Characters represent rare individuals. That pretty much nullifies all rarity we can find in Player Characters because they are all supposed to be special individuals. I agree with this to some extent, though I think a character's 'special-ness' depends enterely on the player creating him.

Rhan'ir Azal · **08-07-2013, 12:49 PM**

(08-07-2013, 12:40 PM)Ildur Wrote: References are on the main FFARR website, in the description of jobs. Basically, all jobs are supposed to be an ancient lost art that almost nobody can use.
This is the result of the storyline being planned as a singleplayer game: there, you don't have to worry about having thousands of player characters sharing space and all of them being masters of some ancient art that is canonically lost. It's a segregation between gameplay and story Â caused by poor planning.

The main FFARR site says White Mage's art is in revival and there is no mention of scarcity in the Dragoon section. I don't mean to derail the original topic so I'll just make a separate thread.
http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=3353

Clover · **08-07-2013, 01:06 PM**

Unless I misunderstood, at least there are "normal Dragoons", so RPers might still be able to participate in whatever happens at Ishgard. There's supposed to be some sort of an army there, yes?
Â
Ah, I'm very sorry for having gone offtopic (>_<; I'll stop now. I was just worried because my partner wanted to be a Dragoon. Not the chosen, more special than you one; just one out of many.

Merri · **08-07-2013, 01:28 PM**

None of the jobs themselves are really "rare" in the current age. The arts themselves may have at one point been lost to the ages, but that isn't really the case anymore. Square made certain to make note of that. Dragoons, for example, aren't really all that rare. It just isn't likely to be easy to rise to the station of Dragoon in Ishgard. Not to mention that when you rise to the rank of Dragoon in Ishgard, you are granted a Gae Bolg by the Holy See. That's basically to be your trusted lance, as it's forged from dragon bone and tempered in dragon blood if I'm not mistaken. Lacking that weapon as a "true dragoon" might have some interesting consequences, and make for interesting background. The only thing that is rare in terms of dragoon lore is the Azure Dragoon, which is just something that you can canonically avoid, since it's a pretty meta-gamey subject to touch on.

Other trades, such as the Monks of the Fists of Rhalgr haven't been lost to the ages. There just isn't as many around as there used to be after the purge in Ala Mhigo. There are plenty of ways for your character to have either met a Monk who escaped, or have been a member of the order who escaped. Hell, you could learn from some one who learned from an actual Monk. That's one easy way to justify so many of a certain job. One person learns from an original source, and they teach two friends, and those two friends teach two friends.

In this age of adventurers, knowledge of the jobs is common place, plain and simple. You can easily justify being any of the jobs. Some might have certain consequences or requirements if you plan on learning from the original source, or being an "original disciple" of the job (like the Dragoon requirements mentioned earlier).

FreelanceWizard · **08-07-2013, 01:42 PM**

(08-07-2013, 12:28 PM)Eva Wrote: I may be a little off in making this assumption, but most of the people from 1.0 that I spoke with felt a certain amount of resentment about that whole "you are the single chosen one" element some of the job story arcs fortold. I don't think anyone strictly adhered to that, knowing full well that we are living in a world with multiple white/black mages and dragoons, etc. So maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think anyone's going to be really upset if they do change the quests to make things more sensible from an MMO standpoint (as opposed to being kind of geared towards a single-player console type questline which seems sort of like the angle they were going for with some of the 1.0 quest lines). I certainly hope they make changes like this!

I'm sure you're right. Smile

I should have explained better: the "not fun" heartburn is having to do the retcon or bend your existing story to match the new quest lines, not the net result of the changes. That the new quest lines are a lot more plausible and viable in the MMO environment is something I'm sure we're all looking forward to. Smile

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