It's weird, I know. I'll get to it after the introductory information.
I'm new to FF14, and still on my early days of the free 14-day trial (second day today, probably third by the time I get back to this thread). I was waiting for the game to be officially available in my country (Singapore, GMT+8 for those wondering), and then put it off until now due to the 30GB install requirement.
I've spent most of the past few days looking up "how not to be a complete idiot in gameplay" guides for FF14, which still does not seem adequate. I hope I won't stumble over any unseen pitfalls.
My previous MMO experiences are myriad, but mostly keeping to myself in silent soloing, and usually no more than a few months before lapsing. The one exception was my very first MMO, and the reason I bounced around so many others: City of Heroes, of dearly departed memory and eight years' playtime.
As fellow former CoH players might guess, I played on Virtue.
One of the things I discovered there was that I'm simply not very good at RPing. As far as I know I wasn't actively terrible (at least, I never got any complaints), but more often than not actually participating stressed me out, and I ended up trying to fade back into the crowd rather than jumping in.
However, I loved watching RP going on. It was like awesome stories and performances happening all around me that I can spectate and enjoy. Again, I never got any complaints about it, so I assume it's not a huge problem, but I don't know how FF14's RP etiquette works.
I can roleplay if I have to, if that's what it takes, but I would much prefer to be a passive audience. And yet I find it helps my enjoyment immensely to know that other players around me actually care about the lore, and aren't just in it for the pursuit of bigger numbers.
Which is one reason I'm trying out FF14; the lore of CoH was one of the main anchors for me, and I'm hoping the vast amount of story in the game so far will be the same.
I'm currently playing on the Aether Datacentre, specifically Adamantoise and Cactuar, mostly to see what the game was like before making long-term decisions about whether to subscribe. I'm a bit worried that it took me several hours just to get to level 10, since it means rerolling on another server might be quite tedious. I didn't go to Balmung or Gilgamesh (the RP servers according to Google) because they appear to be locked to new characters, and I don't feel up to sniping maintenance times.
(If you're wondering, Archer N'arga Cuga and Arcanist P'liko Cuga respectively, Miqo'te Keepers of the Sun. Having much more fun with P'liko, who hit level 10 just before I had to go to bed.)
What else? I get slightly better pings from the NA Datacentres (282ms) than the EU (352ms) or JP (timed out) ones, but that's still not too good, so I'm taking it slow and careful. I'm still looking for more newbie guides, since a lot of what I found on Google suggested a site (ffxivrealms) which told me my IP address was blocked. Obviously not through any fault of mine, since I've never been there before.
My tabletop RP experiences are probably irrelevant, since I mainly saw them as a way to hang out with friends, rather than get into character. D&D (3.5, 5) and nWoD, if it matters.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this game goes. I'm leaning heavily towards subscribing; I'm giving it a few more days of gameplay first (or until I reach level 20, whichever is sooner), and then I'll see if Square Enix accepts my credit card.
I'm new to FF14, and still on my early days of the free 14-day trial (second day today, probably third by the time I get back to this thread). I was waiting for the game to be officially available in my country (Singapore, GMT+8 for those wondering), and then put it off until now due to the 30GB install requirement.
I've spent most of the past few days looking up "how not to be a complete idiot in gameplay" guides for FF14, which still does not seem adequate. I hope I won't stumble over any unseen pitfalls.
My previous MMO experiences are myriad, but mostly keeping to myself in silent soloing, and usually no more than a few months before lapsing. The one exception was my very first MMO, and the reason I bounced around so many others: City of Heroes, of dearly departed memory and eight years' playtime.
As fellow former CoH players might guess, I played on Virtue.
One of the things I discovered there was that I'm simply not very good at RPing. As far as I know I wasn't actively terrible (at least, I never got any complaints), but more often than not actually participating stressed me out, and I ended up trying to fade back into the crowd rather than jumping in.
However, I loved watching RP going on. It was like awesome stories and performances happening all around me that I can spectate and enjoy. Again, I never got any complaints about it, so I assume it's not a huge problem, but I don't know how FF14's RP etiquette works.
I can roleplay if I have to, if that's what it takes, but I would much prefer to be a passive audience. And yet I find it helps my enjoyment immensely to know that other players around me actually care about the lore, and aren't just in it for the pursuit of bigger numbers.
Which is one reason I'm trying out FF14; the lore of CoH was one of the main anchors for me, and I'm hoping the vast amount of story in the game so far will be the same.
I'm currently playing on the Aether Datacentre, specifically Adamantoise and Cactuar, mostly to see what the game was like before making long-term decisions about whether to subscribe. I'm a bit worried that it took me several hours just to get to level 10, since it means rerolling on another server might be quite tedious. I didn't go to Balmung or Gilgamesh (the RP servers according to Google) because they appear to be locked to new characters, and I don't feel up to sniping maintenance times.
(If you're wondering, Archer N'arga Cuga and Arcanist P'liko Cuga respectively, Miqo'te Keepers of the Sun. Having much more fun with P'liko, who hit level 10 just before I had to go to bed.)
What else? I get slightly better pings from the NA Datacentres (282ms) than the EU (352ms) or JP (timed out) ones, but that's still not too good, so I'm taking it slow and careful. I'm still looking for more newbie guides, since a lot of what I found on Google suggested a site (ffxivrealms) which told me my IP address was blocked. Obviously not through any fault of mine, since I've never been there before.
My tabletop RP experiences are probably irrelevant, since I mainly saw them as a way to hang out with friends, rather than get into character. D&D (3.5, 5) and nWoD, if it matters.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this game goes. I'm leaning heavily towards subscribing; I'm giving it a few more days of gameplay first (or until I reach level 20, whichever is sooner), and then I'll see if Square Enix accepts my credit card.
