(06-17-2015, 05:36 PM)Suviyo Viyo Wrote:This is something I don't get, either. We have that statement from the Dev saying that literacy is rare... yet we have so many quests where we're passing notes around for people. Or putting up notices/posters. And then there's the actual Moogle Delivery Quests. And the 'newspaper' NPC's that pop up for some events. There's only one NPC (quest out in the Gold Bazaar) that I've ever encountered that, when trying to give them a flyer for work, actually said "I can't read". Everyone else, you give them a piece of paper and they read it.(06-17-2015, 02:53 PM)Lilia Lia Wrote: I have been thinking lately of how rare it is that I see people playing illiterate characters, even though literacy is considered rare in Eorzea.
You know, I've seen this stated in the forums here a few times while looking around and I'm a little confused about it. Is there anything in-game that supports the idea of a large number of illiterate people? Because... so far... all I've seen are examples of people being pretty literate in general. Books, logs, journals, letters, etc... all being passed around in quests.... Signs and posters on the walls... Wearable "reading glasses".... Books decorating buildings... etc...
There's also a statement in the Hyur character creation about how Midlanders are taught to read very young or "trained in letters from infancy" if you will.
The only thing I've seen to support illiteracy in game was a one-off statement from a game dev without much elaboration (or racial/regional/cultural specifics). Curious if anyone here could point to more examples from in-game text/lore to support this at all?
I'd LOVE to know though, because I'm thinking of having my character be pretty literate... or perhaps a "book nerd" if you will. It would be nice to know how odd/rare that kind of thing actually is amongst people (or Lalafell specifically) so I can RP appropriately.
RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes
Please be sure to visit https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ directly for the new page.
What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
|
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-17-2015, 11:18 PM
|
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay |
06-18-2015, 12:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 12:24 AM by Arik.)
(06-17-2015, 11:16 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: I wish there were more struggles about money and food and such. This is one of my favorite things to throw into RP, honestly. I agree that I'd like to see it more, but I'd also especially like to not have my character's money-woes be immediately remedied at the turn of a dime by another character who seems capable of manifesting money from thin air. I don't have any problem with people who choose to play rich characters, but it seems the financially well-to-do tend to outnumber the average joe (much less the actively impoverished) in a lot of RP communities. I love my struggling mercenary types who go from town to town trying to scrounge up enough money to even eat... Only to then make a spectacle of himself chowing down at some local restaurant. (Or, alternatively, blowing what little he has on booze only to go pass out in some dingy, back-alley gutter somewhere because he can't afford an inn. 'Dat class.) Always looking for new connections! |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 02:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 02:37 AM by Ryanti.)
(06-17-2015, 11:18 PM)Mae Wrote: This is something I don't get, either. We have that statement from the Dev saying that literacy is rare... yet we have so many quests where we're passing notes around for people. Or putting up notices/posters. And then there's the actual Moogle Delivery Quests. And the 'newspaper' NPC's that pop up for some events. There's only one NPC (quest out in the Gold Bazaar) that I've ever encountered that, when trying to give them a flyer for work, actually said "I can't read". Everyone else, you give them a piece of paper and they read it. To me, I think most of the questing you do in that realm (and the roleplaying community in general) involves the educated community, or literate community. It may seem like a crap ton of people, but I mean... in the general scale of things, you're talking about an entire continent. Even two percent of those people = hundreds of thousands. So if you take that and add to it in the sense of... roleplayers like to feel like their universe is 'lived-in', then what you end up getting is people that RP that they can read, and perhaps write. Now, I've RP'd with a healthy number of people that can read, but not write. As well as not being able to do both or being crappy at reading/writing or both. I think it is more of what you choose to RP as. This is just my conjecture and how I see it: For example, if you RP as a simple farmer on the La Noscean coast, you probably won't be able to read or write. If you RP as a pirate, or a thief, or a mercenary or a drifter or refugee or whatnot, you probably will be able to read or write but not as well as someone who is proficient. (Sign papers with X's and whatever). These people might be poor, and they very well might be the majority of people in Eorzea. If you RP as a Merchant, you certainly will need to know both (writing ledgers, reading ledgers, doing math when it comes to peddling and keeping inventory, etc.) If you RP as a Magi, a Scholar, a wealthy person, or an Officer or higher in the military, you probably will need to be able to read and write as well. Adding to that, anyone that owns a business, works in politics or is middle class and above I'm sure would have to learn how to read and write. What we might be looking at here is not a situation of them getting things confused, but a situation where the lower class contains the majority, but the majority of society's 'happenings' occur above the lower class. Which would include those quests. Because all those other people are trying to do is basically not starve that day. Or I could be completely wrong and people got confused about what came in one ear and out the other, lol. |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 05:22 AM
Jana keeps worrying about making Klyn freak out in combat. ;w;
To be more on topic, I guess I'll second the "trying to get by" posts. Until very recently, Jana was succeeding as an adventurer but getting by on flatbread and water while actually out on the field. Doesn't make sense to spend money on fancy food when an adventurer needs supplies! |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 11:41 AM
(06-17-2015, 11:18 PM)Mae Wrote:(06-17-2015, 05:36 PM)Suviyo Viyo Wrote:This is something I don't get, either. We have that statement from the Dev saying that literacy is rare... yet we have so many quests where we're passing notes around for people. Or putting up notices/posters. And then there's the actual Moogle Delivery Quests. And the 'newspaper' NPC's that pop up for some events. There's only one NPC (quest out in the Gold Bazaar) that I've ever encountered that, when trying to give them a flyer for work, actually said "I can't read". Everyone else, you give them a piece of paper and they read it.(06-17-2015, 02:53 PM)Lilia Lia Wrote: I have been thinking lately of how rare it is that I see people playing illiterate characters, even though literacy is considered rare in Eorzea. On the topic of literacy... For me, personally, MMO spaces are by-and-large a small taste of what's actually going on. What we see on our screens is but a small example of what the world might actually be if it were going to transfer into reality. A city-state like Ul'Dah might only have a couple hundred of NPCs we as PCs can interact with when we load up FFXIV, but I'm willing to bet if Ul'Dah translated into the real world, it could hold several thousand people that we will never see in game. To fully populate a game to make it feel like a real place (yay immersion!), it would require a lot of resources both from the development team and on our hardware. SE has done a pretty good job with populating areas with NPCs, whether they serve a mechanical function for our PvE experience or not, so that areas don't look so empty. Remember, there's a ton of doors that we can't open. There's places we physically can't put our characters. There's mountains we can't climb and oceans we can't swim in. So just because the NPCs we primarily interact with are literate doesn't mean the whole population, or even the implied population we don't see, is wholly literate. Or even the majority literate. Educated and literate people are easier to write into a story because the creators making those characters are educated and literate. Besides, would you really trust a guy who tells you the fate of the world rests in your hands and you have to slay the primal -whoever- for -whatever reason- when the guy couldn't be bothered to learn how to write his own name? I certainly wouldn't. |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 11:55 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 11:59 AM by Blue.)
There is a good lack of people that spend their time working/thriving to make a living. Most of people I see around are going to a party of having a drink at the local pub. WHEN DO YOU MAKE ALL THAT MONEY YOU'RE SPENDING!?
For once, I'd like to hear someone ICly complaining about the upcoming bills/taxes and not knowing how to make up for it. The Sheriff of Eorzeangham will come at your door too one day. (06-17-2015, 03:46 PM)hauntmedoitagain Wrote: Honestly, the only thing I'd like to see is people being more welcoming towards each other. Even with the moderate racial tensions, Eorzeans seem to get along with each other better than the RPC user base does. I feel the whole opposite of that. Most of RP characters I interact with are overly friendly and tend to share TMI/open up/trust a stranger waaaay too easily. I think this is mostly due to the OOC knowledge that nothing bad can possibly happen to their character without their consent, and also OOC wish to hook up/make connections easily and asap. I'm obsessed with realism and try to keep my interactions with a RL-related mind, so I tend to distrust strangers/people who walk up to me until given reason not to, but I understand why not many would go with this method in RP. To be an interesting, intriguing, well-written character, there needs to be something to allow the audience to relate to them. That is what the problem is with who wants their character to be "perfect". Perfect characters will never be strong, and strong characters will never be perfect, because WE (those who read, who watch, who RP) are not perfect.
"What makes a strong character is how they deal with their flaws, their fears, their turmoils, their troubles that get in the way. That's what makes them relatable." -- N.C. |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 12:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 12:20 PM by Addison.)
(06-18-2015, 11:55 AM)Blue Wrote: There is a good lack of people that spend their time working/thriving to make a living. Most of people I see around are going to a party of having a drink at the local pub. WHEN DO YOU MAKE ALL THAT MONEY YOU'RE SPENDING!? Somewhat unrelated, but this post made me think of it... My RP experiences here have been limited, but something that always boggled my mind about other RP communities I've been a part of is that some PCs do nothing but sit around and drink at the local tavern. They drink, they go home, they sleep it off, they come back the next night. But they still look like Photoshopped super models. Seriously, how do you drink all those excess calories and still have a 6 pack? Or bulging arms? Or a waist so tiny that makes Barbie jealous? |
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 04:02 PM
I'd like to see more religious RP. We have a whole pantheon of Gods and the most I ever see anyone saying is "by the Twelve!"
|
RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? |
06-18-2015, 09:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 09:37 PM by Caspar.)
I'm glad that a lot of people mentioned the existence of NPCs and areas that we don't meet or experience. I think that a lot of people on here confuse the exceptional with the mundane due to the fact that frankly, most people seem to not want to play those sorts of mundane "normal peasant craftsman" roles, and I don't blame them. For many the heroic aesthetic of FFXIV is appealing; players want to be larger than life, even if they don't RP the WoL. To play something that you could play in almost any medieval fantasy or even historical medieval setting is not something the average player is looking for. If you are, that's good, and I'm glad you can have fun doing it, and standing out from the crowd a little, but I really do understand the desire to play combative, heroic, or otherwise distinguished characters. Players want to be exceptional, or at the very least very good at something. This should not be a surprise given the typical content of both video game and pen and paper RPGs. Why count on PCs to populate your world with layfolk when NPCs you create or the game provides do that for you?
It's not necessarily fun to suck. Sometimes being noncom narrows your RP opportunities, or being incompetent at your profession makes it difficult for you to interact with others outside of a mentoring role. Naturally you can turn these into opportunities, if you're creative enough, but if you're not able to come up with ideas or have a limited pool of players to interact with, even being illiterate constrains your character's option. That's why while I sometimes wish the player demographics reflected the setting, I'm not too bothered by the fact that they don't. When something that is supposed to be rare, such as male miqote, is common in game because of players' tastes, I accept that and roll with it. I just assume that my character is seeing a disproportionately large number of them because of the social circles she is in. I've only made one male Miqote NPC for an event once, and he was not used because none of the PCs looked for him. Almost all the others conformed to demographics of the locale. When the PCs are exceptional, I introduce placeholder NPCs with backgrounds based as much in the lore as I can to balance them out. The other thing that probably provokes this disconnect from the setting is the nature of the story players want to tell. If they wish to play a gritty story, they might make their character heavily flawed and fallible in combat; if they do not, they might make them extremely potent in their abilities or have superhuman, uncanny abilities. In old Dream Pod 9 games, campaigns could be adjusted based on the type of campaign your group is excited to play. "Gritty" for lasting injuries, sudden death, and severe challenges to a meager skillpool. "Adventurous" for being able to achieve some things that are improbable in real life, or survive injuries that would normally be a death sentence through some contrivance or luck. "Cinematic" for featuring larger than life heroes who accomplish great things and overcome insurmountable odds with grit and unbelievable skill. In an ideal world we would all be able to fit at the same comfortable level as one another, but in reality, the only real way to reconcile the difference between the players who want to know exactly how much water you have on that trip into the Sagoli and the players who are more interested in the antlion fight at the end of the adventure is just through judicious choice of who you play with. I'd like to think most of you are flexible enough to play with anyone, but maybe sometimes you just can't tell the kind of story you want to without having actual flesh and blood people behind every merchant and lowly peasant with speaking dialogue. For me, it's enough to keep the camera lens focused narrowly on the players, and assume things that happen offscreen take care of the nitty gritty of real life, until I want to actually play those events myself. Anyway, sorry for rambling. I'm perfectly fine not paying my character's taxes. (She's a vagrant and probably doesn't pay them anyway...) I think a thing I'd like to see more of in the game that is common but rare among players is internal discrimination. What I mean by this is PCs who do apply to the norm of their race pressuring those who do not to conform. If a lot of players are out of the ordinary, and those who play ones who are ordinary OOC are raising an eyebrow at this, it'd be cool to see them step up to the plate and exert pressure on the exceptions more heavily. There's a lot of talk about the racism in Eorzea and that would be interesting to see more of. But I also think that cultural norms in the setting work when the average person enforces them. Aggressively suspecting a loner of being a heretic in ishgard, or Ul'dahns who don't give two shites about money being laughed at. Another thing I'd like to see is more crime RP, such as theft and swindling. Not just theft for a good cause, but legitimate greedy crime done for one's own sake. Of course, be polite and ask if it's fine with the other player to pickpocket them; I think a lot of RPers would relish the opportunity to chase or try to negotiate with a criminal, and RPers of law enforcement such as Blades or Yellowjackets would have more to do. A murderer PC can kill NPCs they've created if there is nobody available who is looking to retire a PC, which brings me ramblingly to another point; there seem to be a lot of players who want to retire characters for one reason or another, and I figure character death can be a convenient solution to that urge to stop playing someone in favor of that shiny new Au Ra. Maybe players could get together and arrange a dramatic, or for the grittier stories, sudden, death. I've always felt that a person is killed randomly, or suddenly; a character only dies when that becomes their purpose. ã€Œè’¼æ°—ç ²ã€ã‚’使ã‚ã–ã‚‹ã‚’å¾—ãªã„!
AV by Kura-Ou Wiki (Last updated 01/16) My Balmung profile. |
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »
|
|
|
|
Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)