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When you talk about me in chat or on this thread, you are welcome to call me Momo, it says so directly above the little picture of me from Thordan's point of view, a point of view all of you perhaps now share. My name is not now, nor has it ever been OP, though I am indeed OP enough to merit it.
I noticed today, there are lots of active new members around the past few weeks, with lots of questions. Â I also noticed those questions are not being answered as well, or with truthful answers as they should be. Â There are two different things I will be communicating here: My opinion as well as the basic facts of our "Community".
Some of the Facts:
~Mostly we are not a community at all. Â I noticed this before, when discussing it over a few conversations with different people. Â There is a sense, an attitude which seems to pervade the minds of many prominent members of the community, that it is indeed -not- a community at all, but simply a coming together of some RPers towards somewhat common goals. Â This doesn't sound negative at all, except in my distaste for the view, but in truth, it is quite negative. Â
Many of the most prominent members of the community here, they don't want whats best for their fellow players. Â You can see it in the fake throw away comments that they make, you can see it in the way they conduct themselves, you can see it in the way they speak about their characters, but take little to no interest in yours. Â Sure, we all speak about our own characters, but you know when we do that, we are meant to be sharing the experience of creation, rather than boasting our characters over and over to others until we grow weary of them at all, and the only people that will RP with them, are either starstruck members who don't care or don't know better, and/or those with egos to match theirs who can stand in relative companionship with a head so big you can barely fit in the room. Â I know this point will not go over well, I can hear it already, but I also know that somewhere in the back of the mind of the person who reads this, there is a certain feeling that it might be true, do the searching, you will probably find it to be as true as I did.
All of that said, there are people in this community who go out of their way, to, on a weekly basis, make the community feeling known to others. Â They make events, they make themselves visible, but not in such a way as to boast themselves, rather in the sense that they can harbor the creative wills of all those who participate, and allow their group to prosper in inspiration and the connective force between the artist we have here. Â When you interact with these people, you can feel their genuine creativity and interest in this community as a whole, you will walk away knowing that what they told you, how they helped was because they truly wanted to, and not because they wanted to advance themselves.
The main thing here is: Ask yourself what sort of help you want, and what the source of that help is. Â Is the source of that help genuine or not, is it meant to truly help you and others, or is it a facade meant to increase a persons agenda of making themselves more popular, and then lastly ask yourself which of those you would want for you and your creative work. Â If the answer is "anything that helps I will take", then good on you, I have nothing against that, but know what you are getting yourself into fully, before you enter into it is my top suggestion there.
~"Roleplaying is what I pay for, so technically I am fulfilling my duty in the game, because I am going what I want."
This is another touchy one, and one I have a hard time approaching without genuinely offending some people I actually like. Â This also has something to do with the subject above, as it is often a point made and filled to the brim with the "mememe" of the "humble masses" of egoists we have on RPC. Â But I will soldier on I guess. Â Yes, okay yes, you are "getting your money's worth" by roleplaying and doing little else. Â Yes, I "have no right" to tell you what to do with your gametime. Â Heard it all before, but there are some more facts and opinions in there that you out-rightly ignore when you are of this mind, and this extends beyond the RP community itself.
I will go into this further at a later time, but for now, let me just say, at it's start, RPC was different than the one you see today. Â I was there, I remember all of it, and sure there were members much like there are today, but none of them had power over anything, and they didn't make themselves as well known for fear of being shunned by those around who were committed to a united front or RPers, working hard to make the group that we had at the time, really agree and explore a new world together to suss out all there was to know about Eorzea. Â Now, we don't have that as much, now we are all apparently at war with one another over who's rp is better ( I know I know, hypocritical much?), or who can boast the biggest most ridiculous character, and all the groups and individuals are entrenched and battened down for the "long and hard" of RP community, which if you are reading this far in, there definitely is these days (in my opinion).
Balmung, for all we intend it to be, for all we decided for ourselves to bring to it when the much more paltry number of us than we have now, decided to move to it, (I am gonna bold this to make a point obviously) is not ours. Â When we voted on it to be the RP server, we did not do so in a knowledge that we were taking it over, and gamers be damned if they don't RP. Â We are not some moral minority, we are now a wide-spread and well known part of Balmung, but as it ever was the case, we do not own it, and never will. Â We were meant to share it, though we ventured into it without acknowledging the opinions of those we have no conference with, see: Regular Non-RPer Gamers. Â But we had good intentions at the start of it.
Now with all that fresh in your mind, know this, when you refuse to play the game, the actual god honest game that FFXIV is, you are doing everyone a disservice. Â I know I know, once more hearken back to my above comments, and feed me the lines I gave just as I gave them, but the truth is the truth and I didn't choose it, nor is my "opinion" on the subject, merely something random and made up without factual basis. Â From the balking and the shouts and rants of Non-RPers on our server, it is the actual reality of it. Â Non-RPers basically hate us, and having discussed this with various parties both here and in game, I have to agree with some of their sentiments (the real sentiments, not the crazy internet troll ones, because I have both eyes and a brain, and can tell the difference).
This idea that FFXIV is nothing but a mode of transportation for your character to come alive is selfish, and I will go farther to say it is simply wrong and not true. Â FFXIV is an MMO, and for those of you who know nothing about games, MMO means massively-multiplayer online (game). Â Now, RPG is in there too: MMORPG, but the "G" at the end there, it means Game, as in gaming, as in actually playing a game, and the parts before it imply togetherness. Â So when you enter with this mindset, "I don't care what anyone does or says, I pay, so I can do what I want, and basically screw anyone else who wants to enjoy the game itself as well as RP or otherwise, because I paid and I should be able to do what I want!", you are genuinely going against the grain and fiber of the implied purpose of the game. Â And in doing so, you are further allowing those who are dissenters against RPers, to in actuality be right about what they say: "RPers suck, they don't know or care about playing the actual game, they are mostly just taking up space an annoying us while we actually try to play."
Indeed you are, and you can say what you like about that, we have all heard it multiple times, and you can just basically copy and paste the given line above for it, -or- you can change your mind on it, not from these words, but rather from your own inner opinions and thoughts, and a wider look at the Balmung Community and not just the mirror as per usual. Â Even if you aren't an avid gamer, you can play to your level, you can and will get negative comments, but it is the internet, we soldier on for our own enjoyment. Â You can stop looking at the actual game part of the RPG we share as some sort of "work" to be done, it is meant to be engaging and fun rather than work, and grinding is at your own pace of course. Â You can choose to help your FC or LS members with things, grow your Rank together, use the buffs given, make friends with those who are not RPers (because frankly we are lucky on Balmung, and there are some amazing Non-RPers here), and just generally put yourself out there to do something that isn't for personal gain, and have real fun and be of more literal use than someone we can call upon to provide a "good character".
The above is opinion (almost all of it, with facts mixed in mind you, but I know this will get flamed the hardest probably, along with the rest of it), but I think the opinion is a valid one, not just a "well you can say what you want" one it will probably be made out to be. Â And I encourage a change of mind, to see more great RPers become good gamers as well, and to make us deserve the best server around, rather than just deciding to populate it, and generally making other peoples' experiences at times awful. Â If you keep to your "Non-Player" views, I think that is also fine, but I also think you should keep that more to yourself, so that those who want to play the game and RP can have the bigger voice, and allow the community to be one in all the ways it can be.Â
~For all intents and purposes, FFXIVRP RPC has changed. (period)
Every member here will tell you that if they have been here long enough, some with nervous laughter at being shunned, some with disappointment at having seen what it started as, and some with an "Of course it has, this isn't 1.0". Â I agree with all of them, but mostly the middle one is the one I fall in with. Â The community has grown, we aren't "just surviving anymore" that changes goals on a larger scale, but do I think that should have changed the minds and goals on the individual, nope. Â Allowing those who don't care for anything but themselves, and how popular, or how "helpful" or how "humble" they can be/seem, does not in any way do a service to the community which is facilitated here. Â Do I want to leave because of this? Â No, I distance myself, interact when I can, as many I know do, I still represent RPC when I can, but not because RPC is all it is meant to be, but rather there is little choice else should I want more people to connect with each other in the community.
Can this be fixed? Â I dunno, not sure at all about that one, there will always be the forum trolls, the big-headed folk with their blind lackeys, been doing this sort of thing a long time, and never seen anything different. Â The world at large supports a more sociopathic sort than it ever has before, both with "educated" and "normal" folk, so it becomes a really hard balance of who to trust with certain things. Â Would the change come on a large scale? Â No I don't think so, and there would be little point in trying because of the kind of upheaval it would take, and the number of people it would leave behind, it is not worth that. BUT, I do think that the slow and steady rising voices of those who want our community to change, and be a better and more unified community, could help this, and take it to a balanced level, where not everything is one way or the other, and supports good and creative folks who want to RP, but don't want to wade through the nonsense presented to them at their entrance into the community. Â This idea is naturally devoid of my own opinions on the subject of what "good" or "creative" RP are, and there is a reason for that, because those are highly opinionated, and highly varying words in their individual meanings. Â But as a whole, the idea I have placed before you is not hinged on what these words mean to you, but rather on the subjects I have more directly addressed.
To end this, those of you who know me, what sort I am, who are friendly with me, who have RPed with me, who know Momo at all (many do not, I don't RP with a huge number of people, because I like more intimate relationships in RP (coughcough, not -that- kind of intimate)), you probably know I have opinions. Â You probably know as well, that I am not a totally unreasonable individual, and that I do think about things before I say them, I doubt I could have written on this subject at length without discussing it and observing it for some time now, and without some passion in my truths and opinions. Â I, am ever, of the mind that one should RP what they want, but I am also of the mind that I will also not share your opinion or your RP should they go directly against what I find to be within the limits of reason for "good" "lore-compliant" or "creative" RP. Â All of this being said, I will read and accept any replies and opinions, though I am not certain I will reply, I could probably go on, but I think I have said quite enough for now, I am still quite ready to RP with many of the members here, I hope to see many of you at events, and I hope to help some members in their creative endeavors whether that pushes Momo along or not, above all, I hope that we can and will change for the better when available to us, and that being said, I hope the RP Community, one that I am a part of and believe in, but am sometimes disappointed in, will continue to thrive and be greater than it was the day before.
Thanks for reading!
~Momo
I noticed today, there are lots of active new members around the past few weeks, with lots of questions. Â I also noticed those questions are not being answered as well, or with truthful answers as they should be. Â There are two different things I will be communicating here: My opinion as well as the basic facts of our "Community".
Some of the Facts:
~Mostly we are not a community at all. Â I noticed this before, when discussing it over a few conversations with different people. Â There is a sense, an attitude which seems to pervade the minds of many prominent members of the community, that it is indeed -not- a community at all, but simply a coming together of some RPers towards somewhat common goals. Â This doesn't sound negative at all, except in my distaste for the view, but in truth, it is quite negative. Â
Many of the most prominent members of the community here, they don't want whats best for their fellow players. Â You can see it in the fake throw away comments that they make, you can see it in the way they conduct themselves, you can see it in the way they speak about their characters, but take little to no interest in yours. Â Sure, we all speak about our own characters, but you know when we do that, we are meant to be sharing the experience of creation, rather than boasting our characters over and over to others until we grow weary of them at all, and the only people that will RP with them, are either starstruck members who don't care or don't know better, and/or those with egos to match theirs who can stand in relative companionship with a head so big you can barely fit in the room. Â I know this point will not go over well, I can hear it already, but I also know that somewhere in the back of the mind of the person who reads this, there is a certain feeling that it might be true, do the searching, you will probably find it to be as true as I did.
All of that said, there are people in this community who go out of their way, to, on a weekly basis, make the community feeling known to others. Â They make events, they make themselves visible, but not in such a way as to boast themselves, rather in the sense that they can harbor the creative wills of all those who participate, and allow their group to prosper in inspiration and the connective force between the artist we have here. Â When you interact with these people, you can feel their genuine creativity and interest in this community as a whole, you will walk away knowing that what they told you, how they helped was because they truly wanted to, and not because they wanted to advance themselves.
The main thing here is: Ask yourself what sort of help you want, and what the source of that help is. Â Is the source of that help genuine or not, is it meant to truly help you and others, or is it a facade meant to increase a persons agenda of making themselves more popular, and then lastly ask yourself which of those you would want for you and your creative work. Â If the answer is "anything that helps I will take", then good on you, I have nothing against that, but know what you are getting yourself into fully, before you enter into it is my top suggestion there.
~"Roleplaying is what I pay for, so technically I am fulfilling my duty in the game, because I am going what I want."
This is another touchy one, and one I have a hard time approaching without genuinely offending some people I actually like. Â This also has something to do with the subject above, as it is often a point made and filled to the brim with the "mememe" of the "humble masses" of egoists we have on RPC. Â But I will soldier on I guess. Â Yes, okay yes, you are "getting your money's worth" by roleplaying and doing little else. Â Yes, I "have no right" to tell you what to do with your gametime. Â Heard it all before, but there are some more facts and opinions in there that you out-rightly ignore when you are of this mind, and this extends beyond the RP community itself.
I will go into this further at a later time, but for now, let me just say, at it's start, RPC was different than the one you see today. Â I was there, I remember all of it, and sure there were members much like there are today, but none of them had power over anything, and they didn't make themselves as well known for fear of being shunned by those around who were committed to a united front or RPers, working hard to make the group that we had at the time, really agree and explore a new world together to suss out all there was to know about Eorzea. Â Now, we don't have that as much, now we are all apparently at war with one another over who's rp is better ( I know I know, hypocritical much?), or who can boast the biggest most ridiculous character, and all the groups and individuals are entrenched and battened down for the "long and hard" of RP community, which if you are reading this far in, there definitely is these days (in my opinion).
Balmung, for all we intend it to be, for all we decided for ourselves to bring to it when the much more paltry number of us than we have now, decided to move to it, (I am gonna bold this to make a point obviously) is not ours. Â When we voted on it to be the RP server, we did not do so in a knowledge that we were taking it over, and gamers be damned if they don't RP. Â We are not some moral minority, we are now a wide-spread and well known part of Balmung, but as it ever was the case, we do not own it, and never will. Â We were meant to share it, though we ventured into it without acknowledging the opinions of those we have no conference with, see: Regular Non-RPer Gamers. Â But we had good intentions at the start of it.
Now with all that fresh in your mind, know this, when you refuse to play the game, the actual god honest game that FFXIV is, you are doing everyone a disservice. Â I know I know, once more hearken back to my above comments, and feed me the lines I gave just as I gave them, but the truth is the truth and I didn't choose it, nor is my "opinion" on the subject, merely something random and made up without factual basis. Â From the balking and the shouts and rants of Non-RPers on our server, it is the actual reality of it. Â Non-RPers basically hate us, and having discussed this with various parties both here and in game, I have to agree with some of their sentiments (the real sentiments, not the crazy internet troll ones, because I have both eyes and a brain, and can tell the difference).
This idea that FFXIV is nothing but a mode of transportation for your character to come alive is selfish, and I will go farther to say it is simply wrong and not true. Â FFXIV is an MMO, and for those of you who know nothing about games, MMO means massively-multiplayer online (game). Â Now, RPG is in there too: MMORPG, but the "G" at the end there, it means Game, as in gaming, as in actually playing a game, and the parts before it imply togetherness. Â So when you enter with this mindset, "I don't care what anyone does or says, I pay, so I can do what I want, and basically screw anyone else who wants to enjoy the game itself as well as RP or otherwise, because I paid and I should be able to do what I want!", you are genuinely going against the grain and fiber of the implied purpose of the game. Â And in doing so, you are further allowing those who are dissenters against RPers, to in actuality be right about what they say: "RPers suck, they don't know or care about playing the actual game, they are mostly just taking up space an annoying us while we actually try to play."
Indeed you are, and you can say what you like about that, we have all heard it multiple times, and you can just basically copy and paste the given line above for it, -or- you can change your mind on it, not from these words, but rather from your own inner opinions and thoughts, and a wider look at the Balmung Community and not just the mirror as per usual. Â Even if you aren't an avid gamer, you can play to your level, you can and will get negative comments, but it is the internet, we soldier on for our own enjoyment. Â You can stop looking at the actual game part of the RPG we share as some sort of "work" to be done, it is meant to be engaging and fun rather than work, and grinding is at your own pace of course. Â You can choose to help your FC or LS members with things, grow your Rank together, use the buffs given, make friends with those who are not RPers (because frankly we are lucky on Balmung, and there are some amazing Non-RPers here), and just generally put yourself out there to do something that isn't for personal gain, and have real fun and be of more literal use than someone we can call upon to provide a "good character".
The above is opinion (almost all of it, with facts mixed in mind you, but I know this will get flamed the hardest probably, along with the rest of it), but I think the opinion is a valid one, not just a "well you can say what you want" one it will probably be made out to be. Â And I encourage a change of mind, to see more great RPers become good gamers as well, and to make us deserve the best server around, rather than just deciding to populate it, and generally making other peoples' experiences at times awful. Â If you keep to your "Non-Player" views, I think that is also fine, but I also think you should keep that more to yourself, so that those who want to play the game and RP can have the bigger voice, and allow the community to be one in all the ways it can be.Â
~For all intents and purposes, FFXIVRP RPC has changed. (period)
Every member here will tell you that if they have been here long enough, some with nervous laughter at being shunned, some with disappointment at having seen what it started as, and some with an "Of course it has, this isn't 1.0". Â I agree with all of them, but mostly the middle one is the one I fall in with. Â The community has grown, we aren't "just surviving anymore" that changes goals on a larger scale, but do I think that should have changed the minds and goals on the individual, nope. Â Allowing those who don't care for anything but themselves, and how popular, or how "helpful" or how "humble" they can be/seem, does not in any way do a service to the community which is facilitated here. Â Do I want to leave because of this? Â No, I distance myself, interact when I can, as many I know do, I still represent RPC when I can, but not because RPC is all it is meant to be, but rather there is little choice else should I want more people to connect with each other in the community.
Can this be fixed? Â I dunno, not sure at all about that one, there will always be the forum trolls, the big-headed folk with their blind lackeys, been doing this sort of thing a long time, and never seen anything different. Â The world at large supports a more sociopathic sort than it ever has before, both with "educated" and "normal" folk, so it becomes a really hard balance of who to trust with certain things. Â Would the change come on a large scale? Â No I don't think so, and there would be little point in trying because of the kind of upheaval it would take, and the number of people it would leave behind, it is not worth that. BUT, I do think that the slow and steady rising voices of those who want our community to change, and be a better and more unified community, could help this, and take it to a balanced level, where not everything is one way or the other, and supports good and creative folks who want to RP, but don't want to wade through the nonsense presented to them at their entrance into the community. Â This idea is naturally devoid of my own opinions on the subject of what "good" or "creative" RP are, and there is a reason for that, because those are highly opinionated, and highly varying words in their individual meanings. Â But as a whole, the idea I have placed before you is not hinged on what these words mean to you, but rather on the subjects I have more directly addressed.
To end this, those of you who know me, what sort I am, who are friendly with me, who have RPed with me, who know Momo at all (many do not, I don't RP with a huge number of people, because I like more intimate relationships in RP (coughcough, not -that- kind of intimate)), you probably know I have opinions. Â You probably know as well, that I am not a totally unreasonable individual, and that I do think about things before I say them, I doubt I could have written on this subject at length without discussing it and observing it for some time now, and without some passion in my truths and opinions. Â I, am ever, of the mind that one should RP what they want, but I am also of the mind that I will also not share your opinion or your RP should they go directly against what I find to be within the limits of reason for "good" "lore-compliant" or "creative" RP. Â All of this being said, I will read and accept any replies and opinions, though I am not certain I will reply, I could probably go on, but I think I have said quite enough for now, I am still quite ready to RP with many of the members here, I hope to see many of you at events, and I hope to help some members in their creative endeavors whether that pushes Momo along or not, above all, I hope that we can and will change for the better when available to us, and that being said, I hope the RP Community, one that I am a part of and believe in, but am sometimes disappointed in, will continue to thrive and be greater than it was the day before.
Thanks for reading!
~Momo
![[Image: yr2A1Eo.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yr2A1Eo.png)
![[Image: NCtCate.png]](http://i.imgur.com/NCtCate.png)
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