Server Selection (Prelude)

[Kylin]

Itâs finally that time! The following contents will be discussed, one at a time throughout this thread.

 

I. RPC Official Stances--Pages 1-3

 

II. What if�--Page 3-8

 

III. Community--Page 8-13

 

IV. Voting process, server names, etc.--Page 13-??

 

=========================================

 

I. RPC Official Stances

 

Weâve yet to formally talk about this amongst ourselves. Some discussions about it have cropped up in other locations and in private conversations but not here. I had a supporter ask me once how I actually felt about SE designating a RP server themselves and it got me thinking pretty deeply about it. There are pros and cons to the entire situation and I just think it would be nice if we openly discussed every one of them in an open environment.

 

Would you prefer SE designate a RP server or do you think that it would be best left to the role-play community to choose one themselves?

 

I also want us to formally take the time to make sure weâre all on the same page in regards to getting on the same server to begin with. Just about everyone who signed up with us did so for the specific reason of getting onto the same server as other Rpers. But I just want to make sure that everyone is still on board for this since this topic hasnât been officially discussed before now.

[Aveline]

I personally hope Square-Enix does not create a roleplayer-specific server.

 

My case against S-E designated RP servers:

 

When I played FFXI, I moved over from Ragnarok to Asura specifically to join a RP group. However, over the years on Asura, I not only made friends among the roleplayer community, but the general Asura community as well. Friendships I highly doubt I ever would have made if there had been a RP-only server.

 

Furthermore, some of those non-RP friends actually got kind of interested in RP and joined in the fun from time to time. One incident that comes to mind clearly was when my character Niami married a character named Glavan. We had a RP wedding service in Zi'tah. When my non-RPer friend Parlinath heard about it, he asked if he could participate and "kidnap" Niami in the role of a former jilted lover. We thought the idea was fantastic, so without telling anyone, he and I partied up and in the middle of the ceremony he appeared in the forest and after giving a great speech, cast Teleport-Vahzl on us. The rest of the wedding party (including Niami's super pissed new husband) had to track them down and defeat him. It was fantastic! And never would have happened if we had been on a RP-specific server, because Parlinath before meeting me, said he didn't have the slightest interest in RP.

 

 

That being said, I would like very much for us to collectively select a server for all of us to start on. I think it would be a lot of fun to have a mixture of RP groups on one server.

[Renaise]

Being on the same servers as everyone else for RP is indeed what Ive been looking forward to.

 

As for SE designating an RP server I fall into the "not really bothered" camp. Yes it would be nice for SE to recognise RP groups and yes it would allow people who otherwise may not be able to find out about roleplaying in FFXIV to locate it easily. There are other aspects of it as well, people who dont RP may pick a RP server to play with a seemingly more mature set of people, and of course there will be others who pick a RP server to openly harass Roleplayers.

 

If they don't designate an RP server (and I personally imagine this will be the case) then we pick one ourselves, easy enough. It of course has a couple of drawbacks, potential roleplayers may have to do a little work to find out what our chosen server is, and there may be a few disgruntled "anti-rpers" who complain about why we had to pick "their" server to ERP (misconceptions abound). The upside being that we get more roleplayers who put a little effort in to find the community, and we get to decide the size of the server we want to join, in theory.

 

The most important thing to me is there is a server, SE designated or player designated is doesnt matter, that the roleplaying community all converges on. It would suck to see it so spread out again like in FFXI.

 

Additionally: to the point made above, taking WoW as an example. Lots of people (maybe a majority im not sure) of people who roll a toon on a RP server wont RP anyway so I dont think it would be too hard to make non RP friends, but aside from the griefers I think it may contain a few more RP friendly denizens? Im not sure its been a while.

[Smiling River]

 

Why the spoiler tag?

 

hehe

 

We should be on the same server.

 

I am split on this... but I am fairly confident that there will be NO RP server from SE. Just a hunch.

If they do not, we shall pick one!

 

If there is one, we should be on it. It would make sense, even if some people don't want to. Many RP'ers who didn't look for a coalition would end up on it. We also wont be very welcome on other servers since people can say "ewww what the hell? Go join your RP server and pollute the chat log there" or w/e. I'm just sayin' if there is an RP server it will be a pain for us to direct RP'ers to a non-RP server. It's just confusing and if you ask me, unnecessary. Non-RPers will also be on the RP server anyway, cause they like the atmosphere better. It's not like every single person will be a Role Player anyway.

 

EDIT: Ren and Castiel mentioned size of the server? I'd want to be on a smaller server, so that we might be a bigger minority. I'm wondering though, will SE designate servers by population (small/medium/large)... or what exactly are we basing this on?

[Aveline]

Why the spoiler tag?

 

Haha wellll I was trying to be unobtrusive and keep my response short and sweet with my reasoning behind a spoiler tag to save room on the page for other peoples' responses, but I guess since the spoiler tag called attention to itself that kind of backfired. :oops:

 

Additionally: to the point made above, taking WoW as an example. Lots of people (maybe a majority im not sure) of people who roll a toon on a RP server wont RP anyway so I dont think it would be too hard to make non RP friends

 

Yeah... maybe RP servers were different in earlier stages of WoW, but when I joined up last year they were kind of creepy. If there -is- a designated RP server created by S-E, hopefully that will not be the case, but that's my biggest fear for that scenario.

[Eva]

As far as 'worst-case' goes, I was thinking a few days ago that if the decision comes last-minute during beta and nobody knows which server to go to since we won't know the names or whatever... choose something concrete like: the 2nd to last server alphabetically, or the first server alphabetically after Q.

 

Probably silly and moot since it won't be much of an issue to re-roll a character at that point, but figured I'd share anyway.

 

[Kylin]

Server sizes and worst case scenarios are in part II and III of this discussion. Want to keep this topic as organized as possible so latecomers have an easy time finding everything. So for now, we're just focusing on our stances on a "role-play" server for the most part.

 

Another con about having SE designate the server themselves is the fact that the server would stand out as a "special" server to newcomers. Let me illustrate quickly. Let's say this is the server list:

 

Cloud

Chocobo

Cid (Role-Playing)

Sephiroth

Ultimecia

Xdeath

 

As you can see, the Cid server sticks out like a sore thumb. New players would see that and think to themselves, "oh, a special server! I gotta try this since it's the only 'special' one." They may expect more storyline in quests or something even though that's not the case.

 

So we'd end up getting a flood of people joining the server just because it's a "special" one, expecting things that may not even be there. As a result, we get an overpopulated server. Overpopulated server translates to server lockdown. Server lockdown translates to the loss of being able to recruit new roleplayers. It also translates to the loss of being able to create alts, something role-players love to do moreso than non-roleplayers. This is just one reason against SE designating the server themselves.

[DAISHI]

I really don't think we're going to experience that scenario. Most people have played WoW, I think, and are familiar with the way the RP servers were run (for better or worse).

 

The thing is we don't have the raw data.

 

IF there is an RP server, WILL Square specify what that means? (Again, such as in WoW).

 

I do think we should aim for the RP Server because of the very fact that newcomers who do like to RP but are unaffiliated to the organization may see it and want to go there. That doesn't hurt us, that helps us. I don't think that alone is going to so greatly inflate the numbers of the server that we're going to get bogged down.

[Seraphine Felstar]

Please, please no one vote for going to the Sephiroth server if there is one. It will be an entire server of people with lots of X's at the beginning and end of their names (j/k btw.... sorta ^^; )

 

As for server size, I just don't want to be anywhere that's so crowded I can't move or see people

 

Outright I don't like RP servers. They're usually breeding grounds for terrible roleplay and roleplaying habits. Even if Square makes up some rules for what is and isn't acceptable it's going to be difficult for them to enforce it. Plus I never would have roleplayed if I wouldn't have met Dyterium OOC first. I never even considered RP in a MMO until I met him and I decided to join before I'd even seen what he was like IC. Just because someone has never RP'ed doesn't mean they won't try it if they know someone who can help them along.

 

That aside though, if there is an RP server it would be impolite to start a RP coalition on a non-RP server. Instead of people thinking "Wow... it's awesome they're RP-ing and I might try that" they end up thinking "What jerks/idiots to come on an non-RP server and flood the chat". If there is a RP server, I think if people want to join the coalition they need to agree to the server rules, their guild rules and the RPC rules.

 

Finally, just to bring up two last points...

 

1. It may be impossible to unite all the RP'ers under one server. I know there has to be *someone* out there who doesn't like the coalition and will try to start their own version on a different server then ours. How are we going to handle them in a way that won't create drama but also make us look like the more attractive group to join?

 

2. What about people who have real life friends or guilds/linkshells who plan to play FF14 but don't want to RP? A lot of them might not join if their friends don't start on the same server or they might be dissuaded if RP'ers won't hang out with their non-RP friends to level/complete missions/etc.

[Aveline]

I agree that if there is a RP-designated server, we should use it for the RPC (I just really hope there isn't one). Will address the other points when we get to the concerns/bad scenarios part of the discussion.

[Faust]

I don't even know if Japanese players RP, at least the way that westerners do. Maybe none of them do, or maybe they all do a little? For all I know it could be anywhere in between. Anyway, I think that the JP community is going to have a more important say on whether there is an RP server than we will. It's naive to think that they'd create an RP server because many western games do when the development team is of an entirely different culture. I would really be curious to know what the RP scene is like for JP.

 

My current impression is that there probably won't be a RP server, so the discussion is moot. Even if SE recognizes an RP population as having unique needs, their design philosophy trends to making servers more cosmopolitan. e.g., if they won't segregate servers by LANGUAGE, I doubt they'll segregate them by player types. They probably like the idea of having roleplayers on every server.

 

If by some wild chance we do have an option, I say we just go with the SE designated server. The reason being simply that over time, that server will attract a lot of roleplayers that won't learn about us, and the RP community will become disjointed and weakened as a whole. Any other advantages/disadvantages are trivial by comparison.

 

Since we probably won't have that option anyway, of course we should have an unofficial server. The more, the merrier. The easier it will be to find a good fit with an RP group, the more robust the RP community will be-- more events, just more RP in general.

[Renaise]

1. It may be impossible to unite all the RP'ers under one server. I know there has to be *someone* out there who doesn't like the coalition and will try to start their own version on a different server then ours. How are we going to handle them in a way that won't create drama but also make us look like the more attractive group to join?

 

I would be disappointed if this were to happen quite honestly, seeing as the idea is to bring roleplayers together so we can have a richer experience those people, I think would be shooting themselves in the foot. However as for dealing with them, we don't. I'm not saying we ignore them or pretend they don't exist, we just play up our strengths, we are trying to unite roleplayers and this will give any potential new RP a wider choice on what guilds they would like to participate in. Personally I can't see another group on another server having the numbers and diversity that we have, so we just focus on those qualities, at the end of the day people will do what they want to do, we just have to make sure our goal is clear.

 

If we build it... they will come

 

2. What about people who have real life friends or guilds/linkshells who plan to play FF14 but don't want to RP? A lot of them might not join if their friends don't start on the same server or they might be dissuaded if RP'ers won't hang out with their non-RP friends to level/complete missions/etc.

 

First of all there is nothing to say we wouldn't hang out with non-rpers, I personally enjoy that from time to time, as I am sure others around here do. As for the people who want to roleplay but also want to be with their friends on another server, I say after making sure the person knows what we are trying to do, and then asking if his or her friends wouldnt mind just heading over to our server instead if that is possible, (if they havent officially joined a server yet I don't see why that would be a problem). If that is'nt a possibility then maybe we ask the person if they want to create an alt on our server for RP? If none of that works, I guess it's a lost cause, they will either follow their friends or if roleplay is important to them they will come to our server. What will be will be I'm afraid.

[Blade]

1. It may be impossible to unite all the RP'ers under one server. I know there has to be *someone* out there who doesn't like the coalition and will try to start their own version on a different server then ours. How are we going to handle them in a way that won't create drama but also make us look like the more attractive group to join?

 

I would be disappointed if this were to happen quite honestly, seeing as the idea is to bring roleplayers together so we can have a richer experience those people, I think would be shooting themselves in the foot. However as for dealing with them, we don't. I'm not saying we ignore them or pretend they don't exist, we just play up our strengths, we are trying to unite roleplayers and this will give any potential new RP a wider choice on what guilds they would like to participate in. Personally I can't see another group on another server having the numbers and diversity that we have, so we just focus on those qualities, at the end of the day people will do what they want to do, we just have to make sure our goal is clear.

 

If we build it... they will come

 

I think the most important way for us to avoid a situation where we get competition is to be accepting and humble, heck, even welcome competition even if it arises on another server. Because what will hurt us most is if we become too exclusive or get too proud. Rpers are a very personal bunch, we all have our own tastes and varying degrees of how serious we will take rp. I think that if another group were to start on another server, it would not be wise to respond to them by saying "well, since you aren't on our server you can't join the RPC or be recognized by us." That sort of invites competition, where instead we could try to incorporate them and see it as as an opportunity to expand. I've already read some posts on this board taking some exclusionist stances or talking about other non-Rpers in a negative way... thankfully not from the administration of the rpc, but regardless, I know people who have been put off the rpc based on some posts they read here. We need to be aware that there are many new people looking at these boards everyday and we all represent the rpc.

 

With regards to server stuff, I definitely think we should go with an se designated one, given the option. It would certainly be a nod of support from se themselves, and if we basically went and did our own thing and gave se the cold shoulder, we probably couldn't count on their support in the future. If they put an rp server up, its a good thing, they are giving us a specific place to do our thing. I also prefer the se server since not all, in fact, maybe not even the majority of future ffxiv rpers know of this group or will at the time of joining, and like it was mentioned before in this thread, many would likely join that server without knowing of our group. It sets us up to lose people from the get-go and be fractured at our outset.

[Kylin]

Unfortunately, there are people out there who are against the coalition for their own reasons. As disappointing as this is, it's a reality. Mythis could probably fill you in on a particular example if she wants to regarding a poster on the actual beta testing forums. However, I feel these people are greatly in the minority. Mostly, they're against it because they may have had some past issues with one or more of the people here (which is a rather childish reason to snub an entire community in my opinion). I do not see another possible RPC popping up, at least not a successful one. I hope that doesn't come off as arrogant. But it just doesn't seem likely statistically speaking. Plus, others would see the formation of a -second- RP coalition as completely counterproductive to the benefit of the overall RP community, thus dooming any potential support for such a project. However, if another coalition does by some chance form, we'll just continue on as we are. Our structure and aspirations speak for themselves.

 

I've heard a couple times now about people being put off due to what they perceive as elitism. If this is indeed the case, such elitism should be called out when it happens (in a polite and non-dramatic manner of course). A lot of RPers feel "safe" here when it comes to ranting about things and thus may slip up from time to time. We're all only human after all

 

Before I digress too much though, I think it's safe to say that if SE designates a RP server, we will join it. Whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with SE's choice to do so is another story. Not too many comments on this part of the discussion, which I kinda expected since there's not much to really discuss. I'll leave this part of the discussion open for a couple more days just in case latecomers come in and want to give some input about it. After that time passes, we'll start part 2. That'll likely be the meat of the entire discussion since it revolves around all the different possible events that could potentially separate RPers from the larger community.

 

Also, regarding the JP RP community that was mentioned. That's something I certainly want to talk about but we'll save it for Part III (community)

[GaelicWarlord]

Most of you have already touched base on my own personal concerns regarding RP servers. For myself personally, the biggest RP community I've ever been apart of was an unofficial RP server on LOTRO, aside from Starsider in SWG, way back when. Whether SE designates a RP server or not, we'll still find a home for our community, and I think as long as we keep a pretty decent PR campaign for the entire game, eventually over time, RP'ers will flock in to an unofficial server. Atleast, this worked out for LOTRO. Of course, we also face the possibility that SE does designate an RP server. If they do, then by all means, its only logical for us to join it. Going elsewhere would only divide the RP Community, especially isolate those who come in game later after launch and haven't even heard of RPC.

 

Honestly, my greatest concern is whether or not they'll make language specific servers like most MMO's do. .... that could get REALLY annoying.

 

But anyway, folks... thats my two cents worth. RP server, or no, we'll do just fine regardless.

[Renaise]

Honestly' date=' my greatest concern is whether or not they'll make language specific servers like most MMO's do. .... that could get REALLY annoying.[/quote']

 

I am fairly sure they have stated that it will be worldwide servers like in FFXI, I presume that means English and Non-English speakers are all together, which is personally how I prefer it. FFXI was great in that regard, usually someone around at anytime.

[Aveline]

Yep, pretty much what Renaise said. S-E has said that all servers will be international.

[GaelicWarlord]

I guess I'll leave my judgement for after I actually participate in an international server. There are some obvious ups to it, and some cons, atleast as far as I can percieve. I just hope I don't run into too much of a language barrier with the people I'm playing with. We'll see!

[Seraphine Felstar]

I presume that means English and Non-English speakers are all together, which is personally how I prefer it.

 

Not to derail the topic but I like the mixed atmosphere too. I think when Japanese players started putting up {English} {No, thanks} it made English speakers wonder why and change some of their attitudes. People are a lot more polite in FFXI then they are in WoW and I think a lot of it has to do with the Japanese. I think they taught us how to act politely online and take our jobs seriously while we taught them not to be quite so xenophobic.

 

As for the language barrier, the auto-translate usually does a pretty good job as long as the person you're talking to is semi-intelligent. I had one Japanese white mage in a group while we were doing the airship fight and they couldn't cast paralyna even when we auto-translated it a million times. I've also had English white mages do the same thing no matter how many times you ask. On the other hand I've had great parties with Japanese people who used auto-translate and broken English which turned out to be really fun

 

And yes, Japanese people RP ^^

 

/end rant ^^;;

[DAISHI]

I have had a big attitude change towered the Japanese. While once I really had a deep love and almost fascination with their culture, my general encounters with many if them in conjunction with many of their political and ecological decisions has made me wary. Not that you can put an entire people in a bottle but I guess I just have a more realist - or perhaps pessimitic - view of them.

[GaelicWarlord]

I presume that means English and Non-English speakers are all together' date=' which is personally how I prefer it.[/quote']

 

Not to derail the topic but I like the mixed atmosphere too. I think when Japanese players started putting up {English} {No, thanks} it made English speakers wonder why and change some of their attitudes. People are a lot more polite in FFXI then they are in WoW and I think a lot of it has to do with the Japanese. I think they taught us how to act politely online and take our jobs seriously while we taught them not to be quite so xenophobic.

 

As for the language barrier, the auto-translate usually does a pretty good job as long as the person you're talking to is semi-intelligent. I had one Japanese white mage in a group while we were doing the airship fight and they couldn't cast paralyna even when we auto-translated it a million times. I've also had English white mages do the same thing no matter how many times you ask. On the other hand I've had great parties with Japanese people who used auto-translate and broken English which turned out to be really fun

 

And yes, Japanese people RP ^^

 

/end rant ^^;;

 

Ah, well if there is infact an auto-translate feature, then I feel much better already. Its not that I don't want to participate with foreigners. I just thought it'd be really hard to do, if we couldn't understand eachother at all. But, it seems there is already a system present to fix that, so International servers don't sound all that bad.

 

@ Daishi

 

I know with a lot of political things that are seen and done in the world, it can be easy to hold prejudice towards people. Hell... as an American, I know about 90% of the world holds prejudices against me because of political decisions that were made by our government. I think the best way to deal with that, plain and simple, is leave politics out of the game altogether. There is no need for it to be there. I'm not trying to criticize you, because frankly, I'm guilty of the same thing all to often. But like you said yourself, just because something happens that embodies a country as a whole, doesn't mean it embodies that person. For instance, just because I'm american, doesn't necessarily mean I'm pro-war, have an arsenal of weapons in my closet, am hugely obese, and have to get a supersized meal every time I go to McDonalds. Heck, I don't even eat at Mickey D's.

[Zane]

2. What about people who have real life friends or guilds/linkshells who plan to play FF14 but don't want to RP? A lot of them might not join if their friends don't start on the same server or they might be dissuaded if RP'ers won't hang out with their non-RP friends to level/complete missions/etc.

 

First of all there is nothing to say we wouldn't hang out with non-rpers, I personally enjoy that from time to time, as I am sure others around here do. As for the people who want to roleplay but also want to be with their friends on another server, I say after making sure the person knows what we are trying to do, and then asking if his or her friends wouldnt mind just heading over to our server instead if that is possible, (if they havent officially joined a server yet I don't see why that would be a problem). If that is'nt a possibility then maybe we ask the person if they want to create an alt on our server for RP? If none of that works, I guess it's a lost cause, they will either follow their friends or if roleplay is important to them they will come to our server. What will be will be I'm afraid.

 

This is the boat I am in currently. As of this moment, I currently have 9 RL friends who will be playing with me. Several more have expressed interest in playing FF XIV. All of the 9 are Role-Players to some extent. We may not end up on the RP server though, and here's why:

 

Within hours of an official starting server list being made, my friends and I will have picked a server, so each of those 9 can tell their friends, who can tell their friends what server we are going to start on. Everyone needs to be on the same page from day 1. Include in that the fact that I will be -hopefully- playing with my current friends in FF XI who will have to tell their friends, who tell their friends. While voting for a server is going on here in the RPC, all of us will have already decided which server we will be playing on. Lest all of the different groups of people that want to play together splinter off onto different servers and I get a repeat of what happened when I started playing XI. Of course, I hold no hopes that all of these people from the far corners of the world are all going to start on the server that we choose. However, there can be no arguing the sooner we set this in motion, the less likely it is for individuals to "Fall through the cracks." I imagine that's why the RPC was put together so early too - to keep everyone on the same page.

 

I will be casting my vote for the server my friends and I choose, and hope that the RPC winds up on the same server I am going to. Of course I understand there are probably a few people here that will be in the same situation I am in, and with a large number of servers, there will probably be a conflict of interests. Either way, I believe that what ever server is chosen will be best for the RPC, whether it winds up being the same as mine or not. I've talked it over with my friends for the past few weeks, and we've decided if we are on the RPC server, the guild we run will be progression focused with very casual RP elements. (I.E. No role-play will take place on-shell, but with a heavy population within the guild of people that roleplay to some extent, role-playing will happen in private, OOC relationship and team building taking a focus over IC story development.) Or possibly forming a friendly relationship with a more hard-core Role Play group that is accepting part time members so that those members of my guild have a place to go in order to Role-Play.

 

Also, at $3 a character, I probably would not be able to justify the money spent for the time invested in a character on another server unless I become much more well off than I currently am.

 

To touch on a few points I saw mentioned:

 

- Most likely they will not keep any of the Beta names. In XI all of the server names were based off of villains and they didn't carry one server over to release. The naming convention was also, obviously, changed.

 

- There is no way to tell what will be a Low, Medium, or high population server at launch other than skimming through forums - such revelations coming after the RPC votes any way. Even when selecting a server on launch day, if it lists server population, is highly subject to fluctuating and changing until probably April the next year after everyone who is getting this game settles.

 

- If SE does designate an RP server (Unlikely, but of course possible), I believe it would be in our best interest to start on an RP server. Even though I really do not like the RP crowd on Role-Playing servers, you will generally find more people tolerant (If not accepting) of it. In some games, there is much stricter rule enforcement from GMs as well. Usually those Role-Players that have garnered a notorious reputation for PDA only hang out in the starting areas and maintain relatively low levels so they're easy to spot. When you journey out from those areas, the Role-Players you encounter can be a very rich experience.

[Klare]

hmm many things to think about here, but I guess all we can really do is wait it out and see what SE is going to do and then what everyone else dose for that. I think for myself personally I'll see what server everyone here wants to join then try to convince my RL friends to go as well. Worst comes to worst I'll just put Klare wherever the the rp community goes and make another character to play with my friends/family.

 

Overall I just hope we can all find a nice server for the role playing community and have enough role players in it to enhance our own enjoyment of the game, without the harassment of rp haters. --

 

Biggest fear would be to have another wow type rp server where the rpers are always outnumbered by the non-rper/haters.

[Blade]

I have had a big attitude change towered the Japanese. While once I really had a deep love and almost fascination with their culture' date=' my general encounters with many if them in conjunction with many of their political and ecological decisions has made me wary. Not that you can put an entire people in a bottle but I guess I just have a more realist - or perhaps pessimitic - view of them.[/quote']

 

Eh... and what encounters with them are you referring to? Interactions in FFXI or more? Because if you are talking about interactions within a video game, you have to realize that you are dealing with a microcosm of the population... not a good representative sample of the population. I hardly think that the american players of ffxi really would serve as a good sample portion for us, either. A lot is lost over text and l think many of us english speakers wouldn't want to be grouped with a lot of jerks that play ffxi.

 

As someone who has lived in japan and speaks japanese, the people are incredibly polite overall, but they do handle foreigners in an odd way. They won't try to talk to you unless you try to speak japanese to them, which many americans perceive as rude, although how often do you approach someone to talk to them on this side of the world when you can't make out what they are saying? But if you speak japanese to them, their face lights up, and they will chat like crazy. They are this way in ffxi too, tons of JPs friend me because to find an american they can communicate with is so rare. My first linkshell invite was actually to a jp linkshell, in fact. They really do love it when you learn their language, makes them feel honored lol. I hope ffxiv will let me type in japanese...

 

As for their politcal and economical policies... well, the western world trashes the environment far more than the japanese do... their justice system could use some work though.

 

But yeah, just be conscious of the lens through which you see the world.

[Aveline]

But if you speak japanese to them, their face lights up, and they will chat like crazy. They are this way in ffxi too, tons of JPs friend me because to find an american they can communicate with is so rare

 

This is so true! I haven't managed to learn Japanese fluently (haha I am still waaaay off), but for FFXI I started learning some rudimentary phrases and stuff to communicate beyond the auto-translate. I made a really good friend that way; he barely spoke English and I barely spoke Japanese so we communicated in a really weird way, but we stayed in touch for years. But anyway when I first introduced myself with Japanese he was like !!!! [wall of Japanese text]. Hahaha.