New to mmo rp - trouble with characters proficiency

[Skyswimsky]

Ohai,

 

So I'm in a little dilemma currently. While I do Forum roleplay since a few years in english (and even longer in my native language) I am completely new to mmo roleplaying, and funnily enough I'd never thought I would give it a try if I had asked myself just a month back.

 

Currently, I see myself facing with a few problems: My imagination being hampered by game graphics, roleplay-style (Forum writing I average around 3 paragraphs minimum... which takes like 30-60 minutes for a reply), grammar(No text-editor to run my stuff through!) and lastly, lore.

 

Now, this was just some kind of brief introduction to give you maybe a better picture about myself! While most of that will be fixed in time (and I got some awesome friends who do some pseudo-closed RP with me to help me get a feeling for this more chat-like style of roleplaying ) I see myself being faced with a myriad of problems with the lore of this game.

 

While I can, and should, probably read up on a lot of stuff, I never really cared too much for anything besides the main-storyline and WHM storyline(I skimmed through the AST one though, much sadness ._.), as I originally started playing, and still am, for the sake of raiding and how easy it is to grind combined with, from a gameplay perspective, only needing one character.

 

I am already aware that nobody is, or at least should, be the lame Hero of Light or whatever the game is trying to form you into. But enough about that, to finally get to the point this post is about is in regards to Liselotte's(I'm well aware it's not an

Xaela..n? name) proficiency, background and future...but mainly her proficiency!

 

Her Background is essentially summed up really fast to this:

Yesuntei Adarkim, as Liselotte was called at birth, escaped from Othard to Eorzea to run from the Empire make a fortune! After all, she loves money, too bad she is terrible at managing it, I mean, money is there to spend it, no? Because of this, she is desperate opportunistic for nearly any kind of job, as odd or mundane as it may be, as long as the coin/Gil(?) is right.

 

I'm not going to deny I have to flesh it out, even if I have more than I presented now, but so far it is in the bounds of possibility...right? Anyways, my main issue is I don't want to be forced to stick to just one role but rather anything she feels like doing. Be it a Conjurer, edge Dark Knight, Cook, Miner, Maid or a Ninja. Heck, if possible I'd like to go to some lengths and ignore(but still respect/keep it in mind!) class-specific lore.

 

For example she can do those healing things(Conjurer -> Cure and so on), but never sat a foot into the Twelveswood yet. I mean, all those spirit and balance shenanigans should hold true more or less for other parts of the world too, or not? Like, she surely could have picked up such skills in her time on Othard? Or what about being an Astrologian? If possible I'd want her to capable of doing such stuff too but she got only interested in it because she thought she could see the Future in a way (or alter it) to become rich! Or becoming a Dark Knight, I haven't seen much of the quest yet but I'm just going to assume one could find those traveling people all over the world. ...Do I actually have to chain myself to the class-system or could I truly just make something like a frying-pan wielding Spellsword for example? Of course I don't intend to 'power play' and make her be a multi-talent Master in everything that is possible, but Lise...likes to experiment?

 

I hope this paragraph gave a basic gist of what I have trouble with and if what I wanna achieve is even possible. I am definitely not a lore-purist but I still want to respect it to a certain degree since it IS an established world/setting.

 

Well, thanks for taking your time reading through and I am looking forward to your possible reply!

 

Signing out,

 

Skys~

[Warren Castille]

First, I'm a sucker for anyone who uses strike-through in text to amuse the meta contingent of a discussion, so well done there.

 

I can't speak much to the magic classes in the game, but I can relate a little on the weaponry side of things. The first important distinction to make is that not everyone using a weapon is necessarily playing a specific class or job. You can swing a sword without being categorized as a Gladiator or a Paladin, and you can learn to fight with a greatsword without needing to be officially sanctioned as a Dark Knight.

 

Lore-wise, you'd want to be wary of wearing one in Ishgard as it's akin to wearing gang colors or something, but you could do it! There are plenty of people roleplaying as dabblers in a lot of martial spaces without necessarily mastering any of them. As long as you were making it clear that your character was either still learning (or just self-taught) it shouldn't be a problem.

[Oli!]

Some things are very specific.

 

Astrology (the magic, not the practice), for example, was created by Sharlayan, an incredibly stingy magical civilization that doesn't like to share, so you likely wouldn't run into people using it on the roadside in places that aren't Eorzea.

 

Other things, such as the specific pugilist style of Eorzea, and Conjury as it is known within the setting today, seem to be Eorzea-specific things; that is not to say, however, that you cannot use a healing art or fighting style pioneered by your own people.

 

However, it is worth noting that, at least on the Magic side of things, Eorzea, supposedly, has a much higher concentration of Aether than anywhere else in Hydaelyn (if I rememeber correctly). So, it's possible that this environment is directly responsible for certain forms of magic, though I can't say for sure.

 

Either way, it's easy enough to say that you can do various arts that look like what would have been used in Eorzea even if they aren't. If you want to know more about a specific class or job, however, tell us, and we'll help.

[Skyswimsky]

Sorry for the super late reply! Just wanted to drop by and say thank you for your replies. Especially the thing about magic. Also I love working with strike through too :3.

[Faye]

Hello there, welcome to the RPC! Since they've chimed in about the character, as someone who also transitioned from forum RP to MMO RP, I wanted to give my two cents there!

 

Currently, I see myself facing with a few problems: My imagination being hampered by game graphics

 

The best I could say is that when game graphics don't actually match the scene or fit how someone/something looks, do what you would do in forum RP anyway: ignore the graphics and just picture the RP scene in your head. Use your words to describe how your character or scene differs from what your RP partners are seeing in game.

 

roleplay-style (Forum writing I average around 3 paragraphs minimum... which takes like 30-60 minutes for a reply)

 

MMO RP is short and quick. Don't feel bad about writing short posts in game or posts that aren't rich in detail. Most people will not be happy to wait 30 - 60 minutes, even if it's to produce a big and meaningful post. If you RP privately with someone who also favors para-RP, though, you can write longer posts with them. I just wouldn't advise it for RP's in public places with a lot of people around, RP's involving multiple people, or RP's with people who do shorter posts.

 

grammar(No text-editor to run my stuff through!)

 

You are actually able to copy and paste text in this game! That being said, you can type out your posts somewhere else (like Microsoft Word or Wordpad), spellcheck them, and then copy and paste them in game!

[Valence]

On using conjury even without having set a foot in the Shroud: I don't think that conjury is a restricted art only found in the Twelveswood. 

 

Garlean soldiers seem to use similar class distinctions in their own troop makeup, with gladiators, lancers, thaumathurges, pugilists, and so forth... and conjurers. 

 

I may be wrong though, but I suspect all the magic they use is rather used through magitek gimmicks and doodads rather than a martial art for which you have to show natural predispositions...

[Yssen]

None of the forms of magic are actually proprietary to the city their guild is based in. Each city has their own casters of many different stripes. The Guilds perform specific function in their city-state. Thaumaturges, among other things (*cough* assassins *cough*) the priesthood of Ul'dah's whacky money religion, Conjureror's help Gridania communicate with the Elementals, Arcanist serve as customs agentes for Limsa, and Astrologians read the stars to predict dragon attacks for Ishgard. While people are encouraged to serve the guild and city-state in exchange for instruction, it is not required. It also is not necessarily required to have learned a character study magic at one of the guilds (Yssen didn't, he learned his Thaumaturgy and what not from his terrifying ex's mom). Similar smaller/master apprentice methods of instruction should be perfectly acceptable. Heck, if you want connections to other PCs, ask for someone to play your character's mentor (or see if they mind sharing a mentor).

 

Long story short, ya have options as far as the basic schools of casting go. Yar.

 

EDIT - Slight lore tid bit worth mentioning. Pureblood Garleans can't cast magic. Imperial casters are either conscripts from lands they have taken over, or using magitek devices to emulate magic. That said, they have a LOT of conscripts and magitek. Yar.

[Melkire]

Hello, and welcome to the RPC!

 

Seems most folks have you covered on lore and background feasibility, so I'm going to supplement what Faye said above re: graphics and "roleplay style" (which, in your case, seems more a matter of roleplay speed). I had a jarring transition when I jumped from play-by-post forum writing into MMO roleplay, so I know how rough it can be at first.

 

To start us off: no one is going to be happy waiting thirty minutes or more for a single response.

 

I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. That's awful in a live environment where responses can take as few as ten seconds. Even "para RP" (which stands for paragraph roleplay, which is exactly what it sounds like) does not take quite so long, and usually averages anywhere from five to ten minutes, perhaps longer, depending on the roleplayer. If you're going to make roleplayers wait thirty minutes to an hour on average per response, you are going to lose them, and you are going to lose them fast.

 

What it comes down to is that a MMORPG is a live environment. Your fellow roleplayers are expecting responses so fast that they resemble real-time interactions in daily life. They won't ever be as fast, of course... but that's the first step in adapting to roleplay in a Massively Multiplayer Online game. The first step is to shift from thinking of this as writing to thinking of this as social interaction.

 

There are, thankfully, two relatively minor and easy-to-implement shifts in writing style that can drastically reduce your response times from minutes to seconds. They are as follows:

 

 

 

1. You do not have to describe in text what you can let the graphics describe for you.

 

Example: You, Character A, are facing and looking at Character B. Instead of describing in an emote how you turn away from Character B and cease to look at them, you can instead turn your character, deselect them so your character is no longer looking at them, and proceed to type only the words your character would say aloud.

 

So this...

 

Osric turns away from Sky reluctantly and rests his hands on the Quicksand's railing. He looks out over the establishment's patrons and sighs.

"Liselotte, you'll get better. Just takes time."

 

...becomes this...

 

"Liselotte, you'll get better. Just takes time."

 

Looks a little jarring here on the forums, but in-game you would see in the latter case my avatar turn away from yours and look out over the railing at everyone else. In this particular instance, I've cut down on the number of characters used, and therefore cut down my response time, by better than half. What's really happening here is that you're shifting from typing out everything that happens to typing out speech, allowing the avatar to describe your character's physical behavior for you, and resorting to emotes only to capture and convey what the game engine can't.

 

Now, mind you, later on when you're more comfortable with in-game roleplay and you want to start recording logs of your scenes, you'll want to get back into the habit of describing everything so that it gets captured in text. But that can wait; for now, the priority should be cutting down that response time to something reasonable for a live environment.

 

 

2. Treat Dialogue as "Real Life" Speech

 

One of the most fundamental differences between roleplay in forum writing and roleplay in-game is that the latter more closely resembles "real life" speech. You might have a thought that you'd like to share, but before you can get it out the conversation has moved on. Someone might choose to interrupt you during a speech. These are things that you won't see happening in forum writing unless both collaborators have agreed upon it happening and pre-arranged it. With in-game roleplay, this sort of thing happens naturally and it happens often.

 

It's best to keep in mind that when we speak to others, there is no guarantee that we will be speaking uninterrupted for as long as we wish. Furthermore, people don't naturally speak in long, uninterrupted stretches. Conversations are instead populated by short bursts of dialogue.

 

This is a bit of an exaggeration, but you won't see this happening often in real life...

 

"John, I think we need to go to Subway today. We can't afford to spend too much eating out, and the closest fast food restaurant is McDonald's which is ten miles away. That's too much to burn on gas, we need to save that gas so we can drive to and from work this week."

 

"Okay, Mary, you're right. Subway it is."

 

...instead, you'll see this...

 

"John, I think we need to go to Subway today."

 

"Why?"

 

"We can't afford to spend too much eating out."

 

"How about McDonald's?"

 

"Too far, we'd burn too much gasoline."

 

"So?"

 

"We need that for getting to and from work."

 

"Okay, Mary, you're right. Subway it is."

 

 

Let's take another example. Let's say someone asks your character a question, and you want your character to provide reasoning.

 

This...

 

"Yes. Let me tell you why. *cue lengthy explanation that you have to type, during which someone might cut you off with their own response and therefore make yours look awkward and out-of-place when you finally finish typing it out* "

 

...doesn't work quite so well as this...

 

"Yes."

"Let me tell you why."

" *cue lengthy explanation that your fellow roleplayers will wait on* "

 

The difference between the two is that the latter is just the former broken into three shorter, faster responses. The first response provides the answer, the second lets everyone know that you have a third, lengthier response on the way, and that buys you time to type out the third response.

 

 

 

I hope this helps!

[Skyswimsky]

Oh my, I didn't really expect anyone would pay this more attention! Thank you all for those replies, awesome community!

 

You are actually able to copy and paste text in this game! That being said, you can type out your posts somewhere else (like Microsoft Word or Wordpad), spellcheck them, and then copy and paste them in game!

That...sounds actually very simple but also maybe a bit bothersome in terms of posting speed. I do have two monitors though so have to see about that. Thanks.

 

 

 

On using conjury even without having set a foot in the Shroud: I don't think that conjury is a restricted art only found in the Twelveswood.

 

...I suspect all the magic they use is rather used through magitek gimmicks and doodads rather than a martial art for which you have to show natural predispositions...

 

Yeah I know, or at least I think I know... Oli! mentioned I can even do some healing mojo jojo(As Lise would call it) without it even being conjury.

 

Well, according to Yssen pureblood Garleans are scrubs can't use magic!

 

EDIT - Slight lore tid bit worth mentioning. Pureblood Garleans can't cast magic. Imperial casters are either conscripts from lands they have taken over, or using magitek devices to emulate magic. That said, they have a LOT of conscripts and magitek. Yar.

Heh, I'd imagine Magitek allows for some awesome, interesting and weird shenanigans.

 

...

I hope this helps!

Yes that helped immensely, even providing examples and such. Thank you very much! It feels kinda weird to write in the ways you described, not to mention I have to get more into my character to put replies up quickly, buut practices makes perfect I suppose.

[Oli!]

On using conjury even without having set a foot in the Shroud: I don't think that conjury is a restricted art only found in the Twelveswood. 

 

Garlean soldiers seem to use similar class distinctions in their own troop makeup, with gladiators, lancers, thaumathurges, pugilists, and so forth... and conjurers. 

 

I may be wrong though, but I suspect all the magic they use is rather used through magitek gimmicks and doodads rather than a martial art for which you have to show natural predispositions...

 

Pure-blood Garleans cannot use magic at all, ever. None of the Garlean troops that you encounter doing magic are pure-bloods; they're people that were captured, conscripted, or hired into the Garlean army from other populations. Since magic is a big advantage, they take people from other populations that can use it for them.

[Valence]

Yeah, so that mostly goes in the way I was thinking... Do we have confirmation that they might use magitek gimmicks for their aetheric manipulation as a substitute to conjury, thaumathurgy, etc? That would sound pretty logical considering that they already do it for reaper armours and every other armament of their arsenal...

[Yssen]

Yeah, so that mostly goes in the way I was thinking... Do we have confirmation that they might use magitek gimmicks for their aetheric manipulation as a substitute to conjury, thaumathurgy, etc? That would sound pretty logical considering that they already do it for reaper armours and every other armament of their arsenal...

 

Just that they cannot use magic and that magitek is very prolific in the empire. Reapers, field generators, Mecha, fighter craft, etc. etc. We also have examples and lore bits of the soldiers having magitek attached to their armor. Given that Garleans are mostly indistinguishable from Hyur's (save of that whole "third eye" thing) we cannot tell which are conscripts and which are pure bloods in the field, unless they are a whole other race like miqo, elezen, roe, or do not have their forehead's covered. Yar.