RPC Members...

[Kaiverta]

This may be considered a stupid question, but I am genuinely curious...

 

How did this forum grow to have thousands of members? How did it start out? Did the admin/creator simply share it with his/her RP friends, and then they shared it and so on and so forth?

 

Does anyone know? Because it has so many members and seems quite successful - just curious to find out how it got off the ground.

 

(also, I hope this is the right forum for this thread. The others didn't seem as accurate. >.> )

[ArmachiA]

It was the first. As soon as FFXIV 1.0 announced a release date this pretty much popped up. It was also the only for awhile. I can say a lot of people from the Aion community (Who had their own successful forum) migrating over here when everyone was planning to play FFXIV on release. I was on Aion and I remember the mass migration haha.

 

It;s also the top result when you google "FFXIV roleplay" which, you know, helps.

 

You have to give the old RPC community a lot of credit, though most of them aren't around now, they really kept the forum active when the game was shut down preparing for ARR.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

The biggest thing, I think, is that for the most part like 99% of the time the users here are reasonably friendly, helpful, and supportive of each other and the general community. I mean everybody has a snarky moment now and then but that's just life. Overall it's a pretty welcoming kind of community, and so people stick around and contribute to that.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

It also helped that this was basically the go-to site for FFXIV related RP. Back when I joined, most people were either here or they were coordinating purely in game.

 

There wasn't a lot of RP Tumblr usage either, so if you wanted to network, you came here. Properly indexed google results are also huge, which is something I think people don't always realize. You generally have to pay for bumped search engine listing or have to set up all the search engine optimization manually. (A skill I do not have.)

 

While I think there was a bit more activity in certain boards back when I started browsing late 2013 and finally registered in 2014, the RPC of today is pretty lively. It has gone through quite a few changes though!

[Kaiverta]

Thanks everyone. All informative answers. Wow, this place has been around for ages. I'm glad to be part of it all - and yes, everyone I've encountered thus far has been very friendly and helpful.

[Kaiverta]

.

 

And I cannot stop looking at that GIF in your signature! It's so captivating.

[Kylin]

The wheels of the RPC were in motion as early as June of 2009, when FFXIV was first announced. FFXI's RP community had always been scattered across the many servers and extremely tiny as a result. Those of us on Sylph server that were still RPing there lost enthusiasm with FFXI as a whole once XIV was announced and determined that we didn't want the new game's RP community to be as divided this time around as it was in Vana'diel.

 

I created a temporary forum to start gathering RPers up that were bound for Hydaelyn, but it wasn't easy at first. Remember that in 2009, RP coalitions weren't exactly commonplace yet. I think the only other major ones at the time were EQ2 and Aion (I may be mistaken though...I know Aion in particular had a huge influence on us though). I approached the myriad of different RP groups across the FFXI servers to invite them and make the pitch for a united front. Many were skeptical at first, but eventually threw in their hats.

 

We bolstered our numbers over the months prior to going public. We wanted the forum to look alive before even announcing our existence in order to gain even more traction and make our pitch that much more powerful. We officially announced ourselves to the world on February 15, 2010 and gradually began to grow even more. Big premier sites at the time such as Zam, Eorzeapedia, and Core all put us on their front pages for maximum visibility. We continued to expand the site through multiple facelifts (anyone remember the book theme?), heated politics (RPC charter), and tons of preliminary character planning and discussions. When the release date for the game was finally announced, our numbers exploded even more since we had already taken the number one spot on search engines.

 

It's had a lot of bumps along the road since then, but hasn't slowed down at all. While the bad 1.0 launch drove a ton of RPers away, those of us who remained for the transition to 2.0 managed to somehow keep things from collapsing through an amazing tight community where everyone knew each other. The big ARR launch came with a new RPC facelift again (the one currently in use and about to go away with the even newer upcoming facelift), which drove traffic up yet again exponentially.

 

We did at one point "compete" with one or two other attempted separate RP coalitions for the game, but neither really lasted longer than a few months since this one was the first and most established. Nowadays, RP coalitions for MMOs are everywhere and it totally depends on who puts it out there first usually.

[ArmachiA]

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And I cannot stop looking at that GIF in your signature! It's so captivating.

 

Thank you! I need to fix the one frame that's a slightly different color (Or just do a new one) but I've been lazy haha.

[Kieron Lohengrin]

do you ever wonder if koji fox lurks around here

 

do you think he secretly RPs as a catgrill with an extensive wiki page

[Yian Kutku]

do you ever wonder if koji fox lurks around here

 

do you think he secretly RPs as a catgrill with an extensive wiki page

 

I see MCKF as more of an Au Ra guy. Female Au Ra, of course.

 

Anyway, piggybacking on this topic: out of interest, how was the "unofficial RP server" chosen? I don't mean Balmung, but the ones that came before; I hear it was Besaid?

 

Way back when, I read stuff on other MMOs about how, assuming a reasonable number of servers, no official RP designations, and no cross-server functionality, the unofficial RP server was usually arrange pre-launch by picking the alphabetically last server name (that was not the beta server). There was some commentary about how this ensured the server wouldn't get too large, since most new players would choose the first few servers alphabetically to play on.

 

I also recall this "tradition" hitting a hiccup with DDO's launch, since the alphabetically last server was named Xoriat, and there were a lot of complaints about RPing on a server named after the Eberron Realm of Madness. Like "we should scrap this decision immediately, because I would rather not play the game than RP on Xoriat" kind of complaints. So I don't know if that "tradition" continued on after that.

 

So I was wondering if Besaid was chosen by some such similar criteria (alphabetically first?), or if it was done by poll (organized or otherwise), or if it just happened to be where RPers congregated by chance.

[Kylin]

The process in detail, after much preliminary discussion on other RPC topics: http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=445

 

The actual vote: http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=513

[Aysun]

I so remember the book theme... (I need a rolling around laughing emoji.)

[Delilah Scythewood]

I've played a lot of MMOs over the years, dabbled in RP communities, and any prominent RP community in an MMO tends to have some kind of site (or coalition, as it were). WoW is too large and spread out so they're mostly on tumblr these days. BDO has their site, as does TESO, Wildstar, Bless, etc.

 

But I've never seen one that has thrived as much as this one. Whatever they did worked :thumbsup: Keep it up!

[Kaiverta]

Thanks everyone for your answers. Very informative and interesting. I'm glad that I joined this community. Everyone's so friendly, and there's a strong sense of loyalty throughout the site. And you all love what I love (Final Fantasy). :D

[Arashin Kujqai]

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And I cannot stop looking at that GIF in your signature! It's so captivating.

 

Thank you! I need to fix the one frame that's a slightly different color (Or just do a new one) but I've been lazy haha.

I'm glad someone said it too, I love your sig, I was actually wondering what cut scene this is that you recorded it from? It's so nice <3, it's also why I wish we could watch walking/sprinting in /gpose.

 

 

On the OP's subject, I'm not sure myself but I acknowledge it's always growing. Whenever I come across a new RP'er or someone who needs help, regardless of the server, I ask if they've heard of the RPC. If not, I let them know that it's a good source to make friends for RP, get in touch with lore or help create their character to come to life. For me it's come to be a nice niche to go to for RP specific subjects or just learning about lore without going through the pain of finding every single detail yourself through millions of side quests. That's all of course thanks to the veterans that helped this site blossom to become such a valuable source of information and a nice way for fellow RP'ers to come together.

[Askier]

Anyone else recall how colorful the rpc used to be what with all the strong opinions that led to butting heads and arguments that closed like one in three threads? Or the day the RPC server got overloaded and crashed so Freelance had to beef it up? Lol. Ahhh good times.

 

Overall I'd say RPC is a far more civil place now than it used to be. Even the Void has slowly lost its fangs over time.

 

Edit: Also think Freelance Wizard doesn't get enough credit for all the work they used to do here on their own. So here! -two thumbs up-