Introduction and Inquiry! [Forums/Mateus]

[Kerzone]

Introduction:

Hello, members of the RPC, I am Kerzone and I'm relatively new to Final Fantasy XIV as well as the roleplaying scene that is prevalent on my home server, Mateus. 

I'll be following the recommended Help Desk Template just for the sake of ease and because I'm typically awful with introductions like these. If you're not interested in who I am, but still want to help, I have a number of questions near the bottom of this post under the Inquiry title. I appreciate any information that can be provided and will be checking in every so often.

What's my MMORPG experience? 
My background in MMORPG's spans a lot of games, but the ones that have held my interest for the longest were World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Final Fantasy XIV. I was a casual raider in WoW, a Fractal runner in GW2, and a current casual for FFXIV that is merely doing the weekly grinds to reach a GS of 400. 

What's my RP experience?

It's a bit embarrassing to say, but my introduction to roleplaying as a whole came from Roblox. However, I have a little experience with roleplaying on the WoW forums and joining a hardcore roleplaying guild in Guild Wars 2. The roleplaying rules from Roblox seemed to carry over fairly easily into WoW and GW2, but the overall methods of roleplaying, and the greater popularity of roleplaying in MMORPGs in comparison to a child's video game sandbox has made it a very intimidating prospect for me to get involved with other roleplaying scenes. That being said, I did fairly well for myself on the WoW forums for a time, having hosted a few open forum RPs and attending a few private ones, I have found that I am very comfortable with forum based roleplaying. The same, however, cannot be said for my experience in Guild Wars 2, in which I felt that things were a little too hardcore for me there. I was in the guild for about a month before leaving/being kicked out and being blacklisted. (And no, I wasn't blacklisted for any rule breaking. It was just part of their roleplay where leaving members could never return unless said member rejoined with a different character.) 

Character ideas/information.

In honesty, I haven't thought too hard on this front as of now. However, I did have an interest in making a Dalmascan Paladin character. Having played Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics A2: Grimoire of The Rift and Final Fantasy 12, the Zodiac Brave line of raids was the spark that got me interested in the roleplaying scene in FFXIV. I've read over some of the rules and recommendations within this forum on how to create a character for the Final Fantasy XIV universe and spent several hours looking over lore, reviewing lore from Tactics and 12, and overall just sniffing through a bunch of character profiles to get a decent grasp of how to make a decent character. That being said, however, I do not yet have full confidence in my ability to make a character due to my lack of understanding of a few specific things, which will be mentioned in the Inquiry section of this post.
How did I learn about the Coalition?

I was speaking to a friend of mine by the name of Suomi Kha on a Discord server that we have. I had a sudden spark of curiosity and started searching for roleplaying forums, as I have seen with WoW or GW2. Upon finding that Square didn't have an official forum on their FFXIV sites for roleplaying, I asked her if she knew of any. Thus, she gave me the link to here.

What kind of roleplayer do I aim to be?

Well, ideally, I'd like to get involved with any number of roleplays, to eventually gain the confidence and history to participate in almost any sort of roleplay. That being said, however, I haven't roleplayed in a relatively long time, so for starters, I'm aiming for refreshers, experience in FFXIV roleplaying and overall information since I'm not as well versed in FFXIV lore as I am with, say, WoW or GW2 lore. In short, a Light roleplayer, then eventually a Medium one.

Do I have anything about my real life that I feel comfortable sharing?

Certainly, I have nothing I'm ashamed of, and I'm proud of the things I have done in my real life. I am currently a third-year college student aiming for my Associates Degree in Cyber Security, though I won't get too far into that since hobbies are much more interesting to talk about then the choice of major. (In my opinion anyway...) As for my hobbies, I'm a Warhammer 40k gamer (A Wargamer, if you will), a casual amateur writer, a brown belt in Shoto-Kan Karate, a (Former) Eagle Scout (Aged out three years ago.), and I'm a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan. That being said, I mostly play as Dungeon Master when I play Dungeons and Dragons, and I have been told by many that I am rather unorthodox on how I 'plan' my games since my games are never planned to begin with. I prefer to play things by ear, and improv pretty much everything. Other then that, there isn't much more to say.

 

Inquiry:
 

These are just a few questions I have since alot the information that I need to know is in a dozen+ different posts, some of them being a bit overwhelming for me due to said posts holding a massive amount of information. (Such as the pinned Lore thread, where it's so massive that some of the lore is reduced to singular letter strands that have to be reconstructed on a screen bigger than a house roof.) 

 

• Are there any additional rules that I should be aware of that might be different or exclusive to the Final Fantasy XIV Roleplaying world/experience? (Things like unspoken rules or other similar pieces of information.)
• What's the overall consensus with characters having The Echo? (I don't plan on making a character WITH The Echo, but I am curious nonetheless.) 
• I have read over dozens of different posts, all of them giving different checklists and advice on what newer roleplayers should strive to do, but I might have overwhelmed myself with all the information. That being said, what's a good starting point for a wanna-be roleplayer like me, and how should I go about enhancing my overall roleplay experience?  (In other words, what are some things that I can do to make roleplaying with others a much better experience for the involved members?) 
• In Final Fantasy Tactics, FF12, and Grimoire of The Rift, Paladins were often seen as outlandish and foreign within the lands of Ivalice/Dalmasca, similar to how Blue Mage or Samurai is seen as foreign in Eorzea. (According to item descriptions in GotR anyway.) However, they did exist, albeit in a different fashion, within Ivalice and Dalmasca. FFXIV, however, displays them as warriors that have learned an exclusive art in order to protect the Sultan/a. Is it still possible, however, for a person that isn't affiliated with the Sultana or the Paladin Guard to have learned Paladin skills outside/inside of Eorzea? Is it possible that those wandering Dalmascan Paladins still exist within FFXIV's timeline? Or did they never exist within FFXIV's universe?
• Are there any tools or add-ons that I should consider utilizing in order to improve my roleplaying experience? 

 

I would post more questions, but I feel like these five are already a handful for anyone that is interested in answering all of them at once, and I feel like asking more questions here would show laziness on my part since I'm aware that this site has a search function for any potential questions I may already have. Regardless, I feel like these questions could use a more up-to-date series of answers (In case I can't find more recent posts about these questions.) but my other questions should hopefully be answered more easily with a bit of searching around. 

 

[Unnamed Mercenary]

9 minutes ago, Kerzone said:

These are just a few questions I have since alot the information that I need to know is in a dozen+ different posts, some of them being a bit overwhelming for me due to said posts holding a massive amount of information. (Such as the pinned Lore thread, where it's so massive that some of the lore is reduced to singular letter strands that have to be reconstructed on a screen bigger than a house roof.) 

2

 

That unmanageably scary looking thread is actually more of a forum conversion bug! We used custom bbcode for titled spoilers back on our old MyBB site (2013-2017) which didn't take well to being forced to re-render for IPS which stores everything in HTML instead of processing bbcode every page/post load. You can find the unaltered lore index, or the more updated tumblr port managed by Sounsyy below. (The current plan's to move all to tumblr so we can safely shut down the MyBB security thread archive).

 

https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb/showthread.php?tid=17897
http://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/167534982764/mirkemenagerie-update

 

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• Are there any additional rules that I should be aware of that might be different or exclusive to the Final Fantasy XIV Roleplaying world/experience? (Things like unspoken rules or other similar pieces of information.)

 

 

The general stuff should mostly apply. Don't metagame (use OOC knowledge ICly) and don't powergame/godmod. Remember that while your character is the main character of their story, they're not the main character of other characters' stories. Everyone wants to have agency and have fun. 

 

Other than that, FFXIV doesn't really do things like "server canon" if you're coming from other places that do. People's stories tend to be more self-contained or per FC/Linkshell. 

 

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• What's the overall consensus with characters having The Echo? (I don't plan on making a character WITH The Echo, but I am curious nonetheless.) 

 

 

Some do, some don't. You'll find both types of players. You'll find some who stick to generic NPC "power level" and others who have Hydaelyn's Blessing and are RPing out the main scenerio quests. It's all about finding RPers who have similar tastes. However, this isn't a single sliding scale and RP interests may have many intersecting scales on lore, power level, violence, mature themes, etc. 

 

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• I have read over dozens of different posts, all of them giving different checklists and advice on what newer roleplayers should strive to do, but I might have overwhelmed myself with all the information. That being said, what's a good starting point for a wanna-be roleplayer like me, and how should I go about enhancing my overall roleplay experience?  (In other words, what are some things that I can do to make roleplaying with others a much better experience for the involved members?) 

 

 

Use the RP status in game. Add a search info blurb at least stating RP or a little something about your character like an elevator pitch. 

 

Don't wait for people to approach you. (They might. But who wants to wait for that?) If approaching people outta nowhere isn't your style (it's not mine either tbh) I recommend sending a couple people some /tells asking if you can join in. There is a chance that it could get lost in text scroll if you're in a busy place. Or, you can poke people on the forums to set something up. (For me, a lot of my initial interactions with people I RPed in game first started out here on the RPC as IC forum threads. After getting those awkward introduction things out of the way, it made approaching in game easier for me! /anedote).

 

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• In Final Fantasy Tactics, FF12, and Grimoire of The Rift, Paladins were often seen as outlandish and foreign within the lands of Ivalice/Dalmasca, similar to how Blue Mage or Samurai is seen as foreign in Eorzea. (According to item descriptions in GotR anyway.) However, they did exist, albeit in a different fashion, within Ivalice and Dalmasca. FFXIV, however, displays them as warriors that have learned an exclusive art in order to protect the Sultan/a. Is it still possible, however, for a person that isn't affiliated with the Sultana or the Paladin Guard to have learned Paladin skills outside/inside of Eorzea? Is it possible that those wandering Dalmascan Paladins still exist within FFXIV's timeline? Or did they never exist within FFXIV's universe?

 

 

Yes! The game refers to capital "P" Paladins (the job) as Free Paladins. They may have been educated in the same skills as the Sultansworn, but the protection of the Ul'dahn crown has nothing to do with them. Many of the jobs and classes we're shown in FFXIV are only a specific flavor of that class. In the cases of jobs, most tend to be on the exclusive, forbidden, or recently revived/created spectrum. That doesn't mean they're the only incarnation of that job or class though. Like, you can be a fist fighter without being a Pugilist. You can be a healer without being a Gridania-educated Conjurer.

 

In terms of Ivalician roles, we don't know much currently. A lot of the aspects we've seen in game so far are dated city ruins buried in time. And there isn't a whole lot of lore on the current state of Dalmasca and their battle arts. (Since the Garleans would likely have tried to purge as much of that as possble.) In general, you'll probably get more mileage going for the generic than a name brand.

 

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• Are there any tools or add-ons that I should consider utilizing in order to improve my roleplaying experience? 

 

FFXIV is somewhat notorious compared to other MMOs for being extremely anti-addon friendly. To the point that discussing unofficial third party addons can get you in trouble in game. (Mostly battle parser talk). There are some tools to help you break apart long text posts to fit into FFXIV's limited chat bar, if you tend to type in paragraphs. Like the two mentioned below. Otherwise, things like graphical mods, texture replacements, or things that read the game files/memory/network packets are a grey area of "SE won't ban you for using them, but they will ban you for talking about them in game or for griefing a player with information gained from them."