Familiar to MMOs, but unfamiliar/curious about RP

[Arigaaz]

Hello everyone!  Sorry in advance if this one is slightly longer then some, I have a habit for writing essays on forums, whoops.

 

How's it goin?  I'm Arigaaz. 

 

I've spent a fair amount of time previously playing World of Warcraft, and just recently got into FFXIV.  I was looking for a MMO with a better story then WoW has, or at least one that was I was more interested in.  I felt like playing WoW was starting to feel like "going through the motions" - I found it hard to care about much in the game because it all just felt like routine.  Do your dailies, kill your bosses, go to sleep, do it again.  Exploring the game had lost it's fun.

 

So I tried playing something new - went to RIFT, Wildstar, ESO, Blade and Soul, and a few others.  I got the same feelings from all of them - it was just going through the same motions in a different world.

 

I felt like one of the reasons I couldn't get into them was because I didn't have a reason to care, or any immersion to speak of.  I was never into the stories, and I was always just playing the character and race combinations that was the most effective, rather then something I actually liked or cared about.

 

So I tried out FFXIV, which I heard had a better story - but why stop there, I thought?  If I'm going to care about my character in a RPG, it better be a character that I know the personality of, a character that I've played in D&D before.  During every story interaction, I'd think "What would this character say to these people?  How would they respond?  Would the actions that are occurring in the story still be happening if it was my character here rather then this voiceless protagonist?"

 

And you know what?  It did the trick.  I was fully immersed in the story and cared about how my character was going to progress in it.  It took the same things that I've done in other MMOs and made me think "Should I take up goldsmithing?  What would <character> do?", which was a lot of fun for me.

 

This begged the question for me:  "Well?  If roleplaying this character made the game more enjoyable, why not explore the idea further"...so here I am.  Never RPed outside of a game of D&D before, but I'm curious.  Maybe, just maybe, it'd be something I can enjoy, rather then something that I've dodged when people have asked me about it before.

 

 

Here's some brief answers to the template (I'll shut up soon I promise)

• MMORPG background

Played RIFT, ESO, Blade and Soul, Wildstar, and others that only kinda count like PoE, D3, D2, etc.  Most of my experience is in WoW - I was indirectly involved in a server first raid, more directly involved in a number of horde first raids during LK and Cata on my (admittedly not great) server.

• RP experience

Very, VERY little.  I've played D&D before, and designed a world (which I always preferred to making shorter campaigns) and a number of characters for it. Thaaat's about it.  Other people I know online were somewhat into ERP, which is a pretty hard pass for me.  Might have been what scared me off of it for so long.

• Character ideas/info

The characters from my D&D campaign that I spent the most time on were a set of characters that I think in hindsight were based on portions of my own personality, extended into their own characters and given stories from there.  There are a number of them I could theoretically expand on and RP as, if necessary.  

The character that I currently am playing in FFXIV represents my character "Altheria" - I'll try to summarize (I feel like I'm presenting my grade school project to professors, haha) - 

Daughter of a well-known warlord who didn't have the same blood thirst, even though she was expected and trained to follow in her father's footsteps.  Quickly labeled as a weakling and a disgrace to her clan, she found refuge in the church, having a surprising natural affinity for healing magics.  She admired what the church did in terms of helping the less fortunate, and took her warrior training and combined it with her newfound talent to become a Paladin and fight for the other 'weaklings' that the world cast down before they could show who they truly are... I feel like I could write a ton of backstory on this particular character. No promises that it wouldn't suck, but I mean, I'm not an author, haha.

• How did you learn about the coalition?

Googled "FFXIV RP".  You guys are one of the first that comes up - nice SEO.

• What kind of a role-player are you aiming to be? (e.g. Light, medium, or heavy)

Probably "light", based on what I've read on other threads here on the forum.  While I definitely like the idea of exploring what my character does in between adventures, raids, dungeons, whatnot, and the interactions with other adventurers (which kinda teases the day-to-day life thing), I'd probably like to keep my roleplay rooted in the game itself...I think.  Never done it before, so I don't know for sure!  I couldn't imagine quitting raiding or disregarding my character's in-game class, however, which was listed as characteristics of heavier RP.

• Anything from real life you're comfortable with sharing? (Work, school, hobbies, etc.)

I'm sure I've talked your ears off already, so I won't go on too much further.  Uh, I play Magic the Gathering and work as a Sysadmin?

 

So uh...any questions?

 

I'm curious to see if there are FCs out there that have a focus on raiding, but maybe have a RP subfocus, or have a tolerance for the more light RP/experimentation that I'd bring.  Any questions or tips for me, or direction on where I should go next?