Egads! There's people!

[Skelace]

And aren't you all just a delightful bunch? At least you all seem that way while I was giving the site a quick look over. I have to say I'm super excited to join ever since I've seen all the detail some accounts are putting into their character(s). However; if I'm to be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed with it all. I'm a veteran RPer but absolutely new to this FFXIV thing. Ah but before I go into my questions stemming from this sense of overwhelming new stuff, why don't I tell you a bit about myself.

 

 

MMORPG Background! I have roughly 15 years in NWN, mostly on RP servers. Aside from that I've dabbled in WoW, Runescape, and this other game way back in my youth that I can't recall the name of. Something about Alliances possibly? Anyroads, NWN has held my heart and the RP experiences I've had there for the majority of my life. But I've been looking to branch out and a buddy of mine expressed to me that FFXIV was pretty sweet some months back. So here I am to give it the good ol' college try.

 

RP experience! So NWN may have taken my RP virginity but it is by no means my only experience. While playing NWN I've run the gambit from bumbling newbie character trying to figure things out, to the snarky loud mouthed smuggler, the vindictive and haughty noble who's schemes are server changing, to the heart of gold priest who is everyone's friend. I've played absolute loners, and led well established guilds through several arcs. Outside of NWN, I've expanded my writing skills through play by post and forum RP over a ten year period, and I've become the master of millions of characters while DMing my TTPRGs with IRL and Online friends. To wrap it all up, I've also done a little theater in high school and anyone who doesn't consider that roleplay can come fight me so I can beat them with the dumb dumb stick.

 

Character ideas/info! Oooooh boy this is where I start running in circles because I don't know what I'm doing. If you can't tell I'm used to knowing the ins and outs of pretty much every aspect of a game. That's all from learning as I go however, I absolutely hate reading manuals. I'll do my due diligence and listen to the in game tutorials but I don't want to spend my precious free time reading through forums for hours trying to figure everything out. Hrmm.. that comes off a bit lazy but it's true so... do with that what you will! Anyroads, were getting off topic, I'm in the stumbling phase of my character ideas/info. I know virtually nothing about the world of FFXIV's world aside from what I've pulled from the NPCs on my currently lvl 7 Thaumaturgist. He's one of those tall lanky dark elf boys... See I don't even know the race names and that's embarrassing! I promise I'll get there but until then please don't run me out of town for tripping over the lore if we interact. As for specifics about Ambroise, he's a bit of a dandy that I'll flesh out more in another post... or somewhere on here or the lodestone later. At least that's the plan.

 

How did I learn about this place? Google! And reddit. Well google led me to reddit and then reddit led me here. I was doing research into seeing if FFXIV had a healthy RPing community before I bothered downloading the free version of the game.

 

What kind of roleplayer am I aiming to be? Oh boy I hope I can learn enough to make it into the Heavy RPing circles. I'll probably bounce about happily between there and the medium RP, but I typically prefer to stay IC and maybe make a joke here and there OOC. Of course reaching out to friends and chatting OOC is always welcome but when I go somewhere to RP it's because I want to get lost in character and play with other eccentric personalities.

 

All the other stuff! My pronouns are he/him, I have an absolutely terrible sleep schedule due to working in a 24/7 shop for the US military. My play time will likely be erratic for that very reason. I live out in Hawaii so my connection to any and all servers is routinely labeled as poor despite the good internet connection on my side. I'm an avid dog lover, with cats holding a close second place in my heart (only because I hate dealing with litter). I enjoy long walks on the beach, I hate sand and prefer mountains and forests over the beach any day of the week. I'm a fairly open book, if anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out and chat me up!

 

Questions! So I just have a few questions that I want to throw out there.

- Is it expected to reach max lvl before you really start RPing?
- Is it expected to get out of the beginner phase (lvl 20) before starting to really interact with your fellow RPers?
- Should I level up a good deal before reaching out to a Free Company? (I assume the Free Companies are FFXIV's version of guilds?)
- Does anyone have any advice on how to get into the swing of RP for those new to FFXIV? Or should I just reach out to people I find interesting and ask if I can play with them?

[Kiara]

Well, first of all -- hello! o/ Welcome to the game, and to the RP community here! Both are certainly overwhelming enough on their own, so please feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like! Everyone here seems extremely ready to answer them all! :3 Of course, a good idea is to play the game itself a bit. The beginning MSQ does a pretty good job of creating a foundation of lore knowledge, and if there are any specific areas you wanna learn more about, there are usually a handful of side quests there that go into greater detail! That said, lemme try and throw in my two cents on these questions~

 

 

This is also a pretty useful guide covering some of the basics of RP in FFXIV! Some of it might apply to any kind of online RP in general, but there's a lot of helpful info in here regarding the terms that FFXIV roleplayers may use, and stuff like that! It's a pretty well organized google doc so you can skip around and see if anything helps you out! ^^

https://tinyurl.com/FFXIVRPNewbieFAQ

 

And as always, please keep asking questions! We're all here to help!

 

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Is it expected to reach max lvl before you really start RPing? 

Is it expected to get out of the beginner phase (lvl 20) before starting to really interact with your fellow RPers?

 

 

Not at all! You /do/ get plenty of useful perks as you level up and progress through the game that will help you out as a roleplayer (in addition to simply learning more of the lore) but it's by no means necessary!

 

Once you hit level 15 in the main storyline quests...

• You can unlock glamours in Vesper Bay (near Horizon in Western Thanalan) which allows you to pretty much illusion your equipped armor into whatever other clothes/armor you want it to look like! This lets you walk around in a tuxedo, or a bathing suit, or a full-body chicken suit while actually wearing proper armor so it's really helpful to have for RP reasons!
• You can visit the other city-states whenever you want, as long as you attune to the main aetheryte in the plaza! This is helpful for obvious reasons lol, each city can be a hub for finding RP whether it's directly with people there (such as the Quicksands in Ul'Dah, which is usually packed full of roleplayers just vibing) or it's from seeing advertisements in the shout chat (the orange/brown chat text) where people post ads for Free Companies, events, and venues.
• Once you visit each of the 3 main cities, you can do a short side quest in each one to unlock the residential area - this is the player housing! Even if you don't plan to visit RP venues like nightclubs or bars, it's always helpful to at least get the areas unlocked. You never know when you find an interesting RP partner and they might offer to write a scene in their apartment-turned-flower-shop or whatever else!

You also unlock new areas as you progress through the story, so if you're still an early sprout, you might have to miss out on RP opportunities because they're in areas you can't access yet. There's a 4th residential area called Shirogane and it's only unlocked once you get into Stormblood, and each expac comes with new cities and new open world locations.

 

However, despite this, I've noticed a lot of the bigger RP events still take place in beginner-friendly areas! So don't worry, there will be PLENTY you can do early on! I started RPing in the game when I was around Level 20, so I could only access the early ARR areas and I don't remember anyone giving me flack for it!

 

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Should I level up a good deal before reaching out to a Free Company? (I assume the Free Companies are FFXIV's version of guilds?)

 

Not at all! Free Companies can actually be SUPER useful when you're first starting out! I might recommend looking for non-RP, newbie gamer focused FCs to begin with -- they usually have buffs (which apply to every FC member) that boost your EXP earnings, or reduce teleportation fees, or a few other little helpful things for starting out! And FC buffs aside, it's usually full of people who are more than willing to help you through the game by partying up for dungeons, maybe crafting you high-quality gear for free, stuff like that!

 

Of course, you can always start looking for a RP-related FC right off the bat! But the huge gaming FCs are sooo helpful and can essentially speedrun you through the MSQ. While you can only be a member of one FC at a time, you can freely leave and join them as you want, so you're never stuck with one forever if you don't want to be! Also it might take you a little while of browsing through RP FCs to find one you'd wanna try joining, so another good thing about the big gaming FCs is that people join/leave all the time so there's no pressure on you to stay. Pop in for the buffs, and dip when you find something else you wanna join.

 

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Does anyone have any advice on how to get into the swing of RP for those new to FFXIV? Or should I just reach out to people I find interesting and ask if I can play with them?

 

Honestly what you're doing here is a good first step! Just literally getting into the community, meeting people, asking questions, etc etc! There are tons of discord servers that serve as networking hubs to find other roleplayers, there's a huge community of FFXIV roleplayers on Twitter and Tumblr, and there are tons of open RP opportunities advertised in shout chats! These events are usually pretty newbie-friendly, no pressure, you can just show up and everyone's just RPing with everyone else so you can hang out and lurk and see what everyone's doing, or jump in and try to interact with people yourself!

 

People also tend to put RP info in their search info -- you can right-click > examine on a player and click a little speech bubble symbol near the top. They might put a little blurb about their character here but there's a harsh 60-character limit so most of the time people just link to a carrd, which is a really helpful thing to have once you've got your character figured out! If you see someone with an interesting carrd or interesting info, you can definitely reach out and let them know their character seems cool!

[Faye]

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- Is it expected to reach max lvl before you really start RPing?
- Is it expected to get out of the beginner phase (lvl 20) before starting to really interact with your fellow RPers?

No and no! You can jump into RP at any time. That being said, being at least level 15 - 20+ isn't a bad idea. The more you play through the game, the more lore you pick up, and the more areas and clothing you will have access to for RP purposes.
 

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- Should I level up a good deal before reaching out to a Free Company? (I assume the Free Companies are FFXIV's version of guilds?)

Free companies are indeed FFXIV's version of guild. And it's entirely your choice! But personally, I recommend focusing on finding a good FC before focusing on leveling. Most FC's (especially RP FC's) won't care about your level or will have a very low level requirement, if any. They can help you level, both in the forms of people who might help you with content, give advice, and help get you geared as well as useful buffs like a combat EXP buff.
 

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- Does anyone have any advice on how to get into the swing of RP for those new to FFXIV? Or should I just reach out to people I find interesting and ask if I can play with them?

You can absolutely do that, whether it's at RP events, people you see RPing in game, or even just people who you peep at and see their carrd in their search info. Joining an RP FC and going to RP events is a great way to find RP and meet other RPers. You can also try to meet RPers out of game, like here or various community Discords.

[Charity322]

NWN was my first RP experience too! If you need to ask any questions about how things are different then feel free to PM me.

[Skelace]

Thanks for the answers, advice and welcome everyone! All of the above has been super helpful and the attitude makes me even more excited to sink my teeth into the community.