IG Travel

[K'nahli]

I noticed a lot of random RP'ers seem to utilize airships and not put much weight on IG travel times and privileges that are handily available to our PCs for typical gaming reasons, whereas people like myself and most in my tribe treat terrain with a lot more significance than it would normally appear.

 

i.e

Traveling from Forgotten Springs to Ul'dah takes 2-3 days.

Traveling from the dead Goobue in Eastern Thanalan to the Amalj'aa encampment in the same map takes about a day.

 

 

I was just wondering how most people tend to lean in this regard since I logged in briefly to check on my retainers and heard people in Gridania casually mention about going to Costa, which then reminded me of other times I heard people ICly referencing using airships.

 

 

Thoughts?

[Magellan]

A fair question I have asked myself often. The game itself just cutscreens anytime you travel, so there's no identifiable passage of time.

 

Some people use teleporting in their rp, which I generally shy away from. Mostly I use chocobo travel, but I generally don't rp the travel portion, as I haven't come up with a good answer in regards to length of time.

 

One time, on a ferry ride to Costa, I had my miqo turn and apologize for standing up in and capsizing theboat, and the other person ran with it which was cool. And now my miqo isn'tr allowed on that particular ferry again

[LiadansWhisper]

I honestly haven't really decided. I find it more immersive to RP out ground travel, and I have been sort of dithering around and treating it like at least a week or two journey between Gridania and Ul'dah, at a normal pace.  I would imagine that a fast clip would cut time off that, but who knows how much.

[Naunet]

I noticed a lot of random RP'ers seem to utilize airships

 

I would question any roleplayer's IC use of airships, as they are not supposed to be available for public use due to the Garlean threat. The story character's access to airships is one of great exception and not something I think people should take IC. It's unfortunate, but airships in ARR seem to be even more exclusive than the pegasus travel of TERA (which was supposed to be extremely costly and highly regulated). That said, there are plenty of other means of travel across Eorzea, so not being able to use airships IC doesn't really do away with much in the way of opportunities. There are still boats and carts and chocobo porters and your own mount and walking and aetherytes (for those with enough command of their aether to manage it).

[Merri]

Actually, Airships are quite open to the public. The stipulation is that the airways are not. Anyone can ride one of the Highwind airships if they own a pass. The reason why the airways themselves are restricted is because of the empire, however. Due to a severe lack in airship technology compared to Garlemald, they simply cannot afford to have a heavy presence in the skies. The empire would have a field day shooting down all the airships, simply put.

 

That being said, I see nothing wrong with a player actually owning or piloting an airship so long as they both understand the risks and consequences, and have the requisite training and experience that would be required to even operate it, maintain it, and afford the incredibly expensive fuel. Not every player is going to have those, though, and most people that would go so far as to make the claim generally take the proper care in shaping their character beforehand.

 

For example, since 1.0 my character has been firmly rooted as a magitek engineer who works with the Garlond Ironworks. As such, he and one of his lifelong friends (Who is even more of a seasoned engineer than Merri) jointly own an airship. His reasoning for being able to take to the skies on specific occasions is simply because he's with the Ironworks.

 

Of course, that's canonically speaking. Not everyone follows canon, and that's fine. Everyone is entitled to play how they want. Just means you don't have to socialize with them if you so choose~

[Naunet]

Kan-E-Senna has this to say about airships:

 

"In better times, airships were available for the convenience of one and all. Alas, the risk that our crafts may fall to imperial attack has forced a reduction in the number of flights. Consequently, it has become necessary to restrict air travel only to those whose need is great. Such individuals may petition the relevant parties to be issued an airship pass. As you may have deduced, I myself am one such party... Yet I was not alone in desiring that you be granted the privilege of air travel."

 

Clearly, the airships set up to travel between Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ul'dah are not for common use. RP your own personal airship all you like, but to make use of the city ones would be rather presumptuous.

[Nebbs]

In the past I have played travel times, and having to track the IC location of your char. I found that overall it got in the way of RP that is based on when people an be on-line.

 

For FFXIV instantaneous travel in part of the game and lore, so I embrace that. I find this helps for a more reactive and fluid RP, but I also accept it does lead to "school yard football" RP, where everyone appears for the RP incident.

[Michikyou]

However it depends on the perspective in which the players are roleplaying from. Are we reoleplaying from after the main scenario or before? because after it. Well, the garleans are pretty weak now.

[Ildur]

Are they? Losing a battle doesn't mean they lost the war. The game becomes a bit silly after the main scenario, what with the city-state leaders declaring a new age only because

they destroyed Castrum Meridianum. Which a) they didn't blow up, it was the hooded jerk who did and b) it's only one of multiple garlean forts across Eorzea. Which, if memory serves right, weren't destroyed. They were isolated so they couldn't send reinforcements to the Meridianum for the duration of the battle. c) What happens in the main scenario doesn't do much to take away garlean air superiority. There's still a load of forts around that could send airships to intercept Eorzea's.

 

 

So I'm not sure we can state that the garleans are effectively weak after the main scenario. Unless, of course, the garleans are stated to retreat en-masse from Eorzea after it (I forgot a lot of the details, so feel free to correct me). But that makes no sense and can't be enforced in-game, where all the garlean enemies and forts remain right where they were.

[Merri]

Well, here's another quote that seems to refute the idea that airships are restricted. This is lifted directly from the official ARR page.

 

By pioneering the sky routes between the realm's major cities and establishing regular flights along them, Highwind Skyways, an institution founded by the exorbitantly wealthy aristocrat and adventurer Tatanora, is now slowly but surely making commercial flight an ordinary aspect of everyday life in Eorzea. Even so, only a few airships are permitted to take flight at any given time, for the Garlean Empire is always watching, ready to strike at the first sight of an enemy vessel.

 

So, it depends really on which you want to run with. That quote implies that commercial flight is growing. Both are from official sources, so it's hard to really debunk either one.

[Tobias Nightbringer]

Wait...none of ya'll are Supermaning all over the place? Damn, I've been doing it all wrong

[Knight Kat]

I noticed a lot of random RP'ers seem to utilize airships and not put much weight on IG travel times and privileges that are handily available to our PCs for typical gaming reasons, whereas people like myself and most in my tribe treat terrain with a lot more significance than it would normally appear.

 

i.e

Traveling from Forgotten Springs to Ul'dah takes 2-3 days.

Traveling from the dead Goobue in Eastern Thanalan to the Amalj'aa encampment in the same map takes about a day.

 

I may be just a dummy, but I am not aware of "handily available IG travel times". Can someone tell me where to look up that information?

 

If there are cannon or widely agreed upon IG travel times then I would gladly go by those. However, I was not aware, so I've been making my best guesses about travel time.

 

I never ICly use airships, nor do I ICly use aetherytes. This is because my character is currently poor, and does not have authorization to use them because she is not a citizen of any city.

 

That said, if a person is wealthy, a powerful wizard or a government authorized diplomat or scholar then I see no reason why they can't ICly use the crystals or airships.

 

Edit: ROFL, Tobias.

[K'nahli]

I noticed a lot of random RP'ers seem to utilize airships and not put much weight on IG travel times and privileges that are handily available to our PCs for typical gaming reasons, whereas people like myself and most in my tribe treat terrain with a lot more significance than it would normally appear.

 

i.e

Traveling from Forgotten Springs to Ul'dah takes 2-3 days.

Traveling from the dead Goobue in Eastern Thanalan to the Amalj'aa encampment in the same map takes about a day.

 

I may be just a dummy, but I am not aware of "handily available IG travel times". Can someone tell me where to look up that information?

 

If there are cannon or widely agreed upon IG travel times then I would gladly go by those. However, I was not aware, so I've been making my best guesses about travel time.

 

I never ICly use airships, nor do I ICly use aetherytes. This is because my character is currently poor, and does not have authorization to use them because she is not a citizen of any city.

 

That said, if a person is wealthy, a powerful wizard or a government authorized diplomat or scholar then I see no reason why they can't ICly use the crystals or airships.

 

Edit: ROFL, Tobias.

 

By that I meant non-rp necessity. Having to travel with neither airships nor teleporting for the entire game would be a massive burden and its only natural that our characters are given such a liberty in-game.

 

I don't believe my(nor my friends') interpretation of travel times to be best for everyone and I wouldn't dare imply so. I was simply asking to find out how many people take serious consideration into in-game distances and travel. Personally, I believe distances to be far greater than they are represented in-game. Its only natural that they would be kept as such, since non-rp'ers normally won't appreciate vast areas of sheer nothingness.

 

I mean, if travel between Gridania and Ul'dah was really only five to ten minutes by Chocobo then just think about how realistically, miniscule that is and how it would affect things in-game from both a lore and logical perspective.

 

 

Its not as though I am critizing ANYONE who uses such methods, I just wonder if many people are taking (non-RP) in-game privileges for granted and applying it to their characters without much thought. That's only because I am of the same opinion as Naunet, however; that airship travel is HEAVILY limited(city at least, in the case of a personal airship then that seems totally fine).

[FreelanceWizard]

With regards to the number of people with airship passes, we have to remember that our PCs are the minority of people in Eorzea. If you go just by the parts of the main scenario quest that can apply to all PCs, they're a subset (those who have fought Primals) of a subset (members or affiliates of the Scions) of a subset (people with the Echo) of a subset (adventurer members of a Grand Company) of a subset (adventurers) of people in Eorzea. If you put a 10% limit on each subset, the PCs are -- before getting into elements of the story where one might need to make elements generic -- .001% or less of the actual Eorzean population. I think it's fair to say airship passes could be granted and air travel used by that small group of people.

 

In short, I'd say don't worry about it. If you want to use airships, it fits with lore. If you'd prefer not to, that fits too. There's readily available lore-compatible options for whichever approach a player wants to take with their character.

 

EDIT: Yes, yes, I know that my percentages are straw men used as an example and that I'm including MSQ elements that happen after you get an airship pass, but the fact remains that PCs are a minority of Eorzeans, so it's relatively easy to have lore-compliant justification for one's possession of an airship pass.

[Rosekitten]

Normally my character is where ever they need to be as far as travel goes. Only once did I get to rp out travel time and thats because there were two characters traveling from the shroud to Ul'dah. That was pretty fun though even if it took way longer then we said it took. 

 

I tend to stay away from airships for ic. My character has no reason to own a pass. Though on that note my character tends to stay away from ships as well unless drunk. ^^; Dislike of water means I hoof it or ride a chocobo everywhere.

[Ildur]

So, it depends really on which you want to run with. That quote implies that commercial flight is growing. Both are from official sources, so it's hard to really debunk either one.

 

That quote kind of debunks itself. Emphasis is mine:

 

Even so, only a few airships are permitted to take flight at any given time, for the Garlean Empire is always watching, ready to strike at the first sight of an enemy vessel.

 

There's also the detail that you might still need a special permit to evem board an airships. So there would be two locks on airship travel: the permit (which is apparently given by very, very important people, if Kan-E-Senna is to be taken at face value) and then the payment of the ticket, which makes sense if you consider the expenses of mantaining an airship.

 

Another interpretation that comes to me is that Kan-E-Senna might be actually refering to the airship travel that pertains to that specific quest. Not everyone needs a permit, you just got one that says "Official Messenger" that allowed you to travel for free. In light of what you quoted, Merri, I will say this is the most likely explanation.

 

With regards to the number of people with airship passes' date=' we have to remember that our PCs are the minority of people in Eorzea. If you go just by the parts of the main scenario quest that can apply to all PCs, they're a subset (those who have fought Primals) of a subset (members or affiliates of the Scions) of a subset (people with the Echo) of a subset (adventurer members of a Grand Company) of a subset (adventurers) of people in Eorzea.[/quote']

 

Only if the player chooses to be part of those particular subsets. Not everyone will play a character that has fought a primal, or who is affiliated to the Scions, or who has the Echo, or who is part of a Grand Company, or who is an Adventurer. I have a friend who roleplays an accountant, so her character doesn't fall into any of the subsets inside "Player Characters".

I think it would be more accurate to say that Player Characters are a subset of all characters in the world, who are a subset of all the people in the world. Then of course you have subsets inside the PC subset, but the only thing needed for a PC to be such is to be played by a player. Being an adventurer, friends with the Scions or whatever is accidental. The player is who decides where the character will be located in this big set of subsets we are making.

[FreelanceWizard]

Only if the player chooses to be part of those particular subsets. Not everyone will play a character that has fought a primal, or who is affiliated to the Scions, or who has the Echo, or who is part of a Grand Company, or who is an Adventurer. I have a friend who roleplays an accountant, so her character doesn't fall into any of the subsets inside "Player Characters".

I think it would be more accurate to say that Player Characters are a subset of all characters in the world, who are a subset of all the people in the world. Then of course you have subsets inside the PC subset, but the only thing needed for a PC to be such is to be played by a player. Being an adventurer, friends with the Scions or whatever is accidental. The player is who decides where the character will be located in this big set of subsets we are making.

 

Exactly so, which is why I said people should do what they like and feel works for their character. If it's appropriate for a character to be in those subsets and to have an airship pass because they're a successful Primal-dropping adventurer, the lore supports that; if it's appropriate for a character to be in a larger set and not have one because they're an accountant, the lore supports that, too. There's room for players to choose to be part of the "airship set" or not as they see fit.

[Xydane Vale]

Unless I see an event going on where the participants would need to travel across a long distance, I don't see a problem with any type of travel via. airship or aetheryte shards. My character always makes use of his aetheryte shard but I don't tend to abuse it. In events back in MG on World of Warcraft, we'd always had RP events where it would take multiple meetings just to travel from A to B.

 

These are just my simple thoughts. Meh. *Shrugs and crawls back into dark cave*

[SeijiTataki]

Are they? Losing a battle doesn't mean they lost the war. The game becomes a bit silly after the main scenario, what with the city-state leaders declaring a new age only because

 

So I'm not sure we can state that the garleans are effectively weak after the main scenario. Unless, of course, the garleans are stated to retreat en-masse from Eorzea after it (I forgot a lot of the details, so feel free to correct me). But that makes no sense and can't be enforced in-game, where all the garlean enemies and forts remain right where they were.

 

They are considered 'routed' (though not technically defeated per-se). There are Garlean forces who still remain in Eorzea (there's just too many of them), but their ability to command and control is severely diminished as a result of the main scenario. You can certainly argue that they're being too early on declaring victory, but the significant of their battle is very important;

 

 

 

You've destroyed the Ultima Weapon, which at the time was the primary threat to all of Eorzea even beyond the Garlean aggression.

You've killed Gaius Van Baelsar, the Imperial Legatus who was the primary general in charge of the Eorzean invasion. You've cut the head off this particular beat, and in doing so have destabilized the entire invasion force - they have no leader and no commander, because you also;

A) Chased off Nero and may have been presumed that he died in the explosion. (He probably didn't, but it's not an unlikely assumption) Nero tol Scaeva is the main intelligence officer for the Eorzean and in his original appearance was shown to be rather competent at his job more so than his fellow intelligence operatives. His death (or at least disappearance) has serious repercussions for the Garlean occupation.

B) You've killed Livia Sas Junius, who is not a ranking 'important' member, per-se, but she's also high enough to be a Tribunus and could be considered one of their 'ace' soldiers.

C) You've killed Rhitahtyn Sas Arvina, who is definitely one of the more important Tribunes under Gaisu' command. He's an excellent soldier and tactician, and he's so important that he's the first person that you are told to strike off the list in your attempt to oust Garlean control of the sector.

D) There are strong rumors that the Emperor is quite ill, which means that without a unified command unit in Eorzea (Nael, the primary commander, was killed prior to 2.0), so the entire network is pretty much thrown into disarray.

 

You mentioned that the existing keeps were not blown up as part of the battle plan, but several of them *were* occupied, which has greatly reduced the Garlean control. Without their command, with no orders from above, and with all of the forts split or besieged, they pretty much have no hold against Eorzea. The post game emergence of more Primals, however, has pretty much caused the Eorzean Alliance to drop their attention, and while the Garleans are routed, there is not much effort being put into preventing them from reorganizing, largely because they have literally bigger things to worry about. This paves the way for more Garleans to show up in 2.1 (and I am pretty sure they do), but for all intents and purposes they do strongly believe that the Garleans are not a significant enough of a threat right now to consider this grounds for a new era of 'peace'.

 

[Kieron Lohengrin]

my char tends to walk everywhere, but in an emergency, busts out the magitek mecha ride armor

[Naunet]

They are considered 'routed' (though not technically defeated per-se). There are Garlean forces who still remain in Eorzea (there's just too many of them), but their ability to command and control is severely diminished as a result of the main scenario. You can certainly argue that they're being too early on declaring victory, but the significant of their battle is very important;

 

All that said, it's my experience with MMOs that the "end" part of the story is not considered to have occurred until the story progresses to the next plot point (in a patch or expansion). So for RP purposes, the Garleans should still have a very strong hold on Eorzea, until such a time as the main scenario progresses past the point of the CM plot.

[LeCard]

They are considered 'routed' (though not technically defeated per-se). There are Garlean forces who still remain in Eorzea (there's just too many of them), but their ability to command and control is severely diminished as a result of the main scenario. You can certainly argue that they're being too early on declaring victory, but the significant of their battle is very important;

 

All that said, it's my experience with MMOs that the "end" part of the story is not considered to have occurred until the story progresses to the next plot point (in a patch or expansion). So for RP purposes, the Garleans should still have a very strong hold on Eorzea, until such a time as the main scenario progresses past the point of the CM plot.

 

As far as I can tell for RP purposes it would even be odd for events much beyond Ifrit story(maybe titan) to have occurred, much less that they would be very common knowledge. The time that would have elapsed between the "return" and those fights would have to be progressing very quickly for them to have occurred already.

 

Should they have occurred, it would still be odd for many people to have heard about it without some sort of serious movement. (Frankly though I have issues with much in the way of the primal defeats happening by anything other than "some hero" or by another group such like the one that beat titan (i forget their group name)). And for any of these big events to have occurred without some sort of serious press on the matter throughout the entire community would be very odd.

 

This also has some implications on anyone who would want to play a summoner(based on the summoner lore) because they would clearly have needed to be apart of some large raiding party, and considering the power of Garuda to prevent entry to her area they would need to have some IC means of reaching the primal. At least regarding other Jobs they are not so closely tied to story progression, so alot of those can be sort of worked around in some way or another.

 

I suppose you could have the primals being summoned alot more frequently, but then the events of the main plot line may as well be mostly thrown out with the exception of the Garleans specific points. And the "hero" would need to be tossed out completely as a plot point by the community, meaning that at any point where a grand hero(group there of) that did X, Y or Z no longer exists and it was just random adventurer unit 27 that will do the work of taking down things like CM and any such Garleans along the way.

 

((end rant here before I drag on ))

[Naunet]

Such is the problem with the various incarnations of the "chosen one" plot device used by the majority of MMOs for telling their story. It's very annoying and is one of the reasons I tend to stay far, far away from roleplaying any character even remotely connected to the main plot.

[Ildur]

There is no hero.

 

The problem is that the "chosen one" plot most MMOs use, including ARR, cannot be redeemed with a roleplaying enviorement. As you have said, the whole "hero" who "did this things" is tossed out of the window. He cannot coexist logically with a roleplaying enviorement. And I say "logically" because a hero that did all the things our characters do on the main storyline would be pretty damn famous (as evidenced by quest NPCs that recognize us). If the hero existed, he would have a name, a race, a class, a personality. None of these things are possible because the writers decided that each player character is the "chosen one".

 

There is no other solution but to take out the "hero" as presented by the storyline. The alternative is to stablish a "fanonical" hero, but this comes with a mountain of troubles, the first of them being the coordination and enforcement of the "fanon" to the roleplaying community. It is an impossible task.

So instead the "hero" never exists. All the elements that include him are made generic. And we have a really nice tool to do that: Grand Companies. Who defeated the first Titan summoning since Limsa Lominsa broke their threaty with the kobolds? The Maelstorm did. Not a particular hero, or a band of adventurers, but troops of the Company. Maybe adventurers helped. It doesn't need to be particularly detailed.

Then you do the same with all other events.

 

There is no hero. There cannot be one.

[LeCard]

We could take whatever Character Yoshi P. is playing and make that the hero