Persistent RP parties

[NillaShadow]

So, as anyone who's played Final Fantasy (or any RPG in general), character relationships in the main party are what drive the story and events within. Without consistent party members, it can be very difficult to create, foster, and maintain these relationships. It is then necessary for there to be some kind of organized structure for creating RP parties (such that everyone can play at the same time), maintaining them throughout the life of the character, and allowing for other characters can join/leave the party within the context of the RP.

 

Was there anything place in FFXI that allowed for this? If not, can we create something? It can be as simple as a dedicated part of the forums for people to post RP parties, timeslots when these parties are online, current area, and a log of activities for story/character development. After this is established, characters can join the party in the RP setting until a maximum (ideal for RP) party size is reached.

 

As a game designer myself, and one who plays games mostly for the story, I think it is really important to have this if we are to create unique stories, and have our characters have epic meaning (ie. context within the story).

[Gossamer]

It's something I like the idea of, and I had a trio sort of thing like that going on for a little while in FFXI. We were essentially a static party and leveling specific jobs together, but we tossed in a storyline as well. I imagine this is something that would be handled by the individuals involved. Who knows, they might even have their own linkpearl or a forum or blog or something where they can write out the story as its RPed out.

 

I imagine that sort of thing would be capped at a number of characters, as too many can get unwieldy and makes it harder to find a set time for everyone to play together. But as people want to pull their characters out, they write them out of the "party" portion of the story which then opens up room for new people?

 

That's how I'd deal with that sort of thing anyway.

[Trizzip]

I think I'm a little confused by you're reference of a RP 'party'. Are you talking about a group of RP'ers who RP while getting EXP?

 

In regards to normal RP scenarios, good RP can be had in a MMO whether you are in a set group or not. I can see the unique fun to be had in having a small static RP group, but on the other hand, it could also foster an exclusion animosity in a LS. In my own personal preference, I tend to avoid static groups like this because I don't want to feel like I'm leaving any of my other LS mates out of the specific fun to be had in a exclusive group.

[NillaShadow]

When I say RP party I mean people who experience the game (ie. doing quests, story missions etc.) and work off of the content and events in the game to create a story together. This means doing RPs in towns, in the field, and while doing quests in a party. My best RP experiences have been with groups that have stuck together for a while, because you get to know their characters and your character better, and you can actually see the character development happen, and it means more when you have experienced the events which have lead up to it.

 

As far as "exclusion animosity," I never said that it would be an exclusive group, just that there is an ideal size for RPs. Whether or not you exceed this size is up to the members of the group. Even in a single player setting, characters join and leave your party all the time, but in the end the characters who care most about the other members of the party and the goal stick around. I think it would work similarly in a multi-player setting, because if someone wants to join up for a mission, that'd be fine, but if they have other groups that they quest with, they'd have to decide which group they cared about more and manage their time appropriately. There's also nothing saying that two groups that have formed can't interact or even merge with one another if the RP scenario is right.

 

All I'm saying is that most character development is important in having a good story and ultimately a good experience. From past experience, I've found that this character development means more when it takes place over time, and for that to happen you need to RP with the same characters often. It's also take advantage of the game's content and mechanics in order to enhance the RP.

[Trizzip]

Yea, I agree that when your character interacts with the same characters over time it does add to character development. My character's have had many growing friendships (or enemies) through constant interaction with the same characters. In fact, one of my character's has actually developed a relationship to the point of marriage and having a child.

 

When it comes to the game's main storyline, I leave that in OOC as canon dictates that the NPCs you interact with are more the main character's in the mission than the PCs. Kinda tough RP'ing the fact that every adventurer had brought down the Garlean Empire.

[Tyriont]

While this certainly doesn't need to happen, it can be a hell of a lot of fun.

 

Back in FFXI, I was part of an RP group that did exactly this. There were 6 of us that went through the CoP mission line together, using the events of the story to form the basis for our own. We were all still part of a larger shell, just had our own substory as well. It was a great experience and lead to some awesome character development. But we while that part of things was kept within the party members (so as not to spoil the plot for others), we kept up regular LS interactions as well.

 

Long story short, this type of thing is awesome but can work within the setting of a larger linkshell for the best of both worlds.

[Chveya]

To offer a different standpoint:

 

I have a hard time taking too much of the games storyline as IC. Don't get me wrong -- I love game stories.

 

But let me give an example. We'll use everyones love-to-hate stepchild, WoW. Shortly after the last expansion came out, my then-BF and I busted tail to get the leveling going. As is usually the case almost anywhere, you get better exp through quests, so we did those like crazy.

 

There was a pretty important one, which earned you a snazzy and pretty awesome cutscene, an achievement, and was just plain badass. We enjoyed the crap out of it.

 

Two months later, another couple in our guild was overheard ICly stating that they'd JUST COME FROM that event, and partaken in it, in-character.

 

You can see where we ran into some troubles. How could my character have said it took place in her personal storyline, if someone else claimed it happened later? If my entire guild had experienced it at the same time, what made our storyline better or worse than another guild we might interact with, who placed said incident at a different point in their personal timeline?

 

It started to make my brain do somersaults.

 

So the point is, I love love love story-driven quests. But I absolutely cannot incorporate most of them into my characters story. Because it just plain feels stupid to me to say, "Oh my gosh I just came back from !!" when the rest of the group stares at me, because they did that EXACT SAME THING last week.

 

That's a whole lotta 2 cents worth. >_> Sorry. I guess the short version is, I've never done what you're describing. But it does sound like it could be fun.

[Gossamer]

In response to the above, I basically share the same standpoint. However, I believe that RPing through a canon storyline can be a ton of fun. It is just not something that I would add to my character's personal storyline with the overall RP community. It would be more of an episodic or AU thing that stands alone on the side and has no real impact on my character.

[Chveya]

In response to the above' date=' I basically share the same standpoint. However, I believe that RPing through a canon storyline can be a ton of fun. It is just not something that I would add to my character's personal storyline with the overall RP community. It would be more of an episodic or AU thing that stands alone on the side and has no real impact on my character.[/quote']

 

*nodnod* this is pretty much the only way I could think of to make it work, for -me-.

 

 

I can't tell you how much it drove me nuts in WoW, long after I stopped RPing (so at least I didn't geekrage) to be hearing RP guilds talking about how "well, now that the Lich King is dead," and I'm going "SHUT UP YOU OBNOXIOUS BASTARDS I HAVENT EVEN KILLED HIM YET".

 

 

>_>

<_<

Anyway. You get the idea.

[Xzenivar]

For using the games story/cannon in my own personal RP experiences, I try to look at the quests and see just what kind of impact they would make if done on a huge scale, and how likely is it that multiple people could be doing the same thing.

 

Seeing the vision in the sky when the characters first start, I can include since there is no reason I've seen thus far, that hundreds or thousands of others couldn't have seen it too. However, how many people are going to have a leviathan jumping over their ship, when the creature is considered a mythical beast spoken of in the stories of drunken sailors?

 

Considerably less, say 50 to a hundred people on that boat all managed to catch something and pieced it together with other people on the boat to form a cohesive picture. Well thats not so big a number, thus less likely to be something my character could have been a witness too.

 

But lets expand our picture frame a bit. Pull the camera back if you will. That was a huge storm, the seas are raging even before we have giant leaping lizards on the scene, and there's nothing to say there weren't other ships in the area that wouldn't be affected. In all the chaos, lightning could have illuminated what looked like a sea monster for a brief time, other ships could have been infested but ugly floating fish and so on. The sea monster wouldn't even have to be in the air when a character saw it, it could have been before or after the jump as well. Lastly, the ship our pc's is on is lucky, and makes it into port more or less unscathed. Our real characters may not have been so lucky (or infact, were even luckier and merely saw things in the distance)

 

So, its possible to take Square's story events and weave them into our own, with thought and consideration. We just need to be mindful of occasions where not everyone is going to be the one to slay a gunblade toting heavily armored Judge, unless they happen to be apart of an extensive judicial system in the first place

[NillaShadow]

I can't tell you how much it drove me nuts in WoW, long after I stopped RPing (so at least I didn't geekrage) to be hearing RP guilds talking about how "well, now that the Lich King is dead," and I'm going "SHUT UP YOU OBNOXIOUS BASTARDS I HAVENT EVEN KILLED HIM YET".

 

 

>_>

<_<

Anyway. You get the idea.

 

Yeah, that is in interesting problem, but that's why keeping roleplay to smaller groups is a plus. If someone has already taken down the lich king, they're obviously out of your RP scenario, and you can make your character not hear them (because it would be impossible for them to exist). True that RPing canon material (likely) raises this problem routinely, but most of RP is "pretend" anyway, so in that case I would just make those characters not exist to my character within the RP. It can be annoying sometimes, but I think the payoff would be well worth it.

 

Also, the problem of "Not everyone witnessed cutscene X in the same way," depends on who's RPing in the group. If someone is completely unwilling to compromise the fact that they saw the scene exactly, it should fall on the other members of the group to compensate their storylines appropriately (like you said, perhaps a character was on the lower decks of the ship when the sea monster jumped over, maybe they were in the same storm, maybe they were knocked unconscious and are reluctant to believe the other's story etc.). But that depends on the characters and their players.

 

So.... anyway, back to my original intention of making this thread. Would anyone want to make a canon-infused RP group (ie. an RP group that uses the canon setting to play off of?)

[Trizzip]

In response to the above' date=' I basically share the same standpoint. However, I believe that RPing through a canon storyline can be a ton of fun. It is just not something that I would add to my character's personal storyline with the overall RP community. It would be more of an episodic or AU thing that stands alone on the side and has no real impact on my character.[/quote']

 

 

I'm with you 100%

[MereLee]

Would anyone want to make a canon-infused RP group (ie. an RP group that uses the canon setting to play off of?)

 

I'm just done reading the whole tread and this is exactly what I was expecting roleplaying to be.

 

So yeah !! count me in !!...

But be mindful that this will be my 1st time roleplaying.

We can get to know each other first and see if we are compatible ...or if I'm actually able to roleplay on first place >.>;

[Asyria]

Here is Asyria's easy-but-it-requires-a-bit-of-work solution to RPing through game storyline without making it exclusive:

Step 1. Figure out a storyline for your group of RPers to play through.

Step 2. Adapt the actual storyline NP'C names and plots to your storyline.

Step 3. RP through the storyline accordingly.

Step 4. Impress your friends with your stories without spoiling the actual game storyline for them or causing impossibility conflicts (how could you have killed that guy last month if I did it yesterday?)

 

The solution in action:

Step 1. You ask your friends to help you defeat the villain that's been plaguing your life all this time.

Step 2. You introduce the villain as Bob, your arch-enemy, even though the villain is actually Joe in the game story and he of course never had anything to do with you.

Step3. You and your friend RP along and the final confrontation ends with Bob's death, meaning you are finally free!

Step 4. You tell your friends how relived you are, and they don't even know where you all got this from!

 

In CO, the Nemesis system kinda sucked in certain things, but its presence was awesome, as it let you do exactly that, with the additional perks of customizing your enemy's look and powers. You couldn't customize quests, but lots of RPers used the above method to develop their storylines.

 

 

If you choose to really use the cannon storyline as is... I'm afraid many RPers will find it rather annoying that you'd claim you've done this and that, including, I'm sorry to say, myself. As you said "if someone has already taken down the lich king, they're obviously out of your RP scenario, and you can make your character not hear them (because it would be impossible for them to exist)" and this goes both ways! ^^;

It's your game as much as mine and everyone else's of course, so feel free to RP through it as you like!

I'm just saying it's kind of a peeve to many people Even though it does sound pretty fun, it's a RPing style better suited to multiplayer as opposed to massively multiplayer.

Therefore, when RPing with others outside of your Party, I would suggest you keep the storyline references to a minimum. ^^

[MereLee]

I'm just saying it's kind of a peeve to many people Even though it does sound pretty fun, it's a RPing style better suited to multiplayer as opposed to massively multiplayer.

Therefore, when RPing with others outside of your Party, I would suggest you keep the storyline references to a minimum. ^^

 

I totally agree with that last part. I kinda see it like an Anime TV series Vs. an OVA. The events on the OVA never happened thru the series, or even in the OVA, a character that was supposed to be dead is alive. Something like that.

 

So, for my point of view... it would be like.

Party RP == TV series

Linkshell RP == OVA

 

One doesn't have to conflict with the other at all.

[Satisiun]

One doesn't have to conflict with the other at all.

 

Perhaps. But right here, the OP them self explicitly says about communicating with other people in the world ...

 

[...] I would just make those characters not exist to my character within the RP. It can be annoying sometimes' date=' but I think the payoff would be well worth it.[/quote']

 

I think that is really bad form right there, I am sorry to say. And it is a conflict of interest, because it basically says that one does not want to acknowledge other players.

 

And even if they were up to speed it wouldn't make sense to interact with them, going off of all I am hearing and reading so far. Your account of what occurred when you took down the Dread Judge Gabranth may vary by leaps and bounds by someone else's, because you were not there with the other player, taking part in the same battle, with the same PCs that other player was around.

 

To me, this seems like a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. When one wants to be able to partake in the open world and the multiple other role play opportunities, but at the same time are deciding for themselves that they -- and those whom they deem fit -- are permitted to be recognized.

 

There seems very little room for debate on this. And I am seeing some rather uncomfortable parallels between this topic and the etiquette thread we had, not to mention the issue of character secrets in another thread. What it really boils down to, and perhaps I am just being a stubborn old goat here, is you have two options:

 

1) You can have your private RP, but in effect you also have to sacrifice the ability to interact with other people. Basically, you will use Final Fantasy XIV as a multi-player role-playing game, instead of a massively multi-player online role-playing game, in which only a set number of players is communicated with and interacted with throughout the game, so long as you are playing through the entirety of the game's actual storyline.

 

Think of it almost like playing Baldur's Gate with several other players at the same time, in that regard.

 

2) You forsake the storyline, and permit yourself to interact and communicate with the other people in the game without fear of forcing one's own activities involving somehow being the world's amazing, epic savior to us all on other people. It isn't like you will miss out on opportunities of great character development, or even amazing stories or experiences by doing this. Sometimes you make your own.

 

You're free to make a second character and actually partake in both options. But this whole situation just seems a bit too ... ehn. Flexibility is a wonderful thing when it comes to smaller quests, and perhaps even some larger issues (like that discussion about FFXI artifact armor quests back in the etiquette topic). But "You defeated the Empire!" just isn't one of those things that allows for much flexibility.

 

And one counter-argument I can see being made is, "Well, what if my character never speaks of it?" To that I say ...

 

... c'mon. Really? You nor anyone in your band will ever talk of the epic, melodramatic, bard's tale-worthy events that you are partaking in? That just won't fly, barring you're a mute.

[Chveya]

Therefore, when RPing with others outside of your Party

 

This is a key line, I believe.

 

IF you are an RPer who prefers to mainly RP within your LS -- and that's awesome if you are! No judgements! -- then you may never see a problem.

 

But IF you are an RPer who interacts with a broad spectrum of people, it's going to wind up being very limiting to, as the OP said,

 

I would just make those characters not exist to my character within the RP.

 

It's going to wind up being limiting more to yourself, than anyone else; but moreover, it's just rude. How do you know that their RP conflicts with yours right away? You don't.

 

So if you and I, for example, are in an RP interaction, we might interact on and off casually for weeks before a conflict of storylines comes up. Do you suddenly *blink* that RP out of existence?

 

However, if - as I said above - you prefer to limit your RP primarily to your LS and very close friends, you may never experience a problem. Just be aware that problems could arise, and you're just as much responsible for handling them respectfully as anyone else is.

[NillaShadow]

Alright, so an easy solution to this (working off of Satisiun said) is that you have an LS for the persistant group, within which you RP canon material throughout the storyline. Then you have non-LS interactions which involve those not necessarily at the same point in the story as you, and as such you should not discuss story events, but you can still interact as your character in order to RP with the broader RP community. It's clear that there's two distinct groups of RP, but as long as the RP in the LS stays in the LS, there should be no discernable difference to those not in the LS.

 

I guess it would be similar to having another layer on top of IC (maybe ICC for In Canon Character). If you think about it, you already interact on these different levels whenever you RP. You act as yourself in OOC, then (as on the main page under "Linkshells") there are levels ranging from light RP to heavy RP where a certain degree of OOC is permitted/expected of you. If there were a persistent canon rp group, they could just create a linkshell and keep canon RP scenes in the linkshell. This way there's really no harm done to those outside the canon group, and those in the canon group can either create a character to RP outside the canon group, or use the base personality traits of their character to RP outside of the canon group.

[Mycroft]

Why are so many of you focusing on the negative aspects of this?

 

It isn't proposed to being the only way one should RP, only as a way to develop a shared story.

I myself have done this many times and rarely encountered any troubles in regards to other RPers outside of the "party".

 

Seeing as FFXIV's storyline will most likely play out like FFXI's with heroic NPCs doing all of the killing and your character only assisting in their endeavours, it is possible to be a witness to some of the grand events without having done anything of a spectacular nature.

When RPing one has to be able to adapt, as the shared stories aren't something you've prepared together (Mostly).

[ArmachiA]

Well here's my experience on the issue:

 

When Crimson Pirates was the only RP group on the server in FFXI, we followed the storyline pretty much to the letter. Set up events for missions and once those missions were finished we assumed that time had passed, even if you weren't part of the event. If you did the event later, it was OOC and didn't count toward your character growth. This worked for awhile, we were relatively small and didn't bother anyone else on the server with RP, so it was easy for us to take the claim.

 

The problems started after the Shadowlord storyline. Our guild had just killed the Shadowlord and was heading into the Zilart storyline when more RP groups actually began to appear. Things within our story was contradicting their's - they hadn't killed the Shadowlord yet and in their storyline he still existed. At first we went about this the wrong way - we ignored them and pretended they didn't exist. Their characters existed in some AU that we pretended we couldn't see. We realized later we were limiting ourselves, never interacting with other RP groups and making ourselves completely insular made us look... well snobbish. So we did a lot of retconning for Zilart. Instead of making our characters central to the storyline, we made them around the storyline while giving ourselves our own story (I.E. My character began working for Zilart and became a bad guy, but had her own storyline for this). This ended up working out a lot better as our characters could finally perceive the other roleplayers on the server.

 

Everytime an expansion came out, however, we did a big storyline to get into that expansion and then said the past expansions were simply past time - which actually worked out as a great compromise. As an expansion occurs whatever happens is absolutely going to effect your character and their motivations.

 

When we moved to WoW we didn't even try to be a part of the "I KILLED SOANSSO"crowd, but instead had each expansion effect our characters (I.E when The Burning Crusade came out, it was assumed that the storyline for Vanilla WoW was over and done with and we talked about it in character past tense. When Wraith came out, we had our character be part of the big ol' army that was helping defeat Illidan and his ilk, but we personally never saw the guy. As Blood Elves, before Wraith came out, those who spoke out against Prince Kael'thas were considered traitors, while after those who still supported the giant douche were considered insane.)

 

That is probably how we'll do things in FFXIV as well.

 

If you want to do the epic game storyline with your characters in the center of it all instead of being effected by it all, I would suggest doing it AU, so you don't end up pissing off the entire community by saying you killed the main badguy.

[Asyria]

Why are so many of you focusing on the negative aspects of this?

It's because the one negative aspect is one that has potential to disrupt RP for both the OP and his group and for everyone else they interact with, so it's kind of a big issue.

 

The Cannon Party will ignore characters whose story conflicts with theirs and characters will ignore the Cannon Party everytime they bring up the Cannon storyline in RP, so there's a lot of potential for isolation there, which kinda goes against the idea of a RP Community.

 

However, and most importantly, the OP already agreed with the idea of keeping the Cannon RP within their

Cannon Party/LS only so that should fix everything (though they only acknowledged Satisun and not me as far as bringing up the idea, which makes me a sad panda, but I'll live ^^; )

 

That said, if I didn't already have my one character slot taken up, I might be interested in this.. I know a few FF games I would have loooooooooooooved to RP through.

[Soren Miren]

When we moved to WoW we didn't even try to be a part of the "I KILLED SOANSSO"crowd, but instead had each expansion effect our characters (I.E when The Burning Crusade came out, it was assumed that the storyline for Vanilla WoW was over and done with and we talked about it in character past tense. When Wraith came out, we had our character be part of the big ol' army that was helping defeat Illidan and his ilk, but we personally never saw the guy. As Blood Elves, before Wraith came out, those who spoke out against Prince Kael'thas were considered traitors, while after those who still supported the giant douche were considered insane.)

 

That is probably how we'll do things in FFXIV as well.

 

If you want to do the epic game storyline with your characters in the center of it all instead of being effected by it all, I would suggest doing it AU, so you don't end up pissing off the entire community by saying you killed the main badguy.

 

This is precisely how I have and will continue to handle the subject, although I personally take it a step further and, at least in the case of WoW, would base storylines around patches moreso than I would around full expansions. Granted, this depended upon whether a patch actually moved a storyline forward or not. For example, the Sunwell patch made it clear that Kael'thas was a traitor to Silvermoon, and so the political atmosphere changed then rather than in Wrath after he would have been considered dead. Similarly, by the time ICC was introduced, the Trials would have already determined the unnamed heroes that ultimately defeat the Lich King.

 

I also agree that its possible to place your character in certain events as participants, just not the central heroes. If for example there ends up being some gigantic battle between the Garlean armies and the people of the city-states, it's reasonable to say that your character might have been a participant or witness. The same applies to the parade in Ul'dah, or even as was mentioned earlier, using the Limsa Lominsa opening sequence in some fashion.

[Satisiun]

(though they only acknowledged Satisun and not me as far as bringing up the idea' date=' which makes me a sad panda, but I'll live ^^; )[/quote']

 

What can I say? Chicks dig the walls of text. 8-)

And I'm teasing, of course.

[Trizzip]

At first we went about this the wrong way - we ignored them and pretended they didn't exist. Their characters existed in some AU that we pretended we couldn't see.

 

Is that why we never RP'd together that much?

 

<3 u Armi

[NillaShadow]

The Cannon Party will ignore characters whose story conflicts with theirs and characters will ignore the Cannon Party everytime they bring up the Cannon storyline in RP, so there's a lot of potential for isolation there, which kinda goes against the idea of a RP Community.

 

However, and most importantly, the OP already agreed with the idea of keeping the Cannon RP within their Cannon Party/LS only so that should fix everything

(though they only acknowledged Satisun and not me as far as bringing up the idea, which makes me a sad panda, but I'll live ^^; )

 

That said, if I didn't already have my one character slot taken up, I might be interested in this.. I know a few FF games I would have loooooooooooooved to RP through.

 

Sorry for not giving cred D:

 

Anyway, I do think the reserved linkshell idea solves a lot of problems with keeping the cannon rp with the cannon rp characters. However, this does limit the interaction with non-cannon players. This can be solved if the players with cannon characters create alt characters which are not involved with their cannon characters. Since this is strictly an RP difference, the player can use the same avatar (and therefore not have to pay an extra fee per month). If the players do this, they can interact with both cannon and non-cannon players, and no impossibility scenarios arise. For those who have done strictly text rp (like in a chat room or MUD on IRC), this would be like switching between rooms and RPing a separate character in each room, but using the same program/client in order to do so.