Went to the Republic of Eorzea event. Seems like RoE isn't so much a RP company? :/

[Kyrrae L'minia]

 

[FreelanceWizard]

Mod note: I've moved this thread to the FFXIV Discussion forum, since it doesn't announce an event.

 

Fair warning: I don't like threads that call out individuals or groups directly. However, this is a topic that may be relevant to the Gilgamesh community, and I would much rather people talk out concerns publically rather than let them simmer in rumours. IMO, transparency is critical. That said, the second this thread gets out of line, I'm locking it, and may take appropriate measures against posters in it. Feel free to discuss, but be nice. This is the only warning I'm going to give.

[Kyrrae L'minia]

Thanks for moving this to the appropriate board! I apologize for the misplacement.

[Naunet]

I'm confused as to what the problem is. o.0;;;

[Kyrrae L'minia]

They advertised this event and their Free Company in the Gilgamesh Events forums as a roleplaying company and event, as well as very aggressively on the server; and out of a Free Company of more than 150 members, very few (around 4 or 5) showed up to their own event. After their leader gave a long speech about their newly elected leadership, that was the end of it. When I tried to interact with the leadership I saw present, the president (Falcons Talons) quickly moved to /tell chat leading to him asking about us merging with them. I didn't see much of any roleplay from the few members they had there. And as you can see, their president said that some of their members roleplay, but I didn't see any active roleplay going on from their members there.   They are a very zealously recruiting company on our server, so I wanted to give the Gilgamesh roleplay community a heads-up about what seems to be their actual FC makeup.

[Naunet]

Ahah. I had a really hard time following the tells.

[Mippa]

I'm going to be careful about what I say on this thread because I don't want to come across as overly critical, but I do have concerns about how this "roleplaying FC" comes across to the Gilgamesh community as a whole.

 

 

...well, that, and I don't know how the administration team on this board draws the line regarding criticism. So I'll try to phrase things broadly.

 

As a roleplay community, what do we consider a "roleplay company" to be, by definition? What percentage of members should be "roleplayers," if we use that to measure? 

 

We've had several members join Driftwood Coast after being recruited into RoE that left because (their words) "they aren't a roleplaying Free Company."

 

Additionally, only recently have I been made aware of the existence of roleplaying FC's that prefer closed-world RP vs. the open-world RP that so many of our FCs are striving for. If this group wanted to treat their FC as closed-world, I think I wouldn't be as concerned about this sort of behavior...you know, 'if they're hurting fun and not hurting anyone, whatevs'. 

 

I've had discussions with the leader of this FC ('discussion' being a loose term here) and it went very much like how this screen capture went. I wanted to reach out and see how his FC would coexist with other RC FCs if he intended to interact, and how his "we are a nation" outlook would jive with the existing lore. It was, to put it kindly, a lesson in futility, and it really felt--both in the discussions and at this event--that I was being railroaded by this sort of "roleplay."

 

If anything, I hope our respective FCs can take something out of this, even if it's only a discussion of "what makes an RP FC an RP FC"? Because I did have the inclination to accuse this FC of not being an RP FC, but what authority do I have to say whether or not it is?

[Tarras]

I went to this event. Being new to this game and the RP community, I've been trying to get out to as many RP events as I can since it's been tough finding people to RP with. I felt something was amiss though when I started seeing this event get nearly spam-advertised in Coerthas general chat earlier that evening.

 

When I got to the event, instead of the moderate size I was expecting, there were people everywhere. That's not a bad thing, but it didn't seem like hardly anyone was RPing besides sitting on the benches and the occasional person walking by. The vibe I got was much like Kyrrae's where it felt like this was an event to recruit for PVE purposes instead of RP. I left before the event finished.

[No Longer Exists]

Fundamentally, there's very little we can do about these things other than respectively gnash our teeth. Gilgamesh isn't the RP world, it's a combo world relegated largely to PvE players and a moderate sized RP community (that myself and many others have been working very hard to enrich). 

 

That being said, I approached Isaiah Ezekiel when his first post about the Republic went up on here a few months back. I was looking to expand our RP community and his concept of a governmental body as an FC had limitless potential. However, it did not work out for either of us and here's why: I feel that the concept of "Roleplaying" varies between the RoE main players and many of us RPers already established here. It appears (through contact and observation) that RoEs idea of "roleplaying" is more immersion in the game itself (See: PvE) and a very liberal social outlet. They're not wrong in their outlook and neither are we, it's just different.

 

However, and I say this at the risk of bringing the wrath of Freelancer down on my poor Black Hat, I feel in no way obligated or interested in involving RoE in RP events or participating in theirs. They seem to have their own way and I'm happy to respect that, but I feel I run the risk of shooting myself in the foot with my own events if I involve them. It's hard to work with a group of people who legitimately have no interest in working within the boundaries the others are. Plus, ultimately, this is all about having fun and I feel that I would be having less fun with them involved due to the nature of the group I've witnessed most frequently. There may well be the occasional gem hidden within their ranks, but that's not my concern nor is it my obligation to include. I realize this sets an "us or them" line in the proverbial sand and I apologize for going there. It's simply the most pragmatic course of action. I'll leave them be and hope they do the same for me.

 

Really though, it's not about what makes an RP FC or not. I love Mippa's question and I think it truly will help many of us, myself included, evolve our opinions on roleplaying in general by thinking about it. The true matter is simply that many FCs on Gilgamesh are not roleplayers, some FCs on Gilgamesh are what we're loosely calling "Open World" RPers and then there are those who prefer their own story and keep to themselves, affectionately called "Closed World". Labels do what they do, define things for better or worse. I believe the best choice here is a personal one rather than a communal one. As an individual or even an FC, decide how you like your fun and just roll with it. If your fun includes stories from a Closed World group? Awesome. If you're down with the Open World FCs (Yeah, you know me.  ) and that makes you happy, good on ya. Keep it fun and keep it free.

 

Cheers!

 

-Black Hat

 

P.S. - I'll rep bump the first person who can identify the play on lyrics in my last paragraph. Let's see how old skool some of you are.

[Zhavi]

Fundamentally, there's very little we can do about these things other than respectively gnash our teeth. Gilgamesh isn't the RP world, it's a combo world relegated largely to PvE players and a moderate sized RP community (that myself and many others have been working very hard to enrich). 

 

That being said, I approached Isaiah Ezekiel when his first post about the Republic went up on here a few months back. I was looking to expand our RP community and his concept of a governmental body as an FC had limitless potential. However, it did not work out for either of us and here's why: I feel that the concept of "Roleplaying" varies between the RoE main players and many of us RPers already established here. It appears (through contact and observation) that RoEs idea of "roleplaying" is more immersion in the game itself (See: PvE) and a very liberal social outlet. They're not wrong in their outlook and neither are we, it's just different.

 

However, and I say this at the risk of bringing the wrath of Freelancer down on my poor Black Hat, I feel in no way obligated or interested in involving RoE in RP events or participating in theirs. They seem to have their own way and I'm happy to respect that, but I feel I run the risk of shooting myself in the foot with my own events if I involve them. It's hard to work with a group of people who legitimately have no interest in working within the boundaries the others are. Plus, ultimately, this is all about having fun and I feel that I would be having less fun with them involved due to the nature of the group I've witnessed most frequently. There may well be the occasional gem hidden within their ranks, but that's not my concern nor is it my obligation to include. I realize this sets an "us or them" line in the proverbial sand and I apologize for going there. It's simply the most pragmatic course of action. I'll leave them be and hope they do the same for me.

 

Really though, it's not about what makes an RP FC or not. I love Mippa's question and I think it truly will help many of us, myself included, evolve our opinions on roleplaying in general by thinking about it. The true matter is simply that many FCs on Gilgamesh are not roleplayers, some FCs on Gilgamesh are what we're loosely calling "Open World" RPers and then there are those who prefer their own story and keep to themselves, affectionately called "Closed World". Labels do what they do, define things for better or worse. I believe the best choice here is a personal one rather than a communal one. As an individual or even an FC, decide how you like your fun and just roll with it. If your fun includes stories from a Closed World group? Awesome. If you're down with the Open World FCs (Yeah, you know me.  ) and that makes you happy, good on ya. Keep it fun and keep it free.

 

Cheers!

 

-Black Hat

 

P.S. - I'll rep bump the first person who can identify the play on lyrics in my last paragraph. Let's see how old skool some of you are.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xGuGSDsDrM

 

(that song started playing in my head as soon as you did that rhyme)

 

(I really like the Open World versus Closed World way of identifying things. Not bad, just different. )