So, how does everyone handle weather in RP?

[Sophia_Grave]

The thought came up when I passed by someone in the North Shroud in mid RP remarking that it was cold. I was confused at first, since when I think of the Shroud I didn't think 'cold', but then remembered that it is adjacent to Coerthas, which certainly IS cold. While I'm sure the ingame area is much smaller than the actual places they represent, it got me thinking on the weather and how bizarre it'd be for it to be so diverse in such a small region. Is Gridania colder than, say, Limsa? What about the South Shroud, since it is bordering Thanalan?

 

I admit, I rarely bring up the weather any more than remarking on how hot the desert is, but now that I think about it, I'd like to. Most of my characters travel frequently and I'd like to reflect that realistically in my RP. So, with that said, how does everyone else treat weather in their RP?

[Roswyn]

The thought came up when I passed by someone in the North Shroud in mid RP remarking that it was cold. I was confused at first, since when I think of the Shroud I didn't think 'cold', but then remembered that it is adjacent to Coerthas, which certainly IS cold. While I'm sure the ingame area is much smaller than the actual places they represent, it got me thinking on the weather and how bizarre it'd be for it to be so diverse in such a small region. Is Gridania colder than, say, Limsa? What about the South Shroud, since it is bordering Thanalan?

 

I admit, I rarely bring up the weather any more than remarking on how hot the desert is, but now that I think about it, I'd like to. Most of my characters travel frequently and I'd like to reflect that realistically in my RP. So, with that said, how does everyone else treat weather in their RP?

 

 

Sometimes I incorporate it, sometimes I ignore it. Depending on how high stakes the moment is or how important the subject matter the weather tends to go by the wayside.

 

Other, more casual times, it can be interesting to find a tree or cave to duck inside.

[Iex]

Mostly, I try to ignore that Drybone is wetter than the Shroud. Other than that... what Roswyn said.

[Sophia_Grave]

Lol. I swear, the name Drybone is supposed to be ironic or something. That place should be a lake by this point.

[crowmeleon]

I like to think of the chuck of Eorzea we see as a model representation of what it would realistically be. Ul'dah is supposed to be akin to a capitol city but there are shopping malls in murrica that rival it in size. I think it's safe to assume  the regions have been 'compacted' from what they would be in reality. But that's with any videogame.

 

I think the only thing to really take into account is that Coerthas wasn't always blanketed in ice and snow so it's hard to tell the exact climate of the Northern parts of Eorzea. Coerthas' natural climate could actually be way closer to the Shroud's than it seems, with all the permanently wintry landscape just an unnatural side-effect of the calamity. Likewise, we don't know how hot Ul'dah really is. Some desert communities deal with very cold temperatures at nightfall. So it could be farther from the equator than we'd think to assume. It does fall south of Costa del Sol, but for all we know Costa del Sol could be analogous to the beaches of Jersey in the summertime, rather than somewhere like Florida. 

 

All in all right now I kind of just assume Eorzea to take a range similar of Europe-Northern Africa, with its northern limit being a bit more ambiguous due to Coerthas climate being affected by unnatural forces.

 

Seasons wise I just keep in mind that even the most tropical places get cooler temperatures in winter. Not COLD, but cooler to the point walking around in a bikini would be uncomfortable during certain times of the day.

[FreelanceWizard]

I take the overall general climate into account in RP (Coerthas is cold, the Shroud is temperate, La Noscea is temperate to tropical, Thanalan is hot). How I handle local weather conditions varies on the scene; if the scene is something that's been going on for a while, I usually ignore them unless the other people in the scene bring them up, while if it's just random RP, I usually will make mention of major changes.

[Aya]

I usually take the weather at the start of an RP scene as canon.  Sometimes if it shifts, and it dramatically makes sense, or I am just in that silly mood, I will comment on it and play along with the change in weather

 

Of course it changes a little rapidly to otherwise be believable, and day/night are similarly hard to deal with over long scenes, but it has never seemed to cause a problem

 

Drybone is way too rainy, I agree!   The rain that falls there would flood all of Thanalan!

[Jazz Egi]

I will always DM the weather and time if possible to set things up. Other than that I always tend towards ignoring it.

 

As for geography, I have my own headcanon based on the zone. Southern Thanalan seems a lot hotter and arid than even Northern Thanalan. South Shroud seems noisome and humid while North Shroud seems almost alpine.

 

I doubt it will ever be a major issue!

[Jana]

I guess the OP is asking more about the climate of the areas than the in-game weather effects?

 

I actually base many of my RP outfits around the climate of wherever I'm going to RP, and I treat every zone differently. It'd be quite a bit of typing to cover eerything but I kind of play it by eye. I treat parts of La Noscea as quite mild (especially those that can get the Wind and Gale weathers) in comparison to the tropical climate of Eastern L.N.

 

I don't even believe that an entire in-game zone would feel the same; I treat southern South Shroud as mucky marshland, warm and humid, and apply some of this "humidity" to the parts of Eastern Thanalan that border it (they're even greener than the rest of that particular zone). But the northern part of South Shroud seems like a more temperate forest, and the area around Urth's Gift even seems cool (it being a large cave, rather than a different climate area). Parts of the North Shroud would be very cool; the MGQ that leads into Coerthas even mentions that the cold from Coerthas Central Highlands is spreading southwards. But it would again feel much more temperate to me west from Fallgourd Float.

 

This is largely just my opinions though. I wouldn't badmouth anyone who didn't really play the same way.

[Lyon]

Unless I was taking part in a specific event I don't pay too much mind to the weather or climate. If I was somewhere with extreme weather I may opt to wear something appropriate for the sake of immersion but generally I don't really think about it.

[Melodia]

I've used weather in rp. Once I did an rp with Ruru and his friend Suri and was a heartbreaking scene with the rains and lightning amplifying the mood well. Made a sad scene bring tears to my eyes and was factored into the actual rp.

[Coatleque]

I factor the in-game weather into RP only if it makes sense for the scene. Weather and time change so fast in-game it can switch at the worst times.

 

For time references, I tend to generalize based on whatever time zone I'm playing from.

[Marisa]

Weather is actually one of my biggest RP challenges, at the moment. As a WHM, trying to make a good looking set that's also suited for the bitter cold of Coerthas is practically impossible. It's the main reason I'm grinding frontlines so hard right now. I'm often tempted to say 'screw it' and claim that my faith in the almightly Halone keeps my midriff warm. 

 

Ryoko has always loved playing in the rain, though. Many a conversation has come to an abrupt halt when a storm rolled in and Ryoko suddenly ran outside and started jumping around.

[FreelanceWizard]

There's some stuff you can glamour to that looks good for a cold environment; personally, my WHM outfit glamour is dyed Cashmere Robe with tall boots and the current i80 Expert dungeon pants, which looks reasonably warm when you consider the use of magic to help with temperature extremes.

 

Of course, that only helps if you're 50...

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I factor the in-game weather into RP only if it makes sense for the scene.  Weather and time change so fast in-game it can switch at the worst times.

 

For time references, I tend to generalize based on whatever time zone I'm playing from.

 

I handle it about the same. If it's late IRL, it'll be late in-game, unless the scene demands something else.

 

Usually, weather is disregarded unless it pertains to the scene. (Although if Eleni still browses through the forums, I enjoyed we tried to use the rain in Gridania for a scene. Too bad Franz was too stubborn to run around like an idiot.)

[Eva]

Pertaining to the seasonal temperature changes, I tend to liken things to how they would be in the Northern Hemisphere (since I assume that's where the vast majority of RPers are anyway) and treat the RL winter months as being colder and the RL summer months as being hotter and spring blooms and autumn leaves falling as being a thing.

 

It's hard to talk about weather effects without talking about the strange advancement of time. I [and I think most other RPers] also ignore the day/night cycle as it happens in-game. Otherwise that long and meaningful talk a fellow RPer and I had beneath the stars didn't take place beneath stars, but over two "game days" and that's just a little more awkward. I generally treat the time as being what the time is in real life. I think most in our company have agreed upon things centering on the Eastern U.S. time zone, though we have members on Pacific time and EU time (mostly because it falls in the middle and isn't quite such a drastic extreme). Other companies whose member base falls more on a different time zone may well treat their events as occurring at that time. I haven't heard of any incident occurring [during crossover RP or such] where anyone got terribly upset about a misunderstanding pertaining to what time it was. I can see where there could be a misunderstanding, but it just has yet to happen in my own experience. "Aren't the stars beautiful tonight?" "What are you talking about, it's only the 15th bell and the sun is shining brightly..."

 

That bit of tangent aside, I tend to treat weather effects similarly. Normally, unless it's a long scene, I go with whatever the weather is like at the start. If there is a weather shift after that, I generally ignore it. The caveat to this policy is if someone else acknowledges a change in weather condition, such as if it starts raining. I will seldom do this myself, but I'll follow others' cues so long as it's not constantly changing or detracting heavily from whatever RP scene is taking place.

 

For events like our old bonfire storytellings, I would post a disclaimer in advance indicating that it was a clear and starry night, regardless of how weather effects may change, or if we arrived on the scene and it was pouring rain that should simply be ignored.

 

I've been puzzled by the amount of rain in Thanalan before as well. I tend to think that any desert climate will usually not see much in the way of rain, and when it does rain the parched landscape and wildlife absorbs it pretty quickly.

 

For Coerthas, I know a lot of folks who weren't around before ARR thing it's just always been bitter cold and snowy, but it was a more Alpine, mountainous region void of snow in 1.0. Eva lived there until she was 7 years old, and fondly recalls summers spent swimming in lakes (which may well now be frozen over) and other such summertime activities. I am very curious to see more of Coerthas though (particularly the northwest), and if all of it got hit with the same cold snap after the Calamity or if it was just the central region.

 

This all being said, I would assume that in the fall months there are fallen leaves crunching underfoot in parts of the Twelveswood, and in winter months in most of Eorzea (probably not Thanalan) I would imagine there would be snow, even though it's not depicted visually. I wouldn't be averse to RPers suggesting this, though I'm not sure I'd want it forced upon me without some sort of an understanding in place first.

 

It's a good question though and provokes a lot of thought.

[Marisa]

There's some stuff you can glamour to that looks good for a cold environment; personally, my WHM outfit glamour is dyed Cashmere Robe with tall boots and the current i80 Expert dungeon pants, which looks reasonably warm when you consider the use of magic to help with temperature extremes.

 

Of course, that only helps if you're 50...

 

I'm going to be using that Direwolf healing robe (the one that looks exactly like Cashmere) pretty soon, but I'm trying and failing to make an Ishgardian combat medic. Hopefully SE will stop being nerds in the near future, but right now WHM only have access to one set of armored chest/legs, which is the Light Steel set (which I've been using the chest from, but it looks so cold...). 

 

It's really not fair, either. Like 90% of the DoM armor has no class restriction, but almost every last piece of DoW armor is class-specific. My theory is that either SE hates mages, or someone on the team is such a hardcore mage-purist that he refuses to ever let us wear anything other than a robe and wizard hat.

[Flickering Ember]

I've been wondering about this a lot, particularly in the form of seasons as the months IRL are starting to get colder.

 

My perspective is that Eorzea does not rest along the equator. Although, Thanalan is rather south-ish but it's hard to say where the equator is when we don't have a map of the rest of the world or really of any other place besides Eorzea. I'd really like to know for the sake of my own RP if it gets cold in Thanalan at night or during the winter months. 

 

The Shroud I assume is temperate so it probably gets cold. La Noscea is probably hot in the summer but mild during the winter. 

 

 

There seem to be a lot more places up north so at this point I'm leaning towards Thanalan being mostly warm/hot since Eorzea is probably comparatively south.

 

Coerthas is locked into permanent-winter but it is in a mountain range which means the mountainous areas do probably experience harsher winters in general.

[FreelanceWizard]

I hadn't even thought about the changing of the seasons. To be honest, it's not really come up in RP for me yet, even though the seasonal event descriptions usually mention the seasons and, of course, seasonal events imply seasons.

[Bumo]

I RP with whatever the current weather is, including sudden shifts. Unpredictable weather can be fun; I remember two beachside gatherings I've been part of that were 'spoiled' by sudden heavy rains, forcing everyone to take shelter.

 

Mostly, I try to ignore that Drybone is wetter than the Shroud.

Blame the calamity.

[Ciel]

I handle it pretty much the same way I do IRL.  If I'm in Thanalan, it's probably hot during the day, so clothing is kept light and loose.  If I go to Coerthas, I have a glacial coat and boots to wear.

 

And then I usually ICly get blamed for the intrusion of rain at outdoor FC events, or when it stops raining.  There's a running joke amongst my FC-mates that I somehow have power over the weather.