Talathar, you're absolutely right when you say everyone has their own way of adding to the community. The only way to have any sense of one is to have that sort of multitude. I'm not sure where the part about character level or inexperience was from, but I can fully agree on differing viewpoints being an essential part of the process.
So let me share with you all another rp experience I've had. One that I, perhaps unfairly, try to hold all of my rp standards to.
In another MMO I've played, there was a city of where every person you would see was a roleplayer. From just that, all kinds of interesting bits of roleplay were created. Their was a 'police' force of knights who would patrol the streets, a newspaper of the city's weekly happenings (incredibly run by three people), Taverns and restaurants that offered both IC and OOC services for in-game food, an academy for training mages and even a sort of religious organization that would provide sermons and medical services and a council of all of the major organizations to keep dialogue open.
Even if a person wasn't apart of any of these organization, they could still be a part of your character. If you were in trouble, you could report it to the Knight's Headquarters or if you wanted to know what was happening in the world, you could find someone distributing papers or switch on the IC radio news broadcast.
There was a complex criminal underworld because we had law enforcement. We had a newspaper because there was constant roleplay worth reporting on. Big events were fun like you said, Talathar, but every day was made up of small ones. Hard work went into all of these efforts, and as a mass of roleplayers, there were certain struggles, but there really was a living community.
The key is in self-sustainability. It was difficult to organize the types of trials and trainings of the Knights (An example I refer to because I was involved and know it's structure well), but once it was in place, the organization ran itself. It gave player's within the organization direction while giving player's outside a service (or an enemy for all of those villainous types, but that was just all roleplay).
FFXIV is a different game and some of the factors that went into the examples above wouldn't apply, but that doesn't mean we can't hold our roleplay in a higher regard than the common interactions or occasional one-time events we know.
I don't need to play on Balmung to know that they have at least some of these types of events. I love our server, but I want more for it. If this isn't the type of experience people want, than I'll stop trying to encourage it. Otherwise, it only takes a few small and dedicated groups to get this sort of thing off the ground.
So let me share with you all another rp experience I've had. One that I, perhaps unfairly, try to hold all of my rp standards to.
In another MMO I've played, there was a city of where every person you would see was a roleplayer. From just that, all kinds of interesting bits of roleplay were created. Their was a 'police' force of knights who would patrol the streets, a newspaper of the city's weekly happenings (incredibly run by three people), Taverns and restaurants that offered both IC and OOC services for in-game food, an academy for training mages and even a sort of religious organization that would provide sermons and medical services and a council of all of the major organizations to keep dialogue open.
Even if a person wasn't apart of any of these organization, they could still be a part of your character. If you were in trouble, you could report it to the Knight's Headquarters or if you wanted to know what was happening in the world, you could find someone distributing papers or switch on the IC radio news broadcast.
There was a complex criminal underworld because we had law enforcement. We had a newspaper because there was constant roleplay worth reporting on. Big events were fun like you said, Talathar, but every day was made up of small ones. Hard work went into all of these efforts, and as a mass of roleplayers, there were certain struggles, but there really was a living community.
The key is in self-sustainability. It was difficult to organize the types of trials and trainings of the Knights (An example I refer to because I was involved and know it's structure well), but once it was in place, the organization ran itself. It gave player's within the organization direction while giving player's outside a service (or an enemy for all of those villainous types, but that was just all roleplay).
FFXIV is a different game and some of the factors that went into the examples above wouldn't apply, but that doesn't mean we can't hold our roleplay in a higher regard than the common interactions or occasional one-time events we know.
I don't need to play on Balmung to know that they have at least some of these types of events. I love our server, but I want more for it. If this isn't the type of experience people want, than I'll stop trying to encourage it. Otherwise, it only takes a few small and dedicated groups to get this sort of thing off the ground.
