I’ve heard a lot about FF but I had no idea they had all this!
I was initially put off of it because it sounded like it had the same “chosen-one saves the world” storytelling thats put me off of WoW’s story, but if there’s really as much varied roleplay available as Kazimir, Serph and yourself say there is then I think its definitely worth checking out!
I’ll just immerse myself in the world instead of the main story, as I always like to do in my rp!
As someone who plays exclusively Alliance and is also an entirely different time zone from the realm itself (EST): Stormwind gets busiest closest to 9PM ST (and presumably later), and it’s usually around the Recluse, Lamb, and Lion’s Rest. Walk-up RP is still there, you just need to know the times and you need to be able to do the approaching yourself. If you sit around waiting for someone to approach, I’ve noticed you’re going to experience a serious lack in walk-up RP.
I haven’t joined a guild for RP since probably Warlords and minus a sort of hiatus from the game for about two years during BfA, I don’t think I’ve ever had a night where I haven’t found RP unless I… simply didn’t want to RP.
I think Shadowlands is really suffering because of how otherworldly it is. If you have a mercenary or a civilian character, what are you going to think about it? Civilians can’t say much, mercenaries usually prefer Azeroth for jobs and that’s not even mentioning how people don’t like the idea that we can just ‘come and go’ from the Shadowlands.
Most people just ignore it unless it’s brought up in some other way, as if the whole subject is taboo. And I sort of, at least from an IC perspective, can understand it. I mean, you have no idea what happens when you die and then suddenly you do. This is on top of the back-to-back near world-ending events.
It’s uh, probably pretty traumatizing.
It does. FFXIV is still a Final Fantasy game, so expect a Final Fantasy story.
That said, its really not hard to disassociate yourself from being the, ‘Warrior of Light,’ when it comes to RP. What’s better is that the writers do an amazing job with the characters and building them. It gets a LOT better come Heavensward, but Shadowbringers has been a really good expansion as well. The world also gets built very nicely.
I’d argue the transmog system (Glamours) is not up to what WoW has, but you can dye items, which is nice. Character customization also has unfortunate limitations, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding new hairstyles every patch.
New word today.
Me: Can you learn this power?
Yoshi-P: Not from Blizzard…
ffxiv has a nier raid series that you can do to dress your character up as 2b
do you need another selling point
whats lvl cap?
how many expansions are there?
whats pvp like?
…i can be an elf right?
Right now? 80.
Depends on how you look at it. ARR is technically FFXIV 2.0, but its more the base game since 1.0 was taken down completely.
So, not counting ARR you’ve got Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and soon Endwalker.
Horrible.
Yes, but instead of being a super model you’ll be a giraffe.
Fixed, thanks. My Lysdexia kicked in.
happens to da best of us, brother
Feels like I made a mistake making my FF character on Faerie if there’s a dedicated RP server lol
Two. Mateus and Balmung, though the entirety of Crystal functions relatively the same for it.
But Endwalker is bringing data center traveling, so its not a big deal.
I personally have not run into any issues finding RP. There are plenty of faction neutral events that take place monthly and even Horde related events happening weekly. My guild has RP events going on at least 2-3 times a week plus Discord rp happening all the time as well.
The bottom line is when it comes to finding yourself some RP it boils down to how much effort do you make in looking for events to participate in and how much effort do you, and your guild work on in creating a living community that encourages its members to roleplay whenever they feel like it and not just rely on guild leaders to offer events. This is what will produce solid RP that you can find without having to rely on just hanging out a single tavern in Orgrimmar all the time for your RP.
Hot take: there’s less of those than there used to be too haha
Is Final Fantasy worth it? I keep hearing all these good things but I’m just hesitant to make the leap. None of the races really pop out at me. The only Final Fantasy games I was ever invested in were 8 and 10. I like WoW’s RP scene and I’m not sure how I’d break into a new one.
I’m in the same boat depressingly enough haha. The game doesn’t jump out at me but so many people I know play there now that I’m honestly tempted.
For now I lurk in ESO. 
There are Year of the Scourge campaign events every Friday and/or Saturday since the beginning of January. Feel free to look us up and join in!
I’d recommend looking into regional lore for character inspiration rather than just the races themselves. The Elezen of Gridania are vastly different than those of ever-wartorn Ishgard, for instance.
https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/167534982764/mirkemenagerie-update
The link above has several lore compendiums. I’ll be frank, I didn’t enjoy ARR whatsoever, probably because I played it when it was current and the experience was soured for it (1.x was the worst MMO on the market, but I went into 2.x after being spoiled by The Secret World, which has the best story and setting of any game I’ve played). I mostly just RP, do housing, and some other casual activities.
FFXIV is seen so often in comparisons that I think people only really see it as “That other MMO” and forget the FF part of it. It is a mainline, numbered Final Fantasy game. The story is required and a major draw of it. The developers consider that the single biggest purpose of the game. On the one hand that does mean it starts incredibly slow and you’ll be locked behind a ton of gating until you finish the story. On the other hand, it also means the story and specifically your character are given tons of polish. You are in almost every cutscene. Everything is voice acted. The plot and characters you meet actually matter.
I see people complain about the races and art style a lot when coming from WoW and being hesitant. I can’t say much about that because it’s all personal preference. But, again, it’s very much a Final Fantasy game, and the more “realistic” style of art falls apart pretty quickly when you have Moogles and Chocobos and giant swords running around. The game is flat-out fantasy anime cranked to the tens, and it’s gorgeous at times. If you don’t like anime or JRPGs, it is definitely not WoW’s cartoonish aesthetic. But, if you’re open to it, you can download Reshade and adjust the style to your needs. Mine is super colorful compared to the base game.
In terms of RP, the way the story is handled is that it’s very easy to separate “Hey, this is Square’s story to tell so time to sit back and watch” from “Ok, I’m done watching their story I can now make my character whatever I want them to be.” There is a lot of leeway in how to build yourself when you’re taking a break from the mainline stuff. They’ve build more than enough of a world for you to bounce off of for ideas.
It’s also much, much easier to find RP imo. You can’t do as much when it comes to building a profile in-game because they don’t allow add-ons, so most people use a Carrd. But, the Party Finder system means lots of advertisements for venues, tons of stuff to very easily find on the fly, and the community has built a ton of resources to make it easier even beyond that. Also, housing.
me who pays 25$ to storyskip every alt: interesting!