[Suggestion] Paid Race Change Program.

[Daemon]

Personally when/If i play FFXIV, I'm still going to be a Female Mithra, Male Mith's be damned. Probably going to make it resemble Karby too. At this point, Karbuncle isn't really me, In my mind Karby is Karby, Kinda like how I don't picture Squall from FF8 as me, But as a Character, i see Karby as a Character now... So if i make that jump to FFXIV, Still going to be a Female Manthra.

My motto when it comes to FFXI/Mithra/FemChars, Always assume its a dude until proven otherwise, NOt because "NO WOMENZ ONLINE", but simply because its much safer to assume so... Less confusion, Less being ripped off, less everything.

Lol I can't wait to play 14 also! Not saying you are wrong for wanting to play a female character. If that's what you want, I've seen some guys play it because they like female names more than guys and to see a dude play a girl character better than a girl is also the same as seeing a chick play a dude character better than a guy.

I just think its awkward playing with a male or female the entire game only to see them switch over later.

Atleast starting out knowing the person as a man choosing to play as a female is easier to understand than a man switching over to a female after being use to hanging out and playing with them up til this point.

Last time I assumed someone was a guy, the girl was offended. So I never assume but ask from the start.

At anyrate I dunno if its going to be awesome or weird to login one day and a good portion of friends you know decides to change gender and race.

It's kinda like the moment SE allowed people to switch servers and those people you knew with certain names left and changed over only for you to find out those who took their place after seeing them or messaging those people with the same names were not the friends you knew anymore.

Edit: Last time I did something nice for a person I thought was a chick playing a female character assumed I was hitting on him. I didn't even know she was a dude...

[Karbuncle]

Generally the best advice is to try and keep it platonic/neutral? IDK. If they get offended (either being a man or women or whatever), They're probably either attention wh*ring or looking for some sympathy or making you feel bad so they can iurierfouefierewind: Attention whoring.

I learned most of this from games like Borderlands/Borderlands2/Diablo 2 where they have a heavily involved online mode, where classes are defined by characters and not customization, so if you wanted to be X Class you'd have to play as a Female character (I.e Mechromancer in BL2, or Sorcerer in D2).

I guess it just depends on what you've played over the years and how accustomed to such things you've grown. Personally if i logged in and half my friends changed races, I don't think it'd even remotely phase me, I'd just be like, whatevs, and move on, I love my char so I'll keep her, but other people don't feel that way, so as long as it was implemented right I think this would be nice.

But SE, Is kinda like Me and you here, They feel people should be attached to their characters so just swapping their junk on a wim cheapens it, unfortunately they aren't like me(maybe you too!) in the aspect of thinking that just cause I like X, doesn't mean the whole population should be forced into liking it too... So they're doing the whole "No cause we said so" routine, which honestly is probably "No cause our servers would commit suicide in trying to process this crap"

[Daemon]

Generally the best advice is to try and keep it platonic/neutral? IDK. If they get offended (either being a man or women or whatever), They're probably either attention wh*ring or looking for some sympathy or making you feel bad so they can iurierfouefierewind: Attention whoring.

I learned most of this from games like Borderlands/Borderlands2/Diablo 2 where they have a heavily involved online mode, where classes are defined by characters and not customization, so if you wanted to be X Class you'd have to play as a Female character (I.e Mechromancer in BL2, or Sorcerer in D2).

I guess it just depends on what you've played over the years and how accustomed to such things you've grown. Personally if i logged in and half my friends changed races, I don't think it'd even remotely phase me, I'd just be like, whatevs, and move on, I love my char so I'll keep her, but other people don't feel that way, so as long as it was implemented right I think this would be nice.

But SE, Is kinda like Me and you here, They feel people should be attached to their characters so just swapping their junk on a wim cheapens it, unfortunately they aren't like me(maybe you too!) in the aspect of thinking that just cause I like X, doesn't mean the whole population should be forced into liking it too... So they're doing the whole "No cause we said so" routine, which honestly is probably "No cause our servers would commit suicide in trying to process this crap"

Yeah totally agree with you lol

[FrankReynolds]

I actually didn't know that my character would have this name / race forever. I created it during the xbox 360 beta fully expecting the thing to be deleted when it went live. I had stock piled all sorts of items that were expensive on the live servers at the time and leveled whm, red, blm and thf to 30+ (I can't remember the exact levels), gotten an airship pass and set my hp in jeuno and leveled a few crafts into the 30s as well which was no small feat in that environment.

So when I found out that I could keep the character data, I of course kept it despite the fact that it had been named something silly by my drunk friend. Knowing now that this character would spend the bulk of it's time on red mage and black mage for the first several years, I would have loved to have been able to change to a taru and name it something awesome like "Mrkillface" instead of the random group of letters my friend picked which were intended to spell out "Mister F--- you man" but instead made so little sense that everyone just assume I was Chinese.

I finally caught a break when my server merged with Cerberus and I was able to create a character on Cerb ahead of the transfer with my same name which forced a name change on this character. Apparently you can also get your name changed if you can get people to complain to the GM that it is offensive. My friend was forced to change his from "Mexicant" (A name he earned by being super lazy at work and wore with pride) to the more socially acceptable(?) "sixmillionpesoman".


So in short, not everyone treats character creation like it was planning for their kids college fund. If I had to guess, I would expect that most people didn't / don't plan on playing the same character for 10 years. They just end up doing it because they are too invested in that character to quit or make a new one. And for us, it's worth a few bucks to change things up.

OFF TOPIC: When they shut down the servers, people had a big party at the auction houses in all the towns and counted down. It was actually kinda cool.

[Daemon]

OFF TOPIC: When they shut down the servers, people had a big party at the auction houses in all the towns and counted down. It was actually kinda cool.

Oh gawd you are so funny lol. That's why I like you. As for the other stuff yeah I agree which shows that you would be the type of person who would not abuse the system or do something stupid and say screw it after its been done.

That too was a funny story though lol. Made my day and earned you a +1 like.

[Mirage]

A lot of the things in this thread is completely realistic, but that's never stopped SE from ignoring things before, remember!

[Daemon]

Name change and hairstyle change are realistic & should be implemented. They would have to add a sticky to the forums here listing everyone who changed names with old/new names, so that you don't end up in a Ls with somebody who stole your KC or w/e and is going under a new name & you don't know its them.
Hairstyle changes is of course realistic and should be possible if you want to, say once per year. Face change is unrealistic, as is gender and race. What people don't appreciate is that in ffxi some of the core storylines involve marriage between NPCs and the whole storyline hinges on it. If it were a world where the bride could suddenly change gender and race or get a new head, that would make such plotline romances meaningless. Also re; FFxi has magic spells & teleports etc. and is therefor a fantasy and not like Earth, there are shamans in Mexico and the Amazon who for thousands of years have possesed magical powers, and mastery of 'dreams' to they extent they can fly in spirit. Whether or not you believe it is irrelevant, many people on Earth believe in magic and claim to have witnessed it. So FFxi and Earth are actually more alike than some might have it. But neither Earth nor FFxi have people that are born from magic spells, we are all born by natural process, and to suddenly change Vanadiel to a place where people overnight change their heads, bodies, race and gender, would rob the game of its realism.

I agree, before I chose blue hair color for my Taru. Then a good portion of the time I got sick of looking at it. At one point I even imagined my Taru was a grandpa and I was staring at a bald spot. =p

Speaking of Grandpa, in Japan elderly men dye their hair blue and elderly women dye their hair Purple. I found that out when I first went to Japan with blue extensions only for my Jp friends to laugh at me and call me granddaddy.

[Mostfowl]

Speaking of Grandpa, in Japan elderly men dye their hair blue and elderly women dye their hair Purple. I found that out when I first went to Japan with blue extensions only for my Jp friends to laugh at me and call me granddaddy.

Is that a cultural thing over there? Elderly ppl do that here as well but its due to the eyes loosing the ability to see colors as they once did so purple looks gray and true gray looks something else I don't remember. Which is why there are so many purple haired grannies they think they are dying their hair gray

[Daemon]

Is that a cultural thing over there? Elderly ppl do that here as well but its due to the eyes loosing the ability to see colors as they once did so purple looks gray and true gray looks something else I don't remember. Which is why there are so many purple haired grannies they think they are dying their hair gray

Honestly I'm not sure. I went to Japan in 1999. At the time girls were rockin these white long socks with School girl dresses and they all dye their hair whitish grey. I hung out with a music producer and his artist Mao Denda during the time who told me that Elderly woman and men dye their hair blue or purple.

[Camiie]

Name change and hairstyle change are realistic & should be implemented. They would have to add a sticky to the forums here listing everyone who changed names with old/new names, so that you don't end up in a Ls with somebody who stole your KC or w/e and is going under a new name & you don't know its them.

Said it before, but just because something can be abused doesn't mean it shouldn't exist for those who won't abuse it.

Hairstyle changes is of course realistic and should be possible if you want to, say once per year. Face change is unrealistic, as is gender and race.

I'll paraphrase the MST3k Mantra: "It's just a game, you should really just relax."

What people don't appreciate is that in ffxi some of the core storylines involve marriage between NPCs and the whole storyline hinges on it. If it were a world where the bride could suddenly change gender and race or get a new head, that would make such plotline romances meaningless.

We're adventurers. As such, we have crazy adventures that the vast majority of NPCs could only dream of. By our nature we encounter strange and ridiculous things that they never will. Much of Vana'diel understands this because they hear tales of our exploits and probably wouldn't be all that surprised if one day that wacky, heroic elf suddenly returned to town as a wacky, heroic mithra.

Even if that doesn't do it for you, the 3 nations seem to possess what can only be described as Retcon Magic. They explain it as "sealing your memories," but what is the real effect of that magic? Reality changes such that to the rest of the world you never completed any of the missions for that nation. Who is to say such magic could not be used to explain a change in one's identity? I don't mean that if we use one of these services that we get our missions reset, but reality itself could be altered such that, to the rest of the world, that wacky, heroic elf was always that wacky, heroic mithra.

Or, "It's just a game, you should really just relax."

Also re; FFxi has magic spells & teleports etc. and is therefor a fantasy and not like Earth, there are shamans in Mexico and the Amazon who for thousands of years have possesed magical powers, and mastery of 'dreams' to they extent they can fly in spirit. Whether or not you believe it is irrelevant, many people on Earth believe in magic and claim to have witnessed it. So FFxi and Earth are actually more alike than some might have it. But neither Earth nor FFxi have people that are born from magic spells, we are all born by natural process, and to suddenly change Vanadiel to a place where people overnight change their heads, bodies, race and gender, would rob the game of its realism.