HI!

I'm new to the game, and I'm trying to decide on a main character. I really want a dark knight. I love the story I've read of them so far, and I tank in MMOs pretty much exclusively. Can anyone recommend:

1. A server.

2. A race.

Thanks!

Race has almost no effect on the game, its almost purely cosmetic. Play with the character generator until you find one you like the look of and play that.

Servers have very few differences. All group content is done through the duty finder which matches you with everyone on your datacenter, not just your server; the differences are largely in how big the crafting and roleplaying communities are.

What kinds of things are you looking for in a server?

I like to raid, do dungeons, and roleplay! Any suggestions based on that?

We'd need to know whether you intend to play on US/EU/JP data centres before we recommend a world.

Alien_Gamer is totally right by the way- race is almost completely insignificant. Go with whatever you like the look of. You should get a Fantasia (used to completely remake your character) during the MSQ if you change your mind. A tiny bit of advice though- when you make the character, spend 10 minutes or so running around so you can see it in different lighting. If you're anything like me you'll find a small fault you have to correct.

Regarding the tanks; Dark Knight isn't in the best spot and you can't unlock it until you complete the main game (it unlocks in the first expansion), so you'd have to play Warrior or Paladin to reach that point if you're determined to stick to tanks. There's no limitation on classes per character anyway so feel free to play around with everything until you find what clicks with you.

Enjoy Eorzea!

Dungeons won't be affected at all by your server choice. Raiding can be handled slightly differently depending on your server. With cross world party finders, linkshells, and statics you can participate in Raids easily; the main thing your server can affect is if you want to get into a Raiding FC for the sharing of buffs and items but raiding FCs aren't even close to being mandatory to raid.

Each datacenter has a couple servers that most RPers congregate on but most servers have an RP community. I think Balmung and Mateus are the two big ones for NA but Balmung is currently closed to new characters.

I'm on NA.

Also, is DRK still viable for group content? Or is it just broken?

Welcome to Eorzea! :D

Any class/Job is 'viable' for group content, regardless of what the 'meta' may have you believe. It's just DRK is more complicated than the other tank classes/Jobs (GLA/PLD is a perfect novice tank that is simple to play as and master, while MRD/WAR is the 'meta' tank that has a slightly more complex mechanic to it but deals lots of damage while being able to heal itself. DRK has it's own mechanics that may be more daunting to a new player, but I must say their level 30-50 Job quest storyline is my favourite Job quest arc in the entire game, but I won't spoil anything more.) ;)

By the time you're able to unlock DRK when you reach Ishgard upon starting the Heavensward story, you should have a firm grasp of tanking in general to try out DRK yourself and if you find you enjoy it, go for it! Play a Job you want to play as, a tank will always find a party regardless if you're a DRK or another class/Job. :)

Welcome!

My advice is to not worry about what other people think are viable classes and play one you not only enjoy but are comfortable with. Knowing how to get the most out of your tool kit is essential with any class and you are more likely to do that if you love the class.

I'm pretty confident I've decided on a character (not the one it's showing) but I still dunno what server would be best. Is there an RP server that all the roleplayers flock to?

Hi and good luck with your chosen character and Class. I'm recently back into the game and went for PLD. Love it so far, very close to hitting my first 50! I've still got a long way to go though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheArchivis95

I'm pretty confident I've decided on a character (not the one it's showing) but I still dunno what server would be best. Is there an RP server that all the roleplayers flock to?

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I think it might be worth checking out the world sections of a forums and gauging server activity based on the forum activity. Of course there's other sources like Reddit that may be useful. Otherwise, just pick on you like the sound of and go for it! I'm sure you'll meet like minded players which ever you choose :)

Wow, most server forums are incredibly inactive. I had trouble finding even one with a post from this month. That's a little discouraging lol

A Google search for ff14 rp servers will give you some guidance.

All I can really find from that is that there was an RP server as of about a year ago, but it's since been locked indefinitely. Which sucks. Can't figure out if people started RPing somewhere else though.

My thoughts for you at the moment is not to worry too much about finding a specific rp server but just pick a server and jump straight into the game. There's so much to do and such a massive journey to undertake that you will most definitely find like minded individuals along the way.

I found my current Free Company in the forums and they're a very active bunch, but that's EU. There's a few active Free Company threads so it sucks the NA forums are quiet!

I feel like the forums have to be a little misleading as to activity levels in the game. There are few threads from within a week. I just don't want to get stuck on a dead server, and it's hard to gauge how large a population is.

While Balmung was the default RP server it's now locked. Mateus is where most RP'ers go these days. Other more populated NA worlds are Gilgamesh, Excalibur, Behemoth, Leviathan, Hyperion.

I think I'm gonna start on Jenova and hope I find some RP there. I can level up faster and transfer to Mateus if I really can't find any friends. I doubt it'll come to that though.

As has been mentioned traditionally Balmung is the RP server for the game, but that resulted in it's population exploding (to the point it is now the most populated server in the game, at the very least the most populated NA server). Although from I understand Balmung was only locked to new characters, that it would still allow transfers there as long as the current amount of logins was low, comparatively speaking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheArchivis95

I feel like the forums have to be a little misleading as to activity levels in the game. There are few threads from within a week. I just don't want to get stuck on a dead server, and it's hard to gauge how large a population is.

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I think lots of players just don't use the forums (either they don't know it's there or forgot about it completely). I play several hours almost daily but only check the forums once every few months.

I'm on Mateus, and there are almost-a-ton of FCs with "##-RP" as their 'tag'. So I'd say if things don't work out on your server of choice, move on over to Mat. for rp good-times. :cool: