Post by Alexander THE GIRL on Nov 4, 2008 1:16:38 GMT -5
Let me get one thing out of the way. Here is the map, and here is the job index. These links can be hard to find if you don’t remember where to look, so here they are.
Now then: to begin. On the advice of dear Setzer, I have taken it upon myself to create a list of rules we frequently get questions regarding. Let me start by listing all of the rules I can remember, and then if anyone still has something to ask they can feel free and I'll make to sure to answer as best I can. The rules are sorted by category for the purpose of answering any questions you might have.
1. Applications, Writing, and Etiquette.
2. The Job Index.
3. Other.
Applications.
1. One character per person unless given permission for a second character by a head administrator.
The primary reason for this is to avoid losing characters in chunks. It’s been the case that certain players apply and get involved in the game, but lose interest and stop playing. This can cause disruptions in the story. To minimize issues caused by a player leaving, we limit them to a single account. For the record, at this time there is only one Administrator: Aerith.
2. No godmoding or powerplaying.
This should be self-explanatory. Your character is no more powerful than they were in their game, and even then there’s a limit on very powerful characters like Kuja or Kefka who could raze entire planets at their peak. Your character cannot dodge every attack or land every hit, and cannot take an Ultima to the face and shrug it off unless they’re extremely powerful. Administrators will alter your posts if this becomes an issue.
3. Try to portray your character accurately.
For instance: Sephiroth is not a cuddly bunny and Squall is not a happy, bubbly guy. Think carefully when choosing your character. Main characters tend to be very developed, which means you’re going to be expected to act as much like them as you can. If you don’t think you can colour inside the lines, maybe you’d be better off with a less developed character.
4. Post.
This is a roleplay, and as such long periods of not being in character or taking part in the story line, regardless of whether you're logging in or not, will get you eventually kicked off. You will be contacted and asked to return before this step is taken, but we ask that you try not to let it get this far in the first place.
5. No teleporting long distances.
This RP is unusual in that the threads act as a map of the various places in the world. As such, there must be a logical progression when traveling around them. Unless you have a special power that allows you to teleport from one place to another, you cannot have your character disappear in one place and reappear in another. Please refer to the map when deciding to head somewhere.
For the record, all summons are assumed to have the ability to teleport long distances. This is how they travel to people who summon them. They cannot, however, teleport people with them.
6. No original characters.
Original characters are strictly forbidden. There's only one exception: Xenos, and he's been here much longer than you (or me, for that matter). He's our way to avoid a cliché rehashing of old villain’s plots, such as Sephiroth coming back from the dead to call Meteor again.
7. No Ultimecia.
For plot purposes, the one otherwise acceptable character who shall remain unplayable is Ultimecia. Ultimecia is not playable, nor may you play as possessed Adel (young or current), possessed Edea, or possessed Rinoa. Ultimecia’s absence from the story is one of its driving points.
8. VI-X only.
This RP accepts only characters and timelines from Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X. Characters from the first five games, excluding summons who happened to be in those games as well as the newer ones (ex: Shiva, Ifrit, or Bahamut), are prohibited. Characters and concepts born in Final Fantasy X-2 or any of the media which is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII are prohibited. Characters and concepts from Final Fantasy XI, XII, and XIII are prohibited. Characters from games outside of the Final Fantasy series are so very, very prohibited. Please do try to keep this rule in mind if your character is from FFX or FFVII.
The reason for this rule is that there are many people who do not have the time or money to play every Final Fantasy related game, so we’ve limited it to the five most popular games to avoid heavy confusion. Please do not take issue with this rule. We know the Compilation of FFVII is cool, but there’s just too much to remember from it all. We have enough people who haven’t played all of the included games as it is, we don’t need to go adding more.
9. You have story based equipment by default.
Each character starts off with equipment suitable to that character. They do not have equipment that they did not possess in the story, however. For example, Squall starts with the Revolver, not Lionheart, because Lionheart is not seen outside of battle while the Revolver is. Squall might pick up a Lionheart later, but not for starters. Tidus could start with the Brotherhood, though, even though it’s not his default weapon. This is because he acquires it in the story.
10. No over exclamation! Don't be excited about everything!
Self explanatory.
11. |)0|\|’7 74|_|< |_1|<3 7|-|15, nd don’t tak leik dis, k?
Use full sentences and keep your grammar and spelling at a good level. Of course, we won’t accept you to begin with if we don’t feel you’re up to par, but if we see your posts slipping to unacceptable levels you will be notified.
12. Please write in third person past tense.
When in character, actions are described (eg. Sabin raised the sword high over his head and yelled), and things your character says are in quotation marks “like a book”.
13. You control your character and only your character.
You do not control the actions of other characters. If you wish for the actions of other characters to be written in your post, and they have not performed these actions in their last post, then you must contact them regarding it. You may control minor NPC characters such as innkeepers or monsters, but none which are integral to the story, nor any which are currently under control by a mod.
The Job Index
1. Leveling Up and Selecting Abilities
Every ten posts you make are equal to one AP. You may spend one AP on one ability in the job class you chose when you created your character. You are expected to track these abilities in your character profile, and you may not exchange abilities you've learned for ones you haven't. Any abilities marked "Final Ability" can't be learned until after you've learned all of the other abilities for that class.
Also note that characters don't have abilities until you write that they do in your character profile. For the longest time Setzer had the most AP in the game, but actually had no abilities because he was too lazy to pick them. Eventually he hit Mime and just wrote "Mime" in his profile, but I wouldn't recommend this.
For all intents and purposes, there is no real "level up" system. We used to have one, but that was when we handed out AP in clusters every few months. Consider FFI's system much akin to that of Final Fantasy II's. Nobody levels up, they just slowly get stronger as they travel. Well, this time it's through learning abilities and not stat growth, though. There are no stats in FFI.
It goes without saying, but a character may not spam posts like mad to raise their AP count. If you have a something to say then that's fine, and the OOC section is for fun and all, but don't post for the sake of raising your post count. It breaks the spirit of the system.
2. Class Changing
Once you've gathered 12 AP, you move on to the next class in the line. The Monk goes on to become the Black Belt, and the Black Belt goes on to become the Ninja. Summons and Villains gain access to the Job Level 2 abilities upon buying 12 abilities, and Job Level 3 abilities upon buying 24 abilities. They do not change classes.
3. Class Mastering
Once you've finished a class line (Knight, Dragoon, and Dark Knight for example) you may start again on on another class line. This means at 360 posts you will have mastered your class line and may start at another.
For example, Vincent has completed the line of Thief/Gunner/Assassin. He's now chosen to move on to the Monk class line. He will retain all of his abilities from the Thief class line in addition to those of Monk that he's learned so far.
Once the Mime class is hit, there's really nowhere else to go from there. Getting to Mime takes a long, long time. Long. Setzer and I are the only two characters to ever reach Mime. Even our admin isn't a Mime.
4. External Magic Sources
Materia, Magicite, Para-magic, and all other external sources of magic can be gathered. Technically. However, these are for story purposes only and are reliant on a character's abilities. For example, let's say you want the materia Fire. That's all well and good if you're a Black Mage who's purchased the Fire spell, but all other classes will not be allowed access to it. Likewise, anyone wanting the Cure materia needs to already have purchased the spell Cure as an ability, which means they need to be a White Mage or they need to have been a White Mage at some point. The purpose of this is so that FFVII characters who do not innately know magic can still use it by finding materia. There is one exception to this rule, which will be covered in a moment.
Materia may be used by anyone from any world, but someone will need to teach them how to use it.
5. Summons
Class Guardians, when called, will usually appear as a shade: a phantom form of the actual summon. They will appear, attack, and then vanish as they do in most games. If the summon being called is currently a player (me, for example), that player may choose to appear in person in place of the shade. They may then stay and fight FFX style.
Summons being played by characters may be junctioned, FFVIII style, to greatly augment a character's abilities. However, only summons present as Guardian Forces in the FFVIII world would know how this process is accomplished. Thus, while Bahamut can junction, Ramuh can not. The character a GF has junctioned to will be enhanced with whatever powers that GF had in Final Fantasy VIII. The GF may then "hide" in that person's brain, and read their memories. Overuse of junctioning will result in long-term memory loss for that character. This character does not need to be from FFVIII, but will need junctioning explained to them if they don't know how to do it.
A summon is capable of creating and handing out materia used for summoning them. Shiva, for example, can hand out Shiva summon materia to those she trusts with it, and then that character will be able to summon Shiva as though she were a Class Guardian. This does not replace the Class Guardian for that character, it simply gives them another one.
A summon is not capable of creating magicite without killing themselves to do so. This is not recommended for obvious reasons.
6. The Nature of The World
With the shift in realms has come a shift in the nature of magic. Attacks that cover a wide area, such as a Grenade, the spell Ultima, or Bahamut's Mega Flare, are no longer selective in who they harm. This means that asking Kuja to cast Flare Star on those enemies three feet away is a bad, bad idea. This is to keep battles from being cheaply won by using flashy exploding moves on them, and to keep summons from being overpowered as players. Well, not players, but party members. They can use their big explosive attacks liberally if they don't mind hurting everyone in the area. These attacks still won't harm the user.
Also, for the purposes of practical application, Raise and all related spells are for waking unconscious people. You can't bring back the dead with them. The ability Steal Soul cannot raise the dead and merely inflicts zombie status on living targets, and the spell Zombie is not purchasable in the Job Grid. If you learned it through para-magic or your character innately knows a zombie ability, though, then you could theoretically raise the dead. I wouldn't recommend trying it.
Other.
1. Money and buying things.
You are assumed to have as much money as you need, and may buy anything at a shop while you are in town within reason. Do they sell the Ultima Weapon in Kalm? No. Could your character afford a hundred Mega Potions? They probably couldn’t unless they’re rich or they’re moderately paid and blowing their life savings. However, you’re free to buy thematically appropriate things in towns where those things are not technically sold. If you wanted to pick up a pistol in Midgar’s slums, you could probably buy one even though they’re not for sale there in the game. If they have arm mounted machineguns, they probably have pistols.
That’s all for now. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.
Now then: to begin. On the advice of dear Setzer, I have taken it upon myself to create a list of rules we frequently get questions regarding. Let me start by listing all of the rules I can remember, and then if anyone still has something to ask they can feel free and I'll make to sure to answer as best I can. The rules are sorted by category for the purpose of answering any questions you might have.
1. Applications, Writing, and Etiquette.
2. The Job Index.
3. Other.
Applications.
1. One character per person unless given permission for a second character by a head administrator.
The primary reason for this is to avoid losing characters in chunks. It’s been the case that certain players apply and get involved in the game, but lose interest and stop playing. This can cause disruptions in the story. To minimize issues caused by a player leaving, we limit them to a single account. For the record, at this time there is only one Administrator: Aerith.
2. No godmoding or powerplaying.
This should be self-explanatory. Your character is no more powerful than they were in their game, and even then there’s a limit on very powerful characters like Kuja or Kefka who could raze entire planets at their peak. Your character cannot dodge every attack or land every hit, and cannot take an Ultima to the face and shrug it off unless they’re extremely powerful. Administrators will alter your posts if this becomes an issue.
3. Try to portray your character accurately.
For instance: Sephiroth is not a cuddly bunny and Squall is not a happy, bubbly guy. Think carefully when choosing your character. Main characters tend to be very developed, which means you’re going to be expected to act as much like them as you can. If you don’t think you can colour inside the lines, maybe you’d be better off with a less developed character.
4. Post.
This is a roleplay, and as such long periods of not being in character or taking part in the story line, regardless of whether you're logging in or not, will get you eventually kicked off. You will be contacted and asked to return before this step is taken, but we ask that you try not to let it get this far in the first place.
5. No teleporting long distances.
This RP is unusual in that the threads act as a map of the various places in the world. As such, there must be a logical progression when traveling around them. Unless you have a special power that allows you to teleport from one place to another, you cannot have your character disappear in one place and reappear in another. Please refer to the map when deciding to head somewhere.
For the record, all summons are assumed to have the ability to teleport long distances. This is how they travel to people who summon them. They cannot, however, teleport people with them.
6. No original characters.
Original characters are strictly forbidden. There's only one exception: Xenos, and he's been here much longer than you (or me, for that matter). He's our way to avoid a cliché rehashing of old villain’s plots, such as Sephiroth coming back from the dead to call Meteor again.
7. No Ultimecia.
For plot purposes, the one otherwise acceptable character who shall remain unplayable is Ultimecia. Ultimecia is not playable, nor may you play as possessed Adel (young or current), possessed Edea, or possessed Rinoa. Ultimecia’s absence from the story is one of its driving points.
8. VI-X only.
This RP accepts only characters and timelines from Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X. Characters from the first five games, excluding summons who happened to be in those games as well as the newer ones (ex: Shiva, Ifrit, or Bahamut), are prohibited. Characters and concepts born in Final Fantasy X-2 or any of the media which is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII are prohibited. Characters and concepts from Final Fantasy XI, XII, and XIII are prohibited. Characters from games outside of the Final Fantasy series are so very, very prohibited. Please do try to keep this rule in mind if your character is from FFX or FFVII.
The reason for this rule is that there are many people who do not have the time or money to play every Final Fantasy related game, so we’ve limited it to the five most popular games to avoid heavy confusion. Please do not take issue with this rule. We know the Compilation of FFVII is cool, but there’s just too much to remember from it all. We have enough people who haven’t played all of the included games as it is, we don’t need to go adding more.
9. You have story based equipment by default.
Each character starts off with equipment suitable to that character. They do not have equipment that they did not possess in the story, however. For example, Squall starts with the Revolver, not Lionheart, because Lionheart is not seen outside of battle while the Revolver is. Squall might pick up a Lionheart later, but not for starters. Tidus could start with the Brotherhood, though, even though it’s not his default weapon. This is because he acquires it in the story.
10. No over exclamation! Don't be excited about everything!
Self explanatory.
11. |)0|\|’7 74|_|< |_1|<3 7|-|15, nd don’t tak leik dis, k?
Use full sentences and keep your grammar and spelling at a good level. Of course, we won’t accept you to begin with if we don’t feel you’re up to par, but if we see your posts slipping to unacceptable levels you will be notified.
12. Please write in third person past tense.
When in character, actions are described (eg. Sabin raised the sword high over his head and yelled), and things your character says are in quotation marks “like a book”.
13. You control your character and only your character.
You do not control the actions of other characters. If you wish for the actions of other characters to be written in your post, and they have not performed these actions in their last post, then you must contact them regarding it. You may control minor NPC characters such as innkeepers or monsters, but none which are integral to the story, nor any which are currently under control by a mod.
The Job Index
1. Leveling Up and Selecting Abilities
Every ten posts you make are equal to one AP. You may spend one AP on one ability in the job class you chose when you created your character. You are expected to track these abilities in your character profile, and you may not exchange abilities you've learned for ones you haven't. Any abilities marked "Final Ability" can't be learned until after you've learned all of the other abilities for that class.
Also note that characters don't have abilities until you write that they do in your character profile. For the longest time Setzer had the most AP in the game, but actually had no abilities because he was too lazy to pick them. Eventually he hit Mime and just wrote "Mime" in his profile, but I wouldn't recommend this.
For all intents and purposes, there is no real "level up" system. We used to have one, but that was when we handed out AP in clusters every few months. Consider FFI's system much akin to that of Final Fantasy II's. Nobody levels up, they just slowly get stronger as they travel. Well, this time it's through learning abilities and not stat growth, though. There are no stats in FFI.
It goes without saying, but a character may not spam posts like mad to raise their AP count. If you have a something to say then that's fine, and the OOC section is for fun and all, but don't post for the sake of raising your post count. It breaks the spirit of the system.
2. Class Changing
Once you've gathered 12 AP, you move on to the next class in the line. The Monk goes on to become the Black Belt, and the Black Belt goes on to become the Ninja. Summons and Villains gain access to the Job Level 2 abilities upon buying 12 abilities, and Job Level 3 abilities upon buying 24 abilities. They do not change classes.
3. Class Mastering
Once you've finished a class line (Knight, Dragoon, and Dark Knight for example) you may start again on on another class line. This means at 360 posts you will have mastered your class line and may start at another.
For example, Vincent has completed the line of Thief/Gunner/Assassin. He's now chosen to move on to the Monk class line. He will retain all of his abilities from the Thief class line in addition to those of Monk that he's learned so far.
Once the Mime class is hit, there's really nowhere else to go from there. Getting to Mime takes a long, long time. Long. Setzer and I are the only two characters to ever reach Mime. Even our admin isn't a Mime.
4. External Magic Sources
Materia, Magicite, Para-magic, and all other external sources of magic can be gathered. Technically. However, these are for story purposes only and are reliant on a character's abilities. For example, let's say you want the materia Fire. That's all well and good if you're a Black Mage who's purchased the Fire spell, but all other classes will not be allowed access to it. Likewise, anyone wanting the Cure materia needs to already have purchased the spell Cure as an ability, which means they need to be a White Mage or they need to have been a White Mage at some point. The purpose of this is so that FFVII characters who do not innately know magic can still use it by finding materia. There is one exception to this rule, which will be covered in a moment.
Materia may be used by anyone from any world, but someone will need to teach them how to use it.
5. Summons
Class Guardians, when called, will usually appear as a shade: a phantom form of the actual summon. They will appear, attack, and then vanish as they do in most games. If the summon being called is currently a player (me, for example), that player may choose to appear in person in place of the shade. They may then stay and fight FFX style.
Summons being played by characters may be junctioned, FFVIII style, to greatly augment a character's abilities. However, only summons present as Guardian Forces in the FFVIII world would know how this process is accomplished. Thus, while Bahamut can junction, Ramuh can not. The character a GF has junctioned to will be enhanced with whatever powers that GF had in Final Fantasy VIII. The GF may then "hide" in that person's brain, and read their memories. Overuse of junctioning will result in long-term memory loss for that character. This character does not need to be from FFVIII, but will need junctioning explained to them if they don't know how to do it.
A summon is capable of creating and handing out materia used for summoning them. Shiva, for example, can hand out Shiva summon materia to those she trusts with it, and then that character will be able to summon Shiva as though she were a Class Guardian. This does not replace the Class Guardian for that character, it simply gives them another one.
A summon is not capable of creating magicite without killing themselves to do so. This is not recommended for obvious reasons.
6. The Nature of The World
With the shift in realms has come a shift in the nature of magic. Attacks that cover a wide area, such as a Grenade, the spell Ultima, or Bahamut's Mega Flare, are no longer selective in who they harm. This means that asking Kuja to cast Flare Star on those enemies three feet away is a bad, bad idea. This is to keep battles from being cheaply won by using flashy exploding moves on them, and to keep summons from being overpowered as players. Well, not players, but party members. They can use their big explosive attacks liberally if they don't mind hurting everyone in the area. These attacks still won't harm the user.
Also, for the purposes of practical application, Raise and all related spells are for waking unconscious people. You can't bring back the dead with them. The ability Steal Soul cannot raise the dead and merely inflicts zombie status on living targets, and the spell Zombie is not purchasable in the Job Grid. If you learned it through para-magic or your character innately knows a zombie ability, though, then you could theoretically raise the dead. I wouldn't recommend trying it.
Other.
1. Money and buying things.
You are assumed to have as much money as you need, and may buy anything at a shop while you are in town within reason. Do they sell the Ultima Weapon in Kalm? No. Could your character afford a hundred Mega Potions? They probably couldn’t unless they’re rich or they’re moderately paid and blowing their life savings. However, you’re free to buy thematically appropriate things in towns where those things are not technically sold. If you wanted to pick up a pistol in Midgar’s slums, you could probably buy one even though they’re not for sale there in the game. If they have arm mounted machineguns, they probably have pistols.
That’s all for now. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.