What are you quirks and weird points-of-view as an MMO player?
Mine is that I never play what I consider to be 'evil' races or classes. No matter how good the race/class may appear to be, I will never play them. No Necromancers, Shadow Priests, Warlocks, Deathknights and such. My role playing origins are with D&D and it has pretty much conditioned me to see races and classes in a binary way...to an abnormal fault.
I have also never played 'warrior' type classes except the Paladin. I can't give any real explanation for why, I just don't. I have never played a thief/rogue or classes resembling them either.
That means that the Skar, Ogres, Dire Lords and such will not be played by me. Coincidently, I absolutely LOVE that there are Skar/Ogre etc. lovers and folks who will enjoy them though. Pantheon, with it's non alignment system has made it hard for me. Dark Myr are new and their story does not lend itself to just being 'evil' so I'm faced with a conundrum...especailly since I like the lore and want to have an alt character dedicated to adventuring underwater. Upon first look on the website, I immediately tried to pigeonhole them as being Dark Elves, but couldn't.
I also try to never to attack non-aggressive animals. Like the cat that walks around in a city or the squirrel that runs up a tree. I guess you can call them 'background' npcs. I'm not an animal lover, but somehow feel it's 'wrong' to intentionally kill them. If they die in AOE damage it's not a big deal. The two exceptions are rats and cockroaches. I will fireball them in a second...lol
Even after completing a quest, if it involves helping wounded npcs or rescuing them from a cage or something I will spend time helping them even if the quest is over and I get no exp or other rewards.
I've exposed enough of my peculiarities for now.
What say you?
I do many of the things you do - including avoiding evil races and classes under almost all circumstances.
I also avoid unusually large races - blocks too much of the view. And tiny races - camera angle often hurts my neck.
I focus on dps classes - as I get older (and I haven't found any good alternatives to this yet) I get slower and vision and hearing gets worse. A dps on average will do less harm to a group if a bit too slow or unable to hear things that are said. Outside of FFXIV it is often sufficient to see what enemy the tank attacks or what enemy is attacking the healer despite the tank's efforts and attack that enemy.
Dikenzu said:I've exposed enough of my peculiarities for now.
What say you?
Quite the opposite of me. I always start with 'evil' races because, in my experience, they have a much more difficult path to walk throughout the game what with all the faction issues, etc. To see a high level evil race/class is more impressive than seeing a goody-goody race/class. The benefit to having bad faction at the start is you realize faction means squat. Kill everything, everywhere and take its loot and dont' worry about faction. It allows for greater freedom and flexibility, in my opinion, when you just ignore faction. If the game is good enough, I'll eventually play nearly every class, always starting with a Shaman.
Saving my place in line here. I need to ponder...
Okay, I am reminded of SWtoR and how distasteful the main jedi quest line was. I felt that other choices would have best served the cause and being locked out of those was grating. On the other hand, reducing the mustache-twirling villainy of the bad guys with light side choices sprinkled here and there was more enjoyable.
Albeit just one example, I remain nonplussed in taking on the baddies and steering them into the wind, all things being equal.
What are you quirks and weird points-of-view as an MMO player?
I almost always choose nature loving classes. Ranger/druid. The funny thing is that in my ideal world a nature loving class wouldn't go around killing animals so when I first started an EQ wood elf ranger my number one rule was that I'd never kill an animal lol. Boy, I had NO idea what kind of challenge I was setting myself up for, let's just say it didn't last long!
One that's less "role play"-ish is that I almost always tend toward the underdrog class/spec/build. Whenever someone claims "that's the wrong way" or "you can't do it with that spec" or things of that nature I am only more encouraged to do it that way. I enjoy the challenge but what it really comes down to for me is creativity in problem solving. A game just isn't as fun for me when I copy someone elses idea on how to accomplish something.
I greatly prefer support, especially healing and cc, and am perfectly content with a build that doesn't do damage so long as I'm fulfilling my role well. Partly, I think this stems from my preference for novelty; when everyone else is doing X, I want to be doing Y.
I have no interest in FOTM builds. I enjoy using unconventional tactics and using abilities in unexpected ways, especially when it achieves something no one thought possible.
I enjoy whimsical RP and banter and, in games where it fits, enjoy deadpan RPing a joke/ pun character.
If Leslie Nielsen played Deckard Cain you would have all that I aspire to in RP for my mages.
My pallies though are usually more Judge Dredd. "The Law" is whatever I can find on the religion.
Most RP is based on the other PCs actions.
"We must find a cure for Groupmembers curse."
"What curse?"
"It's worse than I thought, they don't even realize they are hopping uncontrollably"
edit: though
As a former DnD newb, and "lite" RP'er, I find it natural to use the cultural conventions or characteristic customs of the race I am exposed to through newbie quests in starting city to dictate how I should behave to other players. How the NPC's interact with me and exchange tidbits of lore and history help me determine how I should behave in the role/class I have chosen to everyone else. So like, an NPC says: Make bread!. and I come back and hand in bread and the NPC then completes quest and then says: "So you have received knowledge, so you must offer knowledge in return" I'll internalize that in the character to mean, if I receive anything from any player- even if they intend it for free- I will chase them down and make an attempt to offer something in return even if what I have is not much but what I consider of value. Likewise, if I go to another racial city and try to ingratiate myself with the local citizens, I will make awkward attempts to behave within those mores with players of that race/culture instead of being myself.
*ahem* "what ho, yon citizen. You...get down with your bad self" *gesticulates a hand symbol while smiling perfectly*
While in single player games I definitely go for the good route (unless the game is good enough for me to replay it and check out how the evil one looks and feels like) that is not the case in MMOs where my primary focus is the classes/abilities availability and secondary the aesthetics of the character and in that regard evil races tend to win.
Out of all the roles I dislike playing as tank the most and the times I actually did probably could be counted on fingers of one hand - saying that in Pantheon I may give them a shot - especially Ogre DL looks appealing to me.
My MMO personal code of character creation:
#1: This one is the easiest to keep. If there are non-humans available, don't play a human. Ever.
#2: Play the largest or the smallest race. Never be average.
#3: If I'm torn between tallest and shortest, always go with the least played race.
#4: If I'm going to create one of each (tallest and shortest), always make the tallest bulkiest one the healer and the smallest one the tank.
#5: Beards whenever possible. Even if it means having all of my character slots with bearded characters.
#6: If I'm undecided on which tank or heal class to play, pick the least played one that can still perform their job. (there are some broken classes sometimes)