nowadays it's pretty much up to you! dc travel and server travel are a thing now so you have no restrictions on being able to play with your friends. if you want to join a free company/guild right off the bat that's one thing, but you don't have to

the one thing i'll say right now is that for north america, the dynamis data center is kind of dead. so you may struggle to complete instanced duties

whereas aether and primal have a lot of people on them

I'm on Crystal, which is where a lot of RP folks tend to gather o/

specifically Brynhildr, though that one is very full and may be tough to create a character in

i have two characters, both on aether, one on cactuar and one on faerie

worth noting that you'll get bonuses for making a character on Dynamis, since it's new and underpopulated

ultimately it depends on who you want to play with, my main is on brynhildr for example but it's not super difficult to move around on servers- but you can't join an FC (guild) on any server but your own

so if any community you follow has an FC on a specific server, it's not a bad idea to start there. I'm in an FC for SSS (secret sleepover society)

it used to be a lot more restrictive

but they've worked hard to add in the ability to move server and data centers

Watching some absolute legends somehow play Final Countdown on their respective instruments??

AH YES, THE FFXIV LIVE BAND CULTURE

oh yeah you'll run into performances a lot

generally when you see a group of player characters busting out a perfectly synchronized performance, they're using some kind of third-party tools to manage that

which, STRICTLY speaking, is against TOS, but like

it's one of the best things about hub areas

so nobody's gonna narc on em.

(I dunno what the culture around mods and third party tools is like in other countries, but on the US side for sure the general player culture is just fuckin be cool, guys)

(don't stream with visible mods on the screen, that sort of thing. they will enforce TOS against you if they are forced to perceive a violation, but any mods that don't outright constitute cheating are like. not a high priority for them to go looking for.)

yeah don't talk about 'em in-game, and be cool about them outside of game. it's one of those things where technically not allowed but they don't actually care unless it is cheating or causes social issues (like telling people they need to use x or y mod to be good)

or using the mod to point out perceived skill- not something that has as big of an issue as many other mmos, thanks to this

I'm on Crystal Coeurl and I'm pretty sure it's very full right now, also because RPers

I did end up on Crystal B.

sweet!

I'm happy to travel to see you and help out with stuff

Couldn't name my catboy Whiskey Sour, so Sunshine Sour had to do. Purple hair and a little star on his cheek.

:3

I decided to try for a DPS class. Never done magic user before, so! Thaumaturgy.

nice

excellent choice!

luckily it'll open up and you'll be able to try other classes pretty quickly

CATBOY FIVE