Viva Eorzea Linkshell/Company FC/LS Leading Philosophy [ARR Edition]

Terms you might want to care about before reading:

Legacy Server - Players that transferred from the first version of Final Fantasy XIV. The server we're on (Hyperion) is a mix of Legacy players and new players who are trying the game for the first time.

Linkshell/Free Company - Our "guild", so to say. We formed in 2010 and we're called Viva Eorzea.

[Version] 1.0 - The original version of Final Fantasy XIV.

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So it's just been a little over two weeks since "A Realm Reborn" was released, and it happened that the server we transferred to (Hyperion) became one of the most crowded servers in all of FFXIV. No one in our original group nor myself foresaw this coming. At least, I assumed that because it was a Legacy server (server filled with characters carried over with the original 2010 release), that we would kind of be sequestered away from new players with all of the "ugly Version 1.0 players". However, that was not the case. Hyperion got a lot of new players who either joined to play with their friends who played 1.0 or joined Hyperion because they didn't care whether or not they joined an old server or not as long as they got to play the game at all.

My philosophy for leading Viva Eorzea kind of mirrored this. As we started as a giant group in Version 1.0, a vast majority of the linkshell quit due to the dissatisfaction of Version 1.0. What started as a large 120+ LS with four leaders quickly shrank to a 30-40 man linkshell with just me. The remaining members and myself kind of had a small group going to which we did events like hard primal battles and the storyline. I had a feeling that the launch of "A Realm Reborn" that the current members had a few friends each that would join the game and we would keep the team fairly small.

Those plans went upside-down fairly quickly.

The free company/linkshell exploded almost back to its original 120+ member size with friends wanting to invite friends wanting to invite friends and it got way out of hand to the point to where a lot of the officers and myself didn't know who a lot of these new people were.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind new people in the linkshell/free company, but it was getting to the point where no rules were set in motion to who could be invited and everyone was just asking the fellow Officers for invites to the free company to be a part of Viva Eorzea. It became essentially shout recruiting without actually shout recruiting. 

Shout recruiting is when someone [typically a recruiter or leader of the free company/linkshell] will shout in town looking for prospective members to join. Typically used while finding new members for your group. I despise it. Though I am guilty of doing it for my linkshell in Final Fantasy XI years ago, I feel that in XIV, I have enough friends that we formed our own without having to rely on that to keep Viva Eorzea with a healthy guild population. 

However, since our roster has grown to the size that it has, and as of this post we have 109 members. I feel like I have a responsibility to get 108 others to the point where we can do content, and it's admittedly a bit unrealistic. Most of the new content is either 4 or 8 man. Even  with our most dedicated members, we simply can't fill the demand of the FC's needs. Though, I also don't believe in booting people out just for the sake of booting people out. It's definitely a complicated conundrum, especially if I aim to also improve my own character and not spend all of my time on game helping people. (But don't get me wrong, I love helping people.)

So for those who are sticking around in the free company/linkshell and to the new people who I haven't really been acquainted with just yet, I set a road-map to those who would want to consider Viva Eorzea their full home.

You can read it below or at this link.

This was the message posted for the linkshell/free company posted in its entirety. 

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Hey all, I'd like to give a brief rundown for the future of the linkshell/free company. Please read over if you plan on sticking around with Viva Eorzea for the long term. I apologize for the long read, but I want to make sure this is "crystal clear"? (Get it? Because it's a Final Fantasy game... never mind.)

---Viva Eorzea's Purpose:---

We're a free company/linkshell that is focused on having a core team of friends from real life, other MMOs, work etc, that come together and clear content at our own pace. My ideal vision for the FC is to be able to do dungeons one moment with relics, and another moment help out a friend of an FC member who is just starting out the game and is doing Satasha for the very first time.

We're not a world-first rush fest, and we're not an endgame group, we're a group of awesome people that goes at our own pace and welcomes friends of any level.

---Event Scheduling:---

Long Term Goal: Getting together a good team to be able to accomplish anything in the game.

At least until the first patch, there are steps in how I'm scheduling events.

Goal 1: Getting to the end of the story. Most of the first couple of weeks are meant to help people get to the end boss and help people clear the story. I am not one to rush people, as an avid player of single-player RPGs, I believe you can't rush through the story, and I gave a large window for people to be able to level up and get 50 without being left out of our events.

Goal 2: Getting members geared up to be able to tackle the events. Starting Sept 16. and going until October 1st: We are going to get Vivaers geared up with the jobs of their choosing. The hard mode primal fights and relic fights unlocked by completing the main scenario require good gear and coordination in order to complete content. AF gear is a nice start to level 50, but it's not going to cut it. That's simply how the game is designed. That means I am going to be scheduling events meant to get people geared up and get those Allagan tomestones to be able to get Darklight and level 50+ raiding gear ready for the new content. Our events during this period will be centered around getting people Amadyor Keep access, Amadyor Keep, Wanderer's Palace, and hard mode primals.

Goal 3: (Kinda overlaps with Goal 2, but this will be starting on October 1st): We will begin scheduling relic quest tasks into our Linkshell after this point. If you need Chimera or anything, FC members will be happy to help you out, but after Oct 1st is when I will be leading the charge and getting a lot of members up in their relic quests.

Goal 4: (Fall - To be determined) - The final goal will be to have our established group of players to be able to work towards completing the Grand Coil of Bahamut and the slightly easier Crystal Tower that comes out next month. I personally don't like Duty Finder pickups and I'd like to be able to use the FC to complete this content, but by this time we should be able to learn the playstyles of our new folks who joined us in ARR and have a mesh team of old and new Eorzeans alike.

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So, that's our Viva Eorzea goals. My personal philosophy for this MMO is to be able to complete everything the game has to offer at least once without having to join a dedicated hardcore FC. The attitude of hardcore people goes against my personal philosophies, and I believe we're here to play a game and have fun. Yes, sometimes I do get frustrated, but it takes a lot more than that for me to give up completely, just takes time to cool off and try again the next day.

 

-Grover Eyeveen, Viva Eorzea Linkshell/Company Leader, Hyperion Server

 

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