Thing is, you can kind of hop from shell to shell. In 1.0 with linkshells it was possible to have up to 8 at once, and folks could be talking on all 8 concurrently (which made it tricky sometimes but clever use of filters made things easier to manage).
Most RP communities that I've read about don't seem to have any problem with their members belonging to multiple linkshells. Different LS's may peak at different times based on time zones and such, so it makes sense OOCly, and it can make sense ICly as well. There's a lot of great possibilities for RP, and the IC stress that a character may feel from spreading him-or-herself too thinly across many groups. Or a character that is a member of multiple groups may help serve as a bridge and some cross-LS events may spurn from that. Lots of possiblities for good RP stem from this sort of arrangement.
I personally hope that the requirements to "level up" a Free Company are not so taxing as to be an imposition to those who prefer to RP more.
Endgame RP can, and has happened. We did this a fair bit in FFXI. Often the in-game story may serve as some sort of parallel and there may be some lead-up RP to a particular battle. The fights were most often conducted OOC with the focus being on winning the fight and then some sort of follow-up RP would happen afterwards. Every group that RP's will handle things like this a bit differently though. But I can see it being too difficult to actually RP while in the midst of a battle. I'd rather my tank be focusing on keeping hate than worrying about answering some IC question, for instance.
Once the structure of Free Companies is better understood, and what the benefits and costs of being involved in one, I think it will be much clearer for most to make that distinction. That whole "can only be a member of one" caveat makes this kind of an important decision for people.
Most RP communities that I've read about don't seem to have any problem with their members belonging to multiple linkshells. Different LS's may peak at different times based on time zones and such, so it makes sense OOCly, and it can make sense ICly as well. There's a lot of great possibilities for RP, and the IC stress that a character may feel from spreading him-or-herself too thinly across many groups. Or a character that is a member of multiple groups may help serve as a bridge and some cross-LS events may spurn from that. Lots of possiblities for good RP stem from this sort of arrangement.
I personally hope that the requirements to "level up" a Free Company are not so taxing as to be an imposition to those who prefer to RP more.
Endgame RP can, and has happened. We did this a fair bit in FFXI. Often the in-game story may serve as some sort of parallel and there may be some lead-up RP to a particular battle. The fights were most often conducted OOC with the focus being on winning the fight and then some sort of follow-up RP would happen afterwards. Every group that RP's will handle things like this a bit differently though. But I can see it being too difficult to actually RP while in the midst of a battle. I'd rather my tank be focusing on keeping hate than worrying about answering some IC question, for instance.
Once the structure of Free Companies is better understood, and what the benefits and costs of being involved in one, I think it will be much clearer for most to make that distinction. That whole "can only be a member of one" caveat makes this kind of an important decision for people.
"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others." Â ~ Lewis Carol
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook
