There's never been much lore about linkshells/pearls. It's pretty open to interpretation on a shell by shell basis.
The visual part is mostly a remnant from FFXI's Sylph RP community. There were 15 RP shells and about 350 role-players on the server. Every single one of them used the visual aspect of the linkshell. It was mostly based on player-made lore but it greatly enhanced our RP experiences in ways that audio only would have never achieved. As a RP shell ages, it generally starts having less events than it did in its glory days. As such, people grow bored and trickle away. The visual aspect helped alleviate this a bit more and quite possibly helped keep members around. Whether Sylph's stance on this issue was partially responsible for its major success as a RP community or not, we'll never know.
There are various IC means of how they would display images but the images were always very vague ones. You could never see extreme details. Generally, images were transmitted into your mind via the pearl. This was either because the linkshell was enchanted or was an upgraded version of the original linkshells. You could also have had larger pearls than normal (as a result of a larger linkshell) and actually peer into the pearl to see the images. These larger pearls could have been equipped to your gear (such as Daishi's description) or worn as a necklace.
While most shells in FF14 will use the audio only feature, there will be some that integrate visual aspects for an "enhanced" RP experience. I kinda wish the primary shell I was in used visual as well. Heck, had I gone through with creating my own linkshell, I too would have made it audio/visual (though I would have made an IC explanation about it on the group's site to avoid confusion). As I said, it's mostly player-made lore. And there's nothing wrong with that since it only impacts the individual linkshell. And physical interaction was still never allowed over the shell unless the individuals were right next to each other (so you couldn't emote over the shell :
okes Castiel:: unless you were standing right next to me in game).
The visual part is mostly a remnant from FFXI's Sylph RP community. There were 15 RP shells and about 350 role-players on the server. Every single one of them used the visual aspect of the linkshell. It was mostly based on player-made lore but it greatly enhanced our RP experiences in ways that audio only would have never achieved. As a RP shell ages, it generally starts having less events than it did in its glory days. As such, people grow bored and trickle away. The visual aspect helped alleviate this a bit more and quite possibly helped keep members around. Whether Sylph's stance on this issue was partially responsible for its major success as a RP community or not, we'll never know.
There are various IC means of how they would display images but the images were always very vague ones. You could never see extreme details. Generally, images were transmitted into your mind via the pearl. This was either because the linkshell was enchanted or was an upgraded version of the original linkshells. You could also have had larger pearls than normal (as a result of a larger linkshell) and actually peer into the pearl to see the images. These larger pearls could have been equipped to your gear (such as Daishi's description) or worn as a necklace.
While most shells in FF14 will use the audio only feature, there will be some that integrate visual aspects for an "enhanced" RP experience. I kinda wish the primary shell I was in used visual as well. Heck, had I gone through with creating my own linkshell, I too would have made it audio/visual (though I would have made an IC explanation about it on the group's site to avoid confusion). As I said, it's mostly player-made lore. And there's nothing wrong with that since it only impacts the individual linkshell. And physical interaction was still never allowed over the shell unless the individuals were right next to each other (so you couldn't emote over the shell :
okes Castiel:: unless you were standing right next to me in game).
