What is a Free Company?

[Varus]

Yeah, so I've been wondering what a Free Company actually IS.

 

EDIT: Google-sensei had all the answers.

 

ZAM Question #11: What are Free Companies, and how will these be structured? Are these the player-run companies we heard about in the past?

 

Yoshida: "These are player-controlled companies. You can think of it like the guild systems that a lot of other MMORPGs have, the player-run guilds. Think of it as each player, for example, five people can be a Free Company. I can be a member of the Order of the Twin Adder, he can be a member of the Maelstrom, he can be a member of the Immortal Flames, but we can all get together and make our own Free Company. Individuals can do the Grand Company content on their own, and then we can make this Free Company with a lot of people from different companies. And also, the Free Company can sign up to join the Grand Company, so you can experience Grand Company content through your Free Company, even though if I'm in Gridania but our Free Company signs up to work with the Maelstrom in Limsa Lominsa, then we can do those contents as well. That's one thing where players will be able to cross over.

 

"So when players make their own Free Companies, they can decide what they want to do. They can go, "OK, I only want to have people from the Order of the Twin Adder be in my Free Company, and their Free Company is going to be hardcore, or they can have a mixture of lots of different players. That will be up to the players."

 

ZAM Question #12: Can people experience all the company content through Free Company participation, just by signing up with all the different companies?

 

Yoshida: "The content will be different. There will be the Free Company content of the Grand Companies, as well as the solo content of the Grand Companies. You'll only be able to do the solo content of the Grand Company you're in, but when it comes to the Grand Company content that's for Free Companies, it won't matter as a solo player which company you're in, it will matter which Free Company you're signed up with. It will be two different stories."

 

JeuxOnLine (JOL) : For the 2.0 version, with the arrival of free companies, what will become of the linkshell system?

 

Yoshida : We'll keep the linkshell, so players will have several linkshell pearls, they can talk to their friends whenever they want to like a chat community system, while the Free Company is more like a guild, you can't be in several guild, you can only select one Free Company. You can have several linkshells, it's more casual so that you can chat with your friends, while the Free Company is more like a strong community, you have to stick to one.

 

JOL : I would like to ask as well, about the Free Companies, basically, you're saying that it is a guild, the lower level players won't be having a Free Company, will they?

 

Yoshida : It's not only for the high level players, if the guild already exists, you can recruit level 1 players, and we will also have a Mentor system, higher levels can guide and teach the new players, and if you help the new players, you will get rewards so it will be good for your Free Company as well. We would like to encourage you to help the new players so this is going to be a really good balance, not only for the high level players, but low level players can enjoy and benefit from this system as well.

 

That being said, even if you're not belonging to any Free Company, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the functionality, for example, [myself] and Sundi have their own Free Company, [we] can still invite someone else as a Guest, and [we] can help him to complete one particular content, so don't worry, even if you don't have a Free Company, you can still enjoy the game.

[Ronberku]

I'll also add this topic here. CJ asked about this as well in the past.

 

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=2090