Which Grand Company is YOUR Free Company going to associate with?!

[Arelian Solin]

Just as the topic says! I'm curious to see which Grand Company most Free Companies are going to associate themselves with on an IC and OOC level. 

 

Personally, I'm interested in this because it can have some IC ramifications. For instance, my character might not want anything to do with The Maelstrom, and thus won't be able to join any FCs associated with them!

[Havoc Snow]

My FC is based out of strongly connected to Ul'dah, so the Immortal Flames seemed the most reasonable choice, plus Raubahn is my favorite GC leader of the three.

[Artorias D'Argent]

Ooc wise it would be whatever Ishgard is part of because of Dragoons.  Ic wise none, Artorias is a freelance mercenary.  Ishgard would have been his choice if Ishgard was a hyur run kingdom but since it's Elezen he won't be swearing any fealty to them.  If anything he only wants their dragoon training.  

[synaesthetic]

I'm assuming since Squeenix normalized the equipment rewards from all three Grand Companies in ARR that there will be nothing more than a cosmetic difference between Free Company affiliations... and my FC isn't an RP Free Company...

eh, I'll probably just put a poll on the forums before launch.

[Xeon]

Isn't the idea of a free company to gather people from various grand companies? Seems like to associate with one, one would need to limit the free companies members to only one grand company :3

 

-Xeon

[Sounsyy]

Isn't the idea of a free company to gather people from various grand companies? Seems like to associate with one, one would need to limit the free companies members to only one grand company :3

 

-Xeon

 

You can have (if you want to) members of all different GC affiliations. However, when you sign up to create a Free Company, you align it with one of the three Grand Companies. What this does is allow FC members to participate in that GC's questline. ONLY. You do not get gear/seal/rank benefits. You only get those from your own personal GC.

 

So if I'm a Twin Adder and my FC aligns with the Maelstrom. I only get Twin Adder perks, but I can now participate in both the Twin Adder and Maelstrom storylines. 

 

It's basically a way for Free Companies to participate in a storyline together. Instead of just using your FC for your GC fights and calling everyone in for a fight and then them all leaving. This way you can run all of the GC quests as a FC. Really could create some great unity among your members.

[Adelpha]

Unless your FC is RP-based and has its own IC identity, it probably makes the most sense just to hold a poll among your FC members. As such, even though I'm alllll about the Maelstrom, it's not really my choice to make!

[Spiritual Machine]

Isn't the idea of a free company to gather people from various grand companies? Seems like to associate with one, one would need to limit the free companies members to only one grand company :3

 

-Xeon

 

You can have (if you want to) members of all different GC affiliations. However, when you sign up to create a Free Company, you align it with one of the three Grand Companies. What this does is allow FC members to participate in that GC's questline. ONLY. You do not get gear/seal/rank benefits. You only get those from your own personal GC.

 

So if I'm a Twin Adder and my FC aligns with the Maelstrom. I only get Twin Adder perks, but I can now participate in both the Twin Adder and Maelstrom storylines. 

 

It's basically a way for Free Companies to participate in a storyline together. Instead of just using your FC for your GC fights and calling everyone in for a fight and then them all leaving. This way you can run all of the GC quests as a FC. Really could create some great unity among your members.

Not quite.

 

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=28045

 

To sum up the answers to questions 11 and 12:

 

> You can be part of whatever Grand Company you want and still join a Free Company without any restriction.

 

> Your Free Company can sign up to join a Grand Company. This still doesn't affect people in the Free Company who are members of other Grand Companies.

 

> Individual players have solo Grand Company content that they can do, and Free Companies that join Grand Companies get access to additional content--Grand Company content that is unique to Free Companies.

 

So if you are a member of the Maelstrom and your Free Company is also part of the Maelstrom, you get to do your solo Maelstrom stuff, AND THEN you do completely different Maelstrom content with the rest of your company.

 

You're not just running the GC quests with your FC. The FC has its own GC quests.

 

 

 

It's been implied that your Free Company does not have to join a Grand Company at all, but I don't know whether this is the case. You'd probably still want to though, in order to experience the content.

 

It's also been implied in the most recent Q&A that the choice of Grand Company will come down to a choice in playstyle, and that not only can you switch your Grand Company later, but it's sort of expected that you will.

 

It's not known (or at least I don't know) if a Free Company is able to change its Grand Company affiliation.