Testing the Waters (Balmung)

[Jet Magnum]

Hello, hello and hello; fresh meet here, poking a toe into potentially shark-infested waters.  The sharks seem pretty friendly here so far, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

 

I'm going to be frank and up front about something:  I hated FFXI.  A friend poked and prodded me to give it a shot with him, and I felt like I gave it a pretty fair shake, but it just wasn't my kind of MMO.  So I was pretty reluctant to even look at FFXIV askance.  But as the almighty power of advertising is master to us all, eventually I couldn't help but peek at reviews and, lo and behold, it started to sound like a grand jumblemesh of everything i like in a MMO.

 

I've been playing for years, with varying degrees of enjoyment.  Hated Ragnarok and it almost turned me off the MMO scene permanently.  Tried Guild Wars and fell back in love, and from there it was on to WoW and City of Heroes, a dash of Champions and a more than healthy amount of The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2.

 

Out of the ones I've played, the only ones I've seriously roleplayed in extensively were WoW, City of Heroes/Villains and SWTOR...and frankly, I haven't RPed in a MMO since shortly before SWTOR went allegedly-free-to-play.  So I may be a little rusty, but the lore and the early story (I've played up to level 7 on Brynhildr server while waiting for Balmung to open up) have really got me excited to try it here.

 

The people here seem really nice too, which is refreshing.  Although I am unfortunately a bit dazed and confused on the subject of Linkshells vs. Free Companies.  The game and main site led me to the impression that Linkshells were more like custom chat channels and Free Companies were the actual guilds, but this site and several advertising posts on the official forums seem to keep referring to Linkshells as the actual guilds.  I'd love to actually get involved in a legit RP "guild" as I've found that tends to be the best way to actually get some RP in a game (most people will, I've found, somewhat ignore a stranger who walks up and tries to join in on an overheard RP conversation)...but I'm confused on where to start and which I should be looking for.  Got some ideas I've been kicking around for my character, but it's hard to set anything in stone so early.

 

Wow...this was more wordy than I'd expected, my apologies for the verbal deluge.  Thanks in advance to anybody who can help clear anything up a bit, and even more so to anybody who can recommend a nice laid-back RP guild for someone new to the scene but not entirely oblivious to roleplay in general.

[K'dath]

I have to agree on the front of 'a grand jumblemesh of everything i like in a MMO'. To me it feels essentially identical to Guild Wars 2, but with the structure it was sorely in need of. The freeform, do whatever you feel like aspect was appealing, but it was easy to completely lose sense of direction. And with no formal job classifications and next to know reason to actually party up with people, group activities felt completely pointless... to me at any rate.

 

My experience with FF14 thusfar is that it won't punish you for not strictly adhering to the plot laid out before you, a la WoW, but there are things you have to do and there are things your class is good at. And when you get to the latter game stuff you need to have a sense of what those things are and a few good friends to boot or you're not going to get anywhere.

 

As far as Linkshells and Free Companies, it is as you described. Linkshells are custom chat channels anyone can make and you can invite your friends/guild mates/RP partners to without being a part of a formal guild. Free Companies have their own chat channel similar to WoW's /g chat and level like WoW guilds. Companies can activate certain perks like exp boosts and have a communal bank. Other than that, there's no big difference.

 

I'd personally recommend going with a progression based Company, if you want to do progression that is, and going for RP linkshells. They're mostly quiet unless someone needs something content related and will give you that little buff. It also means you have all your LS space for joining various different RP link shells that might be restricted to smaller groups or themes. But that's just personal input.

[FreelanceWizard]

Hello, fellow ex-CoH player.

 

Although I am unfortunately a bit dazed and confused on the subject of Linkshells vs. Free Companies.  The game and main site led me to the impression that Linkshells were more like custom chat channels and Free Companies were the actual guilds, but this site and several advertising posts on the official forums seem to keep referring to Linkshells as the actual guilds.

 

Free Companies are new thing in XIV. In version 1, the only way you could have a guild was with a linkshell. So, for historical reasons, a number of RP groups are organized as linkshells, of which you can be a member of eight. You can only be a member of one FC, however.

 

There's various schools of thought on FCs, and that's why you see RP LSs and what's been termed as "dualistic" groups. One school of thought says, "Keep your gameplay in your FC, then use LSs for RP." This is the thinking behind the RP-friendly OOC progression FCs (Unity in a Realm Reborn and WildSky being two big ones). Another says, "treat an FC like a guild and use it for your character's IC and OOC home." It's from there that you find the RP FCs. A final school of thought says, "We want to offer FC services -- including housing -- to our players, but we don't want to exclude from membership people who have other FC goals," and from that you have the FCs that use an LS as their IC channel (referred to as "dualistic," as they have both an FC and an LS). That way, people can join the FC of their choice OOCly, but still join the LS and the IC group. Mysterium has a few players who take advantage of that, for instance.

 

Please note that, up to this point, it's not difficult for an FC to acquire every available mechanical perk even with relatively casual play. That said, we don't know what's in store from SE other than FC housing, so that may change in the future.

 

As for walk-up RP, people are generally very open to that on Balmung, I've found. I know I and my FC are, so if you see us around, please feel free to strike up a conversation!