More Populated/helpful server

[Rohelius]

Did you not catch the fact that my advice was geared towards making new friends? Or are you just being dense?

Nothing he's asked about has been something Endgame linkshells did in the first place.

Oh and just as a side note~
While endgame LS's never did missions, they do however have forums which their members use to plan events that aren't necessarily endgame related. The fact that the members knew the skill of the players in the forums was the charm of it all.

[Zinato]

Well the guy did say hes a returning player. Did YOU read that? maybe his friends are gone, and this new endgame LS unfriendly time is what hes having trouble adjusting to? but no, it cant be that right? lets pick at the bros personality and tell him hes a noob for not leveling one specific job to solo one specific mission in one BCNM.....

You know that sounds a lot like me. Lost the shell and everyone in it from the 3rd day I played up until October 2010, leader never even said good-bye. Joined several abyssea ls's almost all that broke after leader got empyrean 85. Then I found an LS doing abyssea where I made the few friends I have now. However, that LS broke too and the leader went missing Dec of 2011. Yet, I have never once had trouble obtaining any goal I may have set. I don't beg for help, and in many cases don't ask either. I do currently have a social LS however, that is strictly for chatting purposes I don't go on runs with them nor do I ask for help from them. The only roadblock I've ever faced is relic 99 only because it's not pick-up friendly but even that I'm sure I'll eventually find a method for. My point in all of this? You don't have to have a large network like Greatguardian to get things done. This is on Asura too land of trolls and elitists so shouting isn't always an easy task. What I do believe you need is the attitude and will to find methods to accomplish goals and waiting until someone comes to you is the long way about it. In otherwords, I'm agreeing with Greatguardian.

[Zinato]

All Greatguardian is saying is the attitude is partially responsible for his success. His words are rather wise too, the point is the players outlook will greatly affect how they get help. I'm nowhere near in the position he is but, I try to keep a similar attitude and I've gotten by just fine. The people who are most likely to help you are friends, therefore how you make and maintain friends is important. As a slight sidenote, people do pay attention to players reputations too so don't think doing everything via shout will make attitude less important. Finally, nothing I've said is directed at the OP or any specific posters, more a statement on general advice for playing FFXI.

[Rohelius]

Here's some advice for new friends guy!!

#1 Make lot of gil.
#2 Loan to random people.
#3 Say you loan Gil to people.
yup i'm such an awesome person for sharing my genius.

[Greatguardian]

Here's some advice for new friends guy!!

#1 Make lot of gil.
#2 Loan to random people.
#3 Say you loan Gil to people.
yup i'm such an awesome person for sharing my genius.

The sad part is it's hard to ignore such an obvious trollolololol because of the worry that some new, low-post returning player might read your posts and actually take you seriously.

[Greatguardian]

I didn't need to make many "assumptions", all I had to do was read the OP.

Let's review:

I currently play on Lakshmi server and to be honest it sucks.

Ruh roh, Rooby. This is never a good sign. Contrary to popular belief, the particular differences between servers are actually fairly small in the general sense. If he thinks one server sucks, chances are it won't be much different anywhere else. But we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and see why Lakshmi apparently sucks.

80% of Jeuno shouts are people trolling. Hard to get help on missions because at this point people are too lazy to quest or don't want to help others out unless they're getting paid.

Bad sign #2: Blaming others. It's not his fault, you see. It's just that 80% of Jeuno is a bunch of trolls and everyone's too selfish and lazy to help with anything without being paid. Let's move on and see if it gets any better.

Lately I have solo'd a lot of my content and I am starting to hit a wall. I think I was very fortunate with my lb10 quest, because I seen some people shout for weeks before they finally got help. I recently return to the game and there is a lot of content I have no experience with and I think I need to try another server. I have tried to find a LS, but all I end up with are Soical linkshells with no socializing. I am looking for a server where LS are relevant and people are still helping people just to help.

No, not really. "Social Linkshells with no socializing"? Unless people just sorta sit in the linkshell and never talk to one another, I'm sure there's some sort of socializing going on. What can be inferred from this, however, is that there's no "helping" going on or communal activities. Of course, that begs the question, which activities would a social shell do? And why would they do them?

We'll get back to that, though. First I want to move on just a bit to the last line. "I am looking for a server where LS are relevant and people still help for the sake of helping". That's an interesting line, really. Look at it for a moment. Read into it a bit. What does it mean, to help for the sake of helping? At first glance, you'd think he's talking about what friends do for each other. But it doesn't seem like he's looking for friends. He's looking for a linkshell that helps members for the sake of helping.

Beyond that, what does it mean, specifically, to "Help for the sake of helping"? I can understand a giver using this phrase, but a receiver of aid? Used in that context, it implies that he wants to receive aid with no intention of giving back in return. In fact, he feels so strongly about not giving back, that he called everyone on his current server lazy and selfish for wanting some form of repayment for time spent. Now, note that this doesn't necessarily have to be in gil. You simply find gil is the easiest way to ensure equitable compensation among strangers.

Those are pretty damning word choices, and his attitude is conveyed as exceptionally poor in every single one of his posts. Instead of admitting any fault, he insists that others are to blame (Be it Lakshmi's population, or me in this thread). No. If you think an entire server is rotten, then it's probably just you.

The most reliable way to get help on the things you need help with is, has been, and always will be to simply help others and let karma and your reputation do the work for you.

[Arcon]

I didn't need to make many "assumptions", all I had to do was read the OP.

While I agree with pretty much everything you said in general and it's the same advise I'd give other people as well, you do seem to assume a few things about the OP, and maybe read a little too much into his words, particularly the last line. I don't think there's much more psychological context to writing "help for the sake of helping" then him wanting to find a catchy way of saying there's people who actually don't mind trying to support him when he needs it. He did say he was soloing a lot of content and is hitting a brick wall right now, so I don't think it's for a lack of trying. Sure, I guess he could level BLU, farm weeks to get the necessary spells, gear it up first with pickup Abyssea parties, possibly solo some Dynamis or NMs for some additional drops then try to solo it a few times before dying because he lacks years of experience then still not getting help because there's no active social LS he could find (which is all (I think) he was saying with the line about "not socializing", btw).

There's several degrees to that, some players lack the initiative, the competence or the patience for what you have described. And those people would simply not fit your pattern and they'd never get there on their own. That's what social LS are for and that's what I do, one way to fix those personal drawbacks is to approach people and show them how it's done. The difference in our approaches is that you want them to all find it out on their own, when my approach is to show them. I've met many people who were in a similar position, who were discouraged by not getting help for stuff you'd suggest them to do on their own or die trying. While that would work on certain kinds of people, those are not everyone. I just help them because I'm bored usually and I try to make the best of it, that's why often I tell them to stand back and watch. And it helps. That's how I showed several Aurore-noobs how to do Abyssea properly (same reason why I often joined those 12+ people shouts for Kutharei with me and a mule and duod it) and it works, those people are more likely to try something like this on their own. And if they ask me how I did it and why it looked so easy, even better, then I got a chance to explain what it was about.

The things you're saying are definitely not wrong, but they don't work on all kinds of people. I'm not even talking much about the OP right now, I'm just saying not everyone fits the description of the person you're suggesting them to be. I know not everyone is as bored as me to do this kinda stuff, but it works and it to do it once every few days doesn't take much out of anyone's time and it gives people a vision of what they should strive for. Sure, occasionally it leads to someone spamming you for help, but as long as you make no promises or don't pretend you're some kind of Vana'diel Jesus, it's not hard to tell them that you have no time to babysit them.

[cidbahamut]

No, not really. "Social Linkshells with no socializing"? Unless people just sorta sit in the linkshell and never talk to one another, I'm sure there's some sort of socializing going on.

Have you never had the misfortune of trying to find a good shell and drifting through shells that do exactly that? I've wandered through plenty of shells where the entirety of the socializing consisted of members greeting each other as they logged in or saying goodnight as they logged off and not saying anything else over the course of the night. Finding a good linkshell is not easy.

Come on GG, I know you're smarter than this. All your advice so far is good advice, but it all hinges on him already having a solid social network, which can easily have decayed into nothing if you've been away from the game for a while(which it sounds like is the situation the OP is in).

OP clearly needs the boot in the keister you're giving him, but said boot only addresses part of the problem.

[Greatguardian]

Have you never had the misfortune of trying to find a good shell and drifting through shells that do exactly that? I've wandered through plenty of shells where the entirety of the socializing consisted of members greeting each other as they logged in or saying goodnight as they logged off and not saying anything else over the course of the night. Finding a good linkshell is not easy.

Come on GG, I know you're smarter than this. All your advice so far is good advice, but it all hinges on him already having a solid social network, which can easily have decayed into nothing if you've been away from the game for a while(which it sounds like is the situation the OP is in).

OP clearly needs the boot in the keister you're giving him, but said boot only addresses part of the problem.

To be perfectly honest, I can't really say that I have. More often than not, when I join random social shells, I find that people talk way too much for my comfort rather than the opposite. Hell, I'm constantly having to delete notifications from the FFXI: Cerberus facebook page because people treat it like a social shell and chat on it 24/7.

I know I'm lucky to many degrees, but sometimes it seems like we're talking about completely different games. Even in FFXIV (before it cost money), which is notoriously dead compared to XI, I found a social shell that was far more active than I was and had a good time despite having 0 pre-existing social connections on that game/server.

There are also forums, which you can use to socialize with people and get to know them despite never playing with them at all. In my opinion, these are probably the easiest venues for making friends in general, as you're not restricted by linkshell/server/playtime and you are generally posting on forums where people's interests are similar to yours.

If the OP wants me to stay "on topic", though, maybe Cerberus is just the best server in the world. OP is welcome to give it a try - just don't look me up.

[Rohelius]

Well my ps3 finished updating so my work is done here....

You just keep doing those deep psychological analysis of peoples short paragraphs and tell yourself your awesome!