Advice for a small Free Company starting out?

Not too long ago, three buddies and I made the decision to leave out previous Free Company to start a new one due to overall inactivity. It took a bit for the four of us to make our new FC, Legion of the Echo (thank my corny naming prowess), due to our conflicting schedule, but we did eventually get it done and have been looking forward to our growth as a fun, productive, helpful Company.

Well, we're having much difficulty with said growth. Since we've established our FC, we've only had two new recruits. One is very recent and the other has been MIA ever since acceptance.

We're all just having trouble figuring out how to go about bringing in new members. We try to not be annoying while doing so, so we stick to occasional shouts and being open to those we meet in dungeon runs. Obviously, we've had very little success.

We could always take the easy route and join an already well-established FC, but that's not within our best interests. We put forth the effort to create this and we will keep putting in effort to make sure we can get to where we want to be. In short, we feel that quitting and joining up with a different FC is a cop-out.

So, for the sake of my pals, I decided to reach out and see if I can't get some advice on how to get the ball rolling. Our short term goal right now is having at least four others that will be active enough to run end-game content together. That isn't to say we wouldn't take in lower-level people, though. We love helping others out and would be more than happy to tag along with them in whatever it is they need to get done.

We've all put everything past Praetorium on hold for this purpose. Meaning the most we've done is gotten ourselves our Grand Company weapons.

Any bit of advice would be very much appreciated (as long as it's not overly negative, of course). Thank you for your time.

You aren't the only FC to be in the same boat.

Fact of the matter is, if you don't have something to offer players today in the form of being able to carry them through content because the players themselves are generally too lazy to put in effort to achieve something, no one will be interested.

To prove my point, start doing a /shout advertisement and in there say you are working on Coil Turn 5 and are looking for players for it. Go to RT, CPP & CD and post the messages there. Watch the tells flood in.

Having never actually led an FC or a guild in another game, I don't know how much I'd be able to help. But I'll try anyway.

At this point, most people have probably found a free company to call home (if not temporarily). That, however, does not mean that the others are any worse. Keep throwing out the occasional (professional-sounding) /shout, someone may be interested.
You could also try to find people that are without an FC and send them a /tell, but some people may consider that slightly annoying. I ended up joining my current FC from an officer sending me a tell, and I don't regret it.
What you don't want to do is just straight up send invites to random people, but I'm sure you knew that already.

Recruiting new members does rely somewhat on luck as far as I can tell, so keep trying, and don't get discouraged.

I don't bother. I work through my LSs for aid and/or hang out time. My FC only serves two purposes, to keep the invites away, and to look cool on my IF uniform (the crest I mean). Its mostly for RP backstory anyway. In general, as a leader of a large one in the original EQ, that eventually broke into a thousand hurt feelings, I stay away from them. I seem to notice the same attitude for alot of players.

Our free company is small, 2 of us currently running coil, but we're friends. We're in game friends and it's about chatting and helping. Today after T1 (failed effort I'll admit lol) I had 3 invites to large endgame FC's which would really help me with coil groups and myth farming. But no I like my FC. I like saying "I'll help with Garuda HM" or "Sure I'll do Sunken Temple".

End game FCs end up with arguments and I don't want that. I'd rather have to spend a few hours looking for a group and have an FC to speak about stupid things than no chat at all.

Pick a game with a future.

You would probably want to advertise practice runs of dungeons and/or primals so people aren't as afraid to join for stuff that they are new to, there are bound to be more than a few players that are fresh level 50's just like you. Friendlist anybody who is cool and try to invite them again in the future, and after some time you can pop the question. Getting some kind of connection with people is important for a more personal FC.

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Originally Posted by foobarbaz

Pick a game with a future.

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Can I borrow your crystal ball? It obviously speaks the truth, and I wanna know the entire plan of the development team.

Here's some really good advice. You need to have a CERTAIN kind of FC. Kind of like genre for movies or books. Some books are fantasy and some people like fantasy but some don't. Let them know what kind of FC it is. Is it a social guild? Does it hold events? Role Play? End game? All around guild? Will you help people? Information is a must, let it be known.

You need officers, 3 - 5 officers, depends on how big your FC is. You also need to realize that some people don't know what kind of FC they want to join and such. Having a website promotes more organized players to join your FC too. People who tend to put effort in joining your FC will most likely stay. Plus, always say something like no drama and etc. Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by NoctisCaelus

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There's only so much I can say in a macro, though. I know that I should put the effort into manually typing up something that I'll only be shouting occasionally, anyway, but it's just super convenient to construct a macro.

I mean, we're an end-game, social, and helpful guild that plans on hosting in-house events. That's not all information I can really say properly with limited space.

I'll have to talk to the other guys about a website.

You say your goal is endgame, so I would advise you and your friends to jump into the endgame whether you have a full FC or not, at least grinding AK, myth tomes, ifrit, and garuda, get your relic started, etc. Get to the point where people will want an FC for, which right now is coil and maybe titan. People progress through the AK/Darklight grind at such different paces that recruiting now will lead to people being left behind or flying ahead and leaving.

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Originally Posted by TaranNos

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The whole point to us holding back on completing content is so that we can do so together as a Free Company. It's more fun that way.

If we get people that rush ahead and decide to leave because the rest of us are too slow for them or whatever, then those are people we'd be better off without.

End Game is a goal, but completing it is not an immediate one.

By doing shout's and posting on your server's forum I would say you should be able to find a good group of people that you can work on endgame with. Never ran a guild/FC before though, but I have joined some early on and it all comes down to personality's. You seem pretty awesome... it'll all work out.

The first thing before you found your company is to decide on a direction / goal. A person can only have 1 company so you NEED to know what you want to do and how you want to do it.
The second thing is to get name/call-sign and signatures in order. (you've done this)
The third is to start looking for members. Make sure you can explain what you're doing and what you want to do. You'll either be getting new players, or needing to convince someone to leave the company they already have.

I founded a company to take a casual look at end game (Coil, and Crystal Tower when that is released)
Goal : have 20-30 active members on most days to support up to 3 (4?) different Coil groups, and en-mass do Crystal Tower when it is released to progress together.
Currently : I have 8~12 active players, and 22 members. All of them have completed Titan, nearly all of them because I built the groups that got them there. We get 1 group in Coil 2-3 days a week and have progressed past turn 1, and are slowly working out the kinks in turn 2. We spend about 1-2hrs in Coil at a time.
Stumbling blocks : People have friends, who might not be anywhere near the same stage of the game, so we need to be more accommodating

now here's the trick... I'm happy with where we are and with who I have because I don't feel the need to rush it, and I'm ok with NOT winning every time. I'm ok that some times we have to pick up a PUG to fill out a run. I try to recruit when I can and it's a tough world to find people who are interested in leaving their 200 person social company to join a casual progression group but I keep at it.

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Originally Posted by Kal-El

Our free company is small, 2 of us currently running coil, but we're friends. We're in game friends and it's about chatting and helping. Today after T1 (failed effort I'll admit lol) I had 3 invites to large endgame FC's which would really help me with coil groups and myth farming. But no I like my FC. I like saying "I'll help with Garuda HM" or "Sure I'll do Sunken Temple".

End game FCs end up with arguments and I don't want that. I'd rather have to spend a few hours looking for a group and have an FC to speak about stupid things than no chat at all.

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End game guilds end up with arguments due to poor leadership and management.