Player Run Companies: What do we want to see?

[Holy_Dragoon]

Full instanced mini-cities are a bad idea I think, but I do like some kind of hub for members of a Company to congregate to perform tasks, craft sell wares, etc. Even if it's just an NPC I can sell loot to. Player run companies are but a dream to me at this point. This game could be really unique if they implement it.

[Azurymber]

i'd very much like to see high-end items that require team crafting.
Ex. god gear that requires 1 of every craft at 50 to make.

Or server-unique items. Ex, servers all start with default airships which are fairly slow.
But for 900million gil + 50,000 oak lumber + 50,000 walnut lumber etc, a company can build an upgraded airship, which will then hold their logo on it for x-period of time or until another company builds a better one. It would be a great gil sink, and promote teamwork.

[Krausus]

Full instanced min-cities is a bad idea I think, but I do like some kind of hub for members of a Company to congregate to perform tasks, craft sell wares, etc. Even if it's just an NPC I can sell loot to. Player run companies are but a dream to me at this point. This game could be really unique if they implement it.

Oh I fully agree, I just dont want them to be in some instance like they did in AoC, I also dont want them to be easy to obtain/maintain so that there isn't hundreds of cities owned by alts, there is plenty of space in each zone to place player made cities around.

I imagine each city would consist of a keep, crafter area, market, stable/dock and individual player housing (hell the housing itself could be instanced that you access from the player city.

Would be cool to zone into the housing district from the player city and the housing district consists of as many houses as there are members of the company that decide to build one.

Hell player ran companies could add a very large amount of content, it has a ton of potential.

[Caidryn]

Hmm, I stand by my statement that instanced isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I just can't see it being i the free world. How many areas in the world are completely free of monsters on a wide enough scale to place a whole mini city there, and how many would there be per zone? So, say you get your company up and running after the 9 or so city slots are filled. What then? Do you demolish other cities? Or are you just permanently locked out of receiving one?

If you're worried about there being loads of them, then just put Restrictions on forming companies. Something like:

*In Order to form a company, you must have at least 100 members to join it.

*When a player joins a company, they may only join one, and it is account wide. Alts will not count.

*If a company is formed and falls beneath 80 players, the company is suspended, and their city locked off until they can bolster their numbers. (This would prevent having loads of people join for gil, making a company, then just quitting the company.)

While such things might not end up being an issue directly to me, I'm sure it would become an issue for the server in a very short amount of time after release. I just can't see cities being so harshly limited in terms of space and quantity working on a practical level. Perhaps if you were able to set your City as public or private, it might work out. But even if you place them on the map, people won't go out of their way to flock far and wide to the cities to check on them all the time.

No one will care about anyone else's instanced towns.

What renown is there to be had if players aren't even in the same world?

Do I care what some alien is doing in an alternate dimension?

No one cares about one another's gear or accomplishments in non-instanced cities either. The game isn't about becoming renown, whatsoever. If you really feel a huge need to make a name for yourself, a positive one that is, then no one will care what you do in the player hub that is a city. I don't see the same things you see in the city, and I hang around the city all the time, believe me.

Also, it's not an issue if you don't care about other's instanced towns. The content discussed here is company content. It's for the companies themselves. You may not care about my city, but I bet the hundred or so members of that company will care quite a lot should the city prove functional, and should it add loads of new content.

If you're talking about linkshell renown, I don't think Idling in a city is what creates that, so much as how your members interact with others on the server. If they implement the Company Conquest system that was hinted at before, you'd have plenty of chances to make your mark on the server.

In the end, my point comes down to this. Cities are doing nothing right now anyway. Sure, you have people gathered together. But in the current community, as well as XI's, people keep talk restricted to linkshell channels. Shouting to chat is considered a huge faux pas. That aside, whatever sacrifice would need to be made from the cities to add the sheer amount of content that would come from cities, I would gladly make. I disagree with the sentiment that if it's content I don't like, no one else should be given the option to partake in it either. If you don't like certain content, don't use it. Options are never a bad thing.

[Azurymber]

Instances bug me cuz they make the game seem unreal and just a bunch of "levels" stuck together. MMOs like this are supposed to feel massive and real, and not like an old sega genesis level based game

[Vesperia]

I don't see how people can think there isn't enough room in Eorzea for persistent Company/player-made buildings.

You severely underestimate the power of copy-paste.

If SE runs out of room, they can always just copy & paste more in.

[Shampooo]

Are player run companies still being planned? i thought the whole direction got turned into "Grand Companies"

[Vesperia]

Are player run companies still being planned? i thought the whole direction got turned into "Grand Companies"

They were postponed indefinitely until everyone cried. Now the dev team said they do still intend to implement them.

[Syrous]

I like everyone's ideas very much so far. Don't know if anyone has said this before, but I'd like a place where members of said companies could hang out, maybe /sit at a table, like you can sit by the fountain in Ul'dah. An environment sort of like the opening cutscene where the 3 adventurers are at a pub just browsing maps and going over the leves they got, or plan out their next move or simply socialise. If anyone has watched the anime/read the manga Fairy Tail, they have the kind of ambience that I'd like to feel from the companies in their guild.

[Amineri]

A company vault or bank I definitely agree with.

However, some sort of management tools with regard to this vault are needed, more then simply giving / denying permissions to various ranks within the Company. I have seen this from both sides of the equation.

Those that have access freely use the 'guild bank', and limiting full access to officers does not prevent abuses (e.g. people stealing stuff).

Those who do not have access generally feel marginalized and unwilling to participate, as they are essentially dropping their items into a black hole (e.g. they have to rely on others to meet with them to give them anything in return).

What I propose is essentially a private company mark system. The company leader/officers designate items that they are seeking, and assign a company mark value to the items. When players deposit items into the company vault, they receive company marks. Company marks can be used to retrieve items from the company vault, on the same basis.

I doubt the system would be perfect, but it would allow better access across the entire spectrum of the members of a company, instead of promoting the usual 'cliques' that develop in most MMO guilds : those that have bank access, and those that don't.