Attempting to recruit players already in an FC?

[TawdryClay]

Today I was on an alt, I am in a small FC who needs a helping hand with getting organized and while I was online, I had a representative from an FC I do not care to name, approach me SEVERAL times, asking me to leave my FC and join theirs. I can understand offering a place in your FC to a player you enjoy playing with and are friends with at least in game, but I have never met this particular player before and I found the recruitment pitch rather shady and underhanded.

How do you people feel about "poaching" from other FC's, deliberately approaching people in an FC and trying to convince them to leave and join you?

I personally dislike the idea, unless a merger is in place or the player has contacted me on his/her own, I don't contact players already "taken". *shrug*

[Ryuko]

I feel very weird about it. I will not try to recruit people directly when I know they already have a FC. If there is someone I enjoy playing with who already has a FC, I will offer to let them join my Linkshell instead.

I will say, though... since we are on the topic...

I find it odd when people stay in a FC because they enjoy chatting with the people. The way I always saw it, Linkshells were social/friend groups while Free Companies were more like guilds -- people you actually did content with. I know a lot of people in my Linkshell who join all of my Free Company runs, but will not leave their Free Company because they enjoy chatting in their other FC (even though they do nothing with that FC). I don't try to recruit them or pester them about it, but it just baffles me.

[TawdryClay]

On Coeurl we have a community of FC's who we share many linkshells with, it allows smaller FC's who cannot find the numbers to run content within their own FC to gather players from allied FC's. I know a lot of smaller FC's who would just rather play that way rather than merge with anyone, I do understand people who choose to be in the linkshells but not transfer FC's though. However at first it baffled me too. Sadly it is getting to the point that I have to be very selective with who I invite to our LS's, they fill up so fast and there just isn't enough room to fit everyone, if only they could hold a few hundred more people.. maybe there would be less member poaching, but then again, maybe not, more members potentially means more money for FC housing or even just in the case of some FC's "we are big, we are best, join us or suck".

Mostly I just think it's dodgy if you are poaching players you don't even know and have no real reason for attempting to recruit aside from sly greed.

[Lokean]

I think it is downright awful and disrespectful. Even as I try to gather my own numbers up, I will NEVER ask someone to leave their FC. We had one person leave theirs and join us on their own free will as they did not like the attitude. But, in that situation, they knew us and asked to come with us. Which is okay, in my books. It's a thin line, but in the latter way it feels less like Subterfuge and more like, helping someone find a place they better fit. Ya know?

[Gsworld]

poaching member of an free company or a guild in any MMO has always been frowned upon by must people who are found to be doing it in all the MMOs i have played have but blacklist by a lot of people on the server. Let it be World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, or Final Fantasy. you will always find people who do it anyways. in my mind i think theses people are just stupid and hurt the MMO community as a whole

[Nitshft]

Hey Tawrdy We have something incommom Proud member of PACT here, I was approached today by a member of perhaps the same FC I Will to keep them nameless aswell. But they approched me with some line asking for an FC invite then tried to get me to join their FC

[TawdryClay]

I personally feel like the way you recruit, how you approach players and the recruitment message in itself speak volumes about the kind of person the recruiter and possibly the Free Company are. If someone shifty tries to recruit me while I have an FC already, clearly they have no respect for other companies and in turn, the community. Same goes for those who recruit with stuff like "We are the best, no one else' FC is as good as ours", those are generally the Free Companies I refuse to get my Free Company involved with. Being creative is one thing, slagging other FC's as a whole is just as underhanded as sneaky approaching random players already in Free Companies, at least that is my own opinion on it.

[Esrahadon]

Often if someone is in a smaller FC, or if I look up that persons FC info and only see 2/### online, I'll toss out the idea of having them join the FC I'm in, but I won't press them or badger them. It's more of a general info "hey we like you, we would be happy to have you" and then they make up their own mind based on what ever they happen to be looking for. Only if I've been playing with these people, and I like them. Why anyone would randomly send out whispers to people they don't know, asking them to leave their current FC, I have no idea. I'll also propose the idea of merging with said smaller FC, but again, there is no pressure and I rarely ask more than once if you show no interest. It's mostly just to get the idea out there, and know that they would be welcome to join if they had any inclination to want to hang out with us again. If someone says they are happy where they are, matter closed, I frown on poaching but if people, under their own free will, choose to switch FC's, I'm not going to tell them what they can and can not do, and that goes both ways with leaving the FC I'm in, or joining up with it.

[Nitshft]

Often if someone is in a smaller FC, or if I look up that persons FC info and only see 2/### online, I'll toss out the idea of having them join the FC I'm in, but I won't press them or badger them. It's more of a general info "hey we like you, we would be happy to have you" and then they make up their own mind based on what ever they happen to be looking for. Only if I've been playing with these people, and I like them. Why anyone would randomly send out whispers to people they don't know, asking them to leave their current FC, I have no idea. I'll also propose the idea of merging with said smaller FC, but again, there is no pressure and I rarely ask more than once if you show no interest. It's mostly just to get the idea out there, and know that they would be welcome to join if they had any inclination to want to hang out with us again. If someone says they are happy where they are, matter closed, I frown on poaching but if people, under their own free will, choose to switch FC's, I'm not going to tell them what they can and can not do, and that goes both ways with leaving the FC I'm in, or joining up with it.

And I can understand that, maybe you can see and say you know i noticed you only have X amount of people maybe you wanna join a bigger FC, But As I am in PACT.. PACT is not Small persay, not saying are huge but we are in no way Small

[Caraway]

I think it all depends on how the person is going about it. But a person cross-recruiting like that most definitely should not raise the question again if you say no, that's for sure.