What happens in an actual FC?

[Ninster]

I'm in a small FC (25 members, 11 active in the past week) and I'm wondering what goes on in other free companies.

For the most part, there's only 2-3 online at a time, and the chat is fairly quiet. Then raid nights happen 3-4 times a week and a static logs in, raids for an hour or so, then leaves without saying a word. 7 of that static are in this free company, of course. I feel pretty lost and alone, especially during raid. Everyone's friendly and all, but I don't have much of a place I think. I'm in it because of a friend, who's in that static. Occasionally they need a replacement and they go to party finder.

I asked once if I could try out something with them but got told that I'd better not screw up and I'd have to pass a parse. This was never really followed up on though. So I never asked again. My friend will sometimes get online for new patches and we do all the new stuff together, and then it's back to the raid night routine.

I left once, but the thing is, everyone's friendly enough to think of me as a friend, so a few of them noticed and begged me to come back and kept insisting that yes, I did fit in just fine.

So... I figured that since I haven't been in any other free companies, I'd ask what happens in everyone else's free company.

[Mikita]

There are people who like playing alone and don't mind things being quiet all the time; but if you're hoping for more of a social aspect then I think a pretty big, yet difficult part of this (and probably any online game?) is finding a group of people you fit in with.

I moved servers a bit over a year ago and I joined one of the largest FC's on our server. There were usually around 60 ~ 80 people online at any given time and a very loose sense of FC comraderie... yet the FC chat was often a bit quiet since people naturally broke up into smaller cliques where the chat likely ended up in Linkshells. These smaller groups were more focused around the content type that they would do together... so even though the FC was large, it seems like it may have been similar to your situation. Even though there were always many people online, I was pretty much alone in the FC except for the coming and going greetings.

If you are considering moving to another FC (doesn't mean you can't remain friends with your current FC) or even just an LS, you could try joining various Party Finder or FATE groups. After a while you tend to see the same people, get to know them, and expand your circle of friends. Then perhaps you might find a new home with people who you can play with regularly around the type of content you enjoy.

Good luck. ^^

[FinaSel]

I've been in two Free Companies.
The first was from a random /tell. The person was nice and explained the FC to me. He said they had about 20 members. He also said he hoped to increase membership in future.
He said I could leave anytime I wanted to with no problem.

I joined. One time, the most people I ever saw online was 5. Since I joined, he only recruited 1 other person. He would be gone for weeks at a time.
Only 1 other member was constantly in. We sometimes did dungeons together, but that was it.
Eventually I left because I wanted a more active FC.

The second one I joined by seeing a recruitment message. They messages were always really interesting. Like "We are having a "see who can restrain themselves from going to the toilet the longest" contest! Won't you join us!?" The leader is female and there are several female members, so I felt comfortable.
There are maybe 50+ members but maybe 25 are active every week. About 15 are active every day.


We almost always do raids and dungeons together. Especially Roulettes.
Usually, when someone does something they invite FC members first. Deep dungeon, Aquapolis, etc.

We also help each other with crafting, because there are specialists.

And, when we are in a strange mood, we do random things like having a bath party and mog dance party.

We talk in FC chat all the time and make jokes. It's really fun and lively.

[Laerune]

If I were you, I would reconsider your membership at this Free Company. At my Free Company (which is around 50-70 members max), we have active members of around 25-40 always online in the evening, on a Sunday almost every member is online. Since its a small to medium FC, every member knows each other, which makes it very easy to avoid cliques in FC.

- We have a calendar for events, which include: Bird/horse farming, doing old raids like Coil, FC fun events like doing a 24 man dungeon in swim suits etc.
- We have statics for PvP and PvE contant.
- If someone needs help doing stuff like: unlocking a dungeon/trial or kill a boss, someone is always there to help.
- We craft stuff for each other, which makes getting those new glamour outfits on patch day very easy.
- One of my FC member is very passionate about being a mentor, so if someone needs help or advice in any way, he will help.
- Chat is always active, during events we are on voice chat, but outside of it, we are on the normal ingame chat.

OP, I do not know how long you have been with this FC, but its summer now and since June (in some countries, since end May) people have been going on a holiday. My FC is less active now, because people are away. If you have joined recently, then I would wait untill end of August, most players who are students or have a job, will be back and your FC will be alot more active. If this has been going on before June, then maybe you should have a word with your FC leader. From what I have understood, this feels more like your friends FC and not yours. As a FC member, you should feel at home, the moment you dont feel at home, this is when you leave.

Advice

Ask yourself what you want from a FC, are you statisfied with your current FC? From what I can understand your friend has more to gain from having you stay in this FC (since he is in a static) then you. It would not suprise if your friend will convince you stay in the FC, but this is the time where you realy should look out for 1# in other words, yourself. Show this thread to your friend and FC members and talk with them.

I know personaly, I would not want to be in a FC where there is no interaction, a FC where I am ignored and only noticed when I left them. To me it feels like they asked you back to fill their numbers and not make the FC lose more active members. You should realy ask yourself this question:

Am I happy in my current FC?

[SpiritMuse]

My FC is pretty small, if there's 4 people online it's a lot xD but we do play pretty much every day together. We're not raiders, so mostly we run dungeons together when we're on. Usually roulettes, or if someone needs a specific dungeon we do that. Or we do work on our airship, or just party up for no reason, and hang out in the Gridania markets together and chat. It's all very casual and laid back.

[Kitano123]

If you want to join a more active/friendly/fun FC but don't want to lose touch with the people in your current FC why not set up a linkshell? That way you get the best of both worlds.

[LadyVal]

My FC is fairly small, but we do a lot of activities together. We are an RP FC so we do RP with each other, and we have an ongoing FC story arch that we progress too, we try to progress it with everyone about once a week. Other than that we don't have any kind of schedule and we don't raid, but we'll get together and farm primals and Coil for music and gear, we often craft for each other. We use each other as go-tos for roulettes, and recently we've been mix-and-matching members to make Palace of the Dead teams.

As a leader I really rally my officers and make a concentrated effort to include each member in every activity we do, just so that nobody comes in and feels left out or has that feeling of "alone in a crowded room." We usually have about 5-15 people online at any given time and we joke and chat in FC chat. If you are unhappy in your FC, I would say make a linkshell for the friends you want to stay in touch with, and maybe find a more social-oriented FC. Before I took the reigns for the FC I'm currently leading, I was in a few other FCs, and it seems FCs either are performance-oriented or socially-oriented, and very rarely have I seen FCs that balance both.

[Werhusky]

My FC was founded as solo FC for me alone to evade people spamming me with questions, random FC invites and for the free space in FC chest.
Some friends joined me and a few more decided to join in as well. We are atm 6 active players and 1 on a longer break.
I try to do a weekly WCM FC run with all (I can get the attention of ) and we do PotD, Primals etc together. Helping each other on clears is also very important for me.
Most have access to FC seals and airship so they all are free to handle them as needed/wanted.
4 of us raid but that in 3 different teams but we sub for each other as needed and have time.
The chat varies from calm to talking about 3 topics at once.
The FC chest is up to now a storage for crafting mats, Airship items and gardening stuff.

Been in big social FCs before and it was sorta the same except that rights for airships and FC action were more restricted.

[Snugglebutt]

My FC was founded so I could make an FC house instead of a personal house, I had a small personal house then relinquished and had my other character buy it as an FC one. Once I have finished decorating the house how I want it fully and got all 4 airships crafted and level capped, diadem unlocked plus all sectors open...then I will probably start inviting other people to the FC. My routine currently while in the FC is building up FC points, crafting housing items and airship stuff too.

[Khalithar]

Depends on the day, some days people are more talkative than others, we share stories, things that happened, sometimes stuff that's bothering us. We also ask folks if anyone wants to do palace or maps or a roulette or stuff of that nature. How many people are on really depends on the time of day and what day it is, people work/go to school/take breaks/etc.