Free Company Content

[Jojoya]

((Heavensward Diadem rears its ugly head.))

While such ideas sound good in our heads, they don't work out well in practice. Formal FC only content and FC Alliances run into problems.

Who ends up responsible for organizing the FC only content runs? What happens if they can't play or leave the FC?

What rewards are interesting enough to keep repeating the content without making FC membership feel mandatory to get those rewards?

What happens when the rewards everyone wants are assigned to a type of content the FC doesn't do while the type of content the FC likes to do hasn't be added or has poor rewards in comparison?

What happens when your FC has more members online than the content allows or not enough online to meet the minimum party requirements?

How do you stop those organizing content events from encouraging flattery and bribes from members trying to get picked for content, or stop FC officers from pressuring those individuals to include their personal favorites?

Who gets to be the boss in an Alliance with final say on what the Alliance does and what roles members from each FC get to have?

How do you prevent cliques and favoritism from occurring so everyone has equal access?

How do you stop displays of elitism by those who feel they contribute more to the FC than others (even when they don't) and therefore should have priority?

If your initial thought to any of these is "that would be someone else's problem to solve", then you're seeing the problem with such systems. Everyone is fine with them as long as they don't have any responsibility but also are always included when they want to be included. The moment they're asked to take on some of the responsibility or get excluded, drama starts. And most of the time, that ends up falling back on the game developer as players scream "this isn't what we wanted!".

Informal systems work better for informal social groups, which is what a FC is. You do things together because you enjoy each other's company, not because you're out for the reward.

[Wobi]

((Heavensward Diadem rears its ugly head.))

While such ideas sound good in our heads, they don't work out well in practice. Formal FC only content and FC Alliances run into problems.

Who ends up responsible for organizing the FC only content runs?

What rewards are interesting enough to keep repeating the content without making FC membership feel mandatory to get those rewards

I feel like you’ve been in some very badly run FC’s, like any content the people interested will turn up and if you have too many you can always run multiple groups. It’s something we commonly do in ours when turnout for raid/dailies/maps are high enough. Ideally this type of content would be scalable and more of a participation focused content. I’m talking about fairy casual content. There could also be rewards for those who participated as well as general rewards as your FC ranks up in the new content that anyone would have access to. People keep trying to make this a single player game and we could honestly use some MMO type content that encourages grouping up.

[Saraide]

I feel like you’ve been in some very badly run FC’s, like any content the people interested will turn up and if you have too many you can always run multiple groups. It’s something we commonly do in ours when turnout for raid/dailies/maps are high enough. Ideally this type of content would be scalable and more of a participation focused content. I’m talking about fairy casual content. There could also be rewards for those who participated as well as general rewards as your FC ranks up in the new content that anyone would have access to. People keep trying to make this a single player game and we could honestly use some MMO type content that encourages grouping up.

Why not just make it regular content that doesnt require running it with people from only your own FC (or FC alliance). Then FCs could still run it but any other group of players could also run it. Where does the need to be FC only content come in?