free companies and housing?

[IveraIvalice]

so i was just watching some of the letter from the producer live 2
and i remember watching it from along time ago and being excited about housing and how we would be able to add decorations, a garden, maybe even a chocobo stable. it all just sounded amazing. they said it was going to be available for free companies which, to be honest, wasnt clear what that exactly was.

i had always assumed a free company was just a person acting on his own. like, you are your own company or something. but after some time passed and i watched it again today, i remember that im pretty sure free company is something like a minimum of 4 people. which in not sure how that works with housing, it kinda sucks then, its not really personal housing.

so im looking for whatever information i can about,
what the housing plans are?
what exactly is a free company?
is there going to be any kind of actual personal customizable housing if this is not it?
im also interested to hear what your thoughts are about personal housing and what you would want that to be like

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Free Company = Grand Company
Housing = Free Company Estate
Free Company Estate = customizable place, hang out area with friends.

[Raldo]

I'm pretty sure Free Companies are still in the works, so the first line of the post above is likely incorrect. It was originally described so long ago as a group of players (like a linkshell is already, which is why it's confusing <_<), but you could only join one Free Company or something...

Hopefully housing will come for both players as well as free companies.

[MrKupo]

From what I remember, a free company is similar to a clan, but with one main difference. A free company pledges allegiance to one of the grand companies, and those that join the free company don't have to be in that specific grand company. That means that if you are of the Maelstrom, and want to do some Adder's events, you can join a free-company that is pledged to the Adder's Nest.

The events, iirc, are free-company specific. So it's stuff to do with your friends that don't require everyone to be in the same grand company (unlike escorting, etc). I don't remember reading anything about the rewards, but maybe seals redeemable for free-company specific items like Player Housing, decoration, special barding?

[Rau]

iirc, free companies will be analogous to what other games call "Guilds", where as linkshells were intended to be smaller (hence the 128 cap on ls members) subsets of the said Free Companies.

[Vydos]

I have to say that I'm worried as well about that. I usually hate it when mmorpg's add housing but only refering to guildhouses. Which is why I loved the moghouse system in ffxi.
I certainly hope they add personal housing. I don't mind them adding both but I really would prefer a personal one that people can visit, over a guildhouse. I loved buying furnishing from my moghouse and even had different interior sets. Besides personal reasons, I also believe that it could help the ingame economy and allow crafters to do something else than crafting the usual stuff.

[Airget]

I think you might be mistaken, the "housing" is suppose to be actual housing and Yoshida is hoping to have it where you have neighborhoods rather then something like a mog House. So basically you could have your house and then 9 other people in the same neighborhood around you.

He did say that if possible he would like to have the core of housing down before 2.0 but only the next VU will tell if that's possible or not, odds are we'll have to wait til 2.0 but I am excited to see how housing turns out, since it's planned atm to be a personal area and a place where you can garden. Most likely there are other concepts in the work but the core idea they have is housing, gardening and I think also a crafting workshop.

[RicoJalapeno]

Having neighbors would be cool for sure! Although you goto your home and go: "Where's my chocobo?" And then your neighbor Jack Black comes riding down the street, stoned, saying "Oops I thought this was my choco-chocoa."

[Ruisu]

inb4 people complain about Free Company estates being instanced and how unbearably unreasonable that is, and that they should be in the middle of Coerthas.

This is probably what I'm looking forward to the most.

[Arcell]

inb4 people complain about Free Company estates being instanced and how unbearably unreasonable that is, and that they should be in the middle of Coerthas.

This is probably what I'm looking forward to the most.

Yeah that'll definitely happen, before they realize how awful it is to have player towns cluttering zones and eventually turning into ghost towns as people quit.

I'm hoping the Free Companies get some kind of large customizable area to themselves but in addition to personal player housing.