Why is it so hard to make close friends in this game? lol

[Sho86]

It's a byproduct of today's Duty-Finder era of MMOs

A thousand times this. I found plenty of people I kept in contact with for years from XI, a couple of which I still do. Although ever since the journey has been taken out (cheap tele everywhere, insta-airship, insta-dungeon, etc) the rate of finding people I keep in contact with is down to nearly nil.

[Issachar]

You could always try joining a...erm...specialized linkshell.

[Sandoria]

I blame the /busy status I have to maintain to keep RMT from stealing my sanity. Without which, we might even be close in-game friends.

[Gillionaire]

I blame the /busy status I have to maintain to keep RMT from stealing my sanity. Without which, we might even be close in-game friends.

I agree that RMT spams are a motivation in setting status to busy, but it's SE's downright crappy UI that makes people weigh the options and resort to that.
Even without RMT, you can't receive tells in duty, check friends list, check linkshells... You pretty much can't do ANYTHING social while in duty finder. I don't understand why such a limitation exists but the mindset I get from it is.. If I'm in duty, I already miss out on all the /tells and invites etc, so people have found ways to circumvent the problem (unfortunately, ls/fc chat is about the only way) and rarely even use /tells.
That's why people don't mind setting status to busy.

I don't even have whispered messages on my chat log since nobody I know would send me a /tell anyway. Or if they had to, they'll find another way to contact me etc.
UI in this game needs a rehaul badly.

Why can't I invite people to a linkshell because I'm kneeling down and crafting?
Why can't I accept a freaking party invite because I'm crafting?
So many stupid restrictions it's not even funny.

Also, the 1000 character limit on this forum... Come on, why's that necessary? We can already circumvent it with reposting... tsk tsk

We do have a general chat,though. "Say" "Yell" "Shout" and "Alliance".

God forbid we ever get a server chat. Those are basically 24/7 barrens chat rooms. No thank you.

We could just do away with linkshells and simply make free to open chat channels that people can join at will. With moderators of course. That way we can have a channel such as /hunts and use that as a consolidated source of hunt callouts instead of having to join 3-4 different hunting ls. I don't understand why SE is trying to save so much damn resource on chat.. Does it really put that much strain on their servers? I don't think so.

[Mugiawara]

Come to Balmung.
I'll be your friend.

[Nova_Rox]

I think a lot of you are confusing friends with acquaintances.

The reason it's so hard to make friends is because everything is instanced and cross server. So, that amazing dungeon run you had with those awesome people? Probably never gonna see them again. It's a sad truth ;[

[FoxyAreku]

Huh?

This is the most friendly MMO I've ever played. Made so many good friends.

[Anesjka]

Come to Balmung.
I'll be your friend.

Honestly, this person has a point... Balmung is super packed but most of the FC's are small tight knit people who gel together very well...I love my FC and the 2 Linkshells im in... <3 <3

[Red_Wolf]

This is the first MMO I've ever seen without a general chat or tiered-level chat. I think that's the heart of the "community" issue in this game.

[Chevrefoil]

I've found RP selected servers (unofficial or official) tend to be a bit more social and friendly to your average player so exploring a new world might not be a bad idea But always test it out before paying money for transfer!