[WANT] Small, Laid back, older player LS

[Mirh]

I figured that there's nothing to lose to ask, here, although I hate adding to the "LFG" threads.

I'm looking... for a group. of people. Like a guild. The kind you can talk to on a weird clam shell device. I don't want to ask specific shells, because I want something specific. I want to be responded to. This is an offer up for grabs, I don't want to settle for significantly less, and I'm not begging random busy players with this nonsense. I'm CNJ32, but come what may, I want to ultimately play WHM/RDM/BRD/support classes, full stop. I prefer RDM style, and currently NEED to heal and debuff like an old school RDM. I currently heal/buff/nuke and have plenty of fun doing so in my duo. I've not played in groups over 3 players.

I want a guild so friendly (and eventually close), that it could be a family. I have the ambition and player quality to do end-game, and I strive for a challenge on the masochistic side, but for now I'll be quite happy just to have people to talk to that don't get my fur on end. Please read the rest if you really want a devoted member who will psychotically kill your enemies and bring your name glory. And also log in. I'll even tell everyone you're a pretty cool guy.

The text wall is representing a (if you earn it through being awesome (read: not generous, but truly, genuinely awesome.)) loyal player and guildee, not a filler member who will ditch you for better opportunities.

My best experiences in any game have been in the form of grouping with small groups of players (around 25-30 max) that happen to be on average age 25+ (older than me! stop it!), with the mantra of being "laid back" and "open-minded." These "laid back" fellows always wind up doing amazing in end-game scenarios because they bypass drama and silliness, possess the ambition to get things done despite being laid back, and, just as importantly, the leadership isn't arrogant and people are free to speak their mind without offending a few sissies. Rougher crowds that lack the superpolice kiddo that tries to superimpose his beliefs of what "is okay" is my kind of thing. Maybe more so since I'm trying my damndest to roleplay (note: trying, never have RP'd really) a Limosan. Definitely because I enjoy lively chat. Partially because I don't enjoy fearful restrictions on intellect.

The requirement of being open-minded and laid back is significant because I believe the only way to make lasting, real friendships is to know the person for who they are, not restricted by ignorant rules that are designed to make others feel better. If you're selfish, or cruel, or do nothing but complain, you simply are relieved of your membership when the guild comes to an agreement. Keeping your mannerisms quiet in LS only for it to come out in tells is nothing but a lie, to yourself, and to the guild. So I want the dirty that comes with the good. I'm there for my friends and can help people through their mental dishevel, on that note.

I'm QUITE bummed out that I can't locate any of my old Diabolos buddies from Exodus(Pandemonium)/Bloodmourne(Diabolos) here, but figure that considering the time lapse, the flavor might exist even here, even if the familiar faces and warm home feeling won't for years. I don't care about items, I want friends in Eorzea. We can reassess this arrangement if a half-robe or apple tart drops, but until then I'll love you. Okay?

I played several MMOs, with my proudest playing experiences being in early FFXI as a gen-1 NA player (long before the horrible WOTG crap) who strived to be incredible at group-oriented RDM play. I love support role more than anything in these games, and generally study every element of the game and my job and theorycraft a significant amount.

Hopefully this doesn't come off arrogantly or "-ist" - younger people can be awesome. I just don't want to discuss the latest season of Bleach while I'm trying to roll my r's (it obviously takes intense concentration.) Also I like being the youngest (or one of the youngest) in a group. There, I said it. It's no crime.

Oh, and I come with the best DRK FFXI ever had. We're kind of a package. He can tank and he can kick lots, and lots of butt. My hateful sarcasm and his Encyclopedia Finalfantasia could be a circus act. This is important to consider, because we, for the most part, work best in the same groups/party configurations, or within reason of this.

This was a bit longer than I hoped, as I don't feel like I deserve much said on my behalf here. This is more about you. I hope to hear from someone I can take to iHOP to treat to the senior citizens' menu soon.

We're EST, play 24/7 in realistic time periods. We disappear sometimes for a month or two, but always come back. Sometimes with food. You can have this food.

I would have loved meeting someone in the world, playing with them, and shelling up with them, but right now it feels impossible to guild up this way.

PS: "laid back" includes the understanding that you like your members enough that, despite doing cool stuff with them, you don't get your well worn pantalettes in a twist when they go to play Skyrim, and kick them! (oh, and please, no miqote leader? please? just a personal thing, dont ask.)

PS: a leader who likes NIN/Radiohead earns instant marks on being my favorite leader. Not a requirement. My real requirement list would even scare ME away. Oh, and if this was tl;dr I don't really want to play with you

PS: I don't get along with lazy or abusive people, and have a bad habit of chastising those who act either way. It's part of the package, too. I also have an intense disdain for memes. I spent my share of time in /v/ and on WoW, I don't need it now.

Even if there isn't a guild out there for the old school desiree, I'd still love to meet some people, albeit unnaturally if this is the way. Feel free to send me tells if you have no one to talk to.

/psyche.

[Mirh]

As far as playing long-term, the deciding factor is just how much like WoW vs old school FFXI this game becomes. I'm not looking for a standard formula MMO, so for as long as it keeps a healthy amount of tedium and hardship and focus on community, this is it. I do plan to stay til 1.20 and almost definitely after, but as odd as this might sound,

the linkshell aspect is the biggest deciding factor.

[Geesus]

To bad you didn't roll on Figaro because that IS what our LS is all about. If you change your mind though, you can visit otogibank.ca and look at what we offer. We have a HUGE variety of players that play everyday to here and there. All players are in their mid 20s to 40 with diversity in married, unmarried, significant others to divorced single parents. It's ALWAYS fun. Also, you can visit here for some other info.

Good luck!

[Mirh]

Too bad indeed. If the offer is still up when the time comes (I really don't have hopes of meeting anyone on Rabanastre, but I'm a pessimist in video game communities now) I'd throw all my money at S-E for a transfer there just to give you guys a chance.

Thanks for the reply, and offer, and I hope for the best for you guys!

[SHJcules]

Ahoy Mirh-

Now that introductions have been made, I'll get straight to the point- Rabanastre is a much better server than we are given credit for! We just seem to have more world poachers than native players on our community forums here on el Lodestone.

Also remember positive perception can be a powerful thing! It will take some luck and persistance- but I am sure there is the perfect community for you close to home here.

Also+1, I did read your entire post! I agree with most of it (78%+) and it was also very entertaining. Due to the awesomeness of it though, and the many contradictions I stumbled upon- I wont advertise my home of Carnival as the perfect shell for you.

But I read your massive text assault so I leave it now up to you to read mine!- Carnival is currently full (and currently working out a reform) but if you decide you truly want to be a Carny- I will work something out and make two slots for you and your partner in crime.

In the event you decide to leave Rabanastre: I will be sad to see another go- but I wish you luck in finding a good community to be a part of regardless! I personally would not leave my friends on this server for any other. The only real negative we have on Rabanastre is the BG LS- but they are fun to mess with sometimes.

I'm not in the business of trying to sell my linkshell to people- and that's not really why I'm here- I'm just passing by defending a really good server with a seemingly bad name

[Mirh]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

I did indeed read up on Carnival before my first post here, and lit up instantly at the start of your group's description - until, indeed, the contradictions came about. I think your group would be both amazing and satisfying to be associated with or near in the best of times, and, with that said, it would be more so that I'd rather protect you from myself, than the other way around! This is why I didn't simply post a much, much more compact version of my pseudo-manifesto in the recruitment/information thread.

With that said, Carnival would the Titan to my Terra, the closest I've seen to what I wanted since the old days in over 5 years, and I could contently calm down my expectations if it meant meeting wonderful people. As it would be rude to suggest I'd like to take you up on the offer if and when room is available - it would seem like I'm suggesting I'd be 'settling', and your fine group deserves more than this - maybe I'll just keep up with your development/public news here and, once my partner and I have discussed what we should do in Eorzea, we can contact you then.

Leaving the server would be my last resort, and only if I've failed to make friends here. With that said, I've not met anyone here since the CE pre-release, and they have since quit, of course. It is good to see there are players here confident in the server - I wasn't even partially deterred from it until recently, myself. Perhaps when 1.20 comes about, we'll see more posters here, and it will feel a bit more lively.

So, come what may, I hope the best for you and your team!

[SHJcules]

well well!

as weird as it sounds, I am actually very pleased you respect me and my LS enough to not "settle" for us. If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is members who simply join for the sake of being in a LS- any LS that can kick and has a pulse. "hey you guys seem active, I'd like to have something in my chat log finally" or my favorite, "I have many LS but I will use you guys for when no one else is around." I shall definitely be revising my "open to all!" policy come the great 2012 reform.

I should also add, I was much like you a year ago when I was born into this world! I just wanted to adventure, and group up with strangers for things and meet some people. Then one day, once I actually had a good circle of friend, we would all just rock-paper-scissors for who's gonna make the LS. Nine months- two craptastic linkshells- and a sad face FL later- I decide to just take the extreme and create my own ideal and dream LS. (Jims Dreamy Linkshell was not a good LS name tho) thus I constructed Carnival.

I did not plan for a large LS- just a good group of like-minded adventurers with similar goals and interests, and people who can properly use exclamation points. My XI LS was like eleven people- but I would not trade those eleven people for anything! But then Carnival exploded and the gates rushed down by small Roes, giant Lalafells, and ill tempered chocobos. I ran the LS with putting my own ambitions aside, and constantly asked for (and got!) that juicy feedback on what everyone wanted. Pretty much every time, people just wanted more LS mates! due to fall classes, I pretty much left recruitment in the hands of my leaders. Three months later~ we are at member cap.

If you ask me to name all my members though- at crossbow point ofc- I will give a list of 20-30 people. These are the ones that I know their RL name- age- favorite final fantasy- where they work- their favorite color and candy bar- their fav class and city- time zone- favorite cheese- etc. We are basically a small community within a community- and for that reason I consider this home failure- this home I put everything into. But I will take what I have learned and create a much stronger LS come January- one more similar to your original post. (actually I will probably split the LS like dodgeball team- those who favor XIV on the left- those who favor community on the right- and I will take the people on the right and run)

Also, even though I say "we are open to all ages!" Our average LS age by natural selection seems to hover around thirty-ish. If you read our introductions thread, most people are between 25-35 and are married or have families! One of my best friends in XI was/is some 15 year old kid - who was the coolest and funniest person and the most amazing BRD (and still mature player) I've ever seen - so he has skewed my perception on young gamers and mostly why I still defend them today. Also, our anime discussions are rare- always tame- and always two sided and entertaining. "what the chizz are half those words you just said!?"

And why not keep adding randomness, this quote comes to mind; "I don't care about items, I want friends in Eorzea. We can reassess this arrangement if a half-robe or apple tart drops, but until then I'll love you. Okay?"- for this quote alone I will always leave two empty seats in my LS with your name on it! and you're more than welcome to stay up to date with our community site- and you can even join the site without joining our linkshell- and stay commitment free- and get to know our core members or just post random thoughts on our site feed. Our website members are the true carnival- and our in game LS is the one I cannot wait to burn to the ground.

wow did I just write all that >.> sorry bout that. As you can tell, I am big on community- so when it comes to LS talks I just open my mouth and cities fall out!

Linkshell business aside for a moment however- I am just a regular player on Rabanastre first. Well, regular as in ringleader- eccentric billionaire- walking chunk of metal type regular. If you ever feel like chatting, want to vent about your latest exp party, want to hear my joke of the day, or need assistance with something- add me to FL or hit me up anytime! I shall do the same you, only without your permission

[Mirh]

You guys like cheese? Why didn't you say so?

I'll do so! You can contact if you ever want to, although I've been forum wallowing more than in game. I'll post a respectable response in a moment.

[Mirh]

I do get the impression FFXIV encourages people to be more um, promiscuous (haw) towards their linkshell collection. When I played FFXI, even more casual and social oriented players stuck with one shell. This new concept of whoring it up does come as a foreign concept to me. I was "raised" on concepts of allegiance and pride. It's "just a game" but I believe in working hard in everything you do - If you can't be passionate about it, it's not worth doing!

I was spoiled in FFXI, as I entered with a group of friends. I was always around friends, so having friends became the definitive raison du livre of FFXI to me. If I could re-establish this, my ultimate goals are significantly more ambitious - I just have my priorities perfected through years of being deprived of what should be the dream experience - which is quite modest, honestly.

As prideful as I was with my larger groups of friends, I was significantly proud to be part of the extremely small, 1-group-sized HNMLS that made all the bigger HNMLS servers look like a joke. I left it for morality conflict reasons (One of the leaders was messing with the minds of the members, who talked about it to me, but were too intimidated to speak up. One day, I logged in, made a small speech, and broke the pearl as no one had the guts to do it first.) This sounds like I come with drama, but this only has needed to happen once, and I'm merely trying to covey three points: 1) I'm an elitist in that I do love smaller, amazing groups that work surgically, like a recon squad somewhat; 2) I don't stand for bullshit leadership as a mentor/counciler/confidant/support-type personality; 3) as always I combined my second and third point into the second point. CRAP.

It's funny because the last carnation of the shell I was in in FFXI, the leadership encouraged to have us all on a real name basis. Not quite what you're saying, but it feels like leaders who are passionate enough to really know their members eventually lead some of the most happy groups. Although I do wonder what you mean by favoring XIV - perhaps as in, favoring the modern indifferent style players have come to have in regarding who is family or not? It sounds like a stellar idea, if so.

In truth, my old groups were open to all ages and actually were mostly made of older players by default. There was a younger guy or two in there, who sort of acted like a cute little mascot/humor well for us. I think it goes without saying that the younger players who don't stick to younger players are usually pretty enjoyable to have around. I'm not necessarily bothered by anime as much as I'm bothered by bad anime, though! I'm actually a little odd and watch a significant lot of cartoons (with some anime), but most anime is too filler to stand hearing about. Heh. Of course this is just fodder - the idea is that naruto and bleach fans tend to be personalities that won't like me much.

But really, young people in general don't bother me so much. Even most people I meet a year younger than me feel like they're 10 years younger, so I've had to adapt to the weird mental gaps.

I don't care about items, I want friends in Eorzea. We can reassess this arrangement if a half-robe or apple tart drops, but until then I'll love you. Okay?

It's a bit funny for me since only a couple people perhaps know how incredibly obsessed I became about acquiring a half-robe of any material in beta/CE release - although my dream was to look like the Culinarian Miqo'te clothing-wise. Slightly bit so of an inside joke, but not really ;-) But, /blush, your appreciation for that is quite noted and your open seats quite appreciated!

Maybe I'll check into your offer with the site. The threads on Lodestone forums are starting to run together for me in a very common conflict theme.

It's definitely nice to see someone spirited enough in what they're doing to say what they want to say. You have no idea how long it's been since I've talked to a group leader who didn't speak purely in acronyms.

Now, before I continue - I do keep likening what you say to my "groups" - I'm merely doing this to say that, although my interests may seem very specific, what I wound up being part of that I'm looking for was originally based off simply playing a certain way - my entire original post more or less describes the composition. Maybe if we wound up grouping, in 10 years I'll be posting somewhere that I want a such and such group, and then cite off all the members of the group as requirements. Yes, I require a big funny drunk guy who always laughs at lalafells/tarutarus, a kid who HATES bicycles, a 30 year old woman who is always eating fig newtons, - etc.

I guess my last reserve is wondering if I'm too abrasive for you guys, and wondering if I need to control something about how I come off. That would be the way to determine if we're compatible - The only literal thing I stand by in my search post is that I believe it's imperative to speak your mind / speak freely / be relaxed. But I suppose hearing those jokes of the day, as it were, would give me insight to what's fine :P

As I said, really, only laziness and abusiveness offends me, personally. I can be pretty crude, though. I'd like to think I offend people with logic, though, when I do offend.

But truly, thanks for your time and response. I'd definitely like to get in touch sometime. I won't say I'm dying to join you just yet, as I'm not quite sure if that kind of statement should wait until January or not, buuuuut.. I think my neurotic side towards what makes the perfect experience has relaxed a bit after seeing what you've had to say.

And holy hell, I don't expect anyone to read this post.

[SHJcules]

I was really open to the idea of multiple LS on at the same time at first. A grand opportunity to meet and keep in touch with a large and diverse population! Then I saw it in action.. and I now wish the system be gone away with. I can name more than one occasion where I have seen 30+ members online, and lil ole Jim talkin to himself for 3 hrs and spamming the chat log until more than one or two members shows a pulse. But the notion that my chat is filling up 27 peoples chat windows, as they openly ignore me or can't bother to say hello, this is my just deserts.

Oh and we did have a poll on cheese- cheddar won much to my dismay! muenster only got three votes- and one person even voted for "no cheese is good cheese" and I liked him too much to try to kick him from the LS for not liking cheese

I am also not trying to convert you into a carny- nor twist your elbow- or whatever the saying is these days. I was just using that as a ploy to come back here and talk with you because you are so interesting. As much as I may need to save my members from you! also would we (probably) not sate your hunger to be the best, feed your ego in an argument, and fulfill your great ambitions to be part of a group that annihilates the competition and makes other LS run home embarrassed. Our LS ambitions are formed around no shame, no ego, no elitism, no drama- (I myself openly admit many times to watching iCarly- Adventure Time- Gumball and playing JRPGs) we are just 100% fun- games- friends.

However, with such one-sided and extreme philosophies- much of our members now do not quite fit as well as I would have hoped. Many share a semblance to you somewhat. I do not bash the other side of the spectrum- they just want to enjoy XIV differently than I do! I respect that, and after reading your posts, I understand it and respect it even more. I just don't feel I should be in charge of a LS with members with such ambitions. Which is why I feel a LS split is necessary. I will run the community LS, based on closeness, socializing with you friends, having fun, taking it easy, playing carnival games, and lower rank members doing things at their own pace and ignoring game politics.

Then there will be Dark Carnival! (or some much better name when the time comes) All of our people who mainly wish to enjoy XIV with others- and be the best- and don't want to participate in my community games- want to run high lvl content as much as possible, and be part of a LS more akin to an endgame LS in XI- they will hop ship into a LS with a much more appropriate leader. Once I find that leader (which I have a few candidates!)

Another topic of much debate! "I believe it's imperative to speak your mind / speak freely / be relaxed." (sorry I don't take the effort to use official quotes) I agree! everyone needs to be relaxed and feel free to say whatever comes to mind. As much as I wish that could be a 100% policy- people need to consider their entire audience. I don't feel there should ever be a reason to cuss out your LS mates, start an argument with them, act completely vulgar or sexually explicit towards them- when this free-speech reaches that point, I think it is the leaders job to intervene. Of course this depends on group of people I suppose, and whether they wish to treat a linkshell like a public area, or a bunch of friends in the basement- personally I like LS to feel more public and open.

Joining a LS, I feel, should be a bigger deal than most people make it out to be, and why it seems like I put so much effort into it (these are the people I plan to spend my entire XIV career with after all!) Which is why I much respect your highly specific and detailed post. And why I tried to make my post much more detailed than simply "new LS on Rabs- social casual shell- hit me up in game if interested, cyaz!" The more people in a group who share the same ambitions and goal, the better it will be for everyone involved! Thus I wish you great luck in your hunt- even if it takes much time and effort- and even if you end up in my LS eventually.

also I enjoy your mega long posts- and if you have a XIV blog- or make one in the future- I will gladly read it