The free company I first joined was semi-active, small, but also talkative and helpful. Our FC was rather limited in what it could do so we merged with another FC that was larger. The thoughts were that by merging our people who wanted to raid could join fellow raiders, our crafters would have more crafters to work with to keep everyone geared up without having to spend too much, and there would be more people to run with in dungeons/trials/maps/etc.

The problem was that the FC we merged into was large enough that honestly they are very cliquey. The goals for the merging were not met and its gotten a lot quieter. Feels like we are invisible. The only people that even get a response most of the time are those who raid, as if they are the only ones most of the FC we merged into deemed were worthy of their attention. So newbies who need help do not get help from the FC we merged into, its mostly our FC who merged in who helps new people.