How big will free companies be?

[Kirito]

Originally I think I remembered reading that free companies were going to be pretty small, 4 or 8 members. My only concern with this is what if I have 12 friends I equally party with, it would be inefficient to make a free company without them to form raid parties when some members of my free company aren't online. If they plan to make free companies bigger than that, then what would be the difference between that and a link shell?

[Colino]

Pretty sure this was discussed in the last live letter.

If I remember correctly they will start out quite small and you will have to quest/invest to upgrade them to have more people, something like that.

[Eruantien]

Well they said free companies would be at least 100 people, not sure where you heard it was small, maybe you misunderstood the statement of you have to have 4 people to start a free company.

Free companies are supposed to be like guilds in any other game, you gain perks if you are a member of a good guild, free company housing, and also company storage etc. Linkshell is purely for chatting with friends, you can be a member of many linkshells, but only 1 free company

[Kirito]

I see, that takes away my concern then. Thanks. But this leads to another question. What if you are in two link shells and they both decide to end being link shells and switch to free companies. Would there be anyway to get access to free company chat without being in it? Or have the free company chat forward its messages to link shell chat?

[Nuinn]

I see, that takes away my concern then. Thanks. But this leads to another question. What if you are in two link shells and they both decide to end being link shells and switch to free companies. Would there be anyway to get access to free company chat without being in it? Or have the free company chat forward its messages to link shell chat?

Afaik, you can have as many LS as you want and one FC, so I'm guessing "no", not unless those 2 FC are in an alliance...

[Eruantien]

Indeed, fc chat won't link with linkshell chat, I think it was mentioned pretty recently that free company would have its own chat.

[Orophin]

It's been said that you can be a "Guest" of a FC, but I'm guessing that doesn't mean you can be guests in multiples or be in a FC and a guest in another. So for communicating for people outside your FC you're still going to need linkshells.

[Kirito]

It's been said that you can be a "Guest" of a FC, but I'm guessing that doesn't mean you can be guests in multiples or be in a FC and a guest in another. So for communicating for people outside your FC you're still going to need linkshells.

Yeah the only problem is if you are in two link shells and they both drop being a link shell to be a free company. It would be nice if there was an option that if a link shell leader becomes a leader of a free company they could forward messages from free company to link shell so you wouldn't lose touch on one of your 1.0 link shells...

[Orophin]

Yeah the only problem is if you are in two link shells and they both drop being a link shell to be a free company. It would be nice if there was an option that if a link shell leader becomes a leader of a free company they could forward messages from free company to link shell so you wouldn't lose touch on one of your 1.0 link shells...

I don't know if this will necessarily be an issue or not. You don't have to give up your linkshell to become a FC. I imagine people currently in my LS may want to join a different FC than one I end up with, but we'll still be able to keep in touch via linkshells.

[Molly_Millions]

Free companies are one of the things I'm most looking forward to in ARR. I like the fact that you have to be dedicated to one and not just choose whichever one benefits you most that day.