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Shadowbringers [5.0]: Post may contain potential spoilers.

The Darker

A rather odd and familiar place to that of The Womb. I wonder if they have similar tendencies to another potential cult-like group? Doubtful, but one thing that I will say is that there’s probably a reason for places like these. I didn’t consider it at first since I already beaten Shadowbringers but I believe the reason for these very dark and cult like rooms is due to the fact that the world had been under constant shade of light for roughly a century. So places deep in these caves tend to be holy/ritual grounds to protect themselves from such blinding light. Atleast thats what I assume it to be.

Its hard to realize at times but these people had never experienced the night sky for so long that it can be easy for them to not possess typical sleep schedules. I imagine clocks exists but they aren’t exactly the best tool of the job when it comes to the “Dark Hours” of the day. I do wonder what routines they have for this place though.

Rituals are the foremost thing that come to mind, but it could honestly act as a lounging area for those who want to get away from the ever-piercing light. I find it hard to believe the latter yet there’s always that possibility. Anyways, thats really all I have for today’s screenshot. However there’s one other thing I want to talk about. Nothing special, but feel like typing it down to process some thoughts.

Free Company stuff

Disclaimer: Everything that is said here is more of rambling and isn’t intended to be some gospel of truth just the views of some random person existing on the internet.

So… Its been a while since I ever mentioned the Free Company (FC) that I’m part of. I think it was back before I reached my 100 post milestone. Atleast anything noteworthy wise. Eitherway, I do like to add context about said FC so that potential readers will understand my postion. The FC that I’m part of is called Platinum Valkyries. Its been around since 2014 and is a very small FC. I joined it around 2 years ago and as being fairly active. I’m in a position where I have fair amount of control as to how it functions.

Mainly I focus on the Workshop and the Company Chest a tad. Practically devoted a year’s worth of my time building it up to where its now. The only problem about the FC is that its “very small”. So small that there’s only five active memebers in it. Not only that, I play this game by myself a lot and been wanting to interact with others more often. Technically, I’m part of a Cross-World Linkshell but literally never communicated on it aside from maybe once. Anyways, this game has sort’ve become a stress reliever and a way to relax in general. Hell I’ll just walk around zones for the fun of it (well, recently that is).

I sort’ve complained outloud to a couple of my friends about wanting to have more people to hangout and play in FFXIV. One of said friends is the FC Leader and mentioned that I should just go and recruit people into the FC and they also stated that due to my rank. Its “technically” one of my responsibilities as well. So yeah here we are now. Me seriously considering on recruiting people into the FC and deciding on how to go about it. '

I have done recruitment in the past for another game. Sadly those experiences weren’t all that great. Thankfully, working as a manager has forced me into conducting numerous interviews and recruitment. So… I can probably handle doing both of those things if I know where its best to put the message out. I have little desire in hopping on over to Limsa Lominsa and shouting out “looking for people to join such and such FC”. I do have a couple friends that have started to play the game, but they are on the free-trial version and not certain on how long they will invest into it. Lodestone would be the next best thing I think, but not too surprisingly I don’t seem to have access to the FC stuff on that site (mainly because none of us use it). Honestly, I’m fairly stumped on where to go when seeking players to invite. Party finder might be a solution. Regardless, there’s one main problem that we would need to sort before setting out on seeking new members.

Direction

More specifically, whats the point of the FC? We mainly have existed due to being a bunch of friends that known each others mostly in real life as such simply hanging out and doing stuff has been the main goal of the FC. However, when it comes to actively recruiting new folks we do need to establish a direction behind its presence. I believe the simplest one being able to do dungeons, raids and trials. Heck maybe even Eureka and Bozja. That particular path isn’t special or anything, but I think is enough to establish intention/direction.

Foundation

One thing that I like to think is that the FC is on a fairly strong foundation to accept new members. Firstly, the “leaders” of the FC are active and I would like to think of us having good heads on our shoulders. Another thing to mention is that most of us are fairly experienced and are willing to assist newcomers to most things. Secondly, this FC is old and possesses many luxuries that new ones wouldn’t have. We have a large plot, A heavily invested Company Workshop, Rank 30 and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Hell me and atleast the FC Leader have no intentions leaving this game till the servers are literally gone.

Ultimately, I do think what the FC has right now is strong and while we haven’t fully tested it against the waters. I’m pretty sure we can adjust things as necessary. I do genuinely believe we have something to work with here and the only thing that limits us is the lack of members.

So lets talk about what kind of players that such a FC as us would look for.

New Members

I should repeat myself that these are merely thoughts and not necessarily something that will happen, but I do like envisioning possibilities.

Disclaimer aside. I don’t this FC is looking for anything in particular when it comes to new members. There’s two core things that we would care about. Participation and Activity.

Participation

I’m pretty certain that with any FC there’s some degree of expectation that people in it are willing to assist or join others and events and such. With us, I don’t want to say its an requirement but ideally we would want people to say hello and chat or atleast willing to join some stuff. Honestly, that really just boils down to finding the right people for the FC. I can’t expect every person that would join to involve themselves all that much or at all plus we are a fairly laid-back FC with awareness of the fact that life is more important than this game. As such I’m fine with people not willing to invest too much into this game.

Activity

Now this kind’ve plays in hand with participation. I can’t imagine any of us wanting people to play this game every single day and requiring set times to play the game constantly. Thats what static is for. Although I do want to state that we will remove people from the Free Company if they aren’t online for over a year. I don’t think we have removed anyone less than that, but still. We do prefer people to be on every once in a while. Like hoping on every new patch cycle for a week or two and then not coming back for a few months shouldn’t cause any woes. The one thing that I should mention is that those who like “promotions” would probably want to be fairly more active and willing to participate stuff. Since we can’t excatly view much on a person when they are on every once in a while.

Free Company Conclusion

Geez I’ve been typing alot with this post. Uh… honestly, I don’t really know what else to say at the moment. Lets just show where I’ve been looking at while debating on what to say for the past hour or so.

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Truthfully, I wasn’t actually standing here the whole time but the prior zone was in a location that I have yet to reach with my blog so far so I changed locations for this shot. Anyways, due to the FC Leader pointing out about recruitment I’ve found myself immersed in the idea of actually doing it. Sadly, I’m not entirely sure if I got the motivation to push for it. So yeah this is just me rambling this whole time. I do think there are some things to take away from this post if I do actually conduct recruitments. One last thing I should just toss out there is the ranks and what not.

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I gotta say though its very weird that we have so many ranks yet we are such a small FC. For those wondering I’m at the 3rd rank “VLKRE Arbiter” which based on current hierarchy puts me at the main 5 leaders of the FC. Valkyrie is for friends that we know in real life and those that are very active and trustworthy.

Side note there can only ever be 3 Arbiters at a time. This is mainly because with the other 2 top ranks it allows such that any major decisions we must make prevents any draws from happening. Anyways, thats really all I got for today’s post. Its definitely a long one and if I were to not lose focus occasionaly could’ve added more about the FC as a whole.