It’s December again which means that, for the fourth year running, we are going to be holding an FC raffle! This is free for all FC members who were with us at the start of 17th December and have been active within the last 30 days.
Like last year we are going to be giving away 1 million Gil on each of 7 days and all runner ups will get 100,000 Gil. Anyone who doesn’t win anything at all will still get a 50,000 Gil consolation prize at the end!
For more information, please see this years special page for the event!
Don’t miss out, enter without delay and pick your (hopefully) lucky number!
Another year has passed and I’m glad to say that our Free Company is still here, now at the ripe old age of 5 years old, wow! So like in previous years we all got together and played some games!
Last year I made everyone wear a “Altered Woolen Cowl” and admittedly not everyone likes it, but they still got into the spirit of things and wore it for the duration of the event, even if it does make us look a bit weird! Many thanks to Bifi Bifi who took the time to assemble them all!
We look like a cult don’t we?
Throughout the event we had multiple raffles, based on /random. Some of the prizes were fixed, such as specific amounts of Gil, but others could be picked from an available pool of prize, on a firstcome, first served basis.
For the event itself, in previous years we’ve started off with climbing the small lighthouse in Shirogane (where our FC house is), but this year I wanted a change and with the new Empyreum housing area that offered us the chance for another climbing puzzle. So I made them climb it, with the temptation of Gil prizes for the fastest three!
Jump, jump, jump!
Once three people got to the top we switched to playing Hide and Seek. I had 6 alts hidden around the world and the first three people to find each of them won Gil. We started off in Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks and immediately we caused quite a stir with people commenting on a cult arriving:
Invasion!
They found the two hidden characters in that zone quite fast, but because we can now fly in “A Realm Reborn” areas this time we also had two characters in Upper La Noscea and another two in Eastern La Noscea. Some of them were trickier to find than others, but the maps just aren’t that big and everyone was found before things got boring.
Then we moved back to the FC house for a short quiz and each correct answer was worth some Gil. Some of these were counting questions (like how many flowers are in the garden…. top tip… make sure you know the correct answer yourself first!) and other questions were related to the FC itself such as ranks and permissions etc.
Meeting up in the FC house
Then we moved onto another game… Lawn Darts aka Lemmings. We mark a target on the ground, everyone throws themselves off a cliff and tries to land as close as possible. Two points for centre, one for the edge and everyone gets three tries each.
We know how to queue!
Originally everyone was queueing up to jump in order, but it turned out to be workable for everyone to just jump at once and stay still until their score was checked off/they could move out the way. When everyone jumped at once all you heard was thud, thud, thud!
Then after this we finished off with a quick PVP match. Not everyone wanted to do this, but we had 5 pairs of people who each had a fight (paired up as evenly as possible, tank vs tank etc.) and everyone got some money, varying on if they won or lost.
This all took about three and a half hours so after that we called it a day! Thanks to everyone who came, I hope you had as much fun as me, but thank you most of all for making this FC what it is, it’s nothing without the members!
The total prize money given out was 11.8 million Gil and here is the list of who won what:
Name
Gil won
Sahmon Zhier
1,600,000
Geralt R'ivia
1,350,000
Zolukai Pestishyde
900,000
Gwynevere Cateye
850,000
Tiny Ice
850,000
Ashelia Nightfall
750,000
Hime Miyumi
600,000
Lyallon Estaqur
600,000
Sylvia Flutterstar
600,000
Malison Fey
500,000
Rydia Nishiyama
500,000
Sarah Sugarcube
500,000
Bifi Bifi
450,000
Driess Raronek
350,000
Nekomi Hounami
350,000
Asahimaru Onishi
250,000
Maralade Ferilla
250,000
Neroxx Bladestorm
250,000
Primatus Soprey
100,000
Scutts Fletcher
100,000
Shinichi Fukuda
100,000
And here is a list of all the prizes that were won in the raffle:
Name
Prize won
Asahimaru Onishi
Dress-up Yugiri
Ashelia Nightfall
Ballroom Etiquette - Decadent Decoration
Ashelia Nightfall
Calca
Bifi Bifi
Koala Joey
Bifi Bifi
Fat Cat Rug
Driess Raronek
Anemos Suspenders
Geralt R'ivia
Scarlet Peacock
Hime Miyumi
Wind-up Estinien
Lyallon Estaqur
Hippo Calf
Lyallon Estaqur
Calamari
Malison Fey
Tight-beaked Parrot
Malison Fey
Mandragora Queen
Maralade Ferilla
Abroader Otter
Neroxx Bladestorm
Flying Chair
Rydia Nishiyama
Drawing of Character by Blithesome Carl
Rydia Nishiyama
Ballroom Etiquette - Apples with Aplomb
Sahmon Zhier
Ballroom Etiquette - Decadent Decoration
Sarah Sugarcube
Levin Barding
Sarah Sugarcube
Ugly Duckling
Sarah Sugarcube
Anemos Jacket
Scutts Fletcher
Byakko Cub
Shinichi Fukuda
Abroader Otter
Zolukai Pestishyde
Magic Broom
Finally, here’s a picture that Sarah Sugarcube took with lots of us all sat on the same bench, in the same outfit, merged into some sort of mess!
If you’re inactive you’ll now keep your rank on Discord
Much longer, rather detailed and boring version:
We’ve had a few people ask about the possibility of adding new ranks and although we don’t really have any extra permissions to hand out (we try and give everyone as much access to everything as is possible anyway), I am glad to announce that two more ranks are being added!
Currently the maximum rank is Jade (active on 180 different days) and we are going to be adding Peridot for 270 days and Emerald at 365 days. Although they are still all shades of green, this is partly because the ranks don’t add any extra permissions over Jade, but also so that it won’t be massive change to existing Jades who are now becoming something else. I’ll be updating the ranks in-game within the next few hours, but please be patient as they won’t update on Discord until after the Lodestone has updated (this is an automatic process, but will probably take 6-8 hours). !active in #bots should already be working to show your next rank.
Since we started the FC in 2017 it has grown quite a bit larger and I felt it would be a good idea to add two more people to the Sapphire rank so that they can help with some FC things like making sure the company chest had enough Thavnairian Onions and also enabling people to get their free FC rooms, etc.
I’m happy to announce that Ashelia Raphael and Tiny Ice have confirmed they are happy to step up and take on some extra work, even though this is a non-paying job! They both originally joined the FC soon after it started, nearly 5 years ago and I thank you for both for sticking with us, we’re lucky to have you!
The last thing I’d like to bring up is the “Inactive” rank. At the moment if someone is offline for 100 days we temporarily lower their in-game rank to Zircon (the lowest rank we have) until they start playing again. This is merely to try and protect us from compromised accounts where things such as our FC chest are at risk and the real owner of the account might not even be aware, because they aren’t playing right now. This is a real problem during free login periods and sadly something we’ve seen happen before.
The side effect of this is that on Discord it also means you also lose your rank/colour, even though you are still part of the FC. I’m going to change this slightly and instead of being changed to Zircon you’ll be changed to a new rank, “Inactive”. This also means I can separate it from Zircon you’ll keep your rank on Discord for as long as you’re in the FC.
I’ve also spoken with the Sapphires, but for the same reasons we’ll also be temporarily lowering their in-game rank due to inactivity, but after 30 days, not 100. This is just because they have a lot more permissions in-game and it could cause us a lot more problems if their accounts were compromised.
As before though, if you are inactive for over 6 months, then I’m sorry, but you will still be removed from the FC so it better reflects our numbers and removed from the main chat channels on Discord. I will do my best to send you in-game mail to explain what has happened (for if you should return), but obviously you are of course welcome to re-join us should you start playing!
It’s been a while since the last website update, but our FC is still here and we’re all eagerly awaiting 6.1 and some new content! However, it was time for a new look for the FC house… so introducing… The Crystal Cafe!
Only comes in green!
Sadly you can’t actually dye it, so it’s that shade of green whether you like it or not. Using dye only changes the roof colour… which you can’t normally see! Oh well, it could be worse! So here’s a quick tour around:
Poroggo water feature, wooden deck and chocobo stablesThe house entrance with level 1 and level 90 striking dummies either side of itMore seating areas and our Lara Croft NPC operating the baker’s stallSide of the house (all cafe skins come with these tables and chairs)Little seat added at the very end and demonstrated by Maralade, myself and Zolukai
However there’s more to it than that… thanks to some skin swapping with the Forge skin I was able to place an Oriental Deck into the wall…
Dyed white so it’s fairly suble
Doesn’t look like much right? What’s the point of that? Well if you go up to it and type /doze then…
Woah we’re on the inside of the house!I spent 100 gemstones on this stupid boat, so for now it’s “inside” the house.
But it gets better, from the inside of the house we can jump up the columns to get onto the roof:
HEY YOU GUYS!!!!
And not just the roof… we can get into the balcony area:
For an area that you wouldn’t normally see, it’s rather detailed!Zolukai and myself looking out at Maralade who’s on the outside!
I’m sure some parts of the garden will be adjusted, but for now I’m happy with it. It’s been 7 months since the last major change to the FC house so it was about time!
The raffle has ended and we had 7 main winners who each won 1 million Gil and 34 runner-ups who each won 100,000 Gil. We also had 21 people who didn’t win anything at all, so they each received a 50,000 Gil consolation prize anyway!
This means the total prize money for the raffle was 11,450,000 Gil and here’s a table of the winners:
It’s that time of year and I am happy to announce that, for the third year running, we are going to be holding an FC raffle! This is free for all FC members who were with us at the start of 17th December and have been active within the last 30 days.
Previously we’ve had 5 days where the prize has been 1 million Gil (each day), but this year we are extending it to 7 days! As before all runner ups will get 100,000 Gil and anyone who didn’t win anything at all will still get a 50,000 Gil consolation prize at the end!
For more information, please see this years special page for the event!
Don’t miss out, enter without delay and pick your (hopefully) lucky number!
It’s Sunday so as usual we were doing some treasure maps and this week we really hit the jackpot. Not only did we get a lot of “Timeworn Thief’s Maps”, but Ashelia also managed to actually beat the crazy RNG and get us to the the of the Hidden Canals!
So much loot!
Getting to the very last room requires opening the correct door, 6 times, from a choice of 3 doors each time. We don’t know for sure if there actually even is a correct door each time, but it’s very common to get thrown out on the first room, so making it all the away to room 7… wow! It also gave each of a us quite a lot of Gil:
Can’t argue with that! There’s also an achievement for finishing it, I personally did that one about 2 years ago (only the one time!), but everyone else in our group got it today:
We actually ended up doing treasure maps for nearly 4 hours (overran, a lot!) but we got two hedgehoglet minions worth 2 million each, 1 gold whisker (worth 1.1 million) and a Matanga elephant minion worth 400k (and other smaller items). We finished with 1.4 million in Gil, each (largely thanks to that 500k Gil mentioned above!) as well as few people who got the above mentioned minions. It was a very good week!
Finally here’s just a group picture of us looking awesome!
Lucy Evercraft, Hannibal Glamdring, Kamisato Ayato, Ashelia Raphael, Scott Pilgrim and Elza Kanzaki
I don’t think we’ll get even close to this next week… but we can try! Thanks all who came today, I hope you had fun too!
It’s been a few months since the FC house exterior was changed and with the start of the Moonfire Faire in-game event, now seemed like a good time to try out the “Florist’s Walls”!
It’s quite tall so unfortunately I can’t quite get it all in!
I’m sure you’ll agree it’s very different to the “Forge’s Wall” skin we were previously usin and it’s much more colourful! Here’s some other pictures from different angles:
Chocobo stable, fountain, flower stall (retainer inside it) and garden toolshed at the bottom leftAnother flower stall, one of our two striking dummies and the new pool areaGeneral overview of the gardenGarden plots are round the back out the way and also we have this… so we can get on the roof!“I can see London from here!” – Moby, SSX Tricky, 2001I’m so far up, everyone looks like ants!Chilling out in the new pool area at night
Finally, we rarely manage to actually get everyone in the same place at once and today, is no different, but here’s a picture of some FC members that I managed to rope into posing for a picture!
This week was quite a big deal for our Free Company as we turned four years old! Huzzah! So naturally we celebrated with some party games and some Gil prizes!
I made everyone taking part wear an “Altered Woolen Cowl” dyed in the colours of our FC and it caused quite a few comments from other players wondering what was going on!
We’re not a cult, honest!
So as in previous years we warmed up by climbing the small tower that’s in Shirogane (where our FC house is). A few of our members were familiar with this so it didn’t take them too long to get to the top and the first three people won prizes.
Jump!
After this we moved to Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks where I had 5 alt characters hidden. Everyone started off at the Aftcastle and then spread out to try and find the hidden characters. The first three people to find each character won a prize. This didn’t take too long, because it’s pretty hard to hide in the Upper Decks, but I think it still went well and everyone had fun!
“I bring this meeting to order…”
We even managed to get a quick group photo of most of the people playing, although sorry that it has gotten dark by this point:
Some of the Crystal Crusaders
After this we all moved to Horizon to play Lawn Darts. This involves having a waymark on the floor and everyone throwing themselves off a cliff, like a lemming, with the intention of trying to land as close to the waymark as possible. People had three tries each and scored 1 point for landing on the edge of the waymark and 2 points for dead centre. Scores were tallied at the end and highest scores won!
We had 21 people play this game and I was a little worried that it’d be chaos with everyone jumping at once, however, as requested everyone lined up and jumped in an orderly fashion and we got through the game without too many problems!
Is anyone else having flashbacks to “Raubahn Savage”?Geronimo!
After this we headed back to the FC house for a quiz. It was mostly about the FC itself and there were a few “go and count these objects” type games. These all had a prize for each correct answer. I always worry that it’s unfair to non-native English speakers as well as those who can’t type as fast, but everyone still seemed to have fun.
Inside the FC house
After the quiz we had a quick raffle for some bigger Gil prizes. To generate the raffle numbers we had everyone do a “/random” in chat and noted down their number. They had one chance to draw another /random and then the prizes were drawn (also using /random). The closest person to that number won.
One of our FC members, Blithesome Carl, is a talented artist and offered a raffle prize of a drawing of someones character as a raffle prize. L’ireiya Tia won this prize and I look forward to seeing the final drawing!
Oh and while we were getting the numbers… it involved more Raubahn Savage queuing:
We’re not all British, but we still like to queue!
After the raffle we moved to the PVP area and split up into groups for some PVP tournaments. We had one for melee DPS, tanks, ranged physical DPS, healers and magical DPS.
The DPS fights all went rather smoothly, but in the end we had to call a draw to the tank and healer fights. The tank fight was going on for about half an hour, long after we’d called it a draw. It was impressive to watch though!
It’s time to duel!
After that we called it a day and I went to tally up the prizes and send everyone what they had won!
Thank you all for coming, I hope that you had as much fun as I did and thanks for all being a part of such a great Free Company! Here’s to another amazing year! Here’s the list of prizes and who won how much!
Name
Gil won
Meow Chow
1,300,000
Nekomi Hounami
1,300,000
Ceyri Noca
1,200,000
Lex Miahto
800,000
Lyallon Estaqur
800,000
Rydia Nishiyama
550,000
Sylvia Flutterstar
550,000
Wom Blorm
550,000
Blithesome Carl
500,000
Terazoic Willowstar
500,000
Elydith Nelhah
350,000
Geralt R'ivia
350,000
Roy Yunomi
300,000
Driess Raronek
250,000
Kamisato Ayato
250,000
L'ireiya Tia
250,000
Erza Keso
100,000
Lucy Evercraft
100,000
Primatus Soprey
100,000
Sirradez Halvic
100,000
Dacent Valeroyaniox
50,000
Gianix Giari
50,000
And just to finish up here’s a random picture of us all mounting up in our “party outfits”!
We’ve had the “Shirogane Castle Walls” on our FC house since we bought the house back in 4.1, all the way back in October 2017 and it felt like time for a change. When 5.5 was released it added some new items, including the “Forge’s Walls” and now that’s what our house is using:
Looks great doesn’t it? It’s very different from the previous Shirogane Castle, but a change was definitely overdue.
The main reason we hadn’t changed the skin earlier was because we had a “Stump Elevator” setup which allowed us to get onto the roof of the house and also to glitch “inside” the house as well. The first time people saw that it always made them say “What the…” and that never got old!
Sadly, changing the skin around actually broke that and the stump which should have been on the ground, floated into the air, breaking the elevator as you can see in this picture below:
It took many hours of trying to get the elevator to work in the first place as it had to be pixel perfect, but I’m actually relieved it broke. It means that now we can change the house skin more frequently without having that stump elevator holding us back. It was great, but we had it for well over 3 years, we got our use out of it!
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