/shout Linkshells

Just noticed I had been managing to squeeze out two posts a month on the BLOG and since this is the last day of April, I'll go ahead and make an update.

So I made the decision to move back to Leviathan. Actually I made this decision about the same time I dropped out of Haze. I haven't posted about wanting to move back on the remote chance someone actually reads this BLOG and it kept me out of some event shells while waiting on my time in Phoenix. Now though I'm Down to just 20 more days and regardless I can tough that out.

So what have I been doing in Phoenix these last few weeks? Well for one I picked up an odd hobby of joining lots of /shout Linkshells. Seriously I have about 7 LS's I'm in at the moment. These range from a EU shell, to sky shells, to ZNM shells, and some social shells. One thing I've noticed about all of these is that they struggle to keep membership up. For instance in the last 3 weeks every sky run but one has been cancelled due to poor showing. So the LS's go back to shouting and then of course they lose a few members who are mad the runs have been cancelled and the cycle perpetuates.

Another thing I've found fascinating is the people in these shells. They are small in member number but all seem to have a core group of 3-4 good friends. Also, they generally have 1-2 really well geared and really good characters. I'm talking a Relic weapon holder, some Maat's cap's, and some adaberk's. Things of that nature. If I had to hazard a guess these shells were either made by really good long time players who wanted to strike out and lead their own LS, or they bought their characters. I've seen both and of course its fairly easy to tell for someone who has played a while.

The guy with a relic who leads the EU shell I'm in, and who I do Limbus with, is legit. He knows his stuff and you can tell he is well liked and respected from the shells members. They also do events very smoothly and so its easy to get along with them. In my ZNM shell though its far different. This shell has 2 characters with Maat's cap. We go out to kill some Armed Gears. Now if you've ever done this ZNM you know you need to cast spells based on what enspell the mob has up. You want to cast the magic that is strong against its current en. These guys had no Clue what the elemental circle/order was. Not only did the Maat's cap guys not know, but the other mages didn't either. I had to tell them a few times and have them make a macro to call out the current spell element to cast.

Now are these shells bad? No not at all. We in fact won all of our ZNM fights and my sky shells do very well when we actually go to things. Are they slightly less efficient at doing things. Absolutely. There's stronger potential to mess things up and low member attendance really hampers their overall progression. Most of the people have been really nice and they all seem to want to get better. The thing that strikes me though is these are the type of people you may meet in RL who really want to do great things and be better but are waiting on something. What they are waiting on I can't say. But this lack of urgency and initiative is what ultimately holds them back.