How to make, grow and join your Free Company in Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV is by far one of the most social MMORPG games currently on the market, and Free Companies (or guilds, for all the WoW and other refugees) are a great, big part of that. Free Companies are different from Grand Companies, as the Grand ones are run by NPC’s and there’s only three, while the Free companies are created and run by us, the players. In this article, I’ll be walking you through some of the general Free Company information, how to create or join one, how to level your Free Company ranks, and even how to join mine, if that’s something you’d be interested in!

Creating your new Free Company

Forming a Free Company of your own isn’t difficult at all, but there are some requirements you need to fulfill to make it happen. You can only create it if you’ve gotten to level 25, and completed the Main Story Questline past the point of getting into one of the three Grand Companies. Also, if you’ve just left your previous company, you’ll have to wait for 24 hours until you can create a new one, and you should have 15000 Gil at hand to pay for your Free Company’s creation.

If you’re ready to do this, you should go up to the OIC administrator of the Grand Company in your main city and ask for a petition.

OIC Administrator (Ul’dah): Ul’dah – Steps of Nald – Hall of Flames (8-9)

OIC Administrator (Gridania): New Gridania – Adders’ Nest (9-11)

OIC Administrator (Limsa Lominsa): Upper Decks – Maelstrom Command (13.1-12.6)

You’ll be required to choose a name for your Free Company, which needs to be between 3 and 20 characters. The name of your FC should be chosen carefully, as you only get to do this once. Then, you’ll choose a tag that has a maximum of 5 characters, and that’s what will sit next to your name and the names of your FC members once your Free Company is established. The tag is changeable later on, so just type in whatever makes sense to you.

When your document gets finalized, you’ll need to get three players from the same server to sign it, and that doesn’t involve you. They can’t be in another FC themselves, as they’ll automatically join your FC upon signing, and they can’t be on their free trial, as free trials can’t enter a Free Company, so they can’t sign the document either. If you’d like to invite random people you meet in the open world, you can do that by targeting their character and clicking the Invite sub-command.

Once you’ve got your three signatures, take the document back to the company administrator, pay the fee, and there you are – a master of your own, little Free Company. From here, the journey begins for you and your friends!

Leveling your Free Company’s Ranks

When it comes to leveling your Free Company’s ranks, over time you’ll realize that happens just by playing the game. To level up, you can gather resources, kill monsters, craft, invite members, complete guildleves, do missions, Treasure Hunts and stuff like that. Apart from leveling your Free Company, you’re also gaining the FC credits that are used to buy some items and buffs.

Why even be in an FC?

There are many, many benefits to being in an FC, it’s a feature that’s built deeply into the game and if you want to experience it fully apart from just being with your friends, being in an FC is actually quite important.

As of patch 5.2, there are 30 FC ranks, which is an increase from the previous 8 possible ranks. Most ranks award unlocked features, such as access to things like company chests and additional tabs, ability to buy land for your FC’s house, making and customizing your Free Company chest, access to FC’s actions and buffs, and much more.

Free Company’s Hierarchy & Titles

Inside of your own Free Company, you can award other members with ranks that’ll allow them to have more power and control over what happens in the FC. You can rename those ranks and customize their abilities as the officers or whatever you’d like to call them. You, as a Master – assuming that’s what you are – have the ultimate power, and you can make as many as 15 ranks to award members with (although that’s too much and no one does that). 

How to join a Free Company

If you’re not a creator of your own Free Company, and would like to join one, you’ll have to be on the same server as the Free Company you’d like to be in. You can either be invited to it, or apply to join through the Lodestone Free Company search portal, and you can find the link in the description. While there’s no way to search for an FC inside of the game, lots of them recruit in the main city General chats, and that’s where you can also ask to be recruited. You don’t have to be any particular level to get in, and the only unwritten requirement is to want to have a good time with your friends!

Join the Dumplings!

If you happen to be on Light datacenter and your home server is Lich, you are very welcome to join my Free Company! We love a good time, good people, lots of mounts to have, and some occasional epic roleplay. Our goals are not quite set in stone, but if you’re looking for any of the stuff I mentioned, you’ll love your new home. Hop into the discord channel if you’re up for it, and I’ll see you around.

If you’re more of a visual type, and you don’t mind getting easy wins in the game, you can check out all of this in my video – and subscribe for more awesome FFXIV stuff!