Pearlsack Abilities/Responsibilities

[Piraya]

Lower levels are a much greater return on invested time then higher level ones for many reasons. The more time you spend with a lower level player helping instills what Aelfwise talked about...a sense of wanting to help others like was done for yourself. Loyalty is another big thing. The help you give a lower level player who joined the shell will return a loyal new member 9/10 times where as helping a higher level member who just joined does not guarantee their continued membership. Its this way because i see it this way...a higher level who is willing to join another linkshell this late in their gaming does it for one of a couple reasons...tired of a previous linkshell/drama, they aren't much of a team player and hop shells seeking help but return none, and/or lastly they cause too much drama and got kicked. Each one of these reasons says to me the safer bet is on the lower level player recruitment than the higher level ones. Now there are always exceptions to the rule but as many of you know I'm an observer of human kind and experienced much in this fantasy world and I hope you will trust this observation as mostly true. Not once have I regretted playing this game...not once have I regretted helping any of you. I say this because I was able to watch your characters grow and progress through the game. Grow tight bonds over time. *End Rambling*

[Claquesous]

I've been thinking about Linkshell loyalty a bit lately and I've come to realize that higher level recruits aren't very loyal to the linkshell. As I think about some of the people that I am proud to have recruited to the linkshell, Lummox, Ziquan and Forsakenone come to mind. The only one of those three that I'm pretty sure was 30 when I first gave him a pearl was Lummox. All three of them joined the linkshell starting from the jungle.

Looking back at when I started and when I first started using a linkshell I think the jungle period is about the best time to recruit loyal members. I had a few linkshells from just a couple days after I started, but many were dropped when inventory became crunched. It was around level 20 when Piraya created his first linkshell when I finally started to desire that sense of community provided by a linkshell. It was very easy to join because it was really just a few people at first. As we've grown it may have gotten harder to find loyal members because they won't have that sense of having people in the same boat as them.

With this in mind, I no longer think a minimum level makes sense. I personally don't plan on recruiting someone who doesn't even have a subjob yet since I think that may be too early. I think a more important rule would be to party with someone before you recruit them. I've broken this rule a couple times and haven't been happy with the results.

Recruiting loyal members who will provide good returns is incredibly tough. I'm trying to establish a set of guidelines that I will follow, but I trust those with pearlsacks to follow their intuitions if they don't think my rules make sense.