I’d like to introduce to you Israel of the Discord server Adamantoise Alliance. More than just your everyday server, the Alliance is all about building up the community aspect of Final Fantasy XIV. Both a haven and hub for players on the Adamantoise server of the Aether data center, its growth since its official launch last month has been nothing short of explosive. Israel recently sat down with me to talk about how this bustling community center came to be.
How did you get started in FFXIV?
Israel: I started a little over a year ago back in December of 2018 when my wife got me into it. She’s tried many times to get me into the game and I finally gave in this time around. Beforehand I mainly played FPS’s and whatnot, never dabbled much into MMOs so the learning curve was.. a lot.
Yeah, they’re pretty different. Did you stick with it for your wife’s sake or did something else hook you and keep you playing?
Israel: It was for her sake for sure. I don’t tell many others this but I really was not a fan of the game for the first month. Though what kept me going was her playing with me and willing to guide me through the game since she already had cleared all of main scenario.
Given how enthusiastic you obviously are about community now, I assume you’ve warmed up to the game. What was it that changed your mind?
Israel: I think it was honestly just getting used to it at the time. It might also be that her and I joined a small FC on our previous server Midgardsormr and we felt as if the community there was very friendly and family like. It helped me become comfortable with the game and look forward to something I suppose.
So did the two of you guys come up with the idea for Adamantoise Alliance together then?
Israel: That part was all me. I used to be into roleplay a long time ago. Rather, I loved to write and I hung around roleplay communities a lot and came across one called Grand Central, which was a discord server that linked to other RP discord servers like a train station. I figured if that idea works for the RP community then it should work for ours too.
You said that the idea for the Alliance was yours and where it came from. Can you explain how you went about making the idea for it into a reality?
Israel: This is something I find myself just a little ashamed to say. Though I’m sure folk would understand. The only way for me to post other FCs discords in our infant discord server was for me to quite literally research or stalk some of the most active FCs on our server, and head to their estate to try speaking with them to tell them about my idea.
Naturally some were a bit confused and creeped out, but I was surprised to see that the majority of the guilds I visited acquiesced and decided to become a part of this thing. In order to get their permissions, it had to be done. Haha.
All that effort certainly paid off though! Even though you’re still a fledgling server, how many members are you boasting these days?
Israel: We’re sitting at about 450 right now. But the credit there goes to the free companies [that are] a part of this thing. They’ve worked hard to help us promote our events and our server.
And about how many free companies do you have?
Israel: We currently have 13 free companies partnered with us. I won’t name them all but some of them have been around for a long time, have hundreds of members and run their own events. Without some of them and their help during our infancy, we would’ve never been able to get where we are now. However, even though we have 13 partnered with us, there are countless other free companies that support this community and wish us the best. I’d like to give a shout out to three of our FC’s, which are Masters of Trade aka 《GREED》, Espers’ Haven aka 《Oasis》 and Ascension aka 《ASND》.
I don’t know if they’ll see this but the three of them have put this community on their backs and carried us up the mountain with their selfless support and contributions. This isn’t to say the others haven’t supported, but it’d just be a crime to not give special deserved attention to those three communities.
So do you guys have a particular focus? Or are you just trying to foster the community aspect of FFXIV?
Israel: Our current focus is to provide an easy and organized platform for the free companies to communicate and share events, resources, and information to the public community for positive growth and unity. Of course there’s always hardships and obstacles with this that we’ve encountered, but we’ve always found a way to adapt and overcome.
Any anecdotes you’d like to share about those ‘hardships and obstacles’ you mentioned?
Israel: We’ve had a few FCs leave our server and withdraw their partnership. Out of respect for them I won’t name names or reasons, but it hurt us a lot because we, or I, felt close to them and it came out of the blue.
I’m sorry to hear about that, but I trust it hasn’t detrimentally affected the server too badly. I know you host events all of the time and there still seems to be a lot of activity in them. Are events put on strictly by the free companies or do you arrange them as well?
Israel: It’s a bit of both. Our event coordinator, Kaminila, will typically come up with some cool ideas. Then we’ll speak to the FC representatives and see if anyone is willing to help us out and contribute. Last server event we did, ASND let us use their basement for example. At the end of every event we’ll always give credit to the FCs that helped bring it all together.
So what kind of events do you try to put on? Do you specialize in anything or try to make sure there’s a variety?
Israel: We definitely like a variety. Our first event was a Murder Mystery we held back in December, which surprised me a lot by the turnout and how well everything came out. Earlier this month we had a Talent Show, which was a lot of fun. Though I feel as if Fashion/Talent shows are a bit overdone, so our next event we’ll be doing a Hide and Seek spin off called “Where’s Mr. Namazu?”
Do you have a set schedule for them?
Israel: We do! I can’t remember the dates off the top of my head but I know Kaminila has a pdf she keeps around. For the Mr. Namazu event it’ll be sometime in mid March, and there [are] events planned for every quarter this year. We usually release the exact date roughly 2 weeks before it’s scheduled.
You’ve mentioned Kaminila a couple of times as your event coordinator. Is there anyone else, admins or otherwise, who help you run the server?
Israel: Yes. Aida Enna is one of our admins and does technical support and maintenance for the server, she’s a huge help and I’m very thankful. Captain Morgan is the other admin, he basically runs the day to day operations and makes sure everything goes smoothly, that we don’t run into any bumps.
We have 4 mods that each have their own roles. I’ve already mentioned Kaminila. On top of that there’s Tsuki, Doc, and Tisha. Tsuki helps out with the partnership applications, Doc and I handle the relationships with FC reps, and Tisha is our raid coordinator.
Sounds like you’ve got a lot of help lined up for making sure the server is full and growing! So if someone wants to join, what’s the requirement and how would they go about doing so?
Israel: That part’s easy! All we’d need is for the FC to fill out one of our Partnership Applications in #fc-submissions, and we review it and get back to them. Our requirements are not too extreme, we only really ask that they have no infractions with terms of service, follow our discord rules, and are genuinely trying to boost activity and morale in their community.
And if individual players who haven’t yet joined an FC wanted to hop on the server, would they be able to?
Israel: Absolutely! The server was closed off to the public when we first created it, though that was mainly because we wanted to make sure the place looked good and organized before we unveiled it. Part of our mission is to provide the information and resources to the public, especially to those without an FC or looking for one.
So if a lone player wanted to join, how would they do so? Are there requirements?
Israel: No requirements at all! Our community is open to everyone, even if they’re not from Adamantoise. The only thing about it is that folk not from a specific server won’t be able to view that servers’ listed FCs.
For example, someone from Sargatanas won’t be able to see the Adamantoise FCs, but they’ll be able to see Sargatanas FCs when that day comes.
