Sunday 1 February 2009

Versus

It is snowing. In Central London... /disgusted. Snowing!!

Yes yes, I realise the world thinks that we are a grey, cold and overcast country, but it isn't always the case, London is quite warm compared to the rest of the country and it rarely snows, even less likely for it to stick, and today it is doing BOTH!
HUMPH!

So an incident last night along with general rumminations have prompted me to do a post about my linkshell. The incident in question was an impromptu change in the schedule to do a Jailer of Love instead of a Kirin that I had hazily thrown out there. This caused a rather unexpected amount of resentment amongst the ls members who voiced complaints about the unnannounced change and bothered me enough that I did consider just throwing in the towel right there and then and just finishing all events for that day. But, I am stubborn and persistant and I have wanted to pit the ls against the new version of Love for a while, but it can be so incredibly hard to get everyone to show up at the same time, on time and I wasn't about to let this opportunity pass me by because of a few gripes over nonsense things.

As with most of these things, it is perhaps better to start at the beginning...


Versus is a sleeper ls, people know about it on the quiet. It isn't one that is trumpeted from the hills. We don't have the notoriety of Ressurection, we don't have the ground-breaking-headline-news-making fights of LimitBreak, and we don't have the dramafest of BBQ. Infact, I think our general reluctance to ever enter into the HNM fray; and fray is a very good word to sum up the poor attitudes and greed that tend to come with the highly competative HNM scene at end game, has meant that we generally tend to be under the radar when it comes to new people hunting around for an end game ls.

How we DO maintain our membership is through word of mouth. This is an extremely powerful tool in the Versus arsenal. Ex-members will constantly refer people to Versus if they are looking for that ls that isn't quite the points-driven environment of some of the other ls', and yes I appreciate that we have been used as a stepping stone more than I care to admit, we have a great core membership that are dedicated and loyal to the linkshell.

Time and time again, I have had people say the same thing to me or to my other members, that while they may have gone on to bigger and different things, nothing was ever quite like their time in Versus, love us or hate us there is something quite unique that we have managed to capture in the spirit of how the linkshell works.


Since we started around 5 years ago, we have had around 300 different people pass through our little community, all bringing their own interesting facet to the linkshell, some have polarised opinion, others have brought the linkshell to its knees but we always manage to get back up again and pull together through the leaner times till we are once again at the top of our game.

After casually talking to people about what they do end game wise in their ls, you never quite really comprehend how much we do as a team. We are constantly working together, getting under each others skin and heckling from this end of sea to that end of sky as we go along. As it stands at the moment, through the linkshell we offer Sky, Sea, Limbus, SCNM's, ZNM's, any forced spawn NM within reason, KS99 runs, Assaults, Einherjar and Salvage. All of these events across a 7 day spread, where we only really have no events scheduled on a Wednesday because most of us have Dynamis and Saturday because it is a PAIN to get ppl to show up to events on a Saturday, its the weekend and everyone wants to go hang out with the girlfriend or read Bible stories to their nan some such thing for those people who profess to have a real life LoL.

One of the great things about Versus is the sense of communal spirit, short of food, someone will shore you up, forget those silent oils, here have mine. There is no real resentment and no sense of permanent IOU's filling the spaces inbetween, we are simply working together for each other as well as to better our own interests.


I have noticed that you tend to get things done more efficiently when you are not just being completely self-indulgent about the matter in this game. Sure there are plenty of people who have come before who will use up and toss aside to gain something, but that is such a short-term temporary attitude. If every person in your linkshell didn't think about themselves but worked to further someone else's goals everyone would get what they wanted. Of course this is not Utopia, we have our disagreements and foilables but that is a natural state of existing in a unit, it would be somewhat unrealistic to assume otherwise.


I do find it hard at times running the ls, I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the more someone gets things from the ls as a whole, the more they begin to resent the fact that I do not facilitate the gaining of what ever it is that is left for them to obtain. Of course this is not strictly speaking true, I am not out to "get" anyone LoL, but I do have to maintain a balance and there are a lot of people now who only really need one or two items left from the ls before their store of goodies is complete as far as the ls can take them, attendance at that point becomes wholey for someone else. I think that lack of progress towards what you want can wear down your spirit and let those little niggly demons sneak in.


The BEST thing about the whole linkshell is the banter. I have said it before and for us it still stands true, if you aren't getting heckled, you most likely are not fitting in. We thrive on the double entendres, the play on words, the sly wit, the innuendo and the raucous humour that is rife in the linkshell. You need to come prepared to have a bit of fun and not get too uptight about our rather cavalier attitude. We are a flamboyant and funny group to be around and you really should never be above sending yourself up, it's all part of the fun.



If there has been one thing that has remained the same in the history of Versus it is our ability to be accomplished at what we do, but always with a light step and a smile while we do it. And that makes it worthwhile for all that hard work and effort.

4 comments:

  1. Hmmmmm ...while some people may get the items they seek and move on...there is just as many other members who get their items and remain to help the rest of the Versus team get stuff too. I can not understand how some people play this game and get all these items then quit. Why Quit. This is when you get to use those items with your aquired skills and let it all loose and have fun. This is probably the main reason I love Sky. I have been doing Sky for like 5 years and have all the drops I could use. Yet.... I look forward to poping LOL-Genbu for the 50,000,000th time.......also we pass drops to other members in this LinkShell.... how many other LinkShells would be a Drk and pass his lotting chance of a Justice Torque to his friend. Know how many? None! I heard another friend of mine who explained to me his Linkshell has a waiting list for that item for like the next 3 years.
    I'm not trying to toot my own horn... I just want to point out some of the great qualities of our LinkSHell and there are many more.
    LMAO!

    I need to do a shout out to Lguapo:

    "Hey ABBBBBBOOOT!"

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  2. Versus is easily the best thing to ever happen to me in FFXI. It sickens me when I see other people who have nothing but horror stories to tell of End Game Linkshells and they assume everyone is like that.

    The analogy I use for End Game is that it's like School -- the process by itself is incredibly dull, boring and repetitive. Yet those are the best years of our lives, why? Because of the company we keep.

    And Versus is the best. With Obsidian being so successful in Einherjar, the only reason I'd ever leave is for a Ridill -- and that's just not reason enough for me. =)

    I've come to be too fond of everyone and the way things work. ^.^

    <3 Versus.

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  3. Kallo, you should also add that its also the things that you can accomplish as a group. Its the drive to succeed and do so as a group that makes or breaks a LS. This is why Versus is still going strong.

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  4. With Jess on that sky are fun and lol i just still want one thing in sky still i wanna kill the gods get the nms run around have fun use my gear help rest get theres. Lol reason i ever got in versus was i missed sky not the gear (of course happy get them, my kitty pants) but me get in started with me tell Esor i really miss sky. and she told omo and rest are just as you say history.

    And for sharing gears yeah Jess in sea i bet i could like use everyting that drops or so but i are after 2 things and then i get them i can consider get some more, as i like see more ppl get there things also. Like forth torque yes had been nice get the extra swords skills but more want and need more so i go for like most guessed the hope one and after that on i might consider get another, lol prolly just enjoy my hope first then late on see if i want some else. Sea are alot more boring as omo said but ppl are still fun and nice lol

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