Of the making of new kinships there is no end?

[SCHawks73]

removed post, needs more thought before posting again

[BrentMcBrian]

I see it as being fine. If people wanna get together a random group of people for a tiny kin, there is no stopping them. I haven't heard them spamming the chat with "We are recruiting" advertisements, unlike multiple kinships that are much larger.
I also think it is fine if you are going to recruit but I like to add members to my kinship after starting a relationship with them. It may be a simple pick-up spar, a common quest, playing music in the AH together or even saving their life in the game.
Some people say that getting people to join is important, I am here to play with my friends that I have made over the past few years.
If I make new friends Great!, if not there is no loss.

[Jenvieve]

Here is what I have observed using my amateur sociology skills....in a virtual world where fantasy is the norm - even the most inept organizer thinks they can be a leader. A message to those who think leading gamers in a fantasy role playing venue is a snap - think again. While nearly anyone can figure out how to fill out the charters, not everyone has the ability to organize, convey direction, be selfless for the greater good of the community and leave the controlling ego in the bedroom drawer. It happens to the best gamers with good intentions, unfortunately it leaves a bitter taste in the throat of those simply looking to enjoy a community atmosphere.

Across Middle-Earth, the smattering of gamers dreaming of leading a kins can be a barrier to creating an enjoyable community of like minded individuals looking to spend some recreational time fending off foes, crafting dashing wares or just letting go of reality for a while. If I were to hand out a word or two of wisdom (having been there and done that in other MMO's) I would strongly encourage more communication on the server, seek out those that would make a desirable community, find the common ideals and be willing to compromise. Large number of smaller kins doesn't encourage growth on a less populated server.

[jwlbigdog2005]

There are already many alliances of more or lesser levels of formality on our server. I see nothing wrong with smaller kinships; as was pointed out earlier, some are just family-sized and work great.

One thing we do at The Godlike Crown that works well is that we allow cross-membership between kinships (as do several other kinships I know). This allows for better networking. Oftentimes, you meet someone you really like in another kinship, and you end up working with them a long time.

Size should not matter with alliances. Ours is somewhere between a mid-to-large sized kinship. We are currently a member of the Windfola Alliance, and have a separate alliance with our friends in Light of the Eldar. Even though we can usually fill most or all of a 12-man raid on our own, we do enjoy people that just happen to march under a different banner. Sometimes, we emphasize kinships on this server to the detriment of the game. All you that know me how much I love our kin, and I can be guilty of this, too... but there are kinships like LotE and Thorns of Telperion that we couldn't imagine the game without.

I agree with Du's earlier post, in that the reason new kins are formed is because people will look for a kinship that meets everything they are looking for. Our kinship's philosophy is that even though raiding and end game is important, it isn't what holds a kinship together. We have been here since June 2007, and we've seen raiding kins come and go. What makes our kinship special to our members is the high level of closeness, friendship, and the unique way we do things. Bottom line, when I log on, I can't wait to see who is online- and no quantity of membership, raid drops, or anything can compare to that.

[Toranoga]

Well if your so small that you can't do anything(IRL to lawl) then it's kind of pointless to even have the kinship of 3-4 active players, and I never said you had to raid every night, up to the leader or if they can even meet the standards of the raid, but standing around running in circles doesn't seem appealing.

That's funny, because it was always members of the large kins that were standing around running in circles at the 21st Hall. While our small kin would be getting quests done.

Plus from my experience, 50% of raiding is standing around running in circles. Which is what I assume those members of other kins were doing in the 21st Hall. "Raiding".

[EV4D]

Hello, nice to meet you too! I think y'all are overlooking something here though Iracham came closest to bringing it up. In a nutshell: Kinships serve different purposes to different players. But allow me to digress for a moment...

There was a *big* change that happened when Mirkwood went live (I think it was tied to the Adventure's Pack actually). Players got two more character slots to bring the total up to 9. However the minimum number of characters it takes to keep a Kinship alive remained unchanged at 8. Ta-dah, solo Kinships are born!

Personally, I do a lot of crafting and collect a lot of cosmetic items. Storage, for me, is a real issue. Filling out my character slots with alts, forming them into a Kinship and then purchasing a Kinship house purely for the storage it offers was (and still is) a very viable option for me.

For the most part I play the game with 1 other person. We think alot alike, we get along well, we have similar in-game goals, etc. We actually formed two kinships between all our characters and each bought a Kinship house strictly for the storage.

Our kins don't raid. There are never any "kinship events". We're not recruiting new players. We don't even have a website or a DKP system. None the less, I'm in the kinship I want to be in...and it succeeds brilliantly, I might add. It does everything I want it to and does it very well!

Again, Kinships serve different purposes to different players. So, while being your own boss in a Kinship of one may not make sense or appeal to all players it certainly does to some, myself included. And I would suggest that some of the players you (the OP) see running around with obscure Kinship tags may well be members of Kinships like mine. This may not always be the case, but since the change it's at least possible now.

The absoute truth and the most relevant post in this entire thread. Well said!