XIV Chapter Winding Down; Transitioning to Revelry

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to let you know about our plans to wind down the XIV Chapter and help transition our members to our sister FC, Revelry.

TL;DR We're retiring our Chapter in XIV; active players will be welcome in Revelry, an FC founded by retired AKS Officers.

As time goes on, it’s entirely natural for a community’s interest and presence in a game to wane over time, and XIV is no exception. We’ve had a tremendously fun few years playing together under the AKS banner, and it has been one of our most successful endeavours in an MMO to date.

We’ve formed lifelong friendships, and seen sparks of online romance flourish into real world marriage. We’ve had many evenings of song and dance and storytelling, and shared adventures we’ll tell stories about for the rest of our lives. We always strived to create an atmosphere that put fun and friendship above all else, and I could not be more proud of our accomplishments in this game.

While today we’re beginning to wind down our presence in XIV, nothing will ever change how amazing and inspiring this community we’ve built together really is. Games come and go, but the bonds we form last forever. We hope you’ll stick around and remain a part of the Knights, and join us in whatever may be on the gaming horizon.

Now, whenever we decide to wind down a gaming chapter, our Officers always do our best to find an alternative in which to direct our remaining active players that shares our values. In this case, our alternative couldn’t be more clear — Revelry. Revelry's ranks are comprised heavily of Knights, and their leadership is made up almost entirely of retired AKS Officers. I can say with all honesty there has never been another group of individuals we have had more confidence in. You will never find a kinder or more generous group of people than these, and you will be most welcome there.

Q: How do I become a member of Revelry?
A: After leaving the AKS FC, please put in an application with the Revelry Free Company in-game. You should let them know that you’re coming from the Aureus Knights, especially if you were of Knight rank or higher, to help ease the transition process.

Q: Is this the end of the Aureus Knights?
A: Not at all! AKS has a long history dating back to the mid-90s with Ultima Online and EverQuest. We have always been a meta-guild, and our community has never been tied down to one game. We’re simply winding down our presence in Final Fantasy XIV, as we have done many times with other titles in the past. We hope you’ll remain an active part of our community, on the forums and Discord, and join us in future games.

Q: Is Revelry part of the Knights?
A: Although it's leadership is comprised mainly of retired AKS Officers, Revelry is it's own FC with it's own leadership. You will find significant overlap between our two communities however, with many Revelry members also being Knights. If you have questions, concerns or feedback about Revelry those would be most welcomed by the Revelry leadership team, and the FC leader, Justy.

Q: What will happen to the Free Company and House? *UPDATED*
1. The FC will continue to exist for posterity sake. If we ever get in the mood to reboot things in XIV, we'll still have the FC, entitlements, credits, and so forth.
2. Unfortunately, as Gilgamesh is considered "congested" by Square and new character creation continues to be disabled for the foreseeable future, I cannot create an alt to keep the FC house from being auto-demolished. I have removed the FC house's items to ensure that we do not lose all the sparklies that we worked so hard for over the years.
3. Furthermore, because ownership of FCs automatically transfer if an FC leader is inactive for 30 days, we run the very real risk the FC falling into the hands of someone who may not have it's best interest at heart, who's account may have been hacked, etc. For the last several months we've allowed players to remain in AKS if they didn't want to move right away, but already having had an incident of the leadership inadvertently passing once (thankfully to another Officer), it has become clear that this is not something we can safely maintain. I've discharged everyone from the FC to avoid a worst case scenario, and we strongly encourage you to join us at our new home with Revelry.

I've had the sense that we'd need to make this decision sooner or later and I'm really sad to see an end to this chapter of AKS. HOWEVER I'm THRILLED we have partners in Revelry, a community that grew out of AKS that our membership can land in. I wish Revelry all the best in FFXIV and hopefully will be playing alongside them for years to come.

As Evan said, AKS is all about the people and the games come and go. We have a lot of great stuff on the horizon with Crowfall and Ashes of Creation (and probably ten other things we don't know yet) and our core casual activities are busier than ever. We have a very active group in Discord playing Diablo 3, Everquest (the retro servers), League of Legends, Overwatch and more.

This is bitter sweet news but there's many great things on the go and I would encourage everyone to get involved!

OP updated with a change in policy to our retirement of this chapter. Important update to "Q: What will happen to the Free Company and House? *UPDATED*"