Guild recruiters, please never do this.

[Deleted]

why reward retards who don't deserve to be there in the first place? If you want to see if a player is a team player, see if they read the rules.

- - - Updated - - -

Do these forums not have a facepalm smiley ?

[emilylorange]

I haven't filled out an app since mists landed.

It's been great.

If you're just looking to clear heroic you don't need to fuckin turn over your life story. Respond with logs to trade chat spam, find guild, stop wasting time.

[Deleted]

I haven't filled out an app since mists landed.

It's been great.

If you're just looking to clear heroic you don't need to fuckin turn over your life story. Respond with logs to trade chat spam, find guild, stop wasting time.

But he is 9/10m on his other main, and 10/10m on his other main, why would he look to clear only heroic?

[emilylorange]

But he is 9/10m on his other main, and 10/10m on his other main, why would he look to clear only heroic?

No sympathy. Mythic is about jumping through stupid, arbitrary hoops to wave around ones epeen - which includes the first hoop, one's dumbass peers who think they big shit.

There's a reason i decided mythic wasn't worth my time anymore (ftr, never apped to those guilds either)

[Toastyame]

There's a reason i decided mythic wasn't worth my time anymore (ftr, never apped to those guilds either)

Chances are why you haven't had to app since mist lands.

Apps typically are just places to put information that could otherwise be looked up. It's just easier to have it all confined to one location without going to the effort of looking them up yourselves.

[Deleted]

But he is 9/10m on his other main, and 10/10m on his other main, why would he look to clear only heroic?

Who knows, right? But it seems he did apply to a casual guild, got turned down and came here to cry about it.

[Typhoria]

Seems a little tiggered.

[Deleted]

I haven't filled out an app since mists landed.

It's been great.

If you're just looking to clear heroic you don't need to fuckin turn over your life story. Respond with logs to trade chat spam, find guild, stop wasting time.

If you're into tradechat guilds, that's cool. If you're in hurry and afraid of "wasting time" then gogogo. It's not like you need a guild to clear Heroic. Just pug it and gg.

But if you want to build a community with certain goals and demographic in mind and want to keep it that way, then application process is extremely good way to vet applicants. My guild doesn't play for WoW for progression anymore. We hardly raid at all, but we're extremely elitistic about the applicants we accept to our community - comes from having been tight knit progression group for almost 10 years. Just like at work, we don't recruit assholes.

But each to their own - if progression and killing pixels with strangers is your thing, then there's nothing wrong with your approach. But it's not the only approach.
There are plenty of guilds to choose from on each server, this is really not a problem - choose the approach you want.

The OP is just crying because his fragile Mythic raider ego got hurt. lol

[Lazuli]

Sounds like you're mad cuz you failed the test, embarrassing you even called yourself out by posting this thread lol.

I noticed that text instantly, pretty funny.

[Ianus]

this is why they have 0 recruits and why game is half dead.. community is just toxic no matter if we are talking about guild leaders being epeen idiots or applicants that just join to be in raid 2 weeks and then quit.. same goes for mmoc forum posters..so OP just dont bother idiots will be idiots no matter what you say or do

[Detritivores]

That text is not even remotely innocuous. The fact that you missed it makes me think you'd miss most raid mechanics and be a horrible liability, even on a casual team. Furthermore, the fact that you think "casual" guilds should care only about numbers is additional proof that you were a terrible applicant. Casual guilds care about their atmosphere and their culture. Some shmuck who lacks the situational awareness to read text and who thinks he deserves acceptance by virtue of his existence has no place in most guilds. I'm all for simplicity of applications, but you're being unreasonable. Grow up.

[Brewhan]

last time i applied for a guild with an actual application page with like a fuarking essay was back in WOTLK raiding scene I think. Applying for guilds that intensely in 2017 is cringe at best seriously just check their logs/ invite them on a test run and trial period them for 2 weeks or something. There you go. No one needs to see that bullshit essay and "tell me a little bit about yourself since I lack friends IRL and want to make sure im not threatened by your prescence or if you have a better job than me" pls... cmon now. or "show a screenshot of your UI" dont care just be chill/ know how to play/ do good numbers. Its wow in 2017 not a job that will pay you anything relevant.

F that guild im with you OP they a bunch of nerds probably play on vanilla servers still on the side.

[Xargoth6634]

I haven't apped to a guild since Wrath, but I've never seen anything like this; maybe this whole "retard check" thing is something that's sprung up over the last 6 years or so? I don't really see the point, tbh. I guess I understand that you can use it as a "gotcha" thing to deny people, but it seems more of a gleefully douchey thing than an actually productive mechanic to ensure that you get good raiders who will pay attention to details. Making someone who's just trying to fill out an application jump through stupid hoops and hunt down obscure requirements on 2-3 different pages does nothing to ensure that you end up with better raiders. I guarantee you that plenty of people would fail these so-called "retard checks" and you'd end up being out good raiders because you're hung up on the idea that someone who reads through your app threads 5 times is going to be the same person who flawlessly executes mechanics, flasks and foods up, and pulls top dps/hps.

Personally as a GM (although not the GM of a guild that's currently raiding), I'd be more likely to encourage sentence-long answers and see who was able to actually articulate thoughts without resorting to "i lyke 2 g3t ph4t lewtz 101;" it wouldn't be any more productive at selecting top raiders than the other method, but at least I'd probably end up with intelligent people that I'd actually enjoy having in guild.

[klaps_05]

what are these "rules" you have to abide to in a guild? ive honestly never heard of "rules" - you have time schedule, different requirements, but rules?

[Xargoth6634]

what are these "rules" you have to abide to in a guild? ive honestly never heard of "rules" - you have time schedule, different requirements, but rules?

The best is unwritten guild rules. In BC I got kicked out of a raiding guild because I got in a back-and-forth (that wasn't even particularly nasty) with a member of another guild on our server who was talking smack on the realm forums. GM kicked me while I was offline and sent me an in-game mail saying that I didn't "fit their guild culture" for doing so because they were a "family guild." That was news to me, but if that was how he wanted to run his guild it was probably the best move for both of us in the long run.

[Vaelorian]

I really am baffled by the opinions of some people. I used to be a GM of a hardcore guild right? I made my own forum, my own rules, my own mission statement as most officers/gm's do. Basically I did the whole thing with feedback from my officers and respected guildmates.

What did we had in the application form?
1. name
2. sex
3. playstyle and what does that mean?
4. history of passed guilds and reasons for leaving
5. what role do you play/want to play in the guild and how would you see that work?
6. how would you feel if you were not raiding for a week and someone else would?
7. how do you want loot to be distributed?
8. did you read the rules and mission statement?
9. link some recent logs
10. armory link

I am currently not a GM and not planning of returning to that "office" at all. Also got a few years not being an GM under my belt. So I have a different perspective on how we went about recruiting, even though this form weeded out so many morons. I have read thousands of applications to my guild. Most of those were filled in as if people were either too stupid or stoned.

Now in the rules we also kept a section for "requirements" - let's say itemlevel and properly gemmed/enchanted stuff + raidingexperience.

But all in all the rules are so not important really. It is a thing that I feel a guild MUST have. But do we really believe that every applicant will read those rules when they apply? The general rule here is that these "rules" come down to the same thing don't they? "Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you".

Everything else is more or less how the guild functions. For us is explained what was expected in terms of attendance and how far in advance you needed to sign up etc. Also it stated what members could expect from the guild or management. Still this information was usually asked for ingame anyway. Sure I could redirect them to the rules page. But that would be unfriendly wouldn't it? So I did both... told them ingame and reminded them about the rules section.

@cocacolawheresthesoda:
I would never have a secret question or "trap" waiting for possible applicants. That is despicable.
@mmo champion
Hardcore guilds (mine was 175th in the world, you do with that info what you like) do not have a steady influx and can choose and pick what they like. If your server is not greatly populated, people are reluctant to come over. I posted and bumped recruitment pages on various website every 30 min, still I only had like 2/5 applicants a week and some weeks I did not have anything. And most of those applicants I contacted myself - I think I put in 1 hour min each day to look for more recruits. And no we did not have a lot of people leave, we just couldn't find proper applicants who were on "our level or potentially on our level".

[Deleted]

Is the screenshot representative? I mean, did it really say "this is the text you should delete if you read the rules"?

If that's the case then it really is on you. It is literally where you would otherwise tick the "i read the rules and agree with them" box...
You failed 2 checks with this:
1. Reading the form itself - Ignorance... not something you would want in a member of a raiding guild, since you have to read guides/watch videos for bosses
2. Expecting a site in modern day not to ask you to confirm that you agree with the rules -> displays a degree of naiveness

(I'm not listing "reading the rules", because frankly; nobody does that)

Additionally:
I disagree with the notion that guilds recruit only for the numbers; at least they do not in my experience.
For instance: i'm in a 8/10m guild on a small server (but server 1st nontheless); at start of the expansion there was a guild that was just better raiding-wise, but they renamed twice and then just disbanded. They were rather infamous about their attitude and behaviour also.
Our leadership was very careful about recruiting from their former rows (only really recruiting their best DH, which turned out to be a mistake also).

[Xargoth6634]

I really am baffled by the opinions of some people. I used to be a GM of a hardcore guild right? I made my own forum, my own rules, my own mission statement as most officers/gm's do. Basically I did the whole thing with feedback from my officers and respected guildmates.

I'm not sure which responses specifically baffled you; I don't think most people (o.p. included) would take issue with an app format like the one that you posted. (It looks pretty similar to the few that I filled out back when I did more serious raiding in BC/Wrath, other than the "logs" question which I don't remember being as prevalent back then) The only exceptions are probably people who are averse to the idea of filling out any kind of application to join a raid guild no matter what format it was in.

The main issue is with the "trickery" the o.p. describes, which I personally felt was lame, unnecessary, and pretty counterproductive. You're going to annoy an applicant who's going to be spending 5 minutes rolling their eyes while hunting down some obscure item the GM demands: an action which does next to nothing to prove that the applicant is a good raider anyway.

EDIT: Gonna add that I personally don't care about raiding in any serious capacity (mythics) anymore so I wouldn't fill out an app myself, but I can see why (in theory) they can be a worthwhile tool for guilds looking to filter applicants. At the end of the day, though, it's going to take a run with the guild to see if it's a good fit anyway, so I don't think I'd weight an application too heavily if I were leading a raid guild.

[Deleted]

Long applications are fucking stupid, nevermind application with gems like "Explain your choice of talents / What is your rotation?" and "Why apply to our guild?" (goodness, the latter really is completely pointless). It should be obvious enough from the logs whether someone is able to play or not. Also, what kind of rules that do not boil down to "Don't be a dick and come to raids prepared" do you need?

A good application form, in my opinion, is short, has no bullshit like "Delete this part if you read the rules!" or "Before submitting, film yourself making a handstand!" (which makes just about as much sense as the former) and should ideally only include links to armory and logs (UI screenshot is useless, it doesn't matter if someone's UI is the worst in the world, all that matters is that they can play with it a.k.a. logs), a small previous experience question (including past guilds if relevant) and lastly an "Add anything else you want to say" section.

[Deleted]

I like the ones that have you list your computer specs and internet speed test results. Are they really that knowledgeable that they're going to know how your particular specs are going to translate into game performance with whatever settings (which they don't ask about) you use? When they're like 1/10M it gives a bit of a tryhard impression.