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Storyboard: Why I rejected your guild application
Explaining guilds to people who don't play MMOs is always odd. You have to explain the process of applying, getting interviewed, and generally being brought on some trial runs in a way that doesn't make the whole thing sound like an unpleasant second job. This is even worse when it comes to explaining roleplaying guilds, which often level all the same restrictions as endgame-focused guilds with the added benefit that you're being examined based on your character rather than your play ability. So it feels like a real kick in the teeth to do all that and then get rejected. At face value, this feels outright ridiculous. The only criteria for a roleplaying guild should be roleplaying, and if you're applying for one, you almost by definition pass. But there's actually a lot of valid reasons to say that someone just isn't right for your roleplaying guild. So you might not have been rejected because the guild is made up of judgmental pricks -- it might be for the best.
Officers' Quarters: Thanks, but no thanks
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. With all the emphasis this summer on complaints, prima donna raiders, AWOL guild leaders, and rebuilding, this week seemed like a good time to focus on an email from a guild that's flourishing. Success, alas, comes with its own set of problems, but at least many of those are good problems to have. For example, when your guild is the rising star on a server, it seems like everyone wants to get in on the action. One guild leader wants to know: How do you turn down players politely when you don't want to invite them to your rapidly expanding roster? Hello, I hear a lot about small guilds falling apart in the new guild system that was implemented in Cataclysm, but my guild is having the opposite problem. In classic, I started a guild for myself and several real life friends. It was just our five man team for a very long time, no recruiting. We were very active in our realm community, so we had a lot of in game friends outside the guild and eventually some of these people began asking to join. We were glad to have them and so we grew slowly. But in Cataclysm our roster exploded. Every time an efriend's guild would die because too many quit or jumped to a mega guild, they would ask to join ours. The problem is that many of those people wanted to bring their friends too, so with every person that asked to join we would have one or two of their friends also asking. We grew so fast it all caught us unaware.
Spiritual Guidance: The healing priest's guide to raiding guild application trials
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her shadowy cohort Fox Van Allen makes her a sandwich. Last week, I talked about the application process of joining a new raiding guild and all the little things priests have to keep in mind when venturing out in search of a new guild. This week, I'll be finishing the series with advice on how to seal the deal and become a full-fledged member of your new, dream raiding guild. To do that, you'll need to complete and pass a trial. A trial is when you play with your potential new guild and show off your actual skill at the game, rather than just your shiny application. It is your one chance to show under their scrutinizing eyes that you're capable of slaying internet dragons with them. For a healer, this is a very stressful time, because it's not as simple as showing up and beating everyone else on the DPS meters. Even if you make no mistakes, it's hard to assess healers if other players around you are equally skilled. Let's discuss some of the finer points of showing others you're a worthy healer, and as the headline implies, put a priestly spin on it.
Spiritual Guidance: Applying to a raiding guild, healing priest edition
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen handles the shadows (and laundry). Dawn hates Battlecruisers. Anyone who knows me moderately well will know that at any given time there is a 50/50 chance that I won't be in a guild. Why? Because like Romeo searching for love, I am constantly trying to find the perfect guild for me. I'm an incredibly volatile person (in every sense of the word) and in the wrong environment I'm not a particularly happy person. If I'm not happy, I don't play well, and if I don't play well then I'm not bringing anything to the raid. Thus I'm always searching, always writing applications, and always redoing my ugly UI every time I crash land on a new server with bright eyes and hopes that I'm finally in the right place. This month I am once again looking for a new guild and thought I'd let you guys in on the process. So if you've ever thought of taking your raids and PVE a little more seriously, I've got a lot of good information for you. If you also happen to be a healing priest, I have some specifics on what you'll need to be mindful of.
Drama Mamas: Making a fresh start after an honest mistake
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. The Drama Mamas roundup post with followup from letters we've featured in previous Drama Mamas columns will run in just a few more weeks. So there's still time to send us an email at DramaMamas@wow.com if you would to share what's happened with your situation since we last heard from you. Dear Drama Mamas, I started playing the game about a month after The Burning Crusade was released. I was still a kid, and gave my toon a foolish name. I know my name gets some weird responses, and when I race change to a worgen in Cataclysm, I am going to change my name. Anyway, I play on a RP server ... which only happened because my brother (who now does not play) randomly picked it when he started. I started playing after him and thus chose the same server. My server is fairly weak when it comes to progression guilds, with only one having defeated heroic Lich King-25 (and it was after 4.0.1). For the duration of my Wrath WoW career, I was in a mid-level progression guild for my server, which got to 11/12 in ICC Regular. I was fairly disappointed, because I really want to get an achievement mount. The guild leader gave up trying to lead, and this week he joined the #2 guild on the server. He said he still plans to lead the guild I am in on his alt, but I know that is not going to work out. You can't lead a progression guild on an alt, while competing for server firsts on your main.
The Daily Grind: How involved should guild applications be?
Call them linkshells, call them supergroups, call them fleets -- a guild by any other name is still a gathering of players in a loose hierarchy with shared goals. Back in the salad days of MMOs, getting into a guild was a fairly simple procedure, but now it's a rare guild that doesn't have some sort of application policy. It could be as simple as spending a little time as a provisional member, or it could be a relentless grilling of the applicant before they are allowed to start gazing at the wonder of the guild forums. On the one hand, an involved application process ensures you know who you're getting involved with, and it can help avoid drama further down the line. On the other hand it's just a guild, and even if you plan to take it into wars there's a point where the intensity gets silly. How involved do you think guild applications should be -- and do you come at the question from the side oof the applicant, or an officer in a guild reviewing applications?
How not to apply to a guild
The Wordy Warrior covers a well-traveled subject in an interesting way in her latest post. We've already talked in-depth about how to get into a good raiding guild (and we've even covered some amazing guild applications), but straight from the trenches of guild leadership, Ariedan sends an open letter to anyone applying to her guild with, some might say, the wrong attitude.Here's the thing: especially if you're applying to a progression guild, odds are that they don't need you. They're progressing just fine, and bringing you in just opens the door for more drama. It's a risk, and it's your job to convince them to take that risk, hopefully for the benefit of both. So if you show up to an application and don't take it seriously, and flip out when they question your background, and expect them to take you on without any proof you'd be valuable to them, don't be surprised when they laugh you right out of their forums.We're probably preaching to the choir here -- if you're reading this site, you probably already have at least one clue, and are either in a guild you like that is not a raiding guild, or are in a progression guild that you got into because you were able to justify that risk. But if you're still having trouble figuring out how to get where you want to be, take WW's advice to heart: it's on you to justify your entry to the guild, it's not on them to put up with you.
8 things raiding guilds want from their applicants
Casual Hardcore has an excellent post, titled "Not All Guilds Are Created Equal," on the mental process you'll want to engage in before applying to a raiding guild. It dovetailed pretty neatly into a recent post by our own Matticus on "6 Ways to Reject a Guild App Without Sounding Like an Angry Ex." Both articles have a lot of sound advice that's well worth your time if you find yourself looking to change guilds or get into raiding; the former is written a bit more from the perspective of a player-applicant, the latter from the officers charged with saying yes or no.While reading these, I was reminded of comments I've seen on guild applications during my time as a raider. Some simply expand upon the points addressed by Casual Hardcore and Matticus; others were slightly different sentiments people were prone to airing whenever they recognized certain undesirable patterns. I've never been a recruitment officer (my guild leader has correctly observed that, as a soft touch, I would cheerfully rubber-stamp every match-girl, axe-murderer, and mortgage lender on the server), but over time it's been hard not to get a sense of what that person would want to see when they open a new application:
Best. Guild. Application. Ever.
I've only ever written two guild applications, but I used to pride myself on writing a damn good one, the sort of application you might see written by the manager of a successful hedge fund, or possibly Mother Teresa. So I had my doubts when tipster Roflharris wrote in to tell us that a friend of his, MsFahrenheit of Sylvanas-EU, had submitted what was possibly the best guild application of all time to Anointed, but it's completely true. You'd have to try pretty hard to top this fully-animated, written and visual joke-infested riot. I just about died when he hit the part about how he got class leader and what attempts on Kalecgos were like.MsFahrenheit applied as a resto Druid and it looks like he was accepted, not that I would have expected anything less. There's not much more I can say apart from please see this; you'll be glad you did. Just so you know, it takes about 6 minutes to play from start to finish.(A non-audio version is here if you absolutely must, but the audio version is funnier).
Raid Rx: Little guild, little guild... Let me in!
Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. I had planned to finish the title with "Not by the hair on this Dwarf's chinny chin chin!!" but I've been foiled by the T5 hood. Sad. Many moons ago, I covered what a healing lead needed to get their 25-man off the ground and into mob-infested content. Today I'd like to look at the other side of the coin - what it takes to get into a 25-man raiding guild as a healer. There are two common paths into 25-man raiding. The first is bum a ride with your Karazhan groups to Gruul, Mags and onward into infamy. This is pretty ideal since everyone you're playing with is continually at the same level of progression, like gear and raid faction rep. You should also have some experience playing with your fellow healers, at least in pairs. The second way to get into 25-man raids is to transfer guilds, typically because your current one has been unable to progress for whatever reason. This isn't always an easy process, especially since guilds can be as picky as they choose and it's up to you to make a good impression. Since this is probably the most difficult way to get into 25-mans, I'm going to cover what you need to do to be successful at getting your foot in the door from entry to end-game guilds. Right after the break, that is!
Learn2raid: A beginner's guide, part 3
Learn2raid is here again, offering those fledgling raiders a peek into the world of end game loot and 25-man encounters. We're rounding up the first section of our series in which we talked about the three steps required when you are getting into raiding: Introspection came first, followed by Preparation. Today we will flush out that triptych with the final step: Application. For those of you already in a raiding guild, or in a guild that is moving into the raiding scene, I still suggest you read on. Perhaps this information will prove useful to you in the future, even if it is not immediately applicable. Either way fear not: we still have a few topics up our sleeves that might be of more use to you.Getting Ready to RaidStep Three: ApplicationIf I haven't scared you off yet, then you're obviously dedicated enough to be able to raid. The next step therefore is application. Applying to a guild is both exhilarating and frightening as hell. If you don't want to get booted out on your behind before you ever see your first loot drop, take my advice and do the following: Write up an application beforehand: Taking a moment to write up an application without a guild attached to it will save you all kinds of time. Just about every guild application will have the same information on it: name/class/level/spec (with a link to your armory)/guild history and why you left/professions/why you are looking to raid/a paragraph about you and why a guild would be crazy not to accept you.
