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We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.Sometimes Monkeeing around is not the right thing to do. Obvious things you should not do while applying to a new guild at Diaries of a Marksman Hunter Rawrbitchrawr goes Backpacking around Azeroth World of Ming asks is there a reason to raid anymore for arenas? BlizzPlanet will be having a BlizzCon ticket give-away next week Click here to submit a link to TDQ
How to apply to a guild
Our friend Lassirra (who has just recently started writing Scattered Shots for us here at WoW Insider) has a great post over on her personal blog telling Hunters how to apply for a guild, but really, most of her advice would work for anyone trying to move on up to a better guild situation. I've long said that one of the key indicators of a guild worth getting into is that they require you to apply, so following these tips when actually filling out that application will very much help you find your spot in the game, whether it's raiding at the highest levels, teaming up with other PvP afficionados, or just getting yourself in the right casual circles.The first few suggestions are just about following the rules: answer all of the questions, don't be weird, and don't put anything on the app (like major drama in your history or major spelling errors or offensive language) that would let the guild's officers give you a definite "no" right away. Second, know your character and your class. As Lassirra's twitter people say, the standards for most guilds' recruitment (even great guilds) are pretty low. As long as you're easy-going and you know how to play your class and have an interest in bettering your character, you're going to be pretty much instantly accepted into 90% of guilds out there. You don't have to throw together a big Flash presentation (though it might help). And finally, don't worry about rejection. This may all sound like applying for a job, but it's not nearly that serious -- if one guild decides to pass on your app, go find another one you like and apply there. The extra time will be worth it: if all you've done in terms of being in a guild so far is join up with someone shouting in the Trade chat, you owe it to yourself to, as Lassirra says, put the time in to find a guild that's right for 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).
How to find a new guild
Zodo from LFG KZ recently sent us a link to a post on his blog about "guildshopping on a new server" (yes, I know it's spelled wrong on his site, give the guy a break). If you've recently transferred servers or have just rolled up a new character and are looking for a good guild, it's definitely worth a look.There are a few things I disagree with in there-- I find it really hard to believe that small servers don't have high level raiding guilds, and in my experience, a bigger population may theoretically mean lower prices, but in practice that's not always true. But his later steps are good ones, especially making sure you put in the research on where a guild's at in terms of progression (some guilds will help you get to their level, but most really high level guilds would rather you're already up there with them), and what classes they're interested in recruiting. Even if a guild says they're not recruiting, being nice and chatting with someone from the guild (in a city, as Zodo says, not in a raid), can clue you in on at least how you might get a trial run with them.And applying for guilds is something very basic that everyone trying to get into a great guild should be more than happy to do. I used to be in the camp of "lol it's just a game i'm not applying," but the fact is that the guilds that seriously ask for (and consider) applications tend to be the better guilds to be in, and so the few minutes spent filling out a form intelligently is more than worth it in the long run. If you're about to face this situation, Zodo's guide is definitely worth a read.
