recruitment
Latest
Tank Talk: Building and keeping your tanking corps, Part I
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. This week on Tank Talk I'd like to step outside the technical aspects of being a tank and focus more on the psychosocial side of things. In particular I want to look at what happens when a tank is introduced into a tanking corps of a new guild, how to keep current tanks around, and how to deal with all those old tanks that have been in the guild forever.For lack of a better phrase, I'll call the time from when a tank joining the guild until their eventual status as "god of all things tank" the life span of a tank. And perhaps the most important part of a tanks life is the new part, and it's something that I've been on both sides of the coin – the one doing the inviting, and the one being invited. Each is equally exciting. When joining a new guild I had not only the opportunity to see new content and progress to new heights, but also an opportunity to improve my skill and focus my ability to tank a mean game. And when I became class lead and eventually the guild's leader, I gained an opportunity to help new tanks become acquainted with our style of game play and watch them succeed and excel within the guild.I like to look at there being mainly fives stages of a tank's life within a guild: Recruitment, Applicant, Raider, Senior Tank, and Mentor. Let's take a look at each of these and see how people in various stages can help usher a new tank into a guild's tanking corpse while keeping the old tanks around and happy. Since this is a long subject, today I'll cover the recruitment and applicant stages in a tank's life, with the raider, senior tank, and mentor stages coming in the second installment tomorrow.
Ready Check: End of the road?
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and get mad purpz. Today, we look at the increasing numbers of player departures and wonder when enough is enough. In this column I've talked about what makes raid guilds as a whole break up, but not what makes individuals decide raiding isn't for them. Having seen multiple guilds go through this process en masse recently, and breaking up as a result, here's a point-of-view on raiding and when it's time to stop or move on, based on personal experience in a European PvE guild.
Bumping your recruitment posts
Many guilds out there have their recruitment posts up on both the realm forums and the global recruitment forums. One of the big keys to a recruitment post is to keep it up on the top of the forums so everyone sees it, and sees it before any other posts. This means that you and your guildies have to bump the post to the top of the list, and bump it quite often.The global recruitment forums recently underwent an upgrade, where the forums were split into Alliance and Horde factions. This has helped a bit with the number of posts per day, and has thus lessened the number of required bumps a recruitment posts needs to keep it on the front page.However, you still have to bump it quite a bit.
I welcome our 10 and 25 man raid instance overlords
First, go read Alex's post, because he makes some good points about recruiting for 25 man raids in Wrath of the Lich King. We now know that in the expansion, all raids will come with a 10 man and 25 man setting, effectively a 'normal' and 'heroic' mode for raiding. While I personally believe this to be awesome, I can understand the idea that this will adversely affect (not effect, I'm reminded) recruitment for 25 mans if people can see the exact same content by just running a 10 man. Sure, the gear won't be as good, but if the starter 10 man gear allows you to run the next stage 10 man, and so on until you finally reach a 10 man version of Arthas, guilds that run 25 man raid content might have a harder time recruiting people to run what is essentially the 'same' content with 24 other folks instead of 9 other folks.The reason I don't think it will be a real issue (I do think it's worth considering, though, and I do believe it will have some effect on 25 man recruitment) is threefold. Unrelated to those reasons (which are coming up after the jump) I have to admit that this may vary by server: on Norgannon, if anything I'm seeing more new 25 man guilds recruiting and starting up the crawl through Gruul's and Magtheridon, so I may just be working from a glass half full through rose colored glasses state of ludicrous (and heavily over-metaphoric) optimism here.
Questioning the fate of 25 mans in Wrath
With the barrage of Wrath of the Lich King news we've received recently, one little tidbit stuck out in the bad way. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about quite a bit of it, this one thing in particular just struck me as odd. The mention of there being both 10 and 25 man versions of every raid zone is interesting, but makes me worry from a logistical point of view. I like the fact that it means more casual players can see the content, I like the fact that it means the content actually exists for the casual players.I wonder, though, what it will do to 25 man raiding. I can't speak for all servers, but on my server(or more specifically my raid group) the gear that comes out of boss fights is just a way of progressing to the next boss. It is largely unimportant to us until we come across something like Brutallus, in which the gear is absolutely necessary to have to progress. Seeing the characters, bosses and the encounters is far and away the most important part of raiding.
Ready Check: Applying and Trialling
Ready Check is a twice-weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and gear up people in T6 who then leave for the next rung up the ladder.Following on from our column about recruiting, in this Ready Check we're going to talk about applying and trialling with a raiding guild. Anyone looking to change guilds and start raiding different content, or guilds interested in different methods of recruiting and trialling players, read on for more on the subject.Applying for a new guild can often seem very much like applying for a job, and the interview and trial process also have strong parallels to the real world. Not every raider out there is an experienced job-hunter, so we'll look at a few concepts from the world of work to smooth out your raiding experiences. If this all sounds like too much work for you, bear in mind there are other options out there -- there are more casual raid guilds and alliances who will give you a shot just after a quick chat, for example, so whatever your needs in the raiding world there should be something to fit. Finding it, however, isn't easy -- which brings us to our first point.
Aussie military using games to attract recruits
Taking a cue from America's army and, er, America's Army, the Australian military is also using online games to pump up flagging recruitment numbers. As the New Zealand Herald reports, Australia's Defence Jobs web site allows visitors to control crude, Flash versions of ARV Tiger Attack Helicopters, F/A-18 Hornets and more.The games aren't exactly new (JayIsGames discussed one of them back in 2004) but they're getting increased attention now as a way for military recruitment to compete with a fierce job market. "It is critical to the future of the ADF that Generation Y and beyond can access and interact with recruiting information via the technology they are comfortable with," said Defence Science and Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon, who sounds extremely old. Two of the Air Force games have recorded over 300,000 plays, according to the Herald report, which might not seem like much compare to America's Army's 8+ million users. Remember, though, that America's defense budget exceeds Australia's (and indeed, the rest of the world's) by leaps and bounds. Whoo! We're No. 1! Don't mess with the U.S.! These colors don't run! And so on ...
Ready Check: Raid Recruitment
Ready Check is a twice-weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and wonder where all the good resto shamans have gone. Seriously. We need you.Many of us involved in raiding, endgame or otherwise, have been in a situation where a member of our raid force has quit, or we've decided to get a specific niche spec on board. Suddenly, a vacancy's open -- but how do you fill it? This article talks about the different approaches to endgame recruiting and other ways you can plan for contingencies such as your only enhancement shaman suddenly getting a girlfriend. This is from a guild's point of view, but for those interested in getting into raiding, this might give you some idea of the challenges you might face.Why does this relate to endgame specifically? A lot of guilds recruit at various stages in their lifecycles, but the requirements for endgame are somewhat harsher; not only do you want someone who will perhaps fit in on a personal level, but more importantly you need someone reliable who will do their job, and come equipped to do it from day one. In general, although we'll get to this a bit later, you don't recruit someone in level 65 greens who's never been beyond a 5-man straight into a Sunwell guild. But what are the options when it comes to finding more suitable players?
Guild recruitment videos
While randomly browsing my realm forums last night I came across a guild that (surprise!) was looking for more members. I'm not really looking for a new guild (happy with the ones I'm in now), so I looked into this just to see what other guilds on the server were up to. They've started with 25 man content, have cleared Karazhan, and have done some of Zul'Aman. What caught my eye however was the guild recruitment video they had.This got me thinking. Do other guilds have recruitment videos? I've heard of plenty of guilds putting together videos of each other running around and having a good time or downing a raid boss. I've been in a few of those myself. But an above average recruitment video? That I don't know.The guild that started this thought process was Epic, on the realm Eldre'Thalas. I've done a pug or two with a few of their members before, and they're nice folks (although they don't know who I am, I'm sure). The video is very professionally done, has a noticeable 'plot' to it, and is of high quality. Props to Phytrion, a member of their guild, who put it together for them. One thing that I find is a little funny is that the character in the end has a complete Tier 4 protection Warrior armor set and is carrying the Bulwark of Azzinoth that drops off of Illidan. It's a cool shield, so I know why they used it, but the combination is a funny choice.Do you have a guild recruitment video? Post a comment with a link and show off your stuff!
Liverpool Hope University holds open day in Second Life
Liverpool, in the UK, has the distinction of having three universities. According to the BBC, Liverpool Hope University, the smallest of the three, recently held an open day wholly within Second Life. Media students spent six months in Second Life building replicas of some of the buildings as well as other elements, such as their ideal student accommodation. Potential students from around the world were then able to interact with student ambassadors for the day. This activity was supported by the head of department and the head of marketing for LHU.Although LHU will be holding a more traditional open day in June, it is exciting to see the acceptance of Second Life both as a venue in which students can be expected to work, and for such a potentially critical activity as assisting student recruitment by the university's administrators. If you would like to see their work, the Liverpool Hope sim appears to be open to the public now.
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!
The Daily Grind: Effective guild recruiting?
Among the many places I crawl for news and interesting tidbits are some of the different unofficial MMO forums. But no matter if it is World of Warcraft or City of Heroes, it seems like there is always someone recruiting for their guild/supergroup/etc. Now, I'd note that I come from a relatively small guild, where several of us have played together since EQ. To me, the concept of open recruiting is a very strange one, as our group just doesn't do that. (The trade-off is that we're not on the bleeding edge of progression either.) But as someone who faces being a free-lancer in many other games that my home guild is not in, I have had to deal with pushy guild invites and pleading invites -- and those certainly never interest me. So this morning, we thought we'd ask you -- what's your best way to find new guild members? Does your group put out a recruiting call in different forums? Do you generally have people banging down the door to get into your group instead? Do you think it's best to play with someone several times before you recruit them so you have an idea of their tactics and abilities? Or is it just x-class, x-number, bring them in and work out the details later?
Guildwatch: Too much holiday cheer
Well, our Christmas wishes haven't come true so far-- the drama we've seen in 2008 has so far been pretty undramatic. But hey, there's still 364 days left, and that leaves a lot of time for ninjas, guildleader meltdowns, and drama bombs, so we'll be patient and see what comes.And if you see it before we do, be sure to tip off GW about it-- send an email with drama, downed, or recruiting news to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. The very first GW of 2008 starts right after the jump.
Relmstein tells you how to poach great raiders
Relmstein has a great tongue-in-cheek guide up about how to "poach" great raiders for your guild. I'm assuming that he doesn't actually suggest you start stealing raiders from other guilds (unless you want to show up in Guildwatch next week), but not only is Relmstein's writeup really funny, but there are a few actual suggestions hidden in there about ways to promote your own growing guild legitimately.Now, you don't want to start lying about how Eyonix is your GL (#7), or stand outside Karazhan trying to show off (#4), but there's nothing wrong with making sure people know that you're progressing. Have your guildleader post on the forums when you make a big kill, or throw out a few yells when you're about to give out a zone-wide buff (I remember when my guild turned in the Onyxia head way back when, and we did a nice parade through the center of Orgrimmar, all decked out on our mounts). A great video helps, too-- a funny recruitment video will get you attention, but a how-to video for a tough boss your guild has on farm will attract exactly the kind of people you want on your team.You should never try to steal raiders from other guilds-- guildleaders have a hard enough time keeping a raiding team together as it is without teams fighting amongst themselves for players. But there are always good ways to "advertise" your guild to the right people, so that when a good raider is looking for a place to hang their hat, you can make sure they find you.
Love WoW? WoW Insider wants you!
WoW Insider is looking for new staff to join its line-up of bloggers from around the world of Azeroth. We're particularly interested in hearing from anyone with a new take on WoW, one we don't currently cover -- are you the leader of a large raiding guild? A rank 14 player with no time for sleep? Are you behind one of the game's most popular addons?We welcome applications from anyone interested in blogging about World of Warcraft. If you think you have what it takes, read on!
Girl gamer recruitment good reality TV?
Recruiting a new member for a sponsored girl gaming team can't be easy. When Eekers (one of Ubisoft's Frag Dolls) left the line-up last summer, a nationwide search for her replacement rolled into motion, requiring everything from a gaming CV to glamour shots. Months later, when all but the hopefuls have forgotten the empty space to be filled, the shortlisted candidates have been announced and the final selection procedure outlined.All eight of the finalists will be flown to San Francisco to "join the existing Frag Dolls in a weekend of playing games and interviewing", a party that sounds like good fodder for frazzled nerves -- especially when you add in the filming. For this is no ordinary interview -- instead, the whole thing will be covered by Internet TV site GameTrailers, providing a reality TV glimpse into the mysterious world of girl gamers.
Live and breathe WoW? We want you!
Do you introduce yourself to others with your character and server name? Is maintenance day the most boring day of the week for you? Being paid to play WoW isn't just a pipe dream; WoW Insider is hiring new bloggers who know Azeroth inside out. Sounds like you?To apply, send three sample blog posts and a bio (including your experience with WoW) to winapply at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
