Ferrel and Karen took a chunk of the latest episode of A View From The Top to address a question I sent in about looking for guilds and recruits. Raiders have comparatively straightforward benchmarks to see whether a guild and an applicant are a good match, but things are less clear-cut for non-raiders like myself.
The podcast is aimed at guild leaders, so their advice was aimed at what a guild can do to make their advertising and outreach more effective. Even so, one of the tips seemed equally useful to applicants - think about what you want to be doing, and how many people it requires.
What DO I want in a guild?
The main things I look for in a guild are:
- Access to any unusually useful in-game perks (currently in EQ2 guild halls, planned for WoW's upcoming guild talents/heirlooms and DDO's forthcoming guild airships)
- People to talk to, more tolerable than the residents of public chat channels, but not so exclusive that they wouldn't let me in to begin with
- Groupmates on the rare occasion when I'm making plans to be on and attempting some specific goal at some specific time
In particular, I was thinking of how to go about looking for a guild when picking up a new game where I don't know anyone. My existing guilds don't look anything like each other, but they all work to address my priorities in the context of the specific game. When I do go looking for a guild in, say, DDO, the top priority will probably be size, because I'll want to be on a team that has a shiny airship and perhaps enough players to get some non-scheduled group content in.
I'm about as odd a fit as anyone demographically, since I spend enough time online to burn through content like a hardcore player, but I log the time on such a nebulous schedule that I don't normally fit in with the hardcore crowd either. Apparently, anything makes sense if you break it down the right way, though. Thanks for the perspective, guys!