Wise
04-02-13, 07:50 PM
I have been a part of several top guilds in the past, as raider or officer always. Want to share my knowledge and hope it help a lot of people out there to join better guilds and become better players as well that way.
What will this cover ?
- Before you take action
- Setting up an application
- How to sell yourself
- How to handle vent/ts/mumble interviews
- Your first raid
- The first week
- Pass the trial
- Became raider, now what?
- BEFORE YOU TAKE ACTION
One of the first thing you need to make clear for yourself before setting up your application is to do some research about the guild you want to be a part of. I would recommend doing that by browsing over wowprogress.com (http://www.wowprogress.com/)
, reading the "Guild Profile" and make you everything fits you well, such as the goal of the guild, raiding hours and history.
After getting some base knowledge of the guild head over to there website and do the same if they have a more detailed version. Another thing I would recommend is reading other applications the guild have received, no matter if the persons application got accepted or declined, only do a few tho. If the guild don't have a public forum with applications you should visit a few guilds at the same level and see if they can provide you with that. By doing this you get a good view of how to write and setup a really good application or how NOT to do it, if its your first time trying to join a hardcore guild. Decide if you want to make your application public or private (If public is possible) Both ways got a plus and a minus side.
By applying public you get quick feedback a lot of the time since every raider in the guild has the right to comment and what not. The down side can be you might already have a guild who don't know you want to get away from them and they might end up taking action and removing you if they find out. If you apply private you won't get the fast feedback most of the times but on the other hand you don't have to worry since 99% of all guilds understand why you do it private.
In the end of the day I would recommend private no matter what.
- SETTING UP AN APPLICATION
This is the first impression and the most important thing in the process. If the guild is using a application template make sure you follow and answer every single question. Not just with "Yes" or "No" but take some time to think and reply to every one of them with a minimum of 2 lines.
Example
Are you able to talk on vent/ts/mumble ?
A lot of people would just type "Yes" or "Yes I can" even if the question like that is a simple Yes/No question try not to just type that, but be a lot more aggressive in your answers.
Yea, I'm able and willing to talk and ask questions if something isn't clear for me or I just have something to say during the raid. On the other hand I know when I need to stay passive and just follow the order that been giving
Even tho the last sentence means the same as the first you show a lot more dedication already just by doing that.
Another question a lot of people fail at is the standard general class question. You know how to play your class, they know how your class work, but still a huge amount of people write "Because XXXX glyph is the best for my class" that might be the truth as well, but you can do it is so many other ways that is way more convincing. If you stick to the simple "It's the best" that's something everyone can say and find out, try to explain why you pick it over others that could be useful as well. Let me give you another example.
Lets say your playing a frost Death Knight, witch should be using glyph of howling blast, frost strike and obliterate. The two last glyphs is just pure dps increase so you can't really explain much more than that, but the howling blast is much more. Yes it's a dps increase, but why is ? Well, because you can remove icy touch from your bars completely and replace it with howling blast witch is a range aoe attack that leaves a dot as well if glyph'd.
You can follow one of the tips in "Before you take action" here as well by looking over other peoples applications and see how they explain and write stuff. Make sure to pick someone who used a lot of effort in his application as well. One of the last things you might want to consider is making the application more personal for that guild you want to join, this can be done if you have a bit of knowledge in a program like photoshop. The last thing I want to point out before closing this section is, use colours, large/small text or whatever is possible on the guilds website. I have seen a lot of really well written applications but they lost so much quality because they didn't catch the eye at all. No body wants to read well-of-text so try to add anything that can please the human eye, but still keep it at a decent level. Never go crazy with colours you can't read because of the background colour, make the whole application orange or something like that, keep colours, bold etc to mark important details and setting up things is sections. Can't rush it too much, please don't crit people with wall-of-text in applications.
- HOW TO SELL YOURSELF
It's like trying to get a job, you need to explain why they need you, without being a smart ass. Try to explain what kind of person you are and what your role normally is in your old guild(s). You might be that kind of person who talk a lot during raids, inputs to tactics, general chat or even if you sometimes trash talk other players if they screw up. Trash talking other players is something you need to be careful with tho, until you earn some respect in the guild.
Another type of player is the shy one nobody in the guild ever hear talk during raid or a raid logger. A raid logger is that type of person who simply ONLY logs online 5min before the raid, do the raid and logs off until next raid. If you're that type of person you might want to change a bit if possible. Some people have work and other stuff that of cause makes it hard to change, but if possible do so.
- HOW TO HANDLE VENT/TS/MUMBER INTERVIEWS
Pretty much all decent guilds is using this kind of method to do recruits, doubt you can find any guild in top 200 who doesn't use this at least. The main reason for a voice chat interview is from the guilds pov is pretty much to see first of all if you're a retard who just sit there shouting out random stuff and being really annoying. In a lot of cases if you get to the voice chat interview, you get the trial. Other things than the retard check is to check if you're able to talk proper English, general class questions to check if you don't just copy/past half of the application you made without even knowing what you wrote.
During a voice chat interview your job is to just stay calm, be prepared and talk, a lot ! If the interview end up being you once every 2min saying "Yes" or "Mmh" it mind change the guilds mind, even tho you made some awesome application. Be vocal and try to lead the conversation, if you can answer the questions before you get them try to do that. A normal interview is 15-30 min, but can last much longer. Don't be afraid if it end up being over 1 hour, a lot of the time the reason for this is because the guild is really interested and the chemistry is really good between you and them. The key is as said just to be as vocal and prepared as possible, if you can manage that, you just found a new guild.
- YOUR FIRST RAID
The first raid is always a combination of nerves, new voices and tactics. Everyone know you're new here, so just ask if something isn't clear. Most guilds is using class or melee/range/healer channels ingame, try be active here from the first raid, not in a funny way, but ask, ask and ask again or just have a simple conversation and learn a few people that way. Another thing that will help you a lot is to watch a few kill videos from your new guild and get a quick view of how they handle different encounters. Keep in mind you don't have much respect yet so don't try to be this funny troll you might used to be in guild you came from where everyone know and respected you. Low profile, but still make sure the other raiders is aware of you being here.
- THE FIRST WEEK
A very critical time of your trial is the very first week. The guild had the right amount of faith in you to give you a trial, so don't waste it by showing up late, unprepared or not knowing the encounters. It's of course okay to ask questions regarding raid bosses that can be done in many ways, like Amber Shaper Heroic here in MoP. Being the reason behind a wipe as a trial is right away one of the worst things you can ever do, even as full member of the guild. Let's again use Amber Shaper as example, this boss has a ton of mechanics that isn't really needed for you to know when is happening, but by default DBM/Bigwigs will announce pretty much all of them. Mechanics like when the boss will fling the tank, next stomp and so on isn't very useful for you to know. at least not to fill out your screen with timers witch could make you miss out of the very critical mechanics this boss has. I even do this myself specific for that boss, the only two mechanics my boss mode shows is when your personal exploitation is and when the massive one is if you need to interrupt it.
- PASS THE TRIAL
This is the main goal to achieve obviously. You can always during the trial period have a chat with the GM or whoever is taking care of your performance to get a finger point on how it's going. A lot of guild temp not to speak and evaluate with there trials, but keep all evaluation to the officers witch is imo a huge mistake by the officers in that guild. Even if you know your doing great, having someone tell you to keep it up is always a huge moral boost to keep going. On the other hand, getting negative feedback can and will be very helpful as well to adjust how you perform. In case your guild is one of those who keep all trial feedback very hidden, don't be afraid to ask how you do.
A trial period is mainly 2 to 4 weeks in most guilds, but it can variate a lot. It's really all depends on where the guild stands, is it progress and how do the trial perform in raids.
- BECAME RAIDER, NOW WHAT?
Gratz, you made it all the way to raider!
When you become full member of the guild a few unwritten rules from the trial period will be gone, but you'll still have to behave and not start being a massive troll, fool around, bad performance or show up for raids when you feel like playing. Being consistence is still very important, else you might get slowly forced out of the raids more and more, specially during progress if you stop performing.
The next step will be to earn more and more respect from the other raiders and officer by holding a steady high performance, being helpful during raids and outside raids. In the end you could be asked if you would like some more responsibility and become officer, but that's another story I won't cover here.
What will this cover ?
- Before you take action
- Setting up an application
- How to sell yourself
- How to handle vent/ts/mumble interviews
- Your first raid
- The first week
- Pass the trial
- Became raider, now what?
- BEFORE YOU TAKE ACTION
One of the first thing you need to make clear for yourself before setting up your application is to do some research about the guild you want to be a part of. I would recommend doing that by browsing over wowprogress.com (http://www.wowprogress.com/)
, reading the "Guild Profile" and make you everything fits you well, such as the goal of the guild, raiding hours and history.
After getting some base knowledge of the guild head over to there website and do the same if they have a more detailed version. Another thing I would recommend is reading other applications the guild have received, no matter if the persons application got accepted or declined, only do a few tho. If the guild don't have a public forum with applications you should visit a few guilds at the same level and see if they can provide you with that. By doing this you get a good view of how to write and setup a really good application or how NOT to do it, if its your first time trying to join a hardcore guild. Decide if you want to make your application public or private (If public is possible) Both ways got a plus and a minus side.
By applying public you get quick feedback a lot of the time since every raider in the guild has the right to comment and what not. The down side can be you might already have a guild who don't know you want to get away from them and they might end up taking action and removing you if they find out. If you apply private you won't get the fast feedback most of the times but on the other hand you don't have to worry since 99% of all guilds understand why you do it private.
In the end of the day I would recommend private no matter what.
- SETTING UP AN APPLICATION
This is the first impression and the most important thing in the process. If the guild is using a application template make sure you follow and answer every single question. Not just with "Yes" or "No" but take some time to think and reply to every one of them with a minimum of 2 lines.
Example
Are you able to talk on vent/ts/mumble ?
A lot of people would just type "Yes" or "Yes I can" even if the question like that is a simple Yes/No question try not to just type that, but be a lot more aggressive in your answers.
Yea, I'm able and willing to talk and ask questions if something isn't clear for me or I just have something to say during the raid. On the other hand I know when I need to stay passive and just follow the order that been giving
Even tho the last sentence means the same as the first you show a lot more dedication already just by doing that.
Another question a lot of people fail at is the standard general class question. You know how to play your class, they know how your class work, but still a huge amount of people write "Because XXXX glyph is the best for my class" that might be the truth as well, but you can do it is so many other ways that is way more convincing. If you stick to the simple "It's the best" that's something everyone can say and find out, try to explain why you pick it over others that could be useful as well. Let me give you another example.
Lets say your playing a frost Death Knight, witch should be using glyph of howling blast, frost strike and obliterate. The two last glyphs is just pure dps increase so you can't really explain much more than that, but the howling blast is much more. Yes it's a dps increase, but why is ? Well, because you can remove icy touch from your bars completely and replace it with howling blast witch is a range aoe attack that leaves a dot as well if glyph'd.
You can follow one of the tips in "Before you take action" here as well by looking over other peoples applications and see how they explain and write stuff. Make sure to pick someone who used a lot of effort in his application as well. One of the last things you might want to consider is making the application more personal for that guild you want to join, this can be done if you have a bit of knowledge in a program like photoshop. The last thing I want to point out before closing this section is, use colours, large/small text or whatever is possible on the guilds website. I have seen a lot of really well written applications but they lost so much quality because they didn't catch the eye at all. No body wants to read well-of-text so try to add anything that can please the human eye, but still keep it at a decent level. Never go crazy with colours you can't read because of the background colour, make the whole application orange or something like that, keep colours, bold etc to mark important details and setting up things is sections. Can't rush it too much, please don't crit people with wall-of-text in applications.
- HOW TO SELL YOURSELF
It's like trying to get a job, you need to explain why they need you, without being a smart ass. Try to explain what kind of person you are and what your role normally is in your old guild(s). You might be that kind of person who talk a lot during raids, inputs to tactics, general chat or even if you sometimes trash talk other players if they screw up. Trash talking other players is something you need to be careful with tho, until you earn some respect in the guild.
Another type of player is the shy one nobody in the guild ever hear talk during raid or a raid logger. A raid logger is that type of person who simply ONLY logs online 5min before the raid, do the raid and logs off until next raid. If you're that type of person you might want to change a bit if possible. Some people have work and other stuff that of cause makes it hard to change, but if possible do so.
- HOW TO HANDLE VENT/TS/MUMBER INTERVIEWS
Pretty much all decent guilds is using this kind of method to do recruits, doubt you can find any guild in top 200 who doesn't use this at least. The main reason for a voice chat interview is from the guilds pov is pretty much to see first of all if you're a retard who just sit there shouting out random stuff and being really annoying. In a lot of cases if you get to the voice chat interview, you get the trial. Other things than the retard check is to check if you're able to talk proper English, general class questions to check if you don't just copy/past half of the application you made without even knowing what you wrote.
During a voice chat interview your job is to just stay calm, be prepared and talk, a lot ! If the interview end up being you once every 2min saying "Yes" or "Mmh" it mind change the guilds mind, even tho you made some awesome application. Be vocal and try to lead the conversation, if you can answer the questions before you get them try to do that. A normal interview is 15-30 min, but can last much longer. Don't be afraid if it end up being over 1 hour, a lot of the time the reason for this is because the guild is really interested and the chemistry is really good between you and them. The key is as said just to be as vocal and prepared as possible, if you can manage that, you just found a new guild.
- YOUR FIRST RAID
The first raid is always a combination of nerves, new voices and tactics. Everyone know you're new here, so just ask if something isn't clear. Most guilds is using class or melee/range/healer channels ingame, try be active here from the first raid, not in a funny way, but ask, ask and ask again or just have a simple conversation and learn a few people that way. Another thing that will help you a lot is to watch a few kill videos from your new guild and get a quick view of how they handle different encounters. Keep in mind you don't have much respect yet so don't try to be this funny troll you might used to be in guild you came from where everyone know and respected you. Low profile, but still make sure the other raiders is aware of you being here.
- THE FIRST WEEK
A very critical time of your trial is the very first week. The guild had the right amount of faith in you to give you a trial, so don't waste it by showing up late, unprepared or not knowing the encounters. It's of course okay to ask questions regarding raid bosses that can be done in many ways, like Amber Shaper Heroic here in MoP. Being the reason behind a wipe as a trial is right away one of the worst things you can ever do, even as full member of the guild. Let's again use Amber Shaper as example, this boss has a ton of mechanics that isn't really needed for you to know when is happening, but by default DBM/Bigwigs will announce pretty much all of them. Mechanics like when the boss will fling the tank, next stomp and so on isn't very useful for you to know. at least not to fill out your screen with timers witch could make you miss out of the very critical mechanics this boss has. I even do this myself specific for that boss, the only two mechanics my boss mode shows is when your personal exploitation is and when the massive one is if you need to interrupt it.
- PASS THE TRIAL
This is the main goal to achieve obviously. You can always during the trial period have a chat with the GM or whoever is taking care of your performance to get a finger point on how it's going. A lot of guild temp not to speak and evaluate with there trials, but keep all evaluation to the officers witch is imo a huge mistake by the officers in that guild. Even if you know your doing great, having someone tell you to keep it up is always a huge moral boost to keep going. On the other hand, getting negative feedback can and will be very helpful as well to adjust how you perform. In case your guild is one of those who keep all trial feedback very hidden, don't be afraid to ask how you do.
A trial period is mainly 2 to 4 weeks in most guilds, but it can variate a lot. It's really all depends on where the guild stands, is it progress and how do the trial perform in raids.
- BECAME RAIDER, NOW WHAT?
Gratz, you made it all the way to raider!
When you become full member of the guild a few unwritten rules from the trial period will be gone, but you'll still have to behave and not start being a massive troll, fool around, bad performance or show up for raids when you feel like playing. Being consistence is still very important, else you might get slowly forced out of the raids more and more, specially during progress if you stop performing.
The next step will be to earn more and more respect from the other raiders and officer by holding a steady high performance, being helpful during raids and outside raids. In the end you could be asked if you would like some more responsibility and become officer, but that's another story I won't cover here.