@smeedsc Your “trial by fire” is a great analogy to how a lot of guilds put their applicants through the ringer. Some people respond well to that. Others do not. That doesn’t necessarily mean that person is a bad player. That style of criticism just isn’t “their bag, baby”. People are bound to respond to different types of criticism. The “trial by fire” is more subtle in my guilds. It’s more of a silent “let’s see what he brings to the table and responds to criticism.

@Quros Like Matt said, those guilds that are huge into number crunching and min/maxing their class and raid have fun doing THAT. As a buddy of mine always says, “You’re paying $15 for your account. I’m not paying it for you. I’m not gonna tell you how to play your game”. You just have to find a place that suits what you’re looking for and how you like to game. Same goes for the theorycrafters.

But what is “fun”? Is fun hanging out on a friday night shooting around with some friends in some pickup raid without clear responsibilities or ideas on what to do? Is fun preparing in advance who has to do what at certain parts of a fight? Is fun wiping and dying repeatedly because someone likes to Leeroy Jenkins into a bunch of whelps 2 or 3 times for the sake of it?

The idea of “fun” is relative and it varies from person to person. My idea of fun is working in tandem in a 25 player unit with clear coordination resulting in the killing of a boss. I am happy when I get to experience the thrill of taking down hard content for the first time with a group of players who are just as interested and invested in the game as I am.

I don’t have fun pugging certain raids when players aren’t as sure as themselves. I don’t have fun raiding along side casual players who don’t gem or gear properly. I don’t have fun when wipes occur because players think fires mean a 50% increase in damage done and decide to run into them.

And some players are going to view these efforts as a second job and don’t want to go through that. To others, it’s a passion or a really damn fun hobby that people want to master. Those two demographics aren’t meant to really be for each other. But this should be proof that WoW has something for everyone.

I can understand why a top-notch high end guild would want to weed out the players who aren’t interested in investing time in learning their class and how to raid effectively. But so much of this stuff just seems like complete overkill to me and destroys the fun aspect of playing a video game.

Scrub guild or not, at least it’s not a second job….mine requires enough attention as it is.

2) have a decent UI, know what keybinds are and how to set them and actually use them.

3) take a butthurt load of criticism on the way in, nitpicking about spec, gems chants, anything we can do and say to make you better, and if you disagree be prepared to defend yourself… we WILL listen!!

4) Show up every raid. fully prepared. and early.

5) perform well through that period, and continue to improve or just flat out blow our minds.

6) keep raiding after the trial.

thats how we do it and its met with alot of success. there is also a vent interview and a bit of voting and discussion among the members. as well as some reaching out.

If they stand that trial of fire, and keep doing what they were doing to get there they will reap the rewards. if not… go pug or join a scrub guild.

As for my guild we have an application and a 2 week trial member period where applicants, that pass our class lead/officer interview, will participate in our raids under our guild tag showing us why they should be given a full raid spot and also making sure they really want to be a member of our guild. Being a guild full of very strong personalities we never get angry if an applicant turns around and says “hmmm not for me.” As we expect applicants to extend the same decency on our end.
Napaeae´s last blog ..When Guildies Lie

I can appreciate that system and I like how it can definately weed out bad-fit personalities. However, my own ideal system is something similar to what a guild on my server does. They are, however, a very top-end hardcore guild. Their system is that you must provide a thoughtful, complete application complete with some theorycraft and math involved.

Your then given 3 weeks trial in raids and off-night content, at the end of which is a week long guild poll on whether or not you fit. So, rather than it being left up to 3-6 individual officers, the entire guild gets a vote on whether you fit or not. I think I prefer that sort of high end democracy, which can be done by all 25-45 raiders/subs in order to ensure you fit with 90% of the people your spending 5 hours a night, 5 nights a week with.

If they seem like a decent person, they are invitied on the agreement that it’s a trial period and we keep the option to remove the applicant at any point we feel they are not a good fit. After some time, usually a month or so, the Officers talk about the recruit, and if there’s no objections, they are promoted to a ‘general member’ type rank.

Now of course a guild can kick someone anytime, not just during a trial phase, but we are more inclined to give benefit of the doubt to someone who’s been with us for a while, as opposed to recruits who we watch carefully to see how well they’re meshing.