So unless you’re living under a rock, then you know they’ve announced a November 13th release date for Wrath. Also, if you are living under a rock, stop. First rocks aren’t comfortable homes. Second, if you’re going to be a good leader you need to know what’s coming and prepare for it.

Now if you’re anything like me, the release date was the trigger you’ve been waiting for to start making solid Wrath plans. Sure I’ve been keeping up with Beta and Test server information but always with a grain of salt, because it’s Beta. I’m not ready to go up in arms about Beta information until it’s written in something more solid than a flavorful gelatin product that I’m sure has a trademarked name. A two month timeline on the release means it’s time to start taking Beta and especially test server information more seriously.

So as an online leader what does an expansion mean to you that it doesn’t mean to other people? (Conversely if you’re a member what should you expect to see your leadership do to prepare and how can you help them?)

The major thing a vertical expansion provides is an opportunity for change.

Whoa wait a minute, Auz you said vertical expansion, I heard this was a Wrath expansion, has that medicine the doctor given you finally gone to your head?

No little voice in my head, it’s not affecting me any more than to make me publically argue with the voices in my head, I’m ashamed to admit I was doing before the medicine they gave me. Vertical is an adjective that gamer theorist (yes this is a real class of people, some of whom actually get paid but most are laymen with blogs like me) have attached to expansions that require a character’s growth (leveling) to reach new content. It’s counterpart is a horizontal expansion which provides more content and items to be acquired without requiring character growth to reach it. (I apologize to all the gamer theorists out there I have offended with my crude but concise definition of these concepts.) So the Sunwell patch could be considered a horizontal expansion and the Wrath is a vertical expansion. And now someone queue that music from the now you know comercials.

Uh Auz, we don’t have a staff, you’ll have to do that yourself as I’m incorporeal.

What do you mean we don’t have a staff? Matt has a staff, and I’m at least as cool as he is.

Yeah but Matt suckered them into it by bribing Wyn with cookies and snagged Syd with that clever So You Think You Can Write Blog Posts So Matt Doesn’t Have To thing.

Darn him, I’m guessing I can’t steal that idea and have it work twice huh?

Nope but you might be able to train the pug.

I do have cookies… ChickGM and Pugdude!

Damn it voice in my head, you’ve gotten us way off track, and probably lost our readers.

<Ahem> So vertical expansions create change, by requiring us all to level. The gear advantage that individuals and guilds have and the requirements that zones have disappear. Shaking the Etch-a-sketch of wow gear hierarchy and forcing us to draw a new picture. In addition the class balance etch-a-sketch will be shaken, and we’re going to get used to classes playing new roles. (Rogue Synergy? Pally AOE heals? Druid out of combat Rezs? It’s a scary new world) Finally, the tradeskill etch-a-sketch will be shaken.

So in the face of all this potential change, what does an online leader do?

First, read Bre’s post, protecting your landscape.

Okay now, do an internal check. Find out what aspects of the game you are willing to focus on, both as a leader and a member of a guild. Then keep your mouth shut about them so that you don’t influence the others and you get honest feedback.

Next, speak to your guildmates. Sure right now you’re a casual guild, but what secret hopes do your guildmates hold? It may turn out that now is the time that your teammates want to start some raiding or maybe your raiding guild is tired and wants to step back? You’ll never know if you don’t ask them. (Note I’ve been out of touch with my guild for a bit, but before I was away I already knew the thrust of my core members. Even if you are in close contact with your members, you should check again. Some people’s opinions are going to change as the possibility of change is higher.)

Take your polls and put them in three categories, the leadership, the core, and the future (your newer members).

• If your leadership, core and future are all in alignment - The future path is clear and your life is beautiful. Give your guild recruitment leader/process a pat on the shoulder and start working on your path.
• If your leadership and core are in alignment but your future is out of alignment - Let your future know that you’ve heard their views but that the guild is not going to change to meet their expectations. They are welcome to stay on if they’ll accept the current guild path or you won’t begrudge them if they look for a guild more inline with their desires. (Bonus points if you help them find it). Then take a hard look at your recruitment process and make sure you’re clearly stating the guild focus and asking people about their goals within that process.
• If your leadership and core are out of alignment - This sucks. If there is room for compromise, I highly recommend exploring that opportunity first. If not, then one focus has to win out. I will refrain from commenting about which I believe should win out and only say that no matter which side goes the guild has a hard time of rebuilding ahead of it. Whichever side wins, let the guild know as soon as possible so that everyone can make plans. If you are stepping out of the leadership position, a gracious last act would be to help the guild establish their new leadership to the best of your abilities.

Now that you’ve found your guild’s Wrath path, it’s time to lay the groundwork.

• If your guild is continuing along it’s old path - this work is fairly easy. You’ll need to look over all your publically available information to make sure it’s updated for Wrath (applications, website, etc) and you might want to use that time to look over your guild rules to ensure that what you have documented is actually what you’re enforcing.
• If you’re making a path change, - let your guild know right away, so that people know what to expect out of the guild for Wrath and can make plans accordingly. Then take a look at the guilds on your server who are currently on your desired path. Read all of the guild’s publically available material and if you are fortunate enough to be able to find a leader in another guild who is willing to answer your questions, remember that this leader is also preparing his/her guild for Wrath and you should use the time they make available to use wisely. From this information you’ll have a good idea of what other guilds offer and their structure. From there you can work with your leadership to determine what you can offer and what new responsibilities need to be doled out. While you’re discussing this, think about how your guild can differentiate itself from your peers in your chosen niche and be sure your recruitment process capitalizes on this distinction.

Let it be known that I’ve never lead a non- PvE raiding guild, though I have been an observer or member of most types of guild. With that caveat, here is a rough listing of the responsibilities, as I see them, of the leadership for different guild niches.

Any Guild

• Guidance of focus
• Recruitment process
• Acceptable behavior standards
• Enforcement of standards
• Communication -Website, Vent, Email Chain, Phone list as required
• Conflict resolution
• Shared resource management
• Event Organization as required
• Documentation of required information
• Publication of guild standards, goals and accomplishments as required

Role Playing Guild

• Environment crafting
• Overarching guild plot
• In character/ out of character protocol and expectations.
• Role playing guidance
• Event Organization

PvE Raiding Guild

• Research - zones, bosses, classes, patches, etc
• Set raid strategy communicate it
• Loot distribution system
• Expectations of raid behavior
• Class/Role leadership

PvP Raiding guild

• Research - zones, pvp objectives, classes, patches, etc
• Set PvP strategies and communicate it
• Expectation of PvP behavior
• Class/Role leadership

If you have anything to add that I’m missing please let me know in a comment.

I had intended to make this a complete guide to Wrath guild planning, but this post is already too long and I’ve only just begun. So in order to; not draw me from my own guild for too long, keep you from falling asleep and bolster my post count, I’ve decided to make this a post series.

Hey Auz I know this is the end of the post, but you see all those bullet points you don’t have links for. You should totally fill in the blank spots for those.

I know voice in my head, looks like I won’t run out of topics for a long time.

A few posts back I had a commenter request that I post an example gear plan like I proposed in an earlier post. I thought about it decided it was a good idea, and promptly forgot to do it. I went over my blog notes, (Yes I keep notes about what I’d like to blog about; don’t blame me, blame Matticus.) and decided I should to this quickly before I forgot. Let me say two things that will both be probably be promptly ignored.

• I am not posting this gear plan as a list of gear that you should be trying to get as a raiding priest.
• I do not care to debate with anyone the virtues of this item verses that item for raiding holy priests, nor my spec, etc.

Both of these points stem from the same basic reason, I probably don’t heal the way you do. I’m a very specialized role that is specific to the needs of my guild and myself. I do not wholesale recommend my spec or gearing choices to anyone that’s not functioning in the exact same role that I am 100% of the time. If you would like to discuss the finer points of healing with me, I highly suggest coming over to PlusHeal.com and chatting with the numerous intelligent people there and I about what’s on your mind.

Without further ado, here is my gear plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Armory

Updated: 7.1.08

Major Upgrades
Hands of Eternal Light - Sunwell (craftable)
Boots of Absolution - Sunwell
Memento of Tyrande - Illidan - BT

Nice to have
Amulet of Flowing Life - Trash (JC pattern) - Sunwell
Shroud of Redeemed Souls - Twins - Sunwell

Wouldn’t Let it Rot/Sidegrade
Cuffs of Absolution - Offspec in case I want to avoid breaking my set bonus later.
Tome of Diabolic Remedy - I get more out of my spirit trinkets, but I might play with around with this some.
Crystal Spire of Karabor - Illidan - BT
Archon’s Gavel- I’m a staff girl and this is good for others but I’d be tempted if it was going to rot.
Haste:

• Shawl of Wonderment- Twins - Sunwell
• Robe of Eternal Light- Trash drop - Sunwell
• Blessed Band of Karabor- Trash drop - BT
• Dark Blessing- ZA - Zul’jin
• Book of Highborne Hymns - Twins - Sunwell

I’ve been a little under the weather this week, but it’s been too long since I posted. In typical Auz fashion I’ve decided it was time to look over the guild forums and find something vaguely amusing.

I made this post today. It’s a time when as officers we decided to go back to our members for feedback about an issue. It’s also one of those weird times where we are holding a member up for discussion. Before the post was made, we talked to the member to make sure he was comfortable with this.

First and foremost let me say this is the first time we’ve asked for feedback directly relating to an individual in a public format. Given the culture of respect for our teammates we’ve developed, I’m going to assume that if you have negative things to say about the person behind the character, you’ll PM them to CasterLead or myself rather than post them here.

Alright Auz, you have my attention, what’s the deal?

We has a problem. “AffLock” is a long standing member of the guild who has recently taken on a job that prevents him from making our attendance requirement. That being said, he is making our progression nights and “CasterLead” and the other officers view him as fairly irreplaceable (I mean he LIKES affliction and he’s not all emo). When he’s not available to us, he’s taken the time to train the lovely and talented “CuteMage” and shared his account with her, so we’re guaranteed to have an affliction lock available to us.

Okay Auz, what about this is a problem?

Well being below the attendance cap means “Aff’s” not eligible for gear until all the others have passed on it. Which means slowly but surely “Aff’s” gear is going to start to lag behind, to the point where he won’t be useful on progression nights anymore.

Oh that is a problem, but you said something about not attacking “Aff”…. when do I get to say naughty things about him…errr I mean, surely Auzara, you must have a solution.

“Aff” suggested that as his actual play time hasn’t changed, just the hours he can play in, that he put that time to industriously farming for the guild to “earn” the same time you guys put in. If that’s demon slaying elixirs or “‘Aff’, can you grab me some adepts, I didn’t have the time I needed this week” In exchange we would waive the 3600 EP requirement for “Aff.” While his gear acquisition rate would be slower than the others (due to slower decay rate and less EP earned) it wouldn’t lag so significantly as to make him not useful on progression nights.

Okay Auz this is a great story, but um… shouldn’t this be in the officer forums?

It was in the officer forums, but we while we mostly support this plan, the people it’s really going to affect are you guys. You’ll have “Aff” to compete with for gear and you’ll be benefited by the farming. Also, “Aff” has earned the officer’s respect for his time and commitment to the guild but also his approach when he got this job. But anytime you make an exception of this magnitude, there will be accusations of favoritism and not fair play. So we decided that if we’re going to be showing favoritism, let’s let the caster core do it. So casters, provide us with feedback. Is “AffLock’s” offer to put in equal times farming that he’s missing raiding worth it to you guys to pull him in your loot rotation? Remember what I said though, while we are discussing a fellow player and friend please keep your comments constructive and related to the discussion. Comments I think won’t help the discussion will be moved to the officer forums.

So now, I can talk about “Aff” and that time I caught him with the goat and the crisco?

Only if you think it’s relevant to the conversation little voice in Auz’s head. Now, let’s go get ice cream!

Sweet I love ice cream!

So why’d you share this Auz, I mean other than being lazy? Well I wanted to show this as an example of:

A) Why I’m not writing for you guys right now - I mean I’m talking to myself about ice cream.

B) Involving your members in decisions - This was a sticky wicket for us, I mean the player is solid, but it’s a pretty massive departure from our rules. When you decide who’s getting in for the raid, you can’t involve the whole guild, the same with which instance we’re raiding. In this case though, we can and frankly I think we should. It these guys who will be affected by both the farming and the loot calls. Don’t forget to keep your members involved when you can.

C) Getting more opinions - You guys aren’t in my guild, so this is mostly just for my curiosity, but what do you guys think about massive departures from the established rules? Is it okay sometimes? Should it never be done? Is farming outside of raid times a valid time make up for being there for raids?

D) I can feel better about having posted “something” and focus on back on getting better and what the guild needs from me.

Hey Auz!

First off, I want to tell you how much I _love_ your blog! I mean…you’re a girl, leading a guild, and a healer…it’s like me, only, you know, with better wording. Superb! It provides such a great basis of everything I want to discuss - healing, leading, raiding, and some pretty great singing to boot. However, I’m sure you’re busy so I’ll make this quick. This was titled “Ask Auz” so I thought it was kind of…a good idea to get some feedback from you on a topic that’s been bothering me.

Introductions quickly: I’m Tulani, a holy priest and Healing Leader of Lothar US, currently 208th in the US, with 4/6 SW with Mu’ru less than a week away from server first; the very first server first for my guild (stupid alliance.) However, lately I’ve been noticing a few things in the healing core:

1) Overpopulation. We have TOO MANY HEALERS. But they’re, uh, generally, all great. Maybe one or two aren’t. Everyone’s antsy since sitting out half the roster week after week for Mu’ru isn’t good, and I’ve gotten a lot of “should I quit? I know we’re full” tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of “you always sit me!” To make matters worse, an old resto druid (previous healing lead), who is AMAZING, wants to come back, and the other officers, and I even, are all for it, I don’t think I could make room. What would you do to calm everyone down and make them realize that we’re a little full, yes, but that the only reason they’re feeling like this is because Mu’ru only take 6 healers?

2) Also, I’ve been noticing bad looting going on. Not just trying to scramble to get “that item first” but taking items over other people who could use it more. I often pass loot to those it would be better or more of an upgrade for, but the other priest has called me a DKP whore for it (I have amassed a giant pile), even though I pass to her often, do research on the items and my healers, and take upgrades for myself still. She on the other hand, like many healers, bids on ANYTHING she can use - shadow gear, holy gear, you name it. It all culminated on last week’s Twins kill - 5 shaman and 2 priests in raid, and the resto druid takes the haste offhand, which is THE BEST shaman offhand and a superb priest one. I had, yet again, passed in hopes that a shaman would grab it, because I didn’t think a druid would bid. We run flat out Zero Sum DKP, and I’m worried that loot monitoring would cause issues, and also slow raids. How can I tell my healers that SW will be on farm soon and you’ll all get more gear than you could ever want without talking down to them? I wanted to make a big forum post but we don’t have a specified “healing” forum…perhaps I should make one? I wanted to also, with our bloated roster, get down who needs in for what boss to help alleviate loot and raiding woes.

3) Finally, and I’ll make this quick, I started out raid leading and whatnot about 2 years ago, but usually only on the sidelines. I was appointed to healing lead here by the old one when he quit without me hardly knowing what was going on (I should have seen it, he had me start leading more and more healing while he sat out until I hardly realized it anymore). The odd thing was, I didn’t get as much respect as he did. I’m not bad at it in any stretch; I’m actually very good. However, I’ve realized over time it’s really because I’m a girl, and I’m younger than many of them. Over time I’ve gotten more and more respect, and I can lay down the law very easily, but I’m often afraid to make big posts or anything because, well, I’m afraid people won’t listen. Reading your blog though, along with experience, has really helped me out so much. Now I hardly find respect an issue, and people aren’t afraid to talk to me about topics anymore. I can also do more than just heal lead now too; I can actually lead entire raids, discuss issues, and stand up for points of view. It really has made an impact on my leadership career and I couldn’t be more proud of our guild and it’s progress, and feeling like I had a big part in it.

Thanks for your time Auz, I know you’re a busy woman and this turned out a lot longer than I ever expected. If you could respond it would be very much appreciated, but if not, I understand, and I hope you know that I love the work you’re putting out there, and you should know that it helps!

-Tulani

Tulani,

It sounds like you are suffering from one of the same problems I am. As this is something I have been struggling with too, I wanted to make sure I was giving you a well rounded response. This is why I also shared your query with a colleague I respect, Lume the Mad. In addition to blogging, Lume is a resto druid who leads a guild that’s 40th in US progression. You can find his response here.

Sunwell requires a large variation in the number and type of healers you use and the types of healers that are the strongest for the fight. In retrospect it may have been wiser for me to use some of my hybrids for healing the large healing number of healing encounters and keep the healing population more stable. That being said, not all hybrids are created equal on the healing front and in my case the most amazing healers are generally the most amazing dps.

…….

Names are obscured to protect the healy. Why’d I take a picture and not just copy the text, Matt says I need more pictures to break up my wall of text. (See Matt I listen, and yes pictures of text count)

I made that post for the first time about a month after we started the guild and since then I’ve updated it about once a month, or after a significant healer change. I think this post provides the following 3 benefits:

• My healers know I have a plan - We’re not just willy nilly adding people or making a mad dash for the best healers we can find.

• They can clearly see my raid selection criteria - When I say, well dude, you’ve been missing raids without telling me, they can’t say “I didn’t know that meant you’d be sitting me.”

• It’s clear what my expectations are and what my goals for the team are - I expect the things that get you raid invites, my goal is to speed up our target identification and reaction time.

Aside from the “State of the Healing” address, my individual healers that I think need improvement know what I want them to work on. For example, last night I took two of my druids in a channel and said: “DruidA you are amazing at emergency healing but you lack confidence in your target selection, and DruidB you are amazing at keeping hots up on the tank(s) at all times, but you are lacking in your utilization of your emergency healing spells. Finally DruidA you’re going on vacation, teach DruidB what you’ve been doing on the new fight we just learned. While you two are at it, teach each other how to do what the other is doing, because you’re both better druids than I am.” This doesn’t work with every healer pair, but it works with these two because of their respect for each other and generally positive attitudes.

Over time, I’ve found that most “’should I quit? I know we’re full’ tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of ‘you always sit me!’” comes from insecurity or feeling under valued. You can combat this by making the time to sit down with each of your healers and speak with them individually. I forget which leadership book I picked this up out of, but I like these meetings to follow a Positive, Negative Positive pattern. (You can see an example of this pattern in the Druid conversation above.) Regardless of if you have to go looking for the negative feedback go find it. Give them something to work on and focus on other than raid selection. If you have to dig extremely deep to find it tell them that too. Lume’s post also suggests this kind of meeting and addresses another topic you can discuss in this meeting.

It sounds like adding that resto druid back into the mix will strengthen your healing core and I think you should do it but I think the way you do it will carry weight with your team. Make it a point to sit him at first and gradually fold him into your healing roster. As a previous officer he should see the wisdom in earning his stripes with the team (especially the new ones) and he needs to learn the fights he missed while he was gone and gear up anyway. Seeing your previous officer sitting with them will drive home the point that it’s not about all about skill or trust especially with your veteran healers.

Poor Looting

First YES add a healing forum. Go do that now! I’ll wait for you to get back .

~hmms quietly to myself~

…..

….

….

You back? Okay good. Now this can wait until after the blog reading, but if you don’t have one go add the Tank, Melee and Caster forums too. You’ve outlined a classic problem, is having conversations with my raiders about their loot choices important enough to take up valuable raid time? The good news is we don’t have to answer that question. Make the loot decisions and have the conversations before the loot is on the floor. In my forums each of my raiders is requested to publicly post their gear plans. This provides us with the following benefits:

• An opportunity for raiders to see what their teammates want- I use a staff. Would the Illidan Gavel and the Archimonde offhand provide me with stronger stats? Yes. However, all of my healers can use the gavel with great result. I want that gavel in the hands of the people who AoE heal for me. I wear my staff with the pride of knowing that I’m one of the few people on my. team who can put that staff to good use, and having that staff means the gavel is in the hands of the people who benefit the most from it. My other healers can see what their peers want, and they can discus in advance who benefits the most from it. Do I require this from my healers when they bid on gear? Absolutely not. I do instill in my healers the knowledge that healing, more than any other role, is about teamwork, the strongest team kills bosses, not the strongest healer.

• The ability to quickly evaluate what bosses my healers still need to be killing – When we look at dropping instances or bosses off our raiding schedule, I look at these gear plans. What bosses do my healers want? When I make decision regarding who’s in for farm nights, I look at these plans. This information makes my decisions stronger.

• It forces my healers to think about what they want before it’s on the floor – When people are forced to make split second decisions, they tend to take something they aren’t sure about rather than miss the opportunity. Requesting gear plans requires them to think this out in advance when they have more time and more information available, generally resulting in better decisions.

• It allows us to have discussions where I am thinking about overruling them in advance – I love my druids, but they aren’t getting Illidan’s Gavel over my AoE healers or even my pallys. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Knowing if they want it in advance means I can tell them when I’m going to overrule them in advance. It gives me a chance to talk to them and allow them to make their case for the item in their hands when I can really focus on just them. It also allows them to hear my points without feeling rushed or having the adrenaline of having just killed a boss and thinking they’ve won loot in their system. Lume has gone over in more detail the hows and whys of overruling a player’s loot decisions in his post.

Compliments all around

First, thank you very much for the kind words. It’s very affirming to hear that the time I spend working on the blog is having a positive impact! Hearing from readers definitely adds to the reward of writing beyond just what I get out of writing things out and forcing myself to take my own advice. (I hate it when I’m right and it means more work for me.)

Second, the fact that you’re taking the time to read and ask questions means you’re doing it right. Certainly there are great leaders that can do everything by instinct, but even these great leaders can learn from other people’s experience rather than having to experience it themselves. I can’t tell you how much better my leadership has gotten since I’ve met Lume and had him to bounce ideas off of and share frustrations with. Don’t get discouraged while you try and herd your healers through Sunwell. Your leadership got them there and your dedication and continued leadership will get them through it. The trying times are what define people as leaders and give your team confidence in your leadership once you’re back on firmer ground.

Step 1 - Gather the information you need.

• Faction and Server Type - i.e. A US-PVE (Means Alliance, US (neener Canadians!) Player vs. Environment). Say this first, that way people who aren’t eligible to apply to you guild won’t waste their time.
  
• Time Commitments - If your guild raids from 7pm to 11pm Sunday through Thursday they need to know. If your guild holds candle light initiation sessions every 3rd Thursday of the month they need to know.
• Guild Focus - What is the purpose of you guild? Are you focused on raiding, leveling alts, role playings, pvp, community? The way to attract people who share your goals is to make them clear from the beginning. Bikutanda of Nazgrel muses on this topic here if you’d like an example.
  
• Brief Listing of Guild Accomplishments - How far along are you towards your goal? 4/6 SSC? Newly started guild? Well respected role playing guild that runs events 3 times a month? Some people want to help build a guild from the ground up. Others want to come into something more established. By letting people know where you are in terms of your goal you attract people who want to be there with you.
  
• What the guild is looking for - You’re making a recruitment post so clearly your guild has needs. Tell them about your ideal candidate. Let them make a self check to make sure they are what you are looking for.
  
• About your server - Most of these recruitment posts are made on cross server platforms and your candidate may be making a leap of faith to join you. Tell them about your community so they know what they may be getting into if the initiation period doesn’t work out.
  
• How to find out more - You can’t list every relevant piece of information in your recruitment post. Tell the candidate where to find more information if what they’ve found interests them.
  
• How to apply - Sometimes they know all the need to right from the recruitment post, tell them how to apply.
  
• Contact Information - Some people want to speak to a person while they make these decisions, tell them who to talk to, and how to find them.

Step 2 - Figure out where to say it.

• Realm forums - Find your realm under the “WoW Realm Forums” section on the WoW Forums - Forum Index page. If you are interested in drawing apps from the pool of people on your server who might be interested this is a great place to post.
• WoW Guild Recruitment Forums - This is a great way to find cross server candidates. Now broken in to Alliance and Whorde errr Horde sections.
  
• Bosskillers.com - Bosskillers has a guild search page. Go here to find out more information about how to submit your guild. This is a great place to find raiding applicants.
• MMO-Champion.com - MMO-Champion has several recruitment forums broken down by region and server type. Again this is a great place to pick up a raider.
  
• ShadowPriest.com - Here are their recruitment forums. This specialized site is a great place to pick up a raiding shadow priest. You may get other interested classes as well (I mean, shadow priests have friends too right?) but you’re mostly hitting shadow priests with this one.
• TankSpot.com - Here are their recruitment forums. Guess what you’re attract here? DING DING, raiding tanks.
• World of Raids - They used to have recruitment forums, but this post indicates something new and exciting is afoot. This is another place to recruit raiders.
• Wow Lemmings - I love this tool. This is an aggregate of the posts in the official recruitment forums, but you can search it. We use this tool to find people who’ve posted that they are looking for a home that meet preset requirements we have already set. You will have to post your recruitment notice in their thread on the official forums to contact them.
  

Note: You might notice, a lot of my links involve wow raiding. Well, that’s because I lead a raiding guild in wow. If you have links to other locations, I’m all ears. I’d love to make this post more accessible to all the different types of guild leaders.

Step 3 - Figure out what they want to hear.
Recently I came across a post from Pugnacious Priest titled “Guild Audit - and Guild Loyalty.” In this post she discusses leaving her current guild and what she’s looking for in a new guild. This is great information if you’re trying to recruit Pug, but what I really want to take away from this is the insight into her mind. Out there is your new member, looking for what your guild has to offer.

Take a moment and think about what your ideal candidate wants to see in a new guild. Are they looking for a guild that’s on the brink of something new and needs to draw people from all over to join in the effort? Are they looking for a home that’s established and want to drop rank in file with a group of people who know what they are doing? Are they just looking for a place that recognizes WoW is one thing on a list of many balanced priorities? What does your new member want? Make sure your post tells them you have it.

Step 4 - Personality.
Your guild has a personality. It has to, it’s comprised of people who have a personality. If your guild is business like, make sure that comes across in your tone. Playful? Have some fun with your post. You get my point. There is something that makes your guild unique. Make sure you play that up!

Step 5 - Putting it all together.
You’ve gathered them all together, now it’s time to put them into a mix bowl and beat them until something intelligent comes out. Remember that some of the information I told you to gather might not be needed in your post because it’s covered where you post. I.E It’d be pretty silly to include that you’re an Alliance guild if you’re posting in the Official WoW Recruitment Alliance forum. When I reply to an individuals post in the recruitment forums, I try and make sure my reply indicates that I’ve read what they have to say about themselves.

Sample - Below is a sample of a well written (in my opinion) recruitment post.*

The Guild of Server is looking for a few raiding members to fill out our raid composition in SWP.

Currently we are looking for a Shadow Priest, Resto Druid, Holy Paladin, and Elemental Shaman.

About us: The Guild was formed in July of 2007. During that time we have progressed to full clears of MH and BT and are currently working on Kalaecgos. Our raid times are Sun-Thurs 7pm-11pm EST and we expect 75% attendance, though we certainly understand things come up and will always work with individuals on that.

Our guild is very personnel oriented and we are looking for skilled players as well as folks that are decent and can fit into our guild. Before we even see any potential applicants play we like to talk to them to see if they will be a good fit for us, and if we will be somewhere they want to call their raiding home.

Our loot system is a fair one that doesn’t include a “pecking order” we run an EP/GP system which can be explained when you speak to me. There have been some variations to this in the interest of fairness.

Our guild does not make the GL’s rich. All items accumulated in raiding that are not wanted are distributed in cash at least once per month including flasks (marks).

About The Server: The Server is one of the oldest and most established PVE servers around. We have recently experienced a high number of PVP transfers due to both the quality and speed of queue times in both arenas and battlegrounds.


If interested please apply at our website or contact one of our officers in game. You may also email me at EmailTheGuild1375@email.com

http://theguildwebsite.com

Recruitment Guy (you CAN contact me during raid times)
GMX- GM
GMY -GM
MeleeGuy-Melee Role leader
AdminGuy-EP/GP Officer
RaidLeaderGuy-Raid Leader/Caster role leader

*Note: Details changed to protect the guild that allowed me to borrow this.