A New way to recruit guilds?

GW2 is supposed to be a step above old style games, new methods to overshadow the old, new and fun...but we still recruit for our guilds via the same method as we always have...spamming map chat/pming people and mail...its old, it needs a new way to recruit...

since we cant use the LFG tool to recruit guilds, can we have some form of the bounty boards rather than spamming links/spamming mail in chat? larger guilds get larger , smaller guilds suffer because of larger guilds and never really get started because the larger guilds have more to offer.

can we discuss methods of recruitment that would be nice to add to the game?

You can do as I've seen many people do...have a guild with like 10 people in it and just start randomly inviting anyone who made a new character that has no guild selected yet because the character is literally a few seconds old...I sure do like those type of guild invites...

But yeah, they could take an idea from PSO2. Have a space/area/Asuran machine or something that has a "Guild Search" that you can maybe look up guilds that have a specific word to them, or an abbriviation, or go by "more popular guilds".

The guilds can also put themselves in categories from a checked off list.PvE PvP WvW Raid Fractal RP OtherThey can pick all of the above or pick specific ones. Then someone can then, if they want to join, leave a message to the person in charge of the guild that they would like to join and see if they get an invite or not.

@"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:You can do as I've seen many people do...have a guild with like 10 people in it and just start randomly inviting anyone who made a new character that has no guild selected yet because the character is literally a few seconds old...I sure do like those type of guild invites...

But yeah, they could take an idea from PSO2. Have a space/area/Asuran machine or something that has a "Guild Search" that you can maybe look up guilds that have a specific word to them, or an abbriviation, or go by "more popular guilds".

The guilds can also put themselves in categories from a checked off list.PvE PvP WvW Raid Fractal RP OtherThey can pick all of the above or pick specific ones. Then someone can then, if they want to join, leave a message to the person in charge of the guild that they would like to join and see if they get an invite or not.

this is why i have always wondered why they wont allow it in LFG tool, though allow raid sellers to do their thing... if there are too many guild listings, just allow MORE room to scroll down or add pages...and they search idea is a nice touch.

I played a game once that had a list of all the guilds in the game. The guilds listed a description of themselves, what their focus was, what kind of players they wanted/didn't, basic rules they had. The list could be sorted by guild size, acheivement points total of the members, who was currently in recruitment mode, etc. You could apply to join a guild, and the guild officers could send the applicants direct messages to ask them stuff, and approve or reject the applications from a list of who had applied. If you changed your mind you could withdraw your application.

It was great. Simplified the process for both the guilds recruiting and people looking for guilds.

I've always wondered why triple a mmo's all still run guild systems that are the same as the ones that were in use decades ago.

That game had persistent chat, too. You could log in and read through the days guild chat to see what everyone had been up to. It was amazing how much more social that game was. Guilds would merge with each other just to make their chat more active.

Maybe they could add a dialogue option to one of the guild NPCs to explain how to find a guild and a link to the Looking For Guild section on the website?

A searchable list of guilds built into the game sounds easy but I could see it quickly turning into a complicated project for someone at Anet to create and maybe to maintain.

Firstly I think it would have to be something guilds add themselves to, not an automated list of all the guilds that exist, for the simple reason that not all guilds are open for random people to join. At least 3 of my guilds would not be suitable for such a list - one is a private 'bank' guild, one is inactive and one requires an existing member to recommend you before you'll be considered for membership. I know of others which are dedicated WvW/PvP/raid etc. teams who hand-pick all their members after getting to know them, guilds for groups of real-life friends, people who met in other games and so on, all of which would not want themselves being advertised for anyone in the game to join.

Secondly I think adverts would have to have an expiry date, after which they're removed from the list. Otherwise it would quickly get too big to be manageable but also largely out of date, since guilds come and go all the time.

Ideally there would need to be filters to help searching - when a guild puts an advert up they check boxes to say what language they use, what type of content they do, what server they're on for WvW etc. and then players check boxes to say what they're looking for. But then you'd need a way to do something about guilds who check all the boxes just to increase their visibility when they don't actually meet the requirements.

And of course a free text box for them to put what would basically be their existing guild advert. With a report button for inappropriate messages.

It could work, but like I said I think it would be a big project to get started, and for relatively minimal benefit over the existing options.

The LFG seems like the wrong place for that. The guild panel would make more sense.

@Danikat.8537 said:Maybe they could add a dialogue option to one of the guild NPCs to explain how to find a guild and a link to the Looking For Guild section on the website?

A searchable list of guilds built into the game sounds easy but I could see it quickly turning into a complicated project for someone at Anet to create and maybe to maintain.

Firstly I think it would have to be something guilds add themselves to, not an automated list of all the guilds that exist, for the simple reason that not all guilds are open for random people to join. At least 3 of my guilds would not be suitable for such a list - one is a private 'bank' guild, one is inactive and one requires an existing member to recommend you before you'll be considered for membership. I know of others which are dedicated WvW/PvP/raid etc. teams who hand-pick all their members after getting to know them, guilds for groups of real-life friends, people who met in other games and so on, all of which would not want themselves being advertised for anyone in the game to join.

Secondly I think adverts would have to have an expiry date, after which they're removed from the list. Otherwise it would quickly get too big to be manageable but also largely out of date, since guilds come and go all the time.

Ideally there would need to be filters to help searching - when a guild puts an advert up they check boxes to say what language they use, what type of content they do, what server they're on for WvW etc. and then players check boxes to say what they're looking for. But then you'd need a way to do something about guilds who check all the boxes just to increase their visibility when they don't actually meet the requirements.

And of course a free text box for them to put what would basically be their existing guild advert. With a report button for inappropriate messages.

It could work, but like I said I think it would be a big project to get started, and for relatively minimal benefit over the existing options.

To combat the issue of cluttering the list, you could make it so the advertisements were a gold sink, and have guilds pay to add themselves to the list of recruiting guilds. "Buy" advertisements.

What are the available options? Spamming map chat? Posting on the forums? Those aren't really options. They are work arounds.

Adding in-game interfaces would obviously take a lot of time and effort. I don't know that user friendliness is minimal benefit, though. User experience is the entire selling point of video games. The selling point of an MMOs UX is that you can interact with other players. Providing a good UX for the mechanisms by which that interaction takes place seems like it ought to be a high priority.

Very little time or effort ever seems to be spent on those mechanisms...not just in this MMO, but in MMOs in general. I find that odd. But I guess the designers think the same way you do. It's a lot of effort for little benefit. I just don't think it would be little benefit. I think social interactions have a huge impact on player retention. I think adding tools and interfaces that promoted good UX for those interactions would therefore be beneficial to player retention.

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:can we discuss methods of recruitment that would be nice to add to the game?

The problem is that effective recruitment is about as scientific as ... matchmaking. The guild likes long walks along the branded beaches at midnight, you like piña coladas and getting caught by the reign of the lich king (). In the real world, it's not that much easier. Even the most successful clubs and organizations, who have no trouble with name recognition, struggle to get active members.

The most effective techniques remain the same:

• Word of mouth: friends invite friends.
• Ask around where you hang out — if your guild does fractals, PUG the fifth slot and invite folks that seem to fit your group. If your guild does open world stuff, publicize it.
• Use social media, including these very forums and /map. (Although simply creating FB, Twitter, and Discord presences is probably better still these days, depending on your target audience.)

I'd love to see ANet's API publicize those guilds that wish to have a recruitment message, along with a couple of useful keywords. But all the same, I doubt very much if it would be effective: GLs don't keep details current, the actual needs of the guild often differs from that stated, some GL aren't very good at evaluating good fits for their guild, and so on. It wouldn't hurt to have something in game; it's just not all that likely to matter much for most of us most of the time either.

I wouldn't mind seeing Road Banners get a makeover both visually and mechanically. As it currently stands I believe they only serve to grant a 10 second swiftness buff, which according to rumor - doesn't even stack/apply if you already have swiftness? I think the following would be a nice update whilst still being integrated within the playable game world:

• Interacting with road banner prompts a window similar to guild hall Basic Signpost in that you can enter your guild advertisement. Anyone who thereafter interacts with it will be greeted with an informed ad regarding guild recruitment + options to "send mail" to the owner or whoever placed the road marker if they're interested in being recruited
• Road banner visually larger, slightly animated windblown effect?
• To avoid clutter, road banner may have a limit of 1 (whoever placed it) per map and last for 45 mins to 1 hour and have a downtime of ~15 mins before another from the same player can be placed so as not to 'camp' certain areas
• Apply the swiftness buff regardless whether you have swiftness or not

TLDR: would be nice to have alternative guild recruitment (updated Road Banners) that isn't just map/chat spam within the playable game world.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:can we discuss methods of recruitment that would be nice to add to the game?

• Word of mouth: friends invite friends.
• Ask around where you hang out — if your guild does fractals, PUG the fifth slot and invite folks that seem to fit your group. If your guild does open world stuff, publicize it.
• Use social media, including these very forums and /map. (Although simply creating FB, Twitter, and Discord presences is probably better still these days, depending on your target audience.)

this is alot of effort with little benefit when you still have to TELL people the social media site -_-

Personally, I like that Guilds in guildwars are player driven - at least, in terms of recruiting. As a recruiter myself, I feel the human element is important - you dangle bait in map chat, or maybe you meet someone cool. You talk to them, and find they're a great fit - and that's when you get down on your knees and pop the question!

... Okay, that went a little far, but the point is made. Some people are okay having guilds full of silent loner bots... and that's okay. That's how they want to play, I see no issue with that. But I want first pick of the fresh new faces, and something like a voting board won't benefit me or my guilds in that regard (and will likely syphon off otherwise productive guildies into unproductive or dead guilds - I've been through this sinkhole before in other MMO's).

I prefer EQ2 style of guild recruiting.All guilds that are recruiting are listed in a LFG-style tab, with a description and various tags ('casual', 'we play at odd hours', 'raids', 'mature humor', etc). The players can browse the guilds and find one that suits them, and (ask to) join by contacting a recruiter. And it only listed guilds that had active recruiter online, so dead guilds are automatically weeded out, and there wasn't much clutter.

Compared to that, the GW2 system feels very clunky.

Though it's not an in-game thing, http://gw2.guildex.org has been around since GW2 launched. Over 10,000 guilds have registered on it for GW2 over the years.

Would be great if I could hook it up to the API to list all the guilds that exist and which are active.

I would probably join a guild if they recruited me the way colleges recruit star sports players.

https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/. also.

F L Ö, Guild Leader/Commander [ODIN], a TC Server Admin, TC Council

 The process is it's own reward  ~ Amelia Earhart

@Phlogistn.7893 said:https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/. also.

Reddit's a horrible place for that kind of thing, in my opinion. :\

@Darkademic.2603 said:Though it's not an in-game thing, http://gw2.guildex.org has been around since GW2 launched. Over 10,000 guilds have registered on it for GW2 over the years.Over 10,000 guilds may have registered, but only 513 of them are listed as 'active'. There's only one guild listed for my server, and they're non-English.

Not exactly useful.

We have that guild initiative hq in lions arch, why not use that for the guild posting boards? I mean why else did we vote for that thing?

Also actively seeking fresh meat for our guild. Pm if interested ?