Guild Recruitment

I’m sorry, this is going to be a little bit of a rant. I’m an old MMO gamer and to be honest I am proud of that fact. I started back in 1999 with EverQuest. I played EverQuest for 6 years and in that time I was in 3 guilds. I only changed guilds after each guild died. Loyalty mattered back then.

There is a drastic difference in the gamers of today when compared to those 10 years ago. The apathy and sense of entitlement makes me weep for society. Yet again my guild received another subpar recruitment application, someone who can barely spell and shows no sign of proper page formatting. Yet this isn’t an anomaly, this is the standard. It’s amazing to me; really I’m almost at a loss for words on how to describe it.

When I was joining guilds in EQ it was treated as a job resume, you took your time and made it look nice. Assuming your application was good enough, and the guild desired your class, you had a 3 month recruitment period where you received and expected no loot. Let me say that again, after applying to a guild you didn’t receive anything for 3 months. We weren’t even running on DKP.

You got a guild invite for the raid, because we had no raid chat at the time, and you had to deguild after the raid. Once you finally did get in the guild you were typically on a trial period for another 3-6 months. It was like a job. I guess when people refer to EQ as a second job they are right. We did treat it like a job but I also think that is why it had more class. You can actually have fun at your work, you just need to take it seriously and be professional. That is what EQ was.

I’m beginning to feel like an old man in the gaming community, talking about how it use to be. I understand why my grandfather always pined over the old days. Yes nostalgia tends to black out the bad times of the past, but we need some of that past again. We need values and self respect. Self respect and intelligence go hand and hand, one should never assume that it is okay to be lazy… especially when someone is applying for a job, or even a guild.

I’m currently stepping out of politics in my guild. I recognize now that I’m a relic of a different time. I just hope that I can occasionally instill some sage wisdom in a few people.