World of Warcraft®

So, I just looked at Guild Finder on Hordeside Cenarion Circle... It's terrible.
Now I have to get up on my soapbox and preach about how it should be used properly!
<rant>

• If your guild IS NOT looking for new members, it SHOULD NOT be listed, PERIOD.
• You know the "Interests" checkbox. If your guild DOES NOT do that thing, and you check that thing, it is false advertising, which is illegal in most civilized countries. (I know there's no rules against this, but please, for the love of god, you aren't a role-playing guild, Blackspire Guard!)

Now for some good advice:

• If you want people to join your guild and you're listing in Guild Finder, put a description that's more than 3 words. You'll interest more people that way. Sell your guild in 500 characters or less! It's not too hard, use /gf for some pretty good examples.
• Go download and install one of my addons "Applicant Checking" from curse, it can tell you when a guild applicant on your list is actually online. It doesn't notify you like Friends system will, but it does every time you check the requests window, as well as making you aware that there are recruits waiting to be had, it can print messages to your chat every time someone applies.
• Actually select the things your guild does. Sure it may reduce your guild's visibility, but if you don't do that particular thing, people will join your guild thinking you do, and be dissapointed when they find out you don't.

</rant>

There is also an addon called Recruitment Enhancement that WILL notify you via friends list and also has a plugin for Titan Panel (if you're using that). It also keeps track of the conversations/letters that you exchange with the recruits. It's a very handy addon.

I wish guild finder would list things better anyway. I don't know how many times I have scrolled through it and not seen a single guild that interested me.

Since I am a rper. I would like to see rp guilds and pvp guilds and pve guilds listed separately. That way in the description box they can state if they do all three or are only one. Being listed as an rp guild can give you an option to look at only rp guilds.

The biggest complaint I have is the false advertising. The constant tired old line of:

We are helpful and friendly. Just ask and you can get runs in dungeons anytime. Free repairs, access to the guild bank and help in leveling.

How many times I have joined a guild and asked for help and no one is interested, or I go to get some mats from the guild bank for leveling a profession and find none. Or the dumbest one, joining a level 25 guild for the perks and not a single person online is your level, so you still have to run pugs for randoms.

The automatic guild invites as soon as you roll a character are really irritating.

The automatic guild invites as soon as you roll a character are really irritating.

Turn them off in your settings.

Pia is notorious for rat-holing everything to try and help members level crafts. That doesn't mean we have every single thing every single craft needs to level. If we have it, the members have it, but no guild can have everything you need.

Free repairs? I can't imagine guilds advertising repairs if they don't, but maybe some do. It just seems like a dumb thing to lie about.

Guild perks, that really refers more to the exp bonuses etc not a guarantee there will be someone your level online. Being level 25 has zero to do with what level characters are in the guild.

Pia doesn't actively recruit though we do have a notice in the guild finder, so we don't really have a dog in the hunt. However, perhaps some people expect too much from the guild finder?

Blizzard simply didn't do enough with the guild finder. Was their resident prophet out sick when they came up with this system because even I know that if you let guilds select every interest, lots of them will.

Specifically all the guilds that can't get members through honest advertisements will select everything in the hopes of luring people in with lies. Yes, they actually are lead by people so abysmally stupid that they think folks will stick with them once they join even though the guild isn't at all what was advertised.

Guilds should have to choose a primary interest for the guild finder and you should be able to search by primary interest. A lot of guilds that list themselves as RP guilds in the guild finder system would probably choose something else as their primary interest.

Hopefully Blizzard upgrades the system sometime soon.

Newcomer: Hm. I need a guild. Lets see here... well guild finder says that Lluchduu Ocheliad are a rp guild. That could be pretty neat. Let me whisper one of their members.

Imperon: Yes?

Newcomer: Hey do you guys rp?

Imperon: Yes we do/ No we do not.

/solved

Liore, this isn't what the topic was about. I know it's not hard to ask, but lying kind of hurts your credibility on top of wasting people's time. If only Guild Finder was implemented better, or people had more incentive to not lie on it, then all would be swell. Like public ratings of guilds (But even then, that can be abused.

In the end, yes, it comes down to your own judgement though.

02/13/2013 06:08 AMPosted by Nicholas

There is also an addon called Recruitment Enhancement that WILL notify you via friends list and also has a plugin for Titan Panel (if you're using that). It also keeps track of the conversations/letters that you exchange with the recruits. It's a very handy addon.

And yes, applicant checking is designed with a minimal feature-set, because I am kind of lazy, and some people have full friends lists

If there was one feature I'd like to see in guild finder, is sortable headers, and easier to see which specific things a guild does, without having to look into the tooltip for it, so you can sort by it. It would make it a lot more useful than the random sorting it seems to have now.

We cannot rely upon the automation of social grouping alone to deliver what we want. The discerning player looking for a guild will inquire personally and directly whether the guild he or she is considering is right for them.

Humans are filthy, stupid creatures and will cheat and lie and so on and this is not exactly news. A countermeasure in this particular instance requires effort and interaction on the part of the player.

I'm glad to have a tool that does a bit of the legwork for me; we've recieved several applicants over the past week alone because of it. But no line of code, however useful, can help put you where you want to be if you just want to take things at face value.

555 Destruction Warlock looking for a guild who runs 10 man normal?

I am on Perenolde Alliance