Wait, huh? What was the truth? I must have missed it. I don't even know what I just read, lol.

Jim Dale is above the average cretin that have replied here. He understands this fully.

Most of this is true. Not Jim Dales should not be hindered from joining guilds just because of previous affiliations / experience.

I'm not sure if that's the truth I was looking for in this thread Jim, but those questions asked by guild applications are mainly there to see if you have any experience with guilds. They aren't there to hinder the joining process. However, some guilds do deny access with limited experience only because the guild master wants the guild to be better than average. A guild filled with mostly new players would have trouble achieving that.

I don't see why past history isn't important. Guilds provides more than just a tag under your name, they provide aid when you are having trouble in the clockworks, can help you find recipes you need, are more likely to loan you money and can provide you with access to lucrative clockwork levels. These are very real benefits that are not unlimited so guilds are justified in making sure they are not investing in a member that is going to leave their guild two days later after having gotten a 20k CR loan and all the recipes he needs. This means background checks to make sure the applicant is not a chronic drifter and that they left their old guild on bad terms and that the person is at least somewhat competent and won't be a complete drain on guild resources. Depending on the person, guildmates might even be closer than friends, and get preference in parties. It is up to the guild leader to make sure that those who join the guild are people who the other members in the guild will be able to trust and have fun with. Hence the application process.

Hope this helped you understand guilds a little bit better.

I did read it later. I was gonna post a diatribe of my own, but my session logged out :\

the application process it super-important if you have a higher-level guild.

My guild mainly farms bosses. That means we need people with 1) gear, 2) good communication skills, 3) maturity, 4) patience.

Gear is self-explanatory. If you ask me to get into my guild wearing mixed 2* or non 5*able gear, you don't have a good setup and will die a bunch. Also, if you're applying to guilds wearing your "trolling" gear, you aren't gettin anywhere.

Good communication skills means the ability to have a QUALITY conversation. If the majority of your words are truncated txtspeak, or your fast English is weak, then my guild may not be a good fit as we're mainly USA players or players with high-level English ability.

Maturity is practically the most important part of my screening process. Do you like to rag on noobs? Troll /1 and /2? Do you whine when you're dead, or complain about how someone else friendly-fired you? Do you smack-talk in /gchat? Do you have a habit of belittling people in general? Can you chat without cursing, memespeaking, txtspeaking, or using lol as a punctuation?
Our guild has a lot of older players. We like to talk about things WE do, like drink, travel, and raise our kids, which immature people just can't handle without looking moronic.

Patience. Did you join my guild to raise up your Dusker or bang out 40 Almire Seals, or did you join to talk to like-minded individuals in a game setting? Do you blow a lot of CE on revs? We life-split on our guild, I dunno about you.

I wish I could email up old GMs of players who petition us for recruitment. I wanna know that someone failed another guild before they came to fail in the one I'm an officer in.

I also have experienced what Justinbox says: Guilds are far from helpful most of the times. I entered one after being asked, not just invitation spammed, and in two weeks I got just... a call to go to Lockdown?? I also did one run in late Tier 3, and that was it. I tried to give a bit of life to the guild chat, and only one person answered from now and then.

What is worse it that it was all "what can I get from you" what I saw from the other guildies: the only time guild chat and such got really lively was when me and my friend found a Soul Slime/Sloom/whatisthenameoftheblueslime. And it was just so they could get in the run to see it. I also did a few jokes about it, we laughed a bit, and a return to pungent silence. Also, people tried to get into our runs without even asking when we were at Arenas - Jelly King - etc. What is with that kind of behaviour??

It would have been "normal" if the guild was a random one, but it was actually one that in that week was one of the first in Lockdown. I don't know about other guilds, but that experience really disheartened me. Dunno if I will find an actual "guild" someday in Spanish channels...

Also Juances, give 25 crowns? Are you kidding? It sounds like a scam, that kind of petition will absolutely draw off people from you or even report you.

Guild applications can be a wonderful way for the applicant to determine if the guild they are investigating is a good fit for them or not. For example, if I am not a hardcore T3 PvP monkey, and the application asks about my Lockdown activity, maybe that is not the guild for me. Knowing whether a player has beaten certain tiers or bosses can be valuable as well. If a player hasn't defeated the Royal Jelly, then as a guild master, I can decide if I want them to cross that milestone before joining or if I want to assist them in that venture. I don't want to fill my roster with T1 people that aren't going to be playing next week, adding to a demoralizing list of inactive members. (Additionally, some guilds are very popular and there is a cap on the number of members you can have, so developing some way to select 'better' applicants can be useful.)

Personally, I have goals to complete a Shadow Lair and need the help of good players. I joined Tier Zero based on their application process and what I read on the forums. They use complete sentences, demonstrate camaraderie and have an intelligent sense of humor. All the things I was looking for in a group of people with whom to run the Clockworks. That is what a guild should be, in my estimation; a group of like-minded people.

I think your post is an excellent springboard for discussion, which I'm guessing was your intention. Your disclaimer doesn't seem to match your condescending tone, however. Incredulity and mocking laughter do not foster productive discussion. Also, the formatting made it a little tough to read.

About the age thing. You do realize that age is not part of the section headlined "giving away personal information" right? I've already seen a trend curve showing that older players are indeed more mature. Of course there's the slack offs and the really immature players even at an older age, but those types of people are much more common in younger players.

Just saying.

It is also the truth that most people who try out the game quit within their first week. New players who don't like the gameplay or energy system won't keep playing the game no matter how much help from guilds they get. There are guilds which cater to such a crowd and recruit exclusively new players but they cannot be expected to invest much in each new player. Guilds with application processes generally are more active and the members are more helpful and mature because they passed the bare minimum standard imposed by the application process. Generally you will not see guilds which cater to new players recruiting on the forums since new players rarely check the forums and those who do are probably a lot more dedicated to the game and already knows whats going on and has an idea about the sort of guild he/she wants to join. By looking only at the guild recruitment section of the forums one would get a biased representation of the guilds in SK. There are guilds out there for new players, ones which don't have application processes and accept new players, but they are a different sort of guild and are generally not as vocal as the experienced guilds dominated by active players on the forums.

I get random trade and friend requests if I am standing around in Haven. If I go near the AH, I get people begging for money. I will admit to lowballing trades (wanting stuff for a lower price then normal) and highballing (selling for a higher price then normal). But, I am at least not pathetic enough to beg.

About guild applications:
I can't tell about the other guilds, but as far as the guild I represent is concerned, only game-related questions are asked.
ex: "How many hours you play a day?", "Around what time? (GMT)", "Have you ever defeated X?",
The only one exception is age. Not only to respect OOO policy, but also to have a nice time with players, and people behind players, who are mature enough.
Usually, less are the years, more are begging and DRAMA.

About personal information sharing:
Of course is not encouraged nor requested, but being with friendly people make one want to talk, and why not, at the end I got to know personally some real nice young men and women behind clanmates. How somebody knowing the real name you hide behind your charachter is lenitive in any way?

About experience and activity:
Sorry, exclusive guilds doesn't let everyone in. Don't get all pissy about that. Old and respected guilds can't ruin their image of prestige with some cobalt kid running around with their clan name under his head.

"So if you are in a guild , or have thoughts of joining a guild and you see
nothing different or standing out about that guild...then that guild isn't for u"

See? Guilds that "stands out" are the ones that look strong, which everyone would want to join.. guilds that doesn't welcome everyone who comes by.

In the guild I'm in, anyway, we look further, and as long as you're old enough, dedicated to the game and willing to help, you can join in proto gear and find your place, working your way to the endgame.

As you see, not every guild out there is the same.

This is going to be a discussion forum for the MOST part.

Well, considering this is a discussion forum, that would make sense. Unless you are talking about this discussion thread
/petpeeve

"the application process it super-important if you have a higher-level guild.

My guild mainly farms bosses. That means we need people with 1) gear, 2) good communication skills, 3) maturity, 4) patience.

Gear is self-explanatory. If you ask me to get into my guild wearing mixed 2* or non 5*able gear, you don't have a good setup and will die a bunch. Also, if you're applying to guilds wearing your "trolling" gear, you aren't gettin anywhere.

Good communication skills means the ability to have a QUALITY conversation. If the majority of your words are truncated txtspeak, or your fast English is weak, then my guild may not be a good fit as we're mainly USA players or players with high-level English ability.

Maturity is practically the most important part of my screening process. Do you like to rag on noobs? Troll /1 and /2? Do you whine when you're dead, or complain about how someone else friendly-fired you? Do you smack-talk in /gchat? Do you have a habit of belittling people in general? Can you chat without cursing, memespeaking, txtspeaking, or using lol as a punctuation?
Our guild has a lot of older players. We like to talk about things WE do, like drink, travel, and raise our kids, which immature people just can't handle without looking moronic.

Patience. Did you join my guild to raise up your Dusker or bang out 40 Almire Seals, or did you join to talk to like-minded individuals in a game setting? Do you blow a lot of CE on revs? We life-split on our guild, I dunno about you. "

Well said Tengu.

I am a GM myself and Tengu explained perfectly why we have recruitment standards. Personally I have taken in quite a few new players (3* and 2*) and shown them how to run fsc and JK palace efficiently. Not to mention teaching them techniques and referring them to the wiki pages that deal with classes and damage types. http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Gunslinger_Guide http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Swordmaster_Guide http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Bombing_Guide http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Damage

As for freeloaders and beggers, these in my humble opinion, are some of the worst types of players. I have never freeloaded or begged once and I expect the same from others in my guild. Begging/freeloading just shows immaturity and a personality that is incompetent. My two cents... /rant over.

High regards from: Kurapika. GM of Hunter X Hunter http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Hunter_X_Hunter

what is this I don't even

@Maxamusx
Wheres your tips.

Back on to the topic now, I would rather not speak my truthful mind on beggars due to it will get me banned two times over.

That's all I can say aloud.

"Irregardless of what you say the bulb"...

irregardless |ˌiriˈgärdlis|

adjective& adverb informal
regardless.

ORIGIN early 20th cent.: probably a blend of irrespective and regardless.

usage: Irregardless is widely heard, perhaps arising under the influence of such perfectly correct forms as irrespective, but should be avoided by careful users of English. Use regardless to mean ‘without regard or consideration for’ or ‘nevertheless’.

Guilds: Guilds have the right to recruit however they damn well please, based on whatever standards they find appropriate to their values. This world is full of people with poor values. If you don't like it, don't join their guilds. Guilds with good values exist and aren't rare. If you can write an application letter that genuinely communicates your interest to them, they're not going to screen you out because of some trivial thing like not wanting to tell them your age or not having t2 clearance yet. There's nothing ugly about this at all, because guilds provide a way for players to associate with people they can relate to. It's really quite the opposite, a very important system to have that extends the social value of the game immensely.

As far as recruitment goes, lack of recruiting skill on the part of any given guild is hardly an "ugly truth" so much as a disappointment. And anyone with a couple hundred CE can make a guild, so it's not like any given guild has the implicit approval of the Spiral Knights community. It's like looking at the most ignorant person in a country and then railing on the country for it.

-

Don't know what you hope to accomplish with this thread other than randomly saying what's on your mind, but most people want the price of CE to be low. Some people are more vocal about it than others, particularly those who play a lot and are F2P. The game's optional F2P aspect is one of the reasons some of us P2P people buy CE in the first place. We all have the right to be dissatisfied with it, and some people are going to whine about it very loudly. Complaining about whiners has never, in the history of anything, ever accomplished anything or been at all worth doing. Just ignore them and move on.

And a lot of people lost a lot of money with the heart pendants thing. OOO felt it was a good idea. Ask them. And if you expect to have a fair shot at winning in Lockdown with absolutely no Lockdown experience under your belt, then you're pretty overconfident, plain and simple. I don't think there's anything particularly ugly about the way things work. It is how it is, and Lockdown is hardly something you have to play; if PvP is your thing and you really enjoy Lockdown, then you're gonna get heart pendants. They're not cheap, but they aren't exactly super expensive either. I don't think anyone's really being hurt by getting schooled when they try to play Lockdown without heart pendants.

In short, this entire thread is extremely misguided.

Yes, both of those things are perfectly fine. One reason why begging for cr is worse than guild recruitment is that it's unsolicited and annoys people who don't ask about it. For the most part, guilds are a private affair. Guilds can kick out veteran players if they wish. Maybe the players didn't get along with the officers and just stuck around because they had friends in the guild. But the guild will be crippling itself if they did.

And asking for personal information is not against the rules at all. I don't know where you got that idea. Here you go:

You may not:

11. collect or store personal data about another member without the express permission of such member.

12. reveal personal data about another member--including but not limited to personally identifiable information about the member, administrative role of the member within a game, and information about game characters associated with the member--without the express permission of such member.

Answering a question about personal information, in my book, is "express permission." Refusing guild entry to someone because they don't wish to disclose said information is somewhat less clear cut, but I think it still flies because it's just a guild. You'd be hard-pressed to find a guild that denies someone for that reason, though.

Misinterpreted? It's a rant thread with no clear focused point where you complain about things that either 1) everyone agrees are terrible (i.e. the amount of money people lost on heart trinkets, expiration dates on costumes), or 2) aren't worth complaining about because they boil down to human stupidity (guilds, CE price whining)

too long didn't read

Not really sure why you ask for feedback if you don't read it, since the counterarguments to everything you just said are literally in my last post. It's fine to disagree, but generally in a discussion you have to actually develop what you're saying in pace with what everybody else is saying, rather than just repeating yourself over and over again ignoring the other people. I will, however, refrain from posting here any further, so you don't have to worry about me.