Recruitment and trials

We are a friends-first guild, which means most people arrive by referral and most “applications” are a hello in the tavern. The funnel below still matters, for two reasons. First, the research says recruits who arrive as strangers to fill spots churn at about 25 percent a month and often say so openly (“in it ‘till a higher level”). verified Second, newcomers’ biggest complaint about guilds like ours is the pre-existing friend group they cannot get into. verified The funnel and the buddy system are how we let strangers in without breaking what works.

The funnel

Stage	What happens	Where
1. Discovery	A friend mentions us; the Raidify guild finder listing; a Blizzard forum recruitment post; `/who` in game after launch	Outside
2. Interest	They join the Discord and pick WoW Forever in onboarding. Zero commitment; they can see the wing and nothing else	Onboarding, wow-roles
3. Application	Friends: say hi in the tavern and fill your sheet. Strangers: the bot opens a private thread from the template below	Tavern, or a private application thread
4. Officer review	Two officers read it. Members who know the person may comment for 24 hours; it is explicitly not a vote. You hear back within 72 hours	Officer chat
5. Voice chat	15 minutes with two officers. The point is to hear the person, not interview them	WoW Tavern voice
6. Trial	Two tracks, below	In game and Discord
7. Full member	Guild Member rank in Discord and in game. Announced in the tavern. Tiny rituals matter	Tavern

Vetting run. Between stages 3 and 6 for strangers: one dungeon with two members before the in-game invite. It costs an hour and it catches nearly everything the application form misses.

Application template

Friends skip this. Strangers get it as a private thread. Keep it honest: rejected applications are deleted after 90 days and the form says so, because it collects real-world availability and sometimes age.

Core

Character name, class and spec, and any flexibility to play another.
Availability grid: weekdays by evening block in the guild’s timezone, plus how many nights per week is sustainable for you long term. We ask for the sustainable number, not the enthusiastic one.
Experience, with logs if any exist. Then, only if you have raided before: link them.
UI screenshot. Nobody is declined on it alone.
Why us, and why you left your last guild.
Who you know here. This autofills from “who invited you” when it can.
Have you read the loot rules and the charter? React to the pinned post to confirm.
Anything the officers should know.

Added for a friends-and-family guild

Preferred pronouns and what to call you in voice.
Comfort with voice: talk, listen only, or text only. All three are welcome.
Hardware and connection sanity: stable internet, can run Discord and the game at once. Returning players often have old machines.
Loot system familiarity: never used any, used soft reserve, used loot council. So onboarding can explain the gap.
What would make you quit a guild? This surfaces deal-breakers early, in both directions.

Rejection etiquette

Reply to everyone, within the 72-hour window, with one honest sentence and a door left open: “we are full on healers until Hyjal opens, re-apply then.” Never silence. Never a template with no human sentence in it.

Two trial tracks

Most of this guild’s members are the second kind. Do not make anyone raid-trial who did not ask to raid.

	Raider trial	Social trial
Who	Anyone who wants a Raider rank when raids open	Everyone else
Length	Two weeks to a month, with a decision date stated on day one	Two weeks
Bar	75 percent of scheduled raid nights during the trial (Raiders are held to 80 percent after) verified	Conduct only. Essentially automatic
Loot	Behind members on contested main-spec items for the trial only, equal on uncontested. End date stated	Not applicable until they raid
Rights	Guild chat yes, bank and kick rights no	Same
Coach	Named raider who runs the checklist below	Named buddy
Decision	Two officers, within the stated window, scorecard shared with the trial	Buddy signs off; any officer grants Member

Raider trials can be extended once, for a stated reason, with a new date. Nobody sits in trial indefinitely.

The trial scorecard

This is a loot council rubric in miniature. It gets people used to being evaluated fairly, and it is shared with the trial at the end, in full. verified

Criterion	Below	Meets	Above
Attendance	Missed raids without posting	Hit the trial bar, absences posted	Never missed, or benched-available every time
Preparation	Missing consumables or attunements more than once	Usually stocked and attuned	Always ready, helped others get ready
Mechanics	Repeated raid-wiping mistakes on the same mechanic	Learns a mechanic after one explanation	Calls their own mechanic cleanly
Communication	Silent when it matters, or talks over calls	Listens, speaks when asked	Makes the raid easier to lead
Attitude	Blames, rants, or backseat-calls	Wipes, laughs, tries again	Lifts the room

Three “below” rows is a no. One “below” is a conversation and an extension. All “meets” is a yes. The scorecard is not a parse. Nobody gets a number.

Buddy system

Every trial and every returning player gets a named buddy for two weeks. Not a rank, a person. The buddy’s job:

Say hello in voice within the first day.
Run one dungeon together in the first week.
Answer the dumb questions so the newcomer never has to ask them in the tavern.
Make sure one guild thing is on their calendar in the first week. Day five matters more than day one. verified
Sign off at two weeks, or say what is missing.

The buddy is the bridge across the friend-group problem. Buddies get a thank-you in the monthly state-of-the-guild post. The bi-weekly newcomer coffee on the rituals calendar is where buddies and newcomers meet each other.

Coach’s checklist (Raider trials)

Added to voice and knows push-to-talk.
Has read the rules: reacted to the pinned charter post.
Knows how to sign up in Raid-Helper and what Bench, Tentative, and Absence mean.
Knows the absence process and its deadlines.
Knows the loot system and the trial loot rule.
Knows who to DM if something feels off.

New member to-dos

Discord’s Server Guide supports a short to-do list for new members. Ours, in order: post an intro (three fixed questions: what you played before, what you want this time, one non-WoW fact), pick class and role in wow-roles and hit Set up my character, join one voice session, react to the charter. Predictable prompts lower the bar. verified

Why referral first

The long-lived guilds in the research recruit slowly and by referral after vetting; the guilds that fill raid spots with strangers are the ones with 25 percent monthly churn. verified The tension is real: the same research says class balance and a wide level spread (which means fresh recruits are arriving) are the top survival predictors, so we do keep recruiting. We just do it through people who already know someone here, and we run the trial the same way for everyone.

Unknown as of 2026-09-24

Whether the Raidify guild finder and Guilds of WoW will carry Forever listings at launch. Raidify does; Guilds of WoW is unknown.
The exact Discord Server Guide to-do limit. The support page returned an error; 3 to 5 is the number in third-party guides.