It Takes A Certain Character...

... to be a member of E.P.O.C.H.

So yeah, It's stupid o'clock in the morning over here in not-so-sunny England and I'm slightly inebriated but after reading countless amounts of guild boards full of useless members I'm glad that we're this small in number and still providing the "RP Goods". We have members come and go but for the few that are left standing, it's awesome! With a small guild such as this we're still considered by most other guilds as a "powerhouse" in our field, which I dunno about you, but it feels sweet to me.

It's actually got to the point that I'm happy with the band of scummy mercs and agents that we've gathered that I'm thinking about calling off recruiment until the game starts. I think we've got at least the amount we need to form a guild and all of you have the right mentality on how a guild should work, so what do you guys think?

I would say "Aye!"

I've made small summary of last applicants, and the final conclusion was, that each of them had some willing to be part of the guild, but they had the same problem that finally lead to little or none activity - NO SWTOR CHARACTER.

It was the third or 4th time when I was sending the RP ideas, trying to help develop any playable character and it ended without any results. I think that joining E.P.O.C.H. With notching more than possible name & class is not enough. It means someone didn't spent even minute to think about his potential EPOCH Agent. If we have someone with even partly shaped character I can even start an "initiate forum RP" that will be the first visible test for the candidate. We don't have to wait for chat RP. But at least I need ANY initiative from the applicant side.

So my idea is to change little bit the rules of recruitment. You have to have at least RP character to join the trial period. The best and most welcome would be to present actual main character that wants to join EPOCH. This way we will have people that care about the application and spend some time over it.

But it also means that we have to be fully active RP, otherwise we can waste active RP players who will move their character to more RP driven guilds if not satisfied (You know What I mean )

Witya speaks the truth unfortunately, but I'd also like to add that we shouldn't stop Freelancers from joining or change their application process. Freelancers are supposed to be flexible and so should be allowed to change their avatar whenever they want. It actually looks good on us since it will look like we're working around a huge number of mercs

And I'm pleased that we're seen as a "powerhouse" Comments like that give a very patriotic boost.

Yes, I only speak about EPOCH initiates. I think situation with the Freelancers is great.

My idea is to stop the recruitment now, and open it WHEN WE WILL HAVE SWTOR RELEASE DATE. Then we can open the recruitment again, with few more requirements from the applicants.

There is one specific phenomenon about RP guilds: the more restricted the recruitment is, the higher is the quality of the applications. Firstly, it's because you have to feel good enough to go for it, but also tight recruitment process gives feeling of elite guild, where every player have some unique story to say. I know, because my own guild in WoW was going this road. So IF we will make it harder to join us, we will also need to give more from our side (time spend around TOR things, more RP, reanimation of chat RP). And it seems pointless without any real info about TOR premiere.

But EPOCH have two more features that makes it unique:
We are the guild of PLAYERS not characters. We have great friendly atmosphere that helps develop good relations between the players.

EPOCH gives the widest spectrum of possibility in creating your own Agent. There is the chain of command, but no one forces you to "reduct your character cybernetics" or "tune down your lightsaber skills". We just want you to be experienced/well learning Role player without god syndrome and that's it. That's why even if we will rise the expectations from applicants, we can't bound their character, as many other hardcore RP guilds do. If we will be seen outside as open minded yet elite guild, maybe even few of our freelancers will decide to try join us on full terms.

RP expectations at start is clear signal for applicants that we are really RP Mercenary guild.


What do you think?

My point on recruitement as always been the same and still is: We shall not be hunting for applicant but make sure to welcome any that would come.

Now, Witya has a point when says we should make having at least a precise character idea a prerequisite. I'll use example that I have in mind like my own experience or Witya's but when we posted our application we already had a basic (or very precise tbh) idea of the kind of character we wanted to play in EPOCH. I personnaly spent quite a few days thinking about this before applying.

So I think that "Give us a brief summary of your RP character" should be a prerequisite character and not an optionnal question ^^'

Maybe have a look at the HoD application process, they need a backstory from Initiates

Caryington wrote:

So I think that "Give us a brief summary of your RP character" should be a prerequisite character and not an optionnal question ^^'

This - I know that two years back it was just an option, since there was little rush before the game release, but now we may think about changes in application form and focus more than before on initiates character.