READ ME FIRST!! Guild Policy, Recruitment and Procedure Info

[Rahzu]

Part A: General Inquiry, Business and Contacts

1. Current Officer Structure is as follows:

Chieftain: Kormok
Commander: Rahzu
Arbiters: Lukantan, Awenita, Nekhar, Golth, Lenora, Mulkanus, Vassali
Champions: Ceitidh, Nodoskaia, Shaw & Vrijdokk

2. Chieftain: Supreme authority and chief admin within the guild, and generally a very busy guy. Barring extenuating circumstances you SHOULD NOT contact him with general issues, recruitment issues or problems.

3. Commander: Assistant admin to the Chieftan and handles all raid related matters as well as general functions.

4. Arbiters: These folks are the main officer types and generally who you want to contact with any and all concerns. In general the Arbiters should be fully capable of answering and dealing with any concerns you may bring to them. These are the folks you'll want to speak to about joining.

5. Champions: These are the folks to seek out with general questions and inquiries about the guild. They can also put you in touch with a higher level officer if one is not immediately present.


Part B: Recruitment

1. First step is to look over and fill out a Guild Application. You can find that here: Guild Application

2. Once this has been submitted we will take roughly a week to review and get back with you. During that time we may contact you if we have any questions or concerns about your application. This process is to determine if your character fits within the lore we have established for our guild.

3. Once we have had time to review your application we will inform you of acceptance or denial.

4. If accepted, you will then become a "Hopeful" and will be directed in-game/IC to members of our guild to continue the recruitment process. This process is to determine if you, the player, are a good fit with our current guild members.

5. Keep in mind that joining the guild is not something that will be accomplished in an afternoon. We're not going to make you wait months (as the guild once did in the past) but we do take the screening process seriously to make sure people will be a good fit in the guild.



Part C: Things to Note

1. We are not a net for Horde RP. There are other RP guilds out there and the Horde can always use more RP guilds (we'll probably even help plug your events if you like).

2. The Tears of Draenor, to use well known RPG terms, are predominately a Good aligned guild. This means overly selfish, antisocial, overly aggressive, domineering, evil and generally unpleasant characters would not fit within the guild.

3. You do not have to be in the guild to RP with us or come to our events. The majority of our regular RP events and gatherings are open to the public and you are welcome to contact any member to find out the time and location of the next one. Of particular note, Champion Shaw is a good person to contact about this as he does a lot of work fostering server wide RP.

4. The Tears of Draenor does not encourage/support Erotic Roleplay. Though what happens on your personal time is of no business to us; please keep in mind that your character clearly displays our guild tag. This means you represent our guild at all times, please act accordingly.

[Kormok]

Hello! First, allow me to say thank you for considering the Tears of Draenor as a guild. Some things are left unsaid on the main website's Tenets page that you should be aware of if you intend on applying to the Tears. Most are fairly common sense, but bear explaining a little further.

1) Contacting a Member
This should be your first step in the process; speak with one of the members of the Tears who can direct you properly. Alternatively, you can write an in-character letter to one of the officer/champion staff denoting your interest. The best method, however, is coming to one of our events; either the Sunday clan gathering (a general no-violence event where the Tears relax and unwind after the week's battles) or the Tears Tuesday story night run by Shaw. Here you should be able to meet with one of the clan members and start the process.

As a side note, there are a few things you should know that instantly cause a rejection.

- Telling us who your main is in your application. To be blunt, we don't care. We want to know about your TEAR applicant, not how many purples your raid guild main has or how important to the Stormwind roleplaying community you are.

- Demanding anything. Being a Tear is a privilege, not a right. No one is doing us a favor by applying.

- Applying with the insinuation that we "need" members of your class or race. We do not "need" anything other than good roleplayers who enjoy playing their profession without undue influence.

2) Knowing What the Tears are About
By applying, we are certain you understand the principles of what the Tears of Draenor are. We are committed to establishing a strong and influential entity whose members extol honorable virtues both in and out of character. For the record:

- We do not condone bluewalling, /spitting on people, or griefing. Any member or applicant who is found to have done this is subjected to serious review or scrutiny, and may be removed from the guild or denied membership. Thankfully this has never been required.

- As mentioned above, we do participate in guild/guild ally raids and do frequently run instances, but this is not our primary pursuit. Do not apply to the Tears expecting to be run on any and whatever instances you need rewards from. While we are more than happy to help you complete difficult quests or fill out an instance run, this is not a guild where you should expect us to progress through content at any pace other than our own.

- We do not accept characters that are serial murderers, blatant psychopaths, or hyper-aggressive perma-death seekers. We've had a couple in our time, and those are quite enough, thank you. We will not accept you for the obvious in-character reasons, roleplayer or not. The Tears are still a recognized in-character entity, after all.

3) I've applied! What now?
Wait. Be very, very patient. You are likely one of upwards of at least six applicants being considered, and each must be given equal attention. Don't be shy about reminding us from time to time, but don't get out of hand. Also, do not harass one particular officer every waking moment of your applicant days. We've had hopefuls wait two weeks, and we've had hopefuls wait two months. If you are unwilling to wait this long, then this is not the guild for you. The patience thing is one of our tests, as it were. It proves you want to be a Tear badly enough to be willing to wait for your chance. However, don't be a wallflower; be proactive, and go out and find Tears to RP with! Join the channel shown in the addendum below, and get yourself visible.

And that's it! I may update this as more things occur to me, but this should encompass everything for the time being. Thanks again for your consideration of the Tears, and I hope to hear from or about you soon.

[Kormok]

Recruitment: Behind the Scenes

I get a lot of questions about this. I figure it's time to be a bit more transparent about how I determine who is suitable to join the guild.

1. Interaction Level/Type

Prospective hopefuls who go out of their way to contact members and not wait to be contacted are preferred. There is a line that is considered here though; if the hopeful cuts through all the chain of command and takes a straight OOC line to me instead of an officer, champion, or advocate, it reduces their chances that I will be positively inclined towards them. This is not because I am antisocial or hate roleplayers, it's because it shows they did not check our recruitment process beforehand on our forums here or do not care. The guild keeps a well-populated staff of officers and champions for this reason.

I also suffer from terminal whisper spam at all times while logged in (just ask anyone). Going through another member is better for you since chances are I will miss your whisper anyway.

I digress. Proactive roleplayers and recruits are preferable. Sending me a letter and then waiting for me to come find you and roleplay with you will not garner results. Wallflowering at events, while understandable if you're a shy roleplayer or are just watching, may not help either, especially if numerous attempts are made to include you that are refused or ignored.

2. In-Character Personality

As mentioned in above postings, the Tears of Draenor considers itself an honorable guild with ultimately good intentions. This does not mean we pussyfoot around and drink tea all the time with our enemies, or refuse to participate in PvP. The Horde can be ruthless, merciless, and ultimately alien to human understanding (since no one in its ranks is human, at least not anymore). Assassins, berserkers, warlocks, and shadow priests all have their place in the guild, so long as they respect the Four Oaths and treat their clanmates with respect.

Showing up with severed heads in your pocket or stabbing your fellow guildmates with impunity won't make you any friends. At best, it shows me that you are not an in-character good fit. At worst, it shows blatant disregard for recruitment policy.

3. Out-of-Character Personality

We don't like jerks or whiners.

That's pretty much the sum total of it. If you've a penchant for being passive-aggressive, rude, offensive, or a militant role-player that insists everyone drop what they're doing THIS SECOND to come RP with you, you won't be considered for membership. Ditto goes if you complain repeatedly how no one takes you through instances at the drop of a hat.

You're allowed to dislike a policy, a person, or the system and make the appropriate complaints through our grievances system. You're not allowed to be a raving toolbox about it and scream about how terrible we all are and log off in a hissy fit. Attention mongers bother us immensely.

This is tested in our applicants through our waiting period and racial diversity restrictions, as explained below.

4. Waiting Period

A fresh applicant is never, ever recruited on the spot.

Time is given for members to consider their choice. It pains me to see "So and so has left the guild." for whatever reason. I would much rather people take all the time they want to decide whether this guild is a good fit for them. They may end up coming to the conclusion that we are not their style of roleplay, we don't raid enough for their tastes, or that I am a monstrous jerk-in-a-box.

This waiting period is primarily designed, however, to test a person's patience. An individual who wants membership now now now can be assured that the answer is no no no. This guild is an investment of time and energy for many of us. Flash in the pan applicants and members are not approved of, especially if they are rude and demanding about being part of the guild. We can often tell within a few days whether a person will react this way; they will either join another guild, send me or another officer a nasty whisper, or loudly complain in our hopefuls channel to other hopefuls. That person has become proof that the policy works to weed out that type of personality.

See Rule 3.

5. Racial Diversity

New stuff is attractive. It sparks imaginations, kindles roleplaying, and makes everyone involved happy. Unfortunately, it also creates a traffic jam in the system, and a flooding of the persona pool. The guild attempts to keep a fair diversity of character races in the active roster. When one is too populous, there are restrictions put on future applicants to slow the influx of them.

This has most recently occurred with the blood elf race, and only recently has it leveled back out.

Freaking out in the event of a racial restriction will harm chances that you will be considered in the future. This plays into Rule 3.

6. We're Old and Fat!

We're a really big guild that's been around for a really long time. We don't want to be the only RP guild out there (and we aren't, thankfully). Sometimes it's better to encourage people to seek out a different guild or start up a new one rather than continue to add ingredients to an already tasty stew. This doesn't mean we hate you or we're elitist or closed off or whatever other silly moniker people who dislike us tend to attach.

It just means we want diversity, and having one mammoth all-consuming Horde RP guild isn't diversity.