Proactive Pugging
Nota Bene: In the next few days, there may be some strange random changes on this blog as I attempt to duke it out with the HTML to create a site more aesthetically pleasing (to me anyway.)

Recruitment gets tricky for us in the EGA (the alliance of which I often speak).

We aren't a guild, and therefore we lack many of the resources many guilds have, such as a guild bank, a strict set of guidelines for members, and ownership of players' souls. We are very casual, and yet still focused on progression. Balancing these things is incredibly difficult - and we have no precedent to follow, so we end up making up the rules as we go along. With the exception of the EGA, I have yet to hear of any other similar Alliances that tie guilds together under one banner the way we do.

Unofficial recruitment is sorta my thing. As mentioned before, I'm a very bottom-up person, and I focus a lot of my attention on individuals. I use my personal networks, word of mouth, shower my alliance members with attention, and get to know new people on a very personal level. Where do I go when I'm hunting fresh blood?

Pick up groups.

We all know it's hit or miss with pugs. With the release of WotLK, and the 10/25 man raiding differential, we've got a lot of raiding options - and a lot of raid lockouts each week. We've got badges too - so I don't like to let a week pass without running 10 and 25 man OS and Vault. These are short fights, and incredibly easy to pug - everybody's doing it. It's the new thing! If the pug is truly awful, you aren't stuck with them for very long in these raids.

But what I love about pugs is that they are the most fertile pools of people who want to raid, but may not have the guild resources to do it on a large and regular scale. That is exactly the niche EGA fills. What better place to find potential new raiders to fill our slots?

Do I just spam the raid chat with EGA information? Not at all. A lot of people may actually pug raids to give themselves a break - it's easy to be lazy in a pug. While everyone else is relaxing though, I am furiously inspecting others, checking recount, looking people up on wow-heroes, sending tells left and right to feel people out. It's a lot of work - I also have to remember to heal on occasion. I usually don't mention the EGA per se. I add good players to my ever-expanding friends list.

During our progression nights, we nearly always end up with 5 or 6 open slots due to a shortage of sign-ups. If it's just a handful of slots, we can usually fill them pretty easily with some of our more casual members who choose not to sign up for events and through various guild members who are not active EGAers. This is where I pull out ye olde friends list, and start sending out some whispers. Before I add puggers to my friends list, I always chat with them a bit via whisper - this way they remember me when I invite them to something later. If they join our raid, and see what we're about, and the positivity that runs rampant over vent, we can often score ourselves a new EGAer. Casual is okay.

It works very well, and I've managed to pull in a couple of new EGAers this way. And, if I bring in one new person, I also inadvertently add their entire guild to our network. The key detail is networking - and networking requires a lot of time and proactive effort.

I'm not the only person who uses this strategy, so it must work for others as well. I know this because I too have had fellow puggers attempt to recruit me. My name is relatively familiar in the raid pugging circuit, because I do it every single week, at similar times. So even though people often associate pugs with strangers, one might be surprised to discover an extensive community of regular raid puggers. We just start to recognize one another's names. If i see a few names I recognize, I also know that this particular pug will likely go well.

Puggy recruitment requires a lot of work, and it requires a person to be extremely proactive. But, the greatest benefit is that you are able to pre-screen everyone. The pugged raid itself is the pre-screening process. The pressure of testing people and potentially finding out they are a poor fit is significantly smaller, due to the nature of a pug.
13 Responses
  1. Fuubaar Says:

    EGA always seems to have a steady flow of new comers.

    I feel like it can be a double edged sword sometimes.

    On one hand, it's nice to see new faces & new personalities brought to the table. On the other hand, it's frustrating when you find yourself in 25-man Naxx where you have 3 new people trying their hand at Thadius for the first time.

    "I missed the jump"
    "Oh I'm not suppose to run at people with the opposite charge?"
    "what's clockwise mean?"

    /facepalm

    Although, our new healer we picked up is the bomb!


  2. Fuubaar Says:

    PS:

    looks nice around here :)

    very Emo


  3. Ha! I'll be trying a few new things. The blogger HTML is making me very angry, so I'm trying different layouts. Not impressed yet. Also, big white screens make my eyes bleed, so I thought I'd go darker. We shall see.

    I agree with you on new people. Having the patience to repeatedly reteach, over and over and over, the same old fights gets really old and is a completely separate issue. But, without new blood that we choose beforehand, we would have the same problem, or worse, with people we pugged on raid night.

    Is this Shifthappen you are talking about? I'm trying to figure out how to drag him into my EoE raid this weekend...

    PS: I am the epitome of emo.


  4. Fuubaar Says:

    Yes, Mr. Shift was extremely impressive last night in our 10-man Ulduar run. We only had him & AV healing and that was my first time being in there.

    "Get out of the blue fire Fuubaar"
    "Watch your Debuffs Fuubaar"

    yeah.. I was such a noobet last night but we smoked everything we touched :D


  5. Then again, being proactive also has a tendency to make you look like a control freak and care too much.

    I'm getting kinda sick of caring too much!

    I think I'm gonna go hang out in the corner with you Fuu. Pass the bottle of... whatever alcohol you are currently serving yourself!


  6. Fuubaar the Brewer Says:

    Screw caring too much! Only causes nerd rage & high stress lvls (up to lvl 80)

    well, the current drink of choice as been an assortment of Micro brews. My thoughts are, if the bottle looks goofy, I'll drink it :D

    Come sit in the corner & have a beer on the Fuubaar's tab :)


  7. M Says:

    In other news, this is a great article on how to make the most of something a lot of people find unpleasant.


  8. adam / gordin Says:

    Ful- treat yourself to a Hoppin' Frog Oatmeal Stout. Even the Imperial Stout is good. It is a fav.


  9. Finwe Says:

    I've been trying to convince my guild leader that this is a great recruiting strategy, but she just won't have it.

    There are many people that can't take the difficulty of wading through the trash to find that one little gem.


  10. @Finwe

    I think it's a personality thing. You have to be one of those people that has a certain kind of people-patience. But it makes me feel pretty good that you think it's a good idea too!


  11. M Says:

    Yeah, and you have to have someone who not only is willing, but also has the time to do it...


  12. It's not so much about having "enough" time as it is about how you choose to prioritize the time that you do have. Recruitment via pugs vs PvP or Dailies or farming, etc. It doesn't actually take that long, VoA and OS are short fights.


  13. Correction - it's about prioritizing the time you have in game! Obviously, if you don't have time to play the game, you don't have time for it!


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