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A couple of questions


JediQuaker

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I've searched, but I can't find answers, so a couple of simple questions....

 

- Is there a way to see how long it's been since other Guild members have been on-line? The Guild I'm in now (I'm an officer) is essentially dead. As far as I know, I'm the only active member - no-one has been in-game in over a month, but I have no way of actually determining that.

 

- Is there a general recruitment forum? I'd like to join a new Guild, but I don't necessarily want to limit my choices to only the server I'm currently on. Especially with the prospect of server transfers. As long as the server is on the east coast and not RP, I'd be happy. :)

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You can view how long ago a guild mate logged in by selecting "G", then clicking on the "Details" button in upper right. One of the columns will give you the information you are looking for, I can't remember which one exactly. There is a drop down menu and when you select it, you can see how long a guild mate has been offline.

 

I'm pretty sure there is a Guild Recruitment forurm, look around.

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@Fezzie - I've done that (before I asked the question), but all I get are Name, Level, Class, Location, Rank, & Note. None of those columns give me the info I want. Perhaps you need to be the Guild leader in order to get the info.

 

@Cynomen - I know there are server forums, and I suppose that in some of them there are recruitment postings, but what I wanted was a general recruitment forum. I suppose I could go through every freakin server forum to look for recruiters, but that wouldn't be my first choice, (or any fun). It also wouldn't be much fun to have to post a "looking for Guild" notice in each server either. :o

 

I would think that a recruitment forum divided into West & East coast and PvE & PvP would be more useful to me, and to new players looking for what server to make a character on.

Edited by JediQuaker
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@Fezzie - I've done that (before I asked the question), but all I get are Name, Level, Class, Location, Rank, & Note. None of those columns give me the info I want. Perhaps you need to be the Guild leader in order to get the info.

 

@Cynomen - I know there are server forums, and I suppose that in some of them there are recruitment postings, but what I wanted was a general recruitment forum. I suppose I could go through every freakin server forum to look for recruiters, but that wouldn't be my first choice, (or any fun). It also wouldn't be much fun to have to post a "looking for Guild" notice in each server either. :o

 

I would think that a recruitment forum divided into West & East coast and PvE & PvP would be more useful to me, and to new players looking for what server to make a character on.

 

Apologies on the whole LFGuild thingy, going through all the servers seems to be the only way though. And as far as the Guild info thing goes, Hit G, click details, and look at the top of the columns, there should be an arrow that pulls down a drop down menu. You should have a few different options for displays, I believe it's the column with guild note/ officer note/ time played. I do it as an officer in my guild and you should be able to too.

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@Cynomen - I know there are server forums, and I suppose that in some of them there are recruitment postings, but what I wanted was a general recruitment forum. I suppose I could go through every freakin server forum to look for recruiters, but that wouldn't be my first choice, (or any fun). It also wouldn't be much fun to have to post a "looking for Guild" notice in each server either. :o

.

 

Unfortunately there is no central area for something like this. You would need to go server group by server group posting that you are looking for a guild. Those looking to get new members do look there from time to time, but it is no where near as effective as it can be.

 

Hit me up in a PM and perhaps I can help you more. You might even consider my guild possibly. :D

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Apologies on the whole LFGuild thingy, going through all the servers seems to be the only way though. And as far as the Guild info thing goes, Hit G, click details, and look at the top of the columns, there should be an arrow that pulls down a drop down menu. You should have a few different options for displays, I believe it's the column with guild note/ officer note/ time played. I do it as an officer in my guild and you should be able to too.

You may need to display all guildmembers first (both online and offline). At least I had to, in order to get that drop-down menu.

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@Fezzie - I've done that (before I asked the question), but all I get are Name, Level, Class, Location, Rank, & Note. None of those columns give me the info I want. Perhaps you need to be the Guild leader in order to get the info.

 

I've done this as an officer and just a regular member. The info is there, you just have to look at the drop down menus in the Details page.

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Thanks for the replies. With your help, I finally found the "last on" info. The last 2 columns (in "details") have the drop down arrows to select what to display. When I first saw the arrows I assumed they were just for the sort order, like in the name column.

Unfortunately, other than one member (who I've not actually seen on-line), everyone else has not played for at least a month.

 

It's too bad about the Guild recruitment thing.

 

@Cynomen - I'm just looking for a Guild with some people who actually play, who are older and not too serious, and use voice chat (Ventrilo, etc) - PvE or PvP doesn't matter.

Edited by JediQuaker
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It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what you want from a guild - that's a good first step.

 

You have to make a few more decisions before you can wisely start your search.

 

Are you committed to a particular server?

 

If you already have characters on a server and don't want to start over, your search must begin and end with the guilds on that server. Given that server transfers are coming in "early summer" sometime, this might be a good time to go shopping for a new server, and a new guild.

 

Are you committed to a particular TYPE of server?

 

Your options are player verus player (PvP), player versus environment (PvE), roleplaying PvE (RP-PvE), and roleplaying PvP (RP-PvP). The main difference between PvP and PvE is that the PvP servers have a lot of areas where you can fight people from the other faction (Republic/Empire). The mechanical difference is that if you enter a contested area on a PvP server then you are automatically flagged for PvP and you can't turn it off. There is no mechanical difference between roleplaying (RP) and not-RP servers. The only difference is that the RP tag attracts people who like, support, or engage in RP (what is RP? click here). You can google these types of servers and find a lot of ideas about the social and cultural differences between these server types. As of right now (5/15/2012) the RP-PvE servers are some of the biggest ones left. If you're commmited to a particular type of server, you have to limit your searches to that server type.

 

Are you committed to a particular time zone?

 

People who work 2nd or 3rd shift might be happier on a server that is awake when they are awake, which might mean they're playing in a different time zone from where they live. Your options are US East Coast (Eastern Standard Time GMT -4), US West Coast (Pacific Standard Time GMT-7) , European (Grenwich Mean Time), and Australia/Oceanic (GMT+8?).

 

If you're not sure what time zone you like to play in then Google GMT and start figuring it out.

 

Are you committed to a server language other than English?

 

If you're looking for a guild where the main language is something other than English, that's critical to know now. Your only other official options are French and German (in the sense that there are French and German servers). There are some guilds that operate in other languages (Spanish and Mandarin are popular) but they're not nearly as numerous as the official languages.

 

Beyond these relatively simple questions, consider what you WANT from a guild.

 

Regular events? Help with gear or powerlevelling? Hardcore ops and hard-mode flashpoints? Required attendance at raids? RP events? An exciting competitive atmosphere? A compelling RP story? Fun people to hang out with? Until you KNOW what you want, it's going to be difficult to FIND what you want. :-)

 

Once you've got these things narrowed down, the search can begin in earnest.

 

If you're already committed to a particular server or server type, then go find the forums for that server.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=309

 

Click on the type of server you want. Of course, if you're looking for a PvE or PvP server, there are so many that they're broken down into alphabetical sections. If you click on an alphabetical section, then you'll see a new subforum called "Guild Recruitment and Looking for Guild". See who's recruiting and get the names and web addresses of likely guilds. Of course, that may mean looking through a lot of subfora.

 

If you're committed to one particular server, you've got a little easier time of it - click on your type of server, then your server alphabetical group, then look for your particular server.

 

Try the Ideal Guild Quiz.

 

Fast, free, and you don't have to register. It's a series of questions that you answer to define your play style and what you want from a guild. The database compares them to the way guild leaders describe their guilds and matches you up. You can set the quiz to only look at a particular server or server type.

 

http://www.tortoolbox.com/quiz

 

It's limited to those guilds who have *chosen* to be on it, but that's still a pretty good selection. It will give you the top three best matches for your playstyle.

 

Third, teh interwebz!

 

Google your server and see what guilds appear to be active. Some servers have external server-wide forums for all people on that server and these forums are not officially associated with SWTOR. This is a good way to get some information about the general climate of the server and to see which guilds are doing things with other guilds. Look for Facebook pages and Youtube videos or channels associated with your server.

 

Fourth, do your homework once you've narrowed down your search to a few guilds.

 

I know, it doesn't sound fun, but a little homework now can save you a lot of wasted time so you don't join a guild, get situated, and then discover that you don't like it.

 

4A: Google stalk the guilds you're interested in.

 

Look for that guild name in the SWTOR forums and external forums. How do these people act online? Are you impressed? What's their website like? Is it paid for or does it have banner ads? Do they have a voice chat server? Do they have a cafepress store? Facebook page? Twitter feed? Youtube videos? Do they advertise guild events and are they open to non-guild people? Do they have events with other guilds such as PvP date night with an adversary guild?

 

4B: In-game stalk the guilds you're interested in.

 

If the guild runs open events, or participates in server-wide events, go to these events. Look for people with that guild tag and introduce yourself. Ask them what they think of their guild. Play against some of them in PvP. Do they cheat or trash talk? Do they play hard and fair? What are they like in general chat? Check out the GTN and see if you recognize their names as selling things in the auctions. You can do a lot of this even by making a level 1 character on a new server.

 

Check the in-game population.

 

This is absolutely critical. You should check out the population on http://www.torstatus.net to see if it's going up or down and where it ranks compared to other servers.

 

US servers by population

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/stats

EU servers by population

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu/stats

APAC servers by population

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/apac/stats

 

You can get a rough estimate of the actual number of players from the Torstatus ø value here:

Population Estimates for the Top 20 US Servers

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=449144

 

If you want the exact number of players on that server, make a level 1 character from each faction and running /who on the population of the server during peak hours once or twice over a few days or a weekend. (For info on how to do that go to http://www.thethirteenthlegion.torportal.com and click "survey" on the top right).

 

 

 

These all tell you something about that server and the guilds you're interested in. How you interpret that data is up to you, of course!

 

 

Paige

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