I've been reading the comments from some of our recent posts and realized that there is quite a bit of mismatch between players and guilds. There are casual players in hardcore guilds that find themselves being passed over in content. There are hardcore players in casual guilds that don't get to move on to things they want. Some players need a higher level of maturity.

There are usually a handful of guilds recruiting in the Guildwatch column, but I think, for today, we can do better. If your guild looking for more take a moment to comment with the nitty gritty. If you're interested in putting up a little advertisement take a moment to copy/paste and complete the following form:

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we're LF24M Yogg-Saron hard mode PST.

It's interesting to watch the flow of players into and around hardcore guilds, and how it changes during farm, progress and the area in between. Why are so many of these guilds recruiting, and how does it change the meta-game?

There are two reasons for a hardcore guild to recruit: to expand the roster and gain flexibility, or to replace players who are leaving the raiding squad. But what effect does it have on the guild? Let's take a look.

Many guilds recruit rather religiously, often having a couple people assigned to constantly ensure there's an adequate number of people to run dungeons, raids, and PvP teams. There are essentially four ways that people recruit.

The first way is through the official forums, both via the individual realm forums and the multi-realm guild recruitment forum. Often times this means making a detailed and professional looking post and ensuring that it's bumped to first page of the forum several times a day.

The second way is through unofficial sites and forums. The process is similar to recruiting on the official forums, but recruitment generally is more directed towards the site's (and ideally the guild's) audience. For instance the guild recruitment forums on MMO-Champion are a great place to find hard core raiding guilds. Our Guildwatch column is another great tool.

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Naxxramas-10 or Naxxramas-25, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look at people who are leaving raiding despite Ulduar being imminent.

It's that time of year again. We're hardly as jaded by farming tier 7 content as we were back in the days of Black Temple and Hyjal, but burnout has been rearing its ugly head lately, putting raiding guilds in a difficult position. Ulduar approaching will obviously put a stop to the problem - but for how long?

When all the 25-man content is cleared in a handful of hours, nobody has any reason to run 10-mans and the drop-of-a-hat PTR testing schedule means we're entirely at Blizzard's whim as to when we can poke new content, it's no wonder people are becoming bored. Arguably, it's better that we don't get more than a few limited hours a week on the PTR, in order that the content is fresh when it actually hits. However, the actual effect of this drip-feeding has seemed to dampen enthusiasm for Ulduar rather than heighten it, especially as one of the most available bosses is unfortunately Flame Leviathan.

I'm working on growing our little guild. I've met with some success. I don't spam trade chat to advertise our guild bank, vent, website or or smokin' hot tabard (all of which we have). I like to get to know people a bit before I bring them into the fold. The best way that I know how to do that is to run instances with them.

Since we're small, I PUG a lot, so I'm introduced to many players. I'm looking for folks that are both good at what they do and would be a good fit for what we've established. I've found that many times people pug because even though they're in a guild they can't seem to get the assistance that they need. I find that some are actively looking for a change and others just generally enjoy the experience grouping with my comrades.

Since PvE to PvP transfer option became available, I've kept a close eye on my own realm to see if there'd be any discernible change to transfer patterns both on and off. As far as I can tell -- no. I've seen a few people transfer off but there doesn't seem to be any more so than usual. Only a few players did so purely for the purpose of PvPing on a different battlegroup, and most of them, like Zach Yonzon, had previously been PvP-realm transfers or rerolls anyway.

The flood of high-level PvE to PvP transfers gloomily predicted by many doesn't seem to have materialized. People who'd rather play on a PvE realm are doing just that, and most of the people who'd rather play on a PvP realm were already there (never saw that one coming, eh?). I thought at the time that Blizzard's decision would probably have its biggest impact, not on PvP players, but on PvE raiders who had previously been restricted to recruiting PvP-to-PvP, PvE-to-PvE or (much less commonly) PvP-to-PvE only. If you've ever been in a raiding guild which found great recruits from the "wrong" kind of realm, you're probably familiar with what a headache that was.

I play on a medium population PvE realm that launched when Burning Crusade hit. Since we're not really at the cutting edge of either PvE or PvP content as a result, mine is probably a bad sample size as we're not a hotbed of transfers either way. So, I'm not sure if my own experience is representative. If you're playing on a medium-to-high population realm, either PvE or PvP, are you noticing any difference to the traffic patterns, on or off? If you're on a low-population realm, has your situation improved or worsened?

Responding to a shared blogging topic over on Blog Azeroth, Aendi from the roleplaying blog Voodoo Ventures recently wrote an entry on how to choose a class. This is certainly a subject that's gotten a lot of play in the WoW community, but Aendi's is an unusually thoughtful look at the problem that results when a player's poured a lot of time and effort into a class that might be a bad choice given the player's goals in the endgame. In one of most succinct and painfully accurate points I've seen on the subject, Aendi asks -- is seeing endgame content so important to you that you're willing to play a class you enjoy less, or is the class you play so important that you're willing to sacrifice a possible shot at content?

It's no secret that classes and specs are not the same when it comes to the likelihood of getting Gladiator or raiding all the way to Kil'Jaeden. You may love your Hunter, but arena's not that kind to them at present. Your Warlock might be endless fun to play, but the guilds on your realm are probably swimming in them. And if you've ever cruised past the recruitment forums, you've probably noticed that they all seem to want the same thing: healers (and lots of 'em). If you were the sort of person who sat down, looked at the content in the game that you wanted to see more than anything else, and picked your class and spec solely with that goal in mind, your path forward would be fairly clear...but you might also become one of those people who logs off their primary toon as fast as they can after raid, or after their 10 games for the week, and goes to play the alt they'd secretly love to be playing as a main.

Ideally we get the perfect intersection of a class we love to play that's able to accomplish its goals in content we want to experience, but it doesn't always happen -- and if you have to choose, the decision is a pretty personal one. So I ask you: class or content?

The Arena Junkies have been pretty active lately. Last week, they published insight to Gladiator class break-downs from the first three seasons of the Arena. Now, Arena Junkies has busted out a brand new tool -- its new Arena recruitment functionality. The goal is to provide someplace for Arena fighters to locate others of similar goals, and recruit one another for teams.

ArenaArc was probably the first of this kind of channel, but Arena Junkies is definitely home to all things Arena. According to Tyveris, there's a couple bells and whistles that will help appeal to harder-core Arena enthusiast. First, the listings expire, so you can be sure the current listings are up-to-date and valid. Second, high-level Arena players can restrict searches to return only players who have 2,000 or higher ratings. Third, Arena Junkies will fill out your resume with information they already know from the Armory.

This tool should be pretty useful to AJ's forum members, and maybe even to folks who are struggling with an up-and-coming team. And as always, the AJ team is already being very responsive to their customers, and updating the tool to meet feedback. So, go check it out, read up on some strategies, and good luck in the Arena.

Although at times contentious, the current recruitment promotion has certainly sped up leveling. The triple experience point bonus comes to mind first, but the ability to give levels at a rate of one per two gained is also a real boon. The rule is that the levels can be applied to a character lower than the givers current level, capped at level 60. Theoretically someone who has reached level 60 could donate enough levels to raise another character from 30-59* in a matter of minutes.

This new mechanic is pretty easy to use and potentially abuse. Málfurion of Wildhammer is not happy with the change. To quote "I just saw a Warlock go from level 31-59 in 10 seconds in front of my eyes... The new recruit a friend is bull > <.... NERF NERF NERF!" The post was met with some disbelief, but it clearly is a possibility. Some players indicated that they have something similar in mind. Abilene of Aegwynn believes that this practice ruins the game for some.

At one point in time or another, most guilds face at least a little bit of drama, from loot distribution, to relationships, to guild bank robbery. Zeida of Tichondrius has created an list of guild member archetypes for folks she does not want in her guild. The list of stereotypes covers the first four posts in the thread so there is a considerable amount of reading. The list includes newbs, n00bs, trolls, elitists, and many more.

The original poster went into detail on each of these archetypes. Here's the short version:

Blizzard does not particualry appreciate petitions on the official forums. This does not stop players from starting them. Lyccan of Ner'zhul started a petition in the Suggestion forum to make the Recruit-a-Friend benefits retroactive. At this time Blizzard has announce no current plans to give these rewards to folks who have brought players into the game in the past.

Most of us are pretty open about our love or World of Warcraft, and many of us have invited our friends and family to join us in WoW. In the past, the joy of sharing the game and a potential game-time buddy was enough to bring our friends into the game.