Everyone is going to have varying opinions on how to bring people into their guild. But the way I see it, any way can be potentially painful. Some guilds hand out invite codes to whomever might be interested in joining, some only invite people that they know personally, others troll certain spots in the game looking for good fighters to recruit, it really just depends on the guild itself, I suppose. There really is no wrong way to recruit. The way that my guild does it is by holding a very casual "try out" - basically what this consists of is just sailing with the recruit. This helps us to make sure that they can listen and follow directions; making sure they're reading the chat, switching to the right sides, only shooting at the called targets. It also lets you see who's a loose cannon, so to speak, and who will shoot at any random ship. These are people you definitely don't want in a guild. But for us, the plundering really works well for both sides, I think. That way you can see how your guild works with the recruit, and the recruit can see how they like working with the guild as well.
But even though we do all of this, we've still been forced to boot a few people from the guild because basically they fooled us by being on their best behavior on their plundering run. It's unfortunate, but it happens. But you want to be selective with the people that you bring in, just not too selective. We've been building since mid-February and as of this weekend we just hit 40 members. But because of the slow, controlled growth of the guild it has made us stronger, I think. Everyone is friendly with one another, there are no real strangers in the guild, and I like that.
Good luck with your recruiting and let us know how it goes!
