Order of the Blue Garter: Open Recruitment Season

[Amyas]

I would guess these guys are american's once again another person making americans look bad even when most of them are sweet

I read that first part and i was like 'grrr' then i read the last part and i was like awww

[carraway]

Sorry, just saw your sig and wanted to share this picture of me wearing an onion helm.

[HiirNoivl]

A few times, people have brought up the notion of gear or experience as prerequisites for breaking into the endgame. This plays into how you can show that you're hungry for it.

Regarding gear:

The kinds of gearsets you put together for your character show how much you care independent of your actual level of endgame experience. If you do not have access to Darklight, you can still put together some sick sets. Double-melds are not very punishing unless you're looking at some of the highly desired materia for the relic quest (Savage Might, Heaven's Eye), and even then you can use high tier 3s to try to get as close as possible. As time goes on, a lot of gear depth has been added -- Giantsgall, Coliseum, GC lt. weapons and officer gear, craftables from Castrum Novum, etc. There's a huge difference between someone who just wears whatever s/he found on their retainer versus someone who cares enough about what s/he is wearing to try to make intelligent choices.

We have always been very realistic when looking at applicants and where they're coming from. As the original post states, we're willing to invest in players who demonstrate a lot of potential. Although it's far easier for someone to make the transition if s/he has as much experience as us (or close to it), it is not a prerequisite.

As for experience:

We think that even if someone isn't in a linkshell that's actively pursuing endgame content, there are still ways to try to see the content. The two methods I've used in this game and in other games are pick-up groups and networking with friends in other linkshells to form groups. Pick-up groups are understandably stigmatized by many players, but for people who can be assertive, it is possible to wrangle people into success. Networking requires a little more of a selfstarter attitude, but good players can be found across swathes of different linkshells. In fact, networking is how I got into BG in the first place, way back in October/November 2010. I was grinding on raptors with 22, Mav, and a few others. They thought I was a raging asshole because I kept on preemptively pulling the next raptor and arriving back at the party with 1/3 of my HP left.

For those of you who feel trapped where you're at, I suggest trying to take some initiative. Send out some feelers to friends whom you trust, make posts about static groups; see if you can find other hungry players.

Ok, now copy this and put it in your website intro!

[Delsus]

Hmm Now I see how BG do all the content first... They don't play it, from your app,

]If we asked you to use a 3rd party tool, would you do it? Why or why not?

While I admit this can mean parsers, fraps etc, I see questions like this as "If we asked are you willing to bot/hack/cheat" Seems to me that they want members to setup bots or hacks for their epeen first kill videos to take human error out of the equation. To alleviate this view you should say "if asked are you willing to use parsers, fraps etc" (also keeping in mind to get a video worth using with fraps you have to either steal it or pay for it, and why should I have to pay to join a linkshell?) This shows you are not into hacking the game, just gathering information to learn how to improve.

Sticking to your applications for now here is another few questions and what it looks like from the outside.

Link any relevant xivpads gearsets, BGParser logs, and screenshots or fraps of gameplay footage

Whats wrong with the good old "do you have any notable gear?" why do I need to, again pay to fraps a full raid or primal to join, why should I have to link to the gear, you do trials this is what trials are for, to see if people lied and to see if they are good players, that makes this question completely redundant.

What steps do you personally take to enhance your raid performance and the overall raid's performance?

I do my job to the best of my ability, and attempt to learn on the fly, would that be enough? what else can you say, except how you had to quickly grab hate after the tank died, wow it was close but because of this we won, kind of thing?

What do you expect from BG and what can we expect from you?

What can you expect from me, hmmm to do the best I can, what else can I offer, but ohhh that means I'm not a stellar player so DENIED!!!!

Also I would change your DRG Jenga tower to BRD/BLM because thats all you ever use (never seen a BG vid using anything else)

Your about page is the most elitist I have seen, a few quotes for you.

We are a Gaming Community for stellar players who want to commit to an intense endgame experience

So unless I am a "stellar player" I can't join.

To be considered for a raid spot your "button pushing" skills must be exceptional.

So again unless I am exceptional in every way I cannot join.

You did say its outdated, but even this comment shows you don't care about your LS, you are knowingly turning people off, and its not changed, it should have been changed as soon as possible, if you really care about your LS.

Also using a similar name as an FFXI LS you will get the rep of that LS, which is elitist, full of assholes, full of people who use members for their own benefit.

Finally using a public forum for apps is not the way to go, why allow people to edit their applications, you could see a linkshell as similar to a job, in that while you are playing the game, you should apply to a linkshell with the long term in mind, similar to a job, could I go to someone I applied to and say, "oh can I have my app back, I need to change something" no so why should be be allowed for BG, there is no need, you just want to publicly humiliate people with the huge DENIED stamp, on all but one of these apps.

TLDR, your whole site reeks of elitist behavior, your application seems like its condoning bots/hacks and you will turn down and (by the evidence I can see) you have turned down most apps, so yes you are very elitist.

I will however say, applications for popular linkshells (we can't deny that, despite the elitist behavior, BG is popular) in FFXIV we need applications due to the linkshell cap.

[Zdenka]

BG gets a lot of hate for whatever reason but they really aren't bad at all in 14.

Their fun and games or their humor might be different than some peoples but in game they are all very nice players. On forums they help share information to everyone to progress further.

I guess if you don't know them there's no real reason to sit here and bash them. Its like saying Halibut is disgusting because you never tried it and the fish (alive) looks ugly as sin.

[Lum]

It's only smart for them to open recruitment to the general player base at this point. The goal would be to get dedicated players now before 2.0 when everyone and their mom will be scrambling to recruit with raids being a 24man instance. I haven't look at their requirements but I'm sure they will have to tone it down a bit for now until they get the numbers they are looking for. The good thing is they have plenty of time before 2.0. As a former recruitment officer for my older guilds i loved making our app as scary as possible, it helps sort out the players that take no effort in filling out the apps.

"Order of The Blue Garter XIV was founded in October 2010 by the merging of two like-minded groups of players. Most notably are the members of the original FFXI/WoW OrderofTheBlueGartr from Bahamut and Azshara. We have members ranging from a multitude of FFXI linkshells including Machina, Apathy, Spike Flail, Excellence, and LimitBreak."

*eyeroll* yea were totally not affiliated with the notorious add-on using LS from Bahamut...

Also who all from Limitbreak is with you besides maybe ashira? Just curious, got a few old friends from LB i'd like to get ahold of.

[Req]

BG gets a lot of hate for whatever reason but they really aren't bad at all in 14.

Their fun and games or their humor might be different than some peoples but in game they are all very nice players. On forums they help share information to everyone to progress further.

I guess if you don't know them there's no real reason to sit here and bash them. Its like saying Halibut is disgusting because you never tried it and the fish (alive) looks ugly as sin.

While I appreciate and respect your opinion on this matter Zd, I still hate BG for no reason, so deeply in fact I feel the need to post in this thread again stating this fact which will in turn bump it back to the top of the post list.

[RobotDinosaur]

I don't understand why so many people replied to this thread just to say they didn't want to join? lol

[Alhanelem]

why do I need to, again pay to fraps a full raid or primal to join

Who actually pays for fraps? I have a licensed copy licensed to some guy I don't know that might live on the other side of the world.

[Nahaara]

I don't really get the hate tbh, I never met anyone in the shell but they seem like nice people from what i've seen so far imo.