Albion Online Recruit Vetting Process

Since Albion Online is a PvP and politics centric game, we need to be more aware of who is being allowed in the guild. Scams, spies, etc are all part of the deal and we've already had a few incidents.

With that said - we want to remain an open and accessible option to prospective members with minimal gatekeeping. Joining AKS should still feel like an open and welcoming experience, not a job or getting a security clearance. Because of this we are maintaining the option for members to invite and anyone who applies should more or less be allowed in. If something seems fishy however raise it in #co-chat, we will work through it together and figure it out.

We have setup our guild security settings in a way that as long as you do not change someone's rank when they come in to the guild, the basically have access to nothing. This our safety net and gate for preventing fraud.

Recruiting Process in Albion Online

With all that said here is a summary of the process for going from invite to recruit to knight in Albion Online for AKS.

Prospect Stage

When a prospective recruit is first looking to be invited to the guild they should:

• Request to join via the Guild Finder UI - I would recommend pushing them to do this (vs directly inviting them) because the guild will receive a mail with their character details that we can review to get some background on their character
• When a guild email comes in with a request to join do the following checks:
  • Click on their character portrait in the email, this will show you some background on their character. Check for the following potential red flags:
    • Is their character fame super high?
    • Is their reputation low?
    • Does anything stand out?
  • Check their killboard activity: Albion Online Killboard
    • Note if they have any recent guilded activities. Some scammer guilds have dead giveaway names.
  • Check their profile on AlbionOnline2d
    • Does it look like they are getting a lot of their fame in outlands?
  • None of these are necessarily criteria for exclusion, but if your scam-dar or dickhead-dar goes off, provide some notes in #co-chat and talk it out with the team. If you think there's something worth keep track of or if this person should be highly watched, pop a message into #co-recruitment a summary of your concerns and the rest of the team will help monitor the person
• We will leave prospects unprocessed (that is to say, without a rank in the guild) for around 48-72 hours. We can skip this if we end up playing directly with them and they pass the vibe check

Recruit Stage

Once prospects have passed their prospect window, we will do the following steps to process them to recruit:

• Send them an in game mail (make sure you have selected to send FROM the guild, not your player character) to let them know the trial is starting, I will include a template for that below
• Post to #co-recruitment on discord using the usual template, being sure to include:
  • IGN: <in game name>
  • Discord: <recruits discord name> - if you do not know it, ask. If they are not on discord make sure in your in-game email to them to include a reminder to checkout our discord, but emphasize it is encourage but optional
  • Trial Start Date: <todays date>
• Promote them to the Initiate rank in discord
• Assign them the Recruit rank in game

That's it, they are now a recruit

In Game Email Template

Use the following email template to send a recruit a message in game when promoting them to recruit and starting their trial:

Hello <recruit>,

I hope you're having a fun time in Aureus Knights, we are glad to have you on board!

I wanted to let you know that here in a minute I'll be promoting you to recruit in game. This also means that you'll be starting your two or so week trial with the guild that should lead to you being promoted to full member. This is a no stress trial, there's nothing you need to do, it's just a formal window where the officers will be paying attention and figuring out if you're a fit with the guild, it's also an opportunity for you to make sure you we're a fit for you!

If you haven't already checked out our Discord or website, be sure to swing by at discord.gg/aureusknights or aureusknights.com

See you in Albion <YOUR NAME HERE>

Process to Full Knighthood

Albion Online promotion to full rank will be utilizing a slightly more strict voting process than we have been using in recent chapters. Being promoted to Knight means getting access to our guild item bank and will give some small rights for things like claiming territory, etc (we might adjust this given time). Again, due to the nature of the game we want to ensure that this gate is meaningful and we're only letting people in who are genuine fits with the guild for the right reason.

What does this mean when it comes time to vote for recruits to full membership? The following additional checks will be added:

• No one with pending concerns will be pushed through to Knight.
  • If the issue is something that should be addressed with the recruit, we will have the conversation required to clear the air
  • If the issue is more something of general concern or requires more time for us to be comfortable with the person proceeding, we will take that time.
• Voting will be more formalized. I have a tool coming to help with this, but until the tool is ready I will be posting a thread per person who comes in and we can discuss, etc that person in that thread. You are strongly encouraged that if you play with someone and have a positive or negative experience with them, to please make note of that so we can track the quality of the people who are in.
• There will be no passing a recruit through with no supporting votes. A recruit who is met with a slate of abstentions will be held until the next wave.

It's likely that this approach for Knight voting will be used going forward for the guild, to help balance quality and quantity.