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As you may know, I was invited to Zenimax Online Studio’s in Baltimore to preview the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online Chapter – Elsweyr! As a guild leader of Lone Wolf Help – an often full guild that has been up and fully running since May 2014, any quality of life change to the guild system are near and dear, so it what I decided to first focus my Elsweyr coverage on!

I would like to remind you that what I saw was pre-release and any or everything could have changed – and therefore my information be slightly off. I believe this is less likely to happen with a feature such as the guildfinder, than with something like Necromancer class skills though.

Also keep in mind I was not allowed to take any pictures etc to show you, so any images in this article that appear drawn on.. are actually screenshots of the current game with me drawing on them to help explain!

Guild Finder? What’s that?
In ESO we currently have no in game way of searching for guilds, applying for guilds, or having an application process to approve or deny a applicant. A guild finder encompasses all of this, and is included in the ESO Elsweyr chapter base game update.

Do I need to own Elsweyr to use the guild finder?
No, the guild finder is part of the base game update that happens when Elseweyr does, so everyone has access!

What features are included in the ESO Guild Finder?

• Listing of your guild
• Search function to look for a guild
• Ability to apply to a guild
• Ability to accept or deny applicants to your guild
• A blacklist
• Rank permissions to accommodate the new feature

Listing of your guild
Listing your guild so it can be searched is an option now available to you! If you have a private guild with friends you definitely can choose to not list it so you are not bothered with applications.

To list your guild you will go to the new Recruitment section of the guild menu, which is another button alongside ones such as Roster and Ranks.

In this same window, you will need to select from a variety of information to allow people to search for your guild.

Recruitment Status:

• Listed
• Not Listed (default)

Primary Focus: Select a primary focus of your guild!

• Trading
• Social
• Roleplaying
• PvP
• Questing
• Crafting
• Group PvE

Secondary Focus: Select a secondary focus (none is an option)

Additional Activities: Here you can check as many boxes as you like for additional activities your guild partakes in from.

• Trading
• Dungeons
• Housing
• Roleplaying
• Fishing
• PvP
• Trials
• Questing
• Crafting
• Justice

Roles: This displays the same icons that are used throughout the game (such as in the current group finder) where you select what roles you are looking for. All can be selected.

Min. Champion Points: You can enter the minimum champion points you expect members to have

Play style: (dropdown)

• Casual
• Balanced
• Hardcor

Language: Select the language the guild uses most often. Options are all the officially supported languages of the game, plus another option for “other”.

Core Hours (in your local time): This gives you two drop downs to select the busiest hours for your guild, so people can find guilds that are active during their usual playtime!

Recruitment Headline and Description: Headline and description people will see when searching for your guild.

Searching for a Guild

If you are not in any guilds yet, opening up the guild menu (default keybind G) will default to the search for a guild screen. If you are in a guild already, you will need to select a guild name in the guild window to open up the guild dropdown and select Guild Finder. Did I say guild enough?

You can use all the filters from the Guild Listings to search for guilds, PLUS:

Alliance: Especially important for PvP guilds to know the guilds alliance!

Active Members: this would be how many members have been active in the guild in the last 30 days. Helpful if you’re looking for a super busy trading guild, or maybe prefer a quieter more tight knit guild.

When searching for a guild, you won’t always find it suggesting the same 5 guilds. The game will try to offer you different guilds that fit your criteria with some behind the scenes wizardry!

How To Apply to a Guild

Once you have found a guild you are interested in joining you just need to select it to apply! You can send them a note with more information. You actually can even have a “default” note that auto-populates whenever you apply to join a guild. In order to apply for a guild you must be in 4 or less guilds.

Approving Guild Applications

When someone applies to your guild, if you have permissions to approve applications, you will receive a notification in this existing notification system in game.

Who can approve guild applications?

Whoever the guildmaster wants to. There is a new permission called “Manage Applications” that you can attach to any role for your guild. Obviously that role must already have the “Invite Members” permission. Anyone with this permission will receive the notification above.

How do I approve/deny applications?

In the “Recruitment” tab of the guild window, there will be a section for applications where you can review all applications and either approve or deny them.

What information about the applicant is given?

When you see the application you are told:

• The applicants user ID
• Applicant Level (and/or Champion Points)
• How long until application expires (15 days)

When hovering over the applicants info, a tooltip popup will also tell you

• Applicants class (likely most recently logged on character)
• Applicants alliance (likely most recently logged on character)
• Applicants achievement points (likely most recently logged on character)
• Applicants application notes/message

Guild Blacklist

You will now have the ability to blacklist people from your guild!

What does blacklisting someone do?

The blacklisted person:

• Cannot find your guild in the guild search
• Cannot be invited to the guild (by anyone, even guildmaster)

It’s worth noting, that if someone does try to invite a blacklisted member, their screen will tell them the invite has been sent, but the blacklisted member will just never receive it. This could lead to people thinking their invites are bugged, but it’s a fine line between that and allowing people to know who is blacklisted.

How do I blacklist someone?

You blacklist people from that same “Recruitment” section of the guild menu, but select Blacklist on the side!

What new permissions are there?

The new permissions that you can assign are:

• Manage applications (must have invite members permission)
• Manage blacklist (must have remove members permission)

Have any questions about the upcoming guild finder in the Elder Scrolls Online Elsweyr Chapter? Ask in the comments below!