A team is not much of anything without members and getting members can sometimes be a challenge. At least finding new members that match what you are looking for. That is why we have implemented a recruitment system just complex enough to give the options we all need, though it is not complicated to understand.

The Team Leader can set a team's recruitment status to one of the four options in the team's profile. These options are: Open, Invite Only, Requests Allowed, and Closed. While they may be rather self explanatory, let's look at the intended definition of each and how they will affect a user's interaction with a team.

Open recruitment means that anyone can freely join the team, assuming the player limit is not exceeded if set. This is nice if you don't care who joins, but it can be less appealing to the more serious gamers. It also means that people could come... and go just as easily. They could be acting in the idea of "well, I can just come back". In this status, new members that join automatically get added to the roster at the lowest rank, unless you set the default rank - another option available. In this state, a team can invite members; however, membership requests are disabled because they would have no affect.

Invite Only recruitment means the team is open to the idea of bringing new members on, but only those that the team finds and invites. Of course, the invited user would have the choice to not join if they weren't interested. In this state, membership requests are disabled.

Requests Allowed recruitment means the team screens those who may want to join the team. If an individual wants to join the team, they can simply click a button and send a request to the team. If the team accepts it, the user is then a member of the team. In this state, a team can also invite members.

Closed recruitment means the team is not interested in new members at all. New members can not be added to a team in this state.

In addition to recruitment control settings, other options are there to aid both players and teams in the search for each other. Teams can search our user directory for any gamers, on a team or not, and specify criteria to help find those that match their needs more accurately. Users have the same capability with our team directory.