Originally Posted by Northerner

EDIT: An anecdote comes to mind as well.

Back in the early days of Everquest and long before I was involved with the "real" raiding scene, we did things that now would be considered laughable. Keep in mind, these were the days where applicants were expected to be plebes for three months (no loot or rot only and 90%+ attendance) and in an environment where being in X guild instead of Y guild meant being a tier or two behind in gear for a game that really was defined by gear.

We'd do things like have applicants form up in a raid and bark orders in chat. (These were the golden days of zero voice or voice only for officers/etc.) It was like an old-school army thing. "Follow me!" and I'd jump off a cliff or into the bear pit or charge an obviously unkillable target and so on. Don't follow? Next guild for you sir. Even in that environment where training was part of the leveling process, we added a lot more. Most of it wasn't even that cheesy =)