Since the birth of armies, recruiting new troops has been an important task for every army. Now, without Club Penguin or Club Penguin Rewritten, recruiting has become much harder. with many armies resorting to using Discord as a primary recruiting method. However, Discord recruiting isn’t new to armies and has evolved a lot since 2018.
Designed by Wynn
If you joined the community in 2020 or later, you may not know the true meaning of recruiting on Club Penguin or Club Penguin Online. Back when it was one of the easiest ways to recruit new members, people would log on and meet up in an area on the map. They would then would start spamming sentences that said something along the lines of, “JOIN THIS ARMY FOR FUN ACTIVITIES AND STAMPS”. Some people even would even try to spam the Discord invite.
Army members would try to advertise their armies by hosting stamp-collecting events in-game. When doing this, they would ask people to join in to obtain the group stamps available. These include the ‘Dance Party’ stamp where 10 people had to dance in the night club and the ‘Berg Drill!’ stamp where 30 people had to drill the berg to obtain it. Once they have gone through the stamps, everyone would be excited and more inclined to join the army.
It was one of the easiest ways to get someone completely random, someone who just logged on to play some Club Penguin to join. When these new members join the community, an army is often quick to welcome them. From pings in the chat to welcoming dms, the new members are given a warm welcome. Not only this but they are informed about the army community and what it is.
From 2020 and beyond is when recruiting methods started to evolve even more. The closure of Club Penguin Online in 2020 left many armies without their main recruiting method. However, Club Penguin Rewritten and other private servers were still around. Many armies attempted to use CPR to recruit as a replacement for CPO. However, this was when CPR started to fight back.
Club Penguin Online was made by a person who was actively involved in the army community in the past. It supported many armies and had the support of many too, at first. CPR, however, didn’t appreciate that armies were using the game as a recruiting method. Therefore, they made their filters much stricter as time went on. If you were recruiting on CPR in late 2020/21 then you may have found yourself with a big orange box appearing on your screen. This box meant that a person was either kicked from the server or banned for a period of time for using the game to recruit.
After realizing what was happening, people would make alt accounts and continue recruiting until that alt got kicked or banned. It was the natural way to recruit on CPR. Everyone had to watch out for the mods online and recruit in rooms that didn’t have a lot of people or mods nearby.
Eventually, the staff at CPR started to join army servers to see what was going on and they tried and stop it from happening. Because of armies consistently recruiting on CPR they released a statement concerning armies. In the statement, they made it clear that they were against armies recruiting on their game. However, they acknowledge that it was necessary for armies and hard to put a stop to. Therefore, they restricted armies from using three-bar servers and, at the time, even two-bar servers. This was seen as a “punishment” for armies abusing the game by recruiting on three-bar servers.
It’s because of these limitations and the stricter filter that armies had to think outside of Club Penguin Rewritten. Armies explored other private servers like New Club Penguin among others. While some weren’t as strict on armies, nothing could beat the popularity and success rate of CPR. This along with many other things forced armies to split their forces up and explore Discord recruiting more. The death of Flash also pushed most, if not all armies, to recruit off of Discord.
Similar to CPR recruiting, members would create alt accounts on Discord to try and recruit new members. This enabled them to recruit without getting their main account disabled. Typically, they’d join big servers and dm random people. They’d proceed to inform them about the server and ask them to join. Some people would send a mass amount of dms while others would try to take a personal approach. For most people, this was a lot easier than recruiting off of CPR because they could send links that would send people right to their server.
However, just like CPR, Discord also increased its security and measures over time. It wasn’t specifically because of armies recruiting off of Discord. Many scams, spam, and harmful dms were sent through Discord which led to many people getting hacked. However, Discord combatted this by adding more security measures into place. While it secured the safety of the members, it also made recruiting harder.
With stricter measures in place, people’s accounts started to get disabled/locked easily. What used to be an easy method became much harder with accounts requiring phone numbers upon Discord locking it. If you didn’t have a throwaway phone it meant that you had to create a new email and a new account. However, it wasn’t that easy as, over time, people would soon find themselves being unable to create new accounts using certain emails after a number of times doing so. This led to armies having to find alternative browsers or throwaway emails to use.
In 2022, Club Penguin Rewritten was forcefully shut down. This meant that armies had few options left, making Discord the main method. Despite this, there are still some Club Penguin private servers online. These include New Club Penguin and Club Penguin Journey. Whilst Discord became a main method of recruiting, some armies tried to use these private servers to recruit. However, just like CPR, the filters can be difficult to overcome, making Discord the preferred method.
New ways to get around Discord’s measures were found and this enabled people to create new recruiting accounts. However, Discord’s security measures are still in place with some servers disabling people without a phone-verified account from interacting with the server or people within it. Despite every challenge thrown at armies, they continue to persevere and find new ways to survive.
Today, Discord remains the preferred method but is this because of the lack of options? Or is it because armies have moved away from using private servers and become reliant upon using Discord and CPABattleground? Has recruiting changed a lot over time? Or are armies still using the same methods they did in the early CPPS era? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
More Information
Mchappy is interning at Club Penguin Armies as the Chief Executive Producer. Max held him at gunpoint to finish his biography.