Caught in the Spotlight

[Therak]

In an attempt to do more then just 'bump' our recruitment thread on the realm forums. Koz came with the idea of having little interviews with members of the guild.
So, I got to work and began doing just that. I'll definately get around to speaking to more of you in the future, so be prepared!

First out, is our very own Head Honcho, the Boss, the Chief. The Wolfking, Kozgugore!

What was your first encounter with the tribe?

I -could- cheat a little and say that my very first interaction with the tribe was actually when it wasn't called "Orcs of the Red Blade" yet. In fact, it was a different guild entirely, as there was once a guild called "Sons of Draenor" that was formed upon the announcement of the RP-PvP realms, along with several other race-specific guilds. They all agreed they would settle on the server of which the name would come first in the alphabetical order (which happened to end up becoming Defias Brotherhood as opposed to Venture Co.), and that's where the ball started rolling. To make a long story short though, the guild died out due to officer inactivity within the server's first month, but Akesha was in the guild along with me and decided to branch off and make her own guild, which ended up becoming the Orcs of the Red Blade as we know it today. I remember my first IC interaction in that context was with Akesha in the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar, talking about her idea. And that's pretty much where it started off, even though, granted, I didn't join it right away, stubborn as I was at the time!

What did convince you to join in the end then?

Well... the realisation that I wasn't going to get involved in any raiding anyway, haha! I had a naive idea that I could still get involved in some serious raiding while trying to keep loose contacts with the RP guilds. As it turned out though, hunters weren't really all that very much sought after anyway. So I think it was when my urge to RP became greater than my urge to PvE that I decided to make the final switch, and forced myself to jump over that final hurdle to introduce myself to the others (it can be intimidating to suddenly acquaint yourself with a whole gang of orcs!) that I finally joined. Better late than never!

A lot must have changed since you joined. What are the biggest differences between then and now?

Definitely! Apart from the obvious game-related changes and the changes in the RP community itself, the guild has made quite a few developments since. For better or for worse, the guild feels a little more "serious" nowadays. Events were more sporadic those days, not necessarily set on specific days in the week as they are now, and they were of a different nature as well. Sure, there were story-driven events or random RP, but the majority of them were more socially-inclined, like camp fires, tournaments, meetings, those kinds of things. Another interesting change in that regard is that there was a lot more silliness, such as naked dancing, a lot of drunkness, spontaneous attacks on Alliance towns, RP surrounding Oznack's old socks... you get the idea. You can still see some of that on the old footage we have lying around on Youtube somewhere. I suppose some might consider it a loss, while others might consider it a gain, but RP has, in general, become a little more "reasonable" in the sense that one typically needs a good reason to attack an Alliance settlement or to suddenly dance naked around a fire.

Haha, sounds like fun times. What of Koz, did he turn out as you thought? Or did he deviate from your original concept?

I suppose as is inevitable when you play a character for nearly ten years, he slowly begins to change over time. Better yet, he was supposed to be a shaman by the time RP-PvP servers were announced and I began making up the character, because I really wanted to try out a shaman. Then it turned out the guild I was planning to be in already had a whole lot of shaman to go around with as it is, so I changed him into a hunter, my second favoured class, and I ended up using the shaman idea as a background story for his character instead. What's more, he was supposed to be a simple scout and a follower, since I figured that would be the easiest concept to RP as the relative beginner that I was and I wanted to keep it fairly simple so that he could remain out of the spotlight a little. Ironically enough, I suppose it was exactly that sense of obedience that ended him up in a position of leadership and eventually as a Chieftain, which naturally brought quite a few personality changes with it over time. Not only from an IC perspective, but because OOC, as a person, I kind of grew up along with Koz as well. I was sixteen years old when I started playing him, went through the usual trouble you'd go through as a teenager and a young adult along with him, and like to think I kind of grew "older and wiser" along with him.

Do you have any specific strong memory of the role playing you've done on Koz after you joined the tribe?

There's sooo many of them, I wouldn't even know where to begin recounting them all. But if I have to pick one in particular, I'd go for the very first Anniversary War I organised. Along with ORB and several other guilds, we held a series of server-wide RP-PvP encounters, the climax of which, to me at least, was the Battle at the Path of Glory in Hellfire Peninsula. We spent the entire evening and night fighting back and forth between Thrallmar and Honor Hold there. Both sides were evenly matched, had glorious encounters on both ends, and everyone remained a good sport and IC pretty much all night. I remember having an exam the very day afterwards, and after I tried to go to sleep, all I could see when I closed my eyes was the Alliance chasing me down. Needless to say, I barely had any sleep at all before that exam. Still made it though!

Finally, if you could get one thing added into the game for roleplaying purposes. What would that be?

Only one? There's waaaaay too many that I could think of! Custom dice, facial expressions, poses, manipulating the map by adding player-made buildings or such... But if I had to choose just one in particular, that would be active maintenance and support of the RP servers from Blizzard. Simple as that. It wouldn't even be a new feature - the rules and regulations are kind of out there already - but actually upholding said rules and ensuring there's a realm where all RPers could come together without having to worry about any other elements that might take them out of their immersion would make a world of difference in itself. Everything else would just be a nice, extra luxury beyond that.


If you have someone you'd like to see interviewed? Throw a reply here with the name and I'll see what I can do! Keep in mind that I have a lot of names on my list and it does take a little bit of time to do this. So it might not happen instantly.
But stay tuned for the next part of Caught in the Spotlight!

[Lars]

Fun read, would read more!

[Okiba]

Enjoyed that!

Interview Sadok next!

[Revax]

Oh my Sons of Draenor. This is something I dont talk about a lot but I was actually one of the original founders of Sons of Draenor with my orc shaman Grimthog. The actual founder whos name I long since forgotten only showed up the first day of the server then he just sort of vanished and we decided to sack the guild not long after due many behind the scenes reasons. One person faked their own real life death and before we knew it was all a lie we where all very saddened obviously. I cant remember exactly what eventually lead to the disband but yes, there were things.

I then moved on to start a guild with real life friends called "Tel'Abim Banana Boys", just a casual guild.

I do think I was in ORB for a short while and I was in Second Gurubashi Empire for awhile as well, but those things never lasted as I didnt have a lot of time to play up until Wrath, and then again not till MoP.

Just memories that came up reading Koz's interview here

[Kozgugore]

Christ, you're Grimthog? I had no idea! I remember catching up quite a long while back and recalling how Tel'Abim Banana Boys was -the- best guild name I've ever seen in-game! Not sure if I was ever told it was you when you first showed up as Revax but yeah... surprise surprise there. xD

[Revax]

Hehe, I never told you it was me. I joined with a char towards the end of cata but stopped playing on a whim shortly after. Then when mop came i just wanted to start on sort of a clean slate! Sorry about that! But yes, Tel'Abim Banana Boys was quite a hilatious name xD

Edit: Sorry Sadok, didnt mean to hijack the thread [/hijack]