Character name
Xenosteel, lvl 67 Rogue.
I got alts but I dont play them much these days. Theyre Gaius and Pencil.
What got you started playing WoW?
Well, Ive liked RPGs for a long time, mostly console-based RPGs. I liked the idea of having a roaming world in an online RPG but I knew that most of those games, i.e. MMORPGs, needed huge time investments and that it was an addicting and unhealthy practice.. Until I heard that Blizzard was making an MMORPG. I like Blizzards games and the way they plan their online games, so I trusted theyd make a worthy MMORPG that wouldnt consume too much time like others. And, WoW became what I expected it to be :P
Ive been playing WoW since day 1, I cant say Ive played it non-stop, there have been times where I took a break from playing for weeks. Im sort of a casual player, but at some days I get excited and play WoW for some long hours, sometimes 10 hours in 1 day!
How did you hear about SSX and what makes you believe this guild is right for you?
The first time I heard a reference to SSX was from a recent complaint I said in the last guild I was in <evolved>, some guy said SSX might be the guild you want.. (or something like that). Today I was checking the WoW census and saw SSX there, and for no reason I decided to check SSXs website.
This guild... is the perfect place for me! You have no idea how glad and excited I am to have found it! After reading the stickys at the WoW recruitment forum and especially the Why SSX? post, I was stunned! The concepts that run this guild are EXACTLY the concepts I had for every guild I previously lead, or more like, the concepts that I wish would apply to every guild!
You bet I do !Because you enjoy chatting and playing with friends.
AMEN !Because you enjoy having fun!
I fit there PERFECTLY! I only play WoW to enjoy it! Who cares about being the best, or being in a top raiding guild, or having the most leet items or the highest PvP rank possible, or having the most 70s etc. Whats the point in all that if playing the game became like a job? Get all the items you want, then what? Will you sacrifice everything for the sake of a game? I play this game to enjoy it! I play with friends and family and do all the silly things I want, for as long as Im having fun playing then its ALL that matters! Ofcourse dont expect me to be selfishly greedy towards having my own fun, I know that what I said could mislead to that :PFor those who are looking for a power gaming group, we are not the ones for you. We are not here to be the best, to make the most in game money, to have the best equipment, or just simply to the best of the best.
Theres so much more to say here. But believe me, I know that SSX is the place that I can (hopefully) fit perfectly in
I fell in love with this guild in just about 5 minutes browsing its website.Who do you know that is already in the guild and how did you meet them?
Im SURE therere a couple of people that Ive known and met in SSX, Im just poor at recalling by name. I havent been carefully browsing the members list to see who I know. Hopefully all will be clear to me when I get the chance to join
What other guilds were you in previously and why did you leave them?
Well.. lets see, Ive been in 3 very old and rather small guilds. Ancient Dragon Knights, Firestorm, Silent Legacy. And Ive been in 1 known guild: Tattered Virtue.
As for Ancient Dragon Knights, its a really embarrassing an unreasonable reason that made me and a couple more leave it.. Well, the guild was dying and many didnt like the guild name (lol). So, we left and made Firestorm.
I wasnt Firestorms leader, just a high officer. We had around 200 members but it wasnt a raiding guild. Firestorms leader became absent for some months and he didnt want to let go of its leadership to someone else despite the fact that he barely plays WoW anymore So, lead by me I performed another Coup De Grace and made a new guild, Silent Legacy.
Again, Silent Legacy was not lead by me but I was (yet again) a high officer. We had around 180 members. But at that time, raiding became a key factor in WoW and those who did not raid were weak.. Silent Legacy wasnt a raiding guild but I wanted my guild members to be able to raid, for their sake!
Tristanz, leader of Tattered Virtue was (for some odd reason) obsessed with me and wanted me to join his guild, his guild was awesome and it was also a raiding guild. So, I told Silent Legacy that it would be best if we combined guilds. And we did! Tristanz invited all the members of Silent Legacy to his guild
Now, after about 1 year from all this comes the Tattered Virtue (TV) Story..
Tristanz and Romance, leaders of TV, left the game 3 months ago to focus more on RL. Tauy and Shadowfaux become new leaders, things werent as good but it went well.
A few days ago Tauy disbanded TV very suddenly while most werent knowing it would happen! He secretly made a new guild, called <evolved>. I got in, they were only about 30-40 members, I didnt understand the disband so I thought it was to change guild name.
About a day ago I asked an officer to invite Monamy, a raider of TV and a friend of mine. His reply was that Being in TV doesnt guarantee an invite to evolved, sorry... The whole picture became much clearer after that.
Call me a sinner or someone with unreasonable judgment for what Im about to say: I think that the reason Tauy disbanded TV was so that he could Thin the numbers and focus more and more on the raiding aspect of the game.... to me, this is sad. TV was a huge community of friends, who the hell would disband that just to focus on 1 aspect of the game? Unforgivable!
Im no raider, I knew that in time Ill be replaced by a raider as the newly formed guild <evolved> begins to seriously raid. Of course I do have friends in the guild, but my existence there would soon be a laughable matter, and a questionable one too as the new joining raiders will be wondering how and why am I in a guild like <evolved>.
For all those reasons I had to decide to leave their guild and look for a guild that actually values its community, I apologized for to everyone in evolved and said a proper and loving goodbye to them.. I wont lie, upon my search for the right guild I did make an application to Legacy of Khan (LoK) cuz they seemed to be a nice bunch. But thank god I stumbled on SSXs website the next day. SSX is the perfect guild to me! (Ill explain more later at this post). Now when someone from LoK does ask me about my application Ill simply apologize and tell them I decided to join you guys
Have you applied to any other guilds recently? If so, which ones and have you already received a response to your application?
I recently applied to join Legacy of Khan, but their recruitment system seems half-dead. No response from them yet. And now that I found you guys theres no way Ill be joining any other guild!
What are the most important qualities of a good guild to you?
1. Modesty
By modesty I mean being reasonable and fair to everyone in this game! (Sorry if my English is poor), its something that almost all guilds lack. Many guilds tend assy towards newbies, or people who are under-geared because they cant raid. They bloat and about how epic their raiding team is, and gloat at other guilds who cant seem to progress as fast as they do.
Well hello, EVERYONE starts somewhere! I personally love to help everyone and try my best to show them the way in the game. Its sad how people love to have a certain advantage in a game then think theyre almighty and powerful.. Meh, some kids dont learn.
2. Community
Now, what would a guild be without having a community? Ill tell you, an army camp! A dead community is a very bad sign for guilds, members will just raid till they get the items they want and leave, sooner or later the guild will be disbanded as their leaders will fail to see a reason in playing this game or Got tired of leading all those damn raids so noobs can get their items! (as they say it themselves).
Where, on the other hand, you have a healthy community where people discuss RL matters, talk about things, guide other people in the game, tell jokes, monkey around! All those things matter in a guild, to me, it is of priority to have a good and healthy community!
3. Kindness
I know someone reading this will probably hear this in his mind: carebare lol. Well, young one, you should know that Kindness really does go a long way, and Im saying this based on many experiences in my life
I dont know how that becomes a guild quality, but if you think about it the other way, a guild without kindness is bound to be full of hate as time goes by. Hate spreads like fire, filling other hearts with more hate. Kindness and forgiveness is there to stop that.4. Raiding
Dont get me wrong, I loathe the fact that raiding becomes a guild quality factor. But, lets face it, a non-raiding guild has a high likeliness to be slowly abandoned as time goes by, because thats the way Blizzard designed the game to be. Raiding will always be the end of end-game, and while my beliefs deny that raiding should be a priority of a good guild, Id be lying to myself if I said raiding was something that didnt matter. Because to many many people raiding does matter a lot. People make communities, and not having a raiding ability in a guild will slowly cause the community to shrink and decay.
I havent been entirely clear, I know you think that I hate raiding. Well, thats not true, I do love raiding but there are things that makes me hate it more than love it : Ill discuss this in another time I hope.
II. Other detail
Whew, I typed a lot of things back there! I hope that wont make me lazy to type the other detail I had in mind
About me
Im 24 years old, I live in a distant country called Bahrain. Very small island, very humid! Its a nice and easy life here, while every country has its problems, Bahrain seems to get along well.
Im sure most of you dont know where that is, plus its so small that its not even on the map. Its just east of Saudi Arabia, in fact were connected to Saudi by a 25 kilometer long causeway.
Im still in college, but the upcoming semester (February June 2007) will hopefully be the last one! Basically, I was on a scholarship to study in the UK for 4 years, and on the last year I was overwhelmed by homesick-ness and I totally failed the last year and never wanted to go back there. So I made a, er.. what we called here an Equalization and I had to do about 12 subjects in a local university in Bahrain in order to get my BSC.
On a side note, I got all As last semester!! Hurray!
~(Copy&Paste from my LoK application)I'm a crazy and silly guy, I'm loved by many in RL! I'm a bit of a loser when it comes to the ladies, I don't have a GF yet :\nMy friends say I'm reasonable, wise, insane, whack, forgiving, very kind, broad-minded, and that I have testicles on my forehead.
English isnt my primary language, for that youve probably found some cheesy and grammatically irritating sentences as you read this post. Lol, my English isnt bad though. If youre wondering, Arabic is my primary language. I can share some information with you about anything, just ask
You guys have Game developers?!
Guess what? Im an amateur game designer! I learned it all by myself
in the past I made a couple of games using RPG-Maker (good ol times!!!). Few years ago I bought Darkbasic and with it Ive made 2 games so far. To keep this short, the final project that Im willing to submit for the upcoming college semester is.. A game! Its the 3rd game I programmed using Darkbasic and itll be quite fantastic, and its one huge project! Ill talk about this topic later on though, too much info to cover
SSX is the SNES when I was 13
I cant express this enough; Im really excited towards joining SSX! Although, if I do say any more than that then Ill be giving myself a bad first impression, lol!
I hope to get in as soon as possible and be able to meet and chat with you all!
The people I know who play WoW
Before I start Id like to say that there are some people who are probably not fit for the guild, because... well, they dont like to socialize in a multiplayer game. Even though they like being in the same guild as I am *sigh*.. for those people, well, I cant really say I recommend them to be invited to SSX, but oh well
Nose, one of my best friends in RL, hes cool and crazy like me, hes not too very experienced in WoW nor RPGs in general, but he has the skills :P Hes social, but for him raiding also matters. Cant say for sure that he wants to join SSX as of yet, but Ill convince him! Although at *some* times and when hes moody enough, the words of profanity that he says (as part of a joke or a disgusting event) could make the clouds tremble
if Borat was extreme to you, Nose is something else. Although personally there are times where I easily exceed Nose, but at least I have full control over what I type in /g.Mil an old friend in RL and also my sisters husbands brother. Hes social, and he seems to like SSX so far! He will probably fit in the guild very well
His PvP skills need a lot more training thoughMonamy Mils brother, nice guy
More skilled than Mil and has a higher reaction level too. Hell probably like the guild more than Mil would! He has good potential to be an astounding WoW player!As for the people who DONT socialize much in multiplayer games:
Duper My older bro (29 years old), skilled yes. But the poor fella really has no time at all to play WoW. Hes recently engaged, he works real hard, like, he goes to his company from 5 am and comes home at about 6 pm, then he has to deal with his wife, his personal matters and then he has 1 hour for leisure before going to sleep. Tough life
Anoxi My younger bro (16 years old), perhaps the most social of the not social in multiplayer games group. His English typing speed isnt impressive, neither is his understanding of advanced English words. Hes a not bad WoW player but his brain is the brains of a 8 year old! Dont worry hes definitely not the asshole type though
Muharib / Hardy / Swifty my... dad... We spoiled him after his retirement. To him WoW is like the 4th game he ever played. The games he played before are Solitaire, Diablo 2, and Dungeon Siege. Currently he does have a job though. But anyway, even though he has 3 lvl 60s his skills at the game are rather poor. To a guild that totally depends on skills he would definitely not be accepted. But now that I think about it, maybe you guys at SSX actually have the guts to make my dad a skilled WoW player! HAH! I dare you to achieve that!! Lol
The time I have to play
Important: Because I live in a foreign country, Ill be most likely playing on offpeak hours, this is sad because peak hours is where I can get to have the most fun with the guild
but dont worry, there are many days where I stay and play at peak times! Although the peak times in the US occur at about 2:00 to 5:00 am here. Lol. Thing is, I love the peace and quiet of the night, and youll often see me playing at those late hours here But honestly, Im playing too much these days!! I should be working more on my project. But dont worry, no matter how busy I get, there is always time for me to play WoW! So Ill be trying my best to socialize with the guild during AND after my trial period!
Anyway, here are the things that keep me from playing WoW:
1. Sleep: Yes I do sleep! Thank god!
2. College: some hours a day, wont hurt at all. Usually going to college makes me want to play WoW after I get home
3. Project: Ahhh, now heres a big deal! The project Im making is tremendous. I made a document titled Task List and its about 14 pages long! Thats how big it is! *SIGH* Why am I so crazy, I always choose the craziest projects to do. Although I did promise myself that thisll be the last crazy project I ever do.. for some years at least! Whats more, the project deadline is at about June-July 2007, so as the deadline comes closer Ill be likely working more >_< oh well, still no really big deal if you ask me.
As for the other things, well, going out with friends, eating, doing stuff, Shaking hands with the milk man lol. U know....
SSX has some tasty creativity juice!
The website, forums, and the care you put here in making the guild and its systems. Heck you even have lore! Its amazing! Art is something I need to develop, and SSX seem to have an Art-enabled environment!
Yes, I have a DeviantArt account:
http://xenosteel.deviantart.com
My art is somewhat poor in the graphics and animation field, but Im not bad at some other aspects I guess..
Ill let you in a little secret Art project. Ive had this amazing storyline all in a single dream, and the title of the story was in the dream even! The Shattered Princess.. Really strange to have a dream that gives you a story title
but anyway, the story that came to me in that dream is something I need to write. Its been about 2 years since Ive had that dream and I was too lazy to write it down in a document! I had plans to make it into a flash movie but I realized that I dont have the time nor the team to make that movie. What Im planning is distributing the story/plot to Flash-using friends and communities and see if a team is interested in making a flash out of it.(My English is dying, its 3:11 am here and Im starting to get dead tired. Lol. Dont worry my art projects will have properly revised English sentences >_>)
Anyway hopefully as I spend time here Ill be having some creativity flowing, and since Im a Multimedia student, having some Artistic creativity goes a long way!
Oh.. Did I mention my future job?
Well, part of the government scholarships contract that I signed says that I have to be a teacher for as long as I have been studying obroad.. Well honestly, I do like teaching! I think that itll be exciting for me! I love having a dynamic environment and socializing with the kids and gaining their trust will be very easy! I think trust is a very important element in teaching kids.
Many of my friends cant believe Ill be a teacher, they just CANT picture it, they say Im too crazy for the job @_@. They believe its the end of the world if I became a teacher.
Teaching will be a great start for me, its a fun job with lots of holidays AND Ill be actually learning many things as I teach!
Ill probably be researching and reading books while Im a teacher, but at some point in a few years Ill probably try to get a more suitable job for me, I have a belief that the industry for making small games for mobile-phones and PDAs will be rapidly growing in the next few years, I might plan to start my own company! Ill need lots of careful consideration though.
Well, thats enough for now!
My fingers tire! No actually theyre not, its my eyes @.@ lol.
I hope I didnt miss anything out there, u can just ask and Ill be happy to provide the answers! Dont be shy!
III. Appendices
(lol)
Heres a copy & paste of the e-mail I sent to LoK for the guild application, you can dig in and find some information that I forgot to mention
anyway, here it is:Name: Xenosteel
Race: Human
Class: Rogue
Professions: Herbalism / Mining
Previous guild(s):
Small and old guilds:
- Ancient Dragon Knights (very old)
- Firestorm
- Silent Legacy
Known guilds:
- Tattered Virtue
Reason(s) for leaving said guild(s):
I'll only describe why I left Tattered Virtue, the other guilds are too old.
Tattered Virtue (TV) recently disbanded, remade into a new guild called <empowered>. TV used be be good when it was lead by Tristanz and Romance, but they both left to focus more on RL duties. Ever since then Tauy, some young kid (16 years old i think) took leadership and his decisions throughout have always been a bit immature. I never complained though.
TV was a great community, it had so many people and so many friends. The disband was VERY sudden. Tauy literally disbanded the guild after saying like 10 words in /g, including "We decided to disband" ... If you ask me, its more of a "I" decided to disband.
I'm not certain, but I think the whole disband and remake thing was to 'Thin the Numbers' and make a private-party guild to maximize 25-man raid itemization progress... Even now they're very picky about who to invite to thier new guild, and they said "Being a TV old member doesn't guarantee an invite to empowered"....To me, their concept and method of thinning the numbers is just disgusting, guilds exist for the sole purpose of gathering as many friends as possible and creating the craziest and most fun community!
The core reason I want to leave my guild is because they're taking the game seriously, they want to maximize raid potency and are focusing primarily on that, they forgot the importance of being in a good community. Taking a game too seriously is not something I personally like, even though its somewhat necessary to be able to raid in this game. The decision to suddenly disband TV without consideration just shows that my guild is approaching either a rapid decline or a dangerous addiction to the game's content.
Note: I'm at the moment a member of Empowered and still DIDN'T leave it, I don't like playing WoW guildless cuz I love being in a community, especially because there are a few good friends still there. I know the application said you were expecting me to be guildless, but I'm a lil slow at making decisions like this
(btw, I got my guild name wrong in every paragraph, its called <evolved> lol. And yeah, I did leave evolved now..)
Reason(s) for wanting to join LoK:
Honestly? I just want to be in the most FUN and CRAZY community ever! I don't care much about anything else. Raiding? I think I've raided maybe 3-4 times in my lifetime of playing WoW. Don't worry I'm not new, I played WoW since day 1 but raiding wasn't my thing, it gets me too involved in the game. The idea of scheduling hours of Real-Life for a game somewhat conflicts with my beliefs :P
That said, you shouldn't count me as a raiding member at all. I sure hope you won't mind a non-raider in your guild though
What do you expect from LoK?:
Nothing! I don't expect things from guilds see.. Guilds aren't there to "serve" their members. Guilds aren't there to lend people their mount money, neither to rush "THREW" instances (lol), nor to "PLZ help me raid so i get nice itemz lol".
What I expect? well, fun! I expect to hopefully see a few jokes in guild chat every now and then! And I expect to meet and converse with some crazy monkeys
Actually, I do hope you can get my friends and family in the guild too. I have 3 RL good friends and 2 of my brothers who play the game. My dad also plays but he's a noob at the game anyway (rofl), well what can I say, we spoiled him when he retired and WoW is like the 3rd game he ever played. So he's generally new to the whole gaming thing and a bit slow. Personally I wouldn't invite him to the guild, you can't expect him to do anything there. unless thats something you don't mind at all! Plus he is a Dad so I'm sure some of the very extreme words might get him upset.
What do you think LoK expects from you?:
Hmmmmm, that I don't know for sure... I'm no raider, and I'm somewhat lazy.. but hey, aren't we all lazy? I do help my guildies sometimes, and I do love to cheer my guildies up! I love being a guild monkey (or clown). Don't expect me to worship you though
I don't do that for free >_>How do you think you would benefit the guild?:
Honestly, no idea. Just existing there to cheer you all up and put you in a good mood I guess.
I can't raid easily, reason being is I live in an off-peak zone. And I don't like raiding much, so there.
Take some time to describe yourself:
Well, lets see. 24 year old male, living in a foreign country called Bahrain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain. I'm a local, not someone on a deployment
My English isn't top-notch but I'm good enough for the most partI'm a crazy and silly guy, I'm loved by many in RL! I'm a bit of a loser when it comes to the ladies, I don't have a GF yet :\r
My friends say I'm reasonable, wise, insane, whack, forgiving, very kind, broad-minded, and that I have testicles on my forehead.
for some reason my creativity in describing myself is dying, I've never been good at it anyway. But i think what I said above gave the general picture
How do you think you compare against others in your class?:
Yarrr? Well, I'm somewhat a veteran. I don't have much raiding experience but I usually not screw up and I learn things very fast by nature (i'm adaptive).
I love PvP, I'm one of the very few rogues who actually perform advanced PvP roles in BG. Like, for example, sapping a moving group of horde's healer and causing overall confusion to break their formation. And scouting ahead to come up with an assault plan for my team.
in PvE i try to focus on helping/saving the whole group, I stun more than I DPS and I'm always careful and thoughtful of what I do. I always try to stick to the plan and focus DPS on one target and I usually do exactly what the party leader wants me to do.
What is your talent spec?:
41/0/20, Mutilate/setup
Would you be willing to change your talent spec if it benefited the guild?:
Actually, probably not, unless it REALLY REALLY benefits the guild. (rogue specs are all the same anyway)
Honestly, will you be able to attend and be on time to our raids at 7PM EST and stay the full duration (sometimes until 11-12PM) the vast majority of the time?:
honestly, maybe 2% of your total raids. if not less..... like I said, I'm no raider
and I live in an off-peak zoneLink your CTProfile ( http://ctprofiles.net ):
err, don't have one yet. bit lazy
Do you have anything else you would like to add?:
Hmmm, well. If I don't get accepted I'd love if you guys tell me about the other crazy-community type guilds in Mannoroth and I'll be thankful
Actually I wouldn't mind knowing those communities even now, wouldn't hurt at all..The stuff I read at the LoK site is what made me lead towards joining it, you guys seem all mature which is awesome (in a way, I sometimes love to pick on kids too). Your belief that RL > WoW and that you guys invite friends in the guild certainly shows that you're focused more on the community that makes the guild, rather than focusing on game content and ignoring everything else.. Basically, I like your concept, and I hope I made the right choice by applying to LoK..
If you think that LoK is not the guild for me and that I might be enjoying my time more in another guild where they focus even more on their community then please be a friend and do tell me the guild names!
(Now that I found SSX, disregard the last 3 paragraphs)
) application. If only every applicant were a bit more forthcoming like that. Getting some of them to give details is like trying to pull teeth, lol.
lol 