Ten Ton Hammer's Warhammer Online Guild of the Month

March's Guild - HousE ForsakeN

So there you are. Just made up your character and he/she looks cool. DAMN cool. You can't wait to get out there and play and level up! Oddly enough though, you start to find that the game gets boring for some reason. You log in and you're all alone, soloing or putting up with cheesy pick up groups just to get into some of the higher end content. You thought there would be more to Warhammer Online than just questing, ganking, and getting loot. This is where guilds come in. Guilds have many functions in MMOG's. They're a way to see higher level content. They're a means to get a chance at gear that you may not have ever seen othrwise. Most importantly, a good guild will become your online family. Full of friends you can't wait to jump online with and tackle the challenges of your game of choice.

We here at Ten Ton Hammer realize the importance of guilds in the world of MMOG's. That's why we're featuring a different Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning guild each month to give you a chance to get to know the different guilds of WAR and possibly help you find a group of like minded folks to make your gaming experience that much better.

This month, we introduce the hardcore raiding group, HousE ForsakeN!

What kind of guild is HousE ForsakeN and what are they all about?

Laminad:

First off, for Warhammer Online, HousE ForsakeN will be going Destruction on
a US server and will have a mix of PvP and PvE.

HousE ForsakeN was founded in 1996, the first year of real-time gaming
guilds and we are one of the only groups left from that "golden era" of
gaming. This makes us one of the oldest gaming organizations online today.
We are also recognized as the oldest Blizzard based guild. After such great
industry success that World of Warcraft has had with guilds and the gaming
community, we are very proud to be associated with that unique mark on our
guild.

Our focus on tradition is very strong, but we are constantly prepared to go
to the next level. A part of our methodology is that our guild is more about
community than a specific in-game goal. Whether you want your guild to
succeed in raiding or be powerful in PvP combat, we believe those are only
tactics for an overall strategy to meet guild objectives. They should not be
the basis of a guild. Guilds fail many times by looking so narrow. Besides
age of the guild, this is a point of difference and what separates us from
others. Although we may want to do all those smaller in-game things I
mentioned, our primary focus is the community and providing top quality
support to all members of our gaming organization.

Membership quality is very important and all members must understand what we
are about in order to fit in. We have guild reunions around the country
whether it takes place in an open venue, a member's home, or a parking lot
of a Waffle House, members connect many times a year. There may be a dozen
members at an event or there might be only two or three. Our members share
not only in gaming experiences, but togetherness through life stages. Some
members started in middle school and now are completing college. Some of
those that were starting in college when they joined have graduated, got
married, and have had 3-4 kids. It is important to not base our survival
around how long a game is going to interest our members. If we did this, we
would have died out 37 times over!

With such a methodology and commitment to excellence, our guild is able to
plan years ahead so that our membership base has something to do if a game
flops, goes flat or isn't as successful as we had hoped. Besides Warhammer
Online, we support other games and are looking ahead to additional titles
that will be released from various genres through 2010.

Rahsk:

Going off from what Laminad said, it is important to be aware of the social
benefit of the guild, but also what it could mean for us at the game level
that this methodology he speaks of stays in place. Whether the game is a
solid hit for us and we have great achievements or we don't, there is
nothing to worry about. There is no monkey on our backs wondering if HousE
ForsakeN will be there next week, next month, or next year. This takes a
lot of burden off of our game staff and our membership. Our ranking
structure helps us with this as well. Most out of game work is completed by
the HF umbrella staff for all of our games. They take care of the servers,
the web site, the communication channels and many times the relations with
fan sites and game developers. Members can focus on playing the game,
having fun, and doing so in good company knowing that HF is riding high as
to be expected.

Because of our experience in other games and a strong core of members who
have been with the guild for years, we already have a foundation to work
from when starting up new game divisions such as WAR. We already know we
play well together. We know one another's strengths and weaknesses. We
know the barriers the guild could face in the game as well. There is a good
chance we have already circumvented such challenges in the past. You could
say HousE ForsakeN is about the big picture, and it has already been
painted.

What other games have you been involved in and what sort of success have you seen in those games? What are the goals of HousE ForsakeN in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning?

Laminad:

Over the last 12 years, HousE ForsakeN has supported 37 game titles.
Warhammer Online will be the 38th game and our 12th supported MMORPG. HousE
ForsakeN's original success came in our early history. For our first year or
so, we didn't break away, but with the release of Starcraft, we quickly
became one of the top 'clans' on Battle.net; winning tournaments and later
having some of the top ladder scores. In 1997, we merged with an Everquest
guild and ever since then have supported MMORPGs. With Diablo II, we also
took multiple top SC and HC ladder spots and had one of the first 90+
characters in the world. Within months of the release of D2, we made a step
toward revamping our FPS gaming with Counter-Strike, which was in beta at
the time. The game grew to over 70 members with squad integrity on two guild
owned servers. That FPS success propelled us into many other FPS games from
other Half-Life based mods to Halo II CE and BF2 where members enjoyed
league success. DAoC was a decent game for us, but it was more so a stepping
stone to Shadowbane. SB was meant to mesh members together from many of our
game genres, but it was an overall flop. Still, we were one of the ruthless
groups on our server under the name SDGoonz. Our Wheel of Time clan (a book
series that our name was based from) won many tournaments and we had many
Warcraft III 1500 win accounts.

There are other areas we can not forget when talking about guild success. In
the late 90's, HousE ForsakeN was also the home of many browser based games.
We had some of our own game developers too for games such as Quest for Yap
and TDZK which had great success with thousands of players around the world.
For Solar Empire, our guild was one of the well known forces that kept the
game going.

Most recent success has to be attributed to World of Warcraft. Prior to the
game's release, many of the top MMO guilds decided on central beta server
#6, and the one first alphabetically in the list as a good place for their
East and West coast members to come together. They were put on a list
created by a guild called SiNister. HousE ForsakeN is proud to be one of
those guilds that braved on through the lag and server down time of
Archimonde. Although most of the guilds have been long gone, HF still calls
it home.

Along with WAR, we now await the release of WOTLK, but we have our eyes on
other games as well including a return to the Starcraft universe.

Rahsk:

To answer your second question, we simply want to go out, get everybody
together, and have some fun. We will be a mix of PvP and PvE so that
members can see every aspect of the game has to give. It surely will be a
rat race at first to check out everything, but once everything settles, we
look forward to being consistent in our "kill the order" philosophy.

We would like Warhammer Online to be something similar to what Shadowbane
was and wasn't. Shadowbane for HousE ForsakeN was supposed to be the game
that brought all of our members from multiple game genres together. It
didn't happen that way. We look forward to bringing on a lot of our World of
Warcraft members, but also looking at the rest of the already established
membership in HousE ForsakeN to join in at some level. Although it wasn't
what we had expected, Shadowbane was very successful on the PvP aspect. We
had a small handful of members terrorize the largest of guilds and won
battles in the worst of odds. World of Warcraft failed in this area. World
PvP was pointless and Battlegrounds were canned. Many of these SB members
of ours will be helping to mold our PvP events in WAR.

What sort of time commitment are you looking for from members per week?
Are there level requirements or restrictions for members?

Rahsk:

Our guild is essentially a family. We need people to be active in the guild
as they would be in their own close family. They don't need to be home every
hour of the day, but we like to know they'll be there for us when we need
them, and we expect them to keep in touch when they're not home. For those
who don't enjoy analogies as much as I do, we expect you to be online so
that we never have to wonder if you'll come back, and when you're gone for a
longer period of time we still expect you to be on Ventrilo and the Forums
for just a little bit to keep in touch. If a member knows he will be
leaving for a while at a time where he is needed, they will be expected to
notify us in advance so that we can plan ahead.

Level requirements right now are non-existent since the game isn't live, but
we will make it 38-40 once the game is released. Other aspects are not
important for application, but we definitely encourage crafting skills or
high levels of other things like PvP ranks or renown ranks.

Laminad:

Rahsk noted the need for forum and Ventrilo usage. Members are required to
have some sort of presence on our guild forums. We know some gamers don't
like forums, but this will allow them to keep up on guild events and dates
with the WAR event calendar and WAR member forum. Besides, our forums are
the social hub of the entire HousE ForsakeN community. If they are going to
be part of HF, they certainly should plan on an additional few minutes daily
to view the forum. Another requirement for all House ForsakeN members is
the usage of Ventrilo to speak in game and during guild events. HousE
ForsakeN has a 50 slot Ventrilo server which will be upgraded if more room
is needed. They should be prepared to get on Ventrilo prior to starting up
their game and having it on until they exit the game.

What level of importance do you place on the social aspect of your guild?
Is HousE ForsakeN all about the end goal or more about the people involved?

Rahsk:

As Laminad said in an earlier question, our end objective is all about the
people involved. Destroying towns and having successful raids are all
smaller goals to make sure our membership of any game is having their
expectations met. I joined a little over a year ago in WOW and I don't think
I would be in HousE ForsakeN still if they weren't always ready to expand to
other games that members want to support. The guild changes directions as
the membership sees most beneficial.

HousE ForsakeN is made for people that consider themselves guild lifers with
a common interest in video games. Members are encouraged to seek a staff
position if they have the time and the aspirations to help lead the guild,
but overall, rank just shows job responsibilities, not superiority to
another. You also don't have to be on staff to mean something in HF. Even
our recent applicants have quickly realized that the membership care for who
they are individually.

Laminad:

Social interactions are very important for a guild of our size. We have 237
members but this summer should top the 300 mark as we have done in previous
years. This social aspect might be one of the top reasons why HousE ForsakeN
has survived for so long. Once new members assimilate into the guild's
community, they tend to stay for multiple years. Members that stay in HF for
over two years tend to stay until they give up gaming altogether. Even
still, they tend to come back to HousE ForsakeN when a new hot game is
released.

The guild's forums have had over a half-million posts throughout our
history. Each day, at least 75 logins are recorded and posts can be anywhere
from 100-250 on some days. At one point, 127 members used XFire to
communicate and join games that one another was in. We also have a Ventrilo
server and members can apply for their own free POP3 email
([email protected]).

Besides interactions between members, part of our communications strategy is
to join fan site communities such as this one at Ten Ton Hammer. We make
many forum posts across these fan sites to build awareness for our guild.
This Ten Ton Hammer interview is not our first. We have been given
interviews by Warhammer Vault, Stratics, and many other game networks
(another for WAR so far includes Warhammer Alliance). We also produce news
posts for these sites when something big happens such as an anniversary or
an event we would like to know the public to know about. Recent examples of
these sites are Incgamers, Hellgate Guru, and WarCry. We also plan on
providing links to our favorite web communities and forums for members to
visit.

Finally, we try to keep social interactions strong between other guilds on
the game servers we are on. Whether it be other Archimonde guilds for WoW or
guilds/clans that use the FPS servers that we do, our relationship with
these guilds are very important. We do this on server forums and contacting
in the game.

If someone wanted to join your guild, what would be the best way to do
so? Who should they get in contact with? Do they need to be a part of the
Warhammer Online Beta test to apply or can they apply prior to release?

Rahsk:

We recommend that the first step of joining any guild is to make sure that
the guild will fit their needs. Are they looking for a guild that would
potentially be there for them long after the game is gone or are they
looking for a "Motel 6" of guilds; to only stay a short time and leaving
stains on the sheets before moving on to something else? If they think they
may want to apply to become a member, the guild part has to matter to them.

Right now we do have an open application process. Although beta testers are
welcome to apply, having a beta account is not required. A prospective
recruit can visit our site, register on our forums and make their way to our
WAR: Recruit board and post an application (pre-made questionnaire). We use
the forum rather than a web script because it not only allows members to
communicate and ask questions of the recruit, but it gets the applicant to
come back regularly.

Laminad:

If someone is looking for a guild such as HousE ForsakeN, this is the time
to decide. As we get closer to release, our recruitment process will become
more difficult. It will be more selective and the process will become
longer. Under the current policy, if a recruit makes it to the day the game
hits the store shelves, they will become a member. That gives our guild
staff a few months to make sure the more recent recruits meet our standards
of maturity and character whether it be through forum or Ventrilo
interactions. If they don't fit, they certainly won't make it and will be
asked to leave.

We know the type of people that are proactive in researching games prior to
a launch. Why? For a majority of our supported games, these are the people
we have paid most attention to when recruiting. They are typically older and
they tend to be more knowledgeable about the game than those who wait and
follow the mob. To them it is more than just a game. If they find the guild
comfortable, they could potentially stay much longer than those that join
after the game is released.

Interested in HousE ForsakeN as a guild? You can find out more about them in the Guild Discussion section of the Ten Ton Hammer WAR Forums.

Remember to check the Ten Ton Hammer main page to find out all the current gaming news!