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 (name@houseforsaken.com).

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!