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CLAN INTERVIEW – THE ACOLYTES

JoBildo: Let’s get the courtesies out of the way first. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview with us. It’s always great to get to know one of clans a bit more.

Hieru: Thanks for having us JoBildo! We are honored to be on one of the, if not THE top site’s for MMO’s.

JoBildo: Don’t mention it. We make it a priority to get the community involved, and that's exactly what you're helping us do. Tell us (that is the entire world) a little bit about the Acolytes.

Hieru: We are multi-MMO gaming community and currently support Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. We are here to develop friendships and bonds with like minded people that love to play MMO’s and we plan to be together for years to come! When I created the Acolytes 2 years ago I wanted to create a guild that will be together for years and when our members do venture into new MMO’s they don’t have to worry about not knowing anyone and will have camaraderie and help from the beginning.

Our overall goal for the entire guild is to be a mature 18+, active, successful guild and to have fun while we play. We also plan to do our part to continue the ongoing story behind both games. We will be participating in whatever each game has to offer. We want our members to log in and have options on what is available for them to do each night.

We feel that we have created a good name for ourselves already on the Cimmeria server in Age of Conan. We were the first guild created on the server, we also have a server first for the PVE kill of Kylliki. We have all the tier 1 PVE bosses on farm and are looking to hopefully make some server firsts very soon within Black Ring Citadel. We were also among the first few guilds to obtain a PVP battlekeep. As you can see we like to PVP and PVE as much as we can.

JoBildo: How would you guys classify yourselves? Are you a tight-knit role-play clan, a PvP clan…?

Hieru: I get asked this question a lot and people always want to pin guilds down into one category because they feel that there is no way a guild can do different things within a game well. Since I wanted to create an MMO community I felt it was necessary to provide the means necessary for our members to enjoy whatever it is they wish about the game. You obviously need a pretty large clan to accomplish this, but I feel that we have done an excellent job thus far on being able to provide what the members want, be it PVP, PVE, or RP and quite successfully thus far.

I always wanted to be able to enjoy everything a game has to offer and I know we all have been in some guilds in the past where you just dreaded to log into the game because you knew there wasn’t going to be anything going on in your guild. I really wanted to do away with that and I believe if I can make our members play time enjoyable then that will make them want to play as much as they can. Once an MMO starts to feel like a job and something you need to do, then that takes all of the fun out of it and that is what we are trying to avoid here in the Acolytes.

We have members that do an outstanding job leading PVE raids, we have members that do an awesome job of running PVP teams to kill our enemies and we also have had some members that have brought a lot to the RP community on the Cimmeria server. Since Age of Conan is all about PVP and Battle Keeps are the end game of AoC, our members know that no matter what you like doing the most we all come together as a guild when we are either defending our keep or attacking someone elses. I am just very proud of the chemistry and teamwork we have going on within the Acolytes and to be honest it has surpassed any of my expectations before the launch of the game. So, to answer your question, we like to do it all.

JoBildo: I can relate to that. I think most people could, really. How are things run in the Acolytes? What’s it like being part of the leadership?

Hieru: We have one leader of each MMO branch which is named the Ethereal. I am the Ethereal of our AoC branch. Underneath me is our Erudites who would be considered officers. Our Erudite’s oversee the various parts of the guild. Those area’s would be Crafting, PVP, PVE, RP, Membership and class leads. Underneath the Erudites would be our Enlightened rank which would be a sub-officer type. People in this rank help out the Erudite’s in their given section of the guild. The next rank would be Disciple and these are our veteran members within the guild to guide the newer players on how we do things. Then our standard member rank would be our Adepts. Lastly would be our apprentice’s who are our trial-basis members.

I am very lucky to have such a great group of officers to oversee and take care of a lot of the day to day stuff. You really need dependable and trustworthy people in these positions so the members will respect them in whatever they are trying to organize. Another big aspect which I always hit on is the members themselves. Members are the people that will make or break a guild and luckily we have an outstanding group of guys and gals that love to play the game and MMO’s and it really shows.

JoBildo: Sounds like a pretty large group of people. Just how many Acolytes are there currently, across your many games?

Hieru: We currently have around 125 active members at this time. The numbers fluctuate from time to time with people not liking the game or adding new recruits. On a given night within Age of Conan during peak times we have around 40-60 members on at one time.

JoBildo: That sounds like the chat channels could be pretty busy and filled with green letters most nights, am I right? It’s a pretty popular thing in terms of guilds and clans to host events on their respective servers. Is that something the Acolytes ever do?

Hieru: Yes, we always have events happening for our members within the guild and we also try to host some server wide events as well. An example would the head of our RP department, Imari, has successfully hosted two RP nights thus far in the Serpents Head Tavern. All you people out there dancing topless on tables know who you are! The Acolytes will continue to try and produce a fun and entertaining environment on the Cimmeria server.

JoBildo: That’s awesome, you should consider bringing some fun over to Wiccana so I can join in, eh? You guys are recruiting for new members right? Can you tell us what exactly it takes to become one of the Acolytes? What’s required of a prospective member?

Hieru: We are recruiting and the details of our current recruitment phase can be found here. In general we are looking for mature players who are willing to join the Acolytes. We want people who love to play MMO's and want to have fun while playing! It will be a requirement to be on our Ventrilo server for large scale PvP battles and/or raids.

The Acolytes also require that you have somewhat of a unique name. Names with numbers and phrases will not be allowed, other then that let your imagination run wild for the most part. We encourage our members to be on as much as they can to help progress their character and the guild.

We will have a lot of members that are on a lot, but we realize there are more important things in life then gaming. We want our members to enjoy themselves while they are immersing themselves in AoC or any MMO we support.

JoBildo: Alright, that concludes the interview. I’m tapped out of questions and can go no further. Thanks so much guys for taking the time to sit down and answer all these. The community will be happy know everything they could want to know about the Acolytes. It’s been a pleasure, for sure.

Hieru: JoBildo, we again appreciate the time that Ten Ton Hammer takes to spotlight clans within the Age of Conan community. Community sites like these are what help MMO’s thrive and the Acolytes of course wish Ten Ton Hammer the best of luck. See you all in Hyboria!

Haroo!