This week I sat down with Jono from “The Knight’s Who Say Ni”, for a quick question and answer session about The guild and their expectations for Star Wars The Old Republic. Check it out after the jump:
Q. Where did your guilds name come from?
A. The guilds name is from “Monty Python”, anyone who doesn’t know what that is should go and look it up. It’s very funny.
Q. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild?
A. The Knights Who Say Ni has been around for a 4 years now; KWSNi is a multi-game guild which includes plenty of experienced gamers. We’re on a mission to recruit new members and play The Old Republic with style.
Q. How did your guild come about?
A. The current iteration of the guild was formed in LOTRO at release by 2 members from DAOC’s KWSNi, so technically our actual guild has been around since even before the start of that game. Since then, the guild has had 3/4 changes in leadership and the most current leadership change has resulted in KWSNi becoming a multi-gaming guild; what this means is that KWSNi has guilds throughout the gaming community within several different games – and we’re still expanding!
Q. What kind of play style do you focus on? PvE, PvP, RP
A. Not trying to be too generic here, but we tend to bring players in from both PvE and PvP backgrounds. This means we’re able to play both features within the game to the highest extent; we love to be able to beat endgame content but theres nothing like beating an actual player – so if at some point BioWare can merge the two, that would be great.
Q. What is your guild set up? How do you run your guild?
A. Our guild is ran through a relatively complex guild management system – at least in comparison to other guild leader systems, I feel ours is a little complex. We use the forums heavily and the leadership have weekly meetings using Ventrilo and membership meetings every month or so.
Q. How serious do you play and/or run the guild?
A. None of the leadership would consider themselves has hardcore gamers, although were mostly always ingame if we’re not at work. While in game we put allot of time into managing the guild(s); eg. trying to make sure groups are working well, people aren’t sat around doing nothing ingame – generally trying to make sure everybody is having fun. This is the way the SWTOR guild will be ran also.
Q. Do you have ranks or a certain hierarchy in your guild? If yes, could you tell us a bit about it?
A. Sure. Our hierarchy is as follows;
We have 4 main guild leaders; That would be myself, “Sannas”, “Vayran and “Cullen” – we are the “overseers” so to speak. Below that we have the various game guild leaders such as “Biglas” and “Baroin” – for TOR I will be setting the guild up and running it until we find a suitable leader for that game. Below the guild leaders there is the “Officer” rank as it’s referred to in most games. There is generally 4/5 Officers in each game, which members can chat too with issues etc..
Q. Why did you choose the Sith/Republic?
A. To be honest, we will be going to be rolling characters in both Republic/Empire and having a guild in each section – if thats how it will have to work. However we will be going Republic for our first characters; the decision was just a vote on our Multi-Gamiing Forums for anybody who was planning on playing TOR.
Q. Why do you run a guild?
A. Myself personally? I always enjoy being part of the leadership team in any game I play. It’s probably because I have a very organisational mind. I’m one of those weird people who actually enjoy management, networking and knowing everybody in the guild. If I wasn’t within the leadership, I’d probably be quite frustrated about not being able to input into which direction I feel the guild should go.
Q. Raid Planning?
A. We have a Raid Planner on the forums which we use currently for the games we’re already in. This Raid Planner will be adapted to work with TOR once we know what Raids/Instances there are.
Q. Are you always open for new recruits or do you want to keep a certain guild size?
A. We are usually open for recruitment. The more the merrier; as long as you bring a Shrubbery!
Q. Age Requirement?
A. We have an 18+ requirement. However we do make exceptions depending on the maturity of the person etc.. So I would say its on a “case by case” basis.
Q. Guild size?
A. Hopefully, continuously growing.
Q. What makes your guild stand out from everyone else? What makes your guild unique?
A. I know most leadership’s of guilds will probably say this; but KWSNi is fun. It really is simple as that. I am thankful that KWSNi found me when I was running around solo in a particular game- thinking about quitting because I was so bored. Due to joining them, I’ve stayed with that game for another 2/3years- purely because of the guilds great community. If you like using a forum, being generally friendly and have a good sense of humour- you’ll fit in with us.
Q. How do you spend your time until release? Do you know each other in real life or do you spend a lot of time on forums?
A. We do use the forums, we also use Ventrilo allot. But we are a multi-gaming guild so we’re out their playing all the other games until TOR is released!
Q. What Other Games are you currently playing as a guild?
A. The three main ones where we have large-ish memberships are: Lord of the Rings Online; Star Trek: Online and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. We have off-shoots in around 10-15other games as well though.
Q. Guild systems in other MMOs? (Likes/Dislikes)
A. I certainly haven’t seen a guild system which I would classify as perfect by a long shot. Instead of listing what I like about each other game’s system, I’ll tell you what I’d find the ideal system in relation to TOR.
My Ideal Guild system for TOR would include; user created ranks- games which pidgeonhole you into using their ranking system frustrate me; a developed guild interface with the possibility of intergrating your forum; maybe using an RSS feed – so community members can see snippets of the most current threads in game. Specifically for TOR I’d like to see cross-faction guild communication; if like to see Empire KWSNi be able to chat with Republic KWSNi etc; this will make getting spur of the moment guild groups easier to organise.
Also ideally I’d like some sort of iOS/Android app to be able to chat in game with my guild mates while on the move. I think BioWare are hopefully making some good steps towards making a really good guild system from what we’ve seen with the Guild HQ.
Q. If somebody is interested now how and where can they apply for membership?
A. They can use the TOR Guild HQ and fill out an application here: http://bit.ly/gXHfhs or if you don’t have TOR account already or feel like applying just to be part of the community hit ours forums up at: www.kwsni.com (site currently in development and themes are being created)
Q. One last question, if there was one thing you could ask the Dev’s to include, what would it be?
A. For them to include the release date in one of the Friday Updates soon? No I joke. I’d need two mean looking guys behind me to pin Stephen Reid/Daniel Erickson down before they let that one go. I’d probably ask for them to include some endgame content in a Friday Update and/or guild system information.
Thank you Jono for taking the time and answering my questions.
If you would like to have your guild featured in The Guild Sphere, just send an email to ralley752@gmail.com. Please include Guild Sphere in the subject line.
