We haven’t had a guild interview up for a few weeks. but we will try to make up for it, with a rather long interview with hte Team-Focused PvP and Raid Guild Condemned.
Enjoy!
Where did your guilds name come from?
While our guild initially formed back in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, the current tag was not instituted until our second title Warhammer: Online. Upon our entrance to Warhammer, we began the process of selecting a new tag and worked to find a name that represented the feel of what we envisioned the guild to be. A thread was posted on our forums requesting members to post suggestions. We knew we wanted the name to be both concise and serious in nature. Once we had gathered a substantial amount of names via member submission, leadership whittled down the available options to a list of the top five. With list in hand we began researching those names to see if they were in use by any noteworthy established guilds, be it in a current or previous game. Due to the fact that our members have always been confident in our play level and have high expectations in what we hope to achieve, as well as the fact that we also respect the efforts of others, we did not wish to diminish an existing guild by claiming their tag as our own. Following our research, was born.
Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentence description of your guild?
Condemned: A North American Team-Focused PvP and Raid Guild. We are an established guild with a proven track record through multiple games that has taken multiple world and server firsts in raiding and are known for performing at an even higher level in PvP. The two defining traits of our guild would be teamwork and organization and strive to bring them to a level that surpasses the competition.
How did your guild come about?
Our guild formed back in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and was the result of a two guild merger. The two guilds that made up this merger had been enemies on the traditional 2 faction rule set and had formed a respected adversarial relationship often coordinating PvP events between the two guilds. The PvP servers were later merged into a FFA (free for all) rule set and the two guilds, True Chaos and Dominion, merged into Havoc. We played under this tag for the remainder of our time in Vanguard and achieved much success during our stay on the Sartok Server. Some of those more noteworthy achievements would be taking the most Best of the Best Official Player Tournaments on the server and also being server firsts in a great deal of the raid content offered before our departure.
Upon leaving Vanguard there was some time before another game sparked our interest. That game coincidentally was Star Wars: The Old Republic. We had been following it since the start and believed the release date was going to occur much sooner than has been the case. In preparation for the release of SWTOR we began gathering the troops and started searching for a game we could play in the mean time. That game ended up being Warhammer Online. It also brought about some significant changes to our guild, most notably our tag, as this marked the first time we would be known as . While leadership and many of the core members remained from our days in Vanguard, the long downtime we faced as a guild prompted the need for a fresh beginning and thus we determined a name change was in order.
What kind of play style do you focus on? PvE, PvP, RP:
Our primary focus has been and will remain PvP. The slogan that best fists our PvP philosophy comes from the Cobra Kai Dojo in 80’s classic the Karate Kid, “strike first, strike hard, no mercy.” Aside from PvP Condemned has also enjoyed continued success in raid environments, for example in our most recent title, Rift: Planes of Telara, we remained world ranked 6th in progression before our departure. At minimum Condemned expects to be able to efficiently complete all content a game provides. As far as RP it is not a focus for the guild, I believe most of our members save that type of play for the bedroom.
What is your guild set up? How do you run your guild?
Condemned is ran via the typical benevolent dictatorship, that is most commonly seen in focused guilds. We have one GM, and a council of officers that assist the GM in any and all decisions seen fit. The GM delegates tasks to officers and puts some decisions to vote amongst members. Condemned hosts only officer positions as required, such as PR/Recruitment, PVP, PVE, Crafting officers and class leads. We promote and require high activity in the guild and thus use this as a conduit to receive feedback and announce important notices and events to or from our members fluidly.
How serious do you play and/or run the guild?
We are considered a hardcore guild. As a guild we have high expectations of what we hope to achieve in each title we take part in. Leadership works to put in the required effort to ensure the guild is able to attain those expectations. Our guild event schedule is Monday to Thursday 9:00 PM EST till 12:00 AM EST and we may also schedule an event for Sunday if we can provide adequate notice to members. This event schedule changes upon the release of new content if we are competing in progression for world or server firsts. Currently we hoping to continue utilizing our DKP system as it allows us to offer an incentive-based attendance model instead of merely tracking member presence for guild scheduled events. This may change depending on the loot distribution model for hard mode raid encounters in SWTOR. When screening applications at least concerning schedule we look for players that are able to attend at least 50 percent of those scheduled event times. Please note that I am deeming them scheduled events as we have both PvE and PvP events scheduled for the guild.
I would like to point out that while we are considered a hardcore guild, many players believe they would not be considered for the guild based on their previous experience or may even have an incorrect view of how our guild operates. That however, is often not the case. We look for players that are completive in nature, have a team-based attitude, and are “teachable”. Neglecting the “teachable” portion is where I believe most of the negative stigma associated with hardcore guilds is derived from. If a player is willing to learn and works to promote the team, nine out of ten times they can be taught to perform on a level that is appropriate to represent the tag. Most guilds don’t adequately cover what is expected from their newer members nor do they work to provide those players the tools to necessary meet those expectations. Our leadership is expected to mentor players and work to improve their team play. The way I look at it, if I can’t demonstrate for a player what is expected from them in a learning environment then I have no business leading. Our class leads also follow this view and work to continuously improve members from discussing strats, builds, consumables or even taking those players out to the practice dummy to work on their rotations. We also offer multiple guides for our members for raid environments often including video instructions. While players are expected to review these guides ahead of time we also go over the key points of each boss for new raiders before each pull. The tone of our events is professional; we do not tolerate other members or leadership publically calling out players during an event. If there is an issue, an officer not leading the raid, addresses that person privately in another Vent channel. Little things like these make all the difference in reducing guild drama and help to promote a sense of unity amongst our members.
Do you have ranks or a certain hierarchy in your guild?
Our guild utilizes a very simple rank structure as mentioned before; we have a sole GM, Officers for each area of focus (PvP, PvE, DKP, Crafting, and Recruitment/PR), Officer Assistants for each area of focus to assist Officers, and Class Leads. There is a three week probationary period for all new recruits. During their probationary period new recruits possess the same rights as members, though during this time we more thoroughly evaluating their play level, ensuring they are drama free and verifying that they possess team-based attitudes.
When selecting players for leadership positions, we look at individual merit and what that player has done to better the guild during their stay, no matter how long it may have been. These positions are not created solely to have additional leadership slots, but instead their creation is sparked by the guild possessing a genuine need for their contribution. works to recognize players based on their contributions and holds all members to the same standard.
Why did you choose the Republic?
We work to be the best and want to face the best. The trend in recent games has been that the majority of players tend to select the “evil faction” on PvP servers. This seems to also hold true for SWTOR. The current ratio is around 2 to 1 in favor of guilds that are intending to roll Sith on PvP servers. Outnumbering the opposing faction does not interest us nor does aligning with other guilds in such a manner as to “zerg” down the competition. We can’t claim to be the best if we require a numerical advantage to defeat our opposition. Based on this we decided to go Republic even though it did shatter my hopes and dreams of playing a bounty hunter as I did back in SWG.
Why do you run a guild?
Even though I have been running a guild for multiple games now, I initially had no aspirations to do so. Back in Vanguard, I was content simply playing with the team and making my contributions in a member capacity. These efforts resulted in me unexpectedly being bumped up to Officer and then later slapped with the GM tag when our original GM made an unannounced departure from the game. At first It was a little overwhelming but I was very fortunate to have a core of quality players that allowed me to keep the guild consistently operating at a high level. From that point on I have remained GM and I am privileged that many of those original members have continued the journey with me and will be making the jump to SWTOR.
How do you approach Raid Planning?
In SWTOR we will be fielding multiple raids at the same time. We generally will be setting up these raids with equal skill levels, so in most cases there will not be an A and B team. In Condemned, we expect the best from all our players and the success of these raids should meet those expectations. Officers will be capable of leading their own raid groups and we will house the required classes to allow for these multiple raid groups to be successful. As stated before, we will be posting guides for members to read for PvE content after we have successfully learned and created our own strategies.
Here is a video of our server first Greenscale kill in Rift for the Deepstrkie server:
Are you always open for new recruits or do you want to keep a certain guild size?
We have a specific size we are aiming for as we are not looking to outnumber the competition. We would however still selectively recruit players of exception skill that may apply after we hit that mark.
Age Requirement?
Our guild has a minimum age requirement of 18. While our guild enjoys hanging out with each other and having fun, we expect members to be capable of acting maturely which is often not a direct reflection on age.
Guild size?
Our current guild roster is around 60 players and our intended size for launch is 80. This assumes that during prime time about 1/3 of our members won’t be online and so it would allow us to have approximately 50 players available for large scale RvR.
What makes your guild stand out from everyone else? What makes your guild unique?
We are results driven. Many guilds claim success or state intentions to be a server first guild, but aren’t necessarily able to show a track record of past achievement. While we applaud the ambition and vision of these guilds, in Condemned we pride ourselves on what we have achieved in the past and possess a track record that illustrates our continued success.
In every game that we partake in, we work to play at a high level and aim to be the best on our server in both PVP domination and PVE progression. Here are some examples of that work coming to fruition from games at both end of our guild history: our most recent game, RIFT, alongside our first game, Vanguard:
Top one is the server ranking for our guild in Rift. There we were World Ranked sixth in raid progression on Rift-Progress.com before the site was taken down and remained in that slot until our departure from the game. Next four are pictures are of our “Best of the Best” winners in Vanguard, given to a tournament winner for the best player in each class. Our guild had the most tournament winners on our server.
In addition our Youtube channel has videos of some of our other accomplishments. My personal favourite is:
This shows a pvp encounter from our rival guild’s point of view.
You might ask what we would attribute that continued success to. The answer is simple: we always follow-through and we persevere. hasn’t reinvented the wheel, our guild is based on the same principles as many other legions. We value teamwork and organization and feel those attributes are the cornerstone for our guild’s success. While it is easy to know the ideals a successful guild should promote, it is much harder to find players with commitment levels needed to strive to attain them, and establish a culture and atmosphere that reinforces those ideals over time. ‘s officers simply go above and beyond. We don’t promote members solely based on their time in the guild, nor do we create positions of little value just to have more leadership slots available. While much is expected from those who possess these positions, accountability is not limited to leadership, but shared amongst our members. Team-based attitudes and the drive to excel are the main qualities we search for in all recruits. Our members represent the tag as a unit. They are held to the same standard and we don’t make exceptions based on level of skill. We recruit players we feel possess the ability to be a contributing member of the team and who are teachable over established players that demonstrate poor attitudes or are selfish in nature. Many guilds don’t make this distinction and will simply take an established player based on them having fame or reputation in the community, even if that player is detrimental to the betterment of their guild. works to build the best “team,” and as a team we expect to be the best you will find on the battlefield.
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?
Currently our members are staying active playing various games such as League of Legends, Dead Island and Global Agenda together in Vent. Our core has been playing together for quite a while now, some players are real life friends while others have only met through gaming together.
What Other Games are you currently playing as a guild?
Two nights a week we play the free trial of Warhammer Online as a guild. The trial only allows players to reach level 10, but we are using it to work on coordination and to get new members used to our system in PvP. This helps us to get to know our members as well as work on target calling/assisting and also, allows us to evaluate how well new members are performing. Even at low level we still are able to work on the basics.
If somebody is interested now how and where can they apply for membership?
As a fair warning our application process is fairly lengthy. Those who are interested should complete and submit an application on our site located here http://condemnedguild.enjin.com/home. Applications are then screened and those that pass initial review are scheduled for interviews in Ventrillo. Interviews are fairly detailed and run about 30 minutes in length. Upon the completion of an interview leadership again reviews the application and votes as to whether or not to accept that player as a new recruit into the legion. Recruits are placed on a three week probationary period that begins when they are able to play with us in game, be it in any guild beta or actual release. During the recruit period players are not limited in any way and share the same rights regular members possess. At the end of the three weeks, leadership meets and evaluates the player making sure they possess a team-based attitude and are playing at a level that is consistent to other Condemned members.
One last question, if there was one thing you could ask the Dev’s to include, what would it be?
There is already talk of rated warzones in the future which is of particular interest to our guild. Establishing such a system as well as offering incentive based RvR objects are two items we would like developed for SWTOR. Preferably there will be some RvR objectives that recognize a particular guild’s efforts and not solely their faction. An example of this would be Warhammer’s keep mechanic that displayed the tag of the guild who controlled that particular objective instead of merely designating it in control of a particular faction.
