We had the chance to speak with a few of the members of Ancient Impact, a guild part of the Impact Gaming Community which is home to over 100 active members in chapters such as Final Fantasy Online, Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Ancient Impact is currently the fourth official chapter of Impact Gaming as they prepare to claim their spot in The Elder Scrolls Online. The members who participated in this interview include Grey, Zeymah, Huntersknoll and Redblade; check out what they’re doing to prepare for The Elder Scrolls Online in the interview below.
Hey guys, can you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your role in Ancient Impact?
Grey: I’m the Community Manager. I founded Impact Gaming Community (IGC) over 2 years ago and since then one of my primary tasks has been making sure each guild is running at an efficient level and up to a high standard. As far as Ancient Impact is concerned I am currently overseeing the staffing of Zeymah (Guild Leader) and Huntersknoll (Recruitment), providing guidance for recruitment, and generally keeping up on the day-to-day while offering advice and providing insight. I’ve been in guild management as almost as a veritable part-time job for about a decade now and it’s been nothing short of exciting every step of the way. Bringing in a new guild like Ancient Impact is a real joy.
Zeymah: I am Zeymah Grohiik, but first I’ll tell you that I was first part of the Impact Gaming Community, which will be three years old this coming October. My first experience with the community was through Star Wars: The Old Republic, though that was a while ago. That is what brings me here, to the present. Now I am the Guild Leader for the Impact Gaming Community’s first official chapter to be added during 2013, Ancient Impact. So far, I’ve been working closely with my leadership staff to really build a strong guild to withstand the times. So far we’ve been successful and it’s been a lot of work. But totally worth it!
Huntersknoll: Hi! I’m Huntersknoll and I am the recruitment officer for Ancient Impact. If you apply to the guild I’ll be the responding back to you and answering any questions you have.
Redblade: My name is Redblade, I am now the PVE Officer of Ancient Impact. It is my job to set up all of the policies we will have for everything that involves raiding. This means I will be in charge of leading the raid, dealing with the attendance, setting up the DKP system in which we will use to distribute loot, and setting up what is needed for raiding, i.e. consumables, strats and videos, etc.
Can you tell us a little more about your guild, including back story and planned playstyle?
Grey: Well, Ancient Impact is currently one of four MMORPG chapters within IGC. Each guild here builds a semi-hardcore playerbase. That is to say we look for players that are skilled and play hard when they’re on, but don’t necessarily have a ton of time to play (3h/day on average). We consider ourselves a ”working man’s community” and so our guilds carry that ethos with them as well. Ancient Impact falls right in line with that.
Zeymah: Ancient Impact is advertised and defined as a semi-hardcore end-game PvX guild. When I say semi-hardcore, I mean we still strive to be the best and progress through the newest and hardest content. But we understand that our members have personal lives, and that things happen in those lives that can make it difficult to play any MMO.
Right now, the main plan is end-game PvE like raiding, dungeons, etc. But because we are a “PvX” guild, we really yearn to be competitive in the PVP area as well.
What is your primary focus in the coming months as you wait for the release of The Elder Scrolls Online?
Grey: I’d like to say we’re gonna do it all, but I give the AI Guild Leader and his officers full reins and control of their guild so that’s up to them. My guess would be that our focus is everything (PvX), but overtime our playerbase will likely settle into 1 or 2 events they really enjoy above all and we’ll go from there.
Zeymah: Recruitment and shaping the guild for end-game, hands down. Luckily I’ve got a great Recruitment Officer and Raid Officer to work with and together we’ve really achieved a lot in just a few days. We are always recruiting quality members to join Ancient Impact.
Huntersknoll: My focus in the new upcoming months is to start filling our ranks with great players. What good is a guild without great players who are serious about the game but also want to have fun.
Redblade: My focus is simple. I plan to make sure that our guild is as ready as possible to enter the PVE raids, dungeons, instances, and whatever else ESO has in store for us. I will be preparing all of our core members for whatever challenges might arise when the game is released. Along with that, I will be keeping up to date on what information I can receive from ESO as to better my preparations for the launch of the game.
What first made you interested in forming a guild for ESO?
Grey: Personally I am a HUGE Elder Scrolls fan. Ever since a friend of mine turned me onto it around the time of Morrowind, I’ve fallen in love with the lore and overall replayability of the series. When we heard TES:O was announced, launching a guild was a no-brainer. From my standpoint, IGC can do anything it wants as long as we put the right people in place, and the officer core we’re building right now is on-point with everything we already do here. They’re gonna bring their own flair to the guild just as previous officer councils have and I know AI will be a really special place to play as we look forward to beta, release, and end game pursuits.
Zeymah: Well, I was checking up on the Impact Gaming Community and after getting some personal hype for the Elder Scrolls Online, I noticed they were trying to form up a chapter for ESO. I started talking with Grey, the Community Manager, and I was given the Guild Leader position. He set myself and Huntersknoll (Recruitment Officer) some projects to do, and we set it off right away with recruitment and building the guild’s foundation and structure. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but with this community.
What are some of the features you’re most looking forward and hoping for in ESO?
Grey: PvE, massive scale battles. That’s my thing.
Zeymah: I know it won’t be put into the game at launch, but I’m really looking forward to the player housing feature. I feel like this is an extremely underrated feature among your top MMORPG games, but I’m glad to see it gaining some popularity. I’m also looking forward to the combat system. It’s something different, something more challenging that targeting something and relying on your block rating to negate some of the damage. It’ll be a lot of fun to be able to put some skill into knowing when to block.
Huntersknoll: The active combat system! This is something completely new to MMO’s as of lately and I think ESO will do it perfect. Also adventuring through the zones and doing dungeon runs with guild members is something I’m looking forward to.
Redblade: I am looking forward to the end-game instancing and raiding of ESO. The class synergy that they have mentioned seems incredible and the gameplay makes it look like raiding will be much more instinctive and adaptable.
What’s going to separate your guild from all of the other ESO guilds currently being formed?
Grey: From the mountain of applications we’ve already received, I’ve seen ”organization” come up often in our comments section. It’s true too, and it’s something we really pride ourselves in. As a community, we are articulate about who we promote to officer and I personally spend a lot of time screening new leaders. We’re not just some thrown-together band of dudes who like Elder Scrolls; we’re the real deal. We use professional-grade tools to keep our players informed and never cut corners on productivity. This isn’t a job, but terms like that help the kinds of players we attract understand that (many of them are 25-35). This guild is part of a strong community and I’m confident it will last as we bring in members who believe in our philosophy and fit our playstyle. One of the tenets of IGC is transparency and it’s important to us that members know what’s happening every step of the way. We don’t deal in shady crap like some other guilds and when I founded IGC, I made sure that was in our first guild’s charter and every one since.
Zeymah: When you join Ancient Impact, you aren’t just joining a guild. You’re joining the entire community of all kinds of different people. We have a ton of members that play more than just their primary game, like League of Legends and MechWarrior Online. There is always discussion on the forums about various topics, and there are always people on TeamSpeak to chat with. Everyone in the community is very open armed.
But with Ancient Impact, we have a professional team of leadership. From myself, the Guild Leader, to the Recruitment Officer and Raid Officer. Everything is structured to eliminate as much hassle and confusion as possible through administrative work.
Huntersknoll: We are getting a group of players together that are serious about gaming but also know how to have fun.
Redblade: We have great leadership coming from our officers. We are all extremely dedicated to performing our best and getting in to ESO with a running start. Also, Impact Gaming is an incredible community. So we have a lot of support coming everywhere.
When was your guild formed? What kind of MMO experience do you have?
Grey: Oh that’s tough to say. Officially it was formed around the end of January, but it’s been in our hearts since we first heard about TES:O. We attract players from all walks of life at similar skill levels. We have ”all kinds” of MMO experience, but most importantly we have time-tested leadership and players that are dedicated to our guild mission statements. Our players have run the gamut on free-to-play, mass-market, and even little-known MMORPGs. If you name it, someone here has played it, I can guarantee that (lol). Me personally though, I spent most of my teen years MUDding (if you know what these are, you should probably check us out!). I moved onto EverQuest in the late 90s in the Kunark days, and made the shift to Final Fantasy XI when that launch. After a (too) long stint there, I played Aion prior to forming Neutral Impact, our FFXIV chapter. That would later lead to the foundation of Impact Gaming Community when we would add Rift some months later. Now we’ve come a long way, have played a ton of games along the way, and we’ve got a great core building up for Ancient Impact that will definitely make an IMPACT on the world of Tamriel.
Zeymah: The guild was officially named a chapter of the Impact Gaming Community not too long ago when I was named Guild Leader and we started recruiting more members. However, the Impact Gaming Community was formed back in 2010/2011 by Grey Jorildyn and his guild Neutral Impact when they added their second chapter for Rift.
As far as MMO experience goes, I’ve played a lot of the major games out there. Like a lot of MMORPG players, I used to play World of Warcraft. I did a lot of hardcore raiding in that game, but the game slowly became lackluster for me. I’ve played other games like Rift, Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars 1 & 2, as well as various of the popular free-to-play ones out there. I also indulge myself in a lot of Battlefield 3, and RTS games like Age of Empires and Rise of Nations.
Huntersknoll: The guild was formed about a week ago. My first MMO was Guild Wars which led me into World of Warcraft. After WoW I played quite a bit of Warhammer Online and I am currently playing Guild Wars 2 on and off.
Redblade: I was a raid leader for a guild in World of Warcraft from Molten Core(the first raid instance released) all the way through the expansions up to Cataclysm in which I led my guild through Deathwing(The hardest raid the expansion had to offer.) I had several characters at each level cap of each expansion, fulfilling the role of caster, ranged and melee dps, healing, and tanking.
We want to thank the members of Ancient Impact and the Impact Gaming Community for taking the time to answer our questions and give such great responses. If you’re interested in joining Ancient Impact or Impact Gaming visit them on their Website.
