Clan Ultionis

Ultionis: You are the leader of the clan The Mercs, currently playing Darkfall
beta. Can you tell us some more about your clan and what games you have
played before as a clan?

Osium: TheMercs was formed in 1992 I believe it was by Assassin and Thyrm for
Redbaron on Sierra-Online. They quickly moved over to Shadows of Yserbius
and established themselves the force in what is the earliest graphical
online RPG I am aware of. From there TM moved to Darksun Online which was
contemporary with the original NWN and Meridian59. TheMercs were the top
guild in Darksun Online before they left the game. Eventually they attempted
to come back but the clan and all it’s members were either banned or
threatened with a banning. Even uttering the guild name was a bannable
offense. The official reasoning was that “TheMercs” even just the name
caused panick and created a detremental environment for players.We moved to
Ultima Online beta where we were one of three very high profile player
killing beta guilds, the others being Inner Circle and The Obsidian Circle.
From there we moved to Atlantic server at release where we were extremely
successful. The guild hit a rough patch with Everquest and a large number of
players who had helped make us such a monster success in Ultima Online
refused to play Everquest and ultimately quit the guild. While some members
continued to play EQ on Rallos Zek and were quite successful, I struck out
into Asherons Call beta. With no previous experience in the game within a
week I had established myself as the most recognizable and best known
personality in the beta, primarily due to my extremely quick leveling and
the fact I was one of the only players who had flipped their PvP switch.
During the AC beta I was able to gather around myself some of the best young
FPS gamers in the world who were experimenting with MMO’s for the first time
with Rupture and Zen. We moved to the PvP server at release and again were
extremely successful. Most players who played Asherons Call Darktide from
release onwards consider our era of dominance in that game as the golden age
of what was probably the most successful PvP server in MMO history.
Following Asherons Call, which in hindsight we left prematurely, there
really have not been any games that have really piqued our interest. We have
been around, in every major release since Asherons Call with the exception
of Shadowbane (we deemed the game to be an abortion early in beta), our
presence in these games has varied from light to heavy, but talking about a
PvP guilds accomplishments in WoW is assinine, it isn’t why we play or even
what we like to play and is largely irrelavent to the history of a
PvP/Pkilling guild. Suffice to say we’ve always been at or around the top in
any game we play on any server we play.

U: What feature in Darkfall do you like the most? Why is Darkfall a game
worth playing?

O: There are almost too many to list but given the length of my previous post I
will try to hit just the most important ones. First, it is an FPS style of
gameplay. Immediately this style favors us when one considers a majority of
the guild is made up of ex members of Evil Geniuses, one of the most
dominant early FPS clan around, EG was responsible for extremely famous FPS
gamers like Reptile, Immortal, Icewolf. Guys who went to the early PGL’s and
won. So obviously an FPS style of gameplay is a huge draw for us. Second,
the game offers freedom in terms of PvP, there are no constraints, no
artificial rule sets. Everything is organic. If it makes sense in real life,
it probably will work in Darkfall. Having the most guys at a fight (within
reason) does not always mean you automatically get to win by running /assist
trains and dumping critical mass DPS on people one by one. Being outnumbered
in combat gives you a form of camoflage.

U: Some of the things that were planned to make retail were cut, what
planned feature would you have liked to see in retail?

O: I would have liked to see Four Legged Running not postponed until after
retail. I think this is a mistake, but at the same time I can understand
with manpower issues someone like 4LR being postponed. However, it is a
MAJOR feature and drawing point for people choosing their race especially in
a one character per server system. To not know how it will work is not a
good situation to put paying customers in.

U: You were quite vocal when Aventurine recently added markers on party and
guild members and called it “almost a gamebreaker”. Why is this such a big
deal to you? Would it have been any different if they instead introduced
dyes or other methods of showing your clan affiliation?

O: I touched on this briefly in the second question. Essentially his limits the
freedom and real world tactics that can be used. This in essense becomes at
targetting aid. People say in that thread argued “you can turn it off” or
“it is only on your clan members” To that I can only shake my head. Any
floating indicator be it on friends or on foes offers an immediate
infallible system of recognition. Turning it off will only put players who
do at a disadvantage. Dyes or other organic methods of identification which
can be countered by in game craftiness are fine and I support 100%.

U: Before this interview, I watched two of the fraps made by The Mercs. Is
fraps just a way to advertice or do you feel it serves more purposes?

O: Both, it is a way for us to get PR, and it is a way for people to see what
is possible in this game. We are not going to bullshit about the game, it is
rough around the edges but there is no other game out there right now that
will be driven by the players rather than by “The Vision”. We are not on a
disney ride here, there will be alliances, betrayals, power blocs, alliances
made to balance power. There will be small groups, big groups, there will be
PvP as it is meant to be. I see Darkfall as a cry from old time gamers who
can sit down and enjoy playing a mindless game for 15 minutes, but don’t
want that to be all there is. As it stands right now, the consolization of
gaming is in full swing, the trend in gaming since the advent of 3d
accellerators has been, make it look pretty, simplify it and make it as
accessible as possible. There are obviously some exceptions but the majority
of titles are sold on this. WoW is a perfect example, and while it is
massively successful commercially and nobody can argue that, should argue
that or begrudge them for it, some people want more, they want complexity,
they want depth and they want these things above accessibility and per pixel
shading bump maping version 15. As long as there are people who want this,
then small developers like Adventurine can come in and be financially
successful by catering to us. I guess I got a little bit off topic but
whatever ;p

U: What plans do you have for the Mercs come retail? Are you staying on the
euroservers if/when NA release comes?

We plan to kick ass and take names, make lots of enemies and few if any
friends. We will be transferring our characters to the NA servers when it
releases here as the majority of the guild is NA based.

U: In previous interviews on this blog we have discussed clanleaders playing
support classes. Darkfall is not really build like that, but are you as a
clanleader focusing on spellweaving or do you have other plans for your
character?

O: I don’t think people should pidgeonhole themselves in this game. It is
counter productive. Everyone should be a threat in a three dimensional
manner. You should be skilled at melee combat archery and magic. Depending
on the skill cap you may want to specialize more or less in one area or
another, however the fact is, if you are not at least proficient in all
areas you are going to be handicapping your character. I also don’t think
this will lead to cookie cutter characters. Everyone might be able to use
all three forms of combat, but not everyone will be focused in exactly the
same areas and in exactly the same way.