lf you think role playing is for carebears and geeks, then the Blagtoof Wartribe/PhM would reeducate you with the business end of their bloodstained weapons.

The Blagtoof Wartribe/PhM has been kicking ass in character since 1996. Originating on the UO Catskills server in 1996, they earned their initial fame by building and running the largest UO city: ShadarLogoth. Since then they’ve ground the heels of their boots into game worlds from Shadowbane to WoW.

The Wartribe prides itself on it’s prowess as role players and well as player killing. They coined the acronym RP-PK’er to describe themselves. Always the innovators, while in wait for the release of WAR they’ve created their own guild version of the Orcish language and launched an online system for Orcish bounty hunting.

Old UO was the best. Bar none. The PK days. The red days. The days where you walked outside town and you got your face planted into the dirt and body dry-looted.

In this interview, the main Toof, Ghrazsnik himself takes a few minutes to tell PlayerVox about the Wartribe way.

PlayerVox: The Blagtoof Wartribe/PhM has been around for 10 years, how did it all start off and what kept you going as a guild through the movement between different games?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: It honestly started when I read an article in a magazine about UO. I mentioned it to a good friend, we researched it, found out that the beta was coming. I pretty much instantly got to work at creating the guild—back then they called it a clan. Soon the web site was up, we were beta testing, and once UO was released, we immediately created the Clan in game. Contrary to some hate mail I’ve been getting, yes we have been around as a full functioning organization since 1996. As far as what kept us going from game to game? Simple. Ego. We’re a group of real life friends, actually, but my enormous ego is what keeps feeding the monster. So from game to game, people hate us for what we are more and more, and it keeps us going, laughing and having a basic blast. You have to admit, having people you don’t know dedicate their online lives to hating your guts is pretty damned entertaining. We all maintain contact, we talk daily, and in the end, what keeps it going from game to game really is the gigantic and well earned ego the guild has. We think we’re the greatest thing on Earth and we’re right.

PlayerVox: Why exactly do these people hate you? Do you grief them?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: They hate what they don’t get. We don’t set out to bother anyone, truthfully. We go about our business, keep to ourselves, we don’t NEED anybody else to play and enjoy ourselves, and that seems to piss off people that think we SHOULD need them, we SHOULD ask them for help and we SHOULD rely on outsiders. As far as why enemies hate us…well…it’s simple: They can’t beat us no matter how hard they try and it pissed them off to no end. Nobody likes to die in video games. Nobody likes to lose. The main difference is, they all care and we don’t. I gladly rush into 30 people all by myself. It’s not that I think I’m going to win. I know I won’t. But guess what? I’ll take a few with me and THAT’S what makes them hate us. And the entire guild has that ability and mind set. People hate what they don’t understand and they despise what they can’t beat. And to top it all off we don’t "make nicey nice" with them afterwards. We never run out and scream "look at us!!!" But somehow people decide we’re the ones to beat. People shouldn’t set their goals so impossibly high

PlayerVox: What games do you think have the most amount of promise for your gaming style? And what do you think could be improved of that game(s) model?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: Old UO was the best. Bar none. The PK days. The red days. The days where you walked outside town and you got your face planted into the dirt and body dry-looted. But coming up? There’s only one game that I see as "our game". Warhammer Online. Not only is it based on a property that our entire organization was inspired by, but it promises to be a game where we can be ourselves, rely on ourselves, and really just come home and clean house for our realm. To clarify, we’re not griefers and basic dicks. We’re dicks to people that try and prove something against us. But to our friends, and this is what I can’t wait for, we’re going to carve a bloody path through the world. What I think can be improved with W.A.R., I honestly have no idea yet. I would like as much customization as possible, as little loot focus as possible and as much player ownership (houses and such) as possible. We’ll never see the old UO days again, but I think W.A.R. will bring us as close a possible while maintaining the "order" MMOs need now a days with the brats running rampant and all.

PlayerVox: The Blagtoof Wartribe/PhM are an old guild. What drama has your guild gone through?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: Basically you fuck up in my guild and you’re out. No blinking, no begging, no whining or crying about it. The rules are clear and I don’t care who you are, you blow it, you’re gone. Drama, well, same thing goes. We don’t tolerate it. Period. Have we had some? Yep. How long did it last? Not very. I can give you a few good examples if you’d like. They always turn out pretty funny for us. Being a family type guild, we get members 1 of 2 ways. I or an officer directly invites someone, or they are referred to by a member and that member speaks up for them. This usually works, but sometimes we get the nutballs too.

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: Example: One guy had his mommy join the guild. That worked out for about a week. Until she decided it was our job to level her up. She threw a temper tantrum in Ventrilo and was promptly removed. I still have the recording, it’s too funny to delete. And yes, everyone in the guild records and screenshots everything. That’s the best way to get rid of drama. Proof of what people say tends to bite them in the ass when they lie about it later. Then this guy’s friend decided SHE wanted special treatment and didn’t like the way I handled the removal of his mother. She was tossed too. Then he went on an emotional trip about how his life sucked, he brought dishonor to the guild, wah wah wah, yadda yadda yadda. He was kicked too. So was his wife and the rest of their friends. This spawned conversations with the members, and of course, screenshots. One of the officers made a YTMND page. It’s hysterical. Of course things like this is why people say we’re the biggest jerk offs on the Internet or some other weird crap, but to me, that’s just damned funny.

PlayerVox: Got any more examples?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: Uhm…nope! In 10 years that’s the most drama we have ever seen because I cut that crap right out immediately. The only reason that lasted 3 days is because I wasn’t feeling too well and wasn’t online at the time. Yes, even I get sick. LOL. We’ve had OUTSIDE drama more. People finding out my home number, calling me up to curse at me for something other guildies did, people trying to frame me and other members for crap we weren’t even online for. All kinds of fun stuff! People dedicate enormous amounts of time hating us. It takes me 7 seconds to upload a kill shot with some nasty little comment, but that comment incites years of hatred towards us. LOL

PlayerVox: What is your favorite moment with the Blagtoof Wartribe/PhM online in a MMORPG?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof: That’s probably the hardest question I’ve ever been asked in interviews about the guild. I don’t think anyone that’s been around as long as we have could honestly answer that in one shot. I’ll give you one for each game we’ve been active in.

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof remembers UO: One guild had 72 "Romans". They all just saw The Gladiator and thought they could form a guild based on that crap and who’d they target for their first war? Us. Moridin and I used the island of Magincia, which we had houses on, and totally wrecked 72 guild members within a few hours. They all quit that guild to avoid being killed by us until their leader declared peace. It ended with him flaming us, then apologizing in the city of Yew for being a coward

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof remembers Shadowbane: My favorite moment was when I was told I was the biggest scum bag in MMO history for what we did. We started in Shadowbane as subbed to a larger guild. Within 4 months we made backdoor deals with every major enemy force on the server and helped our hoste bane every major city tree and take over the game world. They left Shadowbane shortly after, not much to do once you’ve betrayed and taken over the world.

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof for today: My favorite moment is still happening. People send our members tells constantly saying how much they love us. And the alt tells from people we kill are utterly fantastic. We have a section on the site for a small spot of them. I think my overall favorite moment in our guilds MMO history has yet to happen. And I think it’ll happen when we can finally log into W.A.R. for the first time and create the guild.

PlayerVox: What advice do you have for new, up and coming guild leaders?

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof If you’re going to do it, then do it right. Too many people just mass recruit. Quantity does not equal quality. I look at anyone that blindly mass recruits as a flash in the pan scrub that honestly doesn’t care enough to think about what they’re adding to their guild, so why should anyone take them seriously. Well as seriously as anyone would when it comes to video games…Think about what you want to do with the guild and do it. Don’t do things because "x guild is going it so we have to". That doesn’t work well either. If you try and copy everyone else out there, then you’ll fade into the crowd of useless guilds that nobody bothers to do interviews about.

PlayerVox: Thanks for the interview, Ghrazsnik.

Ghrazsnik Blagtoof Anytime and no problem. Thanks for recognizing us and giving us our due credit…WE WILL NOT BE DENIED!…or some such nonsense.