Meet Shadowclan, blurring the line between NPC and PC for a decade. This crowd is for bloodthirsty roleplayers who make the worlds they inhabit just a little more fun, even as they are demanding tribute. Read on:
PlayerVox: We’ve got K’Dah, Hugzug, and Parfug with us today. To start off, why don’t you tell us how Shadowclan started off, why it was startedm and what your goals and ideals were/are for the group.
K’Dah: Shadowclan was started by the Elders, two guys that were bored of the stupid NPC monsters in UO and wanted there to be better opponents. They decided to become these better opponents themselves, for others. So they dressed as orcs and went into character, as orcs.
The idea took off, ended up being a lot of fun, and gathering hundreds, and then thousands of members. The Shadowclan has evolved a lot since then, but our basic goal is still to be the fun, role-playing enemy of the standard player.
"I first heard about "a whole group of murderers at the orc fort in Yew" shortly after I started playing on Catskills. Most people who I talked to at that time thought it was great until they went there and had 30 orcs rush out the front door and chase them into the woods."
Hugzug: Hoowah Shadowclan!
PlayerVox: Can you describe to us Shadowclan’s roleplaying mentality and rules/guidelines?
K’Dah: Our RP mentality is RP (stay in character) 24/7 while in the game. Everything is roleplayed, and handled with roleplay. We look at everything as our characters would. Of course, what this means changes from game to game and race to race. Our rules are always stay in character, and don’t ruin other’s fun.
PlayerVox: Shadowclan is famous for using "Black Speech.” Are the roots of this language firmly with Tolkien Orcs or have you altered it to your needs?
K’Dah: The language is actually a combination of many things. As everyone that has looked at Tolkien’s Blackspeech knows, there’s not enough of it to speak it. We use what he gave us, some words from Warhammer, and a lot of words developed over the years by us ourselves.
PlayerVox: Is the language spoke 100% of the time by members when in character? Or do you allow for members to speak normally when tired even while RP’ing?
K’Dah: We try to keep it simple. The majority of the words are just ‘Broken English’ and easy for new members to decipher.
Parfug: They can if they want to get killed and accused of being oomie spies!!
K’Dah: We stay in character 24/7. So no ‘humie blah’
Hugzug: SKAH! If them blah in oomie blah… me cut dem’s tongue out!
K’Dah: Though, like I said, it’s not a hard language to learn. Ten words memorized and you’re speaking it.
K’Dah: The rest is just broken English.
Hugzug: As the long term female playing a female “makr” (usually cook), I’ve taken to cutting tongues out and feeding them for dinner to everyone. We rarely have orc tongue for dinner anymore *snickers*
Parfug: Yeah, more than a few people have complained they couldn’t understand it only to be fluent in it a week later.
Hugzug: It took me about two weeks to be fluent. My husband and I would practice to/from work while we commuted to our jobs.
Hugzug: Counting was the worst for me. I still spell “three” wrong to this day.
"We’d go to dungeons with maybe 100 kobolds. It was quite a sight." PlayerVox: From what I’ve gleaned from your site and some other UO players, I’ve learned that you took the place of NPCs in UO and controlled an Orc Fort. Can you tell us how that worked, how the logistics worked and what the reactions from your fellow Catskill players were like?
K’Dah: How it originally worked is that we moved to the orc fort, and then never left. We were there around the clock, so other players came to think of it as ours. Eventually Origin realized we were adding fun to the game, and had become a landmark, so they sanctioned our possession of the fort by marking it as ours on Catskills.
As for the logistics of keeping it - that was a challenge. We’d lose it and regain it several times a day on the more active days.
Parfug: I first heard about "a whole group of murderers at the orc fort in Yew" shortly after I started playing on Catskills. Most people who I talked to at that time thought it was great until they went there and had 30 orcs rush out the front door and chase them into the woods.
K’Dah: We kept it any way we could (while never exploiting). We’d fight, die, fight, die, and come back to fight some more.
Parfug: It became a huge source of fun for the shard
K’Dah: Eventually we convinced Origin to remove most of the NPC orcs there because they interfered with the fights.
PlayerVox: And what’s the story with you guys being enshrined in DAoC lore?
K’Dah: When we went to DAoC, we were looking for a race to fit us there. We eventually decided on the Kobolds, as they were small, and so lent themselves well to a ‘pack’ mentality. We created kobolds. All kobolds. A huge clan of kobolds. And we became known for it. So, when DAoC went to describe Kobolds, we naturally fit into the description.
K’Dah: We’d go to dungeons with 50, 75, maybe 100 kobolds. It was quite a sight.
Parfug: And the guild was so strong such for a long time in DAoC
K’Dah: We’d stick together, group with almost nobody else, and demand tribute from everyone else in the area. And if they refused, they got swarmed. Others on the same server learned to avoid us or carry tribute.
Hugzug: *bows* thank you Parfug! I helped open that branch.
PlayerVox: What games are Shadowclan currently playing? Have their been any attempts to do something akin to the Orcs of Catskills and the Orc Fort in those games?
Parfug: We still have a branch playing UO on a the player run shard of Angel Island.
Hugzug: I know are are also still active in WoW. My husband has his orc in our branch there.
K’Dah: We currently have a small presence in almost all of the MMORPGs out there. Though nothing strong currently. We’re waiting for a game that fits us better than what’s currenly available, much like UO and DAoC fit us. And yes, we’d love to duplicate the UO/DAoC Shadowclan experience. But it takes a game that’s more of a sandbox with open PvP. That’s rare these days.
Parfug: Shadowbane was a pretty big success for us too. We were an all Irekei guild got very very deep into the lore and culture of the race.
K’Dah: Yep, until Shadowbane died, we were there and well known.
PlayerVox: What MMORPGs currently in development is Shadowclan looking forward to?
K’Dah: We’re currently watching WAR and AoC most closely. Both look to be good games.
Parfug: There are also a few who are still praying for Darkfall
K’Dah: And, of course, Darkfall, if it doesn’t turn out to be Vaporware.
PlayerVox: "How does one join Shadowclan? Is there an application process?"
K’Dah: And the answer is that we’re open to everyone. We’re an open membership guild. We’ve had over 10,000 members in our 10 years. All it takes to join Shadowclan is to find a game we’re in, create a character that fits our rules, and show up.
K’Dah: And roleplay. It’s an important feature of Shadowclan.
Very few other guilds are open membership. It means that anyone can join us and have fun. They don’t have to be a friend, or competent at PvP, or max level, or any of the typical requirements.
PlayerVox: Do you think roleplayers are a dying breed in modern MMORPGs? Or are we just waiting for an MMORPG without the leash, eg. Darkfall?
Parfug: I don’t think they are dying out at all. It’s definitely difficult for those of us who like to include lots of maiming and breaking of each others bones in our roleplay with the current selection of games out there.
K’Dah: I don’t think the number of role-players has changed that much. There are still large numbers of people out there that will roleplay if it’s fun, and there are others to roleplay with them. It’s just the games these days discourage it. As mentioned above, a sandbox game and open PvP are very important to RP.
Hugzug: I don’t see our way dying out because it’s different and not "cookie cutter" role play. On many games that provide role play [servers], I do see less and less of it and more of them being just general shards.
Parfug: More and more people are playing these online games, and they will run into people roleplaying and some will become interested in it. That is one of the things we have always done well.Many of our members, including me, had never roleplayed in any kind of organized or serious way before encountering Shadowclan
Hugzug: *cookie cutter role play* for me equals a role play server where everyone thinks they have to do the "thee" "thou" speech and are stuck to that. Most people do not realize role play can really be anything left to your imagination.
Parfug: That’s why it’s important to always interact and roleplay with everyone you run into. Even if they are calling you a newb and saying horrible things about your mother.
PlayerVox: Do you believe there can be roleplaying without PvP? Or do you think the two come hand in hand?
Hugzug: Oh, definitely hand in hand!
Just not for Shadowclan. Har.
"How do you as an orc react to someone standing there mooning you in an in-character way if you can’t just kill them?"
Parfug: You can roleplay without PvP I guess, but that really has never been our style.
K’Dah: There can be, but it’s much, much harder. How do you react to someone standing there mooning you in an in-character way (as an orc or such) if you can’t just kill them?
Parfug: I’d hate to see someone try to roleplay Orcs without PvP.
Hugzug: I have noticed when carrying the Shadowclan name over my head in a game you have to be able to fend for yourself in PvP because those that don’t get "it" with us will try to kill us.
K’Dah: PvP is important for roleplay, especially if you’re roleplaying an enemy to the standard character.
PlayerVox: What advice would you give to roleplayers and RP guild leaders alike, who are trying to become great RP’ers in MMORPGs?
Parfug: Interact with everyone in character, even if they don’t roleplay themselves.
Hugzug: Definitely not to break character. When you do that you pretty much lose credibility with what you are doing.
K’Dah: First off, try to fit your RP into the game. Don’t roleplay spacemen in a fantasy game. Second, be original. Don’t try to roleplay a character or society out of a book - make up your own. Third, stay in character at all times, and roleplay with everyone, even those not roleplaying. Some you’ll convert that way. The rest you’ll drive insane. *grins*
Hugzug: To also find something unique to help yourself stand out. Imitation is not always the best form of flattery.
Parfug: For RP guild leaders I’d definitely advise not getting tangled up in any kind of complicated Rules of Engagement with other guilds. It leads to pain and suffering and really annoying IMs every time. Keep it simple
PlayerVox: Thanks for the interview, K’Dah, Parfug and Hugzug!!
