Justin/Jurasu:
Hello, and thank you for agreeing to do an interview with me. For the benefit of the readers, would you please introduce yourself?
rjgall:
Hi I’m RJGall. People call me Rj or Haza’ whiskey dealer.
Justin/Jurasu:
So you’re the one who’s really responsible for Haza’s drunken rants?
rjgall:
I’m afraid so. They are becoming more and more common.
Justin/Jurasu:
I can only wish that I could see them myself.
Well this week, after quite a long absence, I’m once again looking back at the history of current W16 players to see where they came from and what they’ve gone through. To the best of your knowledge, when did you start W16?
rjgall:
I started world 16 in May 2008.
Justin/Jurasu:
Where’d you start?
rjgall:
K15 I was tired of getting invites to little one man tribes so I created my own which did quite well in the early days.
Justin/Jurasu:
What tribe was this?
rjgall:
EE Eastern Empire, which I recreated between the PnX, Bang!! and Plight war.
Justin/Jurasu:
Looking at your TWstats page, you went through quite a few tribes before reaching Plight. Could you outline the major tribes you went through, your experience in them, and then why you moved on to the next tribe?
rjgall:
Well like I said started in EE which really wasn’t a tribe. I joined F.A.T. which had interesting a war with Ni! started which engulfed the middle of the tribe and caused us to split up the tribe north to south. I joined ~T~ and a few other tribes all with the same players just chopping and changing with new leaders and merges etc. I spent most of my time just sitting back. I joined MLTPP and eventually become Duke and as a bridge tribe for GUNs my path took me there. I helped the leadership with players like krater. There was the war with Plight and GUNs was split as part of agreements with ORC and with K15 being in the middle of the world, I fell on ORC’s side and moved into the Bang!! war. There was decisions made at leadership level (I don’t pretend to know the whole story as I don’t) but they were planning to drop the GUNs players and merge so PnX was formed as the guns players all pulled out. PnX had a lot of noobs and people broke agreements which lead to war with Plight and Bang! so we had no backline. To be honest for a tribe that was a third of Bang!’s size I didn’t lose a single village. I’m not sure who was in Bang! at the time. Seagryfn didn’t want to noble me out as I had helped her out previously and I moved to Plight where I now find myself as Duke.
Justin/Jurasu:
That really is quite a history. You mentioned reforming EE after you were in PnX. Why did you decide to leave PnX to do that if you had left ORC to be with PnX in the first place?
rjgall:
I left PnX as Seagryfn didn’t want me to remain in PnX whilst they had their war. The suggestion was put forward in the forums and the tribe wanted xskidder, hunter1994, ricardj and stickyickyfrog to join EE and live. They are the ‘brothers in arms’ in my profile. I have elrey and dazander to thank for me still been here it was a very uncertain time.
Justin/Jurasu:
It’s fairly obvious that you went through a lot in the north during your time playing on W16, but personally I always believe that there is one defining moment that shapes the rest of a player’s experience on the world. What moment would you say that was for you on W16?
rjgall:
I think it was that moment I had 3000 incoming, which is the most I have ever had. I know my ODD is, to say the least, not the most impressive and I find myself very fortunate. Our backs were against the wall everyone looked doomed and I had players putting me forward to be saved. I had Seagryfn telling me that it would be a waste to lose a player of my quality. Having people think those things has pushed me to be a better player and when I think things are difficult with this game I think back to that moment and tell myself, “pick yourself up and let’s go again.”
Justin/Jurasu:
So would you contribute part of your success thus far on the world to the moral support of others, encouraging you to go on in a game where so many simply fold under the pressure?
rjgall:
Definitely, again Jonnyflame was supporting just before Christmas. I’m not sure whether players fold under pressure as such. I think players tend to think, “ah I have better things to do” or they look at their screen and think “I’m in way over my head” and they run. Only players with the right attitude and desire feel the pressure and I feel on a weekly basis.
Justin/Jurasu:
I use folding as a general term for all of those instances, since they usually all play a part in a player’s leaving.
Do you have any other interesting or funny stories that you may like to share with the readers?
rjgall:
Yeah, true.
Hmm…
I have quite a few, and typically haza is involved.
I had one of my sat accounts and got an invite to a small tribe, cannot remember the name. This was less than a month ago. I joined, jumped onto their forums and they had a war strategy forum where they were planning to take on Plight. This tribe had about 50k points. I have never laughed so hard. They all had a section where they put their stories down about how badly they had been treated by Plight as well, complaining about been nobled out lol.
We have had instances in this tribe including a whiskey delivery from a US player to the UK. We have had players getting drunk together in real life and abusing the forums. We had a player under attack by what looked like a train, and in a panic, posting on the forums asking why he was under attack. The first reply on the forum was “did no one tell you? You’re being nobled out… (this is awkward).”
Justin/Jurasu:
Haha those are quite good, especially the person telling the other that they’re nobling him out.
I’d like to thank you once again Rj for agreeing to do this interview with me. I really do appreciate it.
rjgall:
No problem.
