Community Project : Unsung Heroes
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There is no unsung hero more deserving than Deafening. Guy is single handedly responsible for streaming of WPL. He also has been supporting the NA community for several tournaments now. Without him, the NA community would have no streaming scene.
Aura (Zaffa) said:
I know we have had quite a few streamers NA, but I knew Deafening as a streamer since I was a lowly terribad tier pub (no bm pls). Honestly though, he would be another good NA one, although I'm not sure how much he knows about the modern day NA scene but w/e, would still be cool one.
Aura (Zaffa) said:
Nothing but love for Deafening, he's been my right hand man the entire duration of WPL but better put he's single handedly responsible for the camera work and tireless hours with not much recognition. Sjaeles put a ton of time into the graphics, the commentators do a lot of work and I'll throw myself into the mix since it's not easy getting everything aligned.
That said, he's also been camera for like 4 years for NA besides WPL and he would be a great interview.
Deafening defenitley deserves the spotlight, don't think he gets enough recognition.
Pumpkin Lord
Deafening would be nice indeed.
Varsung
Q: First of all, really glad to have on board one of the first people to have been helping me when I started working for the scene. I guess we're gonna start with the usual start and ask you about yourself and how you made your way into the community since you first played the game.
Hello and thanks a lot for having me, Tardet. You don't get interviewed every day after all! Alright, so my name is Max, though most people here know me better as Varsung. I'm living in the beautiful city of Munich, the Bavarian capital, in Germany.
I think the way I got into the game is rather normal, a friend of mine showed it to me in early 2011 and I really enjoyed it so I bought the game and really enjoyed it. However I only played the single player up until late December 2011. When I started playing on some siege servers more often I started to make friends and as it happens one of them had just opened a small German non-competitive clan (there are hundreds of them...). I really enjoyed it at first though over the time it got a little monotonous so I took a ~6 week break.
After this first break I joined a clan called "Die eisernen Wächter" (DeW), led by LordMetzger, who played for the German NC team a couple of times. I played there together with people like Akii and Waringham, both names that should more or less be known to players, and my skill level increased over time as we as a team got better.
With the ever ongoing change in members I quickly felt that I couldn't become any better within that team, so after 8 months in DeW I joined the all famous 2nd DR where I met players I still call close friends in Warband (Jarl, Latinkon, Scar, Firunien, etc.). Akii soon followed and together we had a great WNL season up until the point where the motivation of our players started to decline and Scar, Schakal, Rodin and Andrej decided to end it all while still being one of the best clans in the scene (place 4 at this time in the WNL) rather than seeing a slow and steady death. This was still in December of 2012 and while I was only about 3 months in the active DR; it is the clan I most identify myself with up to this day, being the reason I still carry their tag.
After the end of DR I joined IG as many other players before me together with Akii and Rasengan upon invitation by Edward and Yona. In IG I again met awesome people who helped me increase my skill, mainly Harman, being my personal mentor, Kekn, Oliveran and nedsat. I rose in the ranks rather quickly, being a Knight after about 3 months only and being responsible for organization of matches and being the second commander after Harman. During this time it was also when I got to participate in the NC 2013, which we won in a very entertaining and exciting final against Turkey.
But then I left IG in July 2013 rather abruptly. I was about to go on a 5 month journey through the US and I desperately wanted to fight AE before I left. So I joined CoR and played fiercely against the bees of Europe. We lost obviously but I again got to make friends and meet people I'll never forget, such as Arch3r, Goker, Golradir and BlackTide.
Then while I was still in the US some of the old DR guys and a few other German players, who have been playing as a team in the DNL for quite some time (MC, oRF), banded together and with the return of Andrej the talk of a reformation of DR started. In the end we founded "Aquilae Calradiae" in February 2014 and had a rather good time, although we never won anything major, losing the WNL Div B decider in a close match against a strong Wolfpack at the time. Through the help of Aquila I got to know Purzelblume, Vivar and Watly. We stayed together until the start of the NC2015, which was the first major tournament I administrated. Sadly in NC15, Germany saw a close, but deserved, defeat to Poland - the later champion.
After the end of the NC I was already more concerned with admin work than with playing myself so I joined BRO for the qualifiers of the ECS2, however we were knocked out in the first match I think. So I joined in FF to play a very casual ECL. Yeah, so that's a "brief" summary of my Warband career.
Q: You have been doing a lot of work for this community, especially as an admin while having overall less visibility on the scene, unlike people like Scar, Deacon or even Aeronwen. Is that something you decided on purpose or just happened by the way of things?
Well, I actually wanted to help out the admin team beforehand and did so by being a referee for a few WNL seasons. Then by the end of 2014 BlackTide approached me and asked me if I would be willing to help him organize the NC and after thinking over it for a few days I accepted. It turned I really enjoyed doing that stuff and by the end of the NC I took over most of the forum maintenance, log checking etc. After the NC Deacon wanted me in his team for the ECS and the ECL, so it appears I wasn't too bad at doing my job.
But to answer your question: It more or less just happened, although I've been wanting to do something of this kind for a while beforehand.Q: For you, what does administrating mean? Do you think that it is all a question of experience, or that what really matters is the motivation of the people concerned?
First of all administrating means for me putting in a lot of work and to be able to communicate well with others. Also you need to stick to decisions you make and stand in for them. While experience can't hurt with judging disputed causes, as they occur every major tournament, or with deciding on new rules etc. For me it is the motivation that counts. You have to be willing to put in hours and hours of work over the duration of several weeks. I've spent hours on the forums updating threads and improving their layouts (being a perfectionist can be hard sometimes...). I think during the NC I've spent around 2-3 hours a day just on organizing stuff, talking to team captains, maintaining the forums, etc. During these times every bit of positive feedback is what you're doing it for. Also my mood changed a lot and I guess Aeronwen got to feel that a lot, as we talked all day at the time. But by the time the ECS and ECL came to an end I felt exhausted. I stopped playing completely while administrating and wanting to have control over everything, and with that I've started to lose the motivation. Why should I work my ass off for a community I don't even participate in? This popped into my mind more and more and I noticed doing that amount of work wasn't good for me anymore. So I've decided to quit, take a break for the 3rd time or even stay away forever.
Q: The more time passes, the closer we get to what could possibly be a turning point in the community. I'm of course speaking about Bannerlord and the wish from a part of us to see Mount&Blade becoming an E-Sport. What is your opinion on the matter? Do you think it is most likely what's going to happen?
Actually I can't really talk about that topic. Yes, I'm looking forward to Bannerlord as well, although not as much as a year ago, but I just don't see Mount&Blade becoming an E-Sport with the current mechanics. Even if they can be mastered I still see the random factor being too high and the factions/classes being too imbalanced, at least in the current Battle mode. If these issues will be resolved I'm looking forward to Bannerlord being a very successful E-Sport. There are already plans made by some individuals to start this scene and with the help of TaleWorlds itself I don't see anything but the motivation of the people in charge standing in the way of Bannerlord as an E-Sport being a reality. Assumed we'll ever see Bannerlord. Actually we've seen Warband itself looking to become more and more of an E-Sport over the last year. We now have regular sponsors for the main tournaments, some of them being names as big as Razer, we have regular streams of matches by members of the community and judging from the threads on the forums the creative output of the community is higher than ever. I think we are going in the right direction!
Q: And what about you?! Recently we noticed you kind of disappeared from the screens, got a temporary (asked) forum ban and that's just a few days ago that you finally made your way back to the community. Is that a definitive stay? And if not, when could we see our national Varsung fully back if it ever has to happen?
Yes, I've been gone for a couple of months, being absent from gaming as a whole. I really enjoyed that time, living the "normal" life. However I sometimes really felt something missing and I even checked the forums using proxies a couple of times until it got too tedious for me. As of now I don't really have any plans. I want to play one or the other match over the time, maybe even join a team and play in the next tournament or even still this WNL. If I'll be asked I'd even be willing to help in administrating again. I'm fresh filled with energy and motivation! But as I have busy times coming up next April and as I'm planning on travelling the world beginning next summer it'll definitely not be a definite stay. I also can't say if I'll ever be back after that, hell I didn't plan on coming back now, but I also can't say that you'll never see me again in, at that time most likely, Bannerlord, which I'll definitely buy!
Q: If there is anything left you would like to share with us, now’s your special moment!
I want to say thank you to everyone for reading this essay^^
Also I want to thank God for the opportunity to meet all these amazing people, the ones listed above as well as all the others I never had an opportunity to play in a team with.
But my biggest shoutout goes to every DR and Aquila player, the whole German NC'13 team, the win over Turkey was arguably my best personal favourite moment in Warband, as well as Deacon, Scar, Aeronwen and Tardet for all the work they put in the last few tournaments and for keeping up the work we did together after I fled.
Thank you!
Apologize for the lack of graphics for this one. I was quite busy and forgot to ask Varsung. Since he is away until Friday and that this has been delayed for quite a while already, I decided to publish it without the avatar. Might add it later on. Hope you will still enjoy the interview, the most important is still here!
PS : Also a big thanks to Viktor who has been extremly reactive for the correction.
Scar said:Nice interview.
i'd read a deafeningflood aka microweaveurhead interview
Pumpkin Lord
I would say, most of the interviewed people were quite underrated (Or, not on the spotlight so often when they should be.) community members compared to what they have done so far.
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