September 1, 2000
The interview was conducted on the 29th August, 2000 in my office. Starfyre is a hero with the Guild of Ominous Necromancy clan. He is 25 years old and works in an elementary school as a computer technician on an all Macintosh network. He has been working there for a little over a year. He considers his biggest accomplishment to be getting to the age of 25 in good health and in good company.
I asked him a few questions about Medievia and his life and the following are his responses.
Nykaul: How long have you been playing Medievia and what initially got you to start playing?
Starfyre: : I started playing back in the summer of 1997 and played solidly for a good two years before taking an unexpected break. I came back six months or so later and I've been playing ever since. A friend of mine got me started on Medievia. I was interested to see what he spent all these hours doing and it looked kind of interesting and I really got into it after he showed me how to do some basic commands and stuff.
Nykaul: Who were your influences/heroes as you were progressing through your Med life? Was there anyone specifically that you looked up to and admired?
Starfyre: : I was lucky enough to get recruited into a fate based clan when I got enrolled in clan 12 so I guess the person I probably remember learning the most from was Daedalus, at least when he talked to me! Daedalus was the leader of fate at the time and it was the biggest baddest clan on Med plus he did all the herobattles and all the pk and cpk and I never saw him lose much. So when he wasn't busy and was hanging out in link I had a chance to get to know him better and learn pk from him. I think he's the biggest influence on my pking style even tho he's never been a caster.
Nykaul: In what ways did that inspire you?
Starfyre: : It made me want to become a skilled pker, to be able to walk in to a zone and not fear anyone. I was a single mage when I started and I had a lot of problems with pk. Daedalus gave me tips and stuff. He told me how to avoid pk and strategy and knowing that Med wasn't just bs/flee/bs. When you learn from the best you want to be just as good when you get bigger.
Nykaul: What has been your most memorable event in your Med life?'.
Starfyre: : This one time after I hero'd Omawarisan asked on imm if any one wanted to enroll in a new quest module he was working on so I volunteered because I thought it'd be fun to be part of something new. When he enrolled me in it he didn't tell me what it was. What ended up happening was Omawarisan made it so that anyone level 1-15 could enroll and beat the snot out of me while I sat in a no magic room and since I was a mage hero I couldn't attack. There were like 50 newbies in the room kicking bashing tripping me to death! I managed to kick one in the head before finally getting pk'd.
Nykaul: Do you feel that as a hero you have to set an example to lower level players?
Starfyre: : I think heroes should set an example up to a point, but I think that sort of behavior is more restricted to avatars. Hero is just another flag saying you leveled up it doesn't mean that you learned anything or that you're qualified enough to teach others. I definitely think there should be some sort of test before you hero to weed out the people who know things from those who don't.
Nykaul: As a hero then, how would you describe your average day to a lower level player?
Starfyre: : Well I'm in a newbie clan now so I guess I try to do as many hero type things as I can like combing and running zones while at the same time trying to invite the newbies to come with me and experience some new things for them. Plus I try to protect my clannies in npk cuz I know how hard it was for me when I was a newbie to get pk'd. I think I can relate.
Nykaul: So did achieving the status of hero be everything you thought it would be?
Starfyre: : I don't know what I expected when I became hero. I thought it was nice to not have to eat and not to xp anymore. Imm channel was certainly a frightening thing for me. Grew up knowing all these high level players and finally I was on the same level ground with them and at the same time I still had so much to learn so I didn't feel like I belonged there.
Nykaul: Do you feel that the caliber of heroes have changed since the introduction of MLR's?
Starfyre: : I don't think that MLR's has really changed the type of hero you have on med. You still have the people that just did trade runs and combs to hero and didn't learn the finer points of forming and going on dragonlairs and then you have more heroes who did the lairs and combs aspect and didn't get to learn how to lead a trade run either. It's just another thing to do when you hero but I don't think you learn that much more by having to do them, it just makes leveling slower.
Nykaul: Do you feel that hero'ing with MLR was harder than when you hero'd the first time without MLR's?
Starfyre: : I don't know if it was harder, it's just that the first time I hero'd I didn't have to depend on others to help me along, whereas with MLR's I HAD to form with someone for a dragonlair to get the necessary points'.
Nykaul: Do you consider that to be a better thing?
Starfyre: : I'm grateful for learning about dragonlairs but I don't think it made the actual process harder. I don't know, so many newbies grow up whining about this and that and Med newbie system holds your hand so much, it seems like it would be harder to learn some things because you don't learn the lessons yourself. The thing is it took me 2300 hours to hero my original character and it only took 1300 hours to hero with this one. Does that make MLR's make leveling harder?
Nykaul: Well you know more about the game now that you did initially, non?
Starfyre: : Well yeah that helped a lot as well as those double xp weekends. So many things in the game different than they were 2 or 3 years ago, even a year ago.
Nykaul: Like what?
Starfyre: : When I started there were castle battles then kingdom battles as well as invading zones for heightened xp caps plus there's mob factions now whereas the worst thing you had to worry about on a trade run was a winged fire devil. There's so many different kinds of wilderness mobs there's so many different rules. The time before getting cherry picked during pk has been eliminated, there used to be a safe time period of like 2 seconds that you had to get away. Med is so much different. So much new equipment and so many new zones. It's a completely different experience this time around.
Nykaul: Is that a good or bad thing?
Starfyre: : It's a great thing. Change at first is always hard to get used to but eventually you learn to appreciate those aspects of Med. Don't know where I'd be now without the ndonate command or the nsac command.
Nykaul: What are some of the things you are looking forward to as part of Med's future?'.
Starfyre: : I want to continue my bloodline so I get to take advantage of the new regeneration bonus that's been implemented. I'd like to stay clean as far as my history goes so I am able to be here to enjoy the future of Med. I'm really interested in the autoquest feature. It might give me something to do instead of sitting in link AFK [away from keyboard] all day because I don't feel like doing anything else.
Nykaul: Do you stay in link because there is nothing currently that interest you or other reasons?
Starfyre: : Nothing currently that interests me or other reasons I guess it's just time dependant. I go through mood swings where I feel like being really active and there's nothing for me to do but at a different time, I feel like being really inactive and doing nothing is fine. I'm happy being a link rat. Meeting people is what Med is all about.
Nykaul: Do you have any interesting stories you could share?
Starfyre: : I remember when I was a newbie single class mage and I had this equipment fetish because I saw all these people with really nice equipment and I wish I had something like that. So one day Daedalus tells me if I can find him in Med city, he'll give me a fire diamond ring, sort of a hide and seek sort of thing. He PROMISED not to sit in his clan hall and I was like ok because I'm a newbie and a free fire diamond ring sounds pretty cool! So I went up and down every single street in Med, went in and explored god hall, found the pillow monster once I think. I went in the old void and all the open homes I could find and I couldn't find him. I think I searched nearly two hours trying to find him before he finally admitted to sitting in his clanhall the whole time.
Nykaul: So what happened?
Starfyre: : So I got mad and he didn't give me the fire diamond ring but he made up for it by giving me an arch magi staff and a strange silvery mist bracelet and that was just as good for me.
Nykaul: What embarrassing stories do you have?
Starfyre: : I try to forget them! Other than all the newbie stuff I did as a single class mage I don't think I have any. Like I didn't understand rooms and emotes and stuff, oh and socials. So I wondered how my friend was dancing with a dragon and it confused me because I couldn't dance with it too.
Nykaul: Why do you think players return to Med over other types of gaming?
Starfyre: : I think on Med you get to know real people so much better than you do on any other online gaming. I've called so many people here on the phone and have had so many intimate discussions with people I don't think you can get that playing Diablo II online. I've met so many different kinds of people living all over the world. I think that's the best part of Med, meeting the people you meet and forging close friendships with many of them, not that it's all happy and fuzzy.
Nykaul: Which aspect of the game is the most important to you?
Starfyre: : I guess it's getting to know new people and keeping the old friends I had. I think that's the reason I came back to Med in the first place. I had all these friends I met on here and I could only see them here for one reason or another. I'm a lot more social on Med than I am irl [in real life] so it gives me a social out I guess so that I can meet people.
Nykaul: Why do you think that is?
Starfyre: : Here you don't get distracted with people's appearances when you talk to them nor do you become biased about what kind of people they are just because of what they look like. It's kind of nice being able to talk to people here without all the real life distractions. At the same time though it's a little bit more difficult because you can't hear tone of voice or see facial expressions outside the lines of smilies but still I think I'm able to be more social because I'm not distracted with how I look. I can sit in my pajamas and mud. I can sit naked and mud and no one can see me!
Nykaul: If you were forced to quit Med right now what would you want people to remember about you?
Starfyre: : I would like to be remembered as the best mage pker ever to walk Med, although I don't know if I'm able to fill those shoes completely. I think I do a pretty good job though.
Nykaul: What do you think people will remember you for?
Starfyre: : For being a colossal pain in the hiney but a charming colossal pain in the hiney. People will remember me by the interactions they had with me. I don't think that I could be known for one thing by every single person on Med although I'm sure I could make generalizations. The reputation I have now is that I'm not a nice guy. I'm the opposite but if you get to know me I'm completely different.
Nykaul: If you could ask anyone on Med a question what would it be and to who?
Starfyre: : I guess I'd ask Vryce why he continues to run Med even though he tells us all the time all he does is lose money on it. What's kept him going this long especially when there's players like me to make his job that much more difficult.
Nykaul: If you could interview anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Starfyre: : Another tough question! I guess I'd ask my birth parents why they put me up for adoption. I'm eternally grateful to them for doing it but I guess I'd just want to know why'.
Nykaul: Name 5 things that most people don't know about you.
Starfyre:
If you believe you are a 'special' person that should be interviewed then email me at Nykaul@medievia.com with the reasons why. Also, if you have a question you have always wanted to ask someone, feel free to email that question and if I ever interview that person I may include your question.