- Early History
- The Dreamweavers Guild Merger
- The Next Chapter
The Early History of KoS
The original banner of the Knights of Sparta, prior to the merger with Dreamweavers
This page represents the thoughts of Juggernort, Tree, Tamsk and Unikorn concerning the early formative stage of the Knights of Sparta guild. The following perspectives were written on or around March 2009.
Juggernort's perspective
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away . . .
. . . well in a galaxy called ‘Aggramar’, there lived a lonely Tauren warrior, who used to plod round the lush green fields of Mulgore, collecting herbs and living off the land. Now and then he would venture into the bustling central camp of Thunderbluff to sell his wares at the local auction house. During those visits to the capital, he would hear talk of raids and dungeons ‘lfg MT for SM GY’ and he would be confused, but intrigued. What was this code language everyone used in general chat? Did it represent some encrypted secret message between members of a secret society? Yes, yes, that was it . . and these secret societies were called ‘Guilds’.
So that was how my adventure into WOW started as a total noobie in 2007. After my curiosity had been aroused, I decided to do some research on the internet, and bought a book on WoW dungeons, and I started to realise there was a whole new aspect to the game I hadn’t yet experienced. By this time, my daughters and partner had also started to play the game.
Armed with the little knowledge I had gleaned from the books and internet we set about rolling new alliance characters, based on the ideal rolls for a dungeon group, warrior (tank), priest (healer), warlock (dps) and hunter (dps). But groups have five members don’t they? So I posted an add on the WoW forums saying I’d like to find a 5th member to complete a family group for regular dungeoning. This advertisement introduced me to the less savoury part of WoW, the ‘boobs’ rather than ‘noobs’. Level 70s (the cap at the time) queued up to scold my stupidity and ignorance. How dare such a noob post on the WoW forums. I obviously knew nothing and should just shut up, and find a quiet place to go and die. The abuse was horrid. And all over nothing.
But there was one... one with experience and lots of it... who would take up the challenge of showing four family members who were total noobs, and teach them the ropes of dungeon play... thus Koldphire (Unikorn) enters our story. One lone friendly voice saying “I’ll roll a mage and join you as it seems CC is what you need most”. We met up with Koldphire later that night / week. Tree also joined around the same time although I don’t recall him responding on the forum itself. Instead I got a whispered response whilst running around Westfall. And so my family had two benefactors.
Each week we progressed through the dungeons starting with the Deadmines. We met up with Koldphire and I will never forget the excitement as me and my three girls walked through our first swirling blue portal, or the words of Koldphire as we set eyes on our first group of elite mobs “Now you’re going to find out what this game is really about” or words to that effect. And he was right, since that first dungeon I’ve been hooked. We grouped with Koldphire, Tree and bumped into Tamsk in those early days, and so the family group of 4 became 7. Then an idea came to me...
The ‘Idea’ was inspired by memories of the horrid derision I got on the forums from ‘experienced’ players, and what a contrast that was to the friendly group we had formed, with a mix of noobs and experienced players. The idea was that our little group should become the template for a new guild... a guild which would be open to new players and experienced players alike, with the only stipulation being they liked dungeons (or wanted to learn about them), and would be friendly and courteous. We welcomed noobs, but not boobs, and we welcomed those ‘noob’ friendly experienced players who liked the idea of bringing along the next generation of players. So the Knights of Sparta was born.
The guild has grown a lot and changed a lot since those early days. But the reason for relating this story to you all is that it encompasses what KoS is about above all else. More important than loot, more important than progression, more important than DPS... KoS is about bringing experienced and inexperienced together in a friendly and co-operative environment. No place for ‘boobs’ here.
This defining principle will remain, no matter how the guild changes, as these are the principles I sold to the early members i.e. those responsible for building the guild you are all now a part of.
Tree's perspective
I'd spent 6 months away from the game after deleting my old L60 characters. I moved into my new home and it was then that I started playing again. Creating various different toons on different realms never really taking a full interest. Just pottering around.
While playing on my new hunter 'Tree', once more back on Aggramar, I travelled over to Westfall from Azuremyst to see about maybe getting a Deadmines run. I found a group of 4 already together (at the time I assumed none knew each other, just a standard PUG). As the run progressed it became apparent, both that I had the most experience of DM (albeit from years prior) and that these others knew each other. I did my best to dredge up the memories of the place and help the tank, 'Juggernort', get us through the place as best we could. I STILL believe that The Deadmines is the hardest dungeon in the game (at the correct Level). After completing the run Juggernort explained that he was trying to arrange a regular group, particularly for a Shadowfang Keep run and would I be interested when the time came. I said yes, added him to my friends list and thought little more of it (Though I did make a point of getting the Southshore FP).
A couple of days later (and a couple of levels) I logged on and was whispered by Jugger, inviting me to SFK. I accepted and off we went.
When we met up in Southshore I was presented with a wave and a guild charter. Slightly shocked, I thought; 'why not?', signed up and did the run, having a whale of a time. Then I thought to ask what the guild was called LOL. The process of sharing (what I could remember of) my knowledge of the game with others, vicariously rediscovering all the wonders that Azeroth holds, really rekindled my interest in WoW. and that's why KoS turned out to be the ideal guild for me.
Tamsk's perspective
Mid-February, 2008, about a week after I've finally succumbed to the Dread Vortex of Timesink and bought WoW. (And installed and patched it, which is many hours of timesink in itself.) Tamsk is a level 13 or so dwarf priest, cautiously moving on from questing in Dun Morogh to Loch Modan. I've always been one for devouring whatever resources there are to read about the games I play, and I'd gleaned several relevant conclusions from them by this point:
I haven't done anything actively towards this end, however, when I'm browsing the "Newcomers" section of the official forums and I suddenly see the word "Aggramar" in a subject line. Hey, that's my server! It turns out to be a recruitment notice being posted by someone called Juggernort for an Alliance-side guild... "friendly family guild" (or was it "family friendly"? Either way, sounds a better shot than some guild filled with testosterone-fuelled 15-year-old boys)... "dungeon runs"... "all levels"... hmm. This doesn't sound like a chance I can pass up on. I send Juggernort a mail (the contents of which I have forgotten, probably for the best), and the next day while slaughtering spiders outside Thelsamar I get a whisper about it.
A few minutes later I'm seeing green text on my screen and saying hello to people with names like Koldphire and Tree and Furyia.
A few days later I'm making a tit of myself in the Deadmines (falling off the boat, floundering helplessly in the water until Quai comes and shows me the way out, is a vivid memory). Amazingly, the guild lets me stay and run instances with them again.
A few weeks later I'm running places like Uldaman and Zul'Farrak, and (mostly) making rather less a tit of myself.
A few months later I'm an officer and levelling through Outland (and its instances), with the guild slowly growing from its 7 or 8-man core.
A year later... well, hi. It's been a fun year. Many more, please!
Koldphire's (Unikorn) perspective
I'm a hard core WoW player, I started a little late coming to the game about 9 months after release, (i played Everquest before, but left because I heard WoW was better). In the basic I raided UBRS, ZG, MC, AQ20, Onyxia and a little bit of BWL, these were my newbie days and I went into what back then were 40 man raids full of awe and wonder. Then blizzard announced an expansion and by then I knew what I was doing.
So I went into TBC full of optimism and hope for the future and at the time my shifts at work were 11am till 7pm (which is 8pm wow time), but I found a serious raid guild that raided later at night and I jumped in determined to see the 'end game'. With this guild I saw Kara, Gruul, Maggy, TK, SSC and I got as far as Rage Winterchill the 1st boss in MH, it was fun but at the same time hectic raiding. We were serious raid guild and if you weren't raiding you were farming for mats it was constant pressure to keep up and the pace was fast.
Then disaster struck, my work hours changed to 6am till 2pm and suddenly I could no longer raid with my late night raid guild, but also at the same time the pressure stopped. I breathed a big sigh of relief in some ways and decided to just take things easy for a while and 'mess about'. I was answering questions on the newbie forum one day when I saw a post from a guy called Juggernort regarding wanting to set up a 5 man group for regular instancing. I also saw the usual forum trolls had decided to have a go because a hunter in his group was called Leolass.
Now I'm the type of player who doesn't really enjoy solo content and I love to group, I don't really care whether that group is DM or Mount Hyjal (to be honest my main reason for raiding is to see all group content in the game) and I was feeling a bit burned out by the constant farming/raiding world I had been in and my work hours had changed anyway. So I thought this looks like some light relief, will be fun to run some of those low level instances again and these guys actually look like they need a few pointers. I get a joy out of remembering how I was when I 1st ran the DM and how I was again when I 1st stepped into MC, the only way to recapture a little of that early wonder is to help guenuine new players and watch their reactions when they get to see the big things for the 1st time. So I posted a reply and offered to help.
They had a tank (warrior) a healer (priest) and 2 DPS (hunter and warlock) and this was back in the day when CC was needed. I looked at that set up with my experienced eye and it was fairly obvious that a mage fitted in the best. I'd never played a mage, so it was double bonus because I got to see a new character so I rolled a new mage (Koldphire).
The rest is history really, I sort of guided, pushed, prodded and nagged the guild to try new things and go new places. I know sometimes they didn't like me pushing so hard and they thought I wanted to go too fast, Tamsk in particualar is a nightmare and insists on seeing absolutely everything a region has to offer before he'll move on However we struck a fairly happy medium and we did do a lot of instances.
One final note, some newer members might actually be wondering who the hell I am, having not seen me about. Well when WotLK came out I was determined to go back hardcore again and my main character is off doing Naxx25 man and charging full speed towards end game. However all my other characters are still here and when WotLK burns me out once more i'll return to the more social and fun environment that is KOS and spend some time messing about.
The original banner of the Knights of Sparta, prior to the merger with Dreamweavers
This page represents the thoughts of Juggernort, Tree, Tamsk and Unikorn concerning the early formative stage of the Knights of Sparta guild. The following perspectives were written on or around March 2009.
Juggernort's perspective
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away . . .
. . . well in a galaxy called ‘Aggramar’, there lived a lonely Tauren warrior, who used to plod round the lush green fields of Mulgore, collecting herbs and living off the land. Now and then he would venture into the bustling central camp of Thunderbluff to sell his wares at the local auction house. During those visits to the capital, he would hear talk of raids and dungeons ‘lfg MT for SM GY’ and he would be confused, but intrigued. What was this code language everyone used in general chat? Did it represent some encrypted secret message between members of a secret society? Yes, yes, that was it . . and these secret societies were called ‘Guilds’.
So that was how my adventure into WOW started as a total noobie in 2007. After my curiosity had been aroused, I decided to do some research on the internet, and bought a book on WoW dungeons, and I started to realise there was a whole new aspect to the game I hadn’t yet experienced. By this time, my daughters and partner had also started to play the game.
Armed with the little knowledge I had gleaned from the books and internet we set about rolling new alliance characters, based on the ideal rolls for a dungeon group, warrior (tank), priest (healer), warlock (dps) and hunter (dps). But groups have five members don’t they? So I posted an add on the WoW forums saying I’d like to find a 5th member to complete a family group for regular dungeoning. This advertisement introduced me to the less savoury part of WoW, the ‘boobs’ rather than ‘noobs’. Level 70s (the cap at the time) queued up to scold my stupidity and ignorance. How dare such a noob post on the WoW forums. I obviously knew nothing and should just shut up, and find a quiet place to go and die. The abuse was horrid. And all over nothing.
But there was one... one with experience and lots of it... who would take up the challenge of showing four family members who were total noobs, and teach them the ropes of dungeon play... thus Koldphire (Unikorn) enters our story. One lone friendly voice saying “I’ll roll a mage and join you as it seems CC is what you need most”. We met up with Koldphire later that night / week. Tree also joined around the same time although I don’t recall him responding on the forum itself. Instead I got a whispered response whilst running around Westfall. And so my family had two benefactors.
Each week we progressed through the dungeons starting with the Deadmines. We met up with Koldphire and I will never forget the excitement as me and my three girls walked through our first swirling blue portal, or the words of Koldphire as we set eyes on our first group of elite mobs “Now you’re going to find out what this game is really about” or words to that effect. And he was right, since that first dungeon I’ve been hooked. We grouped with Koldphire, Tree and bumped into Tamsk in those early days, and so the family group of 4 became 7. Then an idea came to me...
The ‘Idea’ was inspired by memories of the horrid derision I got on the forums from ‘experienced’ players, and what a contrast that was to the friendly group we had formed, with a mix of noobs and experienced players. The idea was that our little group should become the template for a new guild... a guild which would be open to new players and experienced players alike, with the only stipulation being they liked dungeons (or wanted to learn about them), and would be friendly and courteous. We welcomed noobs, but not boobs, and we welcomed those ‘noob’ friendly experienced players who liked the idea of bringing along the next generation of players. So the Knights of Sparta was born.
The guild has grown a lot and changed a lot since those early days. But the reason for relating this story to you all is that it encompasses what KoS is about above all else. More important than loot, more important than progression, more important than DPS... KoS is about bringing experienced and inexperienced together in a friendly and co-operative environment. No place for ‘boobs’ here.
This defining principle will remain, no matter how the guild changes, as these are the principles I sold to the early members i.e. those responsible for building the guild you are all now a part of.
Tree's perspective
I'd spent 6 months away from the game after deleting my old L60 characters. I moved into my new home and it was then that I started playing again. Creating various different toons on different realms never really taking a full interest. Just pottering around.
While playing on my new hunter 'Tree', once more back on Aggramar, I travelled over to Westfall from Azuremyst to see about maybe getting a Deadmines run. I found a group of 4 already together (at the time I assumed none knew each other, just a standard PUG). As the run progressed it became apparent, both that I had the most experience of DM (albeit from years prior) and that these others knew each other. I did my best to dredge up the memories of the place and help the tank, 'Juggernort', get us through the place as best we could. I STILL believe that The Deadmines is the hardest dungeon in the game (at the correct Level). After completing the run Juggernort explained that he was trying to arrange a regular group, particularly for a Shadowfang Keep run and would I be interested when the time came. I said yes, added him to my friends list and thought little more of it (Though I did make a point of getting the Southshore FP).
A couple of days later (and a couple of levels) I logged on and was whispered by Jugger, inviting me to SFK. I accepted and off we went.
When we met up in Southshore I was presented with a wave and a guild charter. Slightly shocked, I thought; 'why not?', signed up and did the run, having a whale of a time. Then I thought to ask what the guild was called LOL. The process of sharing (what I could remember of) my knowledge of the game with others, vicariously rediscovering all the wonders that Azeroth holds, really rekindled my interest in WoW. and that's why KoS turned out to be the ideal guild for me.
Tamsk's perspective
Mid-February, 2008, about a week after I've finally succumbed to the Dread Vortex of Timesink and bought WoW. (And installed and patched it, which is many hours of timesink in itself.) Tamsk is a level 13 or so dwarf priest, cautiously moving on from questing in Dun Morogh to Loch Modan. I've always been one for devouring whatever resources there are to read about the games I play, and I'd gleaned several relevant conclusions from them by this point:
- Dungeons sound fun. Can't wait until I'm high enough level to run dungeons.
- Getting pick-up groups together for low-level dungeons is Hard. ("Not like the old days.")
- I ought to find myself a guild that runs low-level dungeons.
- Healers apparently get blamed a lot when things go wrong. I ought to find myself a friendly guild that runs low-level dungeons, who'll be understanding while I learn how to do it.
I haven't done anything actively towards this end, however, when I'm browsing the "Newcomers" section of the official forums and I suddenly see the word "Aggramar" in a subject line. Hey, that's my server! It turns out to be a recruitment notice being posted by someone called Juggernort for an Alliance-side guild... "friendly family guild" (or was it "family friendly"? Either way, sounds a better shot than some guild filled with testosterone-fuelled 15-year-old boys)... "dungeon runs"... "all levels"... hmm. This doesn't sound like a chance I can pass up on. I send Juggernort a mail (the contents of which I have forgotten, probably for the best), and the next day while slaughtering spiders outside Thelsamar I get a whisper about it.
A few minutes later I'm seeing green text on my screen and saying hello to people with names like Koldphire and Tree and Furyia.
A few days later I'm making a tit of myself in the Deadmines (falling off the boat, floundering helplessly in the water until Quai comes and shows me the way out, is a vivid memory). Amazingly, the guild lets me stay and run instances with them again.
A few weeks later I'm running places like Uldaman and Zul'Farrak, and (mostly) making rather less a tit of myself.
A few months later I'm an officer and levelling through Outland (and its instances), with the guild slowly growing from its 7 or 8-man core.
A year later... well, hi. It's been a fun year. Many more, please!
Koldphire's (Unikorn) perspective
I'm a hard core WoW player, I started a little late coming to the game about 9 months after release, (i played Everquest before, but left because I heard WoW was better). In the basic I raided UBRS, ZG, MC, AQ20, Onyxia and a little bit of BWL, these were my newbie days and I went into what back then were 40 man raids full of awe and wonder. Then blizzard announced an expansion and by then I knew what I was doing.
So I went into TBC full of optimism and hope for the future and at the time my shifts at work were 11am till 7pm (which is 8pm wow time), but I found a serious raid guild that raided later at night and I jumped in determined to see the 'end game'. With this guild I saw Kara, Gruul, Maggy, TK, SSC and I got as far as Rage Winterchill the 1st boss in MH, it was fun but at the same time hectic raiding. We were serious raid guild and if you weren't raiding you were farming for mats it was constant pressure to keep up and the pace was fast.
Then disaster struck, my work hours changed to 6am till 2pm and suddenly I could no longer raid with my late night raid guild, but also at the same time the pressure stopped. I breathed a big sigh of relief in some ways and decided to just take things easy for a while and 'mess about'. I was answering questions on the newbie forum one day when I saw a post from a guy called Juggernort regarding wanting to set up a 5 man group for regular instancing. I also saw the usual forum trolls had decided to have a go because a hunter in his group was called Leolass.
Now I'm the type of player who doesn't really enjoy solo content and I love to group, I don't really care whether that group is DM or Mount Hyjal (to be honest my main reason for raiding is to see all group content in the game) and I was feeling a bit burned out by the constant farming/raiding world I had been in and my work hours had changed anyway. So I thought this looks like some light relief, will be fun to run some of those low level instances again and these guys actually look like they need a few pointers. I get a joy out of remembering how I was when I 1st ran the DM and how I was again when I 1st stepped into MC, the only way to recapture a little of that early wonder is to help guenuine new players and watch their reactions when they get to see the big things for the 1st time. So I posted a reply and offered to help.
They had a tank (warrior) a healer (priest) and 2 DPS (hunter and warlock) and this was back in the day when CC was needed. I looked at that set up with my experienced eye and it was fairly obvious that a mage fitted in the best. I'd never played a mage, so it was double bonus because I got to see a new character so I rolled a new mage (Koldphire).
The rest is history really, I sort of guided, pushed, prodded and nagged the guild to try new things and go new places. I know sometimes they didn't like me pushing so hard and they thought I wanted to go too fast, Tamsk in particualar is a nightmare and insists on seeing absolutely everything a region has to offer before he'll move on However we struck a fairly happy medium and we did do a lot of instances.
One final note, some newer members might actually be wondering who the hell I am, having not seen me about. Well when WotLK came out I was determined to go back hardcore again and my main character is off doing Naxx25 man and charging full speed towards end game. However all my other characters are still here and when WotLK burns me out once more i'll return to the more social and fun environment that is KOS and spend some time messing about.