This is an intimate and candid interview pertaining to all things Conq -- No such thing as tl;dr in this thread! Enjoy!
What or whom got you into twinking?
Back in 2004 I went into a 20-29 BG shortly after Warsong Gulch came out on my Paladin Ironguard, I didn’t have the patience to level. There was this twink named Vinsang, he dominated the entire match in his surprisingly geared 29 undead rogue, I was a human paladin and decided I needed to help my faction win, so I started twinking and stopped leveling back then I was a noob and could barely read so I just made it my goal to get rares in all my item slots, regardless of actual stats. The core players in NO MERCY were my motivation to push twinking as far as I can, the original idea about two and a half to three years ago was to revive twinking on Argent Dawn, which I did threw SCC in the 24s bracket.
What is your favorite class?
Holy Paladin or maybe these days Brewmasters, they are a lot of fun to play. I'd be playing a Grandfathered 19 paladin currently if they were better, yet they are a perfect example of why numbers on a scoreboard don't matter in this bracket.
What is your favorite race?
Humans I guess, they have great racials and the most appealing design.
Where is home for you?
I'm not sure I ascribe to the idea of home, I guess it's where ever I am at any given moment. I've enjoyed traveling since a young age and I find it hard to stay in one place as a general rule. I do live in the U.S. in the state of Massachusetts and have lived there pretty much my entire life, but i'm very fond of Vermont, and LES Manhattan.
What is/was your favorite expac?
The Burning Crusade is my favorite expansion, it was such a young version of the game, I feel like Blizzard cared a lot more back then and twinking and this game were so alive, everything was so cutting edge, it was great. Although back in Vanilla you could see things like Game Masters hovering in Goldshire answering questions for people, that’s something you just don’t see these days.
What server was your first twink guild on?
Argent Dawn US!!!!! A beta server. In Vanilla and TBC it was one of the greatest servers of all time, it had everything Top ranking - PvP, PvE, and even RP and Twinkin, we had 3-4 active twink guilds in vanilla, like <We Love Pie>, <Abbey of The Blessed Keg>, it was <Ya Dig>that preceded NM and was created by Dubs and Gauz, as well as some of the original NO MERCY core group, around the time of TBC we formed into NO MERCY which died out some time after the twink apocalypse that was the release of WotLK. I’m GM of NM currently on my old hunter, nothing has happened there in years, but I have it for safekeeping ^.^
Did you migrate to Trollbane?
Nope ^.^. Argent Dawn and NO MERCY benefited more than any other server/guild from the mass Ruin Migration
Walk us thru the process of becoming a Mod at TI?
Becoming a mod on TI was a really hard decision for me, I turned in my application past the due date and was told to apply again. I did and got accepted. The staff discuss the applications but it would be Myrm who makes the final decision most of the time. I will say that TI has really really high standards for their mods, and they have all been highly capable and intelligent people.
What is the worst part of being a Mod?
Power should be a burden, or it will be taken for granted and this applies to all scales of life. I think the experience mods have is different for each one, it is what you make it for the most part. For me, there are a few things that really made me hesitant in becoming a mod but I knew what I was getting into (it's not my intent to complain). I think people really are bias towards mods, which is to be expected, I was worried that would make people less receptive to any future plans I had, like The NWL and this is not a criticism - mods are authority figures after all. I actually have a strong distaste for authority in general outside of WoW, compromise is useful in any walk of life tho.
No one is immune to bias, being a mod on TI means you are a leader in your own regard, being a good leader means being able to understand things from the lens of others, that requires high level of emotional intelligence and separation, giving someone 20k+ worth of gear one minute, then deleting their threads or something the next is a hard balance. Although most people are understanding that i’m just doing my job and it's nothing against them. These days there is a lot less to moderate. “The best way to moderate is through conversation and understanding” in Myrm’s words.
What is the best part of being a Mod?
Once again I think this differs for all mods, for me the best part about being a moderator is having more influence. When I became a mod it was because I was seeing the community dwindle because of the way things were being run, it wasn't something I actually wanted at first and it literally took me a month make up my mind. Since having become a mod i've been able to have my voice heard in a number of things, most promotions on the website, the mass unbanning, the standards for moderation while shane was here, and a lot more since. The quality of the 19s section is something i’m proud of as well. The general level of discourse that takes place in this sub-forum is a striking balance between the rough and raw XP-off community and the plethora of in-depth twink knowledge and resources.
How was Shane as a owner/admin?
For a long time I defended shane but I don't anymore, the truth is that shane half assed everything he did on this website, literally everything. He wasn't a twink nor did he care about them, he gave up on Xenforo because he realized he couldn't get it done and looking nice in a weekend. After that he sold TI to Myrm for a healthy sum, didn't transfer the Vbulletin license, refuses to contact us, and failed to mention the website was written in custom HTML. He basically made off like a bandit and ended up almost sabotaging our community, the level of stress Myrm, myself, and a couple others have gone threw trying to keep this website going and trying to push it in a progressive direction is just obscene >.<
How is Myrm as a owner/admin?
Myrm is great. He has a really hands off approach, and has turned the community over to the users.
Describe your first guild you became GM of and how it all began.
I created the guild <Team Blackout> on Argent Dawn alliance some time back in 2007 or 2008 before I left retail twinking, that's when I started doing funding first. After that on alternative servers I lead a number of very large PvP/PvE twink guilds, that is when I adopted the name Conq and got a name for myself outside of being on NO MERCY'S premade team. Most these guilds I made were the top ones on the server, I don't remember any of those guilds names, but if you think you know me from back then you probably do, shoot me a private message, i'd love to hear from you.
Do you like dancing? Do you get jiggy with it?
I don't dance, when I do dance it kinda just happens without me realizing it when i'm alone. I listen to a lot of music tho, I don't know what I would do without it ^.^
What is your fav guild you have created?
I don't think GG19 really counts as a guild, so it would be <SCC>, Drama is meaningless to me, I created that guild with my brother and we brought back twinking to Argent Dawn and wargames to 24s. SCC served as a platform for what became Paradox Genesis whose rapid and borderline excessive growth served as a testament to the state of the bracket, although i’m proud and have learned from all my guilds. I didn’t create UGGTW but it is my favorite.
Explain how GG19 went from an idea to a reality?
Marb lied about wanting to give me a ton of stuff to fund people with and then he introduced me to someone who did give me a ton of stuff to fund people with. Our goals were clear from the start, we needed to get the brackets approval, and we needed to make the process legit, we would have one shot so we had to get it right, after I had received the initial donation I then approached every major community leader on BH 19s and asked them to join and help create GG19. We had a meeting which Saxxon dubbed "The Twink Summit" and GG19 was founded.
GG19 continues to exist to this day because we spend wisely, we have never and will never rely on the Bleeding Hollow Economy in its current state. Sometimes I wonder if some suppliers jack up prices just because they know GG19 is well funded, which doesn’t make sense on an economic level, if I actually purchased items from the BH 10-19 section the AH would be empty but we wouldn’t be nearly as well off. I think that if prices were more reasonable, everyone on BH and twinking as a whole would benefit, myself and less well-off twinks might actually spend some gold on the AH more than once in a blue moon. It seems like common sense to me that the BH 19s economy impacts recruitment for the entire bracket, not everyone comes out of GG19 after-all.
Just how much gold has been spent on funding?
Roughly 4 million gold (if I were to liquidate the items we've used so far and combine it with what we have left).
What's the future have in store for GG19?
GG19 is about to begin a new chapter. When it comes to gear we will be able to push funding until at least after the next twinkcup, truly a blesssing. When it comes to growth -
GG19 in partnership with members of Twinkinfo, Bisnation and The NWL are teaming up to support, run, and develop Twitch.tv/thenwl we will have a large amount of content including weekly war games, a weekly podcast, monthly tournaments, daily hosting, and much much more, it's my intent to use this twitch channel as a tool to spearhead the greater XP-off movement.
Many of you may be aware that Twinkinfo has generated no revenue since Myrm purchased it, Myself and Myrm are paying out of pocket to keep this website going because it is caught in a hard place that generates zero revenue and allows zero impactful web development. For us this is an investment in a passion but we are not rich, under the current circumstances TI isn’t going anywhere forward or backwards any time soon, and I mean that literally. So I’ve decided that the stream will be accepting USD donations that will be used 100% for the development of Twinkinfo.com and the 19s bracket, things like a twinkinfo wiki, an integrated GG19 interface, intergrated guild sections, achievement systems, tournament badges, enhanced profiles, a decent xenforo website, enhanced streaming displays and so much more are not possible without money that neither Myrm nor myself have, with time some things can and will be achieved without money, but that will be a never ending losing battle.
Is there a specific application that was extremely entertaining or offensive?!
Haha I enjoy funny apps but members of the funding team like people to take them seriously so they don't always get approve. The average twink costs 30,000g, when people don't put in effort on their applications it is offensive, this is my stuff i'm giving away, at least act like you want it, show some effort, you know?
Explain how NWL went from an idea to a reality?
A member of GG19 who works behind the scenes suggested it, I think it's something a few of us had toyed with before...A league, will all the E-sports hype, why not? Once he mentioned it I knew I had to do it so I got a few of the people from GG19 together and we started planning, we knew our biggest obstacle would be numbers so we figured out a way to make that a non-issue, and that was by removing rosters completely, having guilds sign up instead, and the mercenary system. The NWL has given some of us the opportunity to improve on some of the mistakes of the 2015 Twinkcup. communication foremost among them, one of the first things I did was create a ton of curse chat groups with the guild/team leaders, rule makers, and management when The NWL was announced.
Just who is involved and has what role exactly?
Pizza and I do most of the heavy lifting on the league management side of things. I work with two guild masters on any given week, we schedule a game, I find pizza a co-caster, and then pizza handles the stuff in game with the spectator addon/streaming, and talking with the team leaders, it's all very neat and easy. I’m always available for the games and the hours surrounding them to lend support to teams, whether it be last minute gearing, or helping them find a sub, i’ll message the team leaders a bit before games to make sure everything is going well although Pizza always has it covered anyways. Myrm will be more involved in the season before the Twinkcup. Once in awhile I’ll need to make a ruling of some sort. Before any changes get made I discuss them with a group of people on curse that consists of the ruling committee, management, team leaders and some GG19 members. I tend to get as many opinions as possible for things like monthly tournaments but HB has been a huge help in that regard.
A lot of people are reaching out to help via the stream and other avenues of support; Vangmaw, marb, laurenti, ubexhd, yoube, muskie, hb, pizza, pitter, phobia, and probably more that i’m missing, they are all involved in some capacity. We are always looking for more twinks to lend their talents to the movement, the goal is to make this stream and league as professional as possible. We’ve got couple twinks making art like designing overlays, guild emblems and we are looking for more people to help we need more people with video editing skills, and photoshop skills we’ve got some many ideas so we could really use all the help we can get...
How do you feel the quality of games has been thus far?
Definetly above my expectations, Twitch is a perfect example, if you havn’t seen this yet you should, watching this video made all the effort i've put in so far worth it, fun and competition is something The Nineteens Wargaming League has plenty of ^.^
Tell us what phone you're running! Whatcha textin on?
I actually just upgraded from an old school blackberry that didn't have a SIM card so I couldn't have contacts! Now i'm on a Droid Maxx and it's great.
List 10 players you see shine brighter than most!
These are people who actively twinked and I think have had the greatest positive impact on the 19s bracket as a whole in the past year.
Hunnybuns - For his leadership, passion and influence
Pizza - For his leadership, passion and influence
Saxxon - For his leadership, passion and influence
Blueprint - For his leadership, passion and influence
Livingforce - For his leadership, passion and influence
Tellefella - Supply and Demand, two sides of the same coin.
Sudowoodo - JCM took what everyone expected to happen in the twinkcup, and turned it upside down, and it was amazing.
Mutando - The methodology used in Waka Flocka Seagulls becoming a powerhouse is simple and elegant, Wargames, Wargames, Wargames, and more Wargames
Drugs - I think the success of GG19 on horde speaks for itself
Everyone from EU who came to play in the Twinkcup, and especially those who still do, this bracket wouldn’t be half as great if it wasn’t for your presence.
Well Conq thank you for answering these questions of mine. Got any shoutouts?
All the people who put in the time, effort, and the resources that make twinking the success that it is, and especially those getting involved with taking The NWL to the next level, the potential is only as significant as we allow it to be. Much love ^.^
What or whom got you into twinking?
Back in 2004 I went into a 20-29 BG shortly after Warsong Gulch came out on my Paladin Ironguard, I didn’t have the patience to level. There was this twink named Vinsang, he dominated the entire match in his surprisingly geared 29 undead rogue, I was a human paladin and decided I needed to help my faction win, so I started twinking and stopped leveling back then I was a noob and could barely read so I just made it my goal to get rares in all my item slots, regardless of actual stats. The core players in NO MERCY were my motivation to push twinking as far as I can, the original idea about two and a half to three years ago was to revive twinking on Argent Dawn, which I did threw SCC in the 24s bracket.
What is your favorite class?
Holy Paladin or maybe these days Brewmasters, they are a lot of fun to play. I'd be playing a Grandfathered 19 paladin currently if they were better, yet they are a perfect example of why numbers on a scoreboard don't matter in this bracket.
What is your favorite race?
Humans I guess, they have great racials and the most appealing design.
Where is home for you?
I'm not sure I ascribe to the idea of home, I guess it's where ever I am at any given moment. I've enjoyed traveling since a young age and I find it hard to stay in one place as a general rule. I do live in the U.S. in the state of Massachusetts and have lived there pretty much my entire life, but i'm very fond of Vermont, and LES Manhattan.
What is/was your favorite expac?
The Burning Crusade is my favorite expansion, it was such a young version of the game, I feel like Blizzard cared a lot more back then and twinking and this game were so alive, everything was so cutting edge, it was great. Although back in Vanilla you could see things like Game Masters hovering in Goldshire answering questions for people, that’s something you just don’t see these days.
What server was your first twink guild on?
Argent Dawn US!!!!! A beta server. In Vanilla and TBC it was one of the greatest servers of all time, it had everything Top ranking - PvP, PvE, and even RP and Twinkin, we had 3-4 active twink guilds in vanilla, like <We Love Pie>, <Abbey of The Blessed Keg>, it was <Ya Dig>that preceded NM and was created by Dubs and Gauz, as well as some of the original NO MERCY core group, around the time of TBC we formed into NO MERCY which died out some time after the twink apocalypse that was the release of WotLK. I’m GM of NM currently on my old hunter, nothing has happened there in years, but I have it for safekeeping ^.^
Did you migrate to Trollbane?
Nope ^.^. Argent Dawn and NO MERCY benefited more than any other server/guild from the mass Ruin Migration
Walk us thru the process of becoming a Mod at TI?
Becoming a mod on TI was a really hard decision for me, I turned in my application past the due date and was told to apply again. I did and got accepted. The staff discuss the applications but it would be Myrm who makes the final decision most of the time. I will say that TI has really really high standards for their mods, and they have all been highly capable and intelligent people.
What is the worst part of being a Mod?
Power should be a burden, or it will be taken for granted and this applies to all scales of life. I think the experience mods have is different for each one, it is what you make it for the most part. For me, there are a few things that really made me hesitant in becoming a mod but I knew what I was getting into (it's not my intent to complain). I think people really are bias towards mods, which is to be expected, I was worried that would make people less receptive to any future plans I had, like The NWL and this is not a criticism - mods are authority figures after all. I actually have a strong distaste for authority in general outside of WoW, compromise is useful in any walk of life tho.
No one is immune to bias, being a mod on TI means you are a leader in your own regard, being a good leader means being able to understand things from the lens of others, that requires high level of emotional intelligence and separation, giving someone 20k+ worth of gear one minute, then deleting their threads or something the next is a hard balance. Although most people are understanding that i’m just doing my job and it's nothing against them. These days there is a lot less to moderate. “The best way to moderate is through conversation and understanding” in Myrm’s words.
What is the best part of being a Mod?
Once again I think this differs for all mods, for me the best part about being a moderator is having more influence. When I became a mod it was because I was seeing the community dwindle because of the way things were being run, it wasn't something I actually wanted at first and it literally took me a month make up my mind. Since having become a mod i've been able to have my voice heard in a number of things, most promotions on the website, the mass unbanning, the standards for moderation while shane was here, and a lot more since. The quality of the 19s section is something i’m proud of as well. The general level of discourse that takes place in this sub-forum is a striking balance between the rough and raw XP-off community and the plethora of in-depth twink knowledge and resources.
How was Shane as a owner/admin?
For a long time I defended shane but I don't anymore, the truth is that shane half assed everything he did on this website, literally everything. He wasn't a twink nor did he care about them, he gave up on Xenforo because he realized he couldn't get it done and looking nice in a weekend. After that he sold TI to Myrm for a healthy sum, didn't transfer the Vbulletin license, refuses to contact us, and failed to mention the website was written in custom HTML. He basically made off like a bandit and ended up almost sabotaging our community, the level of stress Myrm, myself, and a couple others have gone threw trying to keep this website going and trying to push it in a progressive direction is just obscene >.<
How is Myrm as a owner/admin?
Myrm is great. He has a really hands off approach, and has turned the community over to the users.
Describe your first guild you became GM of and how it all began.
I created the guild <Team Blackout> on Argent Dawn alliance some time back in 2007 or 2008 before I left retail twinking, that's when I started doing funding first. After that on alternative servers I lead a number of very large PvP/PvE twink guilds, that is when I adopted the name Conq and got a name for myself outside of being on NO MERCY'S premade team. Most these guilds I made were the top ones on the server, I don't remember any of those guilds names, but if you think you know me from back then you probably do, shoot me a private message, i'd love to hear from you.
Do you like dancing? Do you get jiggy with it?
I don't dance, when I do dance it kinda just happens without me realizing it when i'm alone. I listen to a lot of music tho, I don't know what I would do without it ^.^
What is your fav guild you have created?
I don't think GG19 really counts as a guild, so it would be <SCC>, Drama is meaningless to me, I created that guild with my brother and we brought back twinking to Argent Dawn and wargames to 24s. SCC served as a platform for what became Paradox Genesis whose rapid and borderline excessive growth served as a testament to the state of the bracket, although i’m proud and have learned from all my guilds. I didn’t create UGGTW but it is my favorite.
Explain how GG19 went from an idea to a reality?
Marb lied about wanting to give me a ton of stuff to fund people with and then he introduced me to someone who did give me a ton of stuff to fund people with. Our goals were clear from the start, we needed to get the brackets approval, and we needed to make the process legit, we would have one shot so we had to get it right, after I had received the initial donation I then approached every major community leader on BH 19s and asked them to join and help create GG19. We had a meeting which Saxxon dubbed "The Twink Summit" and GG19 was founded.
GG19 continues to exist to this day because we spend wisely, we have never and will never rely on the Bleeding Hollow Economy in its current state. Sometimes I wonder if some suppliers jack up prices just because they know GG19 is well funded, which doesn’t make sense on an economic level, if I actually purchased items from the BH 10-19 section the AH would be empty but we wouldn’t be nearly as well off. I think that if prices were more reasonable, everyone on BH and twinking as a whole would benefit, myself and less well-off twinks might actually spend some gold on the AH more than once in a blue moon. It seems like common sense to me that the BH 19s economy impacts recruitment for the entire bracket, not everyone comes out of GG19 after-all.
Just how much gold has been spent on funding?
Roughly 4 million gold (if I were to liquidate the items we've used so far and combine it with what we have left).
What's the future have in store for GG19?
GG19 is about to begin a new chapter. When it comes to gear we will be able to push funding until at least after the next twinkcup, truly a blesssing. When it comes to growth -
GG19 in partnership with members of Twinkinfo, Bisnation and The NWL are teaming up to support, run, and develop Twitch.tv/thenwl we will have a large amount of content including weekly war games, a weekly podcast, monthly tournaments, daily hosting, and much much more, it's my intent to use this twitch channel as a tool to spearhead the greater XP-off movement.
Many of you may be aware that Twinkinfo has generated no revenue since Myrm purchased it, Myself and Myrm are paying out of pocket to keep this website going because it is caught in a hard place that generates zero revenue and allows zero impactful web development. For us this is an investment in a passion but we are not rich, under the current circumstances TI isn’t going anywhere forward or backwards any time soon, and I mean that literally. So I’ve decided that the stream will be accepting USD donations that will be used 100% for the development of Twinkinfo.com and the 19s bracket, things like a twinkinfo wiki, an integrated GG19 interface, intergrated guild sections, achievement systems, tournament badges, enhanced profiles, a decent xenforo website, enhanced streaming displays and so much more are not possible without money that neither Myrm nor myself have, with time some things can and will be achieved without money, but that will be a never ending losing battle.
Is there a specific application that was extremely entertaining or offensive?!
Haha I enjoy funny apps but members of the funding team like people to take them seriously so they don't always get approve. The average twink costs 30,000g, when people don't put in effort on their applications it is offensive, this is my stuff i'm giving away, at least act like you want it, show some effort, you know?
Explain how NWL went from an idea to a reality?
A member of GG19 who works behind the scenes suggested it, I think it's something a few of us had toyed with before...A league, will all the E-sports hype, why not? Once he mentioned it I knew I had to do it so I got a few of the people from GG19 together and we started planning, we knew our biggest obstacle would be numbers so we figured out a way to make that a non-issue, and that was by removing rosters completely, having guilds sign up instead, and the mercenary system. The NWL has given some of us the opportunity to improve on some of the mistakes of the 2015 Twinkcup. communication foremost among them, one of the first things I did was create a ton of curse chat groups with the guild/team leaders, rule makers, and management when The NWL was announced.
Just who is involved and has what role exactly?
Pizza and I do most of the heavy lifting on the league management side of things. I work with two guild masters on any given week, we schedule a game, I find pizza a co-caster, and then pizza handles the stuff in game with the spectator addon/streaming, and talking with the team leaders, it's all very neat and easy. I’m always available for the games and the hours surrounding them to lend support to teams, whether it be last minute gearing, or helping them find a sub, i’ll message the team leaders a bit before games to make sure everything is going well although Pizza always has it covered anyways. Myrm will be more involved in the season before the Twinkcup. Once in awhile I’ll need to make a ruling of some sort. Before any changes get made I discuss them with a group of people on curse that consists of the ruling committee, management, team leaders and some GG19 members. I tend to get as many opinions as possible for things like monthly tournaments but HB has been a huge help in that regard.
A lot of people are reaching out to help via the stream and other avenues of support; Vangmaw, marb, laurenti, ubexhd, yoube, muskie, hb, pizza, pitter, phobia, and probably more that i’m missing, they are all involved in some capacity. We are always looking for more twinks to lend their talents to the movement, the goal is to make this stream and league as professional as possible. We’ve got couple twinks making art like designing overlays, guild emblems and we are looking for more people to help we need more people with video editing skills, and photoshop skills we’ve got some many ideas so we could really use all the help we can get...
How do you feel the quality of games has been thus far?
Definetly above my expectations, Twitch is a perfect example, if you havn’t seen this yet you should, watching this video made all the effort i've put in so far worth it, fun and competition is something The Nineteens Wargaming League has plenty of ^.^
Tell us what phone you're running! Whatcha textin on?
I actually just upgraded from an old school blackberry that didn't have a SIM card so I couldn't have contacts! Now i'm on a Droid Maxx and it's great.
List 10 players you see shine brighter than most!
These are people who actively twinked and I think have had the greatest positive impact on the 19s bracket as a whole in the past year.
Hunnybuns - For his leadership, passion and influence
Pizza - For his leadership, passion and influence
Saxxon - For his leadership, passion and influence
Blueprint - For his leadership, passion and influence
Livingforce - For his leadership, passion and influence
Tellefella - Supply and Demand, two sides of the same coin.
Sudowoodo - JCM took what everyone expected to happen in the twinkcup, and turned it upside down, and it was amazing.
Mutando - The methodology used in Waka Flocka Seagulls becoming a powerhouse is simple and elegant, Wargames, Wargames, Wargames, and more Wargames
Drugs - I think the success of GG19 on horde speaks for itself
Everyone from EU who came to play in the Twinkcup, and especially those who still do, this bracket wouldn’t be half as great if it wasn’t for your presence.
Well Conq thank you for answering these questions of mine. Got any shoutouts?
All the people who put in the time, effort, and the resources that make twinking the success that it is, and especially those getting involved with taking The NWL to the next level, the potential is only as significant as we allow it to be. Much love ^.^
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