This is an intimate and candid interview pertaining to all things Chops -- No such thing as tl;dr in this thread. Enjoy!
What or whom got you into twinking?
I was leveling through STV in vanilla and Forest Tracker Epaulets dropped. I had made friends in a small guild and one of the guildies was like "hey, those are really good for a twink rogue" and I was like "the fuck is a twink rogue?" and he explained the concept to me, finishing with "everyone should have a twink rogue to goof around on".
So I made a "twink" rogue. Leveled to 29, bought a bunch of greens off the AH, enchanted them with whatever I had lying around and started BGing. I was awful (shocker). But I fell in love with the idea of truly maxing a low level toon. So I worked on her over time and after TBC dropped, eventually got her in at least respectable gear. But I never really learned to play rogue. I still dont get it.
In TBC I decided to take twinking a little more seriously, so I played around with a bunch of classes and brackets and landed on a 29 warrior. But I got real heavily into raiding in TBC (server first illidan kill, waddup bitches!) so this was really just something I did on off nights.
In Wrath, my raiding guild collapsed (look folks, if the tank and his healer start dating, just fucking bail before it gets bad) but a few of the crew were like "hey, fuck it, lets make twinks in 39s" and so I went to make a 39 warrior. My guildies predictably lost interest but I was like "welp, raiding career is over might as well find a twink guild!" so I looked over the forums and saw this hilarious post from @Sockdolager advertising <Werewolf Orgasmahowl> and I was sold. Rolled an Orc Warrior, named him Chops because he had chops and the rest is history.
What is your favorite class?
Warriors and hunters. My raiding toon (and current end game toon) was always a hunter. And I've played twink warriors since TBC. When I was raiding it was really about maxing DPS and finding a consistent role in a guild, and hunter fit that role. Especially BM in TBC lol. But mentally I just cant shake the "charge in, fuck shit up" play style of warrior. And low and behold, when surv went melee, i LOVED it.
What is your favorite race?
Dorf master race!
Where is home for you?
IRL, I'm a redneck from the Ozarks. But if you mean in game? Jaedenar, on my F2P warrior.
What is/was your favorite expac?
TBC. It was the onyl xpac I really got in to. Did all the end game stuff, raided hardcore, even messed around in competitive pvp a bit. Did all the rep grinds, all the prof grinds. etc. And to this day I think it's the most aesthetically pleasing xpac and had the best raid mechanics. Black Temple was genre defining and even the "casual" 10 mans like Kara and ZA were fun and challenging. It was the perfect xpac.
Ironically, its also the xpac that ruined the game. Introducing/popularizing competitive arena and bringing in flying mounts are two of the decisions blizzard made that all their subsequent bad decisions can be traced back to. What a fucking nightmare.
What server was your first twink guild on?
Undermine! Shout out to my Nightfall 39s, boys! I joined <Werewolf Orgasmahowl> and we eventually got reported and had to name change to <Bearwolftriceratiger> which are to date, my two favorite guild names. Though <Teldrassil Firefighters> is real fucking good...
We were a mildly competitive 39s guild. We were never top tier like <Protect The Lumber> or anything but back then there were a bunch of guilds of all skill levels and we played a ton of fun premades. It was a blast. The real apex of twinking.
Any brothers or sisters? Only child?
I have a younger sister. She's hella cool.
How many schools did you go to growing up?
Had a very stable and traditional american schooling experience. one elementary school, one middle school, one high school. All in the same town. Super boring lol.
Any post secondary studies? College or University?
Yea, I have a BA in Philosophy from a pretty exclusive private college. I had intended to go to law school but after about 2 years of college I got exhausted of school, so I just wrapped up my undergrad and moved on. I have zero desire to ever go back.
What do you do for work irl?
Im a website manager for a mid-sized marketing/tech firm. Before this, I spent about a decade as a professional strength and conditioning coach.
What hobbies do you enjoy?! Gym tan laundry?!
Haha, i used to live that GTL life! It was a good way to round out my 20s. I've always been an athlete, though true to my hipster/elitist self, always in niche sports. I played rugby in high school and college and for like 10 years after graduation. Then the brain damage got to be a little scary. I also dabbled in hockey a bit. When I was coaching, I primarily coached strength sports, like strong man, powerlifting and weightlifting.
These days though, Im a trail runner. I like being outside and in the woods. I only go to the gym to keep my body healthy enough to run without pain. Getting old sucks lol.
I also recently got into long boarding. Which is more fun than it should be.
What kind of phone you running atm? I have a Black Berry Key2 and LOVE it!
Iphone SE baby! Love my tiny phone! But I miss Windows phones a lot.
Do you own a vehicle or are you a city slicker?
I drive a truck, lol. Though there was a time in my life when I proudly didnt own a car, and I long to get back to that point.
Any animals?! You're a cat guy aren't ya!
Yep! I have a pitbull and 2 cats. Its a noisy, high energy house. One of the cats has recently decided that my dogs water bowl is actually a swimming pool. It's driving me insane. Why did I get cursed with the one cat that loves water?
Since covid has your weight increased or decreased? Shredded bro?!
I have no idea! I stopped weighing myself ages ago. But all my pants still fit and my shirts are still filled out. I think I dropped a few pounds in muscle mass since my gym closed though.
How has the pandemic changed your daily life?!
I used to go to baseball games a lot, and I miss going to concerts and bars. But the day to day? Not terribly much, actually. I work from my living room and wear sweatpants all day instead of sitting in an office in khakis, but thats about it.
How is <TF> the guild?! Tell us how the guild came about.
Oh man, we're out of the basics and into the personalized questions! Lets see if my memory holds up.
TF got its start when Drizzt and Ohti created a guild and Ohti came to me to help lead it. At the time, we were called <Coggers Companions>, but thankfully that quickly changed. I had been playing F2P exclusively so I was kinda like "sure, yea, I'll help your vet guild, whatever" but when we got to chatting about the point of the guild, the idea that it was expressly a non-competitive guild meant to build the bracket, rather than schedule a few war games before imploding and breaking apart, I was intrigued.
And I think that's one of the things thats really contributed to the guilds success. We built a community, not a BG team, and so as membership ebbs and flows, the core group sticks around expands. And without a schedule of games or expectations of constant competitive play, we can have people dip out and back in after months and feel like theyre able to pick up right back where they left off.
That's not to say everythings perfect or has gone perfectly. We've had a number of very serious issues that I've seen sink other guilds. Astute readers will note one of our founders is no longer with the guild and that parting wasn't entirely amicable. We've had some... uncomfortable discussions about leadership as recently as this week. But when it all comes from a place of trust and with a goal towards building and expanding a community, rather than a competitive team, it's easier to have honest discussions. We never have to worry about "well he's an asshole, but he's the only person willing to FC so we have to tolerate it"
I think having a council style of leadership, where me and Ohti lean heavily on our officers and trusted members to make decisions has really helped, especially when Ohti and I burn out. We know we have an awesome core of guys who can handle things. We would be truly sunk without them, so big shoutout to Andre, Ferocity, Tydubbz, Kony, Pow, Shadowcat and Drad (when he's not carrying classic on his back)
The activity is impressive. Always, always, always ppl on at all hours of the day/night!
Yea! It's really exciting! Again, I think this comes from having that core group of dedicated people. There's always someone on, and we like to have a constant chatter in gchat so people can feel like they've got folks to talk to when theyre grinding or plowing through BGs or whatever.
It's been a lot of hard work, too. Activity doesnt just *happen* you have to nurture it. So even on days when I dont particularly feel like playing, I might log in and hang out in SW and just chat in Gchat so people dont log on into the void. Because that sucks. So we build that expectation that when someone logs on, they wont be the only one.
But once you establish that, it builds momentum. It just takes time and upkeep.
How many premades have you guys been in/organized?! Is that a focus or a happy byproduct?
I mentioned it earlier, but we were started as pointedly *not* a premading guild. And for a while, Ohti and I even took a bit more of an "anti-premade" line. We really wanted people to feel like it was ok to be a casual twink.
But we also have a lot of very competitive people in the guild and some stellar players. So we've had a lot of TF representation in bracket wargames and we put together a few 5v5 WSG "hipster" premades to shake up the stale meta. We've even been known to do some in-house arena wargames, which are a lot of fun.
But we'll never have an "official TF WSG team" and we're never going to like, throw down the gauntlet and challenge other guilds for bracket dominance or whatever. Thats not our style. I want the newest twink in the game to feel like they can log on and find a place in a TF group. That really important to me.
What was it like changing from a member to moderator here at the site?
Just... lol.
It's a quick way to have a lot of people develop strong opinions about you. But I've always been vocal and arrogant and a bit of a crank, so I'm used to it. I'm also old enough that I can remember life without the internet, so I think that infuses a bit of... unseriousness about the way I approach it. The internet is for shit posting and having fun with your friends. And when I was a member, it was easy to shit post and have fun and no one cared. Maybe some people think you're tedious or boorish but who cares?
But when your name is orange, all of a sudden folks want everything you do to have this air of professionalism. Which, I understand. But also I do approach it more like being a head shit poster on a forum full of shit posters, and less like being a librarian or cop. Which drives Sel and Berryy up a fucking wall, I'm sure.
At the same time, I do really care about the twinking community. I want it to grow, I want it to be healthy, I want people to have fun and enjoy the game. There is a vast richness to WOW and there's a ton of history in the twinking community. So between being a leader of the largest twink guild in the game AND being a mod of the biggest twink forum, it's a lot of responsibility and I do feel the weight of that. It makes me a very visible member of the community and quite often, I tend to forget that.
Is your youtube channel going to be fired up again for Shadowlands?
Yes! I've been recording a lot of my game play over the past few days to try and make a "holy shit, what just happened" video for F2P to try to get new people oriented to the F2P changes. But I'm going to play it pretty cautious. I didnt really think many people would watch my videos but the epic gearing one and the Rookies Guide videos STILL get views, 2 years later. And in the rush to get them out, there were a lot of small inaccuracies or things that changed quickly that caused a lot of confusion.
So I don't want to put out "how to gear your F2P" video while we still havent discovered all the changes and the game is getting like 2-3 hot-fixes a day.
But yes, resurrecting the youtube channel is going to be a thing.
What were some of the changes you disliked about Shadowlands?
Nothing I actively dislike, yet. But Im also not an endgame player so things like balancing around covenants isn't something I'm concerned with.
There are some "hopes dashed" things I wish were different. Like I wish HOA was actually intended for lower levels. If they're worried about power creep of the necklace, just make it scale slower and if theyre worried about azerite traits, just remove them. But the HOA itself is a neat grind and adds flavor to BFA content that I think is essential and it's a shame its gotta be gated behind, lets say... "creative use of game mechanics".
And obviously they borked a lot of scaling but that'll get smoothed out.
What were some of the changes you liked about Shadowlands?
Obviously, from a F2P perspective, opening up all this content! It's a very exciting time for F2P twinks and people who enjoy that deep grinding and account maxing that all of us weirdo pure F2P guys like. So Im very, very excited to really dig in once the rush to gear settles down a bit. I barely squeaked in GF'd relics. Got my last one literally an hour or so before the hotfix. So I don't want to miss anything else.
But once that dies down? Man... so much to do and explore that I really gotta say, this could be *the* xpac that really sees the pinnacle of F2P twinking. Just damn near the whole game is free, without the end game treadmill. It's gonna rule.
Do you dabble in the Black Market AH?! Any crazy purchases/sales?!
Nope. Though when people ask me about crazy AH stories in general, I always bring up passing on a 500 gold Pendulum of Doom in TBC because "Eh, I'll never play a 39 warrior"
Do you have a favorite mount?!
I really like my hunter class mount. Good theme, excellent execution, great animations. Just over all great, ESPECIALLY considering how shitty every other class mount is. Feel like its good karma for putting up with 15 years of the worst. fucking. armor. design. in. the. game.
Also very fond of all the bear mounts. Very cool.
Thank you for your time Chops
Any shoutouts you would like to give as we wrap things up?!
It was a real pleasure, thanks for feeding my ego! Just let me give another shout out to the guild! <TF> really is the best group of guys and gals I could ask to play the game with. Ultimately, MMORPGs are about community and <TF> is the best community I could hope for.
And Xpoff. I guess. You guy are alright.
I suppose.
What or whom got you into twinking?
I was leveling through STV in vanilla and Forest Tracker Epaulets dropped. I had made friends in a small guild and one of the guildies was like "hey, those are really good for a twink rogue" and I was like "the fuck is a twink rogue?" and he explained the concept to me, finishing with "everyone should have a twink rogue to goof around on".
So I made a "twink" rogue. Leveled to 29, bought a bunch of greens off the AH, enchanted them with whatever I had lying around and started BGing. I was awful (shocker). But I fell in love with the idea of truly maxing a low level toon. So I worked on her over time and after TBC dropped, eventually got her in at least respectable gear. But I never really learned to play rogue. I still dont get it.
In TBC I decided to take twinking a little more seriously, so I played around with a bunch of classes and brackets and landed on a 29 warrior. But I got real heavily into raiding in TBC (server first illidan kill, waddup bitches!) so this was really just something I did on off nights.
In Wrath, my raiding guild collapsed (look folks, if the tank and his healer start dating, just fucking bail before it gets bad) but a few of the crew were like "hey, fuck it, lets make twinks in 39s" and so I went to make a 39 warrior. My guildies predictably lost interest but I was like "welp, raiding career is over might as well find a twink guild!" so I looked over the forums and saw this hilarious post from @Sockdolager advertising <Werewolf Orgasmahowl> and I was sold. Rolled an Orc Warrior, named him Chops because he had chops and the rest is history.
What is your favorite class?
Warriors and hunters. My raiding toon (and current end game toon) was always a hunter. And I've played twink warriors since TBC. When I was raiding it was really about maxing DPS and finding a consistent role in a guild, and hunter fit that role. Especially BM in TBC lol. But mentally I just cant shake the "charge in, fuck shit up" play style of warrior. And low and behold, when surv went melee, i LOVED it.
What is your favorite race?
Dorf master race!
Where is home for you?
IRL, I'm a redneck from the Ozarks. But if you mean in game? Jaedenar, on my F2P warrior.
What is/was your favorite expac?
TBC. It was the onyl xpac I really got in to. Did all the end game stuff, raided hardcore, even messed around in competitive pvp a bit. Did all the rep grinds, all the prof grinds. etc. And to this day I think it's the most aesthetically pleasing xpac and had the best raid mechanics. Black Temple was genre defining and even the "casual" 10 mans like Kara and ZA were fun and challenging. It was the perfect xpac.
Ironically, its also the xpac that ruined the game. Introducing/popularizing competitive arena and bringing in flying mounts are two of the decisions blizzard made that all their subsequent bad decisions can be traced back to. What a fucking nightmare.
What server was your first twink guild on?
Undermine! Shout out to my Nightfall 39s, boys! I joined <Werewolf Orgasmahowl> and we eventually got reported and had to name change to <Bearwolftriceratiger> which are to date, my two favorite guild names. Though <Teldrassil Firefighters> is real fucking good...
We were a mildly competitive 39s guild. We were never top tier like <Protect The Lumber> or anything but back then there were a bunch of guilds of all skill levels and we played a ton of fun premades. It was a blast. The real apex of twinking.
Any brothers or sisters? Only child?
I have a younger sister. She's hella cool.
How many schools did you go to growing up?
Had a very stable and traditional american schooling experience. one elementary school, one middle school, one high school. All in the same town. Super boring lol.
Any post secondary studies? College or University?
Yea, I have a BA in Philosophy from a pretty exclusive private college. I had intended to go to law school but after about 2 years of college I got exhausted of school, so I just wrapped up my undergrad and moved on. I have zero desire to ever go back.
What do you do for work irl?
Im a website manager for a mid-sized marketing/tech firm. Before this, I spent about a decade as a professional strength and conditioning coach.
What hobbies do you enjoy?! Gym tan laundry?!
Haha, i used to live that GTL life! It was a good way to round out my 20s. I've always been an athlete, though true to my hipster/elitist self, always in niche sports. I played rugby in high school and college and for like 10 years after graduation. Then the brain damage got to be a little scary. I also dabbled in hockey a bit. When I was coaching, I primarily coached strength sports, like strong man, powerlifting and weightlifting.
These days though, Im a trail runner. I like being outside and in the woods. I only go to the gym to keep my body healthy enough to run without pain. Getting old sucks lol.
I also recently got into long boarding. Which is more fun than it should be.
What kind of phone you running atm? I have a Black Berry Key2 and LOVE it!
Iphone SE baby! Love my tiny phone! But I miss Windows phones a lot.
Do you own a vehicle or are you a city slicker?
I drive a truck, lol. Though there was a time in my life when I proudly didnt own a car, and I long to get back to that point.
Any animals?! You're a cat guy aren't ya!
Yep! I have a pitbull and 2 cats. Its a noisy, high energy house. One of the cats has recently decided that my dogs water bowl is actually a swimming pool. It's driving me insane. Why did I get cursed with the one cat that loves water?
Since covid has your weight increased or decreased? Shredded bro?!
I have no idea! I stopped weighing myself ages ago. But all my pants still fit and my shirts are still filled out. I think I dropped a few pounds in muscle mass since my gym closed though.
How has the pandemic changed your daily life?!
I used to go to baseball games a lot, and I miss going to concerts and bars. But the day to day? Not terribly much, actually. I work from my living room and wear sweatpants all day instead of sitting in an office in khakis, but thats about it.
How is <TF> the guild?! Tell us how the guild came about.
Oh man, we're out of the basics and into the personalized questions! Lets see if my memory holds up.
TF got its start when Drizzt and Ohti created a guild and Ohti came to me to help lead it. At the time, we were called <Coggers Companions>, but thankfully that quickly changed. I had been playing F2P exclusively so I was kinda like "sure, yea, I'll help your vet guild, whatever" but when we got to chatting about the point of the guild, the idea that it was expressly a non-competitive guild meant to build the bracket, rather than schedule a few war games before imploding and breaking apart, I was intrigued.
And I think that's one of the things thats really contributed to the guilds success. We built a community, not a BG team, and so as membership ebbs and flows, the core group sticks around expands. And without a schedule of games or expectations of constant competitive play, we can have people dip out and back in after months and feel like theyre able to pick up right back where they left off.
That's not to say everythings perfect or has gone perfectly. We've had a number of very serious issues that I've seen sink other guilds. Astute readers will note one of our founders is no longer with the guild and that parting wasn't entirely amicable. We've had some... uncomfortable discussions about leadership as recently as this week. But when it all comes from a place of trust and with a goal towards building and expanding a community, rather than a competitive team, it's easier to have honest discussions. We never have to worry about "well he's an asshole, but he's the only person willing to FC so we have to tolerate it"
I think having a council style of leadership, where me and Ohti lean heavily on our officers and trusted members to make decisions has really helped, especially when Ohti and I burn out. We know we have an awesome core of guys who can handle things. We would be truly sunk without them, so big shoutout to Andre, Ferocity, Tydubbz, Kony, Pow, Shadowcat and Drad (when he's not carrying classic on his back)
The activity is impressive. Always, always, always ppl on at all hours of the day/night!
Yea! It's really exciting! Again, I think this comes from having that core group of dedicated people. There's always someone on, and we like to have a constant chatter in gchat so people can feel like they've got folks to talk to when theyre grinding or plowing through BGs or whatever.
It's been a lot of hard work, too. Activity doesnt just *happen* you have to nurture it. So even on days when I dont particularly feel like playing, I might log in and hang out in SW and just chat in Gchat so people dont log on into the void. Because that sucks. So we build that expectation that when someone logs on, they wont be the only one.
But once you establish that, it builds momentum. It just takes time and upkeep.
How many premades have you guys been in/organized?! Is that a focus or a happy byproduct?
I mentioned it earlier, but we were started as pointedly *not* a premading guild. And for a while, Ohti and I even took a bit more of an "anti-premade" line. We really wanted people to feel like it was ok to be a casual twink.
But we also have a lot of very competitive people in the guild and some stellar players. So we've had a lot of TF representation in bracket wargames and we put together a few 5v5 WSG "hipster" premades to shake up the stale meta. We've even been known to do some in-house arena wargames, which are a lot of fun.
But we'll never have an "official TF WSG team" and we're never going to like, throw down the gauntlet and challenge other guilds for bracket dominance or whatever. Thats not our style. I want the newest twink in the game to feel like they can log on and find a place in a TF group. That really important to me.
What was it like changing from a member to moderator here at the site?
Just... lol.
It's a quick way to have a lot of people develop strong opinions about you. But I've always been vocal and arrogant and a bit of a crank, so I'm used to it. I'm also old enough that I can remember life without the internet, so I think that infuses a bit of... unseriousness about the way I approach it. The internet is for shit posting and having fun with your friends. And when I was a member, it was easy to shit post and have fun and no one cared. Maybe some people think you're tedious or boorish but who cares?
But when your name is orange, all of a sudden folks want everything you do to have this air of professionalism. Which, I understand. But also I do approach it more like being a head shit poster on a forum full of shit posters, and less like being a librarian or cop. Which drives Sel and Berryy up a fucking wall, I'm sure.
At the same time, I do really care about the twinking community. I want it to grow, I want it to be healthy, I want people to have fun and enjoy the game. There is a vast richness to WOW and there's a ton of history in the twinking community. So between being a leader of the largest twink guild in the game AND being a mod of the biggest twink forum, it's a lot of responsibility and I do feel the weight of that. It makes me a very visible member of the community and quite often, I tend to forget that.
Is your youtube channel going to be fired up again for Shadowlands?
Yes! I've been recording a lot of my game play over the past few days to try and make a "holy shit, what just happened" video for F2P to try to get new people oriented to the F2P changes. But I'm going to play it pretty cautious. I didnt really think many people would watch my videos but the epic gearing one and the Rookies Guide videos STILL get views, 2 years later. And in the rush to get them out, there were a lot of small inaccuracies or things that changed quickly that caused a lot of confusion.
So I don't want to put out "how to gear your F2P" video while we still havent discovered all the changes and the game is getting like 2-3 hot-fixes a day.
But yes, resurrecting the youtube channel is going to be a thing.
What were some of the changes you disliked about Shadowlands?
Nothing I actively dislike, yet. But Im also not an endgame player so things like balancing around covenants isn't something I'm concerned with.
There are some "hopes dashed" things I wish were different. Like I wish HOA was actually intended for lower levels. If they're worried about power creep of the necklace, just make it scale slower and if theyre worried about azerite traits, just remove them. But the HOA itself is a neat grind and adds flavor to BFA content that I think is essential and it's a shame its gotta be gated behind, lets say... "creative use of game mechanics".
And obviously they borked a lot of scaling but that'll get smoothed out.
What were some of the changes you liked about Shadowlands?
Obviously, from a F2P perspective, opening up all this content! It's a very exciting time for F2P twinks and people who enjoy that deep grinding and account maxing that all of us weirdo pure F2P guys like. So Im very, very excited to really dig in once the rush to gear settles down a bit. I barely squeaked in GF'd relics. Got my last one literally an hour or so before the hotfix. So I don't want to miss anything else.
But once that dies down? Man... so much to do and explore that I really gotta say, this could be *the* xpac that really sees the pinnacle of F2P twinking. Just damn near the whole game is free, without the end game treadmill. It's gonna rule.
Do you dabble in the Black Market AH?! Any crazy purchases/sales?!
Nope. Though when people ask me about crazy AH stories in general, I always bring up passing on a 500 gold Pendulum of Doom in TBC because "Eh, I'll never play a 39 warrior"
Do you have a favorite mount?!
I really like my hunter class mount. Good theme, excellent execution, great animations. Just over all great, ESPECIALLY considering how shitty every other class mount is. Feel like its good karma for putting up with 15 years of the worst. fucking. armor. design. in. the. game.
Also very fond of all the bear mounts. Very cool.
Thank you for your time Chops
Any shoutouts you would like to give as we wrap things up?!It was a real pleasure, thanks for feeding my ego! Just let me give another shout out to the guild! <TF> really is the best group of guys and gals I could ask to play the game with. Ultimately, MMORPGs are about community and <TF> is the best community I could hope for.
And Xpoff. I guess. You guy are alright.
I suppose.
