On the eve of Manaflask's arrival I decided to bother Kungen (which is a marvelously fun activity in and of itself) with some questions on the future of the guild, Cataclysm, and what expectations he has going into the new expansion. I was tempted to just ask him the same questions he usually asks the trials, but then someone told me people would notice and it would seem lazy, so here, I hope you're happy now:

How will Manaflask change things for you and the guild?

It's not really gonna affect the in game guild at all. We're still Ensidia like we used to be and we'll continue to raid like usual and strive for World firsts.

 
Phew, now that that's out of the way we can continue to the really meaty questions.

Obligatory question No.1: What do you think your chances are for being back on top for Cata and why.

We've always been in the top and if our server works and Blizzard doesn't ban us for playing the game then I'm sure we'll take back the number one spot :).

 
Obligatory question No.2: What do you personally think of Cata so far from the beta?

Hm, that's a hard question since we're in a very early stage of the beta. Right now I just think it's gonna be like any new expansion with a huge bonus. The huge bonus being that I'm just loving the whole Cataclysm idea. I definitely had most fun in Vanilla and I'm really looking forward to being back in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. That's all you get from me for now, when we're a bit deeper in the beta I'll do a proper review.

You've recently put up a new recruitment post for Cata, got any promising trials out of it?

We've gotten several promising trials that are showing top notch skills. Now we just have to hope that they aren't chokers when racing for world firsts in Cataclysm.

 
Is that really a thing? I mean have you ever actually seem someone be great as a trial and then totally fail when it counts, due to pressure, stress or whatever?

It can be a huge problem, a lot of people get extremely nervous when there is a lot of pressure on them to perform. Sk-Gaming even had a situation where a guy puked during the raid cause he was so nervous /points at XXX :D. Another regular problem is that some people have a hard time adjusting to new bosses/strategies just off the bat, and it's also something you won't notice when you recruit people during farm status since they already had time to learn everything in their previous guilds.

 
Do you think you'll have enough time until Cata to really refine the roster with the large amount of new recruits and, on a related note, how hard is it to really get the optimal 25 people for world firsts?

It's a long way to Cataclysm and I reckon that we have more than enough time to build a strong roster for Cataclysm. It's already looking a lot better than it did during ICC progress, but we still have a few gaps to fill.

Finding 25 extremely skilled players good enough for World Firsts isn't really an issue. But finding 25 people with the drive and motivation to push it for several weeks/months can be very hard to find and you can't really test people for that until you actually do real progress raiding. You just have to take their word for it.

Any new member/trial in particular you'd like to single out as being surprisingly good? You know, just so they can fail that much harder when the real raiding starts.

Haha I'd rather not, I don't wanna boost their egos to much! But I can tell you that it's definitely not Mancy or Deify, those two are just terribad at Wow and especially in HoN :D. BEN IS COMING FOR YOU MANCY!!!!!!!

 
So, honestly, you've been in a bit of a slump recently. Is this just the nature of the game, is it just cyclical with the top guild? We've seen this before with Death and Taxes then  Nihilum, SK, Ensidia (ok, well that one's kinda specific since it was a merge, but still) and now Paragon on top. What do you think the reason behind this is? Is it just fatigue? Players losing the drive to be the top guild after they've been on top for a long time?

I wouldn't really call it a slump, we're still the only guild in the world that has stayed in the top 3 since WotLK was released. I think it's just the nature of the game, just like any real sport. It's impossible to always stay on the top especially when you have to go through such a big number of new members every year. A top World of Warcraft guild is basically like a football team that has to change half their squad every year.

But our problem in ICC was just, lets just call it extremely bad luck. Our server was complete shit and we could barely raid at all during LK HM progress. We couldn't even get through our LK HM tries each week since the server just wouldn't work during raid hours and if it was working then half the guild kept getting disconnects during our tries. If you tried LK HM at 5-10% etc. then you know that having 1 disconnect is basically gonna wipe you, and we had 1-5 per try for weeks. In the end we even had to change servers in the middle of progress and by that time it was already too late to compete for the world first.

We also had that complete bullshit ban from Blizzard when when we killed LK normal world first. Being banned for something we had no clue about and playing on a server that Blizzard just didn't seem to want to fix doesn't exactly help your motivation either.   

 
Are you going to resume your blogs anytime soon?

I am definitely gonna start blogging again! Next up is a Cataclysm beta diary where you can hear about my thoughts while playing the beta.

 
What are you most excited about going forward into Cata?

I'm most excited about being back in "Vanilla" and also testing the new raiding dungeons and Shield Slaming Deathwing in the face ;D.


What other MMOs are you looking forward to?

Absolutely none. Right now it feels like I'll never look forward to another MMO again after all the recent failures. All you do is get your hopes up and then they end up being complete shit compared to WoW.

 
Do you think hype is hurting these new MMOs? I mean, yes they aren't really better than WoW, but having 2-3 years of hyping before the actual release can't really help with people's expectations.

I actually do think that hype ruins the games for a lot of people. Especially for the new MMO players that only played World of Warcraft before. The first MMO you play is always gonna leave a mark in your heart and it's gonna be the most fun you ever had in a game. So every time a new promising MMO is on the horizon then you have all these people looking for the same rush again, but it will only happen once and that's with the first MMO you play. My favorite MMO will always be Everquest and guess what. Yes, it's the first MMO I played :).

But don't get me wrong, of course you can find a new MMO that you'll enjoy more than World of Warcraft. Just don't hype it too much 'cause in most cases it will be a let down, especially when you compare it to World of Warcraft which really is the best MMO ever created.


What else have you been playing aside from WoW?

Heroes of Newerth only. If you haven't tried it then go buy it now!! It takes a while to learn if you haven't played DoTA, but it's incredibly fun once you learn and master it.

What have you been doing during the summer that didn't involve a computer?

So far I've just been doing normal things like being at the beach, enjoying the sun, parties, friends and I've also caught up on a bit of fishing which I used to do a lot more frequently when I was younger. I've also been playing a lot of Heroes of Newerth and obviously raided in World of Warcraft. But I'm going on a last minute trip with some friends soon to somewhere warm and sunny with loads of palms and hopefully a lot of hot chicks ;).

Well, he's since returned from his trip, so feel free to ask him about these supposed "hot chicks" (yea right) in the comments!