Guild Spotlight: Blood of Crom

Name: Blood of Crom
Play Orientation: PvP
Role Playing: Not our focus, but is allowed
Guild Size: Large (around 110 members)
Time Zone: Mainly Pacific, but we do have people across all of the US/Canada time zones
Communication: Our Forums, Teamspeak, and standard messenger programs like AIM
Guild Hall Thread: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=18978
Web Site: http://www.bloodofcrom.com

Podo, leader of Blood of Crom has given these super awesome answers:

What is unique about your guild?
Besides the members, I would have to say the most unique thing about our guild is our “old-school” philosophies. Too many guilds in recent years have valued quantity over quality in their members. We do aspire to being large and powerful, but not at the cost of being strangers or having cliques like many guilds today.

We also only promote members based upon personality and contributions, not your character’s level. We will always avoid putting heavy restrictions on our members. There won’t be a minimum level to join nor will we close recruitment to classes. Too many guilds today have turned being in a guild in an MMO into a job rather than a joy. Our primary focus will always be to have fun, but we won’t be a powerless guild either.

Who are the people of your guild?
They are all a bunch of bacon-loving freaks! Our guild has an unusual (and probably unhealthy) love of bacon, lol. In fact we sometimes refer to ourselves as “Bacon of Crom.” We have a very interesting assortment of members that I can not adequately describe here, hehe.

What is your current guild size?
We have around 110 members at this point. That is much larger than I ever anticipated we would have before the game was released. We are not a guild that values quantity over quality, though. We want more of a close-knit but large guild, which is not an easy thing to achieve. Being a guild that is close-knit is much more important in our minds, which is part of the reason why we have a lengthy application for membership.

What is your main time zone?
Our primary time zone is Pacific. We do, however, have many people from all of the US/Canada time zones.

What is your take on Role Playing?
Our guild allows role-playing, but it is not something we focus on. I know many people truly enjoy role-playing, however it is not something that I do very often and I believe most of the guild feels the same way.

What servers are you gunning on?
We are currently undecided, but it will most likely end up being a PvP server (since that is what the vast majority of our members want). I personally would prefer some sort of non FFA-PvP server (some rules on PvP or some safe areas or something like that), but I’m unsure if there will be such a thing.

How do you look at interacting with other guilds?
We interact with other guilds all the time. In fact we just created the Hyborian Blood Pact along with The Eminence and Ordus Inferi. I feel having good relations with other guilds that have similar ideals gives us more people to talk to, enjoy the game with, and will have other benefits (such as trade and protection) when the game is released. We do not want to make friends with every guild on the server though, since that would make the Border Kingdoms much less enjoyable.

How are you structured socially?
All of our ranks are named with a Blood theme. New recruits are “Young Bloods,” and are on sort of an extended trial to make sure they fit in with the guild. They are actual members of the guild, but will rarely have a say in decisions. We then have several other ranks (without having too many) that have varying levels of responsibility. I described them all in detail in our recruitment post which is far too long and probably boring to explain here, hehe. (to those interested, look here – Mr.I)

What is your take on player cities?
The player cities will be a very nice feature and will be the first major goal of our guild when it is released. We feel that creating a city takes precedence over trying to claim a battlekeep because there are many benefits such as crafting bonuses which will come in handy when we tackle the Border Kingdoms. It will also provide a nice centralized location for the guild to meet and socialize, as well as get into some drunken brawls .

What is your take on in-game taxes and loot distribution?
I like the idea of in-game taxes, as long as it’s easily adjustable and can be set to 0%. It will provide a way for the entire guild to fund the city as well hiring NPC guards for the battlekeeps or any other costly items the guild as a whole could use. I have no interest in having a high tax rate or having any tax when we don’t need the money. I plan on adjusting the tax regularly depending on our current or very near future needs. I don’t feel that we need to have a large storage of funds sitting around.

I do not know much about the loot distribution systems in AoC. I do know that things will drop in large sacks, which I think is a good idea. This way you don’t have to loot every corpse you see and the large sack will be easily visible, unlike many other games where the loot drops into the foliage and is very hard to find. As far as raid loot goes, I do not plan on having any DKP systems implemented or anything like that (unless the guild decides they want to go that direction, but I doubt that is the case). If you participated and it is something that you need and can use, you earned your chance at rolling for it.

What excites you most about Age of Conan?
All the ideas combined as a whole sounds like a really great game to me. The more active and fast-paced combat is a big plus to me. The constant fighting in the Border Kingdoms, drunken brawls, the non-grinding crafting system, etc. all sound very good. I have faith in Funcom as a former die-hard Anarchy Online player and from the posts I’ve seen from the Devs it seems like they all have very good heads on their shoulders.

How are you planning on communicating in-game?
We will be using Teamspeak, unless Ventrilo changes their policies. I have a dedicated server, so I currently have a 100 person Teamspeak server setup that I do not need to pay extra money to host.

What are you looking for in a potential member?
We are looking for dedicated members that fit in well with our guild and share our values and goals. We are looking for people that want to play the game together, not just solo and use us for raiding. We are a pretty large guild, but if a large guild is all you are looking for, Blood of Crom is not the guild for you.

How to apply?
If you want to apply, check out our website at http://www.bloodofcrom.com and head to the forums. Go to the recruitment section of the forums and read the sticky “How to apply – We are recruiting” thread. There is a small amount of required reading to make sure that you like our guild’s guidelines and philosophies. After learning all about our guild, there is a pretty lengthy application that must be filled out and posted in the forums. The reason why the application is a bit lengthy is because the only way for us to get to know a person when they are applying is from the application and the questions we ask after applying. We want to make sure every applicant fits in before we accept them.

Final words from Podo:
We are a guild that is constantly joking around with each other and have been having a lot of fun despite the game being so far from release. Our members are able to take the serious issues seriously when needed, but the majority of the time we are just having fun.

If you have any questions, or you want to have your guild spotlighted, contact Mr.Ixolite at his very own E-MAIL! INDEED! an E-MAIL address.
Found here: [email protected] (BRILLIANT!) 😀