Guild Spotlight: Divine Messengers

Name: The Divine Messengers
Play Orientation: probably PvE (aka regular pvp server)
Role Playing: No
Guild Size: See below
Time Zone: US, although we have members from the EU
Communication: Our Forums, MSN and Ventrilo
Guild Hall Thread: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=24769
Web Site: http://thedivinemessengers.com/

Divine Messenger, leader of (how appropriate 😉 ) the Divine Messengers answered my questions, so enjoy 🙂

What is unique about your guild?
Hands down it is our community. The friendships, experience and sense of brotherhood at The Divine Messengers give an atmosphere that is encouraging to new members and loved by all. The second a new member joins everyone adds them to MSN and greets them and our forums automatically make introduction threads for new members to be welcomed and tell the guild about themselves so even the shyer members are brought into discussions and encouraged to make contributions.

Who are the people of your guild?
The people of our guild vary greatly. We have teenagers and we have members in their forties and everyone gets along like they have known each other for years and we have only been together a few months. Many of our members, like myself, love to socialize and that brings everyone together and has built strong relationships that are vital to an idle guild waiting for a title to be released.

What is your take on Role Playing?
Most of us, while we have no problem with role playing, don’t prefer it. We have a few members who have been involved in RP guilds before who enjoy role playing but no one seems to miss it enough to decide to change to an RP guild. Personally, I love to write among many other hobbies I have but it would just be more work for me on top of site design/upkeep as well as modding my forums and recruiting/getting to know a constant stream of new members.

What is your current guild size?
We have been recruiting since late May and we have gone from a founder and a designer to one of the larger, tight knit guilds in the AoC community. We were growing extremely fast for a long time (an average of 1.5 members a day) but things are finally cooling down and we are using the time to get to know each other and prepare for launch.

Our pre-release goal was one hundred members but as AoC was pushed back I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit 125 but at the same time I am prepared it lose some members just because I would rather be safe than sorry. One hundred members in game, day one sounds like a good number.

What is your main time zone?
While we have members from the west coast to the east coast and even a handful from Europe, the majority are from the eastern/central timezones and that is where our Ventrilo server is located. Our variety ensures playability for members at all hours of the day.

What servers are you gunning on?
We love PvP! and with many FFXI/Anarchy Online veterans, our community is huge on PvE as well. That being said, we looked to the game rather than our preferences to decide on a server because we love it all. Funcom is where it’s at for storylines so it seemed natural to jump into a normal server so we could get immersed in the quests. This game was designed with the normal server in mind and I feel that there will be no shortage of PvP on any server. It is possible that we may switch to a PvP server if it is in the best interest of our members but as of now there is no plan to make any changes.

How do you look at interacting with other guilds?
It isn’t that I don’t love to socialize, but when there are already so many people in my own guild that I want to get to know better it is hard to make time to interact with other guilds. We have had many guilds apply for to be our allies and there are many guild leaders that I am good friends with but what I am really looking forward to is getting to know guilds on our own server. We don’t flame other guilds or talk **** but there is nothing better than having a healthy relationship with a rival guild who can laugh it off and give you respect when you tear them apart.

How are you structured socially?
Socially, our guild most resembles a republic. Every major decision that is made is voted for on our forums and every vote is counted equally. For example, we currently have a poll for our guild city name and while every one vote is counts the same as the next. But those with more experience and those who put more time and effort into the guild can sometimes rally other members to vote with them.

Our ranks are based on the 9 ranks of angels. Other than the unique titles they are similar to the ranks of most guilds. The ranks are divided into 3 Tiers.

We will also have archetype leaders and prestige class leaders.

As you may expect by the descriptions above, we will not be awarding any ranks pre-release. To rank those who have not had the chance to prove themselves on the battlefield would be useless.We have forum ranks to award people’s pre-release and future out of game contributions.

What is your take on player cities?
Player cities were the single reason I was LURED to Age of Conan and combat, graphics, spell weaving ect. made me fall in love. Before I changed my major to physical therapy/nutritional sciences I was studying architecture/city planning and it has been a lifelong passion of mine since sixth grade. We also have a group of members letting their imaginations run wild drawing up blue prints (the self proclaimed (Construction Co. of The Divine Messengers), although the system surely wont be as customizable as they would like it to be. Our guild city will be our number one priority going into Hyboria and we WILL have the first city and the best plot in Aquilonia as we plan to be an economical powerhouse.

What is your take on in-game taxes and loot distribution?
Because our community is so close and so driven to be the top on our server, many members plan to be extremely generous. A good portion of the guild even says they would be willing to pay a 15-20% tax or even donate all their earnings(provided they get their necessities). Despite community support I am leaning towards a 5-7% tax with donations being accepted from those who would like to do so, this way we can keep everyone happy and still fund our great projects we have planned.

As far as loot distribution, in parties loot distribution will be decided upon by the party leader and the members of the party. For information on our loot system for Raids, go here: http://thedivinemessengers.com/forum…hp?topic=574.0

What excites you most about Age of Conan?
I’ll be original here if I can and avoid saying all the things that pop into my head instantly(combat, guild cities, border kingdoms, spell weaving, storylines) and go with the solo ability in Age of Conan. Having played FFXI for many years (a game that is useless to solo and a challenge when it comes to building a party quickly) it will be nice to have a game on the opposite side of the spectrum. Although finding a party should never be a problem in our guild, it will be nice for less social gamers and people who don’t have a lot of time to rally a party together if they have things to do. Not HAVING to have a healer in every party is also a nice touch.

How are you planning on communicating in-game?
We have Ventrilo and will most likely have a 100 man server at release but I will go up to 150 or 200 if needed. Among the extra off topic channels we have a looking for party channel, ten 10 man max party channels, four 30 man max raid channels and a guild city channel to be as organized as possible and will add crafting channels and race specific channels at release to help people with character development support.

What are you looking for in a potential member?
What we are looking for are mature people who love to have fun. Our only rule is that members don’t flame one another or other members of the AoC community, inn order to be respected respect must be given and we always welcome people that want to take an active roll in our community out of the game as well as in the game. If you don’t have experience we will teach you and if you do have experience you can contribute to our plans and our discussions. And for the people that are new to AoC we can teach you all there is to know and we have a full FAQ section on our forums to give a brief overview of all aspects of the game.

How to apply?
Applying for membership pre-release is easy. Simply go to our website forums and register an account and post on the Age of Conan guild application thread and the introductions thread to tell us about yourself and it would be in a new members best interests to immediately begin making posts but it is not required. We usually have at least 15 members on our forums at any given time so you wont have to wait to be greeted and have your application processed like some guilds. After the game releases applicants will also have to prove themselves in game.

Final words from Divine:
I know it is extremely cliche of me to say but we have a family atmosphere and while we continue to grow that is something that we are not willing to let go of. Many large guilds trade that sense of being united for power and numbers and that is something that I refuse to let happen. All the squads within guilds just lead to division and weakened bonds with one another, the same bonds that people look for when looking for a guild. At The Divine Messengers, members aren’t on of many. Every member is an asset to our greatness and an equal part in decision making. Rather than using our guild as a tool to accomplish my own goals, we are lead in the direction of the overall desire of the entire community.

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!) 😀