Q: So when and why did you start playing Minecraft, and how did you find Escapecraft? Did you play on any other servers before ours - if so, why did you leave?
A: Out of all the stories I could possibly ever tell, probably the most boring one I have is of how I found Escapecraft. At the time, all I literally did was google "good minecraft servers", and the page on the Escapist usergroup appeared. I think I only visited one other server at the time, but only stayed for about two minutes because it was utter shit - no directions on what to do, no staff members, no PEOPLE at that, and just overall a horrible experience.
What lured me into minecraft, on the other hand, is a bit more interesting. I picked the game up on a recommendation from one of my cousins, but I didn't actually pay for it - instead, he gave me a pirated version of 1.0. I played on this with all sorts of fancy shmansy hacked mods - xrays, god mode, kill auras, you name it and I was probably using it.
The game was just so interesting for me that I decided I'd pay for a legitimate version - and since most servers didn't tolerate hacks like the ones I used (such as ours), this acted as a "purge" from all the malicious things I was using - and start playing online with other, actual people. This is what led me on my hunt to find Escapecraft.
Q: What wacky antics did you get up to before becoming a staff member? You have quite a storied past; do any particular highs or lows stand out?
A: Before I was promoted, I could probably write a whole novel on all of the "wacky antics" I've ended up doing here. One of the first things I wanted to try doing when I started playing online was to experience what it was like doing the main theme of minecraft - building stuff - with other players. Shortly after I left Guest City, I requested my at-the-time house from Guest City to be moved to the cave of another player - SirrusSamiyaza. From then, more and more players accumulated near this house, and this is how my first shithole-esque town, Fort Tusk, was born.
All sorts of memorable experiences poured out from my time there, but I wouldn't say it was the main source of entertainment. This "main source" didn't come until one day, when a nearby neighbor of mine, D4nny, offered me to join his group in PvP called "The Templars".
I first ran into him while he was exploring the claimed land of a nearby player who built around a rail station. He showed me around the area (which wasn't his at the time) to which I eventually found out everything there wasn't cuboided. Feeling mischievous, we decided to build a 2x2 death pit below a frozen lake on the surface. We placed gold ore overtop of the entrance, in hopes that the owner would eventually find it overtop of the lake and dig down to his demise. D4nny eventually felt guilty afterwards from doing this, and as such we decided to clog the death pit and replace everything we dug out. In the case we left it there, though, imagine the turmoil that would've sprung out from this.
Returning to my experience with the Templars, we collected a small army of various players who all gave their allegiance to us - some of them were friends living at Fort Tusk, others acquaintances of D4nny, and some staff members that are still here today (like Sti, and Iron_Fang). I can almost definitely say this is what gave me so much interest in PvP, as my time in the Templars wasn't like most of my other experiences from PvP (which I'm sure most of the staff saw as irritating) - Everything we did there was good natured, and yet fun.
Our "reign of tyranny" over PvP didn't end up lasting forever, though. Our base was eventually discovered by a non-Templar (who was steveab - he wasn't a director, even staff, at the time), and evacuated after half of the arena below-ground crumbled in from mass amounts of TNT being lit. We ended up making a second, more secretive and farther-out base after this, but it wasn't quite as memorable as the first one: It too was destroyed by steveab, with the assistance of a few others.
In retrospect, PvP was probably where I unfortunately picked up a horrible reputation. I was given numerous warnings, kicks, and tempbans (once even a 5 day tempban for antagonizing someone to fight me
irl in the arena) during my time there accumulating in a total of 8 major offences. At one point, I was nearly permabanned by Lord for having so many blackmarks, but he was thankfully merciful that day. Otherwise, you wouldn't have the pleasure of reading this huge wall of text from me.
Q: What wacky antics do you get up to now you ARE a staff member?
A: Whatever qualifies as "wacky antics" that I do now probably aren't nearly as controversial and noteworthy as what I've done as a player. Apart from my typical talk of conquering the universe by releasing my company's orbital cannons all over Tolteca (one is in position to fire on the Haxxana Cabana as we spea- type?), the things I do now aren't nearly as threatening to the well-being of Escapecraft as my actions probably were in the past.
Q: Have you built anything you're particularly proud of?
A: During my time as a ordinary vet, I ended up embarking myself on the task of making myself a new home. Fort Tusk was next to dead in terms of activity, and my house there was crammed and gradually decaying. As such, I claimed and cuboided a cliff in Western Borjan to use as the site of my new house: a skyscraper reaching to the new 1.2 256 block height limit, facilitating everything I could possibly want - whether it's storage, farms, a mineshaft, or even a strip club.
This project wasn't the easiest for me to finish off. I spent about 4 months of on-and-off work on the tower (I think I started around March 2012, and finished June 2012) before I finally completed it. Along the way, I tore down the design I was using twice - once due to inaccuracies in the dimensions of the area, and another time because it looked like a enormous lump of stone brick - before I settled on a final design. The result was definitely spectacular, but the amount of effort I needed to finish everything was by far, very depleting.
Q: Why do you still play Minecraft?
A: Apart from the fact that I now have a soul-consuming promise to manage events here on the server, I stay overall to try and benefit the common good of the server. This is something I by far don't understand why I've done (I've been given 8 offences, nearly banned, slapped on a terrible reputation, and yet I stick around striving to be a mentor?) but have still done anyways. My time here on Escapecraft transformed from a leisurely side activity I didn't care much about to something I strive to assist and reshape. Don't ask me why I have such a strange devotion to doing this.
Q: Which other games do you play, and do you have any interesting hobbies or quirks?
A: Outside of minecraft, I'm really nothing much more then your typical 16 year old teenager striving to make it through high school. I do often spend a lot of time longboarding (It's similar to skateboarding, just using a bigger board that isn't designed for all sorts of tricks) and doing various small-time jobs to extend my immensely vast and endless pool of money.
When not doing these things, or infinitely studying for exams like most of the staff claim to do to explain their absence, I often spend alot of time re-playing console games on my 360. Just a few weeks ago, I finished a (fourth?) playthrough of Red Faction: Guerilla, and just recently started another campaign of Grand Theft Auto IV. Just like my unknown motivation to stick around the server, I also get unknown motivation from time to time to play a game I've already finished six times again.
TL;DR: just kidding, no TL;DR here
