Project Lore

A little while back, you saw the interview that Nihilum did with Project Lore on their website. Recently, we had the chance to chat with one of Nihilum’s earliest members, Marilyn, who has been in Nihilum since the guild was formed on Burning Legion. He’s been around since it all began and has held both officer and class leader positions in the guild. Currently, he’s a “regular” hardcore progression raiding member, so he knows all about Nihilum and how they have risen to become one of the top gaming organizations in the world. We chatted about a few different topics, like what it takes to be a top progression raider, the upcoming expansion, and PvP. Now, here is the full interview:

Nihilum is one of the most well known and fastest progressing guilds in the world. What drives you to become part of one of the top guilds in the world?

I am extremely competitive in everything I do. It all started really early, playing soccer, hockey or just playing chess back in my childhood, I just had to be the best and I'm definitely a sore loser. If someone beats me I will play him/her until I win. And the fact that so many people are playing this game and watching our progress, when we kill a boss world first the attention we get is pretty insane, and fun :D

Your guild has a number of world first kills, not to mention server firsts. Which one was the most satisfying?

Hm, Kel'thuzad, by far, for me. The amount of hours and energy we all put into that fight is something we haven't done again after that. What happened was we had two 1% wipes on Tuesday night. The server would reset for Europeans later that night, so in order to win against the Americans who had their reset 1 day earlier we knew that we had to beat him on that day to claim the world first. But since we failed to kill him that day, we thought the race was lost. But we woke up early the day after and I skipped school, we started raiding at 01:00 pm and we kept going til 05:00 am. By then the whole instance was cleared except Kel'thuzad. On Thursday we started at 02:00 pm, we buffed up and killed him. After so many hours on a boss and so much effort it felt unbelievable to claim him world first and become "the champions". Best World of Warcraft moment for sure :)

Your raid team has seen every boss currently in the game. So far, what is your favorite boss encounter in the game?

Hm... hard to pick, I've got many favorite bosses. But I have to say Heigan from Naxx 40. You could beat him with 10 people, and usually everyone just died and you had 10 good players standing :)

What does your raid schedule look like during progression?

It's a lot of hours. Lately it's been a lot more than it usually was. The reason for that is the competition. More guilds want to be the best and therefore more hours are required to succeed. I'd say from 12:00 to 02:00 is expected of us if they release new content. Of course, this is only something that lasts during one week or a few days. We all have real lives that need our attention :)

How many times do you wipe before you kill a boss for the first time? Do you have any interesting ways to alleviate some of the frustration that must come with learning a boss with no input from anyone other than your guild?

It all depends on the structure of the fight. Generally speaking, I would say at least 2-3 hours before you have the strategy nailed down, then another few hours to make it perfect. That makes it a total of 8-10 hours to know how a boss fight works. Twin Emperors in Sunwell took several days to figure out, so it varies a lot. To answer your second question I must say that keeping people calm is the only way. Take breaks of 10-15 minutes to let people breathe some air and get their mind on something else. Doing something for XX hours straight without a break is never good, no matter what you do.

Many guilds have broken up due to drama between members over a variety of issues. How does Nihilum handle these things when they come up?

Drama has always been around, it is almost impossible to get up to 40 people to get along. There are different ways to handle it. The reason we are still here is that we've been among the top (if not THE top) guilds out there, always. People in the guild are more serious in their gaming than most others, and with that thought in mind you can expect that people will act professionally. If people get upset or mad about something we just tell everyone to take a breather and we come back rejuvenated and calm, then discuss the matter. But, of course, I can't deny that drama has almost caused collapses within the guild, even for Nihilum.

With Wrath of the Lich King right around the corner, how are you as a guild planning to level up? Questing, instancing, grinding mobs?

Well, we haven't played much beta, any of us. Some have played it a lot and some haven't. What we did for TBC was just pure instance grinding. It was the fastest and best way to get to lvl 70. With blizzard stating that they don't want people to level that way, I think we will focus more on doing quests and doing random instances for fun! As long as it goes fast :)

How will you become the first to clear the new Naxx? Do you play on the beta to get a feel for the encounters or simply hone your skills on the current content and get ready for anything?

Nihilum have played Naxx on Beta, and by the looks of it, it will be easy. Also doing Sunwell every Wednesday keeps us in top shape :)

Naxx will be cleared by the US guilds before any of the Europeans. Everything is cleared on beta and I predict that we will see a fully cleared Naxxramas 25 man instance within 8-9 days of the release of WotLK, including leveling. The reason for this is, even though they have changed some of the fights, it will still be the same. People know what to do and what to bring.

Switching gears to PvP, congratulations to the Nihilum Plasma team that won Blizzard's 3v3 tournament at BlizzCon 2008. SK Gaming recently split their PvE and PvP teams. How much interaction does your raid team have with the arena teams? Is there any cross over between members? Is it difficult for players to be the best in the world at both PvE and PvP content or do both take similar skills?

I reckon that most of the people of Nihilum PvE could be the best in the world at PvP if they chose that path. And same goes for PvP players if they decided to go PvE. This game is all about dedication, if you have the right conditions and the will, you will become the best. I'm not in any way trying to undermine our dear PvP players' achievement, they are awesome. But what I'm saying is that everything about Nihilum is professional. We are striving to be the best in the world, both at PvE and PvP. But being the best at PvP and PvE at the same time, I think is not possible. Both areas take a whole lot of time. And time is something that is limited for us all :)

To answer the question if the PvP team and PvE team are connected in any way, I have to say that daily chats over mIRC client is all we do atm. They are doing their thing on another server and we on ours. But yes, we all know each other.

Do you have any advice for players hoping start an elite guild like Nihilum?

To start a guild like Nihilum at this point is hard. What you need is a group of people, 5-10 on the same server with incredible dedication and desire to be the best. You need to be willing to put a lot of time and effort into the matter. When I think about how much time I've spent on this game and the guild Nihilum, it's insane. Never give up on what you want, even when times are rough you have to think back to what you had as the original goal. And strive for it. And try to have a good base of hardcore people, those who do not stop for anything!

Finally, what are your impressions of Project Lore?

Great looking website, absolutely smashing :) We need more of these types of websites and communities. They all help to grow the game to another level :)