GW2 Community Creators Spotlight - Alex from the RPG Shack

Q: Let's start off with a shameless plug. What do you do in the Guild Wars community and where can everyone find you?

A: Hi! My name's Alex and I run a YouTube channel called The RPG Shack at www.youtube.com/theonlyrpgshack that focuses mainly on the PvE and lore aspects of Guild Wars 2. I also do a whole bunch of other RPG stuff so if you like Fallout, Icewind Dale, etc there's plenty for you! I also Twitter and Facebook!

Q: Did you hear of/play GW1 and what was your experiences/ you're impressions?

A: I played Guild Wars 1 for about 4 years from 2006. I played all classes, some better than others and finished all the campaigns aside from Nightfall. I really enjoyed the time I had in the game, especially all the fantastic new things Eye Of The North brought in. My first impression was that it felt more PvP centric which actually isn't too far from the truth when you look at the development history, but as I got more involved in the lore I came to embrace it.

Q: What is your earliest memory if so?

A: My first character was a Necro/Monk in Factions. I remember having massive internet connection issues at the time so I ended up doing Sunqua Vale about a dozen times! I remember thinking it was a bit pants that each map was instanced instead of being more open world like the sequel is.

Q: Did you/are you playing other MMO's? What attracted you to them?

A: Community and lore usually attract me to MMOs, but occasionally I do get caught up in the hype machine - Wildstar was a perfect example of this. Things like a developer's history make me keep an eye on things. I have active accounts on Elder Scrolls Online, Lord Of The Rings Online, Archeage, Aion, SWTOR and I have about a dozen starter accounts on WoW - I played that for a while back in 2009 because I'd run out of other things to waste my money on. Good balancing and structure will keep me in an MMO, as well as grind that feels achievable. LOTRO got very samey after a while which is a bit of a shame.

I also point blank refuse to pay a sub fee for a game. I bought it already!

Q: When did you start playing GW2 and what got you involved in the game itself?

A: I started playing Guild Wars 2 probably in the March or April it released as part of the closed beta program. I wasn't YouTubing or part of the community at that point, just a big fan of Arenanet's. The ties I had in the previous game, my old guild, was certainly a big factor in getting involved as well as the fact that GW1 had got very quiet over the last few years. It was a chance to dive into Tyria all over again!

Q: What have you enjoyed about GW2 and what has kept you playing?

A: Oh God, where to start!? The combat is hands down the best in any MMO to date; it's reactive, involving and you are punished in high end content for afk-autoattacking. I love the underwater aspect, which is an unpopular opinion but I think that if the game hadn't had the emphasis on underwater combat during development we wouldn't have seen these massive underwater areas in maps like Frostgorge Sound.

But this game still has the ability to steal entire weekends from me after nearly 3 years and what is considerably little in new permanent content. I just love running round, seeing sights, jumping puzzles, dungeons, quaggan parades and having fun in game!

I actually nearly quit the game in late 2012. The guild I was in at the time was very low key and wasn't interested in doing higher level stuff. I'd got to 80 and I was like "So, what now?" I logged on to a looking for guild website and found this guild called Thorin & Company, a place for all players to join in and be part of a community. I joined in January or February 2013 as a lowly member and I've been leader for just over 7 months now. Community is a massive part of this game and without the friends I've made I doubt I'd still be playing.

Q: What has been your favourite memory of GW2?

A: Crikey, that's a tough one! Too many to mention really, the first time I saw Tequatl in Sparkfly Fen, the first time I completed Obsidian Sanctum, the Marionette, Battle for Lion's Arch, of course Super Adventure Box! But my favourite memory of Guild Wars 2 comes from the second or third day after launch. I was in Queensdale with a crowd defending this farmer's field which was awesome enough, and I went wandering across the map towards this lake. I saw a giant Oakheart, back by the shimmering lake and the sun and that was the first time the game felt truly special to me.

Q: What class do you main/ What is your least liked class and why?

A: I main Ranger! I usually run a spotter build for the extra crit and damage. My least favourite class is probably thief, but that's because in almost every RPG I've played I don't really run as a rogue. I'm not a big fan of playing a burst damage class either.

Q: What is your preferred game mode/Have you been drawn to any other modes?

A: I usually play endgame PvE. I'm not a speed runner or Fractal level 50er but I like a challenge. You can find me in Tequatl, running dungeons or fractals or just messing around in the world.

I dabble VERY occasionally in WvW, a bit more in Edge of the Mists and get a ticket on the karma train. It's a great map in there, and super excited for the new WvW map coming soon. I've gotten a bit more into PvP especially since I levelled my Necromancer and Engineer, and from the beta I played the other week I have a feeling stronghold is going to take up a lot of my time.

Q: What is your opinion on the lore of the game?

A: My opinion on the lore has warmed greatly in the last year or so. Partly due to the fact that Season 2 of the Living World did such a great job on expanding what we know about Tyria, but also because there's a lot more Guild Wars 1 lore coming in - with potentially the Mursaat making an appearance in Heart Of Thorns as well as possibly the Bloodstone hidden in the jungle. The 'vanilla' Guild Wars 2 lore was still very impressive but it lacked a bit of an edge for me initially.

Q: How do you feel about the upcoming expansion HoT?

A: I am so psyched for it. There's so many things I'm ecstatic about in the expansion, we could probably just do an interview on that alone!

Q: Is there a place, theme or person you would want new content to include?

A: I would love to go back to Elona. Nightfall/Guild Wars Beyond left a few cliff hangers here and there, I would love to see Palawa Joko's army of the undead make an appearance in the future.

Q: What do you speculate as the next possible race?

A: I seem to be in the minority here, I'm not actually too bothered about playable races, especially tengu. Who wants to be a giant bird? The two that do interest me are the ones that we have relatively little info on, the kodan and the largos.

Q: How did you get started with the community, what inspired you to get involved?

A: I did a couple of Guild Wars 2 videos for a friend's channel back in 2012 and it sort of went from there. A couple of aborted channels later and here I am! This is probably going to sound a bit arrogant but there were a ton of Guild Wars 2 videos that bored the shit out of me, the commentators just weren't interesting to listen to, regardless of how good their points or production skills were. So, eventually I said "I can do better than that!" and gave it a shot. Looking back, some of my earlier videos are pretty shoddy! But eventually I heard about this Guild Gab show and sent Peachy a cheeky email going "Hey! You should have me!" and one thing led to another and now for some reason people seem to respect my opinion!

I recently got into Twitch-streaming, which is really fun to just mess about. Without sounding like an arrogant tool I'm funnier live and have people to work off rather than solo-recording which is why the channel is a bit more info/game commentary based rather than deliberate entertainment.

Q: Why do you think GW2 has such a great community around it?

A: I think the casual nature of the game has a large part to do with it. You can drop in and out as you please over whatever period of time and the only difference between you and a guy who's been playing since launch is ~5% difference in stats and a slightly shinier sword. That's FANTASTIC. On top of that, sharing kill xp, your own loot and no more node ninja thefts mean people aren't in competition with each other over resources, loot and xp. The casual group event system is genius, the ability for anyone to ress and heal is long overdue in an MMO and for whatever reason people just seem to be friendlier in Guild Wars 2. Of course, you're always going to get the asshats regardless what game you play. But the phenomenal thing is that this already friendly community is nurtured constantly by Arenanet to be in direct communication with them. You find devs/employees in game, in Twitch chat - Rubi Bayer dropped into my stream the other week and we had so much fun! They're an awesome bunch of people and welcome everyone with a positive attitude.

Q: Could Arenanet do more to curate and develop its community?

A: There was a bit of a community backlash in 2014, partly due to the fact that there was very little to do in game between Season 1 and 2, but also due to the fact that community increasingly felt that they weren't being listened to. Arenanet recognised this and Chris Whiteside reopened the CDI forum, bringing the community into the fold when discussing potential upcoming game mechanics which was a MASSIVE boost to the community to be a part of shaping a game that we've lived in since 2012. The only other slight thing I would comment on is that for whatever reason fansites don't seem to get as much love as YouTubers or Twitchers. Whether this is due to a shift in traffic over to a more audiovisual medium I couldn't say, but from community discussions I've had I think they're a seriously undervalued resource.

Q: What changes (if at all) have you seen in the community since you started playing GW2?

A: The community has always been fantastic. The team at Arenanet are brilliant, and one of the big things that we've seen in the last year is the increase in which the Arenanet team communicate with their fans. Things like Foostival had it's first UK festival with members of the European NCSoft family attending which for a fan driven event is brilliant. The people who create content aren't seen as people perching in lofty ivory towers and for good reason, there's very little of this holier-than-thou bullshit that plagues other games and the people that do have that tend not to last very long.

GW2 Reddit can still bite me, however.

Q: Why did you choose that particular format  [youtube/twitch/blogs ect]

A: YouTube I find very easy to do in my own time. Because I'm UK based I don't exactly have the best saturation period for the US market. And, with living with my girlfriend and having a full time job with a cancer charity, getting a streaming schedule in place has been pretty tricky - in three years I've still only managed to get about 2 hours of streaming a week for definite! I quite like the idea of bite-sized content too, I don't have the attention span to watch a 3 hour stream!

Q: How much does the audience and community influence your production/creations?

A: For Q&A videos, the questions mostly come from the audience. Occasionally someone will say "Hey, can you do a video on X?" and I'll think "That's a great idea!" and do it. But by and large if I get an idea in my head about what I want to do I just go for it and damn the consequences. I tend to get pretty good constructive criticism from my followers, even if it's usually just telling me to stop buggering up the audio!

Q: Do you have any advice for people wanting to follow in your footsteps?

A: Don't do Minecraft or Call of Duty. Seriously, it's bullshit and you suck at it. I don't want to see a guy get a MOAB or smack a tree for wooden blocks. A friend said this to me about my channel - "Have a USP; Unique Selling Point". Don't carbon copy what's already out there. One of the guys I do Guild Gab with, Inks, we both cover fairly similar ground but I think he'd agree that our approach to how we cover the things we do is markedly different from each other enough to justify us both existing. Find a game or topic you're passionate about and combine it with skills you already have, whether it's production values or creating machinima. And mostly importantly - be a personality. I have friends who can tell when I'm recording because I have my YouTube voice - and that's true to a certain extent, you create an online persona, even if it's not that different from the real you but it's the personality aspect that draws people to your channel, not the fact you've killed 45,000 zombies with dual FMGs are whatever kids do these days.

Q: Do you play anything else which you make content for?

A: You bet! At the moment I'm working on my Pillars of Eternity playthrough, trying to get Wasteland 2 up and running and looking at starting a few other mini-series with a bit more a news/info slant on it in the near future. At the moment I'm currently doing a Black Mesa/Half Life stream on Twitch and pick it up every week, Gordon Freeman is now French and the crowbar has been renamed 'la baguette'.

Q: What type of games do you play for your own enjoyment?

A: I'm very much an RPG kinda guy. I'm making my way through Witcher 3 at the moment and drop back into Skyrim all the time as well as Dragon Age: Inquistion. You'll notice all three of these are open world! I'm not disciplined enough to make videos on open world games, I love to wander and get lost, and having to record it shatters the immersion for me. That and Witcher 3 keeps crashing all the time.

Aside from that, I roll a bit of Heroes Of The Storm as well as a few point and click adventures like Grim Fandango and Dreamfall. I'm a big fan of the new Wolfenstein games too, can't beat a bit of indiscriminate Nazi slaughter.

Q: Apart from the immediate cast group, who else would you recommend?

Wooden Potatoes for sure, this guy knows the lore of this game backwards. Also, another Brit who makes pretty funny and interesting stuff is Mighty Teapot.

Q: Who is your favourite youtuber/streamer [non gw2]?

A: Weirdly, and to my everlasting shame, I barely watch YouTube videos - I just don't have the time. However, I love creative people on YouTube - ERock is amazing, and the comedy duo Fratocrats still make me laugh on the hundreth repeat of their videos.

Q: If you could ask Peachy/Inks/Alex/Corvus/Akasaurus Rex/Modremoth a question what would it be?

A: When do we meet up and party!?