Name: Rising Arms
Play Orientation: FFA PvP
Role Playing: No, but we welcome RPers
Guild Size: Small-Medium (>35 members) and growing
Time Zone: US
Communication: Our Forums and Ventrilo
Guild Hall Thread: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=19431
Web Site: http://www.risingarms.com/

What is unique about your guild?
Our name, like most guilds, is the first thing that anyone sees or hears about us, so we needed something original. "Rising Arms" is not only creative, but it also paints an image that suits our overall attitude and goals: teamwork and victory. Also, our guild is uniquely structured. Rising Arms is run by 3 Guild Masters of completely equal power and say in all matters, and we're always in constant communication to keep things running smoothly. As you can already tell, we're not the average tyrannical guild; Us Guild Masters are always open to ideas and suggestions from our members and we strongly encourage active participation by all.

Who are the people of your guild?
Currently there are only three leaders "in power," or with titles, at this point. The three Guild Masters are Ciden, Kaelic, and Ramaweh. We will be appointing our first 5 council members as Age of Conan launches. We also have a few squad leaders that can be contacted if there is any interest in joining that particular squad. Reaver, Dicari, Brekton, and Arthiose are the four Squad Leaders right now, but we're hoping for 10 full (compromised of 6-10 people) squads by launch, and are therefore still recruiting potential Squad Leaders.

What is your current guild size?
Our current guild size is about 35 members. We hope to have a minimum of 50 active and dedicated members by general beta, and upwards of 100+ by launch date.

What is your main time zone?
Rising Arms is based on the East coast of the U.S; EST (GMT -5.) Most of our members reside in the U.S. or Canada, ranging from -5 to -8 GMT. We won't turn away members that are outside of this time zone, we just won't be able to guarantee that we will have any guild-wide activities scheduled during their peak hours.

What servers are you gunning on?
We're going to be playing on the first Free-For-All PvP server based in the United States; hopefully in Eastern Standard Time.

How do you look at interacting with other guilds?
We're not hostile, but we're not passive either. I like to call it "strategically aggressive." We're going to take what we can get and establish the fact that we're going to be a force to fear, and that you'd be better off on no side than our bad one. Any attacks on us, large or small, will be treated as an act of war. Other guilds can only serve two purposes for Rising Arms- to help us or to hurt us. There is nothing wrong with establishing friendly relationships with other guilds and getting to know other people. We do not, however, plan on taking on the entire server alone. We have a charter, rightfully named "The Blood Pact," written up in the case of a possible alliance. Once these rules are agreed on and/or amended (for the sake of the alliance) and the alliance is official, we will further take whatever resources, money, land, and power that we can.

How are you structured socially (ranks, groups...)?
As I mentioned earlier, we have 3 completely equal Guild Masters who have complete control (but we are constantly in contact with each other to discuss anything major.) Just under the Masters is 'The Council', a group of 5 members- One per archetype (Soldier, Mage, Priest, Rogue)- acting as a representative for his/her archetype, and a fifth hand-picked by the Guild Masters to act as a Head-Councilman: "The General." He brings anything important that is being handled by the council directly to the Guild Masters as to keep things in order. The General also represents the squad leaders, even though they also fall under their specific archetype councilor as well. Next in power comes the Squad Leaders who are to lead their squad in battle- be it PvP, GvG, or PvE raiding. Under the Squad Leaders are the Militants. Militant rank is given to anyone in a squad. Anyone who does not have a title and is not in a squad is a Citizen. They are not required to be present for any PvP or PvE events, only that they act as representatives for Rising Arms in-game and contribute to the guild with ideas, resources, and/or their prestige-class bonus.

What is your take on player cities?
Player cities in Age of Conan are a huge deal- any and every major guild will spend hours upon hours along with many resources and a bit of a fortune to make their city as large and spectacular as can be. We have many members that have already, in detail, imagined up what they want Rising Arms' city to look like and want a hand in creating it. That being said, though we're all very excited for that feature, it will not be our top priority. We plan on pouring as much resources and effort that we can into our battle keep before our city for strength and defense purposes. It will still remain very important to design, build, and defend our city, but it won't be the only thing we do. We're mainly a PvP guild and will show our power through defeating any and all that stand in our way.

What is your take on in-game taxes and loot distribution?
In-game taxes are important. Just like any real-life city or town, the taxes help to build and maintain public structures and will hold the same purposes in Age of Conan for the player cities. In the case that the city owner(s) are allowed to set the taxation rate, Rising Arms will only tax goods bought in our city by 10%, 15% at the absolute highest. Taxes set too high can upset its citizens and will discourage people from buying anything.

Loot distribution is another subject. Many times have I played a game and raided without getting anything more than experience points simply because I didn't, or couldn't, get any items that dropped. We will be using a distribution in which everyone wins. If any good items drop, the raid leader automatically gets it. At the end of the raid, anyone that wants any of the items the raid leader is holding, they will PM the raid leader with a secret bid. Whoever bids highest gets the item and exchanges the item for the money on the spot. The money is then redistributed completely evenly among all who participated in the raid, including the person who won the item. This way, someone not only gets their item cheaper than what they would have paid, but everyone makes some money off of it.

What excites you most about Age of Conan?
I don't think that's a fair question. Most of our members, including myself, have been following this game for many months and have marked their calendars for October 30th, as well as requested off from work for the first week of November. Everything- The graphics, spellweaving, player cities, the 5-directional attack system, the 'M' rating, and ESPECIALLY the drunken bar-fighting has had us all on the edge of our computer chairs for way too long, and I think FunCom needs to give us all beta keys ASAP.

How are you planning on communicating in-game (raids, sieges etc...)?
Rising Arms has had a private Ventrilo server since the beginning of April and we plan on continuing to use Ventrilo for all in-game voice communication. Or you can PM/talk in guild chat- But no one will pay attention to you. Okay, maybe not that extreme- but voice chat is an extremely important aspect of MMOs for teamwork sake, especially during large scale PvP and/or PvE for organization purposes. We ALMOST require you to have a headset to be in Rising Arms, but that wouldn't be very fair, now would it?

What are you looking for in a potential member?
We're looking for maturity, dedication, experience- everything you'd expect to find in a serious guild. If they've been in a structured guild and have played other MMORPGs before, they shouldn't have too hard of a time adapting to Age of Conan and Rising Arms' style of play. We don't want to be attempting to teach players how the MMO genre works in-game, because that would take away our time and our potential strength. We're friendly and will help people who honestly ask for it, but we will not be responding to anyone who asks us questions in all capital letters and entire lines of exclamation points. We'd also like people who have an MMO background with a bit a leadership. If most of our members were a guild and/or class leader at one point, then they will be easier to work with, as well as they might have some very useful ideas for Rising Arms. The last thing we require of our members is a desire to win and be the best- because in the end, that's what we're all about.

How to apply?
Applying to Rising Arms is simple. Visit our site and forums at http://www.risingarms.com/ . Once on our forums, you go to the applications section and use our application template to apply (in order to make sure we get all the information we need.) Be elaborate and precise- we like to know our applicants' true potential. Applicants are free to look at some of the other applications for ideas on what we're looking for, too.

Final words from the Guild Masters:
"In these past few months, our guild has picked up many amazing gamers that were glad to join our ranks and take on the Rising Arms name: a fine mixture of in-depth strategists, devoted leaders, and dedicated followers. It is impossible not to improve as a gamer around this group. Come and join what we have become and may Crom have mercy on all of our foes."
-Ciden

"We've grown fairly large in quite a short period of time. I'm excited to be a part of such a large community and our guild members' anticipation for Age of Conan and Rising Arms' success in-game has me ready to play this game even more. We're going to make sure that everyone knows who Rising Arms is we'll be more than ready to back up the strength that we claim to have with brute and relentless force."
-Kaelic

"It has already been a pleasure to help further the aspirations of our guild. The members, squad leaders, and overall guild structure are shaping up nicely. All we need now is the game to jump into. P.S. Oh and remember, we are still recruiting!"
-Ramaweh

All three of the Guild Masters would like to thank Funcom for developing a game such as Age of Conan, The AoC community, which is filled with many enthusiastic and excited gamers who are ready to jump into the game come October 30th, all the Rising Arms' members for their contributions and dedication thus far, and most importantly- WarCry.com for always bringing us the biggest MMO news and for the opportunity to promote our guild through this interview. Hope to see you all in game!