15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes %26ndash; from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.
Talk about teamwork: The First Responders-H bring pack pride to Lightning's Blade (US) in a big way. This two-and-a-half-year-old, multi-game clan had cleared most of Black Temple prior to Wrath's launch, is digging into Naxxramas with a vengeance and, beyond WoW, maintains a well known and successful XBox team.
Their tactics: military precision %26ndash; literally. The First Responders are primarily firefighters, medics, police officers and military personnel. The guild accepts civilians on a case-by-case basis, emphasizing common attitudes about teamwork rather than the usual min/maxing or gear focus of other guilds. While their nontraditional schedules may dampen progression speed, it certainly doesn't dampen their enthusiasm or guild pride.
15 Minutes of Fame: How are The First Responders different from your typical WoW raiding guild?
Paradin, overall leader of The First Responders: I had been working as an EMT for just a few years at that point, but I had already realized how disciplined, respectful and fun-loving my co-workers were. I started the team as an attempt to bring the attitudes and discipline of the people that I respect the most -- firefighters, EMTs, medics, police officers and military personnel -- into online gaming.
The principles of honor, integrity, compassion, accountability, professionalism and respect are a part of our mission statement, and they are at the very core of what we expect from our members.
The First Responders has been gaming together for a good handful of years now. How did you get started as a clan?
We originally started as a group in January 2004 as an XBox Live team. I searched for people to help me and found four others while cruising the Ubisoft forums for Rainbow Six 3, which was the most popular game out for XBL at that time. They understood the principles I was going for, and together we dug in and started searching for more.
And what sparked the creation of a WoW branch?
After doing very well winning a few championships and picking up a few sponsors, we received a request from one company we were working with to start becoming involved in PC gaming. They wanted to work with a more %26quot;diverse%26quot; group. Our WoW guild was initially started up as a request from a potential sponsor, so we humored them.
Today, we have well over 100 members playing from six different countries that represent each branch of our military, including police and fire/rescue from other countries such as the RCMP of Canada (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). We've grown very slowly, but as a whole we are very proud of what TFR has become.
What's the philosophy behind limiting the number of civilian members in TFR?
There has occasionally been the misconception that we don't allow any civilians into our team, which is entirely untrue. We learned very early on that we couldn't function without the stability of others who have a more normal schedule.