Clan:Wilderness Guardians/Other Clan Aspects

This article is a sub-section of The Wilderness Guardians.

=Other Clan Aspects= The prestige of WildGuard is not limited to the game and real life. The clan has been recognised by Jagex themselves, have produced multiple Flash movies, have a theme song, have several award aspects available, and much more which contribute to their uniqueness.

Jagex Endorsement
One of the more prominent features of WildGuard is their relationship with Jagex, the creators of RuneScape. So far in 2010, WG has been featured on the RuneScape and Runefest websites six times, were renowned for their efforts at Runefest 2010, had twenty-nine Jagex Mods order WG T-Shirts, provided two hundred WG Pens which are now used by all the Jagex staff, and much more yet to come.

April 30th 2010
The first featuring of WG in a Clan Submissions article was on April 30th, 2010, where Mod Mat K specified Wilderness Guardians and 'The' Clan as two clans which he found especially unique. WildGuard was recognised mainly for His Lordship's contribution to the clan community (The section of the interview is pictured right). The Wilderness Guardians were also recignised as one of the oldest surviving clans in the game, alongside Noobs Incorporated and Dark Slayers (Both of which now deceased) in the same article. The Clan Submissions page can be found here. The quotation was incorporated into a banner which is displayed occasionally on the WildGuard forum.

September 17th 2010
Following Runefest, WildGuard appeared in the Clan Submissions page of Jagex's Community Management for the second time.

The article, released by Mod Timbo on September 17th, is an in-depth summary of the entire Runefest event. Following the Editor's Note, the summary opens with the legendary image of 7 of the 8 WildGuard members (Groedius was not present) with Mark Gerhard/Mod MMG, the Jagex CEO. The picture was taken following the Golden Gnomes, and was posted on WG's recap as well as Zybez. The summary continues to describe Runefest in-depth, and gives mention to WildGuard's T-shirts, pens and His Lordship's live TeamSpeak rant. The Skillers Empire, the other more profound syndicate, were also given mentions.

The "How did the clans enjoy Runefest?" section features quotes from Stokenut of WG, SE Jazzy of Skillers Empire, and His Lordship of WG. Stokenut's quote is taken from a topic posted in the official Runefest forum, and His Lordship's from the post on Zybez. Ironically, Stokenut was not a Guardian at the time, although all of the real-life meeting attendees were representatives of WG, including ex-members, allies and friends.

November 11th 2010
WG's third featuring in Clan Submissions by Jagex was in the October release by Mod Timbo (the article directly after September's/Runefest), which involved an interview with His Lordship. Skill Prodigy was the other clan featured, celebrating their first birthday.

The interview itself took place on September 22nd, a month and a half previously. His Lordship and Mod Timbo had arranged to conduct the interview over the IRC, which took place in the clan's public channel (#WG_Lobby on SwiftIRC) at approximately 9:00 PM GMT. The interview itself lasted over an hour, although Timbo stayed for a short while after for discussion with other clan members.

The article was published on November 11th, despite being entitled the October release. The interview appeared first under clan artwork. Four main questions were asked in the interview: one on the Wilderness Guardians and how they began, one on His Lordship and leadership, one on the clan world (past and present) and a final one concerning the history of the TeamSpeak Rant.

Runefest 2010
Much of WG's interaction with Jagex took place during their 5th Real Life meeting at Runefest 2010. The event was hosted by Jagex, of which eight WG and affiliates attended - making them the most profound syndicate apart from Jagex themselves. WG made several impressions including the live performance of the TeamSpeak Rant by His Lordship, the free distribution of the WG Pens, the Golden Gnomes Flash Movie, and much more (Including the photo of WG with Mod MMG, and His Lordship and Mod Timbo sharing drinks (pictured)).

Following the event, Mod Stevew posted on the RuneScape forums in a reply to WG's thank you topic:

Several other Jagex Mods acknowledged WG:

On the 29th, His Lordship announced that twenty-six Jagex mods had signed up for WG T-Shirts. These were successfully delivered, and confirmed to be in use by Mod Timbo (inset).

On September 14th, Jagex released the Runefest Wall(paper) of Fame as a downloadable wallpaper. WildGuard's design is viewable in the 1920x1200 resolution in the bottom-right corner. The design was originally placeheld by WG Keanu and later fully artistically completed by His Lordship. Names of all the WG attendees are visible on the right.

Flash Movies
Five Flash Movies have been created by His Lordship, based on the Wilderness Guardians. In total, these movies have gathered over 140,000 views, and are renowned throughout the clan world.

The Wilderness Guardians (2004)
Watch the video on Newgrounds.com

The first Flash movie was created during the AvidGamers era of WG, in 2004. It was also the first Flash movie that His Lordship did not scrap, and took 3 days to create. The plot tells an interpretation of the creation of RuneScape, and describes how the race of mankind has become corrupt and self-destructive. No major interpretation of the clan itself was made, although a short worded description was provided, and a link to the clan's AvidGamers website.

The movie was uploaded to Newgrounds on January 5th, 2004. It has since gained a score of 3.85/5 and has over 21,000 views.

RuneScape Guardians (2005)
Watch the video on Newgrounds.com

The second movie was created and released in the late S4 days in mid-2005. The storyline was similar to the original, but was more accurate in terms of the RuneScape game itself. The Wilderness Guardians are now shown in the battle scenes, fighting for concepts such as freedom and peace. The term "We are the Shield of the Innocent" is used. The video's text commentary is also directed more at the viewer, rather than detailing the storyline.

The movie was uploaded to Newgrounds on April 18th, 2005. With a score of 4.06/5 and over 58,000 views, it is the most-viewed of all of the Flash movies.

The Wilderness Guardians (2007)
Watch the video on Newgrounds.com

Production for the third movie began in the early Z6 days, and is considered to be the greatest fictional movie ever created about RuneScape. The storyline was co-created by Wildflame110 and His Lordship. With the animation dramatically increased, the movie featured a scene selection, and for the first time, a spoken commentary by Mark Pilkenroth. The story is told from the first-person point of view of a villager, whose wife and child were slaughtered by plundering soldiers. The villager then proceeds to join the forces of the Wilderness Guardians. As a Guardian, a battle in which he fights ensures. He slays two of his enemies, but is then killed by a mage. The film ends with the three graves of himself, his wife and child, before a final worded address to the viewer and the credits.

After a long production, the movie was uploaded to Newgrounds on May 17th, 2007. It has gained a score of 4.12/5 and over 55,000 views. The movie was uploaded to YouTube in 2010.

The Wilderness Guardians (Machinima) (2010)
While not truly a movie in the typical sense, the fourth Flash release is still considered as part of WildGuard's Flash series. After confirming with Jagex, His Lordship decided Flash was appropriate for the RuneScape Machinima Contest 2010, and set to work on February 3rd. The movie itself was released on February 19th.

Because of the 30-second time limit, it almost instantly opens into a battle involving the Wilderness Guardians. Very little is spoken, with the only voice (of the leader) done by His Lordship. The battle is then halted, as the fighters become aware of the appearance of the Corporeal Beast. The beast then roars with incredible force. A fighter turns to the narrator and leader of the Guardians, who responds simply with "Kill it." The video ends with a battle cry and the title/end credits.

The Machinima compeition guidelines were for an "advert". In the video description, His Lordship explains:

The battle scene is incredibly detailed and fast-paced, and arguably of much higher quality than previous movies. Even so, upon it's release controversy arose due to the fact that there was no actual RuneScape footage. His Lordship argued that Flash animation had been confirmed by Jagex, and most of the objects involved were real in-game items drawn over. Despite the support of many WildGuard and non-WildGuard viewers, the entry did not make it into the finals. Even so, at last count the video received over 4,000 views on YouTube, and a 19:1 like to dislike ratio for ratings. Unfortunately, the entire Wilderness Guardians YouTube channel was cleared out in late August. However, the video was used in a campaign for the animation category's re-introduction in Jagex's Golden Gnome awards. It is available on ex-WG members Stokenut's YouTube channel (above).

Trivia
This is the first Flash movie in which the battle scene that takes place is P2P. Previously, the characters would be wearing and wielding what would be percieved as F2P armour and weapons for their respective styles. However, in the 2007 movie, a mage casts a spell which may be interpereted as a version of a Barrage spell - only useable with the members-only Ancients spellbook.

The volcano in the background erupts exactly halfway through, at 15 seconds in.

The characters in the film are based on the following celebrities:
 * Brad Pitt/Ryan Reynolds as the narrator/leader
 * Elisha Cuthbert as the Ancient mage
 * Edward Norton as the ranger with crossbow
 * Brad Pitt (back) as the fighter shot by the ranger
 * Christopher Reeve (Acting as Superman) as the fighter drinking a potion
 * Vergil (Devil May Cry charater) as the man who turns around towards the Corporeal Beast
 * Zooey Deschanel as the girl staring at the Corporeal Beast
 * Paris Hilton (back) as the girl with the accumulator
 * The villager/Guardian from the third movie as the fighter who looks to the narrator/leader at the end

The music to the film is a composition by His Lordship, performed and recorded live by an orchestra in 2009.

The Wilderness Guardians (Golden Gnomes) (2010)
The 5th movie to feature WildGuard was His Lordship's entry for the Golden Gnomes competition (Animation Short-Story category) hosted by Jagex. It was released on August 16th 2010 at 11:40 PM, just 19 minutes before the deadline, and is 1 minute and 58 seconds long (The cap was 2 minutes). It came second place in the awards.

The movie tells the story of the creation of Gilenor, from the landscape to plants and animals, then to humans. The Third Age then begins with meteors falling from the sky onto the land, then opening to the desolate and barren Wilderness for the God Wars. A battle takes place between the armies of Saradomin and Zamorak, until the intervention of Guthix. Guthix then banishes the gods from the realm, and the passing of time is portrayed. The end of the movie shows the Wilderness Guardians clan and ends with the line "This is our land, and we are it's Guardians".

The movie itself took several hours to create. The opening sequence which lasts a brief 1-2 seconds took eight hours alone just to draw the clouds. The Moss Giant included was real game footage recorded and drawn over in Flash. The storyline was changed and many alternatives considered prior to the final work. The finished product was uploaded to YouTube, but the entire Wilderness Guardians YouTube account was cleared out a few days after. The current version was uploaded on August 23rd. The entry still made it in successfully for the Golden Gnomes competition.

The Golden Gnomes competition was held at Runefest 2010 (See Real Life Meeting 5), which was attended by a group of 8 WildGuard and affiliates. His Lordship and Mino Tauros's entries were finalists in the competition and both were played to the attendees of Runefest at 6:00 PM - Mino Tauros's first and His Lordship's second. Mino Tauros's collected the majority of votes and won the Golden Gnome. However, to come runner up was still a great achievement.

Trivia
Upon the release of the Golden Gnomes competition, the Animation categories were omitted. His Lordship immediately took action and started a campaign for the re-addition of Animation. It gained an incredible amount of support from video makers and players alike, and even had support from RuneScape legend Stokenut, who put up a support video created by His Lordship which has gained over 15,000 views. The Animation category was then brought back in by Jagex, and His Lordship was given a mention by the presentor Party Pete at the programme.

The video includes several references to past movies and productions:
 * The landscape in the background with the first two people is from the third movie
 * The male character has the body of a figure used in the preparation video for The Battle of Turning Tides
 * The girl who sees the meteors is from the fourth movie
 * The landscape for the Third Age Wilderness is from a banner created for the Great War
 * The green balls shown during the banishing of the gods is a reference to an old clan promotional movie.
 * The Wilderness Guardians at the very end are characters from the fourth movie as well.

The music and sound effects are all by His Lordship. The choir in the background is multiple recordings of His Lordship, and is the original music from the RuneScape login screen.

The Guardian Power
The Guardian Power is a hymn composed and performed by His Lordship. It is recognised as WG's theme song (Replacing "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, which is the soundtrack used for the video of the WG vs DoA war). Musically, the song follows a moderate classical-fantasy style in the key of D minor, led by the recognizable piano riff which is played at the intro, verses and outro.

First Release
The first version of the Guardian Power was released on September 6th, 2009, in an Important Announcement. It is 3 minutes and 13 seconds long, and contains vocals (sung by His Lordship, noteably at 4:00 AM his time), the piano riffs, and some simplistic instrumental sections.

The lyrics are written in second-person narrative, and tell the story of a RuneScape clan battle in the wilderness. Less members of WildGuard have shown up than were signed up to attend, but the war is only minutes away. Upon arrival, the opposing clan also appear to outlevel the WG members by far, with the lines "Their levels red, your friends are green, you can't believe what's on the screen". For the final verse, the listener (Who plays the role of a Guardian in the fight) is out of food and being piled by the opposing clan. Their prayer is running low and they have been immobilised by a bind spell (Implying the war takes place in F2P) and there are no other WildGuard members within sight.

The choruses of the song refer to the "Guardian Power" as a source of strength held by WildGuard which provides a greater level of strength and unity. The lines "Fear not, you are a Guardian" and "You have strength beyond your numbers/Your levels will suffice/You will tank them for a while" give an underlying and morally strengthening belief that the abilities of the Guardians extends beyond the logical and statistical bounds of the game.

The coda of the song fades out with His Lordship speaking/whispering "You will fight them until they have" and ends with an echoing "Nothing Left!", a reference to the TeamSpeak rant.

Second Release
The second version of the Guardian Power was released on September 27th 2010 for the WG vs The Gladiatorz war. It is much more musically advanced than the original version.

The song is an instrumental. It begins with percussion and the original piano riff. However the original lyrics were replaced with a brass section during the first two verses. A synthesized guitar and drumkit were added for the chorus - under which strings play an impressive countermelody, more prominent during the second and final choruses. During the final verse, the guitar plays the piano riff while the piano replaces the brass section until the pre-chorus. A bridge was added between the third and final choruses, which includes a short guitar solo, not present in the original recording. The song ends with a pedal note following the final chorus.

The new song is 3 minutes and 55 seconds long - approximately 43 seconds longer than the original.

GuardianScore
GuardianScore, formerly known as the WG Awards, is an ongoing awards system for individual achievements. Awards can be applied for at any time, by anyone with Guardian rank or above. The Awards were announced on October 5th 2008, and replaced by GuardianScore on December 22nd, by Gorgemaster and Kingrandy0. GuardianScores are shown above users' avatars when they post on the WG.com forums.

At present, there are 36 awards, with the total value of all the awards being 154 (Although some awards are not stackable, so the highest possible score will be lower). Several awards have been removed in the past, such as forum-veteran awards and attendees of past wars - this is to ensure that new members have the opportunity to obtain all the awards, despite when they join. Even so, some of the awards are outdated, such as Referrals and 90% Score on the WG Rules Test - both of these programs are no longer officially in operation. The GuardianScore itself at present is accurate, although with forum changes the individual awards members have obtained are not shown. The program is expected to be updated within the near future.

Member of the Month
Member of the Month, initialised as MotM, is one of the oldest awards which WildGuard still presents.

The MotMs are chosen solely by the Council, and winners are awarded a short testimonial and an underbanner for their forum signature. The banners have been produced by various members of the clan, and it is announced in the form of a forum Important Announcement at the start of the following month. The announcement is generally alongside monthly promotions (if any), such as Guardian to Higher, and Higher to Elite. Previously, the winners of the MotM award would get their name and testimonial added to a page on WildGuard's website, as demonstrated right. Unlike the underbanners, which were implicated later in the clan's history, the MotM had almost always been announced on the website itself. This was removed with the August 23rd 2010 update to the website, where the MotM section was replaced with the video galleries.

There have been some gaps in the later years in which a MotM was not chosen at all for a month. A list of all MotMs was compiled by WG Keanu on June 25th, 2010 - however, due to minimalistic resources, records from 2006 and most of 2007 were incomplete. The list, which dates back to August 2004, is available to the public, and can be found here on the WG.com forums.

Summer/Winter Awards
The Summer and Winter awards are two award ceremonies held bianually in their respective seasons. It is unsure when the award ceremonies began. A separate forum is opened up for the award ceremony, and the entire process can take several weeks to complete. There are different stages to the ceremony, which are detailed as follows.

Stage One: Nominations
After the forum is opened up, Stage One begins, which is for Nominations. A list of awards is provided, and members are allowed to nominate one member of WildGuard (not themselves) for each award on the list. They are also requested to avoid nominating the winner of the award from the previous ceremony for the same award. The number of awards and the types vary, and nominations last for about a week.

Stage Two: Choosing
When the nominations are finished, Stage Two begins. A compiled list of all the awards is provided, each with the members who have been nominated. The nominees must then send a forum private message to a designated ranked member detailing which awards they wish to run for. Nominees are allowed to run for a maximum of three awards per ceremony. Certain awards have other requirements - for example, members wishing to run for the "Hottie IRL" award must submit a real-life picture of themselves. Stage Two lasts for around 3-4 days.

Stage Three: Voting
After Stage Two finishes, voting begins. In the awards forum, a poll is created for every award available. Each poll has options of all of the the nominees who selected to run for that award. Nominees are requested not to vote for themselves. Every member of the clan is allowed to make one vote for each award (Usually resulting in a forum post-count explosion). The voting stage lasts around 1 week.

Awards
When voting ends, the totals are counted up and the awards are announced in an Important Announcement. There is only one winner for each award, although some members may receive more two or more, if they were the highest-voted nominees for multiple awards which they chose to run for.

Awards come in the form of underbanners - these were previously designed by Winddancir (Graphics maker of WG), until her departure, at which point the process was taken up by Gorgemaster and Samurai JM. WG Keanu, however, hosted the entire Summer Awards ceremony for 2010, including the designing of the awards, and Garrett xD hosted for Summer 2011. Winners of multiple awards may request to have their banners merged, in the form of an animated GIF image.

Website and Forums
Over the years, the clan has changed forums several times, starting with the original AvidGamers site, to the present SMF. In the clan's history, the forums are used as a method of time, eg. "AvidGamer days" or "WG.com days". The website and complete list of forums are as follows.

Website
The Wilderness Guardians website was designed in Flash by His Lordship, and is constantly updated. For several years, it has been repeatedly voted the best clan website out of all RuneScape clans, the most recent being in the RuneScape Community/Zybez official 2009 Clan Awards, which were announced on January 2nd, 2010. The runner-up was Damage Incorporated (now deceased), although vote counts were not released for the 2009 awards. In 2008, WG had 115 votes for Best Clan Website, while Adelais - the runner-up - had only 9 votes.

The website, known for short as "WG.com" was created on February 4th, 2004. The earliest archive (July 8th, 2004) shows that it was generated with Microsoft FrontPage. It contained history, clan policies, photo gallery, ranks, FAQs, relations and application pages. The flash website today contains a vast amount of information, ranging from three versions of the clan's history to full galleries of WildGuard screenshots and videos over the years. The site also has a latest news feature, and the soundtracks played on the website are also available for download.

AvidGamers
December 6th, 2003 - April 27th (Or 17th?), 2004

The AvidGamers website was the first home for WildGuard, and primarily used from the start of the clan to April of the following year. Only one archive of the website exists. Entitled "The Great Wilderness Guardian Realm", it shows a message board, of which two public forums are available, and history, rules and beliefs and members login pages. The history consists of a semi-accurate, semi-fictional account of His Lordship's voyages in the wilderness of RuneScape and the first few months of WildGuard. The rules and beliefs list 7 of the clan's rules, the first of which emphasises the Anti-Random Player Killing/ARPKing aspect.

Following a suggestion from WG member Rick Hamm, the clan left the AvidGamers website to newly-created InvisionFree forums in April 2004. The exact date is unknown, as historical accounts at the time say the change was April 17th, although a news announcement at the time suggests the transition was on the 27th.

S7
April 27th (Or 17th?), 2004 - July 20th (Or 30th?), 2004

The second clan forums after AvidGamers which WG based upon are known as "S7", in reference to the varying URLs of InvisionFree boards - a referencing which applies to all of the following InvisionFree boards. There are no archives of the S7 forums, so very little is known about them. In terms of the clan's history, it is known that The Synergy clan broke off from WG, Lord Xin and Rick Hamm's ceremonial promotions to Co-Leaders, Falco307 and Jedi Rin's bans and the clan's application form creation happened during the S7 era.

After only a few months, the forums had become full of many inactive members and spam, so a forum switch was authorised in July 2004.

S4
July 20th (Or 30th?), 2004 - April 26th, 2005

The S4 forums are the oldest surviving forums of WildGuard. Once again, it is unsure when the forum switch actually took place, as historical accounts say July 20th while news accounts note the 30th (A 10-day gap, the same as references for the AvidGamers to S7 switch). As of today, the board has 64,397 posts with 276 registered members, the peak of activity being 46 members on April 10th, 2005 (Shortly before the forum switch).

The S4 days are described as the "most colourful and hectic days of WG", as of January 2006. During the S4 era, WG hosted their first war (WG vs Rune Outlaws), Brendan (Write2Brandy) was reported dead from Leukemia and his funeral was held, His Lordship temporarily resigned from leadership after a controversial post on Rune Village discussing the USA, and The Revolution (Founded by Noricle and Rick Hamm) was the second Anti-RPKing clan to branch out from WG.

In early 2005, a hacker entered the ranks of WG and began taking the banks of members. In fear that it was a forum issue, WildGuard switched forums again. The S10 transition is noted as April 25th, 2005 in historical accounts - however, His Lordship officially released the S10 forums to the public on the 26th.

S10
April 26th, 2005 - April 2006

Like the S7 forums, the S10 forums no longer exist and there are no archived versions. The official WG history cites the S10 era as the longest era in WG history. However, this is incorrect, as the Z6 and WG.com (IPB) eras outlast the S10 duration of around 1 year. During the S10 era, the WG vs DoA war was held, the Descendant Guardians opened for the first time, the Federation was restarted (Although WG left on September 28th, 2005), His Lordship was banned for the first time, the TeamSpeak Rant took place and DG later closed for the first time.

WG.com
April 2006 - August ~6th, 2006

The first WG.com era (known as WG.com PHPBB) began directly after WG's war against Valor in the Clan Tourney of 2006, although only a few archives of the forums exist. The first record from July 5th, 2006 shows 195 members and 267 guests (Totalling 462) who were active on the board within the previous 24 hours, and a total of 874 registered members and 37,488 forum topics. This was well into WG's era of P2P domination in RuneScape. During the WG.com days, the Construction skill was released and His Lordship built the first clan house in RuneScape history, the X vs DS war took place, DG re-opened and WG fought Echo of Silence for the second time.

However, around late July/early August 2006, the forums were still filled with glitches and a switch back to Invisionfree was authorised. The first WG.com era is noted as the shortest in the clan's history, although it comes very close to the duration of the AvidGamers era.

Z6
August ~6th, 2006 - January 22nd, 2008

The Z6 board is the only InvisionFree forum WildGuard has used which is shortened to the "z#" rather than "s#". Still in existence, the Z6 forum is the longest historical era in the history of the clan, at around 1 year and 5 months in duration. The first topic was created on August 6th, 2006, and as of today, the board has 264,979 posts with 1,069 registered members, the peak of activity being 126 members on September 30th, 2006.

The forum switch was well-received, and four new council members were elected. WG warred Rune Raiders with RuneScape Dinasty anti-crashing against Reign of Terror, DG closed once again, D-Day, OPH, OBH, His Lordship's 3rd permenant ban and the Sectors all occured during the era.

WG.com
January 22nd, 2008 - June 20th, 2011

After a council meeting, the next forum switch was organised between His Lordship and the present-day Forum Technician Robbiethe2nd. The new WG.com forums would use an older version of the Invision Power Board (known as WG.com IPB) and had installed new anti-spy mechanisms, more organisation, new features and a better look.

The first accessable topic (#6) was made on December 29th, 2007, although His Lordship states that the transition occured over the entire month of January 2008. Ex-council Gorgemaster has confirmed that the official transition day was January 22nd. Since then, WG.com has been the current home for WildGuard and is by far the longest era in the clan's history, which at the time of writing is reaching 2 and a half years. The forums have undergone many updates and changes, including a server upgrade in early 2010 and further size and header modifications in June 2010. The peak of activity was 99 members on June 18th, 2011.

WG's final forum transition to date was on June 20th, 2011 during The Reckoning, when the clan moved on to SMF. The WG.com IPB era holds the record for the longest forum era, at around 3 and a half years.

SMF
June 20th, 2011 - Present

The SMF (Simple Machines Forum) is WG's most recent transition. The move occured during The Reckoning on June 20th of 2011. SMF signified the start of a completley new era for WG. The new forum has many new features, including split boards for WG and the re-opened junior clan Descendant Guardians.

The SMF era is expected to last around three years, as is predicted by the leadership.

=References=