Clan:Wilderness Guardians/Real Life

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

=Real Life= One of WG's most famous qualities is that they are renowned for breaking the boundaries of the game. The clan has produced two real-life items of merchandise, and hosted several real life meetings around the world.

T-Shirt


Another notable fact about the Wilderness Guardians is that they were the first clan to have manufactured and distributed an item of clothing in real life. The WG t-shirt is made of 100% Australian cotton, and four sizes (Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large) are available. Unlike other items of clothing such as Jagex's RuneScape merchandise, it features a fashion-smart design, and is wearable in public without fear of judgement. It is available to clan members for a non-profit price, and sold to anyone else at a standard fee of $27.00. The profit is put towards funding for WG's server.

History
Shortly after the clan's second Real Life meeting in Paris, His Lordship returned to full leadership of WG. On August 22nd, 2008, following a suggestion from a WG member, His Lordship posted a topic in the Important Announcements forum discussing possible merchandise such as coffee mugs, and rough designs for clothing - including a t-shirt. The original colour was grey (White was considered at one point), and the design was slightly different to the present render.

The shirt became a reality on August 23rd, but modifications and changes were made several weeks following. The original price was $30.50. Despite the controversy of the move at the time, over 40 shirts were sold within a month of release, and dozens more over the following months. During RuneFest (See WG's 5th Real Life meeting), 26 Jagex Moderators signed a list for the WG T-shirt they wished to have. These were delivered, with a further 3 during WG's seventh meeting.

Re-work
The official page for the shirt on the WG website can be found HERE. The page was updated on September 24th 2010, redone completley by WG Keanu. The price had been reduced from $30.50 to $25.00 (Later increased slightly to $27.00 due to currency conversion issues), and the gallery now included several new images including the main image from WG's 5th Real Life meeting (With Mod MMG) and one with WG Keanu at The Sabres' first Real Life meeting.

2010


For WG's 5th Real Life meeting at RuneFest 2010, His Lordship produced WG's second real life item of merchandise. A list of items was given to WG on July 16th, and members were asked which one they were most likely to pick up if they were at RuneFest. More than half of the votes were for pens. The final design was unofficially released to the clan several days before the event.

The pen features a pull-out double-sided slip of paper. Side one features a screenshot from The Great War, the WG T-shirt design, a section of the forum banner, and a few major selling points about WG as well as the link to the clan's website. Side two contains a written testimonial by His Lordship, and characters and scenery from the clan's fourth Flash movie can be seen in the background.

Approximately 1,000 pens were produced in the colours red, orange and blue for RuneFest. The total production costs amounted to $470 USD. $300 was paid by His Lordship, and a further $170 in donations from other WildGuard members. The majority of the pens were given away at RuneFest and The Night Before, with an additional 200 or so given directly to Jagex (See Success at RuneFest 2010). W13 of Zybez also posted a picture of one of the pens in an article featured on the front page of Zybez.net - this resulted in an explosion of membership applications within a week of the event.

The pens were created specifically for Runefest and are currently not available for sale like the T-Shirt, however certain WG members were fortunate enough to get their hands on one after the event.

Real Life Meetings
WG was only the third clan to host a real-life meeting. However, this was followed up by many more subsequent meetings across the globe - so WG holds the title of the most real-life events. So far, the seven meetings have taken place in: London, England (three times); Paris, France; Washington DC, USA; Singapore, Singapore; and the Gold Coast, Australia. The next planned meeting is in Melbourne, Australia in June 2011.

London, England
thumb|300px|left The first Real Life meeting took place on January 12th, 2008, and had 7 WG members present: Jaxx456, Holykier, Snowzak, Stokenut, His Lordship, Cameronm123 and Groedius. Two of Jaxx's friends also attended, making a total of 9.

The group organised at Admiral Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square. Three main events took place - RuneScape pranks, finding Jagex HQ and getting stoned. RuneScape pranks involved the clan doing game emotes and the home teleport. Members were also given party hats, and attempted to sell them. They then found Jagex's London headquaters, and entered the offices (which were closed on the Saturday, so the entrance was illegal). In the evening, Snowzak attempted to obtain drugs for the clan's use, but accidentally purchased tea (Thus starting the common WG saying "Got tea?"). After unsuccessfully attempting to smoke the tea, real substance was obtained. The members proceeded to a Burger King restaurant, where Stokenut was escorted off the premises, became ill upon a reaction to the drugs and vodka, and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance.

A video of the Real Life meeting (inset) was made by His Lordship and released on February 24th. Due to the YouTube restriction of a 100MB file size at the time, a lot of the footage had been cut out. The video became incredibly popular in the clan world, although Jagex eventually requested His Lordship to remove the video, due to it encouraging other players to meet up unsafely in real life. The video was removed as per request, but re-uploaded in light of recent events such as Runefest.

Paris, France
The second Real Life meeting in Paris was hosted on August 2nd, 2008. His Lordship had organised the meeting as part of his personal holiday to the Bayreuth festival in Germany. There were four attendees: His Lordship, Snowzak, Dhboy123 (Of the clan Divine Forces) and Bassism. Bassism is noted as the only member with direct relations to WG (His Lordship was Primary Leader and Snowzak was Council), but it is still classed as a WG meeting.

The group met in early morning and talked for a while, and Snowzak ordered breakfast for Lordy, before the group headed back to the hotel. They then walked to the city centre and His Lordship made a small RuneScape-based prank of shouting "Let's switch worlds" before lunch. Following that, the group found a park and got high, as per tradition.

The four then returned to their hotels, and while Dhboy slept, the other three played a prank on RuneScape Community, which involved pretending to close WG. Snowzak then departed from the group. Lordy, Dhboy and Bassism went for drinks at a brasserie around the corner (although His Lordship only got a fruit salad), chatted for a bit, and a DF-WG real-life alliance was formed. Following this, they headed back and prepared for a night out. The pub crawl began at 9:00 PM, and His Lordship returned at around 2:30 AM.

A video was produced for the event, although it is no longer available.

Washington DC, USA
The third Real Life meeting was during a visit by His Lordship across the USA in late 2009 to early 2010. Two meetings were originally planned - one for the West Coast (San Fransisco on November 21st) and one for the East Coast (Washington DC on December 19th). However, due to lack of interest, the West Coast meeting was cancelled. Three members attended the East Coast meeting: His Lordship, QuikdrawJoe and Mmangler. The projected meeting point was at the Washington Monument.

Due to heavy snowfall in Washington, there was very little worthy of mentioning which took place at the meeting. However, all 3 of the members did attend the WG war taking place at the time. Fighting against Gladz, the P2P war resulted in a defeat for WG. In a response to the clan, the three attendees posted a "triple facepalm" picture of themselves as a topic in the Important Announcements forum. During the time of the war, the only known video footage of the meeting itself was shot. This footage has yet to be released, if it is still available.

After the meeting, His Lordship continued on his holiday across America to locations such as New York City, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Due to the clan's anniversary being post-poned to later into 2010, (Normally hosted at the end of the year), he organised a "birthday present" for the clan. This was announced on January 8th, 2010 (Right). After buying a product from the retailer Nivea, the picture of His Lordship with the caption "WILDERNESS GUARDIANS", subcaptioned "-HIS LORDSHIP, FALADOR", was displayed on an electronic billboard for a considerable amount of time to thousands of people in Times Square, New York. A RuneScape Community/Zybez topic posted by His Lordship concerning the clan's 6th birthday and the meeting gained 12 pages of responses. Despite accusations of the image being fake, overall the feat obtained an overall positive reception.

Singapore, Singapore
The fourth Real Life meeting held by WildGuard was not as well publicized as the previous three, so very little is known about it. Attendees have also requested pictures be kept private. It was held on February 13th (The day before Chinese New Year) in Singapore, Singapore. This was directly after the third Real Life meeting in the USA, as part of His Lordship's holiday to Singapore and Malaysia. There were three attendees: His Lordship, Karlfischer and Valdremia (Ex-members, but who spent a considerable amount of time in WG).

London, England (RuneFest)
WG's 5th, and arguably most successful Real Life meeting was hosted on August 27th and 28th, 2010. The meeting was based around Jagex's Runefest 2010 in London, England.

It was attended by His Lordship, Elyxiatic, WG Keanu, Tnuac, Stokenut (Ex-member), Groedius (Ex-member) and Sean Sabre (From WG's allies The Sabres). An unplanned attendee was the owner of the ex-WG account Pazenon who attended RuneFest unaware of WG's plans, and joined the group during the pre-RuneFest events.

The first day of the event consisted of WG-only events, as well as attending OneLuckyLady's "The Night Before" meetup. Day 2 consisted of breakfast, then the Runefest event itself.

The meeting itself has been one of, if not the most influential event that the clan has ever hosted. The most profound aftermath was Jagex's endorsement of the clan, which sparked off the in-depth relationship between Jagex and WildGuard of 2010.

Day One
His Lordship and Elyxiatic arrived from Australia in London a few days before the meeting. It officially commenced on August 27th. After some confusion on the Underground, the two met with WG Keanu at Waterloo Station and had introductions at Burger King prior to catching a train. The group travelled to Hampton Court Palace first. They watched the performance of A Living Tudor World, completed the Great Hedge Maze, took a horse ride and went through the palace itself, taking various pictures and videos as well.

Following the palace, the group met up with Stokenut and Tnuac at the hotels in Docklands. They then headed out to Camden Town, and met with Sean Sabre. WG Keanu was bribed into getting a shoulder-length haircut in exchange for a forum rank, and the group went to a Burger King for a second time that day. They also went to the British Museum for a short time, after which the group met up with attendees of OneLuckyLady's pre-RuneFest dinner (Entitled "The Night Before") at the intersection of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. A few individual and group photos were taken and WG's pens were handed out.

The group proceeded to The Montagu Pyke restaurant for food and drink, and then to the London Eye, where free access was granted. On the way to the Eye, the WG members stopped at Trafalgar Square for a group photo, in commemoration of the first real life meeting two and a half years previously. After a short McDonalds break, the group split, as most returned to their hotels, while WG and some others went to Vinopolis to try and catch a glance at the location. However, it was closed, so the members returned to the hotels (Losing Tnuac on the way, who caught up later). After some Tinychat sessions with WildGuard and arm wrestling, day 1 ended.

Day Two
The group awoke fairly early and organised at His Lordship's hotel, where the ~900 WG pens were prepared in four bags. They caught the DLR to London Bridge and, after breakfast with The Andrew (another Runefest attendee, who later applied for WG), joined the queue at Vinopolis. The majority of pens were handed out at this point, to both attendees and Jagex Mods, as well as three pens to a passing police car. His Lordship also performed the TeamSpeak Rant live to the ~400-person crowd, which was filmed by several WG and non-WG including legenday video-maker Excl. The group then headed into the venue.

Several events happened over the course of RuneFest itself. The group had some jousting rounds: Stokenut vs Elyxiatic, His Lordship vs Elyxiatic and WG Keanu vs Sean Sabre, some turns on the Wii, and many photographs with the Jagex staff as well as handing out pens to them. At 3:00, the entire group took part in the J Mod Clan Wars, and were victorious twice against Jagex, despite their infinite Constitution and random telporting cheats. At 4:00, they attended the Q and A concerning clans with the mods, and at 6:00 the Golden Gnomes were held. His Lordship came runner up to Mino Tauros, with WG's 5th Flash Movie. The group photo with Mark Gerhard (Mod MMG) was taken at this point.

At this point, His Lordship, WG Keanu and Elyxiatic departed from the main group to travel to Salisbury, while the rest of WG stayed at Runefest for the afterparty. The meeting officially ended at the end of day two. Most members travelled home on Sunday the 29th, while the three other WG attended a special access tour of Stonehenge in the morning. His Lordship and Elyxiatic went on to attend a tour, although it is not classed as part of the meeting itself.

From WildGuard
thumb|300px|right|His Lordship's video of Runefest 2010 A video of the Players vs Mods war was uploaded by WG member Jouke on August 28th. The first two official WG videos were uploaded on the 29th: His Lordship's TeamSpeak Rant - Live (Watch on YouTube) and the jousting match His Lordship vs Elyxiatic at Runefest; the latter of which was uploaded private and later made public.

On the 29th, His Lordship posted the first pictures of RuneFest on WG's forums as a recap, and a select few on the RuneScape Community forums in a topic entitled Wildguard at Runefest. The topic has exceeded fourteen pages and sparked a mass discussion involving Runefest, WG and Jagex and the clan community. At the time of writing, the original post has received a +55 reputation rating.

On September 5th, the video Runefest - A Summary was released by His Lordship, which contained a 10-minute collection of most of the major events which took place on the day.

On August 30th, Golden Gnomes winner 1Carrot requested Runefest attendees make a short "thank you" video to Jagex for the event. The first person to do this was WG Keanu on the same day. The short clip has reached over 1000 views. WG Keanu also later released three videos filmed by his camera: His Lordship's rant, the RuneScape Classic fight scene and the J-Mod Clan Wars on September 23rd-24th.

Featured in Media
On the 28th, W13 of Zybez posted an article entitled RuneFest - The Night Before. It featured a brief overview of the events of the 28th, as well as pictures, a video, and an image of one of the WG pens. This resulted in a huge explosion of membership introductions for WildGuard within the first few days, due to the featuring on the front page of Zybez.

Zybez's official YouTube channel Zybez Official released a 12-second clip onto YouTube entitled Wilderness Guardians taking a picture. The clan was described as "the very prominently visible", and features all the WG except Groedius (with Pazenon's signed t-shirt) taking a final picture before His Lordship, WG Keanu and Elyxiatic's departure.

The two days were explained in-depth from Ts Stormrage's perspective in an article of the Tip.It Times entitled Runefest Review: The Unforgettable Tale of a Night in London. The article was released on September 5th, and featured a mention of His Lordship's idea to visit Vinopolis as well as his TeamSpeak Rant live.

On September 7th, renowned video maker Excl released the video Excl at Runefest - Part I. At 2:22, WG members filming His Lordship's TeamSpeak Rant are visible. At 2:45, several attendees at the front of the queue tell Excl that His Lordship is distributing pens, and one is shown. At 4:54, His Lordship is seen giving a pen to a Jagex Mod, who replies with "I have four of these already!" Excl at Runefest - Part II was released on September 14th, and contained footage of Andrew Gower and Mod Paul recorded by His Lordship. WG's design on the Runefest Wallpaper of Fame is also visible at the very end of the video.

On September 17th, Jagex's video of Runefest 2010 was released. His Lordship appears for a brief moment at 1:07, speaking to one of the J-Mods. The same day, WildGuard were featured in the Clan Submissions Page.

Australia
thumb|300px|left Real Life Meeting #6 was held in the Gold Coast of Australia, from December 17th to 19th 2010. There were seven attendees in total: His Lordship, Elyxiatic, MEGAJAYSON, Anatcrafter, Zooby69, Zemus3654 and Supra Beau (Beau joined the group on the second day). The WG members rented out an apartment for three days, making it the longest Real Life meeting so far. A video was produced by His Lordship (left) detailing the meeting.

To start Day One on the 17th, the clan had a Secret Santa opening, where the members exchanged gifts ranging from king-size condoms to pink bedsheets. They proceeded to commence with drinking, and later go out into the town. While the members were in a Subway restaurant, His Lordship left and returned with a WG tattoo (which was later confirmed to be fake). Upon returning, they went to the hotel's pool. Jayson was the first to pass out. A renowned clip in the video is of His Lordship screaming "Nothing left!" and diving onto him.

Day Two on the 18th commenced with WG's war against Corrupted Knights. The "Aussie Unit" attended through an internet cafe. The fight had two rounds, of which WG won both. The video cuts to footage of the group stretching a condom completley over Jayson's forearm, who proceeded to chase His Lordship through the hotel room. It is believed Beau joined around this point. The group had a RuneScape-themed dinner that evening. The potions shown in the video were a mixture of vodka, Mountain Dew, Powerade, Cordial and others (it is unclear what the Overload consisted of). The group had a super set (Super Attack, Strength and Defence), one Super Restore and one Saradomin Brew. Food consisted of Christmas crackers and gold pieces, a cabbage (Which the members proceeded to play volleyball in the pool with before getting evicted by security), pineapple and anchovy pizzas, a loaf of bread and a chocolate cake.

WG had arranged a two-round war with The Sabres against Titans Revolution and Interqueo on the 18th, which was at 5:00 AM on the 19th for the Ausse Unit. However, their skills as snipers in the second round were noteably impressive. Once again, WG and TS won both fights. Day Three on the 19th began with Zorbing, and the video concluded with WG at the world's largest Timezone (A chain of video arcades). WG headed back to the hotel to share drinks for the last time, and the meeting ended on the 20th when members departed.

The video for the meeting was released on the 21st, and a Zybez post on the same day by His Lordship, encouraging other clans to attempt it and confirming it would not be the last time. The Australian Real Life meeting has been considered to become an annual event.

London, England (3)
The third meeting in London was a three-day meetup from April 30th to May 2nd, 2011 - organised during His Lordship's research trip in England. There were a total of five attendees: Lordy, WG Keanu (Who was at the time TBK Amethyst of The Blade Keepers and not a WG member), Dog b2 and Bk2Lumby4You (two people who shared one account).

On the evening of day one, Keanu and Gene met up after a hectic journey around the London Underground (due to construction closures). They headed to Gene's hotel for two WG wars: against Serenity and RuneScape Dinasty. After which, the two went for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and hit up a local pub for drinks.

For day two, they met up with Josh/Dog b2. The day consisted of mostly tourism such as visiting the Science Museum and watching the Hubble 3D film at its IMAX theatre. Keanu also got a haircut for the second time (£37, paid for by Gene). In the evening, the three went back to Greenwich for TBK's first full-out Rune war: TBK + friends of Vindicator vs One (Gene and Josh attended on spare accounts). TBK won by default as well as clearing One from the battlefield, but after debate a draw was later agreed on. After that, they went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant before concluding day two.

Josh did not attend day 3, so the two travelled to Cambridge (Keanu one train behind) and met up with both players of Bk2Lumby4You. The two visited Jagex's headquarters to deliver some WG T-shirts to Mod Slayer, and stopped at a local pub. A highlight of the journey was attempting to overtake a bus which was actually stopped in a queue for the traffic lights - bringing their car straight into oncoming traffic.

After Jagex, the four went to the cinemas for a film (prior to which Keanu departed, realising his bags had been left in Lumby's car which resulted in the two running the length of Cambridge in under twenty minutes). The three remaining members went for drinks once again, and thus concluded real life meeting 7.

London, England (RuneFest 2011)
=References=