Be still and listen.

For here is the history of the Clan*

*Very little of that, actually. It’s mostly an indulgent, vague and likely faulty recollection by one of its founders, Thrasherfan.

So, it was near the end of 2001, when our neighbor’s son, Patrick, got in trouble

for playing too much RuneScape. We were playing cards with his parents, and his

tantrum was disruptive to our more respectable leisure. Whereupon, we parents

discussed the evils of the emerging age of video games and the amplified perils of

the internet.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and my daughter, Jackie, started playing. And my

son, Brian. Fast forward a couple weeks after that, and…

Kids: “We want to be members. Free worlds stink! Patrick is getting

members. We want it, too! They’ve opening up a whole new land west of

Falador.”

Me: “What manner of strange beings play this game, and how will they

negatively influence my kids? I must play this game myself to protect

them!”

And so it began, originally a hapless, directionally challenged walker of Misthalin,

fearful of goblins and highwaymen, making major bank by picking up discarded

tuna on the docks of Karamja and selling them to Gerrant in the fishing shop in

Port Sarim, ferrying iron ore that dropped from power miners to the bank, and so

forth.

And, so, we three began playing regularly. Myself, named for the (hapless)

Atlanta Thrashers hockey team, my daughter, jjjack, who didn’t want to be hit on

with a female name (though a female character), and my son, who got fed up

with “all” the good names being taken and rattled off 9780fhuy, somehow

unclaimed by then. Notably, Patrick named himself Ran Funkyme, hoping the

“ran” part would cause his name to change colors, as it was a command at the

time.

For those new to the game, RS Classic, as it is now known, was a very difficult

game. You want to fish? You have to click each attempt. You want to mine?

Ditto. You want to buy something or sell something? You hang out by a bank and

spam yourself into frustration.

Occasionally, there would be a wonderful, wonderful happening, which would

bring the multitudes. Word flew through the chat systems. Drop Party! Some

very experienced person with skill levels all the way in the 50’s and who had been

playing the game for over a year, even, would drop stuff for fun or because they

were leaving the game. Serious, serious bank. And we’d scramble picking up

whatever it was, or, if we had enough on hand, we’d tele-grab drops with our

precious stash of law runes, earning the scorn of others.

We built our way up in skills and funds, saving a gp here and 3gp there, haggling

our way from mithril, to addy, to rune armor. At which point we had arrived.

May I present Thrasherfan:

Rune long sword, orange cape (there were maybe 7 or 8 colors to choose from)

and, well, that’s about as varied as a person could look back then. But hobgoblins

and chaos warriors feared me.

A consistent factor in my gameplay has been the white hair, an obvious indicator

that I was older than all the kids. It’s hard to imagine keeping a full beard under

the rune full helmet, but I managed. I commanded respect, I did. Stupid punk

kids. I’ve been aggravated in the later gyrations of RS that a full beard has not

been an option.

Wealth was hard to come by, but there were some people who had high prayer

levels, in the 60’s, and they paid handsomely for big bones from unsuspecting

Ogres under Varrock. Cha-ching. And key halves… those were momentous drops

where everyone shared your good fortune, envious or not.

Somewhere along this path, I bought a white party hat for 350k gp from someone

that had been trying to sell it at a bank and had given up. I chased them down the

road a bit and coughed up almost my entire bank. That was A LOT back then.

They weren’t that old, but the hat matched my hair, as it has to this day. The

Rune 2h, introduced only a few months prior, was an incredible 450k gp.

RS was a close community. Worlds were named after the cities in which,

presumably, the servers were located. We were World 36’ers. Atlanta. You

played a while, and everyone knew your name. Eventually I became friends with

Roxirox3, and we teamed for a while, mostly fishing or ranging. She kept bragging

about her “clan,” a term which immediately put me off. It was named

DragonsFyre.

DF had a particular clan leader who was exceptional at the task. Her name was,

and still is, Shelbar. It was a little clan that at its largest had around 20 members,

with a few adults and mostly teenagers – some of the finest I’ve met in the game

in the many years since. Even in small numbers, it had a very high percentage of

absolutely fantastic members, including Enjoi88, Mark1598, Nifty, Tamed Lion,

Wildcats2000, Nebraskjr500, Viashino Bey, and Cloud0595. It was a close group

that formed the basis of my desire toward clans then and since: Lesson One:

Good clans start with good people.

Higher skills earned big money back then. Miners and smithers of rune owned

anything they wanted. Herblorists… well, that was the path I took. It was called

Herblaw, at the time. For whatever reason, duels became common outside of

Draynor Bank. In those days, once fights began, you couldn’t eat to heal. Think

about that. You’re in the middle of a fight, you’re half dead, and you need to

heal. So you stop to eat? Where in reality does that happen? Jagex had it right.

Super-sets were the way to go for PVP. Super attack, super strength, and super

defense. Herblorists who could make super defense pots were very rare, and

thus 25k for a “super set” was an instant sale. Through much killing of druids and

able assistance from jjjack in collecting seconds, I was good to go. Then RS2

happened.

Suddenly, you could eat in battle. Potions were nice to have, but no longer

essential. Prices plummeted, and it became clear that Jagex makes no promises

and you must remain nimble in the game.

Clans had to be nimble as well. Some members wanted to stay in “Classic.”

Others wanted to move to the new system, whose graphics were better but far

from settled. The clan moved forward, and Classic fell away very quickly.

Just before RS2 hit was a memorable day, now called “Party Hat Duplication Day,”

in November, 2003. Party hats were then selling up to 14M gp (purples were the

highest), and someone (see a tip.it article on the name above) caused “crackers”

to litter the landscape of RS. Inside each, of course, were party hats. Prices

crashed, and I had enough cash from my herblore skills to buy three more – two

blues @ 1.5M and a green at 1.1M. One blue went to jjjack, and the green went

to 9780fhuy. I’d later sell the remaining blue phat for a whopping 9M gp that

helped finance my herblore habit. My kids have since returned their hats to my

care.

The next lesson of clan life soon followed. Drama came regarding a central clan

member. How do you kick someone from a small, intimate group? How do you

weigh the pain it causes an individual against what it causes the leaders or other

members? We’re here to play a game. Grow up, people! We weren’t prepared

for a formal basis of how to resolve conflict. Lesson Two: Very specific rules and

a fair disciplinary system are needed to administer a clan.

Another player, Visitor58, who was a leader for MASORS (Miners and Smithers of

RuneScape), had been poking around our little patch, a pleasant place as

compared with the enormity of the 1,500 or so in MASORS.

He became first a counselor, then, as we decided to break up DF and form

something new, he became a partner. Rising from the ashes of DF, we agreed to

call the new clan Phoenix Fyre. We were aiming for something larger than DF but

much smaller than MASORs. Most of DF joined, and the release of Pest Control

brought us many new members, as we were an organized and vocal bunch.

Lesson Three: To grow a clan, you should make the most of new game content to

attract new members and keep member interest.

Vis introduced us to clan boards and blanked the hitherto unknown facets of

online security. He brought with him a sophisticated set of clan rules, and a

guiding hand on how to handle conflict borne from experience. Leaders at

MASORS, of which there were many, had rules, but they didn’t adhere to them.

They booted members based on accusations, personal bias, favoritism, etc. As a

result, members were very dissatisfied with the leaders as a whole. Vis stressed

the importance of giving a fair hearing for both sides of any argument before

coming to a reasoned and rule compliant decision.

To control clan size, we agreed that 150 was a reasonable number. We

maintained a waiting list through much of the clan’s duration. We were popular.

He was also steadfast on the Benevolent Dictator style of clan management, a

style which I will call Lesson Four. It’s not a system for everyone. Many players

seek to gain status in clans even as they gain in levels in the game. We didn’t go

that direction. Instead, senior positions would be staffed by people that the

leaders felt were best qualified to handle those responsibilities, rather than

popularity contests or other means. Consideration was given towards their

visibility in game, positive energy, and giving nature, among other things. They

were the leaders’ trusted advisors and had voting power on issues we would

present to them. We were growing and successful, but…

Everything wasn’t working as hoped or intended.

1) Members were required to check the boards regularly. If they didn’t, they

would be kicked from the clan. Events were held, but with growing numbers,

many members, who were often quite entertaining on the clan boards, were

unknown and rarely actually played in game. What fun is that? Why do we have

people on a waiting list when we have too many members who only check the

boards periodically? This disappointed a core of members whose sense of a clan

was centered on gameplay itself. Myself included.

2) Shelbar got busy irl and stepped down from leadership. Vis and I agreed on

some things, but other things were left with a 1-1 tie. As member concerns and

game changes require a somewhat fluid approach to managing and structuring a

clan, I was very frustrated partnering with someone who took great pride in what

was built and viewed members as transients within a perfected system.

3) Drama. It’s baaaaaack. A good number of members were fed up with a

particular member and planned to leave the clan. Leader action was held up in a

1:1 tie. Unfortunately, the group that planned on leaving included many of the

people that made the game fun for me. If accusations cannot be incontrovertibly

proven, how do you resolve the conflict? Let those offended depart and let

others fill there places? Or, kick the person for the benefit of the clan’s health?

That was my answer, but we didn’t have a specific rule for it. Something had to

give.

This isn’t said to throw negativity on PF. Left alone, it may have become one of

the best known and longest surviving clans in RuneScape. But Vis chose not to

continue it after my abrupt departure. Lesson Five: Leading a clan can be

rewarding, but leaders do the things that someone has to do, and it’s often

wearing. Another lesson accompanied it, but not from the clan formation sense.

Good leaders owe it to their fellow leaders and to the clan to exit gracefully. I

didn’t, and Vis certainly deserved better. PF had a couple very good years.

After several months of numbing frustration and coming to “a decision,” Osidelax

(now SublimeRose), who was an Elder, and I quickly formed the idea of what we

wanted. it took about a week to create the vision, write the rules, create new

forums, and move. As quickly, we came up with the clan name.

Rose would keep suggesting all manners of Pride and Pryde, and we shied away

from anything to do with dragons or birds. There was a word… a feel… that we

knew was out there, but it seemingly took forever before one of us landed on

“sublime.” The “asylum” was easy, though we were a bit scared of it at first.

There may be a judgmental consideration of people who don’t understand online

gaming in the realm of “insanity,” but… “nuts” – yeah. That’s us. I still like the

name.

There are a few in SA today who were there or nearby when SA began. It reads

simply, but it wasn’t easy. Friendships ended not only for me, but many involved

in “the split.” I say this so that everyone understands that SA was formed with a

cost. It would weigh heavily on Rose and myself for, well, it still does.

But, we did what was necessary.

As to the clan itself, from the trouble points listed earlier caused the following

evolution:

1) We moved from the boards to clan events as the measurement of clan activity.

We’ve modeled this differently over time, but this remains an important

criterion for SA.

2) A system of 3 leaders prevents deadlock on ideas and decisions. The “trusted

advisor” position remains via Elders who are expected to give honest

evaluations of clan concerns and needs.

3) A “drama” rule was created to respect the need for Leaders to dispatch major

headaches when issues cannot otherwise be handled. Leaders are players too,

and they want to have fun.

Rose wanted a max of 100 members. She wanted a feeling of community where

everyone had a good chance of knowing everyone. Since we formed, we’ve

never hit that number due to the activity requirements for membership. We’re

okay with that.

In the interest of drama management, we also moved to a more robust “trial”

period for new members, requiring sponsorship. If we emphasize the need for a

good personality fit with in-game activities… yeah. We’ve got a good chance of

this being a very pleasant place for all.

We also inserted minimum level requirements because events should be

accessible to all members, and we chose a level that suggested members should

have the necessary skills and quests completed to diversify event options.

As for the third leader, we invited Jack0fheartz to join us, also a member of PF.

This worked well as it allowed me to construct and edit forums and write about

anything that needed to be written, while providing two magnetic personalities to

offset me.

What? You never knew Jack was magnetic?

If not, you’ve never teamed with Jack. The Barrows brothers fear him, and Jagex

had to change their entire combat systems to give the Dag Kings a fair chance.

Unfortunately, soon after the clan formed, Jack’s work caused him to travel more

and play far less. We then added Crusty (aka Darren and a host of in-game names

since) as our third leader.

Darren is the big guy in the back:

Darren mastered the RS spreadsheet world and created game tracking programs

that allowed us to hold monthly skill contests. The enthusiasm for these also set

the stage for us to accept our first invitation to a “Clan Olympics.”

I, and probably many others, regret that the game has evolved so much that

similar competitions are now impossible. “Banked” skills were relatively few, and

we undertook a team competition against other clans, including all skills, to meet

certain exp requirements per skill per participant, and beyond. Far beyond. Held

over a period of days and sleepless nights, the first contest found SA as winners.

Very, very tired ones. Imagine a team full of… Chubbers. The types of players

who scorn sleep as “exp waste.” It was an amazing time. Zaag, Darren, Sme…

pounders, all. Clan camaraderie was amazing.

Amazing enough for us to host the 2nd clan Olympics, to which we invited better

competition, including the wily Wolfpack, from whom we would later woo one of

their co-leaders, Mstc Princs, to the nuthouse.

And we hosted a third. By this time, the amount of pre-banked skills spoke more

about the commitment of members to save resources and various points for 6

months than it did the actual event, and the era ended. The excitement and clan

pride will never be forgotten.

For a time, we also challenged skill growth. This wasn’t as roundly supported, but

we moved our clan average from the 40’s to as high as #12 on Runehead’s clan

listing, based on average skills per member.

I think it’s safe to say that Rose’s favorite clan activity, in SA and PF, was “Smiles,”

an event where we helped a member achieve exp each month. It might be by

carrying essence to an altar for them to convert, dumping raw fish in their lap and

picking up cooked ones later, etc. But it echoed Rose’s motto, “because nice

matters.”

It still does, and through the continual shifting of members through the Asylum,

that’s the one trait we desire the most. Nice people. It makes for a nice place to

hang out.

The game moves on, as does Sublime Asylum. But we endure.

Congratulations all, on Sublime Asylum’s 5th Anniversary!

Thrasherfan/Reesylum/Reese

Following are assembly shots from the Opening Ceremonies of two Olympics.

(psst, that’s me in the green cape with the Rat Pole. )