[Raya]

Going on the assumption that Genda was female--after all it SOUNDS like a female name--I was treating her with the respect and gentleness I tend to offer all female interviewees. Then the interviewee's real name was announced--Paul, not Pauline or Paula, but Paul. I reverted to dumbfoundedness.

"You're a guy?!" I blurted.

"Hehe, I sure am… and my wife is very thankful for that," Genda chortled. And that's how my interview with the administrator and founder of Vanguard Crafters started. At 6'7", this gentle half-giant interviewee was to be handled with care.

What got me interested in Vanguard Crafters was the fact that it sounded very much like the site of very good friends of mine, Niami Denmother and Ngreth the Ogre, both immortalized in various editions of WTF Comics. Niami and Ngreth are the proprietors of EQ Traders Corner and now EQ2 Traders Corner. I had even done one of my first online interviews with them and had thoroughly enjoyed hearing how EQ Traders Corner had come into being.

Along came Vanguard Crafters, and lo and behold, Genda was a fan of Niami's and Ngreth's and had even asked his coder to take a look at their site and model the database and overall look of EQ Traders Corner for Vanguard Crafters. Well, I just had to interview Genda.

"My online alter ego is Genda, and Genda has usually been my name on MMOs and message boards...I've been a member of the Vanguard community since December of 1993, actively. I had been lurking for a short while before that," Genda explained.

But why such a feminine-sounding name? I wondered. Was Genda a female character?

Genda was slightly indignant. "I've been called Glenda, and Grenda, THOSE are girls names. Genda is a wood-elf male name…kinda just stuck." I nodded in agreement, and he continued, a little more mollified. "Genda Lonepine was his full name. His parents never told him what it meant. About the time he was going to become a man, the Crushbone Orcs came and took his parents…"

Like most of the rest of us, Genda admitted to being an EQ fan. "Yep, spent quite a bit of time in EQ. Met a lady there that I played with because she was polite and fun to play with. She eventually introduced me to my RL wife," he said.

I wanted to know how he had made the transition from EQ to Vanguard.

"Well, when I could see that we were not going to be continuing indefinitely with EQ, I started looking for options. I always like to have an online home. I actually beta tested and tried a few different games. I thought back to the things I liked about EQ. When I found out who the team was that was going to be producing the new Sigil MMO, I had to investigate," he answered.

Genda apparently liked what he saw. "There was a team that was dedicated to the things I liked about the game--community, playability, depth, fantasy--all things that I value in a game. I also wanted to make sure, if I was going to invest that kind of effort and time into an MMO again, that it had 'legs'...you know, the kind of game that I would want to play for a LONG time," he explained.

There's always a turning point when you have to let go of non-existent facts and grab hold of the inner belief in something. Genda did just that. "I guess at some point I had to just have faith in the team. I know a lot of the names of the team from the old EQ days...and I knew some of the story about the kind of work they wanted to do. It seemed that putting those guys in a more independent environment would allow them to do something special. I didn't know anything about the game...heck, they hadn't announced at that point."

VanguardCrafters.com is going to be all about how to succeed as a crafter in Vanguard. "I envision something like an EQTraders.com kind of thing," Genda said. "I've always admired the way they ran that site."

The main reason Genda started Vanguard Crafters was because, even though he saw many sites springing up, he didn't observe anyone filling the needs of crafting aficionados.

"Lots of conversation about class balance and combat mechanics," he said, "but hardly any conversation about crafting...I love crafting, and I wanted to enable that conversation to get started."

I ask Genda if he intended to have the extensive databases that EQ Traders Corner has.

"Yes, he affirmed, "I want to have that kind of content. I also really liked the guides that they have...the 'how to master' kind of things."

Genda and I discussed the Vanguard affiliate buyouts and secondary market advertising. He was anxious to pursue this avenue, as he totally backed Sigil in its stance on secondary market merchandising.

"That subject really gets my heart rate up," Genda declared. "If I said that I was not a big fan, that would be an understatement. To say that I would like to see [the secondary market merchandisers] go away would be more accurate. The realist in me knows that they are here for now anyway, and we just have to deal with it. I've seen a game completely ruined for me as a gamer by those guys though. Anything I could do to help defeat that, I would sign up for..."

Genda told me, when I asked, that it was Lineage II that had been ruined for him in that way. " We were enjoying that until the farmers started chasing us away from the hunting, and the mudflation started a few months in to the game," he said.

"I'm very encouraged by Sigil's stance so far, and what Blizzard has done recently," he added.

The staff at Vanguard Crafters have completed the facelift for their forums, which Genda described as "the meat of the site and probably will be until we are past the NDA period." Genda is still working on the template for the content of the front page.

I asked what kind of staff Genda had working with him. "Well, we have a programmer for the PHP stuff, he goes by Nemerebos and you will almost never hear from him.. lol. He is in my guild in WoW and the standing joke is that you can always tell when he is on because it is so quiet..." Genda said. "I've got Branyanu, who is going to write the 'gaming from a female perspective' feature, and one of the crafting specialties for the site. I also have a writer that will be contributing named Enochos..."

Being involved in the search for information myself, I wonder how Genda planned on keeping people visiting his site interested in a limited subject area with so little information to go on, limited that is until the game goes live.

"That's a really good question," Genda replied. "I think what I'm really hoping is that we will be able to build a community of crafters here, get some discussion going and build a support structure for the days when the game IS live and we will have tons of content to talk about."

Self-described as a gently used man, Genda at 47, has married an extraordinary woman who, at 6'3", matches him in stature in more than just height. The two of them decided to marry in the style she had always dreamed. Last year, they eloped and had a Hawaiian wedding in the true tradition of the romantic islands, complete with bare feet, leis and Hawaiian love songs. It was a truly idyllic time for the two free spirits. When they returned home to Texas, the couple renewed their vows in a traditional white veil wedding, complete with ushers, fancy tuxedos and manicured bridal bouquets for the sake of the bride's mother.

Currently, Genda is on sabbatical from his normal occupation of technical department manager to enjoy Spring Break with his son (from a previous marriage).

Genda, the Gentle Half-Giant, seemed pleased with the idea of providing this crafting service. "I'd love to see more folks come by the forums and contribute to the crafting conversation," he said. "I know that we don't have a lot to talk about as far as specifics, but I'd sure love to get to know some of the other crafty folks that will be making that part of the game more interesting for everyone."

Vanguard Crafters' forums have been live since March 2nd, and they are planning on being "totally" in business by the end of April. It certainly sounds like this site will fill a need in the community, and we at Silky Venom wish them good luck in their interesting and helpful endeavor.