Nihilum plays on the Magtheridon Europe server.  They are led by Kungen, with Awake handling the majority of the administrative responsibilities of the guild.

“The challenges of managing Nihilum are plenty, there's everything from making sure everything is working as it should be to our website, community, forums, application system, irc, our schedule, member’s problems and recruitment.  Not to mention plans for the future (with our sponsors too), we work together with our sponsors, come up with new ideas on how to improve on everything that can be improved upon, dkp system, pvp plans, etc...

What it comes down to in the end is to: not burn out and to make sure everything is running smoothly.  Managing a guild like Nihilum is a full-time job-- if not more.  We're growing rapidly in popularity and we have a lot of interesting ideas and offers for the future.  I spend countless hours every day making sure things are as they should be.  There's always something to do, we actively take part in our community on our website/forum and irc, answering questions, coming up with new features and articles, and arcade games for our visitors. At the same time we have to listen to our guild and how they feel regarding certain things.  Obviously if everything that is said was taken to heart, everything would unfold into chaos.  That’s not an option, but we do try our best to adjust things where we see fit.

Planning things such as real-life meetings for the guild, taking part in interviews (such as this one), discussions in voice and chat, ensuring our roster is as optimal as possible by reviewing the applications we get measured against the activity of all our members, talking to our class leaders to find out if there are any issues with their classes are some of the things we do basically on a daily basis.  We have specific private forums for our class leaders and members.  In the end, we've had a lot of experience from the past in EverQuest and Lineage 2 and a lot has been learned since then.  We try to adapt at the best of our ability. With Kungen leading our raids the way he does, it's a recipe for success.  There's a lot of micro-management all the time.  You need to learn to have patience and to be able to work under pressure and stress a lot.  By the way, did I say a lot of patience?”

In order to pull off raids with their renowned clockwork precision, Nihilum relies on a very structured hierarchy.

“Our guild is very highly organized.  I spend more time on guild things then I do on actual raiding most of the time.  Same goes for Kungen.  Our class leaders help out quite a bit as well and our members try their best too.  Overall, we're very organized and it's something we try to improve upon every day, it's one of the things that make me proud - our level of organization.  Nothing is perfect though of course.

We have approx 35 active members that raid with us and at the time we have a couple of trials.

We do not allow alts in Nihilum; they can join our alt-guild The Carebears

Some can be in the guild as casuals forever basically.  It depends on who they are and their reasons.  We have the following guild ranks:

Guild Leader - Leader of the guild, Kungen
Officer - Awake
Class Leader - The leader of each class.
Veteran - Member who has been in the guild for a period of 9 months or more.
Member - A guild mate who went through the initiate process and was accepted and has maintained consistent raid attendance.
Initiate - Individual recruited into the guild with the intention of being a normal raiding member if accepted. Must display very high raid attendance.
Casual - Rank reserved for more casual and/or members on extended leave.”

There is a rather diverse makeup of players in the guild from all over Europe.  In order to have no confusion during raids Nihilum requires all members to be proficient in English.  While this is unusual for a European guild, the results speak for themselves.

“We do not recruit members that can't grasp the English language.  Most of our members are from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and all around Europe with a main focus on Scandinavia.”

In order to continue to be the best guild in the world, Nihilum strives to obtain the best equipment to enhance their tactical prowess.  While every guild struggles to implement some type of equitable arrangement for the distribution of loot, Nihilum has the extra difficulty of dealing with sometimes unique items.  Nihilum has had to craft and manage a very strict (and highly tedious) system to accomplish this feat.

“Our system is based on rewarding the most active raiders that have raided with us from the start of The Burning Crusade.  It is a system that is in constant development.  Right now it is working out well, but I have plans to improve upon it further.  I'm not going to make any major changes until the next big raid instance.  This is what I recommend to everyone that has plans to change their systems as well - don't make any big changes if you've used it for awhile.  It is better to introduce changes at the next big raid instance.  There will always be flaws in any system.  I'm doing my best to find them and resolve them.  Basically, those that have attended the majority of our raids since we began raiding in The Burning Crusade are higher on 'current dkp' then the ones that took time off for other things or joined later; due to total earned DKP.  This is intended and is in my opinion the best way to give those of us who have been around for all of The Burning Crusade a reward.  Attending raids earn you DKP.  If you're on stand-by (outside of the raid but ready to jump in) you can whisper me to get added to each boss kill when they die.  I use an add-on called NRT (Nihilum Raid Tracker) to make it a lot easier to manage this.  It even announce to a channel of my choice each time a boss dies (and guild chat of course) to make it possible for members to be on alts.  Either way there are a lot of rules and information surrounding the DKP system I've made for our guild, but this is some of it at least.”

You don’t have to raid with Nihilum to see the amount of time and dedication that these players invest into their passion.  All you have to do is get a chance to speak with one of them.  They are very active in their forums and are always willing to offer advice to players or guilds.  What is their advice for new players and starting guilds?

“To try to find similarly-minded members.  Set a vision/goal for the guild early and make it very clear to everyone.  That way you won’t end up with members that share different views on what the guild's overall goal and vision is.  Make sure your leadership is strong and actually has the required time to invest into the guild, not to mention the experience to do so. It's much harder then you think.  Plan for the long run, many guilds do not do this and end up with several bumps on the road that might result in that guild dying.  There are a lot of things to take into consideration:

What ranks should there be?

What leadership structure?

What loot system (if you plan to raid!)

Dkp or merit? Rolling? Bidding? Etc... 

Do a lot of planning before you set things into motion, make sure you have a solid core of players from the start of the guild.”

While Nihilum is the best, most of their members are humble to their success.  They understand that they work and win as a team.  They nurture and support their ever-growing fan base.

“I love the popularity of our guild, but it's almost going too fast, we had some unexpected issues with our hosting and website due to the rapidly increase in popularity, which, at this time have been resolved, but it must have been very frustrating for those that attempted to view our website about a month ago.  This is just one example at what we feel happened swiftly.  On the other hand, we're very flexible and are adapting to it well and we have a new website on our way and a lot of more interesting things in store…”

When asked, “How does it feel to be the best?” Awake had this to say:

“It's great.  It's what makes WoW worthwhile to me.  To actually see results from what we do and all the discussions we have with our friends, fans and community.  We intend to keep up our progression for a long time to come, stay tuned for more crazy things to happen ;)”

“We're Nihilum, I would be lying if I said that I didn't think we kick some serious ass and do very well together as a guild.  The main differences could be anything from our leadership and vast knowledge from past MMORPG's and our incredibly dedicated, loyal, skilled members to how we plan out things.  We try to put a more flexible and efficient approach on everything.  All in all, I'm incredibly proud of every member in our guild - they are all doing a superb job and it's an honor to be an officer of Nihilum.”

While there is a great sense of community in the guild, the primary focus is being the best.

“The majority (if not all) of our raiding members are similarly-minded.  We all want the same thing, to progress and do very well as a guild.  This is one of the core things that must exist in order for a guild at our level to work out.  Our weakness could be that you can't always get along with everyone, since our primary focus has always been (and will remain so) to progress-- not to be a family guild.  At the same time though, we do have fun joking around together and what not.”

In order to sustain the player community and keep them from burning out, Nihilum will periodically reduce the amount of required activity.  With the completion of black temple Awake speaks of the guild’s immediate plans.

“One word: summer.  Ok, well a few more words: We're still going to farm the tier 5 and tier 6 instances to gear up the guild, but we're raiding more relaxed and laid back now.  Less time spent per day and more days off, but at the same time we try to be very efficient -- the end result is that we're hoping to clear everything that we feel is worthwhile within two to three days.  That leaves us with four days off raiding to do whatever we want; enjoying the summer, which is something I plan to do for sure :)  I live on the western side of Sweden, at the coast.  The best time here is the summer.  While real-life is great, we obviously still continue to work on new ideas for our website and community.”

One of the main reasons for Nihilum’s increased popularity is its raid videos (but then where would any rock star be without their videos?).  Nihilum’s videos have been viewed millions of times.  The potential for increased growth in this market is staggering.

“This market feels untouched and we'll be seeing it expand a lot for sure.  It's just a matter of time.  If the support for raid watching existed, it would be huge already.  Right now there's no such support however.  Our Illidan movie has over 300k downloads and still going strong on only warcraftmovies.com right now, which is amazing to see.  The editor of the movie, Chaosvex, did a great job with it!”

The movies themselves are produced by a number of members.  One of the surprising aspects is how well the music usually fits in with the action.

“Awake and sometimes Nessaj choose the music.  Chaosvex who made our three recent movies picked the music for those.  Clinkz picked his music for his movies as well.”

There have been many requests for play by play in the videos.  Awake assures us that they are considering implementing them.

“We have and we might add it in the future.  It's not something we're going to do anytime soon though.  But it's definitely on the list of things we'd like to do.”

What movies does the guild prefer?  Illidan Stormrage and Mother Shazrah top the list.

“Also our Al'ar movie is pretty neat.”

How close is the MMORPG industry to having full time gaming professionals?  How close is Nihilum to becoming a completely professional enterprise?

“We're mainly sponsored because of our PvE progression and we're very, very likely to get more sponsors very soon.  We're awaiting our new website before making any major announcements - yes I can see professional PvE in the future.  It just depends how extensive it will become.  Time will tell.”

Nihilum has partnered with Mousesports in order to better realize this professional potential.

“I see our relationship moving forward rapidly; a new website will be released soon where we plan to cover a lot more community news, articles, interviews, media and a lot more.  Basically, we want people to enjoy our website and what it has to offer - while they interact with our members and our nice community and fan base.  All in all, we're going to move forward together with this and more sponsors and future plans such as WSVG teams.  Personally I like our relationship a lot so far.”

Yes that’s right—Nihilum will be moving into professional PvP very shortly.

“We do have plans to focus more on PVP.  I'm afraid I can't announce any details just yet, but it will be posted on our website as soon as possible.  We'd like to attend to the WSVG with at least two teams.”

 
While the cultural and economic impact of this emerging eSport cannot be discounted, Nihilum is first and foremost a raiding guild.  They completed the Black Temple is an astoundingly short period of time.  How do they consistently perform at this peak level? 

“Our strategy is quite flexible; however, our aim is always to be as efficient as possible.  Some classes might have to sit out during certain encounters.”

As for the Black Temple itself, Awake is always happy to offer advice and opinions:

“With the exception of the first two bosses in the Black Temple, if you can get there - you should have no issue with defeating at the very least the first encounters in both zones.”

“I would make High Warlord Naj'entus harder.  I'd also make Supremus a bit more challenging. Take advantage of all the space in his 'room'.  The Black Temple is an awesome instance, even without changing these two encounters - it's still the best raid instance Blizzard has made to date.  Since I barely have anything else to say that I feel should get changed it should give you an idea how highly I think of this dungeon.  When I had some spare time a couple of months ago I spent an entire day writing down ideas I have for raid encounters and epic events/quests in general.  It ended up at... quite a few pages.  There's so many ideas going around in my head, yet, neither of them should replace anything in the Black Temple, that's how good it is.  Not because my ideas wouldn’t work out, but because the current designed encounters are at least as good!”

Finally when asked about the BlizzCon, Awake leaves us with these tantalizing thoughts:

“We have plans to attend to BlizzCon.  Details have not been finalized yet.  And if we would raid with Leeroy Jenkins?  Hmm...... Ha-ha.  Nothing is impossible ;)”

“Aside from Starcraft II, I want to see a Diablo MMO with the main focus being PVP…”

Nihilum is not just the best guild in the world.  Their passion, dedication, discipline, and focus set them as a paragon of what the best raiding guild should be.   Next we look at a guild that has managed raid successes while staying true to the increasingly elusive ideal of family.  Join us next week as Stratics interviews Downfall.

-JoeMcDoug