(Haven't read my previous parts ? Check part 1 and 2 here)

Today I'm going to talk about reputation. Reputation that exceeds online play and moves to the offline world. A trigger that made me come to my graduation plan, creating communities that meet eachother in an online and offline world.

KooZ, my current character in the World of Warcraft, started 2 years ago, when we failed to have a leader competent enough of taking on the baddest bosses in World of Warcraft and leading to victory.

Those characters are called "Tanks", tanks are responsible for maintaining tactics, deciding strategy and split second decisionmaking. A task hard, especially with 24 other players and some 15-year olds crying out that I fail big time. Having a good answer there is something you'll learn in experience.

I had 15 days of playtime (360 hours) under my belt (wich is a really small amount) when I became a tank in the guild "The praetorians" and had the chance to get some really good gear with small effort. Me leaving them for something bigger might not have been the best, but what the heck. It's just a game and I've spoken about it before, natural progression is part of that game.

Next up was Nemesis, a guild higher in the rankings on that server at the time, a top 10 guild in the rankings. They decided to quit due to a massive "cockblock" boss they had to overcome that seemed impossible. I was removed from that guild as well. Dwelling around several guilds, seeing people fail I came to ad decision point of quitting. I told several of my friends and suddenly there was a moment of opportunity. I took that chance and suddenly I was in a top3 guild of our server that could make my goal come true, being "Main tank" of that guild and "tanking" the last boss in the game at that moment. And so I did. 200% effort, loads of discussions and late night gaming later, I stood there. Killing "Illidan the betrayer" while main tanking.

 

 

I've never felt such a relief and accomplishment at the same time !

Being the first character wielding the most awesome shield ingame skyrocketed my previous reputation and I even got interviewed for one of the biggest blogs in WoW, wowinsider.com.

At that time I also ran,produced and managed a team that created video podcasts about World of Warcraft, a succes that was unimaginable. Over 1 million views in the entire line of 14 shows. Check them out here.

This video podcast (with blogs, interviews, and even a cooperation with wcradio.com) lead to my graduation subject, "graduating in communities" where I studied and theorized the subject of how communities bloom, in what phases those communities grow and what psychologic effects communities have on people, why do they want to join and how do you keep in touch with your community.

Now I'm working at MINDZ.com, a new social network that combines online- and offline meeting, connecting and sharing. Initiated from your personal brand, leading to collaboration in a new way !

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it !