Meet the Member Monday - William

Welcome to our weekly blog about DoF members.

We hope that these blogs will entertain you as well as help you in getting to know our members and DoF better.

We asked William 16 standard questions from our Meet the Member blog questionnaire

and then we gave chance to our members to ask 4 specific questions.

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I am William and I live in North Carolina, United States. I am 25 years old and I have lived in North Carolina for my entire life. I graduated from University with a degree in Computer Science. I have a wife, Melanie (we actually just got married earlier this month) and two cats. I work as technical support for an email marketing company.

Favorite Quote/Line: I don't really have a favorite quote or line but something that I try to live by is 'be yourself, believe in yourself, and better yourself'. I know it's simple but I believe that if you let go of all of the notions on what others think you should be and just have full confidence in who you are, then you can do anything you set your mind to.

1. How did you (together with Darin and Dante) create DoF? It's hard to remember how exactly we did it, but I believe we just met a couple of times to talk it over and decide if this is something we wanted to commit to. Once we committed, we played on an empty server in Warband just riding around on horses deciding on a name. We wanted to have a crusader theme like the Kingdom of Hold Calradia so we brainstormed and came up with some names, such as the Sons of God. We eventually decided on the Defenders of Faith for two main reasons. The first was that the abbreviation for Defenders of Faith (DoF) both sounded nice when said and looked nice as a tag in-game. The second was that the name 'Defenders of Faith' implied that we were defending the concept of 'faith' so that anyone, regardless of background, would feel comfortable as a member but we could keep the crusader theme. After that, we created a post on the Taleworlds forum as well as a forum for the clan and the rest, as they say, is history. 2. Why did you end up with idea of creating DoF? Back in the early days of the Warband Beta (and before), Darin, Dante, and I were in a clan called the Kingdom of Holy Calradia. We were eventually promoted to positions of leadership but ultimately we answered to the overall leader of the clan. However, the leader became quite inactive and most of the clan management fell on us. After doing this for some time we decided that it would be best to have our own clan so we wouldn't be restricted in what decisions we could make. As a piece of bonus trivia, after we left the clan, the Kingdom of Holy Calradia put bounties on us in Warband. 3. Favorite moment(s) in DoF? This is a tough question. There are a LOT of good moments in DoF so narrowing them down is difficult but I'll list the ones that come to my mind now (in no particular order). - Testing our skill in the member-only tournaments. - Our weekly practices on our own custom DoF training map that Erminas made and trying to complete the obstacle courses in there. Trying to survive the death circle at the top of the tower were people could open doors at any time and come to attack you. - All of the mini-games we made up and played in Warband. Horse racing was one of my favorites (especially when people fell off the track haha) and of course, Javby being another favorite. - The mods I've made that DoF members so generously tested. I remember trying to make a mini-game mod that had a Hide and Seek mode, which was so funny testing out. And, of course, the mod that makes me laugh the most, the Zombie Mod featuring super fast Zombies that swallowed Darin in the 'trailer' we made. - Winning scrims against our rivals provided some of the best feelings of accomplishment and pride in DoF. Especially when there was a clutch moment and TeamSpeak or Ventrilo (remember that) would erupt in excitement. - Hosting servers for practice because we didn't have our own yet. No one had ping below 100 and the average was about 300. - Taking over the leadership in a scrim we were loosing and becoming very demoralized, ordering everyone to go 'Pike Brigade' because why not, and turning that around. We actually won some rounds since we were able to sneak up on them. - Pulling an all-nighter doing a Minecraft speedrun, which we failed. Speaking of Minecraft, any moment we spent playing Minecraft was always a good time until the server inevitable devolved into chaos and people start betraying each other... (still funny to watch people blow up each other)

I may get a little sappy here but as I reflect on the moments I spent with DoF, I realized that being apart of this clan is not like anything I have ever experienced in real life or in another game community. It may be that I'm a huge introvert but in High School, I would come home after school most days and instantly hop on my computer to play with DoF. I have created countless memories and had so many good moments with you all that I wouldn't trade for anything. I appreciate all of you for being awesome and we will continue creating memories and sharing moments. 4. Favorite book? I actually haven't read a lot of books that weren't mandatory in school so I don't have a lot to go on. However, now that I am older, I find myself wanting to read and I actually just finished A Game of Thrones in the Song of Ice and Fire series. 5. Favorite movies and tv shows? My favorite movie of all time is Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I loved Star Wars as a kid and it's something that stuck with me although my interest in Star Wars has plateaued recently. I don't really have a favorite recent movie, unfortunately. My favorite TV show as of right now is The Office and I have re-watched it several times (I basically use it as background noise at this point). I also really enjoyed Game of Thrones but I was disappointed with the last season which is actually why I started reading the series. 6. Favorite music? I like a variety of music but I think my favorite genre would have to be Rock. I know there's different kinds of Rock but, in general, it is the genre I like the most. 7. Favorite food and drink (non-alcoholic and alcoholic)? My favorite food is Chicken in a Blanket. It is a recipe from a old southern cookbook that quickly became my favorite food as a kid and it still is today. Basically, it's a chicken filling in a crescent roll topped with a sauce made from sour cream and cream of mushroom soup. My favorite non-alcoholic drink is sweet tea but my favorite soft drink is Mountain Dew Code Red. My favorite alcoholic dink is a simple Jack and coke. 8. Favorite color? Red. 9. Favorite time of the year? Autumn. I like the leaves changing and the cool (not cold) temperature. 10. Are you an (e)sports fan and if so what are your favorite sports and teams? I'm not really a (e)sports fan besides Warband in it's hay day. 11. Do you have any pets? Yes I do! I have two cats. Ollie is a 4 year old tabby male with three legs. He was hit by a car before we got him and survived, but had to have one of his legs amputated. It doesn't slow him down at all, though. Penny is a 3 year old black and white female. She is less outgoing than Ollie but once she knows you, she'll want all the pets in the world. 12. Place you would love to travel to? I have never left the United States so I definitely want to travel somewhere outside. I'd like to go to Europe, specifically Sweden or Germany, but I'd really be interested in travelling to most countries in Europe. 13. Most inspiring historical figure? I think the most inspiring to me is Theodore Roosevelt. He seemed to be a great, no non-sense type of man whose policies I generally agree with. 14. Favorite games? My favorite game of all time is still Warband. There is no other game I have played more or enjoyed playing more than Warband. More recently, my favorite game was Dead by Daylight but I rage quit from that some time ago and haven't played it since. The games I currently play most often is the Bannerlord Beta and Modern Warfare. 15. Describe your playing style? It depends heavily on the game but I prefer to be aggressive and 'tanky', if possible. Otherwise I tend to go the stealthy route. 16. What will be your main class in Bannerlord? Probably Infantry or Skirmisher (throwing weapon people), but I have also been enjoying Cavalry and Ranged classes.

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And now we will turn to the specific questions our members had for William

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17. Darin & Erminas asking what's your Favorite class, faction, and map in Warband as well as your favorite faction and class in Bannerlord? Favorite class in Warband is Infantry, favorite faction is Vaegirs, and favorite map is Nord Town (keep in mind that I haven't played Warband in awhile). My favorite faction in Bannerlord is between Sturgia and Vlandia but I also really like Battania. I probably need to play it a bit more before I can give a definitive answer. My favorite class in Bannerlord so far is Infantry. 18. Erminas wants to know How different is BL beta compared to Warband's one? The first thing I noticed is the population difference. Warband beta had a lot more players than Bannerlord but the Bannerlord beta it has gotten better since the beginning of the beta. I feel like my game has crashed more in the Bannerlord beta than the Warband beta but I can't really remember. Bannerlord has smoother gameplay than Warband but I think that's mostly attributed to the new engine than anything else. 19. WhiteNoise is curious What are you hobbies besides Gaming? The hobby I have been focusing the most on recently is writing a book/creating a world for that book. Much of the free time I spend that's not gaming or other projects in my life goes to that hobby. I hope to finish a book and publish it but for now, it is definitely just a hobby. I'm also working on creating a tabletop RPG system. Besides that, I have setup a bird feeder behind my apartment where I watch the birds sometimes but I haven't done that in awhile (it's been kinda busy lately). 20. Duncan wants to know what's your favorite music to listen to whilst butchering the lower classes? Obviously Duncan shredding on his guitar. Nothing gets me into the spirit like hearing that Belgian just go crazy with his guitar.

Bonus question that Gadric is itching to know: Why is dad not coming back from getting cigarettes? It's been 15 years. I'm sure he just had to go really far to get them and that he'll be back any day now. Just keep your hopes up :)

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Thanks to William for joining us in this week's blog.

Who will be the next Member we get to Meet bit better? Find out next week!

Thank you for reading and we hope you enjoyed it!