Icedrop

The length of it still baffles me! A lot of waffle, nonsense, and unfounded drivel within that essay. He said so much there is no doubt the odd half-truth in there, but it was never worthy of a full response from the leaders. He was so far off the mark on so many things so we simply laughed it off. What I do find amusing is how wrong his future predictions turned out to be. He posted that at some point in 2008 and in the two years that followed we gained strength, consistency, and stayed as a top 5 clan with some significant spells at #1. ==ice==

What are the three most important things you learned or skills you developed leading the clan and how have those benefitted you in life (if at all)? ==ice==

Breakfast - Can of Monster Zero Lunch - Buffalo wings That is all for now. ==ice==

Margherita. Toppings are shit. ==ice==

I remember there was quite a bit of debate out it at the time. I was personally very much against mass name changes as a concept generally and I recall using any influence I had to try to convince Jagex not to allow it, but those efforts were in vain. As you correctly point out, our opponent did it against us for the semi final. That left us with the dilemma of whether to do the same in order to negate the advantage that name changes would give them over us, or whether to "suck it up" and let them have that advantage over us. It was close and marginal call, but we decided to do it because it was within the tournament rules (albeit we didn't agree that was the right decision on the part of those running it) and because it would be unfair on our members if we let our opponents gain an advantage within tournament rules over us. The majority, but not all members supported it. Those who were against it accepted it and got on with things. I'd have personally preferred it if Corruption had done the same for the final, but I guess it was ultimately a decision for their leadership whether or not to do so. I thought that choosing not to left them with a rather convenient reason/excuse in the event that they lost. I would have been confident that we would have been able to win the final even if Corruption had changed their names. As it was, Corruption put up a great fight and who knows what would have happened had they changed their names or had we not changed ours. ==ice==

In your opinion why do you feel that COR and RSD did not fight more then we did and why do you feel that a rivalry did not ever develop over time between the two clans? Off the top of my head, I recall that COR's peak was in the second half of 2006 or the first half of 2007. That coincided with the time that RSD was at its weakest. There would have been some degree of crossover whilst either clan was on its way up and down, but there was probably a narrow window during which the clans were of equal strength back then. ==ice==

Why/how did you start the whole 1 year prep trip? I think some of our rivals alleged that we would only fight if we had weeks/months' worth of notice. We decided to go along with it and prepare for a year. I think it was just as a bit of a joke when it was posted, but as we got nearer the time we figured why not go ahead with the event! Why did people call you grandads/grandmas - was your average age actually that much older? We had a handful of older members, but most of us were in our teens, or early 20s. We had a bit more of a mature/less childish culture as a clan, which was not always so much about age but more about the type of member we attracted. Why did your clan have such a "holier than thou" attitude. I hated fighting RSD because it was hard to get motivated to. If so much as one of my members dropped any kind of flame your officials were always straight into my pms complaining. Our members took pride in the values we held as a clan and felt that was one of the things that set us apart from our opponents. I can see how that might have resulted in people thinking that we had a "holier than thou" attitude. I never really got how that meant that our rivals wouldn't get motivated to fight us. I'd have though for some that beating the clan with the "holier than thou" attitude would have been more of an inspiration than somebody talking rubbish ingame or on forums. ==ice==

Some random memories: - Mr 800, Co Leader at the time, set up a whole forum section for a series of "Best Movie of All Time" polls that went on for months. It was never explained and may never have been finished. The same thing appeared on Twitter during the COVID lockdown. I have a strong suspicion that it was also his doing. - Ahead of large weekend fights we would put up a banner drawing attention to the fight in the Shoutbox at the top of forums. I'm not sure how it started, but for a while there was a period where it would always feature a MS Paint drawn cartoon of a frog that was named "Terry" and who ended up being considered our mascot. If you saw Terry at the top of our forums then you knew a big event was upcoming. - Me and a couple of officials realised that we could get words to automatically change when posted on the forums (e.g. if you type "DI" it would change to "DF"). I think we worked out how to turn it on/off easily and we might have been able to make it only apply to certain members of our choosing. We made some very subtle changes here and there which went undetected for a good while before people sussed it out. Easily entertained. - At one point we started tracking activity very seriously. We would log which members attended every event. For longer PKRIs we would give additional points for those there at the end. We made our poor junior clan officials add up all the points and we published top activity tables. I think people below a certain threshold got kicked (unless they provided us with a good reason for their inactivity!). That might have been quite normal, but it seems like quite a meticulous approach looking back. ==ice==

Solid/dependable, from what I can remember. ==ice==

Not a great deal. He was quite quiet and we did not speak much. He was a great caller on the battlefield, but perhaps he was not made out to be a Co Leader/Leader. Perhaps that explains his return down that route later on. ==ice==

Who were your favourite and least favourite ranks in opposing clans to deal with? Few stood out. I used to keep things pretty short and simple dealing with other clans. Perhaps 3lite and Ghjjf (neither messed about, tried to play games, and both were reasonable about times/rules/etc). I recall it being a bit of a pain trying to get a hold of Bishinmo and at times I think the final say had to go via him. VR/EoS could be a pain to try and speak to. What were some of your favourite clans to beat? Victories against DI in the earlier years (2006 and earlier) were always great. It was good to beat TT in the ~2009/2010 era when they were at or around their peak. For other clans it varied from time to time - usually the most rewarding victories were the ones against opponents deemed to be the strongest or the ones against our closest rivals. What did you think of EH and when they closed, what are your memories of some of the members who went on to join RSD? I never had any issues with EH and I think they were a well run clan and a good opponent for RSD when the relative strength of us/them allowed it. It was a shame to see that they closed. Given that EH and RSD had certain similarities and shared certain values it did not surprise me that a number of former EH applied to RSD. I remember Lil Blaknite being a great member and one of the best/most persistent binders about (he certainly never gave up when I sniped him vs EH!). ==ice==

Rogers1182, Gzusfrk4lf, Lilflip1820, Laizan Jr (sorry if any of you are reading!) ==ice==

Yes, but we would have probably dwindled and ended up like some old/forgotten giants like Gladz/'The' Clan/etc. ==ice==

Is there anyone you regretted ranking? As indicated in my earlier post, Hohto. There were various members that we promoted over the years that just didn't really do much or seize the opportunity to excel in a rank, but I wouldn't say that many were actively bad. Is there anyone you think would have been a good rank but never got the opportunity? Similar to a previous question I answered. Nobody really springs to mind. There are probably some that were in RSD for a shorter period of time that could have been good and would have stayed in the clan had they been promoted/hooked in, but people tended to have to wait their turn (which they usually got eventually, hence few members never getting an opportunity). ==ice==

Superkev360. I can't remember what it was, but he either did something bad, was a trouble maker, or did something to annoy me. ==ice==

Second half of 2006 - as mentioned in the intro, we got to the point where the dual skill/PK aspect to the clan was always going to hold us back in the PKRI era where the expectation was to be active in the wilderness and return in fights. In previous years a member could get by turning up for the occasional war. We were already in a little bit of a spiral and then everybody was pretty much made to reapply which dented our numbers we had even further. We were left with a really solid core of members that set us up well for regrowth, but that is the weakest I think we have ever been (at least from 2003 onwards). I'm unsure on exact timings, but at some point in 2008 we were struggling after the removal of the wilderness. That had caused a lot of members to lose interest in the game and the clan to lose a lot of momentum that we had built up in 2007. We went on a bit of a recruitment drive and gradually got back up to strength, which was boosted when proper PKRIs were made possible again. ==ice==

What are some things you wanted to do with RSD that you never got to do? I'd have loved to have had more full scale P2P wars, particularly before the age of barrages etc. Unfortunately few clans bothered with P2P, even back in 2004/5. Looking back, arranging some huge 2 vs 2 fights with multiple clans could also have been something a bit different and fun. If RSD never existed, what clan do you think you would have vibed with best during your peak RS activity? Probably DI, although I'd like to think that I'd have helped to shape it and put some of my influence in to it in the way that I was able to with RSD. Most overrated clan in RS history? Perhaps DS? I think they closed prematurely and they would not have kept up momentum had they stayed open. I think they were worshipped for far too long after they closed. That said, they are somewhat forgotten these days. I was also never impressed by EoS. ==ice==

I think I was officially not supposed to, with the exception being if nobody else was online to moderate/tackle those posts. I probably did rely on that exception on occasions when I should have left it to somebody else. ==ice==

Not sure I would single out one moment. Generally my favourite times were the big Saturday night fights after a few days of build-up and preparation. I also loved chilling out on Teamspeak - impromptu smaller PK trips, boss hunting, and playing some other non-RS games. ==ice==

Difficult question given that I was retired for Bow's stint as leader, albeit I was generally about. Perhaps Bow was a bit more formal in his approach/style with things discussed in detail on leader forums, whereas back in the day I would have discussed things/thrashed out ideas over a Teamspeak discussion alone. That might have just been the people around at those times though (e.g. F1r3o/etc). ==ice==

No and no. I would never consider doing either. ==ice==

How does it feel to be a Jagex Cup Champ? It was a great achievement for RSD and it felt good! If you guy could bring RSD back to OSRS would you? Not for me. I don't have time and wouldn't be interested. What led to the closure of RSD? If you had the choice would you have kept the clan open? It was ultimately Bow's decision as leader at the time, but I recall that he consulted various people including former leaders at the time. I can't recall specifics, but I agreed that it was the right timing/decision. Did you guys have any spies in any clans? Yes, although not until perhaps something like 2007/8. We had historically been against it when every other clan/rival had used them which put us at a bit of a disadvantage. We never had too many though - the focus was always on bettering ourselves rather than trying too hard to meddle with or check in on our rivals. ==ice==

I wouldn't say I abused any "Zybez power". I had a reasonable amount of influence/my input on Clan Discussion decisions was often sought, but I was ultimately just one voice. I would say that my opinion on various discussions around the direction of the Clan Discussion section was always made on the basis of what I thought was best for the clan world, rather than what was best for Zybez itself (e.g. driving traffic towards the forums). That was almost certainly at odds with what some people running Zybez wanted. Inevitably what I considered to be best for the clan world would almost always overlap with what would be best for RSD, so I didn't see that there was a conflict at all. ==ice==

How old were you when you led RSD? Co Leader between 17 and 19, Leader 19 to 22. What are any regretful decisions you made or were a part of as an RSD official? No major regrets spring to mind. There would no doubt have been a lot of regretful smaller decisions week in/week out, but I don't regret any key decisions around strategy or the direction that RSD took over the years. What were the original RSD requirements? I remember DI's old HP requirement but by the time I joined RSD it was just combat (I think 122?) It changed a lot over the years. In 2001 it was probably very low and it would have included some sort of skilling requirement routes to membership. I'd be interested to know what our requirements were when we reopened in 2005. I don't remember. I had a quick Google and couldn't find anything. How was your honor code in comparison with DIs? In terms of in-game behaviour very similar. The game changed rapidly (I remember when things such as "pile jumping" were considered dishonourable) and generally the RSD rules on things such as "logging" and "praying 1 vs 1 in single" were on a par with DI. The rest of the clan world's standards were usually somewhat lower. RSD conducted ourselves more honourably/respectfully outside of the game. Who were RSD's best Mage Bank PKers post-Desert Treasure and why? To be totally honest I don't remember how Desert Treasure changed Mage Bank PKing. Peak Mage Bank era (I'd say 2004/5) is a long time ago! ==ice==

This was never particularly an issue. At the end of the day we managed to get a steady flow of fights with our rivals, and where rival officials were being ridiculous about rules (e.g. proposing fights starting at silly times on a school day, 5 sniper caps, etc) then we would simply look elsewhere to set something up or during the appropriate eras we would look to hit those clans on a PK trip. Of course, in setting up fights there always had to be a bit of give and take on things like days, times and rules of fights. I would make reasonable and appropriate concessions, but I was never up for caving in and accepting fights with ridiculous rules just to appease the likes of EoS/VR officials. A lot of the time their idea of discussing details for a fight was "my way or the highway" and I wasn't going to set a precedent of letting them entirely dictate all the terms. There was sometimes some hot steam from the likes of EoS/VR (and others) on forums, but it was usually just that. There may have been EoS/VR members crying "RSD refusing to fight us omg" on forums, but it was pretty easy for our members to see through that. If I turned down a fight I would do so for good reason and I would be happy to let the members know the rationale as to why. Our members were generally on the same page with the decisions and knew what our opponents were up to. Of course the odd individual would disagree from time to time, but there was never any wide-scale backlash. ==ice==