We are Applerune, Jay Jay665, and Robtokill. We Led Corruption - AMA

[Echliurn 7]

I mainly really knew Corr around the Robtokill era, whatever happened to Pure Knights (dave?) and i think his name was like x Hitpointz x?  I remember being on that pk trip he got the phat, everyone was adamant it was fake even when the guy posted confirming he was running to the monks lol.

 

Also Rob, not sure if its been asked but how did you feel basically getting the clan world taken seriously?  IIRC it was you who actually got the talks going from the riot (?) that sparked it all, were you glad it happened?  I saw a few people say now Jagex had our attention things went downhill, do you ever feel that way, would you have preferred things different?  Basically how and what happened lol

[JayJay 78]

8 hours ago, Vanuckle said:

Who were the clans you enjoyed fighting against, and who were some of the clans you hated to fight?

What clans did your strengths match up well against, and which clans exploited your weaknesses most effectively?

1) I really enjoyed fighting EoS and DF because they were clans who we were always the most motivated to fight. They were also quite similar to us in terms of quality and numbers throughout most of the time I was in leadership. VR were also fun to fight up to any point where they didn't have more than +10/15 on us because we hated them and they were so shit man for man.

I hated fighting RSD mostly. The bit that made me motivated to fight was flaming, poking fun and getting the clan hyped. It's so bloody hard to motivate your clan to fight someone like RSD because if you dropped a fun flame in game you would get shitty pm's from people like bowhunter like "why are you saying we are a clan of old people with walking issues". TT were also hard to fight because we were quite friendly with them so it was hard to get motivated to want to fight them.

 

2) I think during my era overall CoR had average quality, average to high numbers and average weekday capabilities with strong weekend (Saturday) capabilities - we had a lot of GMT so weekday late fights weren't our thing. 

Strengths match - I think EoS and DF. We were similar in terms of everything and the mutual hatred and respect always provided the clan with next level motivation and performances. I would always be extremely pissed if I had to call a fight vs EoS or DF and Code will tell you about how stubborn I was when it came to calling off fights. We also had a fantastic calling lineup at some points - I have never really spoken to many people but Code about it but I believe in summer 2010 we had the best calling lineup in the game with 3 of the top 5/6 callers in the game at the time. I think at this point I'd of said it went 1) Oli/Conditions 2) Conditions/Oli 3) Myself 4) Mar/Dave 5) Dave/Mar.

Exploited our weaknesses - RSD + TT were better than us quality wise and I'd say they were the 2 best in the clan world. RSD didn't "exploit" us directly but they were just so boring it was impossible to get motivated to fight them. Actually exploiting however I would say EoS were the best clan at getting under our skin. Tthey were the first clan to drive us irl flaming and actually committing time/effort to ultimately ruining 1 single clans experience for a time. EoS also were good at beating us on weekdays because they knew even if we had 60 to their 40, they could run around for 2 hours and then it would be our 40 to their 60.

5 hours ago, True 2k8 said:

Who is a high-ranking Corruption official in their prime that you did not overlap with that you really wanted to lead with?

 

Do you miss it?

 

Thoughts on the duo of Slick & Neg?

 

Thoughts on Cantstopal13?

 

Thoughts on Bella Sedai?

 

What, if anything, would entice you to clan again?

1) A couple of people for me but first - Robtokill 100%. Unfortunately and I hate putting people down but I feel like the era of leaders before myself and Code didn't have the mentality that we have, whereas I believe Rob did. Rob also around in summer 2010 with Chopa when we were smashing clans - scary thought! 

Second I would say Andy4309. I never truly got to lead along side Andy and I can't think of a better name as to who I would have like to have led alongside in a big fight.

2) Yes I miss it, I have watched old videos for the lols before and we had a great community so mostly I miss the people.

3) Slick was a decent caller, Neg was not. Both were decent guys. I think they both ultimately left for some stupid egotistical reasons which was a shame - Slick also clearly seen the error of his ways because he wanted to rejoin not long after.

4) I didn't really know al too well. He seemed like a decent guy but he was not a very good fall in leader. Can't remember why he left.

5) Bella....ok I will cover some nice things about her and then say some stuff that basically no one else besides the leadership group of CoR really knew - so it's quite juicy. She was a good member, would have been a good official at something like council level but I don't believe she was suited to be high council or leader with her being overlooked for leader ultimately leading to her having a break down and leaving. Bella did not suit the mentality of the "new guard" of Corruption leadership. She was far too nice and didn't want to retaliate or crash, kind of ironic considering she fucked off to VR too, when clans were doing it to us and the clan world was ultimately heading down that route. Bella also wasn't really someone who I would have trusted to make the big decisions either, she was too emotional and I don't think she had the clans respect to that extent that Code and Starman did at the time.

Now on to the bigger reasons as to why Bella was overlooked by us. She was speaking to hated officials of other clans - mainly craigberry and occasionally Mar I believe. Bella was basically e-dating and speaking to craigberry under the radar (that we found out), while both clans were hating each other. Most of you know craig and the dick he was - VR were easily the most hated clan for us and the shit they did to us was unforgivable at the time - it was flaming our dead members by making signatures/spams of them, hitting our forums/ts offline, hacking people and all sorts. She was talking to this guy (craig) who was one of the main antagonists and BIGGEST idiots ever known to man, how could we trust her if she's doing this when she's a High Council? 

Then we found out she was also speaking to Mar. Basically EoS started all this irl flaming shit with us and were taking it to the extremes at some point. We obviously got sick of it and retaliated. Down the line we ended up finding out that Bella was speaking to Mar on the phone and stuff - she accidentally left  her microphone on when Mar rang her and we could hear their conversation. Again how could we trust someone who's doing this as a High Council?

6) Probably nothing. I don't have the same passion or desire to play MMO's and being busy in my personal life plays a big factor. Doubt my girlfriend is going to be impressed with me sitting in front of a screen most nights until late lmao

3 hours ago, Lavigne said:

COR was the only clan I was in that never used their clan name as a spam, how did this end up being the case lol.

Was before me but nothing was better than a cor spam!

2 hours ago, Kenny said:

What was the biggest challenge/challenge(s) you faced as leader when you first took over Corruption? How did you deal with them?

What advice would you give to those wanting to create/lead an online clan (not necessarily on RS but in general)? 

If there was a change in dynamic & attitudes of the officials/members during the time CoR closed with the majority of members/officials wanting to continue being part of Corruption who would have been the ideal successor to Jay in leading Corruption forward with the current ending memberlist? (assuming past leaders like Rob/Code didn't want to return to the game; I guess Jay would be the best to answer this question).

What games do you play these days / How do you usually spend your free time?

1) I think there were three things for me

 - Filling the void of Code, Starman and Dave. To start with Dave was my best mate on RS for a long time and he was always someone I could rely on for leading in game and getting CoR motivated in fights. Losing him was a big blow for me because of not having someone that good and consistent to rely on. Ultimately I never really got a chance to replace Dave's ability until Empire Mind joined CoR which was a bit too late down the line. With Code, he was too big of an asset to replace at the time (feeding his ego here) and there was NO one  in the clan world at the time like Code who could write topics or do some of the behind the scenes things that he did. This ties in with Starman too, he was vital to the day to running of leadership in the clan and was an important figure and level head. Between Code, Starman and myself we clearly worked better as a trio because of conflicting personalities and abilities - we complimented each other very well even when we disagreed over stuff.

-  Rebuilding the clan. As is normal with passing of leaderships, there is normally a rebuilding phase. I think the state I was given the clan in was solid mentality wise. However we lacked numbers, a good calling lineup and a lower official base. I remember we went on a decent recruiting spree (I can't remember how the recruiting scheme worked) but we went from pulling like 40-50 on weekdays and 50-60 weekends to 60+ on weekdays and 70-80 on weekends again. Even when we closed we were still able to pull 50/60 but it was mainly newer members as a lot of our older members were looking to retire. Replacing the calling lineup was incredibly hard, you don't replace people like Dave, Conditions and even GB7 but we were getting there. I think Empire Mind was Pk leader and he was likely to get Warlord soon plus Starman had started leading in game too. We also had a few decent backups with people like TAG LT wanting to step up. Replacing the lower level officials was hard. I consulted with current leadership and Code/Starman and basically promoted good, solid and reliable members. This resulted in the promotions of people like Fernando (desapox), Alex (Buzz hed) and Subzero 0190 with Sh0w, Fasty and Vishal getting HC. Had we spent a bit longer around we probably could have done good work because I believe that was a good official base and with 1 more level headed person and 1 more good caller we could have been back on form.

- Further pushing the mentality of not giving a shit. I think Code and Starman will probably agree I was less level headed than them. I was more hot headed than them two but less hot headed than Dave. Between us all we made good decisions even though we argued about them. But I think ultimately you need someone with a bit of ruthlessness and lack of fear of decisions complimented by someone to make sure it doesn't go too far - this is why we worked well together. People knew towards the end we aren't going to let them crash us, we are going to retaliate and we aren't going to get off. Take the final little crash war we had with EoS, we hit them back HARD and Oli came asking me to stop. I snaked him big time and accepted a false truce and we hit them twice as hard next time they were out. This kind of thing wouldn't have happened with the likes of Enzock leading (sorry Enzock) because he probably wouldn't have retaliated in the first place.

Ultimately I think I was a lot better of a caller and wilderness decision maker as oppose to clan and member decision maker. I think I would have benefited a lot more by having someone do the other leadership activities along side me. It's so much to be relied on to do absolutely everything for the clan and not having that extra bit of help - don't get me wrong the officials I had were great but they weren't doing the assistance to the level that Starman helped Code and vice versa.

2) It's a full time job. You need to be around all the time if you want to take full control and be successful. I think I would say the key to running a successful clan in a game like Runescape where PVP is done at a large scale is to befriend many but also "hate" many. Befriend because you want people to respect you and join you. "Hate" many because motivation for winning is always stronger when you have a rivalry or something to fight for (pride especially).

3) Had more officials wanted to carry on I would have ultimately have said Vishal (Anarchal Pk) would have gotten leader (can't remember if I did offer it to him) and I imagine there might have been a promotion of either Sh0w or Fasty done by himself - I picture Fasty maybe accepting the role but Sh0w turning it down. Then I think ultimately Empire Mind would have got Warlord with potential of some new HCs.

I think I thought at the time about stepping down to Warlord or HC and letting someone take over the actual Leader role. I knew I was going to drop activity wise but I would have been a big benefit to the clan by continuing with the calling aspect. It wasn't to be though because the other leadership ultimately had the same ideas as me so it just became a more sensible decision to close. 

 

4) I spend most of my free time now chilling or going to the gym. I lost a lot of weight after Runescape and got in good shape (which you have probably seen on my instagram as I've got you lol). I also moved in with my girlfriend and I work full time in Cyber Security so that keeps me busy.

I play a couple of games on Xbox and occasionally dabble in to LoL.

[Daniela 778]

m8s ❤️

[Vanzant 1,380]

4 hours ago, Robtokill said:

 

Ghjjf, Brian committed the most time and effort I've ever seen into ensuring his clan was a lasting legacy in the game. He nailed the P2P end of the game down so damn well for so many years. We'd have been unstoppable.

 

 

Enough to pay for an Xbox now and then, to cover the licensing costs of Invision forums (yes we actually paid for software!) and to pay upto $120 a month for a dedicated server for the clan and Teamspeak costs. I think it ranged from $70 - $300 a month in revenue. Every last cent was spent on Corruption. I believe some insanely generous members also helped pay for the clans costs over the years. The Xbox's were run during times of profit to burn off the extra funds.

 

 

No regrets. The fun was in the journey with Corruption and the challenges we overcame. I'd have done nothing differently in regards to actions but I felt my personal attitude was not good enough at times in the clan.

 

 

We enjoyed fighting everyone, we REALLY enjoyed fighting clans bigger then us and we REALLY REALLY enjoyed fighting clans that we hated and that were bigger then us.

 

DF seems to be the peak of matching up to us. We absolutely slammed them for a long time but they kept coming back for more, until one day they started beating us.

 

DS exploited our weaknesses the best, just as soon as we started a rivalry with them and wanted to get into it with them (they were #1 at the time), they fucking closed up shop, we REALLY wanted to start some fights with them.

 

 

Yeah no idea where he got multiple clans from, and who could forget the pink dragons?!

Damn straight 

[@Brian 2,802]

18 hours ago, Applerune said:

 

This is probably a question for Rob but anyone who was involved in the clan world at the time (2007/2008) knew how important Rad was to COR. I joined shortly after the mass-leave but it's no coincidence that when Rad and others joined DI they had a massive surge in power. I was in the P2P mage bank scene from 2006-07 and even I knew this from afar and as someone who never took F2P seriously. Take from it what you will. 

Generally speaking back then DI never really "recruited" people because people would just leave their clans for DI anyway. (Members did it yes but not leadership) We (Me and Flako IIRC) actually did go out of our way to recruit Rad and others though. I remember he had no interest in P2P but we eventually sold it to him. He'd probably rank within the top 10 most important people in DI.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Brian

[JayJay 78]

6 minutes ago, Brian said:

Generally speaking back then DI never really "recruited" people because people would just leave their clans for DI anyway. (Members did it yes but not leadership) We (Me and Flako IIRC) actually did go out of our way to recruit Rad and others though. I remember he had no interest in P2P but we eventually sold it to him. He'd probably rank within the top 10 most important people in DI.

Absolute scumbag. Glad I got myself kicked from DI after hearing this barbaric statement from you

[@Brian 2,802]

4 hours ago, JayJay said:

2) It's a full time job. You need to be around all the time if you want to take full control and be successful.

You're not wrong. Saying that, would any of you go back and do it all again? Knowing you basically have to give up your life outside of RS to be a leader of a successful clan. Do you feel your time was a waste looking back on it now almost 10 (or 15 in Robs case) years later?

[Sh0w 2]

@JayJay who is better looking - you or Conditions

[JayJay 78]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

You're not wrong. Saying that, would any of you go back and do it all again? Knowing you basically have to give up your life outside of RS to be a leader of a successful clan. Do you feel your time was a waste looking back on it now almost 10 (or 15 in Robs case) years later?

I would do it again if it meant having the same outcome in life but I would never do it again at my current age. I think it stopped me from doing dumb shit and getting in trouble irl, plus it was the reason I got into the career that I have done. I also think the time spent leading a clan helped me to develop skill wise in my job (and life) with the development of soft skills, general knowledge and interests. I learned a lot from other members of CoR and other clans.

I think to people who don't understand Runescape, clanning and what not - they would say it was probably a waste. Could I have spent my teens outside playing more football or rugby - sure but I gained a lot of computer and other knowledge in that time and developed into the person I am today. I think I quit at the right time, I was 17/18 I think, so it was the age where girls and parties were becoming more of an interest and what not. I think ultimately playing made me the person I am today - probably wouldn't have pursued the career I did, probably wouldn't have the same level of banter I do and probably wouldn't have got into fitness if I didn't get fat playing Runescape.

1 hour ago, Sh0w said:

@JayJay who is better looking - you or Conditions

Corbin has the handsome Asian look that I imagine they love and teen girls would go crazy for.  He's also got the quite lean/shredded physique that's popular for that ethnicity.  Probably the reason why he does modelling. - No homo

I would say I have more of a boyish/man look and I'm more muscular than him (at a few points I was probably leaner to be honest) and don't think I'm too bad looking now a days. I'm no model but I get enough attention from girls. Strangely I use to get a lot of attention from late 30/early 40 year old women.....

I would give us a tie because I would say each of us would do better depending on the respective countries we are in. But some Asian girls do love white guys - especially in China.

 

For people who don't know - my "best looking male" award win was a joke because at the time I was fat as hell lol - so I just won the most unlikely award going.

Edited August 28, 2020 by JayJay

[Mar 61]

8 minutes ago, JayJay said:

 

Corbin has the handsome Asian look that I imagine they love and teen girls would go crazy for.  He's also got the quite lean/shredded physique that's popular for that ethnicity.  Probably the reason why he does modelling. 

 

 

Just so u kno jay this is very gay

[JayJay 78]

3 minutes ago, mar said:

 

Just so u kno jay this is very gay

I just put no homo at the end to nullify it

[I Kill Batty 283]

Where is Andy4309 now?

[Applerune 121]

12 hours ago, Kenny said:

What was the biggest challenge/challenge(s) you faced as leader when you first took over Corruption? How did you deal with them?

What advice would you give to those wanting to create/lead an online clan (not necessarily on RS but in general)? 

If there was a change in dynamic & attitudes of the officials/members during the time CoR closed with the majority of members/officials wanting to continue being part of Corruption who would have been the ideal successor to Jay in leading Corruption forward with the current ending memberlist? (assuming past leaders like Rob/Code didn't want to return to the game; I guess Jay would be the best to answer this question).

What games do you play these days / How do you usually spend your free time?

 

1. Biggest challenge was quickly transitioning from the old guards mentality (no crashing, out of game tactics, etc) to the new guard. There was a bubble within COR that wanted to burst and change things for good but never had the opportunity to do so. When I got leader, it was full guns blazing. We weren't necessarily struggling at the time, but we weren't fighting for anything near the top 3 spots. We needed a massive motivational boost. So many of our members wanted to crash, they wanted long fights and they wanted to have fun on the game. COR  had grown a bit stale. COR was also very good at getting out of slumps so I had no reservations about turning COR into a #1 clan. And that's exactly what we did.

2. My plan was to pick on a lesser, second-tier clan & motivate the troops this way. Usually that meant TR, TRWF, any country clan, CR, Solace, etc. Not sure when any of these clans closed or reopened or what they were doing at the time. But I chose TR because we had a disgruntled member (which happened to be the person asking this question lol) named  Kenny (Mars/Dezolude). You really wanted a chance to lead fall ins in a top clan and I took advantage of that to get a forum account/spy into TR. Once you gave us what we needed (screenshots & forum access) we were able to motivate the troops. We destroyed TR any time they went out. Good fights and some domination of shitter clans motivated the troops and once leadership changed hands (to me and Starman) older members started to come back, new blood joined, and we were on our way up. We even convinced Chopa to come back to help re-ignite the really old members. It worked wonders and once Conditions21 joined and we had the trio of him, Jay, and Dave (Mage Boy 500) we were unstoppable. We went from pulling 40-60 people to 130 on no preps a few months later. We had almost 160 people in vent in summer 2010. At one point we had ~70 FAs. It was COR's last great run.

3. The only logical person would be Anarchal Pk (Vishal) and even then he wasn't ready to be leader. IMO, I don't think Jay was ready to be leader either, but he was the only logical choice at the time. It made sense. My real life was falling apart between my stepdad and mom splitting and my life changed a ton. I had no choice and Jay was the only one who was respected enough to be taken seriously as leader. I think Jay did a good job given the situation he was dealt. He was never going to get the clan to where we got it, but the game had changed so much after I retired that it didn't matter.

4. I was working prior to the pandemic. I work in college athletics. No games played, no work for me. I'm biding my time until then and I'm still around fairly often and have played all the popular games people play these days. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Brian said:

You're not wrong. Saying that, would any of you go back and do it all again? Knowing you basically have to give up your life outside of RS to be a leader of a successful clan. Do you feel your time was a waste looking back on it now almost 10 (or 15 in Robs case) years later?

It's really hard to answer this question. IMO, if you didn't treat your clan as a full-time job you were never going to be successful. You had to be available at all times, especially when you were doing well because you'd never want to risk something going wrong and you not there to deal with it. I have never considered my time on RS a waste of time. I have friends in a dozen plus countries. I learned how to deal with people better than any college class or workshop or YouTube video or whatever thing you could use. I learned to understand different cultures, customs, and norms and dare I say it I learned accountability, hard work, and how to critically think and manage multiple fluid situations. RS taught me a lot. I've been in management and supervisory positions in my career work and I'm astounded at how bad people can be at managing others. I never had this fear or reluctance because of RS. Leading an RS clan also taught me how important it is for leaders to be approachable, relatable, and the power in a group of people uniting toward a common goal. And I don't think that's a sad thing to say. RS has been such an asset to my life, the only thing I don't like to think about is how much time I physically spent in front of a PC. 

 

To answer the question, tho, I don't know that I'd do it all again. I'm 28 now and I actually care about my health and there was little healthy about my involvement with RS despite the things I learned. There were so many life things I put off for RS even though I was young. I would never classify my time as a waste tho.  That's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, however.

My time on RS was an absolute blast - an unhealthy one, with the benefit of hindsight - but an absolute blast nonetheless.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Applerune

[Ssj 909]

Thank you @Applerune @JayJay @Robtokill for your replies to my questions on page 1 - especially the answers given around Corrs closure and opinions were very interesting to read. They are very similar indeed and remind me of when I chose to close Envy and how difficult and conflicting it can be. You'd think closing a clan is the easiest part in comparison to starting one but it can actually be the hardest and most painful decision.

[Applerune 121]

18 minutes ago, Ssj said:

Thank you @Applerune @JayJay @Robtokill for your replies to my questions on page 1 - especially the answers given around Corrs closure and opinions were very interesting to read. They are very similar indeed and remind me of when I chose to close Envy and how difficult and conflicting it can be. You'd think closing a clan is the easiest part in comparison to starting one but it can actually be the hardest and most painful decision.

Yea it's tough cause there's so many different people who have devoted large portions of their lives to the cause. There's a lot of moving parts. We talk a lot about the big clans and "players" like COR, DI, DF, RSD, etc., but it's a tough decision no matter what level you're at. It's tough too because regardless if you got along with certain individuals or liked or didn't like them you still cannot discount their contributions. Everyone has a hand.