In 2013, during some of JAWA’s peak years, a Jedi Academy player called Kannon approached me about doing an interview for his upcoming untitled Jedi Academy news website. Him and three others wanted to feature clan leader interview amongst other things, so I answered a bunch of questions with him via Gmail. I think we were going to enter some form of sponsorship at some point, but the idea never got off the ground unfortunately.
Kannon: What gave you the idea to create JAWA? And did you have anyone’s help in the beginning?
Link: JAWA began in October 2004 when it was founded by Matt and Iniowe. I joined the clan in December two months later when I met with Matt on the ClanWarriors server, which back then was THE place to go to build a clan from scratch. Around January, Iniowe vanished and a month or so later Matt did as well… this had a knock on effect and every single member decided to pursue other clans until it was just myself left. Around March I decided to try to rebuild JAWA with myself as the leader however… let’s just say I wasn’t very experienced and ended up recruiting the wrong people. I was very focused on recruiting as many people as possible rather than recruiting people who genuinely wanted to join and shared my vision of building a new community. After realizing this, I began creating a few new things and thinking of new ideas which would give me the edge over the other clans at ClanWarriors, it worked and I recruited some of our most loyal players.. some of whom still hang around to this day.
I could had very easily made another clan and branded myself its “founder” but for some reason, JAWA had made an impression on me and I wanted to share that with the rest of the community. I must thank Gage (Manager of ClanWarriors), who supported me greatly through that time and I doubt we’d had made it this far without him.
Kannon: Considering the recent rambles due to inactivity, do you plan on an expansion? Or is JKA it. Are there any ideas to get more players to the community?
Link: People have been saying the game has been dying for well over half a decade now, and yet it’s still the same as it was back in 2008/2009. There is no doubt that the popularity of the game has gone down, as have the players since the game was first launched but I’m confident in saying that the game has evened out much like Quake 3 did in the early 2000s. I don’t think any game truly ever dies unless its creators pull the plug on the master server (Which JKHub has got a fix prepared for IF that were to ever unfortunately happen) so I don’t usually listen to the “doomsday people”. When Steam supported Jedi Academy a year or two ago, it breathed new life into the game without a doubt as there were clearly a lot of new players coming in daily (And still are). I’ve noticed a lot of newer members in JAWA lately are friends/family of current members, who became hooked on the game as all of us have… so that’s good to see.
In terms of JAWA expanding to other games… no, we are a Jedi Academy clan and we’re not going to pretend to be anything else. I wouldn’t feel good about splitting my attention on two games rather than just Jedi Academy as it somewhat feels like you’re not giving 100% to either community. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of successful multi-game clans out there, but I’d rather focus all my energy on one game/community.
Kannon: Gimme a general basis of yourself.
Link: My alias is SiLink but everyone calls me Link which was my full alias up until 2008. The Si in my name represents my real name so I decided to combine the two 😛 I’m 23 and from England. I’ve been playing since December 2004 and regard Jedi Academy as my favourite game. Outside of the game I’m currently studying Natural Sciences in which I hope to get a degree in. I’m really enjoying it as it mostly covers my favourite subject… Astronomy!.
I don’t see myself as responsible for JAWA’s success, I put that entirely down to the ever changing community over the past 8 years which they’ve supported and helped build piece by piece to what it is today. If I had to state one of the things that annoys me most about other clans, it’s when the leaders refer to themselves as the clan being “theirs”… I avoid calling JAWA “my” clan as I really don’t see it that way, I work for the members and put their ideas into practice… although I’m somewhat of an idea machine myself :P.
Kannon: I see that you have multiple allies to JAWA, do you consider any clan closer than the other? As in, friend wise which do you regard the closest.
Link: I’d be lying if I said we’re all equally close, I’d say Angels of Fire. AoF has always had very close contact with JAWA whether it be members interacting or both councils keeping in contact communication. I believe we’ve been allies since 2007 now, and whilst they weren’t the first, they’re one of very few of our allies that has stayed with us for this long. They’re a bunch of really great people, and their clan is very unique (Like every clan should aim to be) so I think they stand out above others when it comes to choice for visitors looking for a clan to join. I must say though I like to think we have good contact with all our allies apart from a few which sadly over the years haven’t been doing as great as I hoped, but they’re still going strong and that’s all that matters 🙂.
Kannon: Your ranking setup is very unique, and having a council to back leading decisions seems to be the key success to any big organization. Who are your current council members? And can you give me a brief detail about them?
Link: We’ve had… nearly 60 council members as I write this. Even for an 8 year old clan, that’s a lot 😛 during the early years councils would come/go as often as you might change your toothbrush. I’m very happy with our current council though, as we’re all working together REALLY well and we’ve all got our own parts of the clan that we manage/oversee e.g. Teamspeak Manager, Promotions Manager etc, sometimes I compare JAWA to a sort of wacky business model. (Note for you, 3 of our council members are leaving this month so I will cover our current council and the leaving council members replacements).
- Dopie – One of the most hard working members of JAWA as well as one of our newest councils. He is the current producer/host/manager of our Podcast which goes out every 2 weeks.
- Helena Revan – She is the longest serving member of the clan apart from myself and dare I say the most helpful clan member we’ve ever had including myself. She is currently planning to create the second official map called (JAWA) Events.
- Ivanova – Much like Helena, Ivanova is a workhorse and will go out of her way to create something/help others. She was recently voted Admin of the Year in our yearly (JAWA) Honours. Probably one of the most efficient admins we’ve ever had.
- Jasp – Jasp is actually serving his second term as council member, the first being in 2007. He’s probably most well known in the clan for his movie work which helped form the (JAWA) Movies club.
- Nightwing – Along with Dopie, our newest council member. He’s just one of those people that “gets it” and will do his job to perfection each time with absolutely no slacking. He’s the founder of (JAWA) Arts which helps create graphics for miscellaneous clan projects.
- NorthStar – Our current Event and Server manager in the clan, he is one of the nicest people you’ll meet around the clan without a doubt. He aspires to take over my position if I were to ever step down 😂 Very hard working guy.
- Robin – He’s probably most well known for being absolutely awesome with a lightsaber 😛 he was made manager of The Elite Trials, which are taken to achieve the rank of Elite. He recently took over from Zu as the headteacher of (JAWA) School last month and has done an amazing job in repackaging it. Robin is also our current ambassador manager.
- Zu – Zu has been in the council for quite some time now, and has had a variety of roles over the years. He is the former headteacher of (JAWA) School, the editor of the monthly (JAWA) Post and the current manager of (JAWA) Knights which is our clan match department. Very dedicated guy and loves his jobs.
Kannon: Knowing the community today, did you ever consider full force as an option for JAWA? A lot of people didn’t mind FF, but they considered the community to be smug, and filled with trolls. What is your input?
Link: I’ve thought about it a few times, and I.. just can’t do it. It would change our community so much because the settings at (JAWA) seem (I’m biased here) perfect the way they are. From what I can gather, the majority of the community that we’re aiming for prefers no force over having force. I think every gametype has “those guys” that put their own fun over others, there is no escaping it even outside the game 😛
Kannon:Briefly explain what clan warriors was, and is Gage still active?
Link: No, sadly Gage is no longer actively playing Jedi Academy, I believe he stopped playing in 2005. ClanWarriors was so unique and it was such a great idea.. I’m surprised more people haven’t copied the idea as it would really benefit the community as a whole. The idea was that ClanWarriors would host clan websites, give those clans members a home on the server. There were times when 8-10 clans would share the server and it was such a unique atmosphere because it each clan did their own thing yet co-existed and learnt to share resources so well. The good thing about it as well is that admin on the server wasn’t given out to new clans, but rather trusted members from the overall community who wouldn’t use it for their own clans benefit. ClanWarriors began focusing on other games by late 2005 and the server was shut down.. JAWA and KW were the two stand out clans, and both clans simply became too big for the fish bowl at this time any way and ordered their own servers. I try to keep on ClanWarriors legacy as much as possible by giving new clans a home on JAWA’s server, where they’re free to recruit (As long as they ask for permission first) visitors.. this in no way benefits JAWA apart from improving relations with newer clans. Nobody wants a Google clan in Jedi Academy, give people a choice.
Kannon: Have you ever had any enemies of the clan JAWA or of you personally? Anybody of a higher ranking that has really screwed the clan over?
Link: There have been plenty, a lot of people don’t like us because of our rules but.. I’ve never really understood that view since there are plenty of other active servers out there that don’t have any rules at all. Probably our first real enemy was Concordance of Fealty who we’re now allies with 😛 their clan was created by JAWA’s who left at the same time and held a grudge against us for a long time but that’s very old news and we’ve been allies since around 2008. One name that comes to mind is Salazar, he wrote a disturbing letter to a few of his friends in JAWA (Whilst he was in the clan) about how I was a “slave master” and everyone is basically doing my bidding 😂 again that was a long time ago as well, a few people bought his story and thus Orzhov was founded… which didn’t last long.
Nobody has ever gotten to a council position and tried to “screw us over” really, I think any one who attempted this would learn very quickly early on that there are fail-safe’s all over the clan especially the server, forum and wiki. The worst any one could do by getting into a council position is perhaps delete a ton of topics on the forum, delete a bunch of wiki articles and perhaps ban a lot of people. I’ve gone over each potential security flaw and I estimate it’d take around 10-15 minutes to undo any of that mess whilst removing said council from their position of power. All the seriously damaging things like FTP, RCON and Forum Admin are in my hands only but even IF someone got those, the damage could be easily undone within an hour.
But yeah, the most common hate JAWA has is from people we ban. They come to our server, break our rules and get upset at us when we react. Logic at its finest 😂
Kannon: As far as clan events goes, your clan record shows that your clan isn’t bad at TFFA. Have you ever had another clan or a player of yours go beyond normal standards and be so called elite at TFFA or just dueling in general?
Link: Oh yes, we’ve had some people join that are incredibly skilled and have even participated in the Electronic Sports League (ESL). Names that come to mind of some of our most skilled players over the years are Xanatos, Water AKA h2o, Robin, HI, Sand and Balla… I’m probably forgetting a lot of names but those come to mind straight away. The funny thing is, we’re not a skill based clan at all although that is somewhat changing with more skilled players coming in lately which in my opinion is a very good thing as they’ve contributed a lot to teaching others via (JAWA) School… Any arrogant players that show off usually don’t last long around the clan or even get into (JAWA).
Kannon: How are decisions made between the council and you? And is there a certain person that can override a bad decision?
Link: I can override any decision I feel is wrong, although it’s VERY rare I do this because the council are very level headed and are partly chosen based on their logical thinking. Basically let’s say Helena had an idea, she’d post about it in the Council forum then we’d all weigh up on a decision. If there’s ever a tie (We try to avoid this by picking uneven council numbers) then I’ll make the final decision. We often debate things, and that’s how we like it.. the council all have their own unique view of the clan and how to do things which benefits the end result significantly. A lot of decisions though are left up to the entire clan to decide via a poll in JAWA Central or via the bi-yearly survey that we sent out with different questions.
Kannon: What are the next steps for your clan? As far as recruitment and helping the community goes. Do you have any upcoming plans? Such as events and all that.
Link: We take each day as it comes and as our history page shows, we seem to be doing more and more every year which amazes me still. Probably our most unique accomplishment last year was the creation and sale of the (JAWA) Trading Cards which ALMOST made a profit! Lol! (Was never the main intention) we sold out all 30 packs which were made by a professional trading cards company (I sent the cards to all 30 people myself via the post). Moving forward though there are plans to update our monthly (JAWA) League as it’s been the same for years now as well as the building of the (JAWA) Events map.
In terms of helping the community grow, as I said we’re doing our best to give newer clans all the tools they need without having to buy a server at the start (Clan suicide almost every time) including recruitment on our server. I’d love for someone to make another ClanWarriors server though, that’d be awesome… but it’d need someone dedicated.
Kannon: As far as punishment on the server goes, do you feel that there is ever a time when an individual has gone past their warnings? Such as a permanent ban from the server and clan as a whole, or will everyone be given another chance when the ban list is wiped?
Link: We pride ourselves on giving people a second chance, especially if they’ve caused trouble in another clan (Even allied clans) unless they’ve done something VERY bad where we’d have to keep them away from our younger players perhaps via bans. Let’s say someone kept “laming” (Never liked this term really 😛), they’d be slept (Explained the rules in their language), slept again, kicked and then banned… but that’s only is they continued to ignore admins request to stop. As you can see we give people a bunch of chances to stop something if it’s against our rules (Unless it’s racism or severe bug exploiting, that’s an instant ban). There are times when we have to remove someone from the clan and ban them from our services but it’s very rare and always a last resort after all other methods have been exhausted. Also, if someone submits an unban request and gets it approved they’re automatically labelled as “BONO” (No, not the singer of U2 😛) which is Ban On Next Offence.
We’ve began wiping our ban logs/admin reports every 2 years now so people can start fresh which seemed to be a big hit the last time we did it in 2011.
Kannon: How do you choose to duel? Stances, Sabers etc. and do you choose to use the poke/wiggle that so many people find effective?
Link: I am a pure red user, I could switch to yellow but I’ve always liked the challenge of dodging and using red at the right moments rather than relying on yellow to sneak hits in. If I poke/wiggle it’s not on purpose 😂 I tend to avoid all these terms such as “passive” and just aim to do my own thing without outside influence. My actual style of fighting is fast paced “in your face” which relies on me being hit but also me hitting much harder 😛 I can’t stand slow duels (Although I avoid complaining as much as possible) or careful duels… I lose interest very quickly lol.
Kannon: In retrospect, everyone knows that there will most likely never be an addition to the JK series. Do you or any other clan members that you know of play any other games? Any suggestions for JK fans that want something new?
Link: I’ve heard “Blade Symphony” is very close to JKs combat system which has always been seen as very unique however I’ve never tried it myself. The clan itself is filled with people who play a wide variety of games such as Skyrim (Single player of course), The Old Republic, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, WoW and most recently DayZ… but JAWA itself is in none of these games. There IS actually some hope in terms of a sequel to the Jedi Knight series lately actually although it’s pure rumour… there are apparently talks of Episode 7 being set on Yavin where Luke Skywalker runs an academy for students of the force, sound familiar 😛? We’ll see though, I get the feeling if that were to happen then the game that would come with it would be pretty terrible as most movie games are and unrelated to the previous Jedi Knight games.