Lord Insane, LROD, aka Lronius del la mancha (appropriately a rogue*) was our first " guild leader " although we really never had formal leaders in practice ...
I wasn't the leader per se. I was just the one who was not lazy enough to write up a guild charter (yes you had to state your guilds purpose on release). I was made the guild leader in title only due to the fact i e-mailed and harassed verant about making the guild. Back then Verant was very name nazi (More so than now) and it was regarded that Hoss would not be accepted. So we came up with a back up name on it (which I created) Heroes of the Seven Suns. The guild was created as HOSS. Of course being "guild leader" meant anyone asking to join got directed to me. Fucksticks!
So we were <HOSS> for awhile then Solist (the GM) came up to me one day in Cazic Thule and asked to talk to me. He said that Verant had reviewed guild names recently and they found our name and realized it was labeled an Acronym, and that we couldnt have it. So I asked about <Hoss>, he said no since they would still view it as such. So I told him I would get back to him on it, day later after talking to everyone I responded that we would change our name. Then a few weeks before Kunark came out we Xfered from Sol Ro to Druzzil Ro. Upon landing on new grounds every guilds name was b0rk. This time we got <Hoss>
We had a few alternate nicknames from people who didn't like us, Homos of Solusek Server being one of them.
Alcadizzar (I still can't spell it) the uber ranger and eventually HOSS's go to guy , and Savak (the uber wizzie on Sol Ro). More came into the fold, Aularas (Drood of today..) Lasomb the Large (another wizzie) , Vendel (yet another wizzie ..)
Savak and Vendel were day 1 release Hoss people. They were not powergamers we picked up. They were also apart of the quakers that had come across. Both of them had also been beta testers and got a lot of the others interested in playing EQ.
When we started being high enough level to roll lguk Lasomb had taken us on a few excursions with Alcadizaar. We, back then, had not really heard of lower guk. Lasomb was not in a guild when we first met him, but then me and Savak kept harassing him to join us. When Lasomb joined we then started to work on Alcadizaar and crew (Thazul, Tolan, Xeet aenthar, yatreny). One weekend while 2 group raiding (hoss and alcs) we decided to guild everyone for ease of communication. This brilliant idea (yours truly) ended up perma guilding some of them. Yatreny was the only one not to survive. The only downside was some of our friends from irc didn't like the new people in the guild without being told about it and this caused one of Hoss' first drama episodes (the very first one being ermac trading a bbc for a set of ring for him and rk). Some people stopped playing, but otherwise we kept on moving forward. Eventually we became the first guild to take the Ghoul Lord with 1 group, then the first guild only raid of nag, then the first vox, and as you can tell our list of firsts kept growing from there.
Alcadizaar helped us a lot tho, with friends from the Rathe server he was able to help us keep a knowledgeable edge over everyone on the server. Without his help in the beginning not sure how far we would of ever come. He, in my opinion, used his knowledge to keep us going forward with new challenges.
We've always been doing things smaller and better than everyone else. From doing Ghoul Lord with 1 group (when everyone elsed used 3-4) to 1 group fear raids (hah i miss that). We've always strived for perfection in a sense, while keeping the guild a friendly atmosphere and more of a casual yet challenging environment. People used to admire our closeness with envy in the way we play and interacted. Which caused a lot of people to want to join.
I'm sure I could write a novel on the history of hoss, including all the blemishes from Day 1 Release to 5 months before Velious (when I finally quit (which was like quit #4 or something))
One of the biggest catalysts for Hoss falling apart on Sol Ro tho was when I (in a fit of anger) gave Leadership over to Elyria (which then somehow transfered enough hands to be in Davans hands (rofl)) and left, then soon after "the core" of hoss left as well. It was then the game started really becoming loot driven, our guild wasnt' a place of fun anymore. Plus we had a lot of bad elements in the guild. In hindsight I definately should of just regulated and removed said elements. But as everyone knows, when I get mad about something I tend to not think and do really dumb shit.
Ah well. =)
* appropriately a rogue: hah. says the lawyer =)
Oh yeah, how can you forget to spell alcadizaars name. Must be old age =/
