Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Know your collector: Escaflowne

I recently met up with Escaflowne, a role player who also happens to be a collector. Escaflowne is from the shard of Europa and makes for a very interesting character. Read on...


Tomas Bryce: Who is Escaflowne?

Escaflowne: Escaflowne is a Beast Keeper originating from Delucia. For the past 8 years he has served the Republic of Vesper, rising to Captain of the Militia and going on to rule the Republic as Chancellor for a period. He can always be seen wearing his family heirloom bearmask which he never removes and most of the time is accompanied by his companion hellcats Battlecat and Panthor; this has brought about his nicknames of bearman and catman.

Thats my Roleplay background, as for me myself, i am the GM of the RP guild Vesper [-V-] on Europa, the guild has been running since 1998, i have been a member for the past 8 years since 2002 and have been the GM for nearly 3 years now.

With commiting most of my time for that i havn't been able to become a very rich man like many in the rares community, but with my very keen interest in rares i manage to do a bit of part time trading to fund the habit in which i have manage to accumlate a small rares collection.


Tomas Bryce: Do you have a special bear mask for him?

Escaflowne: Yes i do, i have a Double Blessed Bearmask engraved with "Flowne Family Heirloom". Part of my rare collection.

I have been waiting many years for an EM to create an event bearmask, but alas i am still waiting for that time. Will definately give all my gold for an EM event bearmask lol


Tomas Bryce: What attracts you to collecting rare items?

Escaflowne: Hrmmm quite a hard question to answer. I guess there could be many reasons for it. One being that i like to look good lol, being a roleplayer and with magic items banned in the Europa RP community i don't really wear magic suits like most people but normal clothes most of the time; so i like to keep good presentation and also uphold a good reputation which i guess rares could add to that weirdly to some degree.

Another reason is that there are so many really cool rare items which makes them attractive. The fact that they are rare also adds to their attractiveness. It also gives you a hobby really, something to spend your gold on and enjoy. Like if you collect warhammer in real life i guess hehe.

Rares have always been an area of interest for me, as i said its hard to explain but they have always intrigued me and i am drawn to them. I love looking around other peoples museums and seeing all their items and just thinking "Wow that item is well cool, i wish i had that" etc :-D


Tomas Bryce: So, is there any one item that you wish you had?

Escaflowne: A EM event/Proper rare bearmask lol, that would be top of my list, but none exist! :-P But oooo that is very very tough, there are so many great items out there.

After i complete my rares suit I was going to go for an animal/creature themed collection like Lady Nico of Europa. I like that theme the most but i also love items to do with Chaos as well as my RP guild Vesper is very big on the virtue of Chaos and the teachings of Lord Blackthorn.


I'll try to name a few items I wish I had:
  • Crystal Staff of Chaos
  • Partisan of Chaos Boots
  • I've always wanted a suit of Pheonix Armour
  • That Tiger Bone armour suit
  • That Head of a Cauldron born demon is pretty cool
  • I did always want a spider silk woven shirt after i saw Lord Valin of Europa with one, but i actually did buy one and wore it for many months before selling it on again. So i guess that dream was accomplished lol
  • The Europa Royal Explorer suit, who doesn't want that lol.

But its the gold situation that has always held me back from full on going for it in rare collecting unfortunately. I refuse to spend RL money on UO other than the subscription. I never have and never will.


Tomas Bryce: Does anything tick you off in context of rares and collectors?

Escaflowne: Interesting question, one thing that ticks me off with rare collecting is all the scamming, duping and back alley deals that comes with it, but what can you do about that? I just try to stay away and out of it most of the time.

Another thing that annoys me, this probably ticks me off the most; is the atmosphere of the rare collecting board sometimes and some peoples attitudes on there. I mean Europa is known to some as the Shard of Drama, get plenty of drama on Europa boards and i get enough of it there. But my lord the Rares board can be 10x worse than that and turns into an utter warzone sometimes. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like a community, seem to get little factions of people that war eachother lol, i just try to stay neutral as best i can as there is so many great people too :-)

One more thing that annoys me a bit is the GMs constantly using the graphics of rare items for new items. I mean its fair enough for the Replicas as they were all heavily duped of course. But the others just ruin it for some people and it decreases the value of some items leaving some peoples hard earned time and gold wasted as they wont be able to sell it again for the same amount. I mean is it really that hard to come up with new graphics for items instead of just changing the name slightly?


Tomas Bryce: Any last words?

Escaflowne: Rare collectors i salute you!

lol couldn't think of anything else to say :-P Thanks for the interview Thomas

P.S If any EM reads this! Create a rare bearmask! Yeah that'll do :-P


Tomas Bryce: Excellent, thank you for your time.