By Wagner James Au

"The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness..." - Sun Tzu, Art of War

"OK listen the fuck up. You are going to DPS very, very slowly. Now... and by slowly I mean FUCKING slow. If you get aggro, it means you're going to lose 50 DKP because you didn't know what the fuck to do. And watch the FUCKING tail." - Dives, Guild Leader of Wipe Club

Dives is this year's Leeroy Jenkins. If you understand that sentence, you can skip past the next four. The most prominent form of player-created content to emerge from World of Warcraft is actually external to the game—the voice chat that guild players use, especially during high-level "raids" against WoW's toughest monsters, which require dozens of players of different classes working together in tight coordination. The perfect counterpoint to the game's fantasy action, Warcraft voice chat is the stream of collective geek consciousness that makes all the onscreen heroics possible. Last year, the reining king of that subculture within a subculture was Leeroy Jenkins, the cheerful ass who gets his entire guild killed during a raid. The video of that strategic bumfuckery was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, making the battle cry "Leeeeeroy!" more instantly recognizable by millions of WoW players than any bit of dialog Blizzard itself came up with for the game.

This year, the new emperor of WoW voice chat hails from the land of Dracula and Nicolae Ceau escu, the dictator whose submachine gun execution against a stone wall finally overturned the country's Stalinist regime. (Perhaps the most difficult wipe of a Cold War instance.) And though no video capture accompanies the recording, you won't ever forget the voice of Dives, founder and leader of Wipe Club as he leads (or misleads) his guild in a raid against the dragon Onyxia, which, as things go very wrong, devolves into an earphone-shattering rant. It's like playing WoW with the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket if Lee Ermey was a Romanian techno fan. (Audio helpfully Flash-animated by "Deluthor" here, audio-only backup here supplemental Dives freak-outs here and here. Explanations for Dives' obscure references to "DPS", "DKP", and "DoTs" here, here, and here, respectively.)

Hearing Dives at the Onyxia raid, you wonder how a game could possibly be so important that this man would risk a coronary, to play it. You wonder if he logged off his computer and bludgeoned his guild members to death with his keyboard, afterward. If Internet guru Joi Ito is right that in the future, large organizations will be run like WoW guilds, you wonder if this is what corporations will sound like, when they go Enron.

Most of all, you wonder about the man behind the scream and the immortal cry, "Throw more DoTs more DoTs more DoTs!"

Among Dives' favorite characters is a Tauren Warrior whose equipment of choice includes a Broodlord's defender and Elementium reinforced bulwark. Their home the EU Boulderfist server, Dives' Wipe Club has about 80 members, most of them from the UK, Sweden, and Finland, with a smattering from Israel and Poland. And though many assume the recordings were secretly made by a disgruntled guild member, Dives says they were actually created and distributed with his full approval by the guild's former shaman class leader.

Now living in Espoo, Finland, Dives is 22, and served for a time in the Finnish military. (Dives' family left Romania after Ceausescu's fall, and lived throughout Scandinavia before settling there.) Currently a self-employed computer technician and salesman, he's also been the boss of two companies with ten-fifteen employees.

And though it may seem strange, in Romania, he was an altar boy in the Orthodox Church. "Dives" is actually drawn from that background, since it's Latin for "rich."

"I choose 'Dives' because I am rich," he explains. "Not in wealth but in spirit and mind. It's a multi-dimensional name."

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with Dives in an MSN Messenger chatroom for a conversation about his guild, his background, and his philosophy of leadership.

au@kotaku.com:
Is this a good time for a short interview?

Dives:
Just woke up and I'm in a slight hangover, so I guess so... I got pissed off at work so I downed half a liter or so of vodka.

On why he started Wipe Club

Dives:
I wanted a guild in which people enjoyed themselves. And while the recordings are not the best advertisement of that, people do enjoy themselves.

au@kotaku.com:
When you started did you guess they'd make you famous?

Dives:
No way in hell, they were mainly for amusement inside the guild.

au@kotaku.com:
When people hear them, most say, "I bet everyone quit his guild the next day."

Dives:
Nah, the problem with people is they base their opinions on something they hear in a recording. Those recordings were made with the idea of showing people what you do not want to get into [during a raid].

au@kotaku.com:
So you weren't worried people would think you were an asshole and not want to join your guild?

Dives:
Well if they think that, then too bad. But forming opinions on something that is edited from some raids is not smart.

au@kotaku.com:
But that's the only thing people have to form their opinion from, right?

Dives:
But then again, if we made tapes about the normal stuff that goes on in our Teamspeak nobody would care.

au@kotaku.com:
You sound genuinely angry at your clan when things go bad. Were you?

Dives:
Yes I was, because the performance was a disgrace, especially Onyxia... We took Onyxia down on the fifth try when we should have done it on the first.

On why he now needs a guild "Publicity Officer"

Dives:
We have five types of officers— Event Officer or Raid leader, Rank/Conflict officer, DKP officer bank/Loot officer, Publicity/Communications Officer... I can have up to 100 people per day contacting me, it gets stressing. Besides, we are a high profile guild and now it seems not only on the server we play but worldwide.

au@kotaku.com:
Like running a real company.

Dives:
Yeah, I have run two.

au@kotaku.com:
Have you ever yelled at your employees like you did at Onyxia?

Dives:
A few times. Not quite as bad, though... Unlike in a game, people can't quit or stuff like that. I always like to say that I'm hard, but I'm fair. So usually they did their job better.

On what provokes Dives to rant at work

Dives:
Mainly people lazying off. You give a person a two hour deadline to do something relatively simple and he messes it up, etc. I usually start it slow, and if it does not get through to him, I change the tactic.

On what he said, when one employee missed a deadline

I think it was something like, "I gave you two hours to do the order, it been three fucking hours and the order is still not done and the only fucking explanation is that you have been 'busy' with what?? Answering your fucking email?? You have 15 minutes to get that fucking order done or you get your money from welfare starting tomorrow. Now GET THE FUCK TO WORK!"

Something along those lines. I hate it when people don't do as I friggen tell them.

au@kotaku.com:
So if being a boss is so stressful in real life, why would you want to put yourself through similar stress in WoW?

Dives:
I'm taking it much easier nowadays, and frankly, running a successful guild is a lot harder than running a company. You have to be a lot more political with people in a game than in real life... in a game people CAN just leave the guild, while in real life if you quit your job you starve to death.

au@kotaku.com:
So how come people don't leave the guild after you yell at them?

Dives:
They don't leave because they know I'm right.

au@kotaku.com:
But do you apologize after?

Dives:
I apologize if I was wrong. Like to Crushim in the Onyxia tape. Well, I did not apologize, since he did fuck it up. But I did not give him -50 DKP since he explained it to me.

au@kotaku.com:
Have you ever apologized for a decision?

Dives:
Yeah. Don't remember what, though.

The point is when we raid it's like the army. Your leader is never wrong, even if he is wrong, he is still not wrong. And if he says do something you do it.

Dives on his most controversial command decision at Onyxia

au@kotaku.com:
I don't understand during that time in Onyxia where you asked Mogris and Lee and a bunch of others to run to the center, then when they do, tell them not to be close together. WTF?

Dives:
The point is since the Horde does not have Fear Ward, it is slightly more technical to get aggro in phase three. [Wipe Club was Horde-affiliated at the time - WJA] So if Onyxia was attacking that person I told him to run to the center. So if she flame breathed she did not wipe that side. The "whatever you do, do not stay close together" was to make sure people are spread out so that in case someone gets breathed [on] he does not wipe half the raid.

au@kotaku.com:
So it was a correct decision on your part.

Dives:
Yes.

On his English usage and the possible origins of his unclassifiable accent.

Dives:
I have spoken three languages since the age of seven, and I speak four at the moment. Romanian, English, Finnish. My Swedish is not too great but I do get along with it... also studied two years of French.

au@kotaku.com:
Where did you learn to swear in English? You swear like an American. When Europeans and Asians swear in English, they usually do it wrong, so it sounds strange, like they say, "Shit you, fucker of your mother", stuff like that... So how'd you learn to swear in English so well?

Dives:
Well, I have used it almost daily for the last ten years or more. Also, I have some friends in the US... Must be all the movies.

Thing is I'm an educated person but I use the education sparingly.

On whether the violence of his background influences the way he plays WoW

I had a violent childhood but no, I'm not violent. Last time I was in a fight was probably some two years ago... I did live in a country that went through a revolution, and I moved into a racist country. (Much has changed since then [in Finland], the people are more open.)

au@kotaku.com:
Do you remember the fall of Ceausescu? You must have been 8 or 9, right?

Dives:
Younger, but yes, I do... I saw a guy running with one eye hanging on his cheek.

au@kotaku.com:
Holy shit. What happened to him?

Dives:
No idea. But he was running.

I remember the fight for the radio building. Probably still one of the most touching things I remember still. "We are being attacked, come help us! We are helping you! So help us!" Ceausescu's troops were trying to retake the building and gunfire was being heard in the background.

au@kotaku.com:
When you play WoW do you think of stuff from your childhood, like listening on the radio while Ceausescu's soldiers came for the freedom fighters? That's sort of like listening to a Teamspeak channel.

Dives:
Hell no. You asked me about my childhood and I told you. Don't usually spend my days pondering stuff like that...

People go all psychoanalyst on you nowadays. It's like [if] I just had a crap: "How did that make you feel?" Hmm, well gee, quite nice.

On the future of Wipe Club... and the future of Dives

Dives:
Well basically the only reason I'm still playing is because I enjoy the company. So I'm gonna socialize with the people and make some guild movies, get some more raid progress.

au@kotaku.com:
What do you want to do in the future besides WoW?

Dives:
Hmm, wish I knew. I have done so many things that I'm not too inspired. I could write a book about that. Been high class, low class, rich, poor. Had more women than necessary... I have visited most countries in Europe, including having intercourse with girls from most countries in Europe. It was a project of mine at one point.

I'd probably like to find a nice girl, get married, and have a few kids.

au@kotaku.com:
I thought about interviewing you with Skype but I thought you'd start yelling at me.

Dives:
lol no.

au@kotaku.com:
"WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT YOU FUCKING CUNT! THAT'S A 50 DKP MINUS!"

Dives:
Yeah, I get that a lot.

By the way, please mention that I DO NOT come on anyone's Teamspeak/Ventrillo server. I get too many people asking me that people want me to come to their servers and yell something at them. I did go once and give some people some attitude, which was fun. But I get huge amounts of requests.

au@kotaku.com:
You could charge people money.

Dives:
Well, I'll make some T-shirts. "Dives yelled at me and all I got is this T-shirt", and stuff like that.

au@kotaku.com:
Thanks again, Dives. You're an interesting dude.

Dives:
That is what people tend to say. Never boring and never blending into the crowd.

In between occsional WoW dispatches, Wagner James Au still covers the emerging user-created world of Second Life at New World Notes. Send Warcraft news tips to "Hamletau" on the Eitrigg server, or e-mail him— au at kotaku dot com.

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