After many ages and many other Monarchs being interviewed, I have finally had a chance to sit down with Anri, Monarch of Simians KLA and ask him a few questions about his real life, his involvement in Utopia, his kingdom and his relationship with other people from the Utopian Community.
Flutter: A/S/L
Anri: If I said 20 would anyone believe me when I played for so many ages ;-). I am 30 year old and male from Sweden
Flutter: When did you first start playing Utopia?
Anri: I think I was 15 when I first saw some friends playing utopia. When I was 16 I started playing as a newbie on a daily basis to learn the game. It was nothing for me really but out of boredom I stayed and put a pen and paper by the computer to do basic calculations and try to learn the ropes a bit better.
Flutter: What has kept you playing for so long?
Anri: Why don't people stop smoking, why you brush your teeth every morning, I run on old routines. Old habits die hard. But this game is more than that. I meet hundreds of players from all over the world and I got rather close to some of them over the ages. You learn about cultures and different places. You learn about people's views on things and it's a very good cure for boredom most of the time.
Flutt: What are your interests outside of utopia?
Anri: I played football for most part of my life. I was good at it also, I went to football college and I was practicing 4 times per week with 2 matches each weekend. So i lived and breathe football for a long time in my life. Give me a tennis ball and I can keep it in the air for almost as long as I want only using my feet an unknown skill and fact about myself.
Apart from that I always loved movies, chicks, booze, drugs and hanging out with friends! Since I played this game for almost 15 years I had many interests and many both good and bad times both irl and in game. Friends, Players, work, addictions and interests come and go. If I had to mention the most important interest outside of this game it would be football since it was such a big part of my life.
Flutt: What kind of work do you do?
Anri: I have been working with health care at a mental institution for the past 6 years now. Justice system sends them to us and we deal with their every day care. Think about the worst mental disorders you can imagine and you can imagine where I work.
Flutt: What other players had an impact on you irl and ingame?
Anri: I made a KD together with a guy from Germany named Veyron aka Carmacoma and Winged_Agression, Abysall, Treeoak and Rubberduck around age 6. Positive was that 5-6 IRL friends from Sweden were put into this KD. This is when we really started to get more organized. This was also when I had the biggest learning curve. Learned so much from each other.
Later on most friends got tired of the game and Veyron, Rubberduck, Treeoak, Abyssal and maybe someone else went into this KD called Simians (age 8-9). There we meet SimiaN the old time leader that started to work on the KD all ready before the reshuffle of the server prior to age 4. SimiaN was a math professor in N.Y.U so prov strats and builds was totally flawless and optimized in every way.
He was the smartest guy I ever meet in this game. He is prob in his 50-60s now and from what I know he is still a professor in NYU. I need to mention some KLA people also. Buliwyf, RFB, Grytfot, Reapers, BN, Wookie, Fibber and hell all of KLA almost. To many to mention!! All of these people had great impact on my playing style.
IRL I had some players I will remember more than others. Many made an impact but maybe not an IRL impact. Two of my players both Imp4ct and Phoenic have been locked up in prison. They are IRL friends of mine now and if it were not for this game I probably never would be friends with them.
I met a few other players irl also and ofc they made an impact on me. I also had some other people i played with that got divorced, lost family members and got diagnosed with cancer themselves. Everything really has an impact on you. For some of my old players and IRL friends i die both ingame and IRL for them and they know it!
Henrik7, LadyG, Chuck, Realm, Calle, Ashen, Thias, Darksel, Spyrex, Princess, Cheese <3 love to all of them!! lol (I seriously need to shorten my answers) But I been around for too long you know :P
Flutt: How did you earn the nickname Trollking?
Anri: Same way Elvis and M.J earned the status of King? I am just in a different profession. Someone like me is called by many names. I don't take it very serious.
Flutt: I'm going to name a few things? say the first thing that comes to mind.
*Aquaseafoam: Best diplomat in Absalom and also most reasonable/honorable; might also be one of the best players of all times.
*Pulse: Pulse is our allies and i always respected them a lot. They have a very good team and Flogger can help balance this game.
*Godly: I remember when Godly pm'd me on irc and said he was going to win the age and that i was going to lose to him. He kept going he and said he was #1 on the server and would win cause he had more crowns then a dentist and **** like this. He was right. He won and he gained another crown. Fun guy and good player! I sent a nub or two to read his guide for whoring by attacking.
*Sanctuary: One of the best warring KDs in this game. Not the most active but very skilled stratwise and always use solid setups. Simians will not rest until we manage to beat them. But with most of Absalom you only get one chance and its early age. Cause this is the time Simians grow as quick as them or faster and can war them on same terms. After a war or two Absalom most often manage to out pump you or outgrow you because they are greater and stronger.
*Chuck: Hardcore warrior and have most of the time been council of Simians. Working 3 different jobs atm but still does the most he can for the KD and the utopia news team. Been playing with him for many ages now.
*The Faery Circle: Faery Circle is great. We tried to copy them last age doing Halfling circle with 25 halflers but since WTs was nerfed and really over powered it didn't work out very well for us so we had to reset almost entire KD to a different race. But i like his idea of 25 faerys also. I been intrigued about it and thinking of copy it some age. I always loved playing faery and there is great deal of room for improvement in TFC. I think Palem is the best.
Flutt: What do you see as your greatest single accomplishment in game, and why?
Anri: Keeping traditions and KD alive for all of these ages while most if not everyone else is disbanded/dead. Also no matter what most people say about my KD and talk about how much we suck and all of that we need to remember that most that says this about us lost wars to us. Don't ever forget that. Bragging rights is okay if you are for example Sanctuary that has a 2-0 win record against Simians. I don't have any other special moments. We took some really nice warwins now and then and I'm proud of them all.
Flutt: In Utopia, what is the biggest let down that you have had?
Anri: Biggest let down was when I started to understand how deeply rooted cheating was in this game and what kind of organization many honored and well known KDs ran. Game was rotten to the very core!
Flutt: If you could change anything about the game what would it be?
Anri: There are many things I would like to change. Option for more rapid wpa training. Nerf WTs they are to OP. Give insurance when buying invites cause people abusing it atm. Make Great arson more effective and so that it doesn't tab back after you used the ops. Nerf magic shield since its OP. Nerf magic vortex since it's to random right now. Nerf faery and give them 4 generals again. Bring back CB. Give all hostile meter for free. Fix the range issue. Hostile is a very grey zone right now. Might be better if hostile is shown on KD page like in the good old days when u could declare hostile. If meter hits 15 points it shows you are hostile to that KD. Id stretch as far as it shows if you are double hostiled or UF to many KDs at once. Just an idea. I am always full of ideas.
Flutt: Do you keep a list of former Simians; if so are you still in contact with them?
Anri: You know what, on utimes i started building a page with our history, all war reports ever made, all players we had that i could remember. Basically put all info about us there. Then utimes was shut down. Alliance Rankings had a lot of our info also. If I need to track players now a days i need to open my msn. I have a list there called "simians group". This group holds over 100 ex Simians. God knows how many players I really had. Now we are msn/whatsapp and irc based still, we even use instagram and Facebook. My players are everywhere many ex members still in the game or relaxing in other KDs.
Flutt: For years, Simians has tagged KLA. Can you explain your involvement with the alliance?
Anri: Well KLA is where our heart is. We try to honor them and maybe one day KLA rise again if people feel they want to balance the game. When Simians and its players sign up to KLA I remember you signed up with your blood and that you should forever be loyal. We just don't up and leave KLA like some other fools out there. We take things like that serious. When some KDs left KLA we targeted them. Blood in, blood out.
Flutt: Over the past few ages many top kingdoms have been targeting Simians? What are your thoughts on that?
Anri: My thoughts on it are that we are targeting them thus they target us. We are a threat of the establishment. 3-4 KDs more like Simians with the right kind of organization could erupt the current imbalance of the game. If you are on top you want to make the rules and if there is anyone that plays in these "grey areas" they are a danger to the current top and all of its politics and rules. Take every chance you get to hurt them just like they would hurt you if they get the chance. IMO it's nothing strange at all and we will continue to play hard until more KDs rally up to fight Absalom and its current imbalance. Or until Absalom decide to drop some allies. The game is too small for alliances like Absalom now and I will fight them until my dying days until order is restored and we see some kind of balance again. If they drop some allies such as HoH and maybe some other KDs they keep protecting and put in NAP/CF we will see a rather fast change. Long term I will even stretch as far as they are destroying big parts of this game.
Flutt: You often are portrayed as the "bad guy?, who, in your opinion, do you feel this title should actually be awarded to from the current crop of kingdoms?
Anri: Almost every "bad move" that Simians have done has been done by one of Absalom's KDs in the past. I'd like to enlighten the server with one special incident that made our KD extra mad. HaLL of Heroes that is in NAP with abs each age and mostly considered to be Absalom. (Absalom people have always done diplomacy for them, at least when we had to do it). So, we have these offenders in HaLL of Heroes hitting our bank for 10k acres straight into real war vs Freekstyle. Heroes carry on and win this age. Nothing happened. No actions against them. I mean NOTHING happened. People even avoid this subject. Simians hit a bank in belief its farming in war. We get gangbanged with 1600 attacks and suffer 5 PKs and broken CFs/naps by KDs. I listened a lot to Metallica when i was younger. I only got one thing to say. And justice for all...
In closing, Anri would like to add... all players in this game are welcome to #simians. We been helping players and teaching this game to players for as long as I can remember and we are a pretty happy bunch of players in Simians so we welcome everybody. Friends, nubs and enemies! Also, if I ever quit this game it's against my will (the only thing that can ever make me stop and disband simians is my GF).
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Originally Posted by JAZZE
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