There have been loads of #IAMTSW tweets and messages ... so I thought we could have our own version here too as a way to share why we love TSW! Are you Nine Swords?

What is Nine Swords to you?

Information about the #IAMTSW Contest: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/forum ... SW-Contest

Nine Swords is my online home. I'd always wanted to find a MMO that I could commit to and make my own. And I found TSW. And I'd always wanted to find a group of friends whose online company I would enjoy and feel accepted even though I'm not a game master and have a LOT to learn. And then I found Nine Swords. I enjoy the game immensely, but I enjoy being a part of 9S even more. I often log in just to chat with you guys. I have got to know some of you a little and I see how wonderful people you are. I am looking forward to spending many TSW issues with you all.

Arcy, I think you also encapsulated it for me too with this sentence:

I enjoy the game immensely, but I enjoy being a part of 9S even more.

TSW has a fantastic community, loads of really great things to get involved with - but with Nine Swords too. You all complete TSW for me!!

Here are just a few of my favourite Nine Swords moments so far .. I think I would break the forum if I uploaded everything (we definitely need a gallery!!)
Founding Nine Swords was pretty special.. those first few moments ingame though -wow. Of course there were lots of screenshots taken by me to mark the occasion hehe
We held some really cool launch events as a cabal - including screenshots!! This one is of our "run-way event".
And there are always times to gather just for taking more screenshots of our awesome members!!
In September 2013, we hosted Draug Days of Summer. Was an amazing party!!
The Cabal Fair in July 2014 was a really successful event hosted by 9S
Gathering in Kaidan
Jackapalooza in September 2014 .. was interesting. I am glad we tried (hehe)
Christmas together is always fun!!
Cabal Pride this year was just sensational


FOR THE SWORDS!!!

It was 1pm in the afternoon. I was 1 mission away from completing all my tokyo daily side quests, however the remainig quest was the dreaded o captain side mission. It was then I pushed my stubborness aside and asked for help in the cabal chat. Immediately the faithful Floryn, who was there at the very start of my joining the 9 swords came to my rescue. We climbed the derilict ship together, cursing at the various beasts that sought to thwart us. When we reached the very pinnacle of the ship, the captain went down shortly before I did. I rezzed at the agartha well and triumphantly handed in my quest.

"blue would you like to do thoese scenarios you was making a thread about" Floryn enquired brushing off the spore filth that desperately tried to consume him

"Certainly Floryn, I would very much like to do scenarios"

Floryn then enquired in the cabal chat and found anatahe had just popped a exp potion and was slaughtering zombies at the airport. Before we knew it, we was running trains at the airport, swearing at lumies as they distrubed our fluid attempts of constant kills and laughed when we gained the upper hand. An hour passed and we excitedly broke up and upgraded the various hundreds of items clogging up our inventory, when we began discussing scenarios. We all agreed it would be a joyess experience and enquired again in the cabal chat. Amusingly we ended up putting together a team of 5 that was the same team which had registered on this forum to run 24s later the same day. A marverlous coincidence.

We made haste to the scenarios and while on Mumble we had an absolutly fantastic run. We had a really good chat and a laugh on mumble while we engaged the various challenges and we ended up running 3 elite scenarios and 3 Nightmare scenarios. Flroyn ended up getting a heroic dps augment, which we shall forever curse his name for. The only down side was when Chaosetor dissconnected and raged at the end of the castle nightmare scenario, as a thousand bombs started to pour into the room. This ended in complete failiure but it was non the less a very amusing memory.

After the scenarios we went straight into the 24s run, after only a few wipes we had yet again another glorious time and stopped at hell raised ready for the campfire meeting set up by our glorious leaders and founders (never hurts to suck up once in a while :p) Around the campfire we shared both great and personal memories and we all became closer for it. It was a great experience within what was becomming a very constructive day. After the campfire meeting we had this crazy notion to get some mushrooms from the shadowy forest and run the Hell Fallen while under its trippy effects. The maze boss was extreamly amusing due to this and we did wipe a few times. When we had finished the run it was 11pm GMT for myself and after 11 hours on mumble we left each other with greater bonds formed and many good memories. We even agreed to do the same the following day. I headed sleepily up to my bed mulling over the good memories in my mind and as I hit the pillow, I passed out immediatly. Here I am, a well rested and very happy cabal member writting this thread.

Yesterday was brilliant because of the help and support of the 9 swords. The forum which allowed us to organise what we need when we need it and the cabal chat which always has people ready to help. Joining this cabal was the best thing I have ever done and that is why being in 9 swords is so great.

Merged the threads so we can keep things together!! Thank you for sharing, Blueplain! Hope to see lots more cabal members doing the same!!

Guess I will share two out of the many memories I have of this cabal that make me #IAM9S.

The first one is about a totally and woefully hilarious run that we did of the Facility in nightmare, and that is remember as "Oh what the heck let's try this" run. The thread of our experience is posted on the forum, but as a short recap just know that Chaos and I just wanted to do the first boss of the Facility in order to get that last bullion that was needed to get our next purchase. As we wiped a few times because of a lack of dps (there were only two of us) we cried out in the cabal chat and received support from three other members. To our greatest astonishement we progressed in this dungeon as if this had been an organized run instead of a completely improvised thing put together as we went along. Really amazing and oh so much fun ! To our complete surprise and great enjoyment we finished the run, which had the unexpected additional surprise that two of the runners got their Karma Curio ! Talk about an outing !

The second memory I have is especially due to the fact that it had been a very very long time since I had laughed like that, up until the point I had tears in my eyes and my jaw muscles hurt. For privacy sake I will name no names. This episode started completely innocent with the fact that a new member needed a portrait of her toon for the forum. As we had just finished a few normal dungeons, one of us proposed to go the Eidolon lair because of the beautiful moon on the background, an ideal place to take a picture for the forum. And of we were then. As is my habit when waiting (I don't like to see my toon standing motionless) I started dancing, which led to another toon dancing (thank you synchronized shoes), which led to some comments on mumble where we were chatting with the other members of the group, and before we knew it the whole thing went down hill. We had not drunk, we had not smoked anything hazardous to our mental health, we had not taken anything else that could compromise us, and yet.... we did things that are probably going to follow us for the rest of our lives on TSW and 9S. But hey what the heck, got very good memories of that evening and of the laughter I got out of it

Well,

Among memories I will always hold dear is one of a situation, when Floryn invited me to a PUG Noobmares group. We had fun going through DW where I died an ashaming number of times and after the group dispersed I found myself with Floryn standing on a road in Agartha and looking at the golden void between the pillars.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I said having put my hands behind my back and that started a long conversation with Floryn. We used /say all throughout so we might've made an interesting picture for the passing players (there was a lady with an axe listening, but luckily she teleported out of there without drawing any blood:) ). We spent a fine chunk of time waxing philosophical and joking until the urge to sleep drove us away. It was a great, completely improvised experience, which proved yet again that being a part of 9S is something to be treasured and cherished.

The other thing I would like to thank the cabal for is my scribbling. I would probably never discover how much joy it gives me and the great feedback I've received from my fellow Swords really boosted my confidence and I am extremely grateful for that. It allowed me to think that maybe... just maybe there's something worth pursuing with my scribbling:).

THANK YOU, NINE SWORDS! #IAM9S!

ArcyCiern wrote: "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I said having put my hands behind my back and that started a long conversation with Floryn. We used /say all throughout so we might've made an interesting picture for the passing players (there was a lady with an axe listening, but luckily she teleported out of there without drawing any blood:) ). We spent a fine chunk of time waxing philosophical and joking until the urge to sleep drove us away. It was a great, completely improvised experience, which proved yet again that being a part of 9S is something to be treasured and cherished.

That was a great moment! I enjoyed that a lot.

#IAM9S

The Secret World
My story here begins with buying the game in December 2013 because someone on Steam had said something like ‘Don’t buy it! It will never let you go!” and I thought “Yeah sure, we’ll see about that”. Before playing this game the usual rotation was buying a new game, playing it to bits for two weeks, getting bored and buying a new game, playing it to bits for two weeks, getting bored and buying a new game.

TSW was different. I bought this new game, played it to bits for two weeks (Christmas holiday) and then...played it to bits for another two weeks...and, well, I am still playing it to bits right up to this moment (I keep respawning at my game room).

The thing that gripped me the most was the autumn atmosphere in Kingsmouth and the fact that this was not a medieval story, or a science-fiction story. No, this was the present and it felt so real. And that haunting piano in the background. *sighs*


Nine Swords
A few days after I bought The Secret World I decided to look for a guild. And to this day, if you search Google for ‘tsw templar guild’ Nine Swords is one of the first results you see. I checked other cabals (pronounced ‘cables’ at the time) and it was clear (and still is, in my opnion) that Nine Swords was special. The site looked great, with divisions, a mission statement and a roster of Nine Swords members. And by the look of them, they seemed really nice… And, I was looking for an international, English speaking cabal. Nine Swords had it all.

But first I had to overcome this hurdle called ‘the application’. *tam-tam-daaa* And not only that, there was an interview involved! *eeh, eeh, eeh* (that’s the sound from the Psycho movie)

Well, that interview was so much fun that I couldn’t wait to join this cabal. But then...this waiting period! Two days of pacing around the room and biting my finger nails. Now, on 31 December of each year I set off fireworks to commemorate my joining Nine Swords - a day to remember.


MNRP
The first thing I did with Nine Swords was go and see what the Monday Night RP was all about. Roleplaying was something I had never done before but thinking about my character and coming up with a background was already a lot of fun. I remember that first MNRP at the Horned God quite clearly. I was playing this guy who had listened to a self-help tape on how to talk to women and I just went from one beautiful woman to another telling them how I liked their outfit. I was quite unsuccesful in my attempts but I liked this roleplaying!

For over a year now, I have spent every Monday evening at the Tabula Rasa with this support group. Not just Swords but people from all over the Secret World. And what I really like about it is that you never really now what is going to happen. We sort of have a storyline but everybody is free to add to it on the evening itself. That makes it interesting every time. Another thing I like is that after some time you really get to know these characters; they come alive as if they were real. I address them by their first name and I know their mannerisms. Some are really outspoken; others can be silent for most part of the evening but suddenly make a blunt remark that makes you laugh out loud. All these characters have a great chemistry between them and that makes going to these meetings a joy every time.


Creativity
After that I got more and more involved in what was going on with Nine Swords. I was able to unleash my creativity on scheduled events. Ideas on what to do, making contest questions, writing a speech and it was so much fun to see these contributions being used. That made me feel so much part of these events.

For instance, the Jackapalooza event in 2014. Katelin came up with the idea for that, scheduled it, hired a DJ and made sure the Secret World knew about it. Azo-ri created a beautiful poster for the event and I added a few questions to the contest. Before the actual event a number of Swords got together to see where we should stand to make a smiley face and Durendal climbed up the tree to get that helicopter view. Then at the actual event I remember Sonno and Deerhound (was it?) running around like crazy to kill all the whisps while everyone (and there were a lot of people) enjoyed themselves.

I think the great thing about this event and others like this is that we had this team working together towards a goal. And it felt so good that I was a part of this team and that we had pulled it off! Go NinerS!


Leadership
I think it was sometime in June 2014 when Katelin contacted me ingame to offer me a leadership position. And well, that blew my mind! Although Katelin couldn’t see the look on my face, she must have been able to tell from the chat and the pauses in between my tells that I was really taken aback. I accepted and it was such an important moment for me. The offer came at a time when I felt that my energy and creativity at my work IRL were completely wasted and here was this group of people, scattered all over the real world yet as one within the Secret World, that appreciated my creativity and gave me a lot of energy. I hadn’t felt this proud in a long time.


NinerS
Most important are of course all the NinerS that make up this amazing cabal. It’s so much fun to chat with someone from England one minute, then do RP with people from France, Canada and Finland, Mumble with people from Norway and Belgium, have people from Australia, Germany and America join for the raid and finish by reading a thrilling story by someone from Poland. I love that international aspect of Nine Swords.

I like that I learn new things from my fellow cabalites. I had never heard of a dropbear before or that you can have a hootin’ tootin’ good time. I now know where Bathurst is and that miners in Canada work 7 day shifts. And I recently added J. Karjalainen to my playlist.


Conclusion
The Secret World and Nine Swords have become a big part of my life. I enjoy every minute I spend online. People around me shake their heads wearily when I tell them I spent another weekend playing this game but they also see the big smile on my face when I speak of ‘this group I play with’.

I'm 9s! Despite my frequent lapses in gameplay since I had to start working full-time (boo ), I feel welcomed and at home each time I log in again.

I can always count on a friendly "hello!" and helping hand if I need it. That, in a nut-shell, is why I looked for a cabal/guild in the first place, and Nine Swords has never let me down.

I wish I had more opportunity (and skill, lol!) to be of help to others. 9s'ers rock!