Potion addict Sonek was interviewed by our ex-staff member and Newshawk Necro Gardius.

TibiaNews: What can you tell us about the man behind Stonehurst/Sonek?

Sonek: Well it would be safe to call me an "adult". I live in the USA, and I work in the engineering department of a naval shipyard, where we repair submarines and aircraft carriers. Actually I've found similarities between my work and playing Tibia. Like when playing Tibs and in a new area, I may look at a switch and wonder "Hmmm, wonder what this switch does"? , and when observing the cutting-edge technology onboard these modern warships I also often think "Hmmm, wonder what that switch does"? Just kidding. I would never pull a switch in Tibia without researching what it triggered. Outside Tibs I like watching NFL (REAL football) and NASCAR (REAL car racing). Now that I've either angered or insulted a larger majority of the readers, lets move on to more questions/answers.

TibiaNews: How did you discover Tibia? How long you've played and how did Sonek and Stonehurst come about?

Sonek: I discovered it through a relative. I often saw him playing it and joked with him, asking him why he played a game with Zelda (N64 game at the time) graphics while there were so many games that were more visually appealing available. He challenged me to create a character and try it and that then I would see why he liked to play it so much. Finally after about 6 months I finally took his advice. This was in 2001, when the only world available was Antica. He had been on mainland Antica while I was in Rookgard. I saw the dog-eat-dog world that main was at the time and chose to become a high level on Rookgard.

Rookgard, not having a depot for keeping your rare items and gold, required you to have alternate chars to hold your loot. I think at the time you were only allowed eight characters on an account, so after I filled those chars I created another account to hold items. But soon the server was full and only premium accounts could log in during peak hours. Nothing worse than dropping your copper shield under a shade tree and not being able to log onto your other char, so I bought premium for my second account also. When they introduced Secura as the first non-pvp server, I finally chose to try mainland. Sonek actually went to mainland first but I like the name "Stonehurst" better and thought it more fitting for a knight, which I guessed correctly would be my main character. As for the origins of their names, I thought up Stonehurst myself and oddly enough chose Sonek from the Tibia naming engine. Apparently "Sonek" is word in Portuguese, as many have told me so and I often receive entire messages in Portuguese because they assume I understand the language based on my name.

Once on mainland I chose to keep the relationship between Sonek and Stoney a mystery. Both being premium on separate accounts, they each owned their own house, each joined their own guilds and enjoyed their own circle of friends. There were always a few close friends who knew they were both me, but it was fun keeping people guessing. My counselor tools were only available on Stoney's account, so the druid was the occasional quiet escape when wanted or needed.

TibiaNews: How did you became a Counselor? How long did you hold that position?

Sonek: I was asked by GM Tyrell in 2003. I knew him from our Antica Rook chars. At this time Secura was still a very young server. I held the job until the position was eliminated about a year ago, so I guess I held it about 3 years.

TibiaNews: Can you describe your duties as Counselor? Any memorable moments you could share?

Sonek: As counselor, we had access to the "rule violation" channel. Anyone using ctrl + R could type their problem and it would post where any CO/GM could read them. Unfortunately most posts there had little to do with rule violations. Many were under the false impression that we had some insight into accounts, or had a question or concern involving game play. For those we simply either steered them to the "Help" channel, or towards a link on the tibia.com homepage that could answer their question. Any post we would answer would be received by the player as red text and titled simply "Counselor" rather than our player name, in efforts to keep an element of anonymity. For the cases that were truly reporting what they saw as rule violations, a counselor would determine if the person had a valid post. An example could be of suspected macro usage by a char near them. Depending on the described symptoms of the suspected macro user, I would either visit the char myself to determine the facts, or post within the channel itself to alert any GM available that a violation was suspected. So essentially we were screeners for the GM's. They were (and still are) far too busy to chase down each individual post within the channel, as far more than half were not true rule violations. Although I rarely used it, we had server broadcast capabilities to post messages. I think in the 3+ years as counselor, I only made 8-10 of them. Most were to warn the players if a particular scam was causing hackings or to warn not to visit spammed websites for free items.

Memorable moments as counselor? Hmm, there were so many. My chosen style was to answer the posts with a twist of humor. Almost any situation, even the painful and stressful ones can be made more palatable when you look at the lighter side. One that stands out (and is an example of a post that did not qualify as a rule violation) was from a frantic player worried about a lost item. He reported that he accidentally ate his "rare" wooden mushroom and wanted to know if there was a way he could get it back. I responded with "Possibly, but you'll have to wait about 48 hours for it to pass". He wasn't impressed with my answer. But after a chat and sharing info that his rare was not so rare, I think he left feeling better, and if he still plays can probably look back and laugh at his situation. Later that day, I looked up his home city and parceled him a new wooden mushroom just for the heck of it. Figured I had a laugh at his expense earlier and seemed like a nice gesture to do. Hundreds similar to that one have transpired. I couldn't invent them even if I was a comedy writer, but some of the crazy situations that people posted just begged for a humorous response. Some posts (like trap pk's) have no humorous side to them, but a huge majority of the rest do.

TibiaNews: What is your opinion of the updates they have made to the Tibia client over the years?

Sonek: Only one word comes to mind. Ingenious. Each one seemed to encompass the needs for new hunting areas, enhanced graphics, creature behaviors, and evolving rules that discourage annoying and illegal activities. I don't think many of the players today that are so fast to complain about what they feel are transgressions against them know how far the game has come and how much better it is now than before they started. I shall expound. Recently several have posted about the legality/illegality of "luring". Seems while hunting a spawn someone came across the screen with some extra spawn creatures with the intent to do harm to the spawn hunter. How about if we do away with the word "luring"? Luring is taking a creature far away from its spawn and now they poof. A more accurate description would be "leading". One GM's response (and I agree) is that if the player is in a hunting area, and should be prepared to encounter the unexpected there and to have a plan in place to counter that possibility. Does that guy know what it was like 3 years ago? Anyone remember the dragon lords or multiple giant spiders that were lured all the way from PoH to the dwarven bridge? Here is an area that low levels or even capable levels maybe traveling between towns without equipment or runes due to cap reasons could encounter creatures. And what if you were trapped by the creature? Anyone remember when players could heal creatures? Pure evil until client measures were taken to curb such activity. So where is it headed? If they took away every possibility to encounter something we didn't bargain for, it would certainly be a more sterile, boring game. So my only advice to that guy would be that maybe he should carry an extra pair of shoelaces in his backpack. Why shoelaces you ask? To tie his pants tight around his ankles to prevent ants from crawling up his leg and eating his candy ass! Soon we'll be getting reports like "This guy just walked around me counterclockwise 2 times and then stood with his back to me. That is an insult in my country". Okay, okay enough opinions from the peanut gallery. Thanks for hearing me out – had to say that as it was bugging me .

TibiaNews: Any updates that you'd like to see happen that hasn't yet?

Sonek: All my ideas seem small in comparison the big changes they have made. Like rings. I have no pally, but how hard would it be to have a distance ring? Maybe give the wearer a few extra distance skill like weapon rings. And knight soulpoints – any plan for them? With higher and higher level chars around, maybe some better equipment that will keep players looking forward to the chance of acquiring them. I'm not a techie guy, but maybe a way of policing how/when an account is sending "packets" that show a cheat is in progress. The same with location identification of the account user. Certainly an account log in that switches countries/hemispheres several times a week is an apparent account sharer. Not sure if that ability even exists, but would be nice if it did. I'll let any/all updates be determined by the people who designed the game. They haven't let me down yet and have surprised me on more than one occasion with their insight to what the game needs.

TibiaNews: Why did you decide to become a Senator instead of continuing as a Senior Tutor?

Sonek: It just felt like the right thing to do at the time for me. I in no way did it because of any thought that ST was a demotion. They did and important job then, and still do today. I saw it as a chance to revert to a role that I had prior to my assignment and have thoroughly enjoyed my decision. Down the road events and conditions may change, but for now I'm very content where I am.

TibiaNews: Now lets move to another topic. It's well known that you hold the highest magic lvl tibia ever seen! How does it feel to have that high skill on such a "mid-low" level?

Sonek: Actually it feels like an honor. I receive more and more messages by 3x and 4x lvl players saying that I'm their inspiration. Even numerous lvl 1 or 2 chars obviously created on Secura server for no other purpose than to visit, say "hi", congrats me, or ask me a question concerning Sonek. Possibly they feel left behind, overlooked or unimportant because they are not "high lvls" on their servers. I think far too much emphasis is placed simply on a chars exp lvl rather than the many other aspects that could and should be considered to garner respect. I've encountered probably the only skill that a low or mid lvl char could attain without being to be a high lvl to achieve it. One of the most commonly asked questions is "Are you ever going to lvl your druid"? I don't know the answer to that question. On one hand I'd like to someday, but on the other hand I feel I'll be abandoning the many mages that I've inspired. One thing I'm certain of though, is that I'll never forget my roots. I play Stonehurst with that same sentiment in mind, and I think many of the chars I come into contact with can attest that I haven't forgotten my origins. If you think your exp level and accomplishments make your somehow better than someone else, then you may as well pack your bags, because the real work horses and merchants of this game are neither on Rookgard nor in the top 10 of the exp list – it is the mid level players buying and selling their goods. At least that's the world according to Stoney and Sonek.

TibiaNews: How did you managed to achieve that high skill?

Sonek: I did it with a secret (until now) formula. It is equal parts of boredom, stupidity, and gp. It's not a recipe that I would advise anyone to try, as it makes no fiscal sense. It was a simple decision after Stonehurst had a full set and I had gp to waste. Play on Sonek initially was an escape from the constant attention that a knight requires, and also on occasions a hiding spot from the hectic duties of counselor, and as mentioned earlier, they are separate accounts and no counselor tools or channel were available there. It was much easier in the years before soulpoints. I'd just buy mega bp's of manas and make 2-300 bps of whatever runes I felt a need for, log off the char and go back to my usual tactics on my main char. If I had some college schoolwork to do, or something on TV preoccupying myself, I'd be simply mana gain and eating/making runes when needed, but for the majority of the time I'd be on Sonek only long enough to make the runes and then back to sleep for him. I guess it was when I got to about magic level 70 that it became a personal challenge to see how much higher I could get his magic level.

TibiaNews: Whats your favorite thing to do in Tibia?

Sonek: Definitely it would have to be the dwarf guard mines. Call it a character flaw or whatever you'd like, but the element of right clicking a dead creature to find out what loots it has inside never grows old for me. Certainly guards are far below Stonehurst's ability level, but with the lvl/skills that he has I can hunt as long as I want there and never use a rune (low cost). With the mega cap that knights have, it's simply a task of cleaning the floor and carrying it to the nearest mailbox. Yes, right clicking demons, behemoths, dragon lords and such are also a thrill, and occasionally I do hunt them, but I stay focused on the knight/druid combination and what is best for them long term. Exp lvls have never been important for me, and this tactic has worked very well for me until now.

TibiaNews: What's your favorite vocation in Tibia?

Sonek: Knights without a doubt. I love the toe-to-toe element of combat. That's another reason I don't hunt much on Sonek. With 385 hp, he has less hp than individual hits Stonehurst can absorb. Yes, I know that mage warfare requires different tactics to succeed, and several players I know accomplish the transition easily, but I never have.

TibiaNews: Cipsoft announced that the next update they would "Balance" the vocations again. Are you scared that this might ... make your life as a druid even harder?

Sonek: Balance? Any balance shift could only help druids. Actually kidding about that, as I don't know enough about the vocation comparisons to make that statement fairly. I'm confident that any balance shift they make will be based on accurate data that shows the need exists. I never could have predicted or determined that the need was there for a limit to be placed on inactivity (few updates ago), or the concept of soulpoints. Both have inconveniences but at the same time discourage rune farms, which anyone with common sense knows was a problem and needed to be curtailed. So I'd gladly put up with any inconveniences if it means closing a loophole that people have been exploiting.

TibiaNews: What can you tell to our druid readers?

Sonek: Not just druids, but any vocation, concerning any skill or goal. Never give up on your dreams and don't let it get you down when others tell you that it can't be done. Don't argue the point with them, just stay within the rules, treat others fairly, develop long term goals and start to nibble away at them. Envision yourself being that little train in the children's story heading up the hill on the rail tracks…….."I think I can, I think I can,…………… Nothing good happens fast in this game, which is one reason I find it so addicting. No matter how good you think your char is positioned, there are always two things to keep in mind. One is that there is always room for improvement, and the other is that a 2 second interlude with the wrong creature, or poor preparation in fighting the right creature will quickly remind you not to take anything for granted.

TibiaNews: Is there anyone you would like to thank?

Sonek: For the fear of leaving anyone out of a special thanks, I'd like to thank all who play Tibs, all players on all servers, including customer support and the game designers. It's a combination of all of you that make the game so enjoyable. The varying language, cultural and even political differences that our origins have impressed upon us ensure that there is something for everyone to share that desires to. A closing word to everyone would be to enjoy your stay on Tibs, but never let it interfere with real life and approach both the same way – with a smile.

P.S. If you ever hear about a jet fighter that was inadvertently jettisoned off an aircraft carrier flight deck into a harbor ……………..… it wasn't me that threw that switch