Community Spotlight: Vague
Meet: Vague
Hey VALOR! It’s your least favorite Purple Mage here to share a bit about myself with you all. I go by Vague in most games, but you will also see me frequently go by Veyg (or my main being Veygg, because he started as an alt) since usernames are getting harder to come by nowadays. Like many in VALOR, I’ve been playing games my whole life. I have photos of me somewhere in a diaper with a NES controller, but they aren’t digitized so I can’t share. I have a brother in the guild as well, Swaycos the infamous squishy lizard currently raiding with VALOR Prism. We had what some might call an eventful childhood, which led to us being homeless and living out of a car and one point in our lives. Through the tumultuous times we always had each other and a shared passion for gaming and competition.
Growing up we were both multi-sport athletes until circumstances dictated we couldn’t participate anymore. Then we turned our competitive spirits into gaming and beating each other. Finally, with the advent of Xbox Live we were able to compete on a bigger scale and in a greater variety of games. I got my start on Halo 3 by grinding ranked as hard as I could at 14. It’s funny how at that age I had no concern or anxiety about performance or ranking, but I do now. I just kept queueing up for the next ranked match, win or lose, to try and get better. I would immediately add people who I thought were good at the game and convince them to queue with me. Surprisingly, in the first 3 months I had Xbox Live I made a group of friends of about 10 people who I still talk to daily 16 years later. I was a groomsman at one of their weddings last year, and it was a surreal experience. We formed a competitive team together, but we didn’t enter any competitions. We were more of a glorified ranked stack, but we had fun with it and practiced together.
These times created some of the most impactful learning moments in my life. I may have had just barely enough skill to make a living playing an FPS game for a living, but to do so I would have to overcome my own issues as a person and a leader.
While true friends are forever, games generally aren’t. Eventually the light in Halo started to wane, so onto the next FPS: Battlefield Bad Company 2. Me and my brother switched over, but most of our friends didn’t. We spent many hours grinding and trying to carry games without anybody to lean on, and it was here where I had to come to grips with my own mentality. I was a big tilter in these days, not the violent type, but the shouting and getting mad and generally unpleasant to be around type. I reached a point where I took the fun out of the game even for myself. I took a very long break and when I came back to the game I went into it with an improvement mindset, and it helped a lot. One day when playing a normal game, I was messaged and recruited by a top 3 team in North America on Xbox. The leader said he had never seen a player dominate a lobby so hard and not be on a team already. I was flattered and ready to compete, but they never had the chance to plug me into the roster before the competitive scene died. Even still I collected more friends from it, and a boost that I could compete at a high level in games. When Battlefield 3 came out many of the members of the team had personal issues get in the way of gaming, so I tried to take the mantle of captain. It was a real struggle for me to lead a group of 12-14 members and keep everyone together. My relative immaturity at the time definitely got in my way, but I learned some lessons in leadership along the way.
After Battlefield died down, I bounced around competing in any game that took my fancy, including Forza Motorsport and NHL. Eventually I stumbled onto Rainbow Six: Siege. It didn’t take long before I was hooked, and it had all my competitive attention. The game was young and had a rapidly growing esports scene at the time, so I thought ‘why not try and go pro at it?’ This would lead me to buying a PC and grinding in the competitive scene for around 2 years. These times created some of the most impactful learning moments in my life. I may have had just barely enough skill to make a living playing an FPS game for a living, but to do so I would have to overcome my own issues as a person and a leader. I led several teams and played at a very high level, but my nagging issues with confidence, preparation, and team management slowed my progress greatly. At my peak I managed to play some games against paid, professional teams albeit outside of the official pro league (Rogue and Tempo Storm for those who follow esports). By the time I realized what I needed to work on and improved, I was burning out of the game badly and my life was changing where I would not have the time necessary to grind the game as much.
One of those changes was starting my pursuit of a degree. In 2020 I started progging my BS in Mechanical Engineering by taking out as many prerequisite courses as I could in Community College. After my first year I found out that these schools also had fledgling esports programs… and here we go again. I joined the esports club for 2 different community colleges (I had to switch schools at one point) and captained VALORANT teams for both. These were very casual programs and most of the players had absolutely no competitive gaming experience, so it was fun to take a more casual approach and gently guide people on best practices and how to play the game. My efforts were rewarded with a scholarship and a grant which helped take some of the financial burden off me as well. I am very proud to say I transferred to The University of Alabama with a 4.0 GPA, and I should be graduating next year.
You might be wondering, what does this have to do with WoW? My passion for esports ranges across pretty much any game. My favorite team is Team Liquid, and one day Liquid decided to get into WoW. That is when I started watching RWF with my brother. I had absolutely no idea how anything worked, but it looked difficult and fun. As enamored as I was watching Sepulcher (and Scott’s insane clutch against Anduin) I really never got on well with MMOs in the past. Fast forward to Nerub-ar Palace, and my brother and I were looking for games to play together as we found ourselves not connecting as much anymore. He was into Final Fantasy 14, but it looked too mechanically simple for me. I was playing Overwatch 2 at the time, and I kept seeing WoW on the bnet launcher and thought about trying it. Eventually we took the plunge and immediately we were hooked.
Many communities claim to be ‘super friendly and inviting,’ but that usually only goes skin deep. VALOR has been a breath of fresh air in that regard.
As we were progressing, I knew exactly one person who I could reach out to for help, Alkamyst. I met Brad through a discord for a Hardcore band we both like and found out we lived very close to one another. I knew he played WoW, so I reached out with simple questions about the game and he invited us both to VALOR. It didn’t take long to realize VALOR is a special place. Many communities claim to be ‘super friendly and inviting,’ but that usually only goes skin deep. VALOR has been a breath of fresh air in that regard. Everyone here has been amazing to me and always takes time to hang out with new people, teach them, and help them find their place. I reached out frequently to the VALOR Academy class chats to get some advice on how to play Frost Mage. They got me some great resources and looked through my logs to tell me what I needed to work on, and it was a huge help. I started raiding in the Community Raid night to start, then eventually joined up with VALOR Bronze as they were pushing Heroic Nerub-ar Palace. I quickly found my footing and wanted to do a bit more, but I didn’t know anything about Mythic raiding or how to join a VALOR team. By pure coincidence I was flying around thinking about what to do one evening and I saw a message in guild chat from Thrass. She needed literally anyone with ilvl enough to join VALOR Black for some reclear bosses. I threw my name out there and she invited me. She told me ‘We aren’t going to review mechanics, so here’s a website. Read up between pulls.’ I was a bit nervous, but felt confident enough in my class that I could improvise anything I didn’t know. We got to Bloodbound Horror and we needed a spec ops player, so I immediately volunteered. I didn’t even know what that was at first, but it sounded like a job for a Mage. It turned out well and it was a huge confidence boost for me as I felt like I really contributed to the team even if my numbers weren’t amazing. Thrass invited me back the next week and lo and behold I made the team. My competitive nature and inclination for leadership meant once I got the rhythm of raiding, I wanted to ask a lot of questions and offer help wherever I could. At the end of the season Thrass asked me to join the leadership team on VALOR Black (now Ravens) and I jumped at the opportunity. Admittedly, I didn’t know nearly enough about WoW to co-lead a raid and to a certain degree I feel like I still don’t. But the entire leadership team at Ravens, and some members of Blue, work so hard behind the scenes to make our team successful. Big shoutouts to Fel, Rhino, Adraeus, Raiju, Brad, Dank, and of course the Big Boss herself Thrass, for putting in so much work to help make the team successful. It really takes a village.
We participated in the 2024 12 Hours of Sebring, which at the time was the largest sim racing event of all time, with over 12,000 drivers!
Nowadays when I’m not playing WoW or working on my classes, I’m playing my guitar, sim racing, hanging with some of those old Halo 3 friends, or watching some kind of sport. Whether it be motorsports, hockey, football, or esports, I love watching competitions. I have a big love in particular for motorsports. If it goes fast, I have probably watched it at some point. Last year my brother and I subbed to iRacing for a year to give it a try (right before the WoW addiction started) and it was great. It was way too expensive to keep as a hobby, but we had fun doing some of the famous iRacing special events. We participated in the 2024 12 Hours of Sebring, which at the time was the largest sim racing event of all time, with over 12,000 drivers! We finished 2nd in our lobby after a very rough opening few hours, which was a huge accomplishment for us especially since we were one of very few teams with only 2 drivers. Most teams have 3-4 for a race that length. As for the guitar, I’ve been playing (inconsistently I might add) for around 10 years now. I have an enduring love for all things metal and heavy music which is absolutely my favorite thing to play, but I also love all kinds of other music that catch my fancy. Rap and Hip-Hop, Jazz, Emo, Pop-Punk- I’m willing to listen to it all. My favorite band for several years now has been The Ghost Inside. Their music fell in my lap at the exact time I needed to hear them, and they helped me through some dark times. It is in their community where I met Brad, which also brought me to VALOR. You could say I owe them a lot for many of the good times I’ve had recently. I’ve only been able to see them once, which was at Furnace Fest 2022. As luck would have it, that was the one Furnace Fest Brad didn’t make it, but it was still a great time. We waited for 4 hours on the barricade to be front row for them, and you can even see us in their official music video for the show!
If you ever see me around in a voice channel, feel free to jump in and say hi! I like meeting new community members and hanging out. If you are a Mage player who needs some help but can’t find a good Mage to talk to, I’m the next best thing! I’m Semi-Competent at Mage and would love to offer any help I can if you are wanting to learn, especially Arcane.
Vague is honestly one of the best mage players I’ve ever come across, maybe the best. On top of that, he’s a really solid teammate — dependable, smart, and always ready to help out. What really sets him apart, though, is his strong sense of ethics and his deep dedication as part of the Ravens leadership. Sure, we joke around and spar in good fun all the time, but if I were ever to build a dream team purely for myself, his name would be the very first on my list. Without question, he’s someone I’d want at my side.
– Adraeus
