Eclo Interview
Over a year ago Rookgaard was rocked by an astonishing find when, someone figured that it was possible to make the Sword of Fury disappear. RookNews joined Eclo the man behind it all to hear the full story of events and to tell us what really happened with the Tibia Source Codes.
RookNews: Lets begin with a brief introduction of yourself. What’s your name, age and location?
Eclo: My name is John Hogberg, I'm 18 years old and I am currently live in Sweden.
RookNews: How long have you been playing Tibia and Rookgaard?
Eclo: I started Tibia around 2000-2001 I think, but I didn't fancy it so I quit it after a few days. A few years later I got tired of other RPG's and decided to give Tibia another shot, this was around 2003-2004, so I guess I've been playing Tibia actively for about five years. I started playing rook around 2005, I can’t remember why I decided to do that, but I think it had to do with a PK-related death on mainland. I really enjoyed rook back then, luring was a blast. Together with a friend of mine, I lured the katana quest rotworms to town using antidote runes and the old spear-box trick. Those were the days. We didn't kill anyone, nor did we want to, but we proved a point; it was possible.
RookNews: Interesting, I didn’t know that was possible.
RookNews: Is this (Eclo on rook) your first Rookgaard character?
Eclo: No, of course not. I created this char in 2006 I believe, because I wanted to meet the "old legends." I didn't know I was up for a disappointment, but I digress. My first Rookgaard character would be "Thomac on rook," a rookian on Pacera. However I played main on Nova, Julera, and Harmonia before creating that character.
RookNews: Do you have an interest with collecting any items like many other Rookgaardians?
Eclo: Nah, but if I find any high-value item I usually keep it. I don't toss the minotaur leathers I loot, so to speak. The rarest items in my possession would probably be that backpack of antidote runes I bought earlier last year. I did collect stuffs for the hat addon though. :p
RookNews: Well swiftly moving on...You are the man who found how to make the Sword of Fury disappear. How did you even think something like this was possible?
Eclo: I'd like to start out by saying that I didn't wake up one day thinking I needed to find out how to make that cursed sword disappear. I found it by chance, so to speak. "I wonder if this happens every time I do that". That kind of thinking is what led me to the final discovery. The first few times I didn't even bother, thinking it was random, but after the fifth or sixth time, I really started wondering.
RookNews: It must have taken a lot of time to figure it out, how it was triggered, the exact location etcetera.
Eclo: Of course, once I knew roughly where I had to walk, it took several weeks before I found the exact location. Walking back and forth at every server save, each day trying a different combination is quite tedious.
RookNews: How long would you estimate it took you to finally find out how to do it?
Eclo: No friggin idea, really. Depends on how you count I guess. But I think it took around six or seven months to find it after I had confirmed that I was causing it. The hardest part was excluding every other square on rook, finding out that the squares were located at the poison spiders in main cave and "rotworm hell" took quite some time. Needless to say, it was easy to exclude squares by checking if the sword was still there or not. :P
RookNews: Well since it’s common knowledge now, would you care to explain how the trick is done.
Eclo: Alright, assuming you know where Captain Iglue's treasure is, instead of going north at the poison fields to the quest, go directly south and drop down the hole. When you've fallen down the hole, walk north-east, and then if you want to, kill the spiders, it doesn't matter anyway. Then walk up to the northernmost wall, walk east until you stop (should be 2 steps) then walk one step south and one step east. If I remember correctly. That's the first square, as for the second square, you must go to "rotworm hell." Well there, walk to the southernmost wall and walk one step to the east if you can. If done correctly, this should make the sword disappear.
RookNews: Many people ask the question, where does the sword go? And certain players (Not saying any names *Cough* de’Bove *Cough*) have even claimed to have obtained the sword during the early days when the trick was less known. What can you tell us about this?
Eclo: Aw geez, not this crap again… Early in 2007, pretty much the entire Tibian source code was leaked and it revealed both the trick and where the sword went. It goes NOWHERE, it is basically deleted. And de'Bove well, she is nothing more than a filthy attention-seeking liar.
RookNews: What made you decide to make the trick public knowledge?
The leak of the source code were also the reason I revealed how to do the trick, as I wanted credit for finding it. I didn't want some stupid hacker wannabe who simply downloaded the files to get famous because of it. I consider this the biggest mistake of my Tibian life though. Fame on Tibia is not what most of you think it is; getting spammed to death is not fun. The spam has died down lately, but it was pretty much unbearable at first.
RookNews: Is there anything else you would like to share about this?
Eclo: Whoever released the Tibian source code should be shot. Seriously, it spoiled all the fun. There are no more secrets to be found, none! Even if a part of me believed that I couldn't get the Sword of Fury, for instance, a part of me still wanted to search for it; and it was fun. But now... There's nothing here. The community has deteriorated too, close to none of my old friends log in these days, and when they do, it's brief.
RookNews: What do you think has caused the problems within the Rookgaard community?
Eclo: RookStat is a huge part of the problem, but it's a lot easier to blame them than it is to blame the people who abuse it. Botters might see RookStat as an invitation and then start botting on rook. They are the people abusing Rook, the site, if used as a source of pretty much needless information, it's actually alright. CipSoft needs to get more GM's to ban the tards who use cheats and use Rookstat purely to track there ranking.
RookNews: We will finish on the question, who has inspired you the most on Rookgaard and why?
Eclo: Tapam Wah, definitely. Sure, he wasn't a rookian, but we met on rook and he taught me the ropes, he was a really nice guy. When I created a rookian I wanted to do the same. Some people might call Sunrise inspiring, but I don't. Sure, he was the first one to decide to stay here, and he was the first lvl 100... Is that all we aspire to be? Highlevels?
RookNews: Thank you Eclo for your time and I wish you all the best for the future
Eclo: No problem.