Interview with Woox

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Hello r/2007scape and happy New Year!. After the great feedback I've received from Mod Ash's interview I decided keep doing more interviews. This time it isn't a Jagex Moderator but one of the most important players in Runescape's history... and also one of the persons I've always wanted to talk to. I wish I could ask him another million questions and I hope these cover what most of you wanted to know about Woox.

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Woox

Woox is a famous player in Runescape (and player moderator), considered by many as the best PvMer. He has performed countless feats such as:

Woox16 has recorded solo kills of almost every high-level boss monster in RuneScape. He was among the first players to fight Nex with video proof, and the first player to solo the corporeal beast successfully with video proof. He has also recorded many videos of handicapped boss kills, like killing corporeal beast without food, Soul Split or a Divine spiritshield, killing the King Black Dragon in 5 seconds, killing 3.5 Corporeal beasts without food or stat drains without banking, killing TzTok-Jad in 7 seconds, killing TzTok-Jad while AFK, and killing TzTok-Jad with no items and 1 prayer point. He has also soloed the Pest Control veteran's boat with only a Chaotic rapier. He has duoed Nex in Green d'hide. On January 28th, 2013, Woox16 became the first player ever to solo the Kalphite King with video proof. On August 14th, 2013, Woox16 and Desiboys became the first to duo Vorago and the first to defeat Vorago with under 5 attackers

(Source: rsplayers fandom)

World First Inferno clear!

World First Theatre of Blood completion (featuring B0aty, Cloud Badass, Lake & Zulu)

World First Theatre of Blood Solo completion (Full Run)

Twisted League's first solo Chambers of Xeric (without deaths)

First successful Corporeal Beast solo kill without Bug Abuse

Inferno without Supplies/Potions

and many more!

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Follow Woox on:

·Twitter: @WooxSolo
·Youtube: Woox
·Twitch: WooxSolo

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Interview with Woox

2nd January 2020

1. How is a day in the life of Woox?

Wake up, sit at the computer for the whole day, go to bed.

2. You said on stream that you dont get recognized much IRL Is this really true? Does someone at your job knows how famous you are?

I've only been recognized at RuneFest and during travel to/from RuneFest so far. I don't go outside often, so there aren't many opportunities to see me. Most people at my work are (a lot) older than me and don't know what Runescape is anyway since this game is primarily played by people in their mid 20s.

3. What other hobbies do you have?

Programming, or just relaxing by watching YouTube or browsing memes or something else.

4. Many people wonder... why isn't Woox interested in working for Jagex? Is it true that you declined a job there?

I've never been offered a job at Jagex (I don't think they send out job invitations anyway) but I've also never applied for a job there. A few years ago I was considering applying as an engine developer but never went for it because I didn't want to have to relocate to another country. Nowadays I'm not really interested any more because I had a opportunity to work with some ancient code at my current job and it was awful. I'd imagine the code base for OSRS to not be that great to work with either. I also don't like the state of RS3 which also negatively impacts my will to work for Jagex.

5. Is there any JMod you keep contact with? (or that gets in contact with you for content advice...?)

Not regularly, no. They contact me whenever they have any offers, like invitations for RuneFest.

6. What content have you betatested?

Apart from Jagexs public beta testing worlds I've beta tested Theatre of Blood and Vorkath + addy/rune dragons. It was fun to beta test, but I also like the surprise from not knowing exactly what an update will bring, so I'm not sure if I'd want to beta test again.

7. Tell us the truth, have you ever been scared/anxious to lose world first completion at any specific content such as ToB or Inferno?

As long as I had fun I don't feel anxious about it, and I usually don't do things unless I think they are fun to do. The standards for being first seems to not be very high in many cases anyway. Sometimes I end up first when I thought I had no chance to be first.

8. Can you tell us about your preparation in order to get world first PvM achievements? (Who do you discuss mechanics with?, how many hours do you spend strategizing, specific preparation...)

For new content like Inferno/ToB, preparation won't help me much, so I usually don't prepare anything for that. For existing content, I work out a strategy and maybe try to simulate it in some way if it's important to not make mistakes. I don't count how many hours I spend strategizing but usually I spend as much time as needed until I see no way to improve or the improvement per time spent ratio is very small. I rarely discuss mechanics with anyone as I'm already aware of most mechanics anyway.

9. What do you think OldSchool Runescape needs in order to improve or catch your attention more?

I don't think there's much they can do. The game was great when I was younger because I didn't have much else to do, but nowadays I feel like I'd rather just relax instead of grinding something on this game. New updates or short competitions/events is what I like the most about the game at the moment.

10. Many people wonder... are you going for lowest level fire cape anymore? (lvl 4 was achieved recently by Rendi) Do you think its possible a level 3 completion?

I've been theorizing a lvl 3 completion since I found out about the ring of suffering method which Rendi used. I made a tool to simulate player and NPC movement in the fight caves, finished my plans for how I would execute it and made a couple of attempts. I'm not working on any more attempts at the moment though. The challenge itself is not very fun since it's kind of just a big grind with big setbacks for mistakes after you've worked out how to do it. You can get lvl 3 with elemental shield tick eating. There's also a 1/13 chance of ending up as lvl 3 if you're going for lvl 4 and just get lucky. I don't think it's a question of **if** the level 3 will happen, it's a question of **when** it will happen.

11. Will you ever attempt lowest level inferno? What's your relationship with xzact?

I generally don't like competing for things that have no defined end to it, unless it's something I can achieve with relatively low effort. Things like lowest lvl X or fastest time X are examples of those because someone else can just spend more time than I did to achieve a better result. The time required to get a better result usually increases exponentially, so it just ends up becoming a competition of who wants to invest the most time.
I rarely talk to Xzact. I'm sure he could do the same things as I could when it comes to the inferno though.

12. What other games do you play or used to play?

I sometimes play Hearthstone when they release new updates and World of Warcraft during new expansions.

13. What's the challenge that took you the longest to complete or the one you were closest to giving up?

Depends on what counts as a challenge. Theater of Blood solo took around 50 hours for all the attempts, but I've spent more time on some official competitions.

14. Could you tell us more about your DMM win? (How did you react?, how did you plan it, What about the drama after you winning (prize, Mod Ash...))

I had realised after I died in the tournament prior that you could outheal the fog. I didn't actually decide to use that as a strategy until about halfway through the tournament though. I had noticed that my account wasn't going to get particularly good due to me being too busy with work, so I decided to just maximize the meme potential instead. I thought I'd probably get disqualified, but I also thought doing what I did would be more fun to watch than watching me die to a 50 man RoT team.

I never really understood the fuss about accepting the 10k donation from Ash since anyone can donate me pretty much any amount of money they want whenever they want through my donation button. B0aty donated me 5k in early 2019 and there was no drama whatsoever about that. Maybe people just didn't understand that it was Ash's own idea to give me money.

15. Who are your best friends on Runescape?

Meric I think. We chat every once in a while.

16. Have you ever tried PvP?

I played some LMS when it was updated, and I did some standard edgeville pking when I was going for rune pouch on my ironman. And I slayed some defenceless players on the original deadman back when it was first released. I don't have as much interest for PvP though because there are less unique things I can do there. I'm also not the guy with the highest APM, and PvP sometimes seem to be more oriented around having high APM rather than making smart plays.

17. How do you choose what challenges you want to go for? What brings you to attempt them?

Back when I had more time to play, I'd go for just about anything that doesn't take too long to complete and things that sound like it'd be very hard or impossible to complete from other players perspective. Nowadays I aim more for just the things that have high prestige, like official competitions or a not too specific way to slay a boss. I'd say the support from my followers is what makes me keep going.

18. Can you do a Top 3 of your achievements? (enjoyment, difficulty-wise)

Difficult question, I don't know how I should evaluate "difficulty". I generally enjoy new updates more than I enjoy going for some challenge, so whatever I achieve during a new update is usually more enjoyable than what I achieve when I do a challenge in some old content.

19. What content from RS2 or RS3 would you want to see in OSRS?

Dungeoneering (the minigame, not necessarily the same rewards), although after seeing The Gauntlet I think it might be too big of a job for the OSRS team to implement, so it's probably better if they work on other things instead.

20. What content confirmed for 2020 motivates you? (Nightmare, group ironman...)

I like anything that isn't too grindy where the meta is fresh and preferably not easy to figure out. The Nightmare boss should be fun, but I don't think I'll be playing group ironman as it doesn't really fit my criteria.

Some extra questions:

21. What are some tips to become a better PvM player?

Understanding the mechanics and just doing a lot of PvMing will get you a long way. Like most things in life, to get good at something you need to invest a lot of time into it. If you want to do the things I do, I'd probably suggest you make sure you understand the game mechanics well enough to the point to where you know how to simulate the game.

22. Is there anything you want to tell the community or Reddit?

Happy new year! I wish 2020 has as many great memes as 2019 did! :D

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Thanks Woox for taking your time and proving during many years that even the things that might look impossible can be achievable.

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What an interesting interview! I thought Woox would be a man of few words but he did a great effort in answering my questions!

What other questions would you ask Woox?
Who would you want to be interviewed next?

Cynth_ia.

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