The story of Westknights is about a group of friends, most of whom have never met each other in person, who managed to stay in touch and play online games together since 2001. Although we may be spread throughout multiple continents, through the magic of the internet we are able to share adventures and challenges together via our favorite PC games.
Back in 2001 when the Westknights group was created it was called "Knights of the West" and it was a Diablo II clan operating on the US-West Battle.net server. Diablo II was a great game and we quickly grew the ranks of our community on Battle.net, but before long we were looking for a more collaborative and persistent multiplayer experience.
(Lineage: The Bloodpledge)
Before the end of 2001 we had expanded into a new MMORPG game called "Lineage: The Bloodpledge" coming from a developer in Korea. The game took inspiration from Ultima Online and Diablo; it provided the type of team-based game-play experiences that we were looking for. During 2002 and 2003 we were a competitive clan on the Ken Rauhel server for Lineage: The Bloodpledge, winning ownership of multiple castles during our tenure. During our competitive days in Lineage our key achievement was leading an alliance of clans that became the first clan to own the "Aden Castle" that collected taxes from all other castles in the land. Our allies DeadlySins, Tri-Star, Foundation, and Shaolin were key in attaining this victory.
During 2004 the sequel to Lineage: The Bloodpledge, simply called Lineage 2, was released as a beta test before it became generally available. NCSoft, the developer of the Lineage games, announced a "Top Clans of the Land" competition for the beta test. In order to qualify for the Top Clans of the Land competition your clan had to be among the top clans in terms of total experience gained by all the clan members combined; NCSoft then picked the winner and two "runners-up" at random from the pool of qualifying clans. Westknights was fortunate enough to win the Top Clans of the Land competition, gaining us public recognition on the Lineage 2 website as well as gift certificates for all of our participating clan members. After the Beta test period was complete, Westknights was a guild of community significance on the Bartz server during the initial months and years of Lineage 2.
Lineage 2 was a huge leap forward from Lineage: The Bloodpledge and it was our first 3D MMORPG; however, World of Warcraft hit the internet in a big way during November of 2004. It was not long after -- sometime during 2005 -- that Westknights had expanded to include World of Warcraft, with a Westknights guild operating on the Stormreaver server. The Westknights guild on Stormreaver later merged with the Sage guild which was led by some of our old friends from Lineage: The Bloodpledge.
(Lineage 2 Open Beta contest)
During 2006 and 2007 we experimented with other games including Ragnarok Online and EVE Online. During late 2007 we launched our own private server for Lineage: The Bloodpledge which we called "Westknights Lineage 1" and it became our new focus. We played together online on the private server for the following years; it was not unusual to see over 100 players online during peak usage periods. We managed to maintain excellent uptime, frequent updates, fun events, and a high level of player participation for five years. As our staff was all-volunteer and development was entirely community-driven and open source, this was a small miracle. The Westknights Lineage 1 private server was finally retired during early 2013.
During recent years, Westknights has become a casual, multi-game community residing on Discord. Our members still tend to have a thirst for RPG and ARPG games, as well as fantasy and science-fiction themed games, but we have now branched out. Instead of focusing on one game, we follow the wind where it blows us and use Discord as a means to stay connected and find opportunities to play online together. As of 2023, many of us are looking forward to spending hours together slaying mobs, clearing dungeons, and camping world bosses in Diablo 4.
If you are interested in finding out more about Westknights or are interested in joining our group please consider joining our Discord server and introducing yourself. Cheers!
