Interview with Leeeroy Jeeenkins

The hero of the hilarious (though likely staged) World of Warcraft short movie, Leroy Jenkins, has been interviewed by the online games mag Played.ToDeath. The interview covers his internet fame and the state of his guild, among other things. From the article: " PLAYED: So we have to know. Is this rushing in something you do often? BEN S: The rushing itself doesn't happen too often. It happens a little more now when we are joking around. My "Leeroy Jenkins" yell happens far more often. I've been yelling that for about four years. (laughs) "

Comments

AFK...Leerooooyyyy!!!!!!!!

[pio!pio!]

this made it on slashdot????

Re:AFK...Leerooooyyyy!!!!!!!!

[joeljkp]

If anyone wants to see the clip but doesn't like WMV, the FreeMedia Project (my site) has it in Ogg.

Clicky.

Can someone post the text?

[dfenstrate]

For some reason they won't let me access the site with internet explorer, and I'm at work, so it's not like I have control over it.

I have no idea why they would be so obnoxious as to simply prohibit a browser from accessing their site- I don't really care if it renders imperfectly as long as I can read it.

Really, what kind of idiot does that sort of thing? Some smug, bearded Unix administrator high on the righteousness of open source?

Re:Can someone post the text?

[thenetbox]

text:

PLAYED:Thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak with you.
BEN S:Hey, no problem.
PLAYED:Great, Ben. Where are you located at?
BEN S:I'm in Laffayete, Colorado
PLAYED:How long have you been playing WoW?
BEN S:I've been playing it since open beta.
PLAYED:Since open beta?
BEN S:I pretty much got it right when it came out.
PLAYED:What drew you to it, are you a big fan of Blizzard?
BEN S:Yeah. I've always played a lot of Blizzard stuff, they usually make pretty quality games.
PLAYED:Is WoW your favorite of the bunch?
BEN S:It's hard to say. I've played a lot of everything but so far WoW has been pretty good.
PLAYED:Do you play any other MMOGS?
BEN S:I don't currently, but I have played others in the past.
PLAYED:Which titles?
BEN S:Shadowbane was the one I got the most into. I played some Ragnarok online, and Lineage II for a month or two. Back in the day, I played a little Ultima Online.
PLAYED:Cool.
PLAYED:So you've been playing WoW from the beginning. What aspect of the game do you enjoy the most?
BEN S:Just screwing with people, mostly (laughs)
PLAYED:So you play on a PVP server then (laughing)?
BEN S:Yeah.
PLAYED:So what level is Leeroy?
BEN S:Leeroy is 60.
PLAYED:What is his PVP rank, currently?
BEN S:He's a sergeant currently, I haven't got a chance to do a whole lot of PVP yet.
PLAYED:Sergeant is still nice, I haven't even made grunt yet.
PLAYED:We are really looking forward to the Battleground patch.
PLAYED:Hopefully the level 60's won't pick on us too much. We are all around level 40.
BEN S:Yeah, at level 40 it's gonna be rough.
PLAYED:We assume that Leeroy is you main, how many alts do you have?
BEN S:I have a couple low-level alts. A couple of only level 10. In total I have actually made ... 9 characters. All those, except leeroy and one other, are below level 30. I have a level 60 Tauren on a separate server, too.
PLAYED:Nice.
PLAYED:What occupation is Leeroy currently?
BEN S:He's a miner/engineer.
PLAYED:That's the hardest one, really.
PLAYED:We assume you are still in league with The Pals 4 Life?
BEN S:Yeah, we still do our stuff. (laughs) I did get kicked out of the guild for five minutes after this instance.
PLAYED:(laughs)
PLAYED:How many people are in P4L?
BEN S:Technically, we have around a hundred players in the guild.
PLAYED:Wow, that's quite a few.
BEN S:Yeah, but only 25 or so are really active. Most of them are alts.
PLAYED:You've been with P4L from the beginning then?
BEN S:Yeah. It partially existed before we started WoW.
PLAYED:How much would you say you play a week? To get to level sixty you must be playing a good amount.
BEN S:Yeah. I play a lot really, I'm currently unemployed so that helps (laughs)
PLAYED:(laughs)
BEN S:(laughing) Yeah, if you know of any good jobs, send them my way.
PLAYED:We'll keep our eye out for you.
BEN S:On average, I play about four or five hours a day. Some days I take a break.
PLAYED:Let's talk about the video. What inspired the name of your character, Leeroy Jenkins? Is he a character from a movie or something you made up?
BEN S:It was pretty much made up. I was sitting around with a few guild-mates drinking forties ...
PLAYED:(laughs) That's where all great things come from - drinking forties with your buddies.
BEN S:Right. So we start throwing out name for each other and Leeroy Jenkins popped out. I like the name because it was fun to yell.
PLAYED:(laughs)
PLAYED:You know the video has spread all over the Internet by now. We had even seen references to the video at E3 this year. Now that everyone has seen it, some people want to know if the video was staged. Was it?
BEN S:(laughs) We want people to make that decision themselves. It seems more fun that way.
PLAYED:(laughs) We are certainly happy to leave it a mystery.
PLAYED:So we saw the video just a few days ago, and it seems like it grew phenomenally fast. Everyone at the office w

Re:Can someone post the text?

[Borg_5x8]

No access for me with Opera either (I get the "sorry IE user" screen). Is the site not just redirecting IE, it's redirecting ALL non-Firefox browsers? Lame.

ps. Yes I checked my "Identify As" setting first :P

Not trolling, they screwed it up.

[sinner0423]

Once you hear the leader ask for calculation for a chance of survival, it completely shits on the whole video/skit - otherwise the rest is completely plausible and funny.

There's a fine line between humor & total crap, and I believe that single line about survival crossed it. Luckily the 2 things that Leeroy says manages to save it from being tossed in to the black hole of really bad WoW player movies which are all over the internet.

From the interview...

[Lisandro]

PLAYED: Undoubtedly. How do you plan on using your new-found fame?
BEN S: It's been nice, now that more people know who I am. I'm starting to look around the gaming industry for possible employment opportunities.

Yep. That'll work out just fine.

Re:From the interview...

[JNighthawk]

Manager: Alright guys, we got the deadline coming up soon and it's looking grim. Hey, can you give me a percentage based on our chance to complete in time? Guy 1: Yeah, it's looking like our game only has a 33% chance of shipping by Christmas, so we.. Leroy: Alright, let's do this. LEEEEEROOOOOY JEEEEENKINGS *as he tackles a terminal and begins savagely beating it*

Re:Still Funny

[sweetooth]

The vast majority of what's on the Internet seems to be about on par with the vast majority of what's on tv. The end result is that they both rot your brain.

It's definitely staged

[Toxygen]

If you know a little about the game mechanics there's no way you could think this would actually happen. The instance they're doing is one of, if not the hardest before you start doing molten core. The idea that a full group of 15 players could all get to level 56+ without knowing simple things like:

1) You never agro anything unless the group leader has appointed you to be the puller.

2) If someone (usually a rogue) agros a mob group way up front and out of range of the rest, you let him die so the mobs don't agro your whole group.

3) Divine intervention sacrifices the life of the paladin and creates a sheild through which NO action can be taken.

4) Fear is never a good idea unless you're 100% certain the mob won't/can't train into another group.

The idea that anybody can get close to 60 without figuring out these basic principles is laughable. 15 people is just downright impossible.

It's still funny though.

Re:It's definitely staged

[Incoherent07]

5) You do NOT break the eggs in the Rookery.

And yes, I have my Devout Shoulders, after doing this event about 10 times.

Re:Still Funny

[slughead]

4) This piece of crap made it to G4 and Slashdot in the same week? Is this because Americans are stupid or has everyone just devolved recently?

Ugh I know the feeling. The other day my brother turned into some sort of marmot.