I have been going by the name Garou online since 1993. Most people assume that I took the name from White Wolf Games role playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Before I ever looked at the game I saw a movie calledĀ Full Eclipse.
In it Bruce Payne plays Adam Garou, hes considered the bad guy but if you pay
attention hes not really bad, in-fact hes trying to do the right thing. His methods are just... shall we say unconventional. Of course most people
cant stand the movie enough to pay attention, I loved it though and I have used the name ever since. It doesn't hurt I have been a Wolf and Werewolf fan since I was very young. For those not familiar with the word "garou", it is french for werewolf. In 2002, my then girlfriend "Lia" and I were heavily into the game Ultima Online. More specifically the emulated servers for the game, more commonly known asĀ player run shards. After several of our favorite shards shut down, some where we were players and others that we helped to staff, I was burnt out on it all and really wanted nothing to do with it anymore. Especially be involved in running one again. Lia however got the idea in her head that she wanted to run her own server and it was supposed to be specifically for me, to get my interest back in the game I guess. She said to me "You are the Wolf and this is your Haven" and Wolf's Haven was born. It was supposed to be a place where I could just play and wouldn't have to be involved in the day to day operations. Of course I eventually wound up doing some of the work, not that I'm complaining. Running a server like that can wind up taking a lot of work and it just didn't seem right for me not to help out. We made a good run of it, we had plenty of players and a few extra staff members. However one of our staff members was abusing their powers by creating and giving high level items to their friends in the game. Many of which should have never been in the hands of any player as they drastically upset the balance of game play. After several confrontations with the staff member we eventually had to let them go. Unfortunately they took a rather large chunk of the player base with them when they left and we never recovered. Even though the server and my relationship with Lia didn't last, Ive kept the name around. It still fits me, after all... I am the Wolf and This is My Haven! |