Holy Knights

So the game has been out for a few days. Here's where we are now:

We have all been making progress through the game at our own rates. Pure and I are in Act 2 Nightmare. Others have made it into Hell difficulty, while some are still making their way through Normal.

After a brief meeting the other night we have decided to take a "wait and see" approach with regard to getting more organized as a clan and instituting things like a rank system. For now, many of us are still focused on getting through the game at our own diffrent paces.
Once things settle down a little bit, the slow starters catch up with the early birds a bit, and we get a better feel for how the game works at higher levels and what different items are worth, we will take a closer look at how we can all work together as a community to help each other out.
One unfortunate issue is that Diablo 3 doesn't have any private chat channels, let alone any kind of official clan support. We are working with this situation by using our ventrilo server; the only shortcoming is that general chat can get in the way of coordinating with a party in a way that wouldn't happen in a text chat channel. Meanwhile, you might want to take a moment to write to Blizzard to say "hey guys, great game but could we please get some chat channels?".

One thing we are doing immediately is collecting donations for artisan upgrades. Right now I have my jeweler at level 5 and my blacksmith at level 6 + 80%, and I will craft anything I can for anyone who puts up the gold and materials. Also, Pure has taught his blacksmith a plan for a legendary ceremonial knife (I believe it may be Umbral Oath; Pure can either confirm or deny this) if any witch doctors would like to get their hands on one.
Please see the official game guide's artisans page at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/artisan/ to browse all of the items that are available and their costs.
Pure and I will both collect donations of gold, training materials, and plans for our artisans.
Although we don't have a very formal rank system yet, we will keep records of donations and come up with a way of recognizing those who contribute. They will also be next in line to get help maxing out their own artisans after the two of us have finished with ours.

Stay tuned for more updates. After we've all gotten farther into the game, you can expect to hear about some special events. We're open to suggestions, but one thing you can all expect to see is the long-awaited return of Hardcore Naked Ironman. None of us have any idea how far we'll get with that without weapons, given D3's damage mechanics, but we're going to try it and see how it goes.

We've been running a forum and gathering people for a couple weeks now, and I feel it's time to make a more formal announcement to summarize what we're up to.

The first era of the Holy Knights ran from playing Diablo 1 in 1998 up through playing Guild Wars in 2005. Since that time most of us have gone our separate ways and played other games with other people. However, Diablo 3 is slated to be released in just under a week. With the long-awaited appearance of this new sequel to the first game we ever played together, PureLegit and I are restoring the Holy Knights and inviting all comers to take arms with us against the minions of the Burning Hells. Whether you are a first- or second-generation Hk veteran from the Diablo or Warcraft 3 eras, returning to the fold once again; someone whom our members have met playing another game during our long interregnum; or a newcomer joining us for the first time: welcome, or welcome back.

Some information about what we will be doing:
PureLegit and I (Kanddak) will be the Leaders.
A Council will assist us in running the clan. At present, Smurf, MidnightSun and Hitman are slated to serve on the Council. We may add additional Council Members or other administrative positions as the clan expands. If you are one of our old members and have accrued some clan leadership experience (I've heard that a lot of you did in WoW), then be sure to let us know.

Our basic mission is to create an organization that helps our members have more fun playing Diablo 3 than they would have on their own. Initially we're just going to go for playing the game a lot and seeing the sights, but as the novelty wears off we will be adding various events and competitions to keep things fresh.
Our leaders are grown-ups with lives, and our membership philosophy is open-admission with regard to gaming skill and available time to commit. We hope to welcome a diverse community of gamers while still providing opportunities and recognition for the more serious players among us.

We will hold a brief organizational meeting on Wednesday, May 16th, at 8:00 PM Eastern time, in a venue to be announced. Attendance at this meeting is not mandatory or expected for all members; the meeting is mainly for individuals who are interested in helping run the clan. If you would rather just play a whole ton of D3, then feel free to do so. If you are interested in helping out behind the scenes to build a stronger community, check back here for more information.

Finally, please see the forum thread at http://forum.clanhk.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30 for our plans for the launch date. We are working to match people into groups based on their class selections, availability and preferred play styles. We may also be planning some competitions such as the first group to complete each act of the game, or the individual who keeps playing for the longest continuous time after the servers go live.