Featured CMDR “Mc” Drazkul

What was your first experience with the Elite universe and what keeps you playing it today?

My first memory of Elite is running out of fuel two jumps in and realising I’d made a mistake I reset my Commander save. After that I began to follow some of the Elite Youtubers of the time and began to learn what I needed.

I keep playing for a few reasons. One is, I really enjoy the community, which is for the most part very welcoming and helpful. The other reason is I enjoy going out and exploring the galaxy – which is made even better when I find ELW’s to taunt Cmdr “Thunderseal Rebuy” Soantii.

Tell a quick story about your favorite moment in Elite: Dangerous.

Ohh this is a tough question. Probably my favourite is when I did my first buckyball to Beagle and got to meet one of our commanders, Commander GrumpyinUT at Beagle Point who at the time was doing a circumnavigation. Turned out I was the first member of The Fatherhood he met as he’d been going for 6 months (it amused him that it had taken me just 13 hours and 45 mins to get to the same place as he did).

Tell the story of how you earned your callsign.

When I went to ECM (Elite Community Meet) in Manchester in 2019, I arrived the day before, so I had all day to wander around Manchester. Whilst doing so I was chatting with the Wing Command guys and they were suggesting places to eat. I inadvertently let slip that I’m extremely picky with my food and that McDonald’s was pretty much the only place I’d go to. They decided to give me the nickname “Mc” in honour of this.

Tell us about your favorite ship in the game.

My favourite ship is probably the Anaconda, although the Krait Phantom is a very close 2nd. I know a lot of people dislike the Anaconda because its slow and not very maneuverable, but thats pretty much why I love it. It feels like I’m piloting a massive cargo ship especially as the view has the ship stretching out in front of you.

I have a couple of them but my favourite one will probably be my first Beagle run Anaconda, the TFS Star Skimmer. I haven’t flown it since I arrived back at Schwann Port when I returned from Beagle beacause I wanted to leave it just as it was when I arrived back.

What drew you to join The Fatherhood?

When I first started Elite I’d taken a look at a few wings but never got around to applying to any. In 2017 I took a break during the latter part of the year and when I restarted playing again around Christmas/January I started to look again and saw The Fatherhood.

As my son was by then 4 and my game time was becoming a bit less (I was gutted when my son stopped having Afternoon naps) I saw The Fatherhood and the whole play when you can/no time commitment needed really appealed to me so I hit apply.

When I first joined there wasn’t any in game squadrons at all so my first one was Alpha when squadrons launched. When Randalph set up Pioneers I immediatly jumped to it as I rarely do anything other than exploring so Pioneers was a more natural fit.

What’s your day job, and how do you balance your home, work and gaming life (or do you)?

I’m quite lucky when it comes to game time because due to my heart condition I only work 2 days and as I work in education I also get all the school holidays off. Late June and Early/Mid July is especially great for game time as my son is still at school but I’ll of finished work because the college finishes for the summer in mid June.

It does mean though that I’m rarely around in the evening though as I tend to watch TV with my wife.

What is your secret to becoming such a master of delegating responsibility?

Practice and a desire to not have to do stuff yourself, oh and making sure you get promoted high enough. 😀

What is one thing most people don’t know about you that you wish they did?

I find way more ELW’s then I let on.

How did you come by the superpower to break things?

That was a surprise—even to me—until I was given admin priviledges on the Discord and I started experimenting. 😀

How did you come up with the name of your Commander?

It’s a name I’ve been using for a while. I first used it for my character in World of Warcraft around 15-18 years ago. I’d always liked the name Draz after a character on a TV show I used to watch when I was a kid and the Kul bit came from thinking I needed something like Skull on the end for my WoW character so I just shorted it and stuck it on the end.

Any fatherly advice for new CMDRs trying to make their way in Elite: Dangerous?

Take you time. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, we were all new to the game once and it does have a lot of stuff to learn about – even now I’m clueless when it comes to a lot of stuff and I’ve played nearly 5 years. Don’t think you need to bee line to the big ships as quite a few E:D players prefer the small and medium ships. Have fun.