My personal history with TF and Quake goes back to September 2nd, 1996. It was the first game I ever downloaded and installed on my computer (and still running), and introduced me to online gaming. I started out like most people, playing DeathMatch every morning before school, then after school, before and after work... whenever I had a free moment basically. :) I was a boarder then, a nasty habit I picked up and didn't shake for a long time. I eventually grew tired of DM, and found this neat little mod called `Capture the Flag` which was just teams of red and blue guys scurrying about retrieving 2 silly looking glowing keys. Fun. Then, my ISP decided to go to shit and I was left out in the cold, a hpb with a 7000 ping and nowhere to turn.... oops, then I changed ISPs and kept playing.
Around that time, QW started popping up, with the whole login bit, and I began keeping tabs on myself, with the cool record keeping features and all. As I scrolled the list of available servers one night, I picked one at random, and logged in.... and started downloading something called `TeamFortress: Two Forts.` Well this sounded promising, and it started downloading a huge amount of files..... it took forever. Once it was done though, I was never so amazed in all my life. HERE was the game that I had been looking for. I started playing, and I don't think I stopped for 12 hours or so. I tried every class there was, and like everyone else, I chose to learn demoman first. I continued playing TF obsessively, leaving CTF as only a fading memory.
I chose to inhabit the wonder, fantastic, awesome, super-duper ultra-old school CTS 2fort_32 Server as my unofficial home, even though it was way out on the west coast, and at the time I lived in Miami. That server was breeding ground to almost all of the great CTS irc clans, and so many great players, I can hardly remember them all. Night after night, we played, not even noticing how bad the ping was a lot of the time, just simply enjoying the summer of our TF youth in mid 1997....
Around that time I began noticing a lot of the better players began sporting tags that denoted a particular clan they pledged allegiance to. I began to want to join a clan at this point, thinking it would be fun to play organized TF in a match against another clan. So I began practicing intensely, learning what mm 2 binds were, knowing each nuance of firing a pipe at an angle into the ground to get a particular bounce, watching other players do some `neat tricks` like pipe jump, generally just honing my skills so I would get offered to join a clan. And eventually, I did get an offer.
Zedrick, the original leader of .M, or what is Clan Marauder, asked me to join after a particularly good round I had one night on the CTS server. I had been noticing a lot of .M's on the server lately, and they were all damned good, and lpbs to boot, so I figured why not. So began my life as a Dot M. I met some of the best, smartest players I've ever received the privilege of playing with: Zedrick, Ben, Gandalf, Darkside, BlackJellcap, Jonny Rotten, Infrared, McBain, Hoser, Bleeder, Frodaddy, Taronish, Jooky, Sno`Nuff, even Chanel the psycho. As a group, we all cut our teeth together, basically learning the fundamentals of TF that we still follow today. We played a lot of great games with our close friends at Clan Erinyes, a group I still have high regards for, especially Ares (you own), and were the first clan to defeat UVM in an official match (it was a big deal to us back then, heh!). Life was good.
But as the story goes, all good things come to an end. Zedrick left the clan to pursue his career in advertising and graphics, and I suceeded him as leader. I did the best I could, but we were all pretty much still newbies, not knowing too much about maps other than 2fort32. We decided to join the DW Expansion League, and in our first ever match on 2fort4, we lost 3 to 1. That loss devastated us, and we had a bitter fight on IRC afterwards. Words were exchanged, ppl banned from the channel, others not allowed to speak.... finally in frusteration, I simply quit as leader and left.
I considered retiring from TF altogether, but I still enjoyed the rush too much. My friend Chopin, leader of UVM, convinced me to join him there and help rebuild them, since they had undergone a massive exodus of players. So I took Jonny, BlackJell, Goat Eater, and Chiqi with me to have a go at it. I had a good time, and was able to meet a lot of new people, and play in some very fun and exciting matches. But UVM, nice as it was, just didn't feel totally right to me. It wasn't home.
About 6 weeks after we had been living in exile at UVM, I began to hear rumblings of reforming .M. I began getting ICQ messages from a lot of the ex members asking if I would return to lead the clan if enough support was gathered. I consented, and before I knew it, a lot of the old faces came back to start up anew. I said my sad goodbyes from UVM and from Goat and Chiqi, who chose to stay there, but I had to get back to my roots. .M was where I knew I felt right.
Reassembled, we stumbled through a few months of tough times, but I still felt like I was having fun. It took a long time, but I FINALLY learned to use the mouse :). We joined DW3, and I somehow managed to recruit a nice blend of talent and ping, and with the great scouting of Gand, Gand Jr, Darkside and Amygdala, we managed to win the DW3 title, shocking some big time clans along the way. After that though, it was a dark time for me. Alot of the players went to other clans, and we began slipping back again. I wasn't playing as often as I used to, because of my job, and the clan suffered somewhat. Luckily, around this time, I met one of my best friends in TF, Zonk, who I pestered to join .M for months before he caved because I owned him so much in the basement. *grin*
Alas, soon it was time for me to move to Los Angeles, and I feared how the clan would hold up in my long absence. So in July of 1998, I packed up all my earthly posessions in 4 boxes and moved to be near my lady.
When I finally returned to the clan several weeks later, we were not in the best of shape, and neither was my skill, which had never been that great anyways. The guys immediately welcomed me back with open arms, and I was greatly relieved not to have been overthrown or kicked out whist I was gone. :) We went through more ups and downs, I moved again, to a new apartment in LA, and kept chugging away at TF. I survived another possible break-up of the clan, and with Zonk at my side as co-leader now, managed to rebuild .M yet again with nothing more than string and glue. I guess this is where I am right now, so I'll stop here.
Alot of the people I learned this game with are now gone, but there are still lots that I see almost every day, or keep in some kind of contact with. I want to talk this moment to publicly name those people that have made TF so much fun and special for me: (in no particular order, just how I remembered `em): DS, BJC, Jonny, Gand, Zonk, Amok, Quick, Dr. Amyg, Ares, Draven, Mr Potato, Atrocity, Chopin, Goat, Chiqi, Hoser, Mcbain, Orf, Dark Vengeance, OSKI, MC, AC, Pman, DJ, Cock, Infect, Katie, and the entire old school CTS family (UVM, CE, GP, WM, .M, I lub j00 guys), SailorScout, Fayk, Taronish, and the entire Marauder family...... I feel like there are so many great people I'm forgetting, but don't be offended, I just can't remember right now. :) Anyways, that's my story in a nutshell. It's got its ups and downs, but by and large, I think I'm a better person because of it all.
And here's to our future, and the naysayers who don't think TF will survive. I'm a living testimonial to the longevity that this game has, and I plan on being here far into TF 3 and 4. *big grin* Good night. :)
Warm regards,
Evangelion.M
Clan Marauder
DoB in TeamFortress: 1/97