Gold Leader 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2003 What follows is the draft for the swz history for our website. Its posted here not to start flame wars or arguments (please), but to get any corrections that I have made mistakes in, and to get some other points of views added as I can only add my own without others getting involved in constructing this...  So:  -If you feel I have added something wrong, qoute the original text and what you would edit about it in your reply  -If you feel I have left something important out, write what should be included exactly, and note where you would insert it  -If there are spelling or grammar errors please correct them and post the original and the correction, im too lazy to spell check   Of special interest is squads, if you have any information regarding the development or endings of squads please post the relevant information including dates... and where and how this information should be added within...  Of Secondary interest is single players and special accomplishments they made over the years, that are still remembered today. Include the exact line/s you would add and where  Thanks for your help ------------------  Preface: Summer 96-Spring 97 = A Starship War T1  To understand the history of SWZ one must go back in time to the Fall of 1996, in a small player run zone (By Vespar) named "A Starship War T1". It was there in this blossoming player run zone that the SWZ story begins. The zone was based around two freqs, the rebels and the imperials, locked in an enternal war between the Rebels Corellian Corvette and the Empires Starship. Near the end of the zone the Starship was changed to a large Deathstar, and it is rumored DSB took the inspiration from that. Of course the most popular feature of the zone, were the Capital Starships. Both teams shared the lancaster as the capital ship originally, until the shark was developed later into the shipset (Shark was a relatively new introduction to Subspace then.)  A mod in the zone, Gold Leader, was able to use his influence to get the best pilots into one squad, "Gold Squadron" which completely dominated the zone. Before long "Rogue Squadron" had allied with Gold Squadron, and the Rebel hold on the Zone was nearly crippling to the spirit of fun competition, without decent opponents of the same calibre. To break this choke hold on the zone, a enterprising player named Captain Harloch came along and formed "Zeta Squadron" with the imperial theme, intent on shaking things up for the better. Soon the entire zone was abroil with exciting events and squad leagues (originally called 'Squad Wars' then).  It was an exciting zone, in which the mods took a personal interest in all the players, making it highly addictive and giving it a real feeling of "home" on the internet. Not all was perfect however, as many mods were accused of cheating. The worst of these was Kula Shaker, who was notorious for shipresetting his way through any defenses.  Other Popular Mods during this time included: SpamPower, ablondechic, Armed Armadillo, Poch  In those days for a player run zone to compete with the VIE zones was extremely difficult, and such a zones popularity usually only lasted a few months. Although it outlasted most player run zones, it did begin to slowly die out after a year. While the zone gradually began to fade away, Captain Harloch took the lessons learned there with him into a test zone... to recreate the glory of the original in a new and improved zone he had begun working on in secret.    The Zeta Star Wars Test Zone: Winter 1997 - Spring 1998  With the playerbase of Starship war scattered in various zones, mainly into the new Deathstar Battle, Zeta Squadron had remained together for the most part, and begun to test a new zone for the continuation of the Star Wars theme. Originally it was run off of a cable line at Draco Falcon, or RandyKelly's (AS accounts differ) house. Eventually the word got out that Harloch was building the ZONE, AND SOME OF the old Starship war players began TO migrate TO the test ZONE, including Rogue Leader AND Gold Leader, who brought their squads AND started the ZONE up efficiently... WITH Zeta being already IN place.  The FIRST Tilesets were made by Death Raven, WITH the FIRST map made by Captains Harloch AND Cohn, AND included such curiously non star wars themes AS "The Bong" ( A large pot smoking bong ON the map ) AND several nondescript clusters OF seemingly random bases. Eventually the bases were narrowed down TO two worlds, LEFT AND RIGHT, which included bases within their circular enclosures. Later this was expanded TO North AND South Worlds AS well, ALL WITH their own NAMES such AS Hoth AND Endor.  The settings were fast AND furious, attempting TO simulate the effects OF "real" energy weapons IN SPACE. A single bomb demolished an enemy AS a particle cannon might, while a stream OF bullets cut through them AS a laser. The settings were very popular AND made FOR SOME OF the fastest paced flagging WITH intense ACTION the subspace world had yet seen. It still had the oomph OF the original WITH the Capital Starship theme, AND players began TO flock TO the new ZONE.  After a few months, Captain Harloch was able TO GET the ZONE hosted by Xalimar, who had taken a liking TO the ZONE. Asking FOR NAME suggestions, Harloch went WITH Gold Leader's offer of "StarWarzone"   The Zeta Era / Birth of StarWarzone: Spring 1998 - Winter 1998  This time period marked the entry of StarWarzone upon the Subspace stage as a fresh new player run zone for Warzone style gaming. Zeta controlled literally everything in the zone, including the majority of skiled squad members. With its Stranglehold on the zone, something had to give. An up and coming squad which was present in the Test zone, began to flex its muscle in the newly hosted zone... ORION. Led by Craftwise, this annoying bomber based squad thrived on killing everyone in center on sight, especially the Zetas. This rivalry gave the zone back its spice, and soon enough Gold Squad and Rogue Squad were back to full force, the zone enjoying the fruits of healthy competition. Zeta became the Squad to hate, which fueled the flame and spirited nature of the flag games.  Death Raven continued to produce new and better tilesets and maps, with the Star Wars theme taking even greater life. Soon the Circular World Areas were put aside in favor of individually named bases. Gold Leader was set to task building a website, which was amatuerish at best. Later in the year Death Raven used the content but completely overhauled the shoddy graphics, making for a decent website (Which if anyone remembers used a large red nav bar frame!)  A popular and regular event was introduced, Elim, with three lives. This was played nightly, with players such as Captain Cohn , Adept Player and Craftwise dominating the event. The fast paced 'one shot kill' settings were changed to a slightly slower style, with the Zeta interest in Extreme Games, its influence on settings was apparent (Extreme games was later to change to slower, and then even faster settings). Further imitating Extreme games, private freqs were introduced later in the year, although ship rules were still enforced by odd or even frequencies, these were called "Pirate Freqs".  Popular mods introduced in this time period include: Moo Master, USS Colorado, Gold_Leader, Armed Armadillo, Tailchaser  Not yet a year had passed by when the Zeta Leadership began to lose some interest in StarWarzone. Much Zeta influence was being directed towards Extreme Games. As the zone neared its first year anniversary, Captain Harloch had his hands full with a series of events for the general subspace community called "Saturday Night Slayfest". The time had come to pass the zone torch to someone new.  The Gold/Airpain Era: Winter 1998 - Winter 1999  As Captain Harloch began to spend more time away from SWZ, involved with Extreme Games and Slayfests, he began to delegate more responsibility to his staff. Gold_Leader was eventually appointed to the newly created "Chief Smod" position (with unofficial sysop), and took control of the zone. It was during this time that an efficient staff was recruited and trained to fill the needs of all time zones, and the zone population flourished, becoming more popular than ever. Gold Squadron began to dominate the zone, pushing aside both ORION and Zeta. Squad competition rose to meet the challenge, and many new squads were created during this year. Tailchaser was appointed as "Co Sysop" with Harloch and Cohn, but remained very low key at this time. Zone popularity was at an all time high, and a new zone was created to hold the newly created league operations geared towards the zones now "veteran" pilots.  Noting a lack of active and mature Smoderators, Gold began to observe a few of the more promising newly recruited mods for promotion. The mod showing the most maturity and dedication was Airpain, and with Harlochs approval, he was promoted to Smod. Airpain demonstrated a knack for organization beyond that of Gold, and was gradually given more control of the Zone over the year, as GL backed off considerably and let Airpain do his magic. Building upon the previous staff, Airpain shaped it into the best functioning group of moderators the zone has seen , before or since. To many vets of SWZ, this year is known as the Glory days of SWZ, when zone population and squad competition was if not at its height then at its best, and when all mods were active and dedicated to the smooth operation of a friendly atmosphere, reminescent of the original Starshipwar Zone. New squads were formed including 'Cantina Band'. Sadly, by the end of the year, Rogue Squadron had all but died out. A shift in veteran interest was taking place.  Popular mods introduced in this era include: Airpain, Mom  The Tailchaser Era: Spring 1999-2001  Although appointed as an official "Co-Sysop" by Harloch late in the previous era, Tailchaser kept a low profile at first. Gold began to lose interest in the zone as Harloch had done, and Airpain was left completely in control of the staff. Tailchaser began to flex his muscle a bit, and make his presence known. The settings GL/Airpain had changed during their year were minor adjustments to nueting and flag/portal timers, so Tail thought it time to tweak the entire settings a bit. To his credit, the zone settings were refined to a point of near perfection, especially in the realm of latency settings, which helped the zone to enjoy an even larger population for some time.  Sometime early in this era, Captain Harloch and Cohn virtually left StarWarzone on a semi-permanent basis as they became obsessed with the newly developed Infantry Game (A subspace offshoot). This left Tailchaser as the full Sysop.  In early 2000, Squad competition levels began to shift again, as Gold Leader completely left the zone to go to Everquest and Infantry with Harloch, leaving Gold Squad to die off, with ORION and Zeta rising to dominance again. Airpain was left to deal with everything solo including the newly made StarWarzone League Zone, and the Main Zone itself. Tailchaser at this time was still learning the ropes. And a relatively new Smod on the Scene, Mom., was starting to gain more influence on staff, and working with Airpain. Soon though, the pressure of running everything got to Airpain, and he retired from subspace when it was no longer fun for him to login at all. He is remembered as possibly the best Chief Smod to date. USS Colorado took the Chief Smod Position temporarily for some time. Later, Mom. took over the position of Chief Smod and Tailchaser stepped up fully as an active Sysop in total control. Somewhere around 2000, Gold Leader returned to the zone to link up with Poch, and being frustrated that their new zone venture "Asteroid War" did not work out, they made new settings for SWZ which CH put into full use. These would be used for many years to come, with small edits here and there over time. The settings brought a new life to the zone, and once again the population enjoyed an upswing. It was then that the zone began to see a whole new series of squads who had begun to rise up against the big established squads, as private freqs were being run regularly. Kittens, Burn, X-Hale, and The Genocide are amoung the many new squads of this period. Much merging and shuffling of squads went on, and squads were being born and dying over night in what seemed like a mad chaotic squad juggling event. For the best example of this, Kittens merged with Burn, which became Kittens-Burning. In turn this evolved into a squad named Burning-Force. Burning-Force merged with Gold-Squadron into a squad called Jedi^Force (originally to be called Gold^Force!). This type of shuffling was typical of the period. What is of note during this period is the introduction of new social controls over players regarding cursing and acting out and new rules regarding what could and couldnt be done in the game itself, which many of these vets began to resent. So there was born into SWZ a special brand of cheater, who enjoyed getting a rise out of the mods. No history of the zone would be complete without mentioning Kaz, Fat Kat, Zorro, Elmokupo, Arcadian, MaSe.... all these and more who did all that they could to simply irritate the mods whom they saw as taking themselves too seriously, and resented the control over them. Some were hackers (Kaz), some were disruptors of the game (Fat Kat, Zorro, Elmokupo) while some used Twister (Arcadian) and some were simply abusers of the social rules who enjoyed testing the limits of mods (MaSe, Death Comes Ripping); they represented a whole new breed of player entering the zone and subspace in general. Groups of players began to organize and go from zone to zone toying with the mods for fun, and SWZ was one of the main targets. Sadly, in the eyes of many players the zone began to be considered laughable because of these events. With each new infraction, mods reacted with more rules and regulations, which further fed the resentment of these players. Eventually the worst of these players were dealt with and their ability to harm the zone removed, but an underground remained of likeminded individuals, who popped up from time to time. The middle part of this era might be called the Era of Squads. With the private freqs and the interest of squads being at an all time high, competition and rivalry had reached its peak. The League Zone was flourishing, and for many had become an obsession. The zone was enjoying a renaissance! The message board was practically on fire, and it could be said that this period was the greatest of all time for SWZ. The most damaging event of the era might be called the "Jedi Force Exodus", in which Tailchaser banned Trint for lagging into a flag room and taking his teams flags, which erupted a huge fight between Tailchaser and TrashcanMan (a prominent smod of the time). Eventually, Trashcanman was fired over this, and 3 or 4 Jedi Force smods followed. There was building in the entire zone a very anti Tailchaser sentiment, as he became increasingly estranged from the playerbase. After the height of the middle period, Tailchaser nearly dissapeared. He still came on from time to time, but it was rare. At times he would appear for days or even weeks at a time, but for the most part he remained absent. At the end of this period he was never to be seen. Pubs went back into main, and interest began to dwindle. Popular Mods introduced in this period were: Miew, Maddok, Whizzbanger, Wild, Makemyday, Trashcanman, Jigga, Dudley-Do-Right  The Smod Conglomerate: 2001-2002  This time period saw the Smods taking more control of the zone as Tailchaser was increasingly afk and disinterested. Mom generally ran the zone, with Heart Break Kid and other smods helping. Growing resentment amoung the smods over Tailchasers absence eventually led them to attempt to remove him from the staff through Captain Harloch, and for a long time Harloch wrestled with the decision. Meanwhile the first flagging league since Starship war was ran in the SWZL zone, to some success but much disinterest. New squads such as Eminence were founded during this period. CM had begun to develop a new shipset based on large caps, which was brilliant but had such a lukewarm reception it was not used. He also made new tiles for the zone but it was likewise rejected. This period was one of stagnancy, where the sysop was afk and the smods unempowered to act alone. CM's developments would lay dormant until the NEXT TIME frame... Many players AND staff had grown frustrated AND retired FROM the ZONE. But eventually CH came TO a decision. It was decided that Miew was TO be the new Sysop OF SWZ. Due TO his being a relatively new smod, the other smods were hesitant AT FIRST, but he would soon prove himself. Maddok was taking great strides IN the realm OF the staff, AND took charge OF that role AS chief smod.  The Miew Era: 2002-???  Miew soon SET TO the task OF USING his programming experience TO help shape the ZONE bots FOR the better, AND many bot changes have already been made. This era has seen already the development OF interesting arenas by Exdeath AND RadicalEd. Many other new development directions ARE underway, AND this may be remembered AS a TIME OF great change FOR the better. Gold AND Maddok LEFT the ZONE TO play the shadowbane beta, but ONLY Gold returned AS Maddok had school TO contend WITH. WITH Maddok away, Mom once again took up the staff role. -AND the rest will be told AT a later TIME, WITH history AS the ONLY judge Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SoM 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2003 I dont see the part when Incoming got created and became the best flagging squad ever. Oh well  And The K was quite organized back in 99' WITH SOME good peeps.  Anyway....good WORK gl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slyth 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2003 wow GG GL :clap: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gold Leader 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2003 QUOTE I dont see the part when Incoming got created and became the best flagging squad ever. Oh well And The K was quite organized back in 99' WITH SOME good peeps.Anyway....good WORK gl  as I said som, please include the text youd like to see added, after doing your own research into the matter Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
50% Packetloss 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2003 not sure if its truly history  - Maddok organized Tourney with PL and Senti. - HBK gave swzl to Mackie, dont remember completely but think it had something to do with kicking orion from league? lol is there any mention of mackieman in there? - undy made duel arenas and everything JAD has done - idea of prac days, not sure if this was previous to miew  small stuff, not sure if you want to get the small details. tourney was probably the largest of those Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hindsight 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 wow...simply incredible! Â the history of this zone just amazes me, so much...i wish i could have been here from the start.... Â excellent job GL. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gold Leader 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 not sure if its truly history - Maddok organized Tourney with PL and Senti. - HBK gave swzl to Mackie, dont remember completely but think it had something to do with kicking orion from league? lol is there any mention of mackieman in there? - undy made duel arenas and everything JAD has done - idea of prac days, not sure if this was previous to miew  small stuff, not sure if you want to get the small details. tourney was probably the largest of those  some decent things to include, can you type it up how it should be and tell me where to insert it Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
50% Packetloss 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Tourney Story One day when maddok was viewing http://www.goatse.cx/ he thought of a grand idea. It was so genious that it got him laid at least 10 times a day. He shared his incredable thinking with Sentinel^ and Pharaoh's Legacy, SWZ Tourney was born. WITH Senti's master map skillz and PL's elite head ref skillz combined, NO one could resist how damn sexy the arena IS. Every village idiot signed up TO be a part OF the history, AS the 3 leet partners ran the most impressive Tourney League TO this DAY.  Mackieman Story Mackie was born AND he was given swzl. THEN he met 50% Packetloss AT Disneyland. Oh yah, AND he owns sshq.com  Undy made a duel map Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JAD 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Death Raven = Dead Crow = Cuervo Murete Who has prolly made nearly all but 1 SWZ Pub tileset (the current one slyth made). Â A mention of D'Elite would be nice. A lot OF CURRENT vets were ON D (although it was a joke AT the TIME) silly lamer squads: Jackasses!, (sd was cap) Armored_Corp,s Veterans^ (hahaha sorry but vets^ used TO GET ragged ON so bad:) >shield< (sorry raynor <3) there ARE MORE I can ADD WHEN i think OF them. Â If I am mentioned IN ANY way WITH maps. Give credit TO FF AND senti (swzdev team) IN that area also. Â Pointman was sysop FOR a brief TIME before miew he was sorta IN BETWEEN the TIME after tc quit AND ch/pm took over. Pm tried a lot OF different ideas but due TO obligations IN his main ZONE he LEFT once miew was established. Pointman should also be noted AS HAVING the highest score rec FOR the longest period OF TIME. Â I still feel that PM's rec would hold today years later had not tc made point formula closer to eg points. He is IMO the best spider pilot (flagging only, Ashen in the center) ever in SWZ. " Then I beat G !'s rec sorry gl you were trying that reset too ). After that G ! then HBK and Zero+ had it for a while. (who the hell knows after that know i stopped caring ). Â Â Â Â /JAD Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Circle 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Fat Kat and Zorro were the same person... I dunno if that was suppose to be a secret but ya . Â I believe PT-109 was the one who started the first SWZL, with the help of others like airpain. Â Even though I was in X-hale and it was the flagging powerhouse of its days... I don't really know who the FIRST squad leader was... it could be EJ but I'm not sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Quickshot* 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 vets^ were active in the time of geno a lil before geno's era. but ALL within that tim eba AND forum started it  it IS fine say we got ripped ON, but you can't get on the player choice i made... :dance:  Quick* Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SoM 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Subslayer was Highscorer like 10 years in a row with the old point form. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
everdream 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Wow, this should definitely be on the SWZ website. All of the people GL mentioned should get some kind of credit for contributing to the zone. Especially, the mods and sysops. They put in so much of their own time to make sure players enjoy themselves. Â Some info about the High scorers, who created SWZL, and SWZT would be nice too. I don't know who started those leagues, but I think they deserve a mention IN the history OF SWZ. Â Will the GL Era be NEXT??? *crosses fingers* Great Job GL! Â *e Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WhizzBanger 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 *sniffle* :cow: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
senti 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 im not mentioned (yet), but still a good text =) Â -Senti Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Raynor 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 An up and coming squadwhich was present in the Test zone, began to flex its muscle in the newly hosted zone... ORION. Led by Craftwise, this annoying bomber based squad thrived on killing everyone in center on sight, especially the Zetas. Â Some background history about ORION: O R I O N was created back in the early VIE days by red moon. Started as ORION without the spaces. BadBob, The Deist, Craftwise and Doctord are the old squadowners. When the VIE server went offline Jolt stole the squadname ORION. O R I O N S Q U A D was created. O R I O N S Q U A D with the leader Craftwise went to SWZ. Craftwise got banned by Tailchaser because TailChaser said he was a cheater, he never prove anything. Craftwise went inactive, after a month Doctord was able to contact him. Craft squadgranted Doctord around January 2000. From that moment most of the old VIE members went inactive. O R I O N S A R E I T was created by SPACGHOST, a wave of new fresh recruits joined: Machine-, Poserwannabe, Lone Star, Reelik, Marrow82, Slim- are a few of them. That was in January 2000. O R I O N S A R E I T and O R I O N S Q U A D merged as 1 stronger squad called O R I O N. Doctord squadgranted Amose a year later, but Amose found out soon he didn't LIKE TO lead ORION. Doctord was able TO keep ORION together FOR a longer TIME WITH SPACGHOST, Rickeyboy, Revenger, Circle AND my own help. Since July 2002 Im captain OF ORION. July 2003, by the leadership OF Rickeyboy AND Poser, O R I O N made it TO the finals OF SWZL FOR the FIRST TIME IN O R I O N history. Â I would LIKE TO READ similair squadhistories about other squads. JediForce, The K, Gold Squadron, Zeta, etc. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gold Leader 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Excellent yes , go get your squad histories and I'll find a way TO ADD them Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Raynor 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 I got 12 pages of ORION history, facts, all members, stats, etc (verdana 10pt). Most of that isnt for public but I could add some facts soon. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
50% Packetloss 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 the_magi started in order to take members from armored_corps. Started by Crackattack, he recruited anyone who didnt have him on thier ignore lists. Spamming the chats with the squadjoin password, maji was started with about 5 people. After an internal coup, 50% Packetloss took over and started to update website stuff and attempt to get people to show for league. No one showed and I gave it to richard. Then somehow conker got it and he still is looking for new recuits. If you just read this, you are now 10x stupider than before Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DEAF 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 a few right now  - Kittens/Burn/Gold shit all happened summer of 99, by the end of summer JF was established same with xhale and crap like that  i dont remember KB being called burning-force though, i might be mistaken  Jedi Force Exodus is a pretty gay title  THe people i worked with to setup swzl were pt-109, trint, aerofox, ch, and i dont remember if mackie was there season 1  EDIT :HO HO SINC EMACKIE ISNT DRUNK HE REMEMBER IT WAS AIRPAIN IN CHARGE OF THE FIRST CAUE I HAD THOSE WEIRE HAWAIIN EMAILS IN M INBOX Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SoM 0 Report post Posted September 25, 2003 Ill write some history about SWZL-only/SWZFL-only/incoming Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mackieman 0 Report post Posted September 26, 2003 SWZL was started by airpain with ideas and a map from PT-109, Aero, and others. When airpain left, Poch took over. After a pretty bad season, Poch left with a bad taste in his mouth. I volunteered to take over SWZL because I saw that the players really enjoyed it. Â I ran it for what I like to call a successful season, and then I decided to let HBK have it because I was doing other things with other zones in the game at the time. He had a rough go of it, and also left with a bad taste in his mouth. At this point, I was asked by HBK to come back and take over. I did, and another successful season was had with Garath as coordinator. Â Those are the highlights. If further information is needed, you know where to find me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Circle 0 Report post Posted September 26, 2003 Ya, I remember it more clearly now, it was airpain that lead the first SWZL staff. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kangsta 0 Report post Posted September 26, 2003 i don get one mention in dat.. :Evil: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iceman. 0 Report post Posted September 26, 2003 The only thing I would suggest is that you re-write it in first person rather than third person. You can gather accounts of the history from others and quote them in the history section, giving their testimony of how it was from their point of view. I think this could turn out to be a kick ass idea. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites