Leaving OpenArena pro scene

Alright, it will be a long one, so you’d better grab a beer, as I did.

OpenArena is a GPL2 licenced Quake III content replacement project. It is lead by leileilol (sometimes just leilei or leilol), who doesn’t hide the fact, that the game is his. Everyone can only contribute through him. Which is needed because of the strict GPL issues (however strict there were two times proprietary stuff released with the game), but also harmful because of the narrowing of views. The manga style is said to be reduced in 0.9, but he won’t address the pro gamer community. But what is a multiplayer only game good for if not competitional gaming? I played the game from the 0.6 release, I even blogged about it in july 2007. After nearly two years of gaming I hope the 0.9 in the autumn will bring some more polishment.

With such gaming experience behind me, I decided in autumn 2008, that I try out some clan stuff. I first turned to /taka/ clan, because they had the most Hungarian players, and playing with your own nationality can’t go wrong, right? It turned out, that they went from a Hungarian only to an international clan, but I was welcomed. We played some matches, some good and some really bad. A God and StrikerFred were our heroes, but when we faced clans who had more pro players than us, we were really badly punished.

In the winter 2009, /taka/ was destroyed. Or so did the rumours go, but in reality Zero and ADA (A God) decided to have another name, and the other /taka/ founder Neiji was kicked. The new page was made in january, which is still online, so you can more or less follow the things. All the more experienced /taka/ players just changed the clantag, and everything was the same. SoSo (another Hungarian) formed Hell Raisers Clan, which was regarded as our beta clan. We joined the OpenArena Clan Leage, where we experienced some really serious defeats. And than Zero left the clan. It hit me unaccepted, because he talked earlier that all the clan members have to activate themselves, and than I offered him my help as organizer. And than I thought it is alright, but than he left the clan with a single forum topic.

Ok, I was left alone, I took over every organization things. I talked with SoSo about /HeRa/ Clan, and he just replied that, he’s in eG already, so HeRa doesn’t exist anymore. Cool. Now we made the active HeRa members to eX members. 6502 had a great influence on the clan, he came up with the mentor system, and he pulled it out perfectly. S.Creamer was raised from HeRa to eX in no time, and now he’s a fierce warrior. S.Creamer and Diho was raised in eX, and I’m really proud of them.

Unfortunately we got out of steam, Narses completely and silently turned his back on OA, and OA-CL. There isn’t a true alternative. SoSo and Zero wanted to start another leage on national bases, but it failed as it was borned. The site even had a spelling mistake in its name and it was supposed to be organized by to teenagers who previously left their clan dying? Non-sense. I didn’t organized matches, because we didn’t want any serious defeats again, but it was quite hard to organize trainings. There were problems with one HeRa member, we lost some flags because of him, and than came the match against oaHUN. I think it was the final blow. The oaHUN members aren’t good except SteveFox, but we were owned. After that 6502 asked: “What are we, if we suffer from oaHUN too?” Yeah, we are nothing.

After some levitation in the void, there came some new members. Stalker and Tobey. Stalker is a great player, he was by K/M, Tobey is infamous in the scene, but he had some tremendous skill improvements. Zero and even Stalker said that they can easily beat Tobey, but he actually beat all the eXes, and some oaN members too. Maybe something is fishy, but I didn’t care ’cause he fragged on our side. He still has some huge ego, which no one can stand, and actually after threatening me three times that he will leave us, he finally left the clan when I left it too. After Stalker and Tobey was in, another German soldier stepped in: w33d. And a guy named j0nas, from Sweden if I’m right. Now we had the skilled members, we even kicked Evil’s butt, everything was perfect. Even the OA-CL was back.

Or at least it seemed so. Because Narses left without a word, Geroj, the other admin took over things. Better said he didn’t take over anything, he just gave admin rights to K/Maiji/M. Maiji is Stalker’s schoolmate so they solved the clan not only in Germany but in the neighbourhood. Some of the other clans didn’t like it at all. And now with 6R, eG and uM having a full objection against the leage leading it won’t get nowhere I’m sure. And that was the point when I said: no more, thanks.

I decided to leave on Monday, and now on Thursday I can surely say the OA-CL leage is dead. The OA-CL servers are down, and will never again come back. Some say that Maiji and Stalker killed the leage, but it’s not true. Narses and Geroj killed the leage. They could save it while they knew every player and every helper in the leage, and they could choose the person everyone would accept. They didn’t. The other clans didn’t accept the new leadership, and instead trying to convince Geroj about that, they left it dying. Maybe they will create a new one, who knows.

Compared to that I just simply wanted to play OA in a clan, I caught myself being a lone clanleader for two months. S.Creamer and 6502 can’t play because of their jobs (though S.Creamer got an invitation from eG), Diho left OA entirely, then came back just to join SOD (former oaHUN) and ADA was put in an inactive state after playing months seek and hide, and now he has gone mad. The old team was gone, and the reason fighting for a new one is gone too. Stalker didn’t want to be co-leader anymore, due to the voices which echo lies through the community. Everything depends on StrikerFred. Not the best moment to give over the clan, but if it dies off completely I won’t have a hard feelings about it.

I will be still around on the servers, but don’t waste your time inviting me to clans. I only have time for one-or-two frags, not any more. OA right now doesn’t deserves time to be taken away from something else.