Half A Decade... To Rebuild
Xander2KX December 26 2007
This is the second and final version of history 2007, the first beeing about the first half of the year and containing innappropriate and unprofessional comments. It will not exactly follow the timeline since I will add comments on some subjects. You will see that my opinion changes as time advance.
January 2nd 2007. One of the first team in the history of cyber gaming reach 5 years of existence. Celebrations were amazing and tourneys with prizes were happening everywhere the team when those years. That would have been my dream. But reality has a funny to redefine your imagination. Let's come back 3 days ago.
December 31, 2007. On the financial side, it's not going too well so I know there will be no prizes as I would like to, but it's not the most important. I'm getting ready for another great holiday evening for my grand-father birthday and the new year eve. I decide I should go on xfire and wish everybody a happy new year. What a shock. One of the person I know for a long time and I trust most, CoLLecToR, was wearing the FB clan tag. Guess what my face looked like.
It just got worse. A huge total of 7 players left the following days. ShaDen, InFinity, Maalox, Deconcrisseur, proLifiq, Nemesis and Critical. There was a major problem and on certains case, a simple misundertand. At that time period I didn't have internet access until the end of January. First, proLifiq and Nemesis thought I left the team, but they came back right away. Then Maalox and Critical came back since they only left because the other members left. Critical finally left due to a lack of english members and DeConCrisSeuR never got the guts to come back after what I had done for him...
Let's go back in time. What really happenned? In order, CoLLecToR, Maalox, InFinity, ShaDen, Deconcrisseur, Nemesis, Critical and proLifiq left. Starting by the end;
- proLifiq and Nemesis left seeing no more Wolfpack members. On one side Nemesis didn't want to continue alone and proLifiq was only linked to this team by me at this time.
- Critical didn't like the fact that we were mostly talking in french and I had a hard time recruiting english persons.
- Deconcrisseur was hesitating. He didn't why he should left, but then again didn't see how he could stay.
- Infinity, on his side, is the type of person who likes to play for fun and angry attitude like mine were getting on his nerves. So Collector's departure was the opportunity to leave.
- Maalox, probably frustrated by the situation, leave because of Collector too and says he won't have time to play anymore with his new baby coming soon.
- ShaDen knew what this team was standing for. He knew it was a great team but with Collector out the picture, his dream to become one of the top players was in fading. He only saw that there would be a lot of work to do to recreate the team and he didn't want to do it so he left for another team that lasted... 2 weeks.
- CoLLecToR now. Out of many complicated situation, the one with Collector comes on top. Many factors made him leave, but what's sad is that he never came to me to talk about it. And yes, he refused to talk to me during 1 month, when it was him who destroyed what I took 5 years to build. Obviously, me and maalox whinning was one good reason. But on my side, it had changed for the better since the month of Mai, and was all good since november. So was it my fault. No. Maalox's fault, maybe a little bit since he kept whining while I was not there. From another point of view, just like in the Wolfpack, he found a similar frienship in FB adding to the fact they were playing Silkroad, a game the good old Collector still play. He also thought in one of the main reason, that his chances to be successful with FB were much higher than with us, but the fact is that even without him with us, we still had more chances. He realised that pretty quickly seeing they weren't serious what so ever and skill was not there really often. Most importantly, he admitted that he would have never left the team, he would not have had the guts to do it if I was there.
But the Wolfpack, at everyone's surprise was continuing. If some people were uncertain of my will of steel, they got served. Out of the players we had back then, Demon, Traker and Nemesis said their heart were with the team and stood up for it. I talked with some inactive members at this time who were disgusted to see what people can still do after all you've done for them. I then started to recruit again. Some young people such as Unreal and faith, N1xon and even Silver were ready to join the team, because they knew the greatness of this team.
With them, we tried to perform at CAL league without any preparation time. Unfortunatly for us, that season was to forget since most players didn't have any competition experience. The implication to strategies and scrims was not convincing me neither. Many problems happenned and I had to cut members of the team again.
I had to stood up for the team again just like I had been since January by beeing the best player, but this time, with a plan for recruitment and to get back CoLLecToR, ShaDen and Infinity like I had been working hard on. All started with the end of CAL S5. I was frustrated of beeing at this low level with such great skill in me. Some evening, luck show up for me. I go on a random server and see this [R22R]Equinox. I knew him from the time he was called KTF-Ironik and his skill wasn't unknown to me. I simply ask him how is team was going, he tells me that he is the only member remaining. Bingo! Before I even get the time to propose him to join us by saying we would have great chances to be one of the top team, he proposed me his services. Equinox is somebody alike me on some points. He is a good leader, somebody ''you think you can trust'', and he is serious in what he does. He was the perfect person to start the whole plan.
We started to play and set up matches with the help of Shaden and Infinity. At that time, CoLLecToR had already started to scrim again with us and also helped us dominate all TWL matches we had. It's finally from march to mai that those 3 good friends finally came back to the team. I had my smile back on!
En route for CAL S6, we had many fights and Equinox's futur with the team seemed uncertain. We started the season anyway with a lot of preparation. The result of the first match was incredible. A victory of 19-1 against a respected team made four years ago. But happy times didn't last. We realised that on many points, we were either not ready, either not able to give the maximum performance. We got really serious and made a perfect way to communicate in-game, but it was too late since we had lost a few important matches. A huge meeting followed this and at mostly everyone's joy, we decided to stop the CAL season. The primary reason beeing that we needed vacancy and that we didn't want to spend all summer inside.
And what has to happen happenned. This meeting had been leaded by Collector who had a lot on his heart. He was the leader of this idea to take a break. But we do not change our habits from one day to another, specially not its priorities. After only 2 weeks, Shaden and Collector were once again gaming all the time even if it was sunny outside. At first they asked me if they could wear another team tag since they would be with that team for the summer, but without my permission I catched them using it. A few days later they got the courage to face me and let me know they were starting another team from scratch. The reasons they gave were that they wanted something new and live a new experience. For one of the rare time, I did not get angry. I actually took this like it was nothing; maybe it was because I knew it was going to happen even before they think about it. The team that we are today reflects friendship, trust and determination and only the best of persons can see that, but weither or not they saw it, it didn't make them stay.
Following them was Maalox, Infinity and Equinox. From June to October the team was inactive. We tried to come back to COD2 in september, but nobody was interested. There is nothing to tell so I take this part to say my thoughts on this.
After all those persons left, I didn't feel like the team would be affected that much, because our goals were much clearer. We want to have fun, competing but not to invest all our free time on that, and one my side, make understand what this team is all about to the newest member without trying to hard for those who can't do the smallest thing for you. The gaming world is complicated to understand and to accept. It's even harder to make your valors take their place no matter how good they are.
When I started gaming 7 years ago, there was too mentalities. The first wanted that friends join forces and have a team that would never die, the second wanted that the best players get together to form unbeatables teams. All this wasn't so obvious since the competition as we know it today was only at its beginning and the competition was mostly for 1 versus 1. Unfortunatly, the first way of thinking resulted in almost 100% of time of a pre-matured dead of thoses teams. However, big egos were making the other ones implode. So, needless to tell you that generally, all teams made from that time are no longer existing.
It's now been 1 year and half that I was persuaded to put more severes rules and intense practices to become one of the best team. My boiling mood since fall 2005 caused by the abuse of some ex members, and the will to succeed by the others made me forget that a game is for fun. So I've become an angry person who made fun of errors, the weakness and often the lack of efforts of others. But that wasn't me. I'm not like that. And we made me realise that. So before the beginning of this story I had changed for the better. That's why I'm wondering, why leave somebody after he changed.
Every case is different. Some are looking for glory, some wanted a more active team and I'm not gonna hide that the recruitment work was pretty scary. I've admit without problems that I made mistakes and I apologized for them. But let me tell you a few details out of the story during our inactive time.
Shaden and CoLLecTor were really frustrated of what I said about them and their new hate towards me made them want to succeed with their new team. I'll be the first to say they did a really good job. But the wind of boringness that blowed over the COD2 community didn't leave them any choices but to stop their COD2 division. They had planned to get on COD4, but waiting 2 months for them was too long and the team splitted. Now those two persons see the gaming from the same eye as me. We must play to have fun. Invest all its free time into gaming when young adults responsabilities arrive is not something nobody can do, school, girlfriend, work... and a whole lot less free time. I've finally talked with them and apologize for what I said and we can talk as friends again. It took me longer with Collector and I'll tell you why. I've known Collector for 7 years now. We both know how friendship works on internet. We've been great rivals and made a destructive alliance. We always done the good war. He and I when to fist when I let him know what I thought of the situation. And right after that... were we really angry at each other? Not me. Him and another ex member Traker tried to piss me off. On one side I admit I should have kicked Traker 3 years ago out of this team, but on the other, everytime Collector was talking, I felt like laughing, not getting angry.
To end on them, I gotta say that sometimes, the best of friends have the biggest of fights and in the end, respect is still there and it's what made us realise we still wanted to be friends with each other. Good news for us, Collector came back not long after this history 2007 was published in french. I'm not saying never about Shaden. But no matter where he goes, he'll go far because he is a very intelligent boy.
About Infinity, I never felt like he really cared about the team. We talk often but that's all. Even after reading this he said he was angry and that it wasn't true. But all opinion put together, we all know he never cared or else he would still be here. He never was pushed to leave at all. Specially the second time. Same for Equinox. What you need to know about him was said before in this story. But as a player, it's something else. When he joined the team, he absolutly wanted to be the captain and be the only captain which I gave to him. However, what he really wanted was to lead a team he wouldn't have to build himself. At the end of the summer, he said he still wanted to be with the team, but when I told him he would no longer be captain, I didn't hear about him for 3 months. He owed me money during that time, and it took a certain situation to make him pay.
It was my little gaming inside around us. The last thing I have to say is if you can find people who want to have fun and not be competing for the biggest prizes, stay with those people, you'll know much less desapointement.
During november, with the arrival of Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare, we became active again. We were very few but with the incredible work of Josh, we will be strong in 2008 with all our new members and return of some ex members.
It wasn't easy. In fact, 12 months were needed to rebuild this team that will shine again in 2008.
