I've posted this a handful of places before, but none of those websites seem to still be running. Olde suggested posting here, so here it goes. Hope you enjoy!
INTRODUCTION...I got AvP for PC by Rebellion the day it came out in either March or May of 1999 (hard to recall). I was 12 years old, lol. I was addicted by that night, and from then, became an involved member of the community as long as I could, until people simply stopped playing. I even check occasionally on GSA to see if anyone is in lobby, for a quick AvA or something. I consider myself a self-proclaimed expert on the history/chronology of the community of AvP and AvP Gold, the clan evolution, the most remarkable players, the most despisable, etc. I am also searching for old members from the AvP and AvP Gold community to bring into the AvP 3 community. If you are a former AvP or AvP Gold online player, please contact me and give me a name/clan I might know you by.
MY PERSONAL HISTORY ON AvP...The day my cousin and I got the game, we both chose pretty generic names, b/c it was the first online game we had ever played. I remember using
ALIEN99, b/c I was instantly attracted to the class just by looking at the cover. A week or two later, a few other aliens and I that played together, decided to start a clan called "Elite" Aliens (such an ironic name in retrospect). I was then
EA_ALIEN for a while, and I watched as the older gamers started to develop dynamic clans, with rank and structure, and created a serious society, where everyone had a reputation (whether it was good or bad). Mplayer was the perfect environment for p2p connections, joining clans, and being aware of other clans and their status, etc., b/c Mplayer focused on making you chat with other gamers before you ever decided who you were playing with. This was by virtue of the fact that Mplayer started you out in a large chat room with everyone else playing the game (the lobby) and you could join smaller chat rooms of up to 30 people to start a game (which would only hold 8 ppl originally on AvP). That would've been the equivalent of a server today, except you didn't go straight into the game before you started developing relationships with other players. This helped the intrapersonal aspect, b/c you weren't focused on surviving while you were chatting. I wasn't much of a talented player back then, but it was very interesting to me to watch all the clans and their evolutions.
For whatever reason (probably b/c of the schoolyear) I stopped playing for a few months, but picked it up again a few months later. It was incredible how much the clans had developed in that time. The Bad Ass Colonial Marines (BACM) had been founded by BACM_GEN_RICO, and it was the first military ranked (and to the best of my knowledge, first ranked clan at all) on AvP. The structure was ingenious, and it worked well for creating a team that had not only a vast quantity of players (around 400 at one point), but also quality players among those, so no one could oppose them with either argument (i.e. "my clan's bigger," or "my clan's better"). The Council of Mages (CoM) also came about around the same time, which in my opinion overall had more skilled players, but was a slightly smaller clan (around 200 in their prime). CoM's structure was closer to what you would find in a WoW style MMO today, where the divisions were seperated by the color of your "robe" (white, red, or black), and there were only a few ranks among them. I don't wanna go too far off on a tangent, but the top leaders were "Arch Mages" (e.g. CoM_NicOdeMuS_AM), and below them were each color robes "High Mages" (e.g. CoM_Plancek_BHM - Black High Mage). There was another rank or two between the robes' high mages, and just a robe wearer, like
CoM_MinorThret_W (White Robe, and btw, was not able to fit CoM_MinorThreat_W, not a typo). There were a few top notch clans out there too around this time, but I didn't do much business with them so they wont be mentioned much in this history. One I feel needs to be mentioned though, was F8L. Lots of hilarious shit went on in their rooms, usually moderated by F8L-Azrael.
This era was probably the prime of AvP, b/c we had the most players at this time. We probably saw about 2,000 different people log on per day, on a slow day. The lobbies/rooms would list your name alphabetically, so it was visually evident the power your clan had, just by looking at how many players of the same clan tag were online (stacked on top of each other in the Players List). Just as the hyperbola of numbers began it's downswing, Fox released AvP: Gold Edition, which was a great revamp, but unfortunately was recognized as a separate game on Mplayer. For a time, our two communities were basically split; there were a few players that had both, and would come back and forth between the lobbies, but for the most part they had their own world, and we had ours. Also, I always got the sense they thought of themselves as superior.
Sometime during all this, I joined a few clans. Never tried to join BACM, b/c I was more attracted to the "Quality, not Quantity" slogan of CoM, so I joined them for a while, then went solo under the name
MinorThreat 313. I unfortunately moved, and somehow lost my copy of the disc, so for a while I was still visiting the community, and unable to play the game. During this time, I was befriended by a clan known as Final Fantasy VII (which obviously was a fanbase clan of that game). I did not play the game during this time, but was attracted by their powers of "hacking." When I use the term "hacking," I'm not talking about what you think b/c the way the term's been slurred in years since. Nowadays, a gamer recognizes that term as using programs to help you "cheat" within a game. FFVII did not cheat - not in AvP, not in any game. It was against the code of honor. In relations to FFVII, "hacking" referred to the word's original meaning in a digital environment. FFVII was a group of developers who created programs to hack Mplayer, not the games therein. If you crossed FFVII in the wrong light, we would clone your name, use a ghost-bot to get online with your clone name at the same time we were online, enter the room you were in (probably the same as ours b/c you were flaming, but sometimes your clans HQ when you went back to them to "brag" about talking shit), and begin making you say things you didn't want to say. We would conveniently mute you as well so you couldn't say "THAT'S NOT ME!! WHO IS DOING THAT?!?!" We could also crash entire game lobbies, leaving us and generally anyone who had DSL/Cable (which was very few at that time), through a glitch we discovered on Mplayer, but kept to ourselves. It would take people around 15 minutes to log back on, and it was a great tool to display dominance. Eventually, it got to the point where no one talked shit to us, but we didn't play the game that often, b/c to be honest, we only had one talented player. I joined and was assigned the name
FFVII_JENOVA (which I had no idea who the character was at that time, or that it was a female). Without sounding too cocky, if you ask anyone who played AvP at that time who the most infamous of FFVII, or the most infamous "hacker" on the game was, they will reply
FFVII_JENOVA. However, I knew there were more talented hackers in the clan, but they were more active on other games than AvP. I eventually unintentionallly killed FFVII by trying to implement military ranking. When I realized they were dying, I defied my superiors by being the first to take a non-FFVII related name,
FFVII_MinorThret (once again with the not able to fitness of FFVII_MinorThreat). Also during the demise of FFVII was when I got a second copy of the game, and was able to rejoin the playing community.
Shortly after, I started a few clans, joined a few clans, and met ssj4-milla (who had good experience in BACM, and eventually DEMO and ELITE, too). milla and I were the dynamic duo, although most people hated milla b/c of his OP cockiness. milla was only respected by the top percentile, which was a group so much better than the rest of the game, the average player/noob had no idea who they were. At this time, the clan of the far most elite players was The Legion of Anarchy (LOA). If it wasn't for milla, I would've not been introduced to them, or the concept to being far more elite than anyone else playing the game. I was respected in a way for the "hacking" abilities, but not as a gamer. I then began to desire to become an "elite." Also, let me take a moment to explain that the elite were not self-declared elite, but given the title by everyone else who knew anything about the game, but they definitely deserved the title.
In the background while this was going on, Mplayer was bought out by GameSpy Arcade (better known as GaySpy Arcade, or GSA). The new platform was so unfamiliar to the Mplayer users, and so much less user friendly, it caused utter chaos. I shit you not, utter chaos. It was tragic for me and the former members of FFVII, b/c none of our Mplayer programs were effective any longer. We were stripped of those powers. I scrambled to get my gaming skills up, to once again gain status as a prominent adversary. I had luckily gotten some great training in CoM, and since I was introduced to a lot of elites, I was able to get training with them undercover. Also, this was a critical point for the biggest clan in the game...
BACM had already been going through turmoil before the GSA transition. RICO had been identify as a "cheater" (we didn't call them "hackers" back then), due to new software that would identify cheats (ironically developed by the "hackers" in FFVII). Most of the flag officers (rank Brigadier General - Lieutenant General) jumped ship in shame of thier leader. A colonel, BACM_COL_KNIGHT, took control of the clan due to chain of command (no one outranked him anymore), and promoted himself to BACM_GEN_KNIGHT. Since KNIGHT was an openly admitted cheater, CASUAL1 was able to gain the moral of the hundreds of BACM members that were left, to get KNIGHT removed (I believe banned from Mplayer), and he took the title of BACM_GEN_CASUAL1. I'm not gonna get too far into this chapter, b/c there's a great record of this evolution located here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/amp2999/gbook.html(which was surprisingly logged by a Corporal of BACM, who later became one of the most prominent figures in the game, BACM_CPL_WHO / AMP_GEN_WHO)...(NOTE: the website is now black text on a black background, so you may need to select the text to read it)
To make a long story relatively short, BACM suffered a schism when most of it's integral players/recruiters left to form another clan. Founded by BACM_MGN_DEMO (Major General), the DEMO clan was receiving dozens of former BACM's by the day. They very quickly grew in numbers, and were dominant for a short time before Mplayer fell. Eventually, demo (who sometimes logged on in civilian tags as demoman501), became virtually inactive. There were rumours he died in 9/11, b/c he was known to be a New Yorker. That, apparantly, was not true, but it was true that he was working in a building near the attacks at the time. Former BACM_CPL_WHO had worked the ranks quite a bit in DEMO, and was in a position to take over the clan DEMO in the founder's absense. The name was no longer fitting without it's namesake, and was changed to The Alien/Marine/Predator Clan (AMP). Though a very generic name, they reached a level of respect in the community higher than DEMO's (yet probably not higher than BACM's), and had over 100 members for years. I even fell victim and joined them eventually, but not yet. Around this time, other high-ranking members of BACM (SQUIRL and PULLEY) started the ELITE clan (also an ironic title b/c it was anything but). ELITE was sadly another clan that focused on numbers, not skill. I'm not saying they didn't have any skilled members, but they were pretty few and far between. They recruited me to the highest open rank in the clan at the time, Lieutenant Colonel, b/c I had began helping them with warfare affairs while I was still in FFVII. They were generally good guys, and I still run into them very rarely, but occasionally either on GSA or on AIM.
Anyway, I was
ELITE_LTC_MINOR during the GSA transition. It was a sad time, b/c I was very respected in ELITE at the time as the "secret weapon." There obviously was tension between the few remaining BACM, the newly prominent DEMO, and the fledgling ELITE. They would ask me to crash a BACM HQ Room if members in the lobby were talking shit. It was one time discovered by MONGO (another high-ranking, former BACM), that DEMO was planning to send in recruits undercover, and attempt to kill the clan ELITE, so I went in on their secret meetings, muted the leaders, began making them say things I'm sure were quite contrary to their intentions, then crashed the room. They didn't log back on for about 15 minutes, but when they came back, I told them in the lobby what happened and why, and they got the point. It was one of my favorite and most memorable moments in AvP, b/c right after I told them that, I crashed everyone in the lobby, except for the three or four of us that had DSL/Cable, including fellow ELITE members (just a general display of dominance). Mplayer-959 (the most notorious for unwarranted bans / abuse of power among Mplayer admins) showed up into the lobby immediately afterward, but was unable to identify what happened. I was banned two or three times for this, but it was never a problem for us who were knowledgable (or knew about
clusterboy.cjb.net, RIP).
Anyway, point being, I was stripped of this dominance when we transitioned to GSA. Shortly after, a lot of people stopped playing for a little while b/c the GSA interface was so bad. The game was 2 years old, and people were just more apt now to move on to newer games. Everyone who outranked me in ELITE left, leaving me in the same predicament as BACM_COL_KNIGHT before me. So I was
ELITE_GEN_MINOR for a while (with the help of my partner in crime, milla - at that time, ELITE_GEN_MILLA), and ELITE was in one of it's worst stages. I wanted numbers, and quick, so I recruited a few Staff Sergeants, and went on a recruiting frenzy. We once again got our numbers close to 100, but it was mostly very unskilled players. We just wanted people wearing our tags in the lobby. That ultimately caused us to be a laughing-stock of the game. Because of this, I left, and a former BACM took over, and declared himself BACM_GEN_BITE.
I again went solo for a while, joined a few clans, and helped start a few clans (with milla again). I identified the flaw I made by recruiting quantity, not quality, and realized what I had to do to either start an "elite" clan, or join and "elite" clan. LOA was still the cream of the crop, but FtB was also top notch, and had more active players (you kinda rarely saw any LOA's on). I had been a frequent visitor to FtB rooms all the way back to my FFVII days, and was still an acquaintance, though would often be ridiculed for my endeavors in ELITE. Though off-topic, I will mention that once as ELITE_GEN, a new FtB member who just completed his probation (a period where they did not wear tags, but had to play frequently with FtB's and win), and was full of piss and vinegar, challenged me to produce for him an ELITE player who could beat him. I had
one guy who was at that time one of the best aliens I had ever played. I regret that I cannot remember his name other than it started with an L, he was foreign, and after his endeavor in ELITE, he left the game. Anyway, I had FtB-]v[aJiN-WaR play a 1on1, Pred vs Alien (PvA), with my ELITE playing as alien (which we all know is an unfair match), and my guy won. It was quite unbelievable, but I didn't make much of a big deal out of it at the time, but it was a good moral booster.
I know this is getting majorly boring b/c of the great detail I'm going into, but hopefully it'll be appreciated by at least one person who was a gamer around this time. I will continue, but try to slack up on the "great detail."
During this period (which was around a year after AvP Gold came out), most of the players of AvP had bought AvP Gold as well, and we mostly all moved to AvP Gold, but were still active in both games, so AvP and AvP Gold merged as a fluid community.
I began to join non-ranked clans, who focused on long trial/probationary periods to make sure their members were very talented, b/c I still had a longing to be among the "elite" of the game. Luckily, I had also began to get somewhat skilled as an alien, and didn't have a bad marine either. Some of these clans were The Dark Exiles (DE, started by former FtB-MeChA), Konsumed by Hatred (KbH, started by former YT_BakuuB / FtB-BakuuB, and later [MY]BakuuB I believe), Fear and Loathing (FaL, started by DeathBringer), rejoined the second coming of CoM, and probably a few others I can't remember.
AMP was still running strong, and AMP_GEN_WHO was still running strong as the leader. I remember once being in a room where he mentioned the U. S. Army began trying to contact him on abnormally persistent occasions to try to join the Army Officers Corps. It was quite possible somehow his reputation as a leader got to a video gamer, who was also an Army Officer. Anyway, AMP developed a Special Forces branch, and I was surprised that former FtB, and other very reputable players were "recruited." It was unheard of for a former FtB to join a military-ranked clan. I also followed the trend, and was recruited by AMP_SFE_LethaL (Special Forces Elite) to the rank of
AMP_PVT_MinorThreat (which was mandatory for a week), and then promoted straight to
AMP_SFA_MinorThreat (Special Forces Alien). I got some
great training during this period, and developed a good ability to OP preds, and I learned to play pred to a decently skilled level. I had a lot of fun during this period, fighting "wars," mainly with RED_SQD (
not The Regimental Executors of Death, who was actually a respected clan), b/c of their not-so-highly respected leader Daughtre. We were hot shit at the time, b/c it was the first time a military clan could talk shit to the elite clans, like LOA, FtB, digital, AIM, and SF (which were all recognized as top percentile clans at that time), b/c we had some really f**kin good players.
Sadly, this chapter also came to an end, b/c AMP started to lose numbers, and it was evident the game had been, too. We weren't too small to have fun or to be a community with many clans, but it was far less than our thousands that played daily on Mplayer, or the estimated 5,000 that were playing Counter-Strike at any time. GSA was partially responsible for this, and CS was a big factor as well, b/c that was a great game at the time.
I'm doing my best to remain chronological, but it's becoming troublesome when I remember one thing to go back and find it in this "book" and correct it, so let me backtrack a little. There are a few major "elite" clans that started back in the Golden Age (Mplayer) that I should mention. They weren't formerly mentioned b/c I wasn't skilled enough at that time to do a lot of business with them, but it would be a shame in this documentation not to mention them. EL was a clan that probably wouldn't have reached elite status without their most notable player, who is also without debate the most legendary alien who has ever played the game, EL Lestat. The only other alien who ever came close was RED_Maverick, who ultimately became AIE-Maverick. EL was a humorous clan b/c most people who joined adopted a spanish name to strengthen the namesake, although whatever it stood for didn't have anything to do with the spanish definite article
el. Unfortunately, EL Lestat wasn't very active, and Maverick and AIA-MyStErY were known as the top aliens. AIA (The Awesome Invincible Aliens) was a spinoff of AIM (The Awesome Invincible Marines), which was founded by Pheenix, who was if not the best marine ever, one of the best. Pheenix eventually became inactive, but his offspring clans became very prominent (AIA, AIM, and AIP - The Awesome Invincible Predators). Some of the AI's were cross-species, who were not elite specifically to any one species, so they decided to merge into The Awesome Invincible Elites (AIE). During their reign as three separate clans, I was still
ELITE_LTC_MINOR, but a good relationship with the guys. One in particular was AIE-Sacrifice - a very funny guy, but a retard (jk sack-o-lice). digital was probably better overall than LOA, but digital played AvP Gold primarily, and was founded after LOA, so LOA had background to it's advantage. However, digital had some of the most talented people who ever played the game. They, like any elite clan, also became inactive. Some of them left, to form SF (The Select Few), which was an interesting concept b/c they were the first clan to put the clan tags at the end of their name (e.g. Asmodeus-SF, ssj4milla-SF, etc.). It was as if they didn't care about the clan as much as themselves, b/c they were scattered in the Player List, unlike former clans whose members were naturally stacked on top of each other, and the clan itself was not as powerful as each one of them individually, b/c each individual could easily take on any clan alone. Another very similar clan came out around the same time - The Clan of Controlled Chaos, or [CCC], who also put the tag at the end (e.g. WeAp0N [CCC], Hades[CCC], etc.). A lot of SF guys abandoned that tag, for whatever reason, and intiated XS (Excess). It was basically SF, but with a different tag, b/c most eventually abandoned the SF tag, and took on the XS (also a suffxial tag).
Also, let me explain )v(. ]v[/]V[/}v{/)v(ajin is not meant to be a clan, but possibly is in the sense of brotherhood we take with one another. When ]v[aJiN-WaR was in trial/probation for FtB, no one knew who the f**k he was. I don't know if he changed his name, or what, but he was definitely very good. He was a pred, and was almost unbeatable by anyone in FtB, so his trial didn't last too long. When he completed, and became FtB-]v[aJiN-WaR, he used to make 1on1 rooms, and challenge anyone in the lobby who was talking too much. It was great in reference to the japanese meaning of the word (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majin , also see
https://encyclopediadramatica.online/Wapanese ). Basically, other elites started to appreciate the concept of "going majin," and you saw a few of us begin to incorporate some form of )v(, ]v[, or }v{ into our names. It basically meant you were so good at the game, it has given you a slightly cocky/evil aspect to your online gaming personality.
To summarize the last two paragraphs, I just thought I needed to mention a few of the clans who were the most talented of all-time, and I know I've missed a handful, but these are the few I remember from the last decade. Keep in mind a lot was going on, and it was such a huge community, you only knew about so much.
Returning to my timeline, after my endeavors in AMP, I was finally recognized in the community as an elite alien. I unwillingly left AMP, b/c they basically all became inactive or left. I went through another phase of clanhopping - my best ever actually, b/c I was now a respected player, and was only clanhopping respected clans. For whatever reason, I revived the clan that I started in 1999, Elite Aliens, but with a more serious intent to remain true to the meaning of the name. For a while I was
-)v(inor-Threat-[eA] (following SF's example, thanks milla). I eventually decided going solo was more impressive than being bound to a clan (sort of the ideology of SF), and I was untouchable at that time, I won one tournament first place as alien, won a handful at second or third place, and was a very recognizable alien. I eventually was persuaded to join AIE. When I joined AIE, it was right at the merger of AIA/AIM/AIP, which I was against, b/c I liked the concept of an alien-specific clan, and being recognized for my abilities as an alien. I was, however, outvoted.
This was when I assumed the tag I still wear today (for this game, least),
AIE-)v(inor-Threat-. A lot of AIE members came and went, causing me to wear the tags some days, and others I looked better solo. Eventually, AIE-|Hades|- revived the clan after a stint in Aph3x, along with Aph3x-Azrael, Aph3x-Houdini (formerly known as the legendary alien ][V][3RLI][\][), Aph3x-Chemik, and the rest. Aph3x was probably the latest formed elite clan, and although I always believed their name was taken from the .exe file off which GameSpy operates (aphex.exe), apparently it was a tribute to
Aphex Twin. During AIE-|Hades|-'s Awesome Invincible revival, I decided to wear the tags permanently again, and proudly.
I remained in AvP/AvP Gold in the ultimate demise. There was a period where about 50 people were on per day, and that lasted a couple years. Then there was a period where about 20 people or less were on a day, and we really knew we were in the denouement at that point. That lasted less than a year, and then no one played, unless you logged on GSA, joined the lobby, and used the "Invite Players" options. It was good for a few 1on1's, or seldom something more complex. Obviously, the game would experience a resurgence when it was picked up on Steam and many key original players returned for this "second wind."
So in conclusion, I'm sure there's very much that went on that I did not mention in this timeline, but these were prominent events in relation to my history.
This is my experience.
It is unlike anything else I've ever gotten from a video game.
No other video game has ever been able to emulate anything similar to this community, and I blame the concept of joining servers to be able to communicate, and not having an open irc server search list.
Developers have no idea how much this would open games up, and create an entire new element to the game.
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Thanks for reading TL;DRI played AvP/AvP Gold for a long time.
