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#Post#: 485--------------------------------------------------
A Brief History of European Snipers
By: Tom Date: May 28, 2013, 9:40 pm
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This is a brief history of European Snipers. I realize that many
of you may have questions about specifics, and I would be more
than happy to answer them in-game. This is a very incomplete and
one-sided story, but here it is nonetheless.
Since most of you are, in fact, European players, I will go into
a bit more detail about what was happening there during the same
periods as the American servers. Again, this is written from my
own perspective, and I'm sure a few of you could help me out by
adding details that I forget. The first piece I wrote was a very
general history of Snipers as a whole. This, although it will be
a broad history of Europe in general, will also be much more
specific and include a lot from my perspective alone. I hope you
enjoy it, and thanks for reading.
Back In The Day
I started playing Snipers on Europe full time a few months after
TFT was released. I had visited a few times, but as an American
player there was simply no reason to play on Europe when most of
the best players were on West and some on East. The earliest
memories of Euro players that I have is the USA vs Euro wars. I
participated in three of them. There may have been a few others
that I did not know about, but I highly doubt that there were
more than five total. All three I played in were played on RoC
Europe, considering it was the Americans who were looking for a
new and different kind of challenge from the other servers.
There was never a USA vs Asia war, but there were plenty of
extremely skilled Asian players that often played on Europe
since there were more players to face. I remember the USA vs
Euro wars weren’t really fair because we would pick out the best
American players (even though sometimes we didn’t like each
other) and end up facing some random Euro clan, simply because
the Europeans were rarely united in anything. None of the wars
were even close, but that didn’t keep us from realizing that
there was significant potential on Europe. That being said,
however, the level of skill in comparison with the US servers
was not even comparable. Most European snipers were pretty bad,
and almost half didn’t even attack walk. The stigma of Euro
snipers from the American point of view quickly became that
Europe was just a bunch of unskilled, hacking, immature kids. By
my estimation, almost half of all Euros hacked as well.
Unfortunately stereotypes are mostly true, and Europe was like
an uncivilized island that had never seen industrialization.
Like conquistadors, the American players ventured to Europe
infrequently for a few laughs and an easy domination. A quick
message to my European friends: don’t feel bad that your history
isn’t full of “legends” and skilled clans. Your history may not
be as rich, but remember that Europe is the only server keeping
Snipers alive today. Anyway, few American snipers regularly
played on Europe simply because of the skill and culture
differences. I was one of the first to actively establish myself
in the Euro community, and I will forever be glad I did. I met a
lot of great people and trained a lot of noobs into pros. Sadly
that part of me was not the only one.
The quick story of why my Euro account is (and has been)
Penguin[NiNjA]: In Clan AzN @ West there was one European sniper
with the account Penguin[NiNjA]. I was Fire[NiNjA] and we were
rival shamans in AzN. He hacked and was probably one of the
biggest flamers I’ve ever met. One day, I challenged him to a
1v1 Lock Wars match. We agreed that the loser would quit WC3. I
won, and even though I don’t believe he quit WC3, he did leave
Clan AzN and I decided to use his account on Europe as a
reminder ever since.
When I first got to Europe, my attitude was that of most
American snipers at the time: arrogant and selfish. I demanded
respect from European players that knew nothing about me. I
didn’t understand the way their culture worked, so I took
offense to a lot of things that they said to me even though they
weren’t meant to offend. It was the combination of this and my
own immaturity that led me to become a cruel personality on
Europe- one that was feared, respected, and hated by many. I
noticed that most Euro clan leaders and shamans at that time
were hackers. I found this to be very disconcerting, and my
first priority became to thwart the plans of those hackers in
power. I started to make a name for myself mainly due to my
superior level of skill (sorry about how self-indulgent that
sounds) and clans begun to recruit me. This is what I wanted,
but I had ulterior motives to being recruited…
I didn’t join a clan for a long time. I didn’t think that any
clans were good enough for me to join, until I came across Clan
GsE, the Green Street Elite. GsE was a new clan formed by
HotSteppeR, aka GsE.PsychO. I made one of the only account
changes in my Euro history (ironic, considering the hundreds of
changes I made on East) and started playing on GsE.NiNjA. GsE
was easily the most skilled clan on Europe, with guys like
Values, ZoNo, Himmerle, Psycho and myself highlighting the war
squad. We warred many Euro clans and slaughtered them all,
despite the fact that our enemies were mostly hackers. GsE
eventually disbanded and I reverted back to my original plan.
My plan was to infiltrate the clans that had even one hacker in
their leadership. I would be awarded a shaman position, and
shortly after I would kick all the members in order to kill the
clan. After a short time of clan killing, every clan knew who I
was. I was a notorious clan killer. I still received invites and
promises of shaman positions despite my reputation. In all my
time on Europe, I never smurfed to kill a clan. Some time later,
after I had convinced a hacking chieftain to give me his
password (I then used it to disband the clan) a rumor started
flying around that I could somehow hack into people’s accounts.
This generated intense fear from the uninformed Euro leaders,
and it became extremely easy to get most to quit hacking. I
would enter their channel and the hackers would immediately
recognize the reason I was there. As much as they all hated me,
they were afraid to say anything since they thought I’d simply
hack their accounts. I had no such power of course, but I used
this rumor to my advantage to gain influence over most of
Europe. Unfortunately my reign of terror did not stop the
average Euro player from hacking. I realized at that point that
the only way to influence the masses was to be in charge of an
all-inclusive Snipers clan, so Values, Zono and I decided to
remake GsE and accept any nonhacker that wished to join.
The GsE remake enjoyed great success. Everyone wanted to join.
This is when I started to teach on Europe. ZoNo, Dethbringa, and
Estonian were my first students, and many that I have forgotten
(sorry) followed after. A long cycle of clan deaths and rebirths
followed the remake of GsE’s demise. I came and went, playing
less often on Europe than I did on East.
I think the most interesting thing about Snipers on Europe is
the fact that the culture of European Snipers was and is very
different than American Snipers. When I first arrived on Europe
and placed a ward down (which was considered the best way to win
on West/East at this time) all the Euros freaked out. “Stupid
warder noob!” They all shouted. I found it extremely amusing
that they felt an item in the game was taboo, but that was just
the beginning. I packed often, which is of course smart. The
Euros also frowned upon packing, however, and I was yelled at
for that as well. For all their strange unwritten rules, I have
found that the average Euro player locks faster from WW than the
average American player. With that said though, these foolish
unwritten rules were holding back the potential for new Euro
players to become great snipers, so I committed myself to
breaking their culture of unwritten rules. Since the players I
had been teaching continued to get better and receive great
scores, they became leaders of the community and begun to spread
what I had taught them. “If it’s in the game, it’s legal” became
a common motto.
Recent History
The more current Euro history I can describe to you in much
better detail… I had taken a break from Europe and just returned
to see only one real clan remaining: Clan GeM. To my dismay, it
was led by Vilgefortzz, an infamous hacker. I had already killed
his clan once, and although I knew it may kill Snipers, I vowed
to do it again. In my mind at the time, I would rather let
Snipers die than see it controlled by hackers. I joined the clan
(not sure how Vilge didn’t remember I had killed one of his
previous clans, but hey) and planned another short leave of
absence due to exams. When I returned, I was surprised to see
Vilgefortzz inactive and a new leader in his place: IaM]. I had
seen IaM] play before, and although he was an average sniper, I
saw potential in him. I took him, along with a few other newer
Euro players as my students. When I returned there were very few
older players and Clan GeM was inactive. A newgen leader had
emerged: AgentTex. AgentTex created Clan SNG, Snipers New
Generation. There were only a handful of players that weren’t in
SNG, including myself and the rest of what was left of GeM. IaM]
transferred ownership to me after I began teaching him and he
wasn’t sure whether or not we should try to keep GeM alive or
join SNG. At the time I believed unity was what was best for the
Snipers community, so I disbanded Clan GeM and decided to scout
Clan SNG. IaM] had told me a lot of negative things about
AgentTex, so I decided to see if any of it was true. I hung
around with SNG players to get a feel for them. They were
typical newgen Euros, hating pack, pub, and wards. But despite
their lack of skill, I was amazed that a new clan was able to
recruit so many totally new players so quickly. I evaluated
their leader, AgentTex, for about a week before deciding to join
SNG. I joined and quickly realized how controlling AgentTex was.
He was generous enough to buy the community a hosting bot, but
he abused his power and acted as if we all owed him something.
That was fine with the new players, but it didn’t fly with me. I
tried to connect with him and teach him things about the Snipers
community, but he kept saying that I lived in the past and had
no idea what I was talking about. I soon realized that I would
have to show him instead of telling him. Despite the fact that I
realized I’d have to make Tex a temporary enemy, I had big plans
for him. He was one of the few people who had a vision for the
Snipers community as a whole, and even though I didn’t agree
with all of it, I knew he had the potential to lead the Snipers
community. But he wasn’t ready yet.
It was at this time that IaM], who had never joined SNG, created
his own clan: Clan 3xS. After being in SNG for a while and
seeing increasing tension between Tex and myself, I decided to
join him to support my student as well as to show AgentTex that
he couldn’t micromanage Snipers. 3xS grew rapidly after I
pledged my allegiance. The newer players that had been recruited
by Tex and SNG flocked to join 3xS so that they could learn from
me and become sniper pros. I took multiple students during this
time, and I am pleased with how most of them progressed. Clan
SNG’s number began to dwindle as 3xS’s rose. Then, AgentTex
started hanging out with Akino-, who had banned me for “maphack”
on East, which was one of the main reasons I had returned to
Europe in the first place. His influence on AgentTex was clear
and strong, so I had to take drastic measures to ensure that
Akino- didn’t have the same power on Europe as he had on East. I
began to recruit everyone from SNG, and soon enough there were
only about 10-20 players left in SNG. 3xS had shot up to full
capacity, and my plan was almost complete.
Akino- had control of the lone Snipers clan on East: Clan RG.
Since Akino- banned me, I had been building up Europe for quite
some time, attempting to revive Snipers the only way I knew how.
Akino- promised that RG would war vs 3xS, but it never happened.
When his influence on AgentTex became larger and larger, I
feared that I would have to cut off ties with East for good.
Thankfully though, AgentTex gave up on SNG and joined 3xS under
the hidden alias Plague. Clan RG had some decent talent, since
most of the old Easties played in RG. However, it is worth
noting that Akino- made three hackers shamans during RG's
lifespan: Apathy, darknight420, and Rapedman. I'm pleased to say
that Rapedman is now committed to helping us rid the community
of hackers, once and for all. The others, unfortunately, are
banned. It is ironic that Akino- banned many players for
“maphack” during this period as well, despite the fact that he
had multiple shamans that hacked. No proof on any of his bans
was ever presented, and that gave me an idea- Clan GLS, which I
will explain later.
During this time period, 3xS was at maximum capacity. The
Snipers community was as active as it had been in years, and
things were good. But I suppose harmony is destined to be swept
away by chaos, because just as 3xS hit its peak, we were
spambotted by an unknown source. With a bit of detective work
later on, we found out that it was actually Akino-'s pet Apathy
that was spamming our channel on Akino's command, just because
he thought I hacked. But at the time we didn't know, so I
decided it was time to put my new idea to the forefront. I had
known IaM] was hacking for quite some time, and I continued to
drop hints to him that I knew. The games dwindled with us having
to have the channel on private 24/7, and eventually I got sick
of the fact that many 3xS players were continuing to hack.
Finally, I decided to gather evidence on all the 3xS players I
knew hacked. Ironically, at this time Celestial_One wrote a long
post on the forum that he “knew” I hacked because of something I
had said about DotA. I weathered the storm and eventually
Celestial withdrew his accusation. Right after that, I was given
a replay of Celestial sniping at East by Akino- and it showed
him hacking. I confirmed what Akino- had suspected, so it is
with even more irony that Celestial was the only player Akino-
banned using evidence. Obviously Celestial was quite
embarrassed, having just accused me of hacking. That was the
first event that fueled my disappointment with the Snipers
community. Shortly after Celestial was caught hacking, he
presented several replays of multiple players hacking, including
Plague, who at this time very few knew to be AgentTex. After
this happened I started talking to hackers in 3xS in private,
and if they didn't stop hacking I banned them. When I got around
to confronting IaM] about it, he continued to deny everything,
despite the fact that I had indisputable evidence that he
hacked. At that crossroads, I decided to leave 3xS and I
announced that I would no longer play Snipers.
I couldn't get over the fact that so many players hacked. I felt
like we had built up the community for nothing. So many of these
same players had discredited other hackers I had caught before
them. That, paired with the fact that we had been spambotted led
me to quit Snipers. But I had taught so many players in such a
short time, and the possibility of a full revival was in sight.
I had taken the newly reformed Plague under my wing, and I was
pleased that my vision of him as a leader was finally coming to
fruition. Even still, for a brief moment I decided to leave
Snipers behind. I didn't really leave, though. Instead, my long
term plan proceeded to the next step. I observed the community
for a few days, then decided to recruit a few solid players I
knew I could trust to create Clan GLS. The “Great Leaders of
Snipers” were aliases we could remain anonymous with, so that we
could ban all hackers without holding back. Many players were
caught and banned during this short period. Not surprisingly,
the activity level of the Snipers community declined rapidly the
longer GLS existed, since so many players hacked and were
banned. A sort of purging effect occurred, and after GLS was
disbanded Snipers was pretty much dead for a short period of
time. Plague and I checked out the Snipers community on
StarCraft:Brood War, and I took that opportunity to warn them of
the mistakes we made. I also realized that there were some
things that their community did that ours would benefit from
doing, and I took those ideas back home: to Elite Snipers on
Warcraft III.
As I always say though, everyone comes back to visit the Snipers
community. The community was slowly rebuilt starting with the
creation of Clan SanD. By this time, in my eyes Plague (now
Plague[SanD]) had become ready to lead the community itself. He
did a masterful job of recruiting new players, and with some
help from FaMoUs' template, created a new map that is friendlier
to new players. There were hardly any hackers left, and no one
spambotted us. Recently we have been spambotted by a few losers,
but we are still growing. We made an expansion clan, Clan San2,
because SanD has been full for quite some time. We also plan to
create another expansion clan in the not so distant future- a
TFT clan so that we can recruit from the huge TFT pool of
potential players. The new map is constantly being edited, but I
think we're on the right track. Plague is also taking the
liberty to create a new kind of map that is like Snipers to be
used with our upcoming TFT expansion clan.
I believe today’s game benefits from these efforts. At the
present, Clan SanD is still thriving. All Snipers players are
encouraged to play on the Europe server, since this is the last
living stronghold for WC3 Snipers. All players are welcome, as
long as they don't hack.
Thanks to everyone who has ever played Snipers on Europe, and
especially my new SanD family members. If any of you ever need
anything, don't hesitate to ask. As far as the future of
Snipers, I think it's as bright as it has ever been. To those of
you who actively contribute to the Snipers community: keep up
the great work. To those of you who think you don't, you do.
Just by playing Snipers regularly you are contributing. Keep up
the great work.
#Post#: 488--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Brief History of European Snipers
By: RaPeDmAN Date: May 29, 2013, 7:02 am
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Nice text! Thx that you took the time :)
#Post#: 492--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Brief History of European Snipers
By: OwL Date: June 1, 2013, 4:41 am
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Good job even if I am not in the history xD
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