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With the upcoming closure of the Internet Gaming
Zones XvT/XWA rooms, I asked the squadrons zone veteran, LT Desperado, to write
a short story about the zone since its launch in the summer of 1997. I myself
started playing on the zone at late 1997. As Desperado's story will tell,
competition was very rough in the early days, making young pilots (like myself)
who were willing to learn quite good at the game. Case's (1on1)
ladder was one place where the tough competition was most visible. It was
hard enough to get into the top 50 and you could be sure that the ones in the
top 10 were real aces. Unfortunately the same thing happend with Case's as with
the WoWs; certain elements used unfair means of gaining higher ranks. In
addition to Desp's short list of clubs I'll also mention one that
might bring a smile to an oldtimers face, the PDBH. The zone has been
a great place throughout the years and I'm sure I'm not the only oldtimer
who'll think back at some great times spent at the zone with a smile on his
face. Now gather around the campfire and listen to Desperado's story...
The Zone.. some loathe it, some love it. In 1997,
when XvT finally hit the shelves, quite a few online clubs and squadrons
started to form around this game in 'Rebel Base'. Some of the more renown names
come into mind: DOH, DJM, SST, RSQ, NIR, OSS, JM (in no particular order) on
the side of smaller scale clubs, and the DJO with its subgroups and UPA on the
side of bigger clubs.
Back then, the game was pretty popular, with the
Zone rooms frequently boasting over 200 players a night. Competition was hot
and fame was to be won - in one way or another. Challenges where issued, pilots
clashed in big battles on their 56k modems and lots of fun was had. Add a
couple of trashtalkers and attention whores like in other games, and you have a
healthy community. Personae non gratae were dealt with swiftly, either by
letting the lasers do the talkin' or by other, more creative means. On one such
occasion, the infamous GAN stories came into existance, written by some of the
more illustrious members of the community as a persiflage. Well, in the end the
lasers had to talk the talk again, but it was fun to read those stories
nonetheless. Interestingly enough, as soon as a sysop even dared to put a foot
into Rebel Base, pretty much the whole community banded together and fought the
common foe. Of course, a sysop would call for backup and soon a handful of them
would sit in the game room, warning people back and forth - to no avail.
Usually, the community won these fights and in the end hardly a sysop dared
show his presence in Rebel Base.
On the piloting side there is much to say, too much
to list in a short note like this. A few players rose to virtual immortality
thanks to their piloting skills, slaughtering their in-game foes like cattle no
matter which craft. But the top did not just wreck havoc among less experienced
pilots, on the contrary, some of the greatest moments XvT has seen were between
the many fights those hotshots among their equals. And of course, the winner
would get bragging rights - at least temporary ones, until the next round was
fought. After a couple of years, a larger and larger part of the playerbase got
tired of the game, as XvT was already quite old and newer games called for
attention. Weeks of War (WoW) were held, but could not keep the player base
from shrinking. Some people even go as far as blaming WoW for the dwindling
numbers, as participants cared more about the nicely laid out statistics than
the gameplay itself. The so-called 'stat whore' came into existence, persons
(sometimes whole clubs) that would use whatever means where necessary to stay
at the top of a WoW event. Some of the methods used were: host camping, refusal
to play certain players, refusal to play in anything but the same craft type,
contracting 'hitmen' to ruin the statistics of competing players or even
switching between club accounts. For a while, part of the community fought this
unfairness, but sooner or later gave up and numbers continued to dwindle.
After some time, it was even possible for
individuals to win whole WoWs on their own - unthinkable during XvT's glory
days. However, some of the oldschool players would occasionally resurface and
show the new hotshots what a good beating feels like just to vanish again soon
after. Well, this chapter is going to come to an end soon, as the Zone will be
shutting down the XvT and XWA rooms. XvT has had quite an illustrious past with
a rather unique community when it comes to online communities centering around
computer games. Lots of love and hardly any hatred (the odd exception). Yet,
the XvT community, or what is left of it, will live on in other places, playing
a game that has greatly outlived its own life expectancy.
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