andyofne

[andyofne]

Many knew me by the name "skagalak" from our UT days (1999-2003) though at the very beginning I was (LASA)RedBastard. I still play as Skagalak in BF2. I also went by HandyMan (MOHAA and FarCry) for a time.

Began playing the Giant Map style of UT before it was very popular. Eventually started a UT Clan and helped gather together a few clans to make the GMC community.

After unsuccessfully trying to keep the GMC momentum going with UT2003 and UT2004 I moved on to games like MOHAA, BF1942, Devastation, FarCry, Counter Strike Source, and finally to BF2.

For a time I was a member of a BF clan called CodeBlueBF (CBBF) but I retired from that group as they drifted on to 2142 and other games. I just don't have the interest in buying yet MORE games.

I'm now in a loosely organized group called Multiplayer Marshal Service (or Make Me a Sammich, whichever floats your boat I guess) or *M.M.S* for short.

We do have a server but it's rarely played on. I do have Xfire but virtually never run it any more, thought for a long time with UT2004, CSS, and FarCry I ran it all the time.

[{2399}Straycat]

It seems like it was just yesterday that I started playing this game. After finishing UnrealTournament, I discovered it could be played online. Ohh yes, I was bad, ( or so I though).

Back then I used a compuke 500MHz with, get this, a Savage 4 with a Voodoo2 kicker. Yea, I rocked with my 14 FPS ( Frames Per Second ).

One of the very first servers I entered was Reapers 2399 server. I had no idea what a giant map was. All I knew was everything was so huge and I was this 2 inch tall guy. The first giant map I seen was a Bedroom map. As I recall, there was 1 human in that map, the rest were bots.

Im walking along the bed and I see something between the pillows. ( ESR ) I pick it up and fire it. ?? wtf, shoots red stuff, must be broke or somethin. I see a bot and fire. HOLY MOTHER OF MARY! Lookie at what that gun did to that bot!!

About that same time, I get nailed. WOW! Where did THAT come from. Respawn: I see a player, looks like he's flyin around. Great, he cheats! ( What I was seeing was him using his TransLocator, something I never used in the actual game.) BLAM! I get nailed again. At this time I was convinced that person HAD to be cheating, after all, I finished UnrealTournament so he HAS to be cheating. The player I was up against was, noneother then {2399}Reaper himself. After a few colorful words from me, I was quickly, and justly, kicked from the server. This happened sereral times that day. After gettin tried of getting kicked and havin problems connecting ( can someone say ur butts been banned? ) lol, I choose to have it out through PMs and emails. Needless to say, we worked it out and my ban was lifted.

I had been playin UT tagless for about a week when I met ChristoMundo and not long after that, {BOP}Beat Stick.

Christo spent countless hours with me teachin me the basics of this game. Not long after that I became a {BOP} member. {BOP} was in the middle of rebuilding at that time so the member count wasn't many. {BOP} had some matches, we didn't do all that well at times but we did win a few. As with many games, some of the {BOP} players began to get bored with the game. Beat Stick ended up leaving for awhile and Christo got a chance to become a member with a clan that helped me out ALOT!

{CoC} creatures of chaos

After Christo left {BOP} the clan itself was left to me. Ok, so here I am, a n00b player and all the sudden I become a Clan Leader. I began recruting players.Jackass, Maxpain, Majorpain, Blondie, Frag Deaster and several others. We wasn't the best but we could hang with most clans. Not knowing ANYTHING about bein a Clan Leader, I asked for help.

{CoC} allowed me into there forum to help show me how a clan is run. It was then brought to my attention that some of the {CoC} players WERE {BOP} at one time. I thought that was cool because many of the best players in the GMC that are {CoC} were {BOP} at one time. One of the members were {CoC}Almighty. Mike as I know him as. This guy played this game as if it was an art. many times I spectated him to watch how he played. I have and always will look up to him, even though he is officially retired. Long live {CoC}Almighty!

Time went by and things began to not go so well. I lost the spare time I had and didn't have the time to be a good leader. I offered the leadership to a few {BOP} members but they declined to take over. I had 2 choices. #1. Close BOP or #2.mearge with another clan. Around that same time I met *DbD*SuperiorWoman, or Amy as I know her. We talked for countless hours on Yahoo messenger. An idea came up about a merge.................Within that clan, I met awesome people like *DbD* WastedMind ( I hated this guy at first ), *DbD*Dad, And *DbD*GreenGoblin, just to name a few.

We worked out the details and {BOP} and *DbD* had a sucessful merge.

Not long after that Beat Stick made his return and my problems bagan ( not because of you dude ;) ) {2399}Reaper offered me a spot in 2399. To me, that was a dream come true. Feeling stingy, I wanted to take Beat Stick with me. This took about a month to convince 2399 that Beat wouldn't join just to leave....... Well, my dream became a reality so I choose to leave *DbD* to go to my " dream clan." I was on top of the world. To bad I didn't really fit in. Wasn't long and I was asked to leave, no reason to be posted here.

Anyways, there's so much more to this game then the game itself. I have made SO many friends because of this game. Many from several different clans. =FaA=, [IFC], {CBGB} and several others. Thanks all for your help!!

================================================== =====

That was takin off a page on my site, it was posted back in 2002 I believe. Ohh how times have changed. www gmc.com was visited by many, daily. I was once a addict myself. Time went by and many left ut99 to go onto other games, 2003, BF, and 2004 after a bit. I kept playing. After what seemed to be the collaps of esr servers I found a binslayer server known back then as Gondor. I played as NoBoDy then. Anyone who's ever played ESR would be a natural at binslayer. ESR doesn't bend, bin does..... At that time, Gondor was just the name of a server, it had a site and forums with 3 members. To make a long story short, Gondor grew into a mutil server clan running Bin, ESR, CTF, Gun & Run, Sniper and eventually even a 2004 server. The clan grew fast, the forums even faster with over 230 members. But, with alot of members opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and eventually Gondor splitup into 3 groups. |SOB|, {FHG} and {UTR}. Gondor stayed alive for nearly 2 years.

lets face it, ut99 probably wont last much longer, although there are still over 1000 servers on the browser. I went throught a real tough time last summer with the death of my GF and dealing with that, most of my game time just quit. As came back to it, alot was different, not alot were playing again, not even in the clan I was in ( |SOB| ) so once again, I started running the servers again. *2399*Mudduck got ahold of me awhile back and asked if I was interested in getting back into {2399}.... duh........

Well, thats where I am now www.clan2399.com all are welcome.
I still use the |SOB| tag when needed. They ( we ) are more of a 2004 clan, I'll get the IP posted.

2399 has changed alot since the GMC days, most play BF2 now and we do have a server, I'll post the IPs to both the BF2 server and the ut99 server soon ( just restored this craptacular comp so I dont have the info in front of me ).

FPSNetwork.com

This place rocks. Many of the old school players from ut99 are here. Times have changed but personalities are still like before. Thats what makes this huge circle of friends worthwhile. I do thank Tom and Andy for there work and making a place for us all to BS and have some fun. Thanks all!

[Onrie]

Well thank you Straycat for these insights. Great story a pleasure to read.

[{2399}Straycat]

wow, it took it that long to post? :confused:

[Onrie]

was a long read lol

[Dawg]

Half way through it myself. I'll post my thoughts when I'm done.