Early FFA History by X[Hunters]

[X[Hunters]]

Hi all,

I posted an FFA history on the Clan Lone forums back in July 2005.  It's been lost over the years, so I'd like to post it again with an addendum at the bottom that I wrote yesterday.  It's my hope to give anyone interested some insight on how the wonderful FFA community all began, and perhaps even reconnect with many of my old friends (and rivals!) that may find this post through a google search or the like! The FFA history is only slightly edited to remove a long writeup about Clan Lone's brief time in WoW, which is not really FFA history per se. Without further ado, here it is:

Clan Lone and the history of FFA
By X[Hunters]


May 2002-June 2003
FFA in Reign of Chaos (ROC) days was not well organized, full of preteaming and not well regarded these days.  FFA wasn’t originally a ladder, but Blizz employee Blaine Whittle added it as a ladder due to his own love for the game type, and popular support for it.  ROC itself wasn’t particularly well suited to FFA, though, and many players did not catch on to the game type. 

I played FFA here and there in ROC, but not a great deal.  I played solo at this time in the top 20 in NA, and knew many of the top players that turned out to be useful in promoting the FFA wars to come.  Marn, who was one of my solo rivals at the top in the early days switched to FFA and regularly hosted a “Marn’s Big FFA” to try to encourage people into the game type.  The scene was rather small though.

In ROC, FFA was –very- imbalanced.  It was either frenzied frost wyrms with a few fiends or mass gryphons dominating RoC FFA. 

July 2003
It was exactly a year since War3 ROC came out. TFT (the Frozen Throne) just came out, and I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.  I was about done being very serious with solo, coming in a disappointing second place at WCG New York.  I played mainly patches 1.03-1.04, 1.04 being the most balanced.  WCG used the newest 1.06 patch at the finals in New York, the ‘inbetween’ patch that was extremely imbalanced and short-lived.  The patch that made spellcasters unarmored but didn’t improve ranged units or remove normal damage from heroes.  It started some of the things that were going to balance the game but wasn’t complete until the big 1.10 patch that came out very shortly after my WCG finals in New York.  I was an Undead player, and it just isn’t possible to beat footies/casters with Undead in the 1.06 patch.  The casters are practically invulnerable to ghouls now (the counter to casters before this patch, but now they’re unarmored, fiends sucked cause heroes did normal damage, and siege sucked too).  So I lost to a pretty good human player there, who I know I could beat and have beat in solo plenty of times before on battle.net. 

I started FFA from scratch in TFT. Only played a handful of FFA games in ROC. I also started Night Elf from scratch in TFT. I wasn't really looking to be an NE player. Or even an FFA player. I really enjoyed TFT FFA, but the state of the game was as rotten as in ROC.  Preteaming abounded, and there were no manners at all…
September 2003

I wasnt very good when I started out nor did I expect to ever be, but I sure had a good time playing.  As I got better and better, I realized an FFA community could not be built without first eliminating preteaming and recruiting players into the FFA genre (there weren’t many—people who tried to play were turned off by the preteaming and hostile player base).  I spent the next year trying to eliminate preteaming and bring players into the FFA scene.
The History of FFA in TFT as I saw it:

October 2003- January 2004
When I first started to get up there in the FFA ranks, I saw a good deal of preteamers, maphackers, and other assortment of scum dominating the FFA scene.  There was a clan before I really got into FFA called Top, lead by Marn.  Marn was one of the more known FFA players, and had been promoting FFA since early RoC.  He became rank 1 on all four servers, through preteaming on Asia cause it was so difficult to even find a game, and when you did usually it was with 2 other Asians who thought it’d be fun to preteam.  He left before I started FFA, and clan Top had disbanded shortly before that.  FFA was in pretty much anarchy, with no one to check the preteamers.  It really discouraged a lot of people from playing.  Night Elf was very unpopular also in the game type.  It was considered that NE couldn’t beat many of the combinations that Undead and Human can throw.  As I got better I figured out ways to beat these combinations and stunned many opponents.  Search times became longer so I started to look for a place to hang out and search for games with other high level FFA players.  I became good friends with Quetzacoati (now known as FinalFantasyVI), a great undead player.  We joined some clan that several high level FFA players were in and hung out in.   I can’t remember the name of it, however. Pretty soon I was in the top 5 with Marn’s  second, Mu-, and Woa)warrior.  We were all level 20, and got matched into the same game. I was rank 3 I think, Mu was rank 6, and woa)warrior was rank 4.  The #1 player whose name escapes me right now was almost level 21 but not quite, and whoever won this game would become level 21 and rank 1.  So you had 3 competing for rank 1 in the same game, and it made for a very exciting game.  I won the game, putting me into rank #1.  I held that spot for a very long time, becoming better and better, becoming the first level 22 in the history of FFA.
Now keep in mind pre 1.17, you could see other players names, and FFA was very difficult to level.  You could only get a game with others 6 levels above or below you, so in an FFA you had to find 3 others 6 levels above or below you, making it very difficult to advance at high levels.  So level 20-21 were about the highest anyone ever got at that time.  Preteaming was becoming more and more of a problem, so Mu- and I decided to form a clan where we’d all search for games.  I left that clan I was in and we formed the first big FFA only clan since clan Top.  I think it was called TpoF, or top players of FFA.  Not a very good name, and the clan wasn’t all that great, but it served its purpose.  We still couldn’t get much done about preteamers and other cheaters, and the clan channel wasn’t all that popular.
Mu- had these “FFA News” threads on the TFT general forums on battle.net where he would tell news about whats going on in FFA games, who’s advancing and who’s falling in rank, and some game descriptions and replay links.  Every thread of his was getting deleted by mods because he was pretty rude and typed in all caps.  So I started my own FFA news thread and it was _huge_.  It was very popular, attracted a lot of people to FFA, and became the largest thread on any war3 forum.  It became so big that when they started banning backstabbers in RT for griefing, the backstabbers spammed the forums with an unbelievable amount of spam posts and it somehow blew up this thread into hundreds of pieces.  You’d see the replies to this original thread scattered into new threads and the whole thing shattered.
Enter Marn, returning from a long break from the game.  I was the #1 player, he knew me from RoC but it was a surprise to him that I was playing FFA and suddenly in the top.  We played some big FFAs and became friends.  Together we tried to figure out how to stop preteamers and get FFA really popular.  My idea was to start a new clan with a figure head that everyone knew, so it would attract a lot of FFA players, to create an FFA union of sorts where we’d know who the preteamers and maphackers were, as well as a place to hang out.  His idea was similar, except to recruit everyone he possibly could to make the clan large and popular.  So we made the clan together, and called it clan HERO. Though he was supposed to be the figure head, he was a real jerk with power and would demote me at times, the rank #1 ffa player and co-founder of the clan to have his friends be shamans.  It was a very corrupt clan, and all these people he recruited that had nothing to do with FFA included a lot of bad apples.  The spam, caps, and disrespect in the channel. I tried to do what I could but even some of his friends would ban me from the channel because I beat them in a game or disagreed with their jerkish ways.  Marn and his groupies started telling me I had no skill, and that the only reason I’m #1 is cause I’m a Night Elf.  They really hated NE and anyone who played it, and gave any of them a hard time.  Around this same time I made a new thread on the battle.net forums for FFA news.  It was even more popular than the last, reaching over 100 pages. Clan HERO in general was filled with unbelievable amounts of hate and childishness.  Those of us who couldn’t stand what Marn and others were doing were fed up with it.

[X[Hunters]]

February 2004 – The birth of Clan Lone
I invited those who couldn’t stand Clan HERO any longer to a secret conference and told them I wanted to separate from HERO and start a clan of my own where we wouldn’t have the jerks and spam and general hate that infested clan HERO.  An organized clan with real leadership that wasn’t corrupt.  We all agreed that this was the best thing to do, and it would be a new beginning for FFA.  I explained to them that we wouldn’t go and mass recruit, in fact we wouldn’t recruit at all.  If you wanted to join you had to be sponsored by a member and be ranked in FFA.  We started drafting names, and all sorts of silly names were proposed and nothing seemed to really work.  I finally proposed my name, Lone, a simple name that was not an abbreviation and anyone could see it on the ladder or on our name. It said that we’re an FFA clan, but we’re loners, we don’t team with one another just because we’re in a clan.  Everyone liked the name and I went with it.  We created the clan a few days later.  Before Lone even started, I had asked for a site for only FFA replays to be created, and a good friend of mine in FFA, Slackweed, started an FFA replays site. I started posting all of my replays on it and promoting it in my FFA thread on battle.net and eventually others started posting their games on it and it just grew from there.  I liked the idea that the place for FFA replays wasn’t tied to any clan, and always wanted to keep it that way.  Slackweed and I had an understanding that it would be this way.
Our separation from HERO became a huge drama of its own.  Marn and others said it would have no chance against his clan.  After a while many of the really good FFA players started joining Lone, also fed up with Marn.  He pleaded for the clans to be united because it would create clan wars which would result in teaming.  It never happened that way, but it was his last attempt at dissolving Lone.  Some very well known players were still in HERO at the time, and I asked the ones I thought really didn’t belong there to come.  One of these players was LordFergo, the best human FFA player and a good friend of mine.  He was now a shaman of HERO and wasn’t sure what to do.  He sided with us after talking to me, and wanted to kick everyone out of HERO with his shaman powers before he left.  I ordered him not to, because that’s what HERO would do to us if one of their guys was a shaman in our clan.  It set a precedence of fairness and justice in Lone, one that I hoped would always be there.  I asked Marn not to be a jerk about this, and stop the hatred and truce with us.  He agreed but he said one thing and did another.

Marn came to our channel constantly and tried to recruit members, talked smack about us, and so on.  Others would do the same.  It was no surprise, and we wouldn’t ban them unless they were really spamming or getting very out line, because I wanted to have a fair environment in Lone.  HERO continued to decline and eventually Marn disbanded it and formed Bane, realizing he needed an FFA only clan and his theory of recruiting everyone he could get his hands on didn’t work.  Those who were really hateful and loyal to him stayed with him. The tables had turned.  Bane was a really small clan with very few players at the top, and Lone became the big clan.

My second FFA thread eventually bugged and no one could post on it, even though it wasn’t locked.  I found a place for Lone on the web, a friend of mine from an old clan I was in in RoC, 1G, hosted forums for us and we used that for a long time.  From then on FFA would have its own forums through clan Lone.

March-April 2004
Clan Lone held 10 out of the top 20 FFA ranks, and at one point held 12 of them, holding a majority over everyone else.  I was still rank 1 through all of this, but eventually it was taken from me by a preteamer, AgainAgain[FFA] some time later, but I was #2 right behind him for a long time afterwards.  I was considered  to be rank 1 through that time since he was a known preteamer (all his wins came from preteaming.)  I had been playing on Europe and Lordaeron for a while and held rank 1 for long periods of time on both those servers.
Here were some of the greats at this time (in no particular order):
Undead: Quetzacoati (later known as FinalFantasyVI), , WarmachineXX, Marn, Mu-,
Human: LordFergo, Peonofbnet, BWhittle
Orc: Shadowsoul, EmmissaryOmega, (later known as AlienWarOwnZ), Ebony_goddess, Peacedoorball (Europe FFA player who contested me for rank 1 on Euro many times), Hexic
Night Elf: LordOblivion_Kz, Dragonflies, Woa)Warrior, K|3L_Cookie
Random:BobasVett, lllNooblll, SEYTON, EN.Despiron

Unfortunately there are many who are not around anymore that I can’t remember.
Blizzard finally introduced a preteamer’s ban, following the precedent that griefing is a bannable offense and backstabbers could be banned for it, so now too could preteamers.  I personally helped BWhittle find a lot of the preteamers, especially on Europe where it ran rampant and it was hard to tell unless you were involved in the ladder there, which most Americans weren’t.  I was finally rank 1 again.
 At that point I accomplished what Marn had accomplished, becoming rank one on all servers (not Asia, but Asia’s ladder was a joke and it was impossible to find a game. To become rank 1 there all you’d need was about 14 wins.  But it was impossible to find 14 games.  I was 9-1 there and somewhere in the top 20. At that level unless you arrange a game which was extremely difficult itself, you could search for 24 hours and not find a game).  Except I achieved it when the FFA scene had became a lot more popular, seeing a lot better players and a higher skill level.  Also he got it very early on in TFT where people weren’t very familiar with the game and its strategies and new units, where I got it much later where everyone was familiar with these things.  Several times I hit rank 1 on all three major FFA servers at the same time, but I was in the top 3 of all three servers for a very long time.  The gaming I did in Europe and USWest brought a lot of players from those servers to East, where the most skilled FFA was going on.  FFA was at its golden age.  I believe this was FFA’s peak.  A lot of people said I couldn’t have a good FFA record and Im only #1 cause I play a lot.  X[Hunters] was my one FFA account on Azeroth since I started FFA on scratch.  All my games learning, all my disconnects during a few weeks period where I was always crashing, all of that was on the account.  If you looked at the last half of my win ratio it was really good, and of course that’s why I was ranked 1.  I did get teamed a lot because of my popularity, and I wanted to show others I could easily have a good record.  So I made a new account, DarkSideofFFA.  I went 26-6 with him, having one of the best records in FFA.  Many of my games were with really good players, the best FFA players at the time in a good number of them.  Those 20 or so high level games I had got me to rank #2.  At the same time, X[Hunters] was rank 1.  I held the #1 and #2 spot on Azeroth.  And no one even knew it until I finally revealed that DarkSideofFFA was me.  Of course, I played with him some more after that, but once it was known who I was I got teamed like crazy.

Lone was going really well.  I had 3 scheduled big FFAs every week where many people would play in, sometimes so big that we had to have 2 12 player big ffas going at the same time on the scheduled days.  I asked people to make FFA maps and I hosted many of them and Lone and other FFA enthusiasts had a great time with them.  We had big FFAs every day that weren’t scheduled, usually drawing a smaller crowd but still good games nonetheless.  Every Saturday we held a tournament, where we’d take all the contestants who show up (we’d have as many as 30-50 every week) and split them into 4-5 player FFAs.  The winner of each FFA would go on to an FFA with the other winners of each FFA until we could reduce it to 4-5 players and the winner of that would be the weekly winner.  At the end of each month we’d take the winner of each of the 4 weeks put them in a 4 way FFA.  I offered shamanship in Lone to the winner of this ‘grand monthly FFA tournament.’ For that particular month, the 4 winners were me, Lordoblivion_kz,
Warmachine_XX, and LadySylvanas.  LadySylvanas was my apprentice, who I was training at the time, and she was doing very well.  She does great in tournaments but doesn’t have the time or patience for ladder, and so she isn’t regarded as one of the great FFA players.  In the final match it came down to me vs her, and while I had trained her and taught her what she knew, and didn’t think it was fair she had to face me like this.  I also thought she’d make a good shaman even though she wasn’t at all a high level in the ladder, which was a requirement at the time in Lone.  She won the game and became a shaman in Lone, something I felt she really deserved. LadySylvanas was very dedicated to Lone and did a lot for it.  I was set to go to the military and gave up serious play around this time and my ranks fell really far.

May 2004
I had to leave for military service. I gave her leadership.  I thought she’d be very fitting for the role of Chieftan and Lone would be in good hands.  To me she was leadership material and I could trust her to get the job done.  To most everyone else she was an unknown and didn’t have a shiny high rank that I did so people didn’t give her much of a chance. She gave into popular demand very quickly and gave the leadership to LordFergo, who became rank 1 after I left.  I personally don’t think this was a good idea, but I wasn’t there so it didn’t matter.  LordFergo didn’t do a very good job at leading the clan, he isn’t leadership material (and that’s not an insult, most people aren’t.)  He almost dissolved the clan on a drunken binge one night, and it’s good he didn’t.  He couldn’t really take leading the clan so he gave it over to a shared account of the leaders of Lone, including LadySylvanas, I_MASS_GYROS, Hexic, and himself.  I think this was a good move.  LadySylvanas did mostly all the leadership and management of the clan throughout my absence, and it was a very dark time at some point after I left.  People were leaving Lone, questioning the merit of the new anti-teaming rules the leadership of Lone put up.  The leaders were very inactive, except for LadySylvanas and GYROS, but it’s hard to lead a split leadership clan with more than half of that leadership inactive.  The clan was a lot weaker than when I left it.  I was absent for about 5 months.

August 2004-October 2004
I was at a remote base and there wasn’t much to do after work was over most nights.  I got a computer over there and a crappy internet connection they offered and started to become active again.  It was hard to play on this computer, and I was very rusty and wasn’t all that serious of a player.  But I had a lot of fun.  I took leadership back into my own hands, and restored a lot of the good that was Lone.  During this time, Clan Fury was made by a group of really good FFA players, and at some points they had as many players in the top 20 as Lone did.  When I took the leadership, I made these anti-teaming rules more clear.  Lone was all about good will towards one another.  We’re not out to make FFA into a desensitized 4 way where every player is a computer and no sort of teaming is allowed.  The rules said you could only situationally team when I was gone.  I never had rules on teaming, I just said if you team regularly, especially at the very beginning of the game, it will really show in your reputation and to me personally it’s not worth it.  Through example I showed that you didn’t need all that teaming to reach a high rank. 

When I took leadership back, people who left the clan would tell me that they found themselves thinking “would get me in trouble with Lone if I did this” while they were in the middle of a game, and found that to take more of their concentration than focusing on the game was.  I understood this fully and made a public explanation that Lone is about good will.  Team when you have to but don’t worry if you’ll be kicked out of Lone for it.  Do what you feel is right and gets you the win, and if your entire strategy relies on being a jerk and teaming from the very start every game, threatening others with suicides if they didn’t team with you, then you wouldn’t be or wouldn’t want to be in Lone anyway.  And that we’d take this teaming matter on a case by case basis and if your game style  is of any concern we’d tell you about it before anything was done.  And sure enough the people of Lone were good people and we never had any real problems, save for a few very rude people.  I myself personally tried to help these people and give them a better way to play, and I reached out to a few of them and really changed them, but some reverted to their old ways.

LadySylvanas did so much for the clan throughout all of this.  No one has spent more time on Lone than she has, and continues to.  She deserves as much if not more recognition than anyone else relating to Lone.  I would like to thank her for all she did and want to say without her, clan Lone would have fallen to pieces when I was gone.

Invincible_Rice completely dominated the FFA ladder during this time.  1.17 was his time to rule.  He had an amazing record and went almost uncontested.  Invincible_Rice was  very good friend of mine whom I encouraged to play FFA, and brought him in on a lot of the matches that were going on in Lone.  He really really improved during the time I left.  He wasn’t that good by the time I was departing and I didn’t have any trouble against him at that time, and he was at his peak during the time I was absent.  When I came back, at the time he was still fairly dominant,  we really never got to play each other.  We were in a few of the same games, but in each of them he was surrounded and I happened to be right next to him.  He would do a gruntapult rush against me, and that’s a very risky tactic.  He would get me as Im not very good at solo TFT in the early game, never bothering to learn them in TFT, and gruntapult is very difficult to beat with Night Elf.  This rush would cause both of us to lose the game, except this one time during a custom game where the other 2 players weren’t very good at all and he easily disposed of them and won.

LordFergo unfortunately died around this time, committing suicide.  The exact date of death appears to be November 16, 2004.  It was a real shame as he struggled with depression for a long time.  Fergo had confided in me many times about it, and it haunts me that I could not help him.  RIP LordFergo, you were a true member of Lone and I will never forget you.
My style of leadership was reaching to people on a really personal level, getting involved with them, helping their game and resolving their issues individually.  I think it worked really well, and soon I got many of the players who wouldn’t be in Lone while I was gone to come back.  Things were going really well and FFA was at another golden age, though I wouldn’t say this was its peak.
We knew FFA was going to decline when World of Warcraft came out, and I had even set to make a WoW guild.  Slack was hosting $20 FFA tournaments every so often, and I had proposed to Slack that we make the biggest prize money FFA of all time.  I thought this would be really great and it would hold interest in FFA even with the upcoming World of Warcraft just over the horizon.  It was set to be held on a day when a lot of people are off, Veterans day.  I dubbed the tournament to be called ‘Veterans’.  It would be one of the last things I did on Warcraft 3.  We worked very hard on putting the tournament together, I spent hours deciding the rules and tourney dates and the way we were going to put this all together.  Slack came up with a fantastic bot to help me run it, and LadySerpentra helped Slack and I moderate the tournament. It had a $250 prize for the winner, I would give half of it and Slack would give the other half.  The tournament was really great and produced a lot of games, unfortunately its format required it to be played over the course of 2 weeks, colliding with World of Warcraft’s release date.  I myself being in Pacific time all the way in California, and having a crazy schedule at that time couldn’t participate in many of the games so I forfeited.  The winners were Invincible_Rice, AFI, and Target.  All very good players.

Some of the greater players at this time: (again, many names escape me now)
Orc: Invincible_Rice, Shadowsoul, sarcasticmister (ebony_goddess), Darq_q, EmmissaryOmega
Undead: Marn, Jaden-Craft, Killer.DK, WarmachineXX, UnholyDreadLorD, PencilWarrior
Human: Planktonboy, 1u1u
Nighr Elf: LordOblivion_kz, F-l-y, Quakeguy, Target, Zakazulu

[X[Hunters]]

November 2004-January 2005
Lone World of Warcraft:
Many Lone players moved mostly towards WoW with LadySylvanas starting up the clan.  Some players played both WoW and War3, but War3 received significantly less attention for a while when everyone was playing WoW.  The Clan lasted until about March 2005, when it broke up due to internal drama and players having left to find better opportunities in established raiding guilds.  Lone itself was never intended to be a large raiding guild, from my understanding.

Lone on Warcraft III again, March 2005
The clan was still going, and there were plenty of FFA games being played.  I myself could not participate much, though I played here and there.  I learned there was a lot of internal drama and struggle for leadership within Lone.  At this point, I wasn’t participating in the leadership but I tried to steer it in the right course.  One member took the clan website www.clanlone.com down and was making hostile demands, and the clan leadership decided to give into him in exchange of the promise to keep the clan website up.  This series of events put Pencilwarrior and Unholydreadlord at the helm of Clan Lone’s leadership.  I don’t know where the clan went from here as it was the extent of my time at Lone, but I’ve heard later that Pencil made a good clan leader. 

I hope someone in the future can fill in the gaps of my history and put in the parts after I left, and perhaps some of the parts of my absence.  Some things I’d like to say: It was a very fun clan during War3’s reign, and I hope the clan recovers from the fall it took during WoW’s time and becomes better for it.  I thought LordFergo’s FFA history was entertaining, but it was rather brief and filled with a lot of inaccuracies. For example, Lone didn’t split from Bane, it split from HERO, and Bane was later formed.  I’d like to end this history with the mission statement I drafted for Lone, that I hope every member of Lone reads and understands:
“Our mission at clan Lone is to create a fellowship of FFA players from all walks of life. They can have a friendly environment, free from grudges, where they can come together and chat, arrange custom games. share knowledge and strategies, and find ladder games. We encourage good will towards one another, and are always looking to better our game play.”

I think if Lone abides by this, it will do great anywhere it goes.  It doesn’t just need to apply to FFA, but to any sort of venture Lone goes into in the future. Lone’s hardest times were when members held hatred and grudges with other members.  It’s the reason why I left, and the reason why many others have as well.  If I were to see this sort of mission statement put back into Lone, I might consider one day coming back.

-X[Hunters]

July 1st 2005

[X[Hunters]]

ADDENDUM, November 19, 2020

The above history was written and posted in July, 2005 on Clan Lone’s forums.  I had meant to post an FFA history much earlier than that, to be published on Lone’s front page, but I just never found the time, and after Fergo died, I decided to keep his history up out of respect. The above post was lost to time due to only being a forum post.

It is now over 15 years later, and I have sought to reconnect with the FFA community.  It is an absolute delight to learn how much it has advanced.  I never participated in the FFA scene after that, but I have had correspondence over the years from time to time with a few players.

Below I’d like to acknowledge many of the key FFA contributors that made this wonderful community possible.

Slack left his famous FFAreplays.com that was one of the biggest pillars of the FFA community, and a great reason for its success, for years to come.  I understand it shut down at some point years later, but it stayed for a *very* long time.  Slack is an unsung hero in FFA history and deserves all of the acknowledgment and accolades for his contributions to the community.  Jim (Slack), you were one of my favorite people and I will always regard you with honor.  Most everyone in the FFA community does not know that he is also an accomplished video game developer.
Ladysylvanas, though not a high level FFA contender, worked so hard to contribute to the FFA community and the administration of Lone.  She helped steer the clan through some very difficult days.  She deserves the recognition she never got.  You disappeared years ago, and I hope you’re doing well out there.

Blaine Whittle, (BWhittle) it’s only because of you that we ever got an FFA ladder, and had the official Blizz policy of banning preteamers.  None of what this community had would not be possible without you advocating for us at Blizzard.  You are my favorite Blizzard employee of all time.

Shadowsoul, Ebonygoddess (SarcasticMister) you two were pillars of the FFA community in your day.  You were my dear friends and I have wished for years to get back in touch with you.  I hope that I still can some day.

I-never-smile, I had only ever taken on two apprentices and you were one of them.  None but you and me knew that, and I’m only revealing that here.  You were the greatest student I could have ever had.  You had written years ago, and I have only recent seen it, that I was at the top of the list of people you wish would come back to the FFA scene.  You wrote “I hope he’s still out there somewhere”, and indeed I was, though not playing War3.  Likewise, I hope you’re still out there somewhere doing great with yourself.  It was a privilege to take you under my wing, and you did amazing things with what you learned. 

InvincibleRice, you are often considered to be the greatest FFA player of all time.  You were in your prime nearly unstoppable, and a truly excellent player in all respects.  Your phenomenal play, your astounding FFA record, your guide, and many other parts about you brought so much interest into the FFA scene.  You are the player that I am most proud of recruiting into the FFA scene.  We were long time rivals in solo and having experienced your wrath in more than one high level tournament, I knew you would be an absolutely fearsome FFA competitor.  We had a long running friendly rivalry over our record against each other in FFA.  I wish we could play one more big FFA together to settle it!  I miss you my friend.
WarMachineXX is a pioneer of FFA and another unsung hero who never got the credit he deserves.  He played some of the greatest games, and was one of the most consistent players.  He never made any excuses, he never talked any smack, he was just pure good play and a purely good player.  He is the *only* person I have kept in touch with all of these years, as he was always a close friend.  Michael, thank you for everything you’ve done for FFA.

LordFergo, it has been almost exactly sixteen years since you’ve died.  You are the reason I have written this addendum and sought out everyone else to get back in touch.  I only learned recently that your sister posted last year on reddit looking for you, looking to connect to people who know you, and it has inspired me to reach out to everyone.  I tried messaging her, but it’s been a few days with no response.  It still haunts me all these years later that I could not help you…Lord knows I tried.  I hope you’re at peace.  You loved the FFA community, and knowing you as well as I did, you would be proud of everything it has achieved.  I’m sure you’re out there somewhere, mass teleporting through heaven…

Marn, who some would consider the godfather of FFA, was arrested sometime in 2007-2008 for abducting a 14 year old girl, and was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.  His unwitting accomplice, Nobleduck, gave me exclusive details years later into the exact situation.  I won’t reveal these details as they were told to me in confidence, but as most would guess, Marn was indeed a pedophile.  He was an incredible divisive figure in FFA history, even in his day, and it’s a shame his legacy is tarnished.  The FFA community should never deny his contribution to early FFA history, as he was truly its first pioneer and promoter.

For all of you FFA players who came after my time, I wish I could have met you and played with you.  I understand there were some amazing players who came after, and I am sure you would have blown all of us old geezers out of the water even in our primes.  You are the product of a community those of us in the past worked so hard to nurture.

Though I never participated in FML, I am *extremely* proud of its achievements and everything it did in taking the torch started by Lone and running with it.  You guys are amazing, and it is an absolute honor that you brought the FFA community to another level.  It’s everything I ever wanted to see with the FFA community advancing and becoming better and better, and more.  My one regret is I was not a part of it.  Though I don’t know most of its participants, I love you all.
If you would like to contact me, my email is atlas199@gmail.com.  I would like to one day reconnect with my FFA friends, including Shadowsoul, Ebonygoddess, i-never-smile, LadySylvanas, Rice, FinalFantasyVI, and many others.  I miss you all.

-X[Hunters]

November 19, 2020

[Seksi]

Cool write up, man.  Thanks for posting!  Some of us have been around for a long time, but I think only AlienWareOwnZ is still playing of those guys you listed.

I personally started playing FFA right after these times you discussed.  The tail end of players like F-L-Y and Nooblex and into the times of Magadansky, Nline, etc. 

Unfortunately, I am relinquished to feeling like WC3 and FFA is like a bad break up full of good memories and lasting disappointment.  We have had a strong community for so many years all leading up to the release of WC3: Reforged which was any WC3 player's dream.  The release couldn't of been worse and it has not gotten any better, FFA has been slowly dying.  WC3 Champions is an incredible 3rd party ladder and program that supports competitive WC3, but less and less so FFA.   We really need Blizzard to release a working ladder for Reforged, but it's been almost a year with no ladder.   

Activision-Blizzard is no longer the Blizzard we grew up with.  I hate to say it but all games now are driven by profit-first mentality and microtransactions... games are made now to be addictive with daily quests and ways to get consumers to spend money.  The focus is not on gameplay or graphics or story anymore.  Activision-Blizzard is a prime example of this, as the quality of the great games of the past are gone (Diablo 2, WC3, WOW in its first stages).  Even Hearthstone has turned for the worst.   I truly feel the era of great gaming has come and passed.   /rantover

We were all so hopeful for WC3 Reforged, me perhaps more than anybody.  Maybe one day ladder will be released and the FFA scene revitalized.  We do have the tools to do so (twitch, discord, ffamasters, youtube, etc.). 

[X[Hunters]]

I didn't know any of that.  What a shame.  I heard WC3 Reforged was a colossal failure, and even ruined the classic version of the game.  Is there really no ladder even if you play the WC3 classic client?

[FML|WorpeX]

This is absolutely awesome! Such a cool write-up. This was the era of FFA which I'm not really familiar with as FML started up about a year after you had quit (late 2006). Really cool to relive the past through your eyes. The FFA community has had such a cool and unique history. It's a small community but we've always had huge ambitions. You could seriously write-up an novel of FFA history through all of its eras and all of it would be interesting.

[X[Hunters]]

I'd read that book!

[Peregrine]

Thanks for the nostalgic writeup! I joined FFA and Lone in 2006 or so, and I always heard of XHunters as a FFA pioneer and amazing elf player. I knew many of the players you have mentioned, including i-never-smile, who recently made a reappearance himself a few months ago. If you join the discord you might have some luck in reconnecting with him. XX still plays, as does Alien, and Target sometimes.

Hope you start playing again, there's a third party software called W3Champions that all the top players in every game type play on. If you use that, you will be able to play ladder. I'm sure it will take some time to shake off the micro rust, but core FFA strategy remains the same :)

[FML|Mage]

Great write up!  We have some of the early middle years documented around the site, but very little of the earliest years so it's always fascinating to read.

[Camp_and_Spank]

What a great read!

Although I played on europe at the time and was a part of the notorious FF4 clan for a while this was very nice to read!

Without ffareplays I would be surprised if "pro ffa" ever took off

[FML|WorpeX]

What a great read!

Although I played on europe at the time and was a part of the notorious FF4 clan for a while this was very nice to read!

Without ffareplays I would be surprised if "pro ffa" ever took off

ffareplays didn't really have anything to do with FML. I was an admin of WCReplays at the time I started FML and didn't even know the FFA scene existed. Most replays were actually posted on that site rather then ffareplays in the early seasons. We obviously moved over to ffareplays once the true FFA players got in my ear though. Had ffareplays not existed, things certainly would have been different but FML would have still happened.

With that said, the FML's post s8 revival can be attributed to ffareplays! Mr. Sparkle had started posting a series of old FML replays to reminisce the old seasons. I was starting to miss FML at the time and I wandered onto the site during this and saw the comments on the posts saying how much other people missed the league too. It wasn't too long after that FML returned with S10!