Veridian wrote:When I wrote that, DoD really WAS dying. The transition from Beta to Retail was a rough time. It was really buggy, there was a huge influx of n00b players, and the clan community was majorly at odds with the pub community. People were leaving in droves. Clans were folding every day. League match forfeits were commonplace. It became difficult to field enough guys for a match.
It was a FAR cry from the Beta days. The heyday of clanning in DoD. The game played better, and the people were just... better. I'm talking the pre-CAL days, when STA was the league to play in.
From my point of view, back then, it seemed pretty hopeless...
Even though I haven't been around in, oh, 8 years, i bet I wouldn't be too far off the mark to say it's still not like it used to be.
I was just giving you a hard time. I don't think any of the original beta players disagreed at the the time (myself included). I had largely quit playing, and was declaring the same sentiment (dod is dead) by the time Fragmart happened in August of 2003. But in reality, the community actually grew exponentially post retail, peaking with about 4000 active players in mid 2005 before the last cpl/wsvg. Then falling off dramatically in 2006 when CAL crashed and burned.
I kind of view the pre-retail and post-retail as almost two entirely different communities, as the community in large part totally changed as new players came in from 2003-2005 to replace all of the beta players that left in droves. There are very few of us original beta players that are still involved with the community today. But to me, it won't ever be the same as it was when we were tuning in to [KWI]Gen.Warbuff's shoutcast as sac| stuck it to 101st for like the 10th time in the STA finals. So yeah, I feel your pain.
