The Last Session

The last session, the last session
The last session with you
Don't mean the last game is over
The last session, the last session
The last session was through

If you've followed the project you've probably noticed that the last days have been extremely slow. No updates, and no sessions. This is because a number of reasons, primarily the number of participants. The old crew is there, but it's hard to gain newcomers and with the summer break over, even the old crew is having a hard time showing up. 2-3 player sessions is even worse than those 4 player sessions I complained about before.

Therefore I've decided to put this project to a halt. Yes, before they had the final exam. It just isn't worth it, because the final exam will end up with 3 players participating, and that's no good. It's better to end now and save a lot of energy being pushed down into something that will give no outcome. I think I've made my point with the project anyway. This point I will get to later in this blog post.

I had so much planned, but I can only go that far on a small team. Even if I would've focused on small-teams tactics, they need more training in the large-scale battle-theatre to be able to figure out small-team tactics as well. I just can't supply with neither the training or the experience, due to the low amount of people active in this project.

My thoughts on this project is as follows:

There are CS-kiddies. And they are idiots. Chocked? I've written the last few weeks how much I was amazed of my cadets. And I am. But there are CS-kiddies out there. A lot of them.

I put down an enourmous amount of time on bumping my thread over threads like "Pee or Drink?". In this very interesting thread they discuss whether to pee or drink if they really had to empty the bladder and were very thirsty at the same time. Priorities are interesting subjects.

I also put down an enormous amount of time chasing down people that sent in an application, and refused to answer me before they even got to their first training session. They seem to regret they had applied, which is fair enough I think, but they didn't have the guts to tell me. One guy I fetched of a forum I regularly visit (Swedish PC Gamer, if you must know) and he not only ignores me on MSN and mail, but also on that forum. How neat.

There are idiots out there in the game communities, and there seems to be a more of them in the CS-community. I can't argue against it. The project was supposed to fight this, but it ended up proving it instead. At least to a certain degree.

I changed 5 CS-Kiddies into OFP-players. I did that. I actually did that. But on the path there, through recruitment of these 5, I ran into at least ten times more CS-Kiddies that I did NOT turn into OFP-players. What I did was end up with five of the most decent CS-Kiddies there were. But they were CS-Kiddies, nonetheless, the forum posts, the enormous amount of 1337-phrases and illogical smileys, the way of thinking. It was all there. But this project would've been a lot more interesting if I had gotten away with 20 random CS-Kiddies, instead of the five "top" ones. These guys could adapt and enjoy OFP, I don't think every CS-Kiddie out there could do that.

But we can never know for sure, and in that way this project was a failure. I don't own ten million dollars I can give away as price-money, nor do I have the power to force people. I had to look for volunteers and then this was the result.

But in a few ways the project was a success. I managed to change this people that were stuck in the CS 'culture' of immaturety, cheating and impatience into responsible and mature players. I just had to show them a layer of their gaming that they didn't know they possessed. They didn't know they had that maturety inside them, or that patience. But they found out, in some ways I even think that developed them as persons. A way of growing up and realizing that gaming can be more than 5-minute rounds.

I don't think 0MgK|lzz4uz00r will show up in ArmA when released, but I do suspect some of the CS-people will check out the game. Those that do check it out are probably like these persons. We will face them on the public servers and on the forums when it's released. They will be a pain in the arse, because they are stuck in the CS 'culture'. But we just have to show those people that layer that they didn't know they had, just like I showed these 5 guys. And I hope we will show them, because while there may be idiots in CS - there are bloody good people there too. I know. I've played with them. And I've enjoyed every bloody minute of it. From the first time when we went up to that castle and had a skirmish, to the last session that was played tonight when we had lost all our weapons and had to prevent an assault on the airfield with a vehicle-mounted grenade launcher and laser designated artillery.

I still remember that skirmish in the castle. lol, d3y w3r3 n00bz00rs.