EPTIt was my favorite game, and every day, I'd put at least two hours into it. Everything felt so homely in the game, and I'd feel all comfortable in my chair while playing. It's a feeling hard to describe--I think the most I can say was that everything was different back when I was a kid and the way my heart raced when I was playing clan matches, or when I just hung out training my online friends, or when I just plainly entered into someone else's training room and had fun and talked.
I've joined plenty of clans, and I was never reluctant to make friends online and talk to them about everything. It was a different kind of atmosphere in GunZ than most other games I've played. My clanmates and I would chill in our clan rooms, with the occasional players coming in for tryouts. And the clan administrators assigned me as an admissions officer for the clan. I'd test how good people were in 1v1 matches and if they made it into the clan, I'd be their mentor. That was a load of power they gave me, and it spurred me on to get even better so I have more things to teach my pupils. Seriously, everything felt so good back then.
My friends didn't just play GunZ with me, that wasn't all. We'd talk and find that we played other games, too. And that's what made me bond with them more, PvP luring with them in Runescape. Of course, I had a lot of times that were very downy, too. I remember telling my clanmates I would be checking out another clan, just to see. I forget the name of it, but I remember one of the player's name, and I would meet her in every ATK&DEF game in the gameroom. Adaliana. He/She (the character was a female, but you can never be too sure) was such a good player. Everytime we were on opposing teams, she would kill me more than I killed her. And the times we were on the same teams, I would spectate her whenever I died, trying to see what she was doing that was so out of the ordinary that she survived more than me.
So I decided to join her clan. They acknowledged my application and they tried me out. I did very well in my tryouts. The only clear moment I have in my head now was in the map called Town. One of their clan administrators were facing me off at the big clock. I had dual revolvers and he had dual shotguns. Once the other administrator in the back of that little wooden balcony counted down, we started moving around everywhere.
In the early part of the match, we both used swords and sliced each other. It was more of an unofficial custom back then to be using swords until you reached a far enough distance that you could switch to guns. I don't know what the explanation is behind that, as shotguns close range and that clan administrator would have beat me straight out. We started exchanging fire at a medium to long range, and his shotgun spread hit me the whole time. It was not that much damage, but enough shots would be able to take me out.
I fired my revolver in my first gun slot. I got the hit-counter sound and his armor should have been knocked down about 1/4th and his health should have been knocked down about 1/8th. I press R for reload and then press 3 for my second gun slot. The reason behind this was reloading and then cancelling the reload let you switch to your second gun slot faster and let it fire the shot faster. I fire again and the hit-counter beeped again.
This was where I started getting suspicious of my shots. In GunZ, lag delay really mattered, because it determined where the players are in real-time, not in game-time. There's a term in GunZ called "leading." Not "leh-ding" as in the element Lead. Leading as in leader. It's called after your crosshair being the leader and the opponent being the follower. It's actually more the other way around because you're predicting where your opponent is in real-time and firing at that spot. There might be no one there in your screen, but that lag delay dictates that your opponent should be there.
Although they were suspicions, they weren't a really big deal in my head. It was something that was just a statement in my head. Like how in SC2, you see an opponent expanding and say in your head, "Okay, he's expanding now." It's just a snap thought like that, and then you understand how the rest of the game goes and it's out of your thoughts. I kept playing like I played normally.
As a kid, my hands were small. I would be able to hit R and then 3 perfectly, but I would not be able to hit R and 2 perfectly. I don't know why, but it was what it was. So I couldn't do the reload-cancel when I switch back to my first gun slot. No problem, I still switch it and shoot. Hit counter beep. Round goes on for about 45 more seconds with my hit counter beeping every shot I made, and then my opponent died.
And I asked, "how many shots did i miss?"
"you didnt miss any man ur in the clan"
And wow, that was it. I was in the clan Adaliana was in. I never really got to talk to Adaliana because she would be playing in the exclusive clan matches while I stuck to playing ATK&DEF games in the pubs lobby. I was having fun in the clan, the people were nice mannered, although they would occasionally spit out "noob" at people who we played in Castle TDM when they got a lucky kill.
My interest in the clan started going down after two days. I realized my friends in my older clan were more like family to me and I rushed back to our clan forums and made a thread. It went something along me being sorry that I left the clan and that I wanted to be back in the old one with all of my friends. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, though. The clan leader hated my guts when he found out that I left the clan. He told me I was a traitor and that I would never be welcome ever again. I never got a word with him and he banned me from the forums.
I felt homesick in GunZ for the longest time ever. Thank goodness I added some of my friends from my clan, or else I would have quit right then and there. We'd still talk to each other, and I would ask them out of the blue somedays if the clan leader was still mad at me. They'd tell me he's still mad and that I should try again later. I left the clan Adaliana was in, too, and I tried getting back in. Their administrators were always busy for some reason now, and I would never be able to correctly apply and get back in again. So now I was effectively clanless.
GunZ started getting boring to me at that point. My online friends would start disappearing for a day, and then for two days, and then for three. This was abnormal to me, because they'd be on all the time unless they were my friends from the Eastern time zone. They'd had a curfew and I understood they had to sign off and let me play alone somedays. By the way, the friends' list was weird back then, it only let you add something like 10 people, so obviously I never got to add all my friends, which sucked extreme ass (I also cried because some of my clanmates I really liked would never get a word back from me ever again).
The limited amount of people in my friends list would occasionally play Runescape or something else with me, but I started signing out myself for days on end. I'd sign on and see my friends not online, then sign off again. Then they'd sign on two hours later and see me not online, and they'd sign off as well. Goddammit, I feel so guilty for that. My GunZ character was now retired.
Nearing the end of international GunZ, there was a large influx of hackers, with the most prominent hack as the caterpillar. The caterpillar was a very very big chain of massive attacks. Massive attacks were charged up sword strikes that would stun your opponent and also deal damage. Because they were charged up, they gave an animation of yellow blasts when executed. It was called the caterpillar because people who used the hack just kept on walking, and since the yellow blasts stayed for a short duration, it looked like a train, or more preferably, a caterpillar.
MAIET would soon after close down their international GunZ because less and less people were playing. It still seemed like a lot to me back then, honestly. 200/200 people on the first server, and 90/200 on the second. I didn't first find this out through news on a website or anything. I just tried to sign on one day and it said "waiting for server..." for the longest time ever. It was until after the fact that I went onto Google looking for an answer. I typed in GunZ and it led me to their site, which said they were closing down their servers.
I don't know how it made such a difference to me. I haven't talked to my friends for weeks and they were outside of my thoughts. But the server closed down and I instantly remembered them, and how I'd never ever talk to any of my friends ever again. They wouldn't sign on to any of the other games we played. That was it. My e-family was gone.
That's the most important part of my story, but I'll continue this on the side, although it may be more simplified and short, for anyone interested.
ijjiGunZ opened up and I jumped back into the game. There were new methods now. Insta-fall, triple butterfly, more opportunities opened up. Those blue swords with the cold-buff on them made you unable to butterfly effectively, and it was almost like the 100% counter to k-stylers. I joined a few clans here and there again and tried to get the same feelings I had for the game back then, but it just didn't feel the same. I quit permanently.
I haven't played GunZ for about three or four years now.
But my experiences have changed me for the better. Those hardships of having to lose friends you knew to the extent that they'd tell you their full name online (which was deemed very risky back then) kept me looking for a community so much like how it was in GunZ. It might be weird, but a good bunch of real life friends I had a long time ago didn't even strike me as better than my GunZ friends. And no matter how unbelievable it is, I still haven't found anything ever to challenge my GunZ friendship experience.
This is where TeamLiquid steps in. It is one of the best communities I have ever been in. And even though I may not post a lot. I have this site as my homepage on both my desktop and my laptop. I read a damn lot of threads every day and I haven't kept count of how many. I wish I could post more, but I really struggle with long texts if they don't appeal to what I want to write about at that exact moment. But that doesn't stop me from feeling comfy here. TeamLiquid is really one of the communities I feel keeps me reminiscent of my old GunZ days. I just realized this today and want to say thank you to the site.
