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Introduction - Or how you came to be a long standing member of the community

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Harb

Harb

Grizzled Veteran
Feb 16, 2006
1,416
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London
#1
A bit of a bloated title but I thought it would be nice to share our stories about how we came to be involved with Tripwire games and the community and why we've hung around for so long. Thinking back it's amazing how quickly 10 years goes and how many changes there have been. We've seen Tripwire move from a mod team to AAA titles (judging on what I've seen of KF2).

I imagine most of us started with either the original Red Orchestra MOD or with Killing Floor. However I started with Red Orchestra Ostfront, the first game I ever purchased on Steam after being a little disappointed with COD2. Since then I've worked on Mare Nostrum and helped out on Darkest Hour when it first started.

Unlike most mod teams we stuck together and are now working on a new project together, this rare longevity can be attributed to the friendly and supportive atmosphere Tripwire creates for their mod teams.

Sadly I don't know many people outside those small mod teams but I've made some good friends and I've met up in real life with both UncleDrax who made a map for TWI for the original RO mod (iirc) and worked on Mare Nostrum and also with Case who worked on Mare Nostrum.

So after 10 years I'm still here, still enjoying the games and hope to see you all in KF2 :)


Favourite Tripwire Dev = Yoshi
 
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#4
i've been following RO since all they had were signatures on the beyond unreal forums.
I used to play the old UT mod TTR. Never played the ut2k3 mod because i never had UT2k3 nor a computer capable of running it but i did get UT2k4 and its RO version right away.
Got into the clan scene and played a lot of matches...
Played quite a bit of KF1. RO2 did not run well on my hardware and kinda generally lost interest in gaming. KF2 does not run well either so...
 
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#5
That's actually a cool thread!

I stumbled over RO when I was looking for a realistic shooter experience to follow up on the fantastic Infiltration total conversion for classic UT, which started to sho it's age back in 03. Now I don't know how exactly I found it, other than generally searching for realistic mods for the impressive tech of UT2k3.
I think Beta 1.2 of the original UT2k3 mod was the first iteration of RO that I played and I fell absolutely in love with it. Shortly after starting, as the community was tiny, I was recruited into [-project.twilight-] and quickly became the team's dedicated machinegunner.
And man, were we a powerhouse. We dominated the fledgeling competitive scene, remaining undefeated from Ut2k3 days to well into the Ostfront period of RO. I still remember many old members here crumbling under my relentless streaks of machinegun fire. Especially if they sported the {Core} or {CoreNA} tag!
Sadly, with people growing up and lifes getting in the way, our skill and interest (not neccessarily in that orer) tapered off, even though members of my team were crucial in establishing RO:Ladder as the to date only working and active RO competitive environment, and of the developement of Carpathian Crosses, a mod for Ostfront.

But it wasn't all roses over the last few years with RO and TW.
I remember the controversy when, with the switch to UT2k4 and the Make Something Unreal contest, vehicels were introduced. Man were they buggy at first. And they do remain one of my least liked feature in RO, I do prefer me some infantry action.
IIRC, the transition from the Mod to retail Ostfront went quite smoothly though, and TW, generous as ever with it's community, quite freely doeld out beta keys to community member of influence.

I think the biggest fallout though I had with TW was with HoS. Not only was (and still is) the unlock system stupid and broken, especially for competitive play, I felt that they stopped to listen to community feedback the same way they did back in the mod days. Also, in one swift stroke of genious, they both denied RO:Ladders years long request for some kind of support (be it features neccessary for true competitive play, like the option to disable the unlock system, or prizes to tournamnent winners, etc) while at the same time trying to establish a new ladder with some odd site specialized on battlefield with an insanely high prizes to win... That felt like a slap in the face.

Still bought and played all of their games to show my support, even though I kind of had the reputation of a grumpy bitter man in these forums.

And speaking of the forums: back when Ostfront was new, I actually had the highest postcount!

Been long 12 years with TW now.
 
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#6
I've been playing RO since 2004, starting with their UT2K4 mod.

I was an avid simulation gamer back then and when I grew a huge interest in WW2, it didn't take me long to make the jump from IL2 to RO. It was everything I wanted in a WW2 FPS; it aimed to be realistic while also embracing some mainstream elements, it strived for authenticity, it was immersive and it had a developer team passionate about both the game and the history.

I proceeded to play the heck out of the mod when they announced Ostfront, which was basically RO Mod with better polish. I gave that game my thousands of hours over the course of 5 years which included being a member of several high-profile clans such as 13th and insom, a map which was included in the stock game after a contest (Kryukovo) and a Turkish fansite with dozens of members. RO was pretty much my life after school/work. I loved TWI to death.

Then they came up with RO2, which they were extremely secretive about until the release. When I first played it, I wasn't sure if it was really Red Orchestra or just another mainstream shooter in hardcore mode. It was a completely different game aside from the name and setting. I grew contempt of the direction the game took (less RO, more mainstream) and that wasn't helped by outrageous remarks from TWI which included "You're just the vocal 1%" and straight-out dismissal. Every time Gibson spoke it got worse. My fansite closed, tens of friends left for greener pastures, ROLadder closed and I simply lost interest, but I still lurked the forums. It was a horrible feeling to see how my investment over the years got destroyed.

I like KF, but that's just about it. KF1/2 has as much enthusiasm in them as Ostfront/mod though, I'll give them that.

I'm still lurking and check for news about RO a few times a month. I learned to take what they say with a lot of salt though.
 
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#7
I recall it was sometime around late '03 when I first heard about Ostfront, I was playing some semi-comp CoD 2 at the time, if memory serves. I also remember hanging around the IRC chan a ton at the time (shoutout to Ralf, Masta, DJ, Bob and all the rest :) ), getting access to the Ost beta after which I promptly fell in love with it (after my first few stabbings of Wilson, hehe) and played the hell out of it until about '09 or '10, which was also a very welcome change of pace to the mainstream shooters I had played before Ost (CS, MoH:AA, CoDs etc).
Pretty much agree with rattus & Rak on the points about the changes from Ost to HoS so I won't reiterate those.
Regarding weapons, iirc, my dedicated clan class was the sniper but that came somewhat naturally as I preferred the rifleman class during pretty much the entirety of my RO playing. Bolt & bayo ftw!

Also, speaking of the infamous domination of pT, wasn't your fate decided by us at that ROL final?

{Core} in yo' face!! :p

Edit: And shoutout to the Iron Crescendo crew, those were some epic battles. :IS2:
 
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#9
Red Orchestra: Ostfront brought me to this forum. I don't really remember exactly how I found out about the game, most likely I read a review somewhere. I have been a big fan of Operation Flashpoint so I already knew I liked tactical shooters. And that year also saw the release of ArmA which also got me hyped and hooked.

Before Ostfront I wasn't really into multiplayer shooters, of course I had played Unreal Tournament, a bit of Counterstrike, and Battlefield 1942 but I didn't play those games online or against other human players much.

Anyway, I was so hyped for Ostfront (I still think playing as a rifleman with a bolt-action rifle and being good at it is the best thing in any online game) that I got into modding, I beta tested a bit for Carpathian Crosses and even learned how to make maps with the editor (but didn't make anything worth mentioning).

The release of ArmA 2 was a huge disappointment for me (it is the same game as ArmA 1 with all the unpolished flaws as ArmA 2 but nicer graphics which made it run even ****tier). So I was "stuck" with Ostfront.

The release of Killing Floor was a nice surprise. Such simple gameplay mechanics yet I liked it for what it was. The release version of KF was so different from todays version, I kinda wish there was a Day 1 version, without the overpowered weapons and the whitelist :eek:

I always thought KF and the success it had was a good thing for Tripwire and Red Orchestra 2 because it brought a lot of fresh money to the table.

But Heroes of Stalingrad was just meh. I never got into that game. In my opinion the focus on Stalingrad was a bad choice (from creative/scenario point of view) and also poorly executed. Tripwire made a lot of weird decisions with that game (still no proper reload animations for most of the weapons, really?) compared to games like Insurgency Heroes of Stalingrad is a mess. And it also lacked the silliness of completely unpolished custom maps like Ostfront had them in its early days (Makhno Village, Beach Assault, etc).

So the big question is what will Tripwire's next big game after Killing Floor 2 be? Red Orchestra 3? Does anyone want that game?

I hope they take some risks again like they did with Killing Floor.
 
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#10
Hi, I'm Gregs and i'm an addict. It started way back in 2005 when I first played KFMod. Back when the KF Proboards were rife with now very familiar names and the mod was spearheaded by "Mr Kadish" (Alex Quick) and chums. I expressed a keen interest in voice acting for his unreleased story driven Island map. I submitted my crap efforts and we got chatting. I eventually got into testing the KFMod 2.51 update (the one with The Patriarch) with Marco, Alex and others. It was fun.

Then the mod went retail. I was bought on board as a tester for TW. Post KF release, I've dabbled in some mod map "revamps" (KF-Train, KF-Marshes) for retail.

I was approached by TW a few years back to be a moderator on these here forums, hence the green name.

The rest as they say, is history.

My name is Gregs and i'm a KF Addict.

Thanks for listening.
 
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#13
PT lost only once during the mod days in that winter cup vs suomi. They drew once in the normal ladder vs {Core}.
I remember how for a while when i was in {Core} we would play PT the day before a clan match because somehow the pounding made us better the day after haha.

What i remember very well in my other main love in terms of clanning good ol' =IcM= was that we had this weird curse thing going on. If we merced for a other clan we would usually be among the best players but us togther would be hit and miss so often. it was weird.
I also remember how during the last days of roost me and a couple more =IcM= guys joined a german clan and were basically the best players. Then we had a final icm revival for the farewell tournament and suddenly they were better than us.
 
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#14
Made my way here for KF, was pretty active on the forums pre-release. Messed around with mapping a bit in the mod forums. I was sort of the touch point for my friends for KF development, got a lot of people playing the game.

Dabbled in RO before I decided it wasn't my cup of tea.

Spent a good portion of my time between KF and RO2 in the off-topic gaming forum, before it started getting fewer and fewer posts.

Became active again for RO2, I suppose as a scumbag casual counterpoint to the forums more hardcore RO veterans. Enjoyed my time in RO2 although I didn't get as heavily into posting about it after release.

And then suddenly, KF2.

RE: RO2. I've always felt like it was an example of TWI biting off more than they could chew. The complicated vehicles, the specific wants and needs of RO vets vs. pretty much every other gamer in the market. Too many ideas for game modes, too much said before it was known it could be achieved, too many details that needed to be ironed out with the size of team they had and their release window. I by no means think RO2 was a bad game. But with a community like this, every missed feature or questionable design decision was a recipe for disappointment. I'm very sad RO2 isn't going strong anymore. The first few weeks of release with full servers were amazing for me, some games really captured the feel they were going for.

But now when I have a desire to play it and jump on...it's a ton of servers populated by bots, or a handful of servers with people so good at the game that it plays utterly differently than how it was at release.
 
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#17
I first learned about RO in the back of a MacAddict magazine I had bought at an airport. There was a small (apparently recurring) feature in the back of the magazine called "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." In the issue I had, the subject was UT2K4 mods (UT2K4 was about to be released, so it was a major subject of that issue); I forget what the "Bad" mod was, but I remember it started with something like "And by bad, we mean badass." The ugly was some tasteless thing where you had to escape from the World Trade Center. And the Good? Red Orchestra. All it had was two or three sentences talking about realistic WW2 combat, and saying that the team had teased they would eventually be adding tanks, accompanied by a postage-stamp sized screenshot.

It was a while before the UT2K4 came out, and a few weeks after I bought it, I remembered that mod I'd heard of. I found the magazine and got the URL and checked it out. It was right around the time 2.0 came out; the devs has just added the MG-34 and had released a video showing the reloading and barrel-change animations; it blew me away. I started playing, and I was hooked.

After some time, I joined IRC and the forums (that was two or three versions of the forum ago) and became active within the community. Back then the game was having new features added all the time, so there were always long threads debating the merits of features or of differing implementations.

I made a lot of friends ingame, in the forums, and IRC, like those kapulA mentioned. Stiletto (RIP) was my favorite person to play with in those days. By being active in the community I got to know some of the devs (Yoshi, Polygon, and Sasquatch mostly, probably a few more whose names I forget) as well as some of the at-the-time moderators like JCoquillon, Zips, and Wolfsglen (RIP). Since I was so active in the community (and fairly level-headed in the forums) the devs trusted me so eventually I was made an OP in IRC and a moderator on the forums. I was also on the team that beta tested KF before its release; I've got a tester credit in the manual :).

Since then I've gotten more busy and kind of drifted away from gaming a bit. I started played RO in high school and back then I was playing at least 3-4 hours per day, if not more; I'd just hop into a random server. Since the community was so small, you got to know most everyone in a short period of time. But for the past few years, I've lost interest in just playing games with pubbies; I only really like playing games if there are friends playing with me. Since my friends have moved on to other games, so have I. I got too busy to continue moderating the forums, so I gave that up. I still hang out in IRC, although most of the people from the RO community talk in the arma channel now; I own both the RO and KF chans on IRC since devs stopped hanging around in them.

As for these forums, I don't post that much anymore. I was most active in the mod days and as RO2 was in development; there were always good conversations to be had in the General Discussion and Ideas and Suggestions sections. While I like KF, I never felt I was such a huge fan or that good at it to really have much to say in those sections. Now I just check the off topic sections occasionally; sometimes I find an interesting thread like this one :).
 
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#18
I ended up here after playing Red Orchestra when it was first a mod. Was hooked immediately after first install. Eventually registered on the forums after Ostfront was released. Played competitively in that some. Made a couple maps. Then Darkest Hour/Mare Nostrum was released. Played the hell out of those. Must have put more than 1000 hours into that game.

To my satisfaction and surprise, TWI picked up Killing Floor, a mod I played as well. This was great in the fact that I loved Killing Floor (I Ran/played UT2004 Invasion servers) and it brought some of that talent into TWI's community (Marco, Alex Quick, and others.) So two communities I was apart of became one.

On RO2's release I sort of fell out of the forums. The game didn't run well for me due to crashes and just it didn't seem to have that community backing Ostfront did. Along with the heated forums came member bans, distrust, criticism and more. Whether some bans were right or not the forums ended up losing some familiar faces. In the end I just ended up not getting into RO2 much. I stuck mostly to KF1, running servers and making mods/maps for it.

Now with Killing Floor 2 here, some new life will brought into our community, and hopefully TWI & the players both learned something from RO2s release. So far all I see is great potential.
 
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