Roll The Dice Clan History ~ Volume 13

[MasterShrive 2,015]

Congratulations - Roll The Dice Turns Six!
 

Volume 13? And we're six years old? What kind of witchcraft is this?! Basically, we here at Roll The Dice work on the same numbering system as Microsoft use for their operating systems. Incidentally, our complaints system also has a similar ethos and all issues/suggestions can be forwarded to complaints@rtdclan.net. I'm pretty sure these forward to BP and he has promised to address each and every email individually (assuming he isn't the one submitting them in the first place).

So, 2,191 days have passed since this clan came into existence. That's a long time, especially in the online world. For me, this clan is just apart of my everyday life - no different to football, going to school, or bingeing TV shows from the couch. I've been in Roll The Dice for two-thirds of my online gaming career and one fifth of my life in total. After awhile, it just becomes second nature. It's family. It's home.

A few things I'd like to mention off the top. Firstly, Pench, a mutual friend of ours was disbelieving when I said I could put together 10,000 words on gaming in an afternoon if needed (don't worry people, that's far from my intention this time around - this is only a lazy two thousand words put together in my lunch break). However, I'd appreciate if you set that person straight the next time you see them.

Phoby - I wanted to know how that like-off is going that you challenged me to 12 months ago? Although that said, I can't believe we've had these forums for a year already, so kudos to you for that.

And while I'm ticking off some boxes, here's the direct and exact mention bprc wanted when he presses Ctrl + F. You owe me one like, arse hat.

So, things have been quiet, but it's still worth looking at the six months since the last report.


The Last Six Months:
Clearly, the big news is that XFire is gone. Dead. Buried. And yet, for some reason, the program itself still works (even providing a twice-hourly popup to tell you it no longer functions). That's service for you! A shame they didn't put that much effort into actually running the program... but I'm not bitter about it at all.

So just as we did for the passing of vWar, once again please take a minute silence out of respect (yes, the video is one second longer than required apparently, so feel free to talk before it finishes).
 

I think the real question is - what's going to go next? Steam? Origin? God forbid uPlay?! I don't think I can handle the stress. As long as my version of the original TeamSpeak still works on Windows 10 I'll be happy.

So no doubt things have generally been quiet. We've dabbled in a few games, such as Hardline, GTA V and something to do with riding dinosaurs, but on the whole it's mainly been social gaming here and there. I noted six months ago that Battlefront would maybe hold a New Hope (see what I did there?), and while we've seen some footage from it now I think it's safe to say we're all going in with a very guarded approach. We can only pray that it's not another Phantom Menace (okay, that one was a stretch, although perhaps the comparison is just).

But then the forums are still very active and TeamSpeak is getting plenty of use. So we're here... we're just a relaxed and taking things as they come. I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

Now for some stats...


The Stats:
I do like graphs:
 

]

Dropbox linke if you'd like a look: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8zz2bk68sakaqgv/Full%20Member%20Master%20List.xlsx
 
I decided, for the first time, to not have an active game behind our Concurrent Membership Graph. BF4 served it's purpose, but I cut it off from the end of last year (which was possibly being a bit generous, but then again BF3, and Black Ops probably get a few extra months as well to their lifetime). I certainly look forward to adding some colour there again in the future - maybe the next iteration of Farming Simulator? Who knows.

As the graphs show, we haven't actually lost or gained anyone for almost 12 months. It's easy to presume that because our membership has flatlined that the clan itself doesn't have any life. However, as I noted above, I firmly believe that is not the truth. We're waiting, patiently, hoping the next big game may be just around the corner. Until then, we're socially gaming together and keeping in touch via the forums and online. We're not at the peak of our activity levels at present... but then again, we weren't that active before BF4 was released either and we soon showed a few other clans a thing or two in that game. It seems like I've been saying this for a while (probably since PAX last year), but only time will tell what comes next. Ultimately, we're happy, we're healthy and we're here. They're the most important things.
 
Still, there are a few stats still worth listing:

• 42 Full Members in the clan, with no current Recruits. This has remained steady, partly because we've relaxed any posting requirements to hold onto membership while we're inactive.
• 59,914 gaming hours on XFire. Sadly, we'll never clock another XFire hour towards the clan's log. Lets be honest, this hasn't been an overly accurate count in the clan's Battlefield era, but there was a time when CoD was at its peak and we were clocking up to 500 hours per week. I'd say, conservatively, we've missed at least 25% of our actual hours. So based on that very rough estimate, our actual gaming hours as a clan are probably closer to 75,000. That's an average of 1,500 hours per member, 34 hours per day, and 8.5 years worth of continuous gaming. So while rough figures, it's certainly a fair few.
• We have had 11 squads in total, all presently retired. If we ever have a Battlefront team I vote we call it Saabac Squad.
• 75,348 posts made on these forums across 3,124 topics. That's 34 posts per day on average, but only 3,000 odd posts in the last six months. I must be getting slack.
• 282 people registered on the website.
• 91 members in total have come through the clan, with 86 applications declined.
• 62 members have stayed with us for longer than a year. This is an increase of seven in the past 12 months, so those that are here are staying for longer.
• In total, the clan has existed for 2,191 days.

 

Thank Yous:
Our top people haven't changed over the past 12 months and that's probably not a bad thing. It's allowed us to keep the light on and keep things running under the hood. A lot of small tweaks and discussions have continued to happen behind the scenes, probably without members noticing. But it's meant we have kept our infrastructure in place for when it is needed again in the future.

I'll just be quick with the thank yous again, but I feel it is important to recognise the people in our top jobs or those who have done a bit extra when they could.

Decro continues to do his thing in the Recruitment Department (yes, that department does still exist!). This role in particular is an example of things happening behind the scenes - Decro has keept improving our processes and structures and when new members do come our way he is quick to respond. It involves a lot of paperwork, which isn't something most of us appreciate.

Decro was also instrumental in getting some of the Random Roll events up and running. Over the past six months, Jib and BP also ran a few of these events, with Simo chipping in as well. Most importantly, these gave members a chance to socialise, and those who could made the most of the events. When there's a calling for it again, I'm sure Random Roll will return.

I'd also like to thank Sarge for giving Hardline a proper crack and providing us with a server. That was no small commitment and greatly appreciated. It was also good to see other members chip in to help admin the server and keep it up to our standards. I'd name people directly, but I'm pretty sure I'd forget someone (so feel free to just name yourself in the comments BP).

Phoby still hasn't killed the website, despite my best efforts at times. Even more than that, he's keeping constant tabs on what else is out there and he'll have some more exciting news for us soon (hopefully). It's another thankless task though, and unlike positions such as Squad Leader or Clan Trainer (which are very prominent when the clan is active), it is very much a behind-the-scenes role. So thanks again mate.

Blue: we probably don't get to game as much as we'd like to these days (your current hours are probably worse than mine, and that's sadly saying something). However, you stood up for the clan when needed and were the model for both the General Admin and then Clan Leader positions. And despite that fact, those positions somehow haven't imploded. Small miracles I suppose. So whatever the future holds for your gaming, the clan owes you a debt for the work you have completed over a number of years; work that won't be forgotten. I hope both of us though are looking forward to some gaming between now and the end of the year.

PK: likewise, you've worked your way through the system and helped improve everything as you went along. Our roles and positions have changed for the better after you've been in them. You have held 11 positions in total, including numerous squad roles, training roles and recruitment positions. The only thing you haven't done is Webmaster. So it's safe to say that nobody in this clan understands the ins and outs as well as yourself - someone who is RtD born and bred.

Nev: short and simple mate: we've steered the clan through six years of good times. It still dumbfounds me, to be honest, that we ended up Founders of a new, successful and long lasting clan when that was never our intention. I'd tip my fedora to you if I was wearing one, but the school told me I'm no longer allowed wear one.

And finally, as always, to all our loyal members. As noted, we've been quiet for a while now, and yet here you still are. I'd like to think we've remained pretty flexible in that time, giving members the chance to play anything they want with anyone they want. I believe that is one of our strengths. But there have been numerous chances and excuses for members to hand in their tags if they had wished. Of course, circumstances always change, and those who are with us now may be gone in the future and those who left in the past could always return. That's one of the interesting things about online gaming.


Conclusion:
So that's the six years down. What comes next, I don't know. But personally, now that reports are once again finished and school is almost in recess, I plan to (hopefully) finally start the Mass Effect series. And maybe finish off a couple of other games as well.

But I have one last request before I sign out from this report. I'd like members to have a go at listing their "Top 5 Clan Moments" below. They can be any highlight you can think of, big or small. It might be a good chance to relive some good memories. I'll post mine up a bit later, but I want to think on things a little first.

Finally, we still have some cake left over from our second year anniversary, so if members would like to form an orderly line it will be distributed based on how many XFire hours you attributed to the clan.

Hope to see a number of you again at PAX

Alea iacta est.

~MS.

[PistolKnight 554]

Amazing achievement in the online world. Without doubt there would be no RtD without Shrivesy making sure everything is in order, so as always a big thanks.

 

I find it astounding that of the ~75,000 posts, ~20,000 where contributed by Shrives himself - lift your game fella!

 

Top 5

 

1. Awesome sleeping on TS

 

 

2. Nev on the cans on TS, don't have evidence of this so will just stick in this (which was Nev's creation):

 

 

3. BF 3 5v5 team - not sure I have had any better gaming experience than what we had in the squad rush days, so intense, yet the comradely and teamwork was fantastic 

 

4. Meeting everyone at PAX (and those at MacLan) was great to put a face to the voice, only comes in #4 because Nev wasn't there

 

5. Making Legionaires rage quit the GA ladder in BF4 after losing the whole match to us by a handful of tickets

[MasterShrive 2,015]

Nev's video still cracks me up. I couldn't stop laughing when he first posted it. Show's how old it is when Black Ops is in my XFire sig. But you really can't go past Awesome asleep on TS!

 

I'd also like to point out that my novel is coming along nicely. I'm up to about the 5th volume I think. And unlike George R. R. Martin, I try not to kill off my "characters" (although maybe that explains the disappearance of Dippie again?).

[bprc 1,441]

I got a mention!!

 

#mylifeiscomplete

[Decroxx 815]

1. The People

Not to bring down the tone, but I've been with this Clan through some of the hardest periods of my life. Despite this, and no matter what I was going through, there was always a friendly voice and a willing player to jump in with. The sense of belonging that comes from making the best friends I've ever had is what I value most as a part of this.

 

2. PAX meet up.

Realising that the online friendships I'd made could be so easily made into real life friendships has truly cemented this Clan as a home for me. Special thanks to Rally also for letting me crash at his pad.

Plus, finally confirming that I'm not the ugliest member of the Clan (assuming I'm within a few metres of Shrive or bp).

 

3. BF3 10v10's.

Despite being run over a hundred or so times by Silent, the sense of teamwork and accomplishment that came with every success and every failure we had.

Also, around this time I had moved countries, and was completely without a gaming desktop, instead relying on a Dell XPS15 laptop, and my trusty mouse and headphones.

 

4. Christmas Parties

I think about 3am, utterly drunk is my record for best Christmas party I've ever had.

 

5. (Strangely enough) Farming Simulator Random Roll.

Playing that (truly terrible) game, and laughing until I was in tears. Every bloody time the physics got a bit wonky, or the (literal) hours we spent trying to unstick some of the tractors stuck on tiny rocks. Certainly frustrating, but it comes to prove that with the right people, even bad games can be remembered very fondly.

 

 

And a bonus, worst moment of my RtD experience:

 

[MasterShrive 2,015]

"Failed permanently". That sounds like something I just wrote in a kid's report. It's also rather definite. Phoby - you had one job! You told me that email address would be operational without issue. That's it, you're sacked, and PK can take on the Webmaster role. PK, you start Monday - that should be enough time to do a uni course and gain an understanding of everything you'll need.

 

 

 

Anyway, I'll have a crack at my top five, now that I've had some time.

 

1. GameArena CoD4 Premiers. This was the big one for me. When we started the clan, nothing was certain. We were out in the cold and had no idea if we could make it. When we won this, it proved we could. This wasn't so much about showing others we'd made the right call - it was about showing to ourselves that the hard times had been worth it. This was a tough time for us - the core team was made up of Founders, so not only did we need to keep the clan running and set up many of the processes which are still in place today, we also had to keep our CoD4 skills sharp and train and practice almost daily. As it turned out, even though we'd taken top spot on the ladder the finals series was far from easy and we had to work real hard to come away with a win in the final (against much respected opposition who we hadn't faced before). When we succeeded, you couldn't wipe the grin off my face for weeks.

 

2. CyberGamer BF3 10v10 Finals. While we'd had some success with Black Ops, Bad Company 2 before hand had proved very tough. So we'd gone two games where we'd been limited in terms of ladder position. Switching back to the Battlefield series came with a lot of challenges. However, we backed ourselves in the 10v10 format and I thoroughly enjoyed coming out of retirement to help lead a squad (with Blue) for the first time since CoDUO. It was a challenge, but it was one that I relished, and having such a hardworking group of players in the clan (both those who played in the side and those who helped us train) made it worthwhile. This is the last time I've really been able to dedicate to gaming (over three years ago now, sadly), but it was nice to see I could still contribute in a very positive way when needed. Working out strats and tactics again was great fun, and to see us make finals was no small achievement in my opinion. It was a great season, with a huge burst of energy in a very short time - something we generally seem to excel at.

 

3. MWAVE BF4 10v10 Finals. Now this was just outstanding from the clan's point of view. I'd taken a back seat at this stage (I think I played one match for the entire season when the side was really short, and I'm pretty sure we lost, lol), but the team that was on the park were sensational. Terrific players who were well drilled. They were all RtD born and bred, and all would have been capable of playing in the elite clans of the day; but they didn't look elsewhere; they stayed loyal and took us to the finals in a competition full of sponsored clans. To this day I can't believe what we achieved here, and when I try to explain it to others a comparison is very difficult to do. "Imagine if one of the local football teams tried to take on someone from the AFL - that's basically what it was like". Because I wasn't involved as a player, this was more pleasing to see from a Leadership perspective - it showed that the systems we had put in place over the years previous still worked and that they allowed a "social clan with a competitive streak" to match it with the best.

 

4. PAX 2015. While not everyone could make this, it was simply brilliant. I went in with high hopes, praying we'd all get along and that everything would run smoothly. I was probably lucky in that I knew a few people from the offline world already in the likes of Vulc, Pench and Nath, but I was still really worried it would be a disaster. As we know, those worries were completely unfounded and it was simply the most brilliant weekend in Melbourne. This is another example of something that's really hard to explain to other people. Words just don't describe it. Just like that episode where Blue, Shoes and I tried to find the toilet... but we won't talk about that.

 

5. TeamSpeak. I wanted to pick a specific example, but I honestly can't - mainly because I'm unable to nail one down. Basically, this is a shoutout to any time we've been on TS and it's deteriorated into fits of laughter. And not just a little giggle here or there - proper tears of laugher where I just couldn't stop and actually needed to mute my mic because I couldn't contain myself. Numerous times come to mind - antics in Watch Dogs; nights in BF3 where we were blowing things sky high; listening to particular individuals give away perls of wisdom after a few drinks at 2am in the morning; numerous Random Roll events; stealing all the vehicles that time in BF3 and putting them in the corner of the map; adding "antidisestablishmentarianism" to our bad word list in Black Ops. And that's not even the tip of the iceberg. There's just so many I can't name them all (but I hope others can list a few below).

 

Honourable Mention. The Forums. This is kind of cheating adding another one, but I realised how much I enjoy the forums when I was looking back through some old posts (as I always try to do before I make another History Volume). Fact is, there's some extremely funny things on here - from stories about Sydney, to a summary of PAX, to even different match reports or event write ups. They all trigger great memories. These forums contain all of our history. This evening while at tea, Pench suggested I should have been a librarian. Perhaps in some regards he's right, because I do enjoy documenting everything and I also enjoy reviewing and reading over things on a semi-regular basis. There's always something interesting to find and while a clan can survive without competitive teams, game servers or even TeamSpeak for a time, I do not believe a clan can survive for long without quality forums. They give our members a place to call home, and ultimately if you don't have members then you simply don't have a clan.

[Fauxrique 67]

Top Five

 

1. Being allowed to join even though I wasn't a big First Person Shooter and not really into the Battlefield games.

 

2. No being kicked out because I was crap at First Person Shooters and dying in Battlefield hardly having fired a shot.

 

3. Putting a machine in Awesome's minecraft base that he couldn't break that would randomly make one person on the server pm him with 'YOLO YOLO YOLO YOLO'

 

4. Filling Sponty's Minecraft house with cave spider spawners and webs and then he sets it in fire and it sets off the TNT I put under the house.

 

5. Working as a Double Agent between the Mods and RtD on the PvP Minecraft server and not getting caught.

[MasterShrive 2,015]

That Minecraft stuff was hilarious, even from the perspective of someone who never played. Hearing some of the stories was just gold.

[Fauxrique 67]

That Minecraft stuff was hilarious, even from the perspective of someone who never played. Hearing some of the stories was just gold.

 

That was the manjor selling point for me joining RtD, no matter what I did to them RtD members took it in the best light, laughed about it and then did their best to get back at me even though they were limited by not having Admin powers to abuse.

[MasterShrive 2,015]

I was very tempted to pick up Minecraft based on all that was happening, but I just sadly didn't have the time

[Ramsay 202]

1. BF4 match against Legionnaires and winning by 3-0 
2. Bad Company 2. Playing squad death match with LP, Sin and Thornz for hours and hours.

3. Disappointing BP (bprc) almost daily

4. Playing Minecraft until ridiculous hours of the morning. 
5. The night we discovered the meaning of 'Digger' 

[MasterShrive 2,015]

Oh hell that "digger" incident wasn't pretty. Bloody hilarious though.

[Phobos 1,209]

I was a fool to ever challenge you Shrivey, just can't beat the post train

 

• #1 DayZ / Epoch Mod - RtD Style

Playing with our little group, some of the most intense and heart breaking moments in gaming I've experienced. I don't think anything will ever come close to matching it. Awesome shooting Nev in the face by accident has to be up there.

 

• #2 Minecraft - Chop chop, dig dig

PvP against the mods and all the building and exploring we did before the reset(the map I started playing on - the quad spawner), the game felt amazing with lots to do. 

 

• #3 BF3 Comps

Beating that clan that trash talked before the match and only saying nothing till the end with "gg"...oh the lol's. All the scrims, strats and matches we played were fantastic with everyone.

 

• #4 PAX Aus

Getting to meet most of the regulars and putting faces to voices was pretty good. Hope to see Blizzard there this year. As PK said, shame Nev wasn't there, help me convince him to come this year!

[PistolKnight 554]

Like Shrives, I also have a special mention .....

 

Phoby only being able to count to 4

[MasterShrive 2,015]

^What happened there? I can't recall Phoby being numerically challenged.

[Phobos 1,209]

I can only think of 4 atm

 

Do you want 4 good ones or 4 good ones and 1 half arsed one?

[MasterShrive 2,015]

Oh, right, LMAO. I was thinking there may have been issues with you pulling the pin on a grenade.

 

Give me two-half arsed ones

[fencer 175]

I know I aint on much but....

[fencer 175]

add me to list 

[Silent 30]

1. Playing Arma II until 6am every night with the arma lads for far too many consecutive nights.

2. WoW raiding when nev was raid leading 3 bottles of wine in. 

3. Listening to Blue's numerous informative talks on the health benefits of kegels.

4. Sending tanks and hmvs flying through the map in BF3 with buttloads of C4 during our anniversaries/christmas  

5. Phoby being a black guy for a couple of days was nice too

[MasterShrive 2,015]

Phoby's complextion was rather hilarious. I'd forgotten about that one.