The Modern Era (January 2001 – February 2002)

It is in this period where I more or less left Trench Wars. My knowledge of this period is not complete, but here are some highlights.

In January 2001, 2dragons and Mefod started up the second TWEL. This time around there was mandatory Staff participation, and so FieryFire helped moderate, but how much he did for the league was debatable. The league was successful for a while, but ultimately faced the same fate as the first one, as a combination of the fact that the people who actually ran the league weren’t even given extra powers to help the league, and of player interest that eventually disappeared. Unfortunately this represented more of the official TW practice of keeping all new things part of the Smod domain, and discouraging independent action which Trench Wars used to be so great at doing.

The early periods of the Modern Era began with the dissolution of Cynical, but not before Siege had beaten –Final- in TWL Season 4 game 1. And so as with earlier debates about whether Elusive would have won TWL Season 2 if they played Siege later, the same debate would flow between Siege and –Final-. With the dissolution of Cynical, most of the best players would move to –Final-, creating a squad that housed most of the remaining Elusive players who did not quit the zone or at least quit playing competitively. But –Final- was by all means a different type of squad. Disqualifier had done a great job keeping the squad together over the years, and now was really their time to shine. As the new Supersquad to enter the zone –Final- was both loved and hated by many. Leading the way on –Final- was long-time Trench Wars player, Sika who was definitely the best of the best, and helped created a squad competitive in all the leagues.

PriitK managed to work some magic, when Continuum was released in early 2001. As a long time project of his, Continuum was a completely new Subspace client, the first client upgrade in four years. Most amazingly it was programmed from scratch, yet it emulated the Subspace client perfectly. Many quickly changed over to Continuum, but many did not. Prominent at this time was the debate to change everyone over to Continuum as it was found that Sika had found a way to use a gamepad to create “thrustbombs” and “thrustbullets” in Subspace 1.35. Once revealed, many, to the dismay of most players copied this tactic.

TWDL and TWBL started their second season, along with the newly revived TWJL. TWJL was brought to Trench Wars by Banzi, with a map, website and rules originally made by Crome, but eventually only the map would be used. TWL Season 4 would be won by Siege, and so for the first time a squad would win back-to-back TWLs, an impressive feat by any measure, and then to top it off they had done each of their victories with flawless seasons. With that Siege was gone, the competition was not there and Siege decided to go out on top, making its undefeated streak stand at 48. –Final- thereafter began their complete dominance as the only Supersquad in the game except for some powerhouse squads in TWBL such as Disoblige.

Before the beginning of the Summer, an old idea was finally put into fruition by Path of Daggers. Draft league was his baby, and after an extended effort it appeared as though this completely player run league, populated by teams of players who were drafted from volunteers was finally going to take off. Unfortunately after the league started, Path of Daggers went on vacation and the leadership was thrust upon an unprepared Eric is God. With the sudden surprising change in leadership, and the existence of problems with the league which were already evident, Eric is God did not have the time or preparation to turn the league around, and when Path of Daggers returned from vacation a month later, the league could not be held together any longer despite Eric's best efforts.

PoU would be hired as a Smod, followed after by Left_Eye. In the summer of 2001 Dantax would end his long-time job in charge of the leagues but remain on Staff. Overstrand would replace him to run the leagues which he renamed the Trench Wars Tournament Leagues (TWTL). TWTL now included the addition of a points system where teams would earn points for a victory, and the pyramid league was abolished. –Final-, Disoblige and Zero Hour would quickly rise to the top of the standings. Poid would also be hired in this time to be a Smod.

A Trench Wars World Cup of Warbirds would also play out as Finland, Canada and the USA battled it out, a tournament which would result in Finland as the victor.

Kill_9mm would update the Trench Wars Website with an entirely new design, the design that is used today.

Elim saw its map changed over and over again, first with the addition of a bigger arena, and then with the disastrous circular arena, which many hated. Many people in this period complained of the increasing amounts of spawnkills and stray shot kills in the arena, and with the arenas almost unmanageable size there was serious talk about splitting the arena into two, once and for all. It was in late 2001 where the Staff finally listened to some suggestions from players on the TW UBB, and decided to add in the expanding Elim arena when more players were present and to change back to the old rectangular shape.

Really the year of 2001 saw Trench Wars stabilizing as an old and established zone. Not too many major changes happened and as stated before all changes were more evolutionary than revolutionary. The core events established in the preceding year were still very popular and the zone’s population continue to slowly grow. Finally the year 2002 rolled around. As we will see the zone will regain a slightly revolutionary tone as many changes occur.

Next: 8. The Future (February 2002 - ?)