Fresh Starts And Old Friends

  Greetings all, its The Crapgamer with you once again. Its been a while since I've done one of these things, I guess I just got busy and forgot to keep people updated. I like to write, so obviously being busy with other things, namely my site. www.crappyreviews.com and a couple of other sites that I write gaming related articles have kept me pretty busy.

  Its hard to believe that this Summer marks the 5 year anniversary of Team MoH. I remember it like it was yesterday when I decided to break off from Merc and Hellhammer said "Were a noob clan". If he only knew right? Anyway, its been a slow few months for the clan in general, in large part thanks to the terrible game that is Modern Warfare 3. Had the game been good, we probably would have done 50 GB's on it by now, instead we've done a couple, but I don't think anyone's heart is fully in it at this point.

  The Black Ops 2 launch trailer looked pretty interesting, I still love Black Ops and think a lot hinges on Black Ops 2 being a solid game to compete on.  The good news is that even though we aren't really fans of Modern Warfare 3, the team is slowly coming back to it and I think we'll actually be doing some more GB's on it in the near future. One of the hold ups is the fact that we need to be a premium team on GameBattles in order to pick a mode, or even get a referee to help if we have issues. The only way to be a premium member is to pay and have at least 3 other people on the team pay the premium membership. So in order to play Modern Warfare 3 competitively I had to buy the game for $60, buy Elite for $50, pay my Xbox Live membership $50 and pay for premium GB membership which is $52 a year.

   Nobody ever said winning was easy, or even competing. I'm also happy to have mended some fences recently, we've gotten back a couple of members that were exiled last year, so far everything has gone really well and everyone seems to be back on the same page again.

  The last little thing I'll bring up is Star Wars Battlefront 2, which is the game MoH started out on, its also the game that saw our greatest success. Sort of as a tribute to those humble beginnings we decided to have some fun as a clan on the game again this Summer. We even have a rented server up and we have a Game Tracker stat tracker on our website. Don't get this confused with us going full board back to the game, this is just something temporary that has brought back some old members just for kicks. We are the type of clan that is always looking forward, but a 5 year anniversary is a good time to reflect and look back as well. We haven't ruled out doing some scrimmages or exhibitions, but I wouldn't hold my breath as far as true matches are concerned, as team leader I have a bit too much on my plate as it is.

 Well, this first blog back is out of the way, thanks for checking it out!

CG-Out!

Spring Clan Update

Well it's Spring time and that is traditionally a slower time for the clan, but we manage to come together to play some Gears Of War 3, which is an amazing game by the way and I highly recommend it to anyone that owns an Xbox 360. It's by far this generations best game, and I did a pretty good review of the game for GamerXchange http://gamerxchange.net/2011/09/21/gears-of-war-3-review/

I think with each new Call Of Duty game that comes out I play them less and less, but I have high hopes for Modern Warfare 3. It's pretty obvious that Battlefield 3 isn't going to be a contender if the beta is anything to go on. That was the biggest mess I've ever played that could be considered a beta. I mean 3 weeks before it's launch and the map has so many issues it's almost laughable. This is just a single map people, I can imagine what the other maps are like at this point. Usually I'm all for the ability to go prone in a game, but with the map size and small number of players for each team, it really causes a lot of camping and other issues. Falling under the map was just the tip of the iceberg and the game itself is the Titanic.

As for Modern Warfare 3, from what I've seen it looks a lot like a COD game, which isn't really a bad thing, I'm more hoping that the glitches, issues and gameplay aspects are fixed. Graphical upgrades aren't as important to me as the actual gameplay. I'd like to think with a different developer this time around we'd see a better game from a technical standpoint.

The past month was an especially slow month for us, which is normal, but we had to say goodbye to a longtime member when Striker went off to basic training for the Marines. Of course we wish him luck and hope he will be okay while he is away.

I think Gravedigger is taking the sniping thing to the next level, I'd love to see him get well known, him and Asap are both solid players who I respect a lot and they actually deserve some attention from the sniper communities. It kind of annoys me when I see scrubby snipers get respect and views and become known when they are utter trash in comparison.

Anyway, I will try to keep this up to date more often as we all come back together for MW3, so keep an eye open for it.

Band Coming Back together...

As someone who has had a ton of musical influences in my life, I like to equate my clan to that of a band dynamic. Sometimes we literally bug the shit out of each other, those are the times when we need a break from one another. If there is one thing I've learned from four years of this clan it's that you give your players space sometimes.

Part of that thinking is why I accept so many past members back into the clan in the first place. I realize people can get a feeling of not moving forward or just a stale feeling in general after a while. The one thing that does actually bug me a bit is when people leave more then once because they think the grass is greener someplace else. Running a competitive clan is NOT easy at all. If it were, then we'd see more clans become successful. I also dislike it when people act surprised that were still around or so active, were MoH, we outlast every clan.

It's not enough to simply be a clan longer then other clans, we want to play, be active and succeed. Which is exactly what we do. Now to get back to the band analogy, I consider a successful GB or gaming season to be like cutting a record, when your done you need a little break and then you slowly start gearing people up and getting them back into the habit of competing.

There are two games coming out that have me really excited, well actually more then two, but two that are going to have the clan active. Modern Warfare 3 and Gears Of War 3, MoH will have teams on both. In the meantime we are going to continue on with Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops. We did get some great news, Rockethoe will be back and active this week, comes just in time for our official four year anniversary. Which is this Saturday, August 27th.

I like to think of the main difference between MoH and other "clans" taking a break after a successful season is that we've been doing it this way for a long time, were not a one and done type of team and were not the type of team to disband or remake or just up and quit. I feel like whether you like me or hate me, you at least have to respect the way I get the most out of the people in the clan.

Finally business is slowing down enough for me to get some quality gaming in, some quality time with the clan. The payoff will be seen down the road a bit, but I am thankful for everyone that is in the clan at the moment. The guys are really understanding and seem to have a firm grasp on how things are done.

Here's to another four years MoH! I'm glad we've been able to prove so many people wrong. I appreciate everyone that's contributed, even if your not here anymore.

MoH-We Die Hard!

General Clan Update

What's up everyone? Been a little while, but I've kind of been busy with life and work and things like that. Just figured I'd give a little clan update while I had a few moments in between some work. For those that might not know August is a huge month for team MoH, it's been four years this month that the clan was created. August 27th to be exact. I can hardly believe that much time has passed, it's kind of funny to go back to our original site www.teammoh.co.nr and see all the wacky and immature fun we used to have.

The school year is starting up again for a lot of MoH members which means we will go into a bit of a slow down when it comes to getting matches, but we'll still see some activity on that front. In preparation for Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 we decided to go back to our Modern Warfare 2 GB team and get some Gamebattles done with that team as well, I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date with that as well. Should be fun to go back to that game, we were pretty good. We've been practicing a bit on it and we've been utterly slapping. We haven't given up a single flag cap in a pub yet, which just further stresses my defensive mentality.

Because of my work schedule and the new way the GB rules are it makes it harder to get matches, but it's nothing that is too bad. We should be able to get in some here and there. We welcomed back some former members, it seems we always have an influx of people that happen upon the site and act all amazed that were still around..... duh, were MoH...of course were still around. I am not sure why people should be surprised by this anymore....

I have finally started writing for sites again after that Battlefield 3 fiasco...who knew Battlefield fans could ever be so butthurt over an opinion piece? I mean it's not like it's something telling others how they should feel, more or less it was me expressing my feelings towards the game as a console gamer. I do think people are being suckered into buying the game based off pretty graphics that we've seen on a supped up PC that hardly anyone has the capabilities to play on. If you look at all the alpha beta footage that was leaked none of it looks as good as what Dice showed off previously. The game is two months from release and we've seen absolutely no Xbox 360 footage and only 1:27 worth of PS3 footage..

I actually want to see some footage of the game I want to play, call me crazy I guess.....

Anyway, I've slowed down my own review site as well, thing started picking up but I just didn't have the time to keep up that pace, but I am still planning updates so stay tuned.

As for the actual MoH anniversary we have a few things planned, so stay tuned for information on that as well. I'm actually working on a couple of little things, nothing huge but should be kind of fun. I've also been trying to get some old members who maybe aren't even with the clan anymore to post a little something. I even tried to reach out to Skanky Nugget, but he didn't reply back, so I take it he is still upset over the past.

Well that's all for now, hope to update all you guys again someday soon. Peace!

~CG

New Season & Questions Answered

So we officially ended the Spring Gamebattles season with a 39-0 record and achieved a final rank of 40th place out of over 12,000 teams. Not a bad finish to what was overall an up and down few months for the clan as a whole. We managed to stay focused, with all the drama going on as well as multiple lineup changes, mostly due to people being busy with life, work, social settings ect...

As the leader of the clan I cant afford to let my inactivity effect the whole clan, so we promote people into leadership roles who will be around and can pick up the slack. When players are on vacations or busy, we recruit ones who aren't. It's that simple really. To do anything else would be a disservice to the clan and the people who put all the time in to make it so successful. If you get lazy and apathetic your clan will fail before you know what even happened. Luckily I'm smarter then most people and I pay close attention to what's going on, even back in the day when I was in Merc. I paid attention to what worked and what didn't. Now I apply those principles to MoH and we've made it 4 long years.

I'm sure not everyone is happy to see us be so successful, or they would try to make up excuses as to why were successful, but bottom line is, there isn't a time when we weren't. Everyone in the clan plays their part. A good record, no matter how you got it will produce solid recruits and the clan skill level improves. People get used to playing together and we don't make excuses. It's when you start making excuses like "We'll pick up when Modern Warfare 3 comes out" or "I'm too busy to game" that clans implode. Sure it's a lot of work, but NOTHING ever worth having was had easily. I'm probably the busiest person around and though I cant be as active as I'd like, I at least make a showing and play whenever I have some free time, the team understands and seems to thrive. The clan itself seems like it's own entity, capable of living on it's own, without me, and that is the sign of quality leadership and players that believe in what your doing and believe in each other.

I don't mind being pretty honest in these blogs, I am really an open book if people want to ask questions and some of the questions I've gotten from clan members lately are pretty good, so i'll answer them.

Q: Why don't you remove the players you kicked from the clan from the MoH Hall Of Fame?

A: I have gotten this question a lot lately, but I refuse to remove people from the HOF or the profiles because they were a part of the history of the clan and I refuse to delete that. Despite what some people think I've kept an accurate account of everything MoH has done, from teams we've played against to the players that were in the clan for only a day or two. So while not everyone contributed greatly in matches or anything, everyone that has been in this clan has made it successful, if only by being an active member, poster. Even if you hate me or MoH now, if you were in the clan, you helped it to be successful.

Q:Are you still recruiting for Black Ops on GB now that your roster is already full?

A: We are always recruiting! You might not make it on the Reg team ladder right away, but were always adding active players and removing inactive ones. It's a constant ebb and flow.

Well those are the two that I can think of off the top of my head, I want to say thanks to everyone who contributed in our best GB season since 2009.

Were already off to an amazing start in the Summer GB Black Ops season. 15-0 and in the top 50. It's in no small part due to Saint and his recruiting/match abilities. Although I have to admit we've had a ton of active people lately. Even when some got tired of the game, we had other ready to step up and we didn't miss a beat.

Clan Update

Back when we pushed for playoffs in 2009 for Call Of Duty 4, everyone was pretty worn out and tired of the game. Pretty much the same thing has happened with Black Ops right now. After the late season push people are pretty tired of the game. I was tired of the game before the season started. The only thing that pushed me to continue with it was the fact that we wanted to get more wins then team US. So in the end we accomplished that much of it, but at what cost?

In all honesty I am so used to the whole drama thing it doesn't even thrill me like it once did. Maybe I'm just getting old? I don't really know. I do know that Shotty and I were browsing our original forums the other day and we both commented on how young we all seemed and how immature we all were. Seems like a lifetime ago, not just four years....

So pretty much a clan wide vote decided were all taking a break from Black Ops. That is strictly on the 360 side anyway. Kind of like how a band would take a break after completing an album. You don't want to be around music for a bit, well we don't want to be around Black Ops for a bit. I plan on still helping with the PS3 side, if we can ever really get that going. It seems PS3 players tend to be really fickle with loyalty and activity.

Lately I've been wishing a bit for a new competitive game. Gears 3 isn't too far off which is good news, but Gamebattles really seems to have lost the path when it comes to their rules. So I'm not really sure that's an option for us anymore. They only allow 1 leader, no co-leaders, only 1 Captain and only the leader can report matches. Also to prevent roster riding, whenever you do a challenge or match finder you have to list the players beforehand who are going to be in the match. Now for a team that does map gen like us, we sometimes wont know who were going to play until we see the maps and game types. So it makes it very difficult to get matches, it seems GB caters to the top 25, which are only four or five people per team to begin with. It's a death sentence to teams maxed out like mine.

If GB wanted to stop roster riding, why not have the leader report who was in the match after the match is over, then give the XP to the people who played? It makes much more sense to do things that way. I actually would prefer to give XP to the guys who actually played in the match anyway, but I'll be dammed if I will lose a match for playing a guy that is actually on my roster. It just makes no sense. I mean sometimes things come up and people cant always make a match. It's that simple. Why shouldn't people be able to play that are on the roster? I really wish someone with some real funding would make a alternative to GB. They've become real stingy with their rules and things like that simply because they know there is no alternative. It's pretty much like Madden football, there is no competition, so they aren't forced to improve or be user friendly.

Anyway enough of that rant, I want to once again thank everyone for the amazing Spring season on GB. 39-0 is a solid record and nobody can ever take that from us. We reached out goal of top 75 and I'm content with that. Even though I feel Treyarch made COD games are better supported and much more balanced and fair for the players, I tend to play their games less then the IW made ones. So I am definitely hoping for MW3 to peak my interest. It's looking good so far. I think a good mix between Gears 3 and MW3 will do the clan good. We've always done better when we have an alternate game to play that breaks up the monotony.

Well that's about it for this update, thanks for reading and we'll see you back here next time!

Congrats On A Huge GB Season!

Now that the Spring 2011 Black Ops GameBattles season is closed I want to thank everyone who made it such a smashing success! Everyone deserves some credit and I think it was truly a team effort. I am pretty sure almost everyone on our roster was in a match this season. When someone went away or went on vacation we always had someone else step up and contribute.

Our new leaders like Striker, Hateinaboxx and Saint all stepped up admirably and did a fantastic job. The MOH promotions seemed to have inspire people to be more active and were going to have our first winner here in the next day or two. We are actually getting so many requests from new potential recruits that were having to turn down a good number of them. We have both the promotions and a solid record to thank for the influx of people coming our way.

So at the end of the day 36-0 is something we can obviously build off of, were going to try to get a quick, fresh start to the Summer 2011 season tonight. We were forced to change our goals throughout the season, originally we wanted to make top 200, then top 100 and finally top 75. Which I believe when all is said and done we will achieve, or at least be pretty damn close.

We are also vastly approaching our four year anniversary, which we have a few things planned. Hopefully those come out okay. I am currently working on the Asap/Grave Sniper montage, I put up the rough cut the other day but I still have quite a bit of work to do on it. Look for that to be completed soon. I am also working on a personal montage, which will be my first since my COD4 finale.

The PS3 team is officially back up and running, I went and got Black Ops and will be helping out with that side of things, it's important for me that we get some matches to prove were moving in a positive direction on that console. We were stagnant for so long I think people don't expect much, we aim to change all of that. After getting the chance to play with some of the new guys and even some of the old ones who decided to stick around, I must say we have some talent on that side of things. My worst fear was turning into Rx2 or SC on the PS3. I want MOH to be competitive and to win, not just exist.

So we wrap another season, begin a new chapter for MOH on the PS3 and as usual things look to be bright for the future of the clan...I'm sure to the dismay of the people who have been hoping, waiting, praying for the fall of the clan.

"MOH lives on" is not just a slogan, just like "We Die Hard" is not just a slogan, they are a mantra and the way we see ourselves and the way we play. We realize we are just a gaming clan, but we can find a medium where fun and winning intersect.

Thanks once again to everyone, I cant convey how proud I am of all of you guys, let's shoot for at least an equally successful Summer season and beyond!

{MOH} We Die Hard-

{MOH} Lives on after you team disbands....or turns into a "casual" team-