I was about to go to college and I was going to bring a computer along.  Unfortunately, it was going to be my 486.  We bought a new computer for home use, it was a Pentium II 400 mhz computer.  Quite a beast at the time.  I wanted to try out all the things I couldn’t do on my old 486.  I tried to remember what programs I couldn’t run back then and suddenly ARC came to mind.  I searched the web for ARC and found out it was now on TEN instead of Hoopy.  I downloaded the game and tried to select a screen name, but there was one big dilemma.  I couldn’t even fit my old screen name, Firestarter, on TEN front, because there was a max of 10 letters.  Any shortened version of the name like Fire, FS, or Starter, was just too lame.  I tried thinking what my name should be, and I suddenly remembered about the infamous parrotman song playing on the radio.  It was under 10 letters.  Perfect. 

I played my first game of ARC in a long time, and I did pretty well actually.  It was on the map, Golden Oldie, and I was playing against ARCers such as Baron and Lint.  I remember people started asking who I was, and Baron suggested I was a smurf.  I didn’t quite grasp the smurf concept, but I knew it was meant as a compliment that I was playing well.  Lint was complimenting me on my accurate laser shooting after I hit him with several of them when he was almost offscreen.  I started remembering how fun ARC was again, but I didn’t plan on playing too long, my mind was on getting ready for college. 

When I got to college, I hooked up my computer to a T1 connection and wanted to test it out.  I knew my computer couldn’t handle ARC, but I downloaded the game and tried it out anyway.  I was going to use another screen name for my identity on a 486, any screen name would do.  So I tried to make a new account and typed in “asdf” for my screen name.  Damn, that was taken already.  I tried asdf1.  Bingo.  I am now the legendary asdf1.  

It looked like I came back to ARC at a good time because an ARC league season was coming up.  It was going to be clans against other clans duking it out for a league championship.  I have never been a part of that before.  Heck, I’ve never even been in a clanwar before.  I really wanted to be a part of this, it sounded exciting.  I don’t even care what clan I join as long as I get to play in this league.  This is the day I met Grumm.  He was asking the whole lobby if anyone was interested in joining a clan for the new ARC league tournament.  I think I was the only one who responded when I said yes.  He told me to message him on ICQ.  When I contacted him, he said I was in the clan.  You can’t beat that admissions process.  I told him I wasn’t actually a bad ARC player, It’s just that I’m currently using a 486 right now.  I’m glad Grumm was desperate enough in his recruiting process to recruit a guy called asdf1 with no questions asked, so I kind of wanted to assure him that he made the right decision.  I told him I actually played on Hfront too.  He asked me what the name of the clan should be called.  It was between the no name clan (NNC), and Clan that’s not a clan (CtnC).  A minute later he informed me that SexyBooty made the decision for us, CtnC, because that’s what we registered as.  Supposedly Grumm had decided to make a clan after talking to Ratatattat, and this was the result.  I asked him who does the recruiting for the clan, and he told me just me and him right now.  I couldn’t believe just me and him had this power, I just joined today with the name asdf1, but hey, I wasn’t going to complain. 

So I made my CtnC-asdf1 account, and joined Grumm and another clan member in a game.  Talk about a slideshow.  My computer was busily cranking out about 1 or 2 FPS.  It was pretty safe to say I couldn’t depend on vision alone, I kind of had to play the imaginary game.  I had to imagine where the opponents are going to shoot and where my lasers are going to end up, and that I would dodge immediately when I press the arrow keys, even though the screen indicated otherwise.   Surprisingly, I managed to kill people.  I actually reached double figures in frags with about 10 or 11.  Pretty soon all 3 CtnCs were top 3 in scoring.  This is when Grumm did a little CtnC chant.  We didn’t stay too long, we left almost immediately after we reached the top spots in scoring.  I was starting to think maybe this clan is pretty decent, and I was fortunate to pick a pretty good one.   

I heard from Grumm that he was going to change CtnC into Cougar and that he used to be in the Cougar clan in Hfront.  (little sidenote: CtnC also morphed into Cougar on Hfront)  I had a faint recollection of Cougar back then.  They were a pretty newly formed clan when I was playing, and the Cougars I played against weren’t really much of a challenge.  But for all I know, they could now be the top players in the time I left the game.  I got in touch with my cousin online and told him I took up ARC again and joined the Cougar clan.  He was shocked.  He started laughing at me and asked me how a member of MG could join that newbie clan.  I didn’t care though, I just wanted to play for a clan in a league, and I got along really well with the members in the clan, especially Grumm.  I told my cousin to join Cougar too because I wasn’t planning on leaving, but he vehemently refused.  I asked him to come back to ARC but he said he was done with it.  Turns out he tried it in Taiwan, but his connection made the game unplayable.  

Grumm rounded up the former Cougars and they appeared out of the woodwork.  Osiris, LunyWulf, Firestorm, and other former Cougars were now part of the clan.  Firestorm was the only Cougar I recognized from our little name controversy in Hfront.  The prospect of now being in the same clan with that guy brought a smile to my face.  Grumm told me about Firestorm, his real life friend, and how he used to be number one on the dueling ladder, and how good he was.  I kind of raised an eyebrow to that, because he wasn’t that good when I left the game, but hey, I’ve been gone a long time, I guess he’s improved a lot.  I was glad he was on our roster, simply because I know he probably has accumulated a lot of ARC experience by now. 

Grumm told me that DogBaby was going to join the clan.  I was really excited because I’ve observed DogBaby play while I was on my 486.  It was on a madwars map, supposedly a newly made map that has become very popular.  I’d often join maps on my 486 and check out the scores of pilots and hunt after whoever has the highest score and try to bring their score down.  DogBaby had far and away the highest score with 73 points.  He was in his base waiting for opponents to arrive, I came at him everytime and died in seconds everytime.  I tried approaching his base from every angle, but to no avail.  He really had my number.  He even hurt me a lot before I even appeared on his screen, for good measure.  Usually I would succeed in bringing a player’s score down, even on my 486, but this guy just brushed me aside like a fly.  I was pretty impressed.  Well, it turned out DogBaby wasn’t going to join.  Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.  I thought he would have been a good pickup. 

Let the recruiting begin.  The recruiters would test each person who wanted to tryout with a duel.  The recruiters were me, Grumm and Osiris.  My fps was directly proportional to the number of people in an ARC game.  In a duel my FPS would be as high as 4.  Instead of a slideshow the game was more like a flipbook.  Not a big upgrade, but I was glad I got the extra fps, and performed better.  Out of the three of us, I was the best dueler since I beat both Osiris and Grumm in a duel on my 486.  We recruited Rynix, a guy who lived in the Philippines I believe, and wanted to join us because our clan name sounded cool.  I believe he lost a duel to all three recruiters, but we didn’t have the most rigid recruiting process, so we let him in.  Me and some fellow recruiters dueled and tried out Puck, who lost every duel just like Rynix.  Grumm got an oldschool player from Hfront named Khaladan to join us, and another one named HonestJohn.  He also got ReverendD to join us.  HonestJohn I’ve never seen play, and would never see play throughout my whole ARC career.  ReverendD was probably the best player out of all these recruits, and he wasn’t playing on a Pentium computer either, so we were similar in that aspect.  He donned the name Puma, and he was Puma-CGR from then on.  

Osiris and I then had the pleasure of meeting quite a colorful ARCer named Erik.  Grumm, messaged me on ICQ one day, that someone named Erik beat him in a duel 5-1, and tied Firestorm in a duel 2-2 (he predicted Erik would have won 5-4).  Supposedly this guy was real good, so Osiris and I went to check him out.  He beat Osiris in a duel as well and I played him on my 486 and beat him 5-4.  By now, he left a good impression in my mind and I was thinking he might be a smurf.  I asked him who he was because he didn’t seem like a new player.  He responded by giving me an unfamiliar name that he used to use.  I figured he was telling the truth and we were glad to have him aboard.  He seemed like a nice kid. 

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