Gaming & Commentary History

I play pretty much every type of game there is.  Board games, card games, collectible trading card games, war games, console games, role-playing games (the ones with pen and paper), sport games, but ever since I spent an afternoon watching a mate play a Dune 2 in the back of his dad’s shop, computer games have been my first and foremost source of home entertainment.  Dune 2.  I loved it, I spent days designing the perfect defense for my Dune 2 bases while somehow conveniently ignoring the fact that a single mobile missile launcher could have leveled the entire thing.  I played Warcraft 2 on the SLOWEST speed so that my peons didn’t waste a single piece of gold.  In short I was obsessed with strategy and while my obsession with RTS has since fallen by the wayside, my obsession with strategy has simply moved address over the years.

My love of the social side of gaming, started with Ultima Online.  My first online guild was The Danaan Rangers (TDR) which I enjoyed for almost 2 years before our clan finally disbanded and while I loved the social interaction the game provided, I lamented the absence of my beloved strategy.  World of Warcraft a couple of years later did better on the strategy front, (but worse on the social) but a few months after perfecting the ultimate troll priest ZG build I tired of the game and moved on.  I briefly tried Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa and various Korean MMOs before finally realising that I had come to the point where I understood how the current generation of MMOs worked, and with that realisation, I grew bored of them.

Between playing UO and WoW I discovered one other love.  FPS.  Battlefield 1942 was alright, but it wasn’t until the Desert Combat mod came out that I truly appreciated the FPS genre.  After three years playing the game I was topping the charts on most pub games I played when some guys with weird initials at the start of their name asked me if I wanted to be in their clan: digitalSoldiers.  I assumed this was the same sort of social thing I had experienced in UO and joined up playing pubs with them occasionally but never really understanding what the hell they were talking about with practice matches.  Practicing for what?  I can already dominate pubs with my shotty and landmines, I’ve top-scored in rounds using just my knife and I can take out apaches midair with a howitzer at long range, this is pretty much the pinnacle I thought and so I left to start playing WoW without ever realising what I was giving up.  Similar story with BF2 and BF2042, if I’d taken more interest I might currently be shoutcasting those games instead.

Two or so years (and more reputation and honor points than I care to admit) later I finally found TF2, and online competitive gaming.  My three loves, social, strategy and the ability to go absolutely berserk with a bonesaw finally came together in one package.  In my mind these three things also epitomize Gamestah, so here I am.

Gaming Team / Clan history:

• Ultima Online – The Danaan Rangers (TDR)
• Ultima Online - The Night Watch (NW)
• Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat – digitalSoldiers
• World of Warcraft - Arclight
• World of Warcraft - Ani Ayastigi
• Team Fortress 2 - Juicy (briefly)
• Team Fortress 2 - The Harbingers of Chaos ((THC))
• Team Fortress 2 - The Older Gamers - TOG (current)

Commentator for the following Game Types:

• Team Fortress 2

Online Tournaments, Ladders and Leagues

• Team Fortress 2: Gamearena 8s
• Team Fortress 2: Ozfortress Winter League
• Blood Bowl: Various TOG Leagues