I was about to wank it when I opened this post and now I'm just too sad... I'll have to wait 30 minutes
Ever since I was a kid whom had to ask help to the local computer shop to pirate games I've had a deep passion for realism and the arma platform: I started with Operation flashpoint: resistance DLC and then worked my way up the series, the possibilities that it offered where close to no other game.
I was 15 when I started playing back in '13 and felt so proud to finally sport that amber snake emblem after the recruit phase, just describing the sheer scale and realism of our company operations to normies filled me with awe;
I looked forward with excitement to every saturady night and played the hell out of public every day: It was pure endorphine for countless hours, quite the feat for a staring at grass simulator!
When the h555 era imploded in that first summer of being a full TWC member I felt totally lost; such a community and knowledge base gathered since the late 00s was gone in the snap of a finger because an irishman did what irishmen do best: he went mad.
For many months we roamed in the refugee camp set up by wedge formation: the group of our very own outcasts welcomed us warmly and acted as a rally point: I shall forever be grateful to them aswell for the wonky
makeshift arma sessions we played, they helped us through hard times.
When drafts of a new twc came out a light sparked back in my eyes, the first years were rough: with all the previous intellectual property gone all we had was perhaps the salvaged snakes and their fonts.
We climbed through an incredibly steep thecnichal knowledge mountain of having to start on the then brand new ArmA LXIX which, thanks to its silly futuristic setup, sent the modding community spiraling in a race to whom could make the best m16, ak and modern uniforms instead of who could rewrite ACE and ACRE and other mechanics/total conversion mods; the size of the repos went from <2GB for arma 2 to 30+GB further acting as a barrier to newcomers.
On top of that the climb had to be done with a shot up foot as handicap: while other arma units had all of the alpha and beta time to experiment and try their best to smoothly transition to the new game we had to scramble and try our best to reassemble our user base while simultaneuosly buil up a "codebase" and all of the techincal aspects related to it.
But as time went by occasions were lost: some members had already joined 16AA, 15MEU and other enstablished units; our biggest loss of quality managerial talent was surely the creation of European Tactical Realism: in retrospective I can see why some members just wanted some fresh air from the image of the ancient regime.
Personally I chose the new TWC because I was still fascineted by the solemnity of those symbols and structures that left me with awe; and because my best buddy Zurxo along with Saxon, lolzukka(Grusey) and all the others I won't name went here;
The first years were tough: there were constant changes in management, an ever evolving modset situation and all the shenanigans of the case but ever since Jayman assumed command things went for the better: people came and went, ideas were discussed on how to innovate and the boat rocked but always kept sailing thanks to all those that manned it.
As time went by however the aging decline of the arma realism community became evident: in a sandbox that became popular thanks to King Of The Hill, DAYZ and Arma Life those seeking a milsim experience were already a small percentage from the start and so, like a woman's eggs in her late 30s we lost numbers without a real hope of regainig them; we had many threads and brainstorms as to how we could combat this and PR people pulled their weight but it's just too hard to get new players if the game itself doesn't have any.
It saddens me deeply that thourgh the years I never contributed as much as I should've for what I got in return: as a CS/IT student it could've been expected of me to learn arma scripting, mission making or even just making some cool banners/ graphics for the website but the truth is I'm a failed programmer that hardly ever progresses in learning unless I'm held by the hand through it and even then no guarantees, as my 5 years stuck in a 3 year course CS degree testifies;
I also never really managed to bring my italian friends for more than some public because the language barrier was too much for them, I tried sharing screenshots on reddit and imgur for some time (AND I ALWAYS REMEMBERED TO VOTE
): I hope it did something, at least I hope to have made this group a better place whenever I was here
Through the years there was obvious competition with ETR but on the inside it hurt me that no reunification attempt was successfull: between a spicy Tiger Mafia/ETR crossover meme and another I really missed Bob's soothing voice, Sharp, Chalky and Bones's impeccable command style or Jasper(Rabbit)'s shitposting ability and all the other old timers.
The reunification with ETR was the obvious elephant in the room whenever we discussed our demographic problem: had you asked me 5 years ago if I wanted to merge I would've been on the fence as in I hoped they would come to us; we had a good thing going, management was good and after all I liked our symbols better:
I mean, silly blue skeletal will never be as good as the mighty amber cobra and, while "European Tactical Realism" is an autoexplaining name that google doesn't confuse with a stale old movie, our name had "Wrecking" in it which is kinda cool.
But symbols are just nostalgia fuel right now: no point in hanging onto them for dear life when there's no one around to play with anymore.
A friend of mine once said:
"I'm 60, no way I'm gonna try gay sex now because if by any chance I like it it would be a disgrace as I would've wasted 40 years of my life"
Well, joint operation UNICORN hit my male gspot, it made me cum so hard that a high pressure jet of semen pierced my trousers and painted the underside of my desk: to finally play a company op where you could see on ctab ANOTHER FULL PLATOON on a totally different objective halfway through the map while zapping through company radios buzzing with artillery coordinates and drone intelligence really brought me back to the old days: where we had an operation with 55 people on zargabad or when the public server on celle domination was so full people had to wait to join in; so now I wonder: for how many years has the time been ripe for this merger?
Personally as life progresses videogames have lost almost all of the appeal that they had on me, and that was a lot when I was a kid; I even blame them for some shortcomings in my life and often wonder how different it would be right now had I not spent so many hours on the computer; but the truth is I am who I am today thanks to vidya aswell:
-My english is so good from chatting with you guys,
-I have great orienteering and map reading skills even tho I was never a scout or military
-I developed leadership and managerial abilities from playing command roles and generally I tend to keep level headed when shit hits the fan
-All of that medical training has sparked interest in me to own and practice the use IFAKs and TQs(didn't need them yet
)
-while I don't envision myself dodging IEDs in the streets of syria or encircling a russian bunker(so far...) the weapons and military drills we studied always gives me something to chat about at the gun range with my fellow firearm owners
-Getting to know each other from so many different states expanded my cultural knowledge immensly with insights about how different societies run that even through IRL tourism I wouldn't have picked up
In the last years my attendance has been down to 3-4 ops a year and you can expect around the same with ETR but I will from time to time maybe join for a session of verbal shitposting, in the meantime i'll just dump memes on discord
In conclusion:
Thanks for growing up with me and giving me some of the best memories of my life, a place to stay where every oddball like me felt like he belonged;
No amount of thanking will ever be enough to all the current and previous managers and aides that poured countless hours into running and developing this group, thanks to all those like me that were just there for the ride and enjoyed the moment, thanks for all the good and bad times we've had together but also for all those we didn't: Even tho I wasn't here many times I always knew that every single saturday night and more you'd be waiting for me and cheer up on my arrival.
May we look forward to new horizons with our long lost brothers and have fun together!
On a sidenote, if The Wrecking crew is offically over and recruitment closed we have officially gone 10 years without a single woman in our ranks: maybe that's my it was so good all along?
