The org's TEN YEAR anniversary...

[Kagemusha]

I think also some form of competition could be launched. Im quite sure that CA/ Sega could be willing to give some prizes for such event, if not maybe few of us Orgahs could chip in.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

That be a good idea Kage. Any ideas?

[InsaneApache]

Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons; a battle on Totomi would be apt. Perhaps we could vote on who fights.

*I can't do it, I've got a bad back :)*

[Beefy187]

Each section of the forum can host special events. For example we can have MP competition for each games (Shogun, MTW, RTW, M2TW, ETW), we can have history quiz, we can have a 48 hours mafia game, Simultaneous Posting happy birthday on Front page etc.

[Kurando]

Good stuff Kurando! Keep it coming!

Well, other than a pile of old stuff there's not much of interest, but I thought this was really hillarious (see attachment). This is defintley the oldest piece of .org memorabilia in existance. For the first six months before the S:TW single player demo was released all we had to go on was a couple of screen shots of the beta, so in order to pass the time we used to try and discuss strategy. Members of the forum use to make bmp's of scenarios and then have epic discussions on plans of attack and how to solve the scenarios.

Kinda lame, but it's all we had... -The one thing that we did get out of this though was the org's solid foundation of discussing ancient history and it's also where the org's tradition of written stories and writing competitions started as well.

..

Just quick a note on Guild membership join dates, (not that it really matters)... ;)

The ezboard message board in the old days had no registration or IP Addresses + I think the very first board we tried that had registration was UBB Ultimate Bullitin Board This happened on 10-29-2000.

So any currently active members with join-date's in Oct/Nov/Dec 2000, Ii Naomasa, Gregoshi, Catiline, Magraev, The Black Ship, Puzz3D, Ronin, Strategy, Tomisama, Idaho, Slyspy, FearofFucy, barocca, Nsan, Hosakawa Tito, etc. are patrons who were probably at some point originally on the old board and made their way to the new board when the registration opened. However because there was originally no registration I had no way of telling when they actually joined, so the date that is listed is when they migrated to the new board and first registered themselves as members (some time around Oct/Nov 2000).

Active patrons who have a join dates in the 90's or eariler The Scorge, Nelson, nokor, The Shogun were patrons who's registration I retro-fitted because I knew for certain they'd been around the whole time, but they are not necessarily the only ones.

.

[Monk]

Kinda lame, but it's all we had... -The one thing that we did get out of this though was the org's solid foundation of discussing ancient history and it's also where the org's tradition of written stories and writing competitions started as well.

..

Bless you, sir.

[Gregoshi]

It is amazing that you still have some of that stuff around Kurando. Thank you for preserving some history. In that re-registration, I only lost about four months though. I think I joined around July 2000 when STW hit the streets.

You know, a lot of sports teams here in the US that have celebrated 50 or 75 year anniversaries recently have done so by wearing throw-back uniforms from days long gone. I wonder if it would be relatively easy to change the Org skin for all forums to the original STW for a day or week in recognition of the anniversary. Time is rather short for the actual anniversary, so whatever is done for THE day has to be relatively easy. Other thing like contests (an official 10 year logo?) could be organized for the remainder of the year. Thought?

[pevergreen]

I think you should get 10 000 posts Gregoshi!

You can represent the .org, a thousand posts a year!

[Martok]

You know, a lot of sports teams here in the US that have celebrated 50 or 75 year anniversaries recently have done so by wearing throw-back uniforms from days long gone. I wonder if it would be relatively easy to change the Org skin for all forums to the original STW for a day or week in recognition of the anniversary. Time is rather short for the actual anniversary, so whatever is done for THE day has to be relatively easy. Other thing like contests (an official 10 year logo?) could be organized for the remainder of the year. Thought?

I think that's a cool idea. Me likey.

[bamff]

You know, a lot of sports teams here in the US that have celebrated 50 or 75 year anniversaries recently have done so by wearing throw-back uniforms from days long gone. I wonder if it would be relatively easy to change the Org skin for all forums to the original STW for a day or week in recognition of the anniversary. Time is rather short for the actual anniversary, so whatever is done for THE day has to be relatively easy. Other thing like contests (an official 10 year logo?) could be organized for the remainder of the year. Thought?

A growing trend among sports teams here in Oz as well....

And an excellent idea it is too! "Org Heritage Week", where the skins revert to the original...AND maybe a little trivia section in the relevant issue of the Gah-zette? "Did you know?" with some facts from the Org's 10 years of history?

[frogbeastegg]

The org had a single line mention in the UK PC Gamer magazine in the same issue which came with the STW demo. That's how I found this place; I lurked off and on for years. I wonder how many others who followed that magazine tip are still here? It was a long, hard wait between demo and game release.

I always thought of the org as 'that' site where people had the funny wannabe-samurai names, and behaved in an exquisitely polite fashion. Many posts contained Japanese words which I didn't understand until years later when I read Shogun by James Clavell. Hehe, the look that must have been on my face when I learned konnichiwa means hello! It had a very distinctive atmosphere, mature and helpful. There was no other site like it.

I wonder if it might be worth making a little collection of people's memories of the org? We've got some here to start with, and I'm sure there must be others who would like to add a few words.

[InsaneApache]

That's it!

It's been staring us all in the face, the reason that we behaved ourselves was because of the nature of the game. The original game I mean. There was a lot of expectation that you behaved honourably and curtiously, especially after a win, it was considered the thing to do.

Obviously the STW game attracted a certain kind of person.

May it's predessesors continue to do so.

[KukriKhan]

And successors, too. :)

To have a gander at how things looked in the olden times see here, courtesy of archive.org.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I was going to join when I was 8 at the time in 2000, but I was a stupid young boy and I didn't know how (however, I did sign up on .Com and have contact with MagyarKhan's Charm!)! I know now what good times I miss, since I didn't join .Org until Februaby 2006. I been here 3 years, not a long time compare to Kudano!

[Beefy187]

Perhaps each mod can write the "history of org" for their section.
That will be a interesting read

[InsaneApache]

And successors, too. :)

To have a gander at how things looked in the olden times see here, courtesy of archive.org.

That is brilliant.

And successors, too. :)

Ouch! :)

[Caius]

The link provided by Kukri made me remember when I joined... good times, but better are the ones I live now here!

[Nelson]

Konnichiwa, Kurando-sama!

So many people are glad that you planted that first acorn 10 years ago.

It seems like yesterday.

Back then Shogun:TW sounded too good to be true but it lived up to expectations. No one could have guessed where we’d be now.

[seireikhaan]

Oh me, oh my, ten years is quite some time
My thanks go to those that helped this site start
Such a wondrous place, and for not one dime
May it be years more before we depart.

[CountArach]

Oh me, oh my, ten years is quite some time
My thanks go to those that helped this site start
Such a wondrous place, and for not one dime
May it be years more before we depart.

You got lost on the way to Reenk's mafia game perhaps?

[seireikhaan]

You got lost on the way to Reenk's mafia game perhaps?

Naw, its taking over me like a disease,
You must excuse me as my sanity flees...

[edyzmedieval]

Wooow, and i'm gonna turn 4 years old on this forum. :)
I remember when I joined, RTW era, it was a really interesting place. I hung around and met some great people.

So what's the plan for 14th of April?

[InsaneApache]

I think I'll get drunk.

[Banzai!]

Good question... According to my desktop records the site DNS mainpage officially opened Friday April 2nd, 1999. And the message board that we all know and love, The Sword Dojo, (now known as The Guild), officially opened April 14th 1999.

I retro-fitted a few of the membership join dates when we switched the board to vBulletin 1.0 in summer of 2000. We did this to facilitate the memebership explosion we experienced pending the release of Shogun Totalwar in June of 2000. For the first year we had a different ezboard message board that was red, green, and black in colour, and the original vBulletin 1.0 board was babyblue; the current board colours were adopted somewhere around 2003, but the old blue colour scheme was carefully preserved and still exists in the Guild's current Sword Dojo.

I remember for the first year before the demo was released we tried to stay focused on History and Strategy, the Art of War and whatnot; if fact, believe it or not, there was no off-topic content allowed on the board (not even frontroom-type stuff). ;) Surprisingly members were okay with this and we didn't have many problems moderating, but there were probably only a few dozen active posters before the demo came out so it was much easier than you might think to keep things on track.

totalwar.org got a big break earily spring of 2000 when some patrons from the UK somehow talked the Creative Assembly Team into giving .org a hands-on look at the demo. Richie and the rest of the CA Team were really good to the us, and our guys who got to see the S:TW Beta kept us inspired and on-track during the game's pre-demo days.

Interestingly in the earily days we had an arch-rival site "www.plannettotalwar.com" -There were some cool guys over there, but we managed to stay ahead of them and eventually .org became established as the place to be. At the time I think planettotalwar.com had a reputation as a "players site" and .org had more a reputation as an "info site", but we had good info that's for sure. Guys like PUZZ3D understood the mechanics of the game very intimately and helped a lot of people out. Also we had some serious historians, great modders, and apt story writers here at .org and they pulled together to keep forum content interesting.

So that's how it all started, but that's only the smallest fraction of how it got to where it is now. We owe the real thanks to Tosa and company. And most especially to the patrons; without whom this whole endevour would have amounted to nothing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the old gal. ;)

Interesting. Is there a full history of the ORG from 1999-2009?

[edyzmedieval]

I think I'll get drunk.

Simple and efficient.

[Erado San]

Ten years... ten? TEN? Just the tech support over the five early years I was active in felt like 15 or so. You sure you counting right?

[Gregoshi]

Erado San!? I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw your name in this thread. It is an honour and pleasure to see you return to these ancient halls.

[Erado San]

I can imagine :)

Something drew me back. Must be my ability to smell a party from 30 miles with the wind coming from behind!

[gollum]

This thread starts feeling like an Ents Council

[InsaneApache]

Erado San!? I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw your name in this thread. It is an honour and pleasure to see you return to these ancient halls.

Indeed.