In The Beginning
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Hello, my name is Michael, also known as T-Bird. I am the original founder of The Black Knights and have lead them throughout their history. Let me tell you my story about how and why The Black Knights came to be.
It all started on a Christmas many many years ago in 1998. I received a Sidewinder joystick for a present. I was always into pilot sims such as Jane's USAF, Falcon, and other military airplane simulations. When I opened the joystick I noticed it came with a free game. As many of you know on X-mas day, you eventually get bored tinkering with your new wealth of items. As I looked around to see which of my presents I hadn't paid much attention to yet, I noticed the CD titled "Mech Warrior 3" still laying in the joystick box.
I was never into Mechs or any of those type things. But I thought to myself, that's close to piloting, it's just on the ground, so why not give it a try. I loaded up the game, and started to play.
The single player game was boring. I went through the training missions and very quickly got bored with the game. Then I thought to myself, why not play it online. I had never played a game online before, and was very curious as to how fun it would be
I logged onto the MS Zone and started to play. I got my ass handed to me over and over. I had never been beaten so badly in a game in my life.
I like to consider myself a "learner". When something doesn't go the way I want it to, instead of throwing a fit, I like to learn WHY and then come up with a solution.
After many more hours of being slaughtered I went to sleep. As I lay there I thought to myself, why am I getting beat so bad. What was happening to me? What was the other team doing that was making this happen to me? Then I realized that it always seemed like I was outnumbered in the game. I thought back to the battles I had fought and realized that in almost every situation I was being attacked by at least 2 mechs at once and none of my team were anywhere to be found as support.
So that is the key. Your TEAM. My teams always sucked. I'd be in a game with a bunch of morons who would not stick together or initiate any sort of strategy what so ever. We would just line up like a cheap kung fu movie and attack the enemy solo. I thought to myself, no wonder I die so much, 4 separate 4 vs. 1 battles is a sure way to loose. And that's what the enemy got, 4 separate battles where they had 4 and we had 1.
So how do I find a good team? I noticed that a lot of games the players each had initials in front of their names and many times the initials were the same. I discovered these were clans of people who fought together and played together a lot.
My solution!!! I'll start a clan.
Mech Warrior 3
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In the beginning, there was chaos. Mech pilots fought each other with no purpose, other than bravado. Personal glory was the only motivation. Warriors banded together in groups to gain the assistance of numbers. Many saw that such association was pointless, as warriors traded sides and loyalties with the fickleness of a woman scorned. Some tried to form tighter knit groups, they were called clans. This was obviously more formidable than ever tried before. Clans formed tactics and elite corps, to face the increasingly difficult situation of staying alive. Surely, mech tactics had reached its pinnacle.... or had it? Tactics stagnated. No advances in weapon layout or mech design was made. War was pointless. The only hope was the birth of fresh ideas. Those ideas came. And with them came the Black Knights. This is their story.
Born from a simple idea, they came. Like the hand of God, wrath followed in their wake. Theirs was a juggernaut of force. Never had the Inner Sphere seen the like. To be sure, the Knights suffered loss in combat, minor annoyances. Nothing slowed their pace...
It started with the idea of fire team based tactics. Focusing on team skill, rather than individual skill. Two brothers, one a skilled leader and the other a brilliant tactician, created this fire storm. Many warriors listened to their ideas. Few agreed. Those that followed the brothers, perfected the art of teamwork. They became known.
Anarchy Online
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Greyclouds writes ...
"I remember that we tried to start up the guild on AO in the very first week, but the guild registration was bugged at the time, and it took us about two or three weeks until we were able to claim our name in AO. Madcat, Cav, T, Nemesis, and I were a few of the first ones in AO... Im sorry that I dont remember the rest of the names (its been almost two years :( ).
I had joined in early April of 2000 after becoming a regular on the Anarchy lore boards. Alot of people had been bashing BK, but I did not understand it at the time since Nem, T, Cav and Madcat were all cool people. I realized later that they were all jealous of what BK had to offer, and even now, we have outlasted every single one of those AO guilds that used to bash us, with no signs of relenting ;). I remember receiving an email from madcat inviting me into the guild, and after a few hours of deliberation I decided to join. Tiamet and I were probably the only two people recruited off of the lore sites (that I know of, that is); Tiamet as the Public Relations director (he is still the best forum browser/poster I know) and me as a Knight of the Sword (however we did not have the rank distinctions until after AO lost most of its fan-base). I had some doubts at first -- being the rookie from AOlore -- but all of these were dispelled after seeing BK in action."
Dark Age of Camelot
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Torquemada writes ...
The Server was Palomides. The clan hit Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) running. Within the first few weeks we had many members effective at Realm V.S. Realm combat and the clan was getting a reputation for its prowess, leadership, and member loyalty. WarOx was the acting division leader. He came in with great leadership and dedication. He was an active leader but absolute power often corrupts. Some say he became a tyrant, others say he had a vision. Still others say he went insane. Whatever the case was he got too big for his britches and his temper caused him to kick members and even more simply left because they did not want to deal with his nepotism and obnoxious attitude. Eventually the Knights of The Crown stepped in to investigate but it was a day late and a dollar short. We had already lost many good members because we trusted WarOx's word over the accused, bitched-out and kicked. Finally, T-Bird playing as an alt toon witnessed the dictatorship first hand and action was taken. Abion was promoted as new Division Leader. Warox took the long walk.
BK was the first guild formed on Palomides. We worked hard, and worked together, as always, to get the guild formed quickly.
BK was growing large and powerfull and spanning multiple games. It was time to start making our structure even more detailed. We had already layed the clan out with a rank system, but we needed more. T-Bird had his hands full trying to run a clan that now regularly spanned multiple games. So the title of Division Leader was created. BK would now have a seperate leader for each game they played. And this leader would be given absolute power, unless T-Bird's intervention was required.
Read more: Dark Age of Camelot
Battlefield 1942
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We returned to the roots of The Black Knights. The very core of our Clan. The strategy, action, and teamwork elements of Battlefield 1942 personify us. This is the foundation that the Guild was formed upon. Though we did not enter the fray with monolithic numbers, we came in with strong bonds of friendship and a like minded goal to win. Our members are highly skilled and we remained at the top level of the skirmishes and game matches that we were involved in during the Demo Days. This trend continued with the launch of the full game.
Dark Phoenix was promoted to Division Leader because of his impeccable skill and obvious leadership quality. Once again BK was on a meteoric rise. We joined some ladder competitions. Guild training in areas such as piloting, sniping, targeting, and the infamous 'lag shooting' began. Like Mike Tyson in his prime we knocked our opponents out of the the box. Yes we were that good, as was proven by our track record.
Nothing lasts forever and disaster strikes. A major patch changed the game dynamic and many BK's felt after the developers removed 'lag shooting' from game that it was no longer worth playing. Without the fabled 'lag shooting' unskilled players would now be equals. Mere mortals could do battle with the Gods. Dark Phoenix stepped down as Division Leader. Enter NYPD.