Last month I wrote an article for MMORPG.com on my transition from WoW to LOTRO. I’ve followed that up with my second article called Over Rock and Under Tree. Click that link behind me!

They spelled my name as “Parnele”, but I assure you that’s me.

So, for the 99% of you that could care less about gaming here’s a rebus puzzle for you. I think that’s what they’re called. Sometimes called “frame games”. You have to figure out what phrase the picture is trying to tell you. For example:

I think this one is pretty easy. The answer is: Head over heals. And now you know how to play.

Can you figure out this next one? Leave the answer as a comment.

(Hint: For a 100% accurate answer think of it from my perspective.)

About three months ago I stopped playing WoW – rather abruptly. Largely in part, I’ll be honest, because I was terrible at the game PvP. I couldn’t even face roll 4-button mash a Paladin to a 1800 rating. If you didn’t understand that, let me try another way: I kept falling off a bike that had training wheels.

So, for those of you ready to hit your “Back” button already I just wanted to say I’ve written an article for a gaming website about my experience leaving WoW and playing another MMORPG. The website is MMORPG.com and they report news on all types of MMO games including the game I left to play: Lord of the Rings Online. You’re probably not going to click that link unless you’re a gamer or my Mom (who is just so proud of me) - and it’s cool. I wrote you another story you can better relate to…

Now, this is the story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just sit and admire
I’ll tell you how I became the tallest guy in the Shire

In East Kalimdor rerolled and leveled
Out of the Wailing Caverns I came all disheveled
Chillin’ out with Orcs and Trolls
And all hanging out collecting some scrolls
When a couple of Dwarfs
Who were up to no good
Started making trouble on our PvP server
I lost one little duel and my faction yelled some things
They said “Go move in with Frodo and play Lord of the Rings”

I yelled on Ventrillo and logged off quick
The Burglar class was fun and had a bag of tricks
If anything I can say is he wore a cool costume
And so I thought “Yo Aragorn – we roll to Mt. Doom”

I got to Rivendell a few days late
And I yelled to Legolas “Put on some weight”
I looked to my kingdom
I could see the wharf
But then ah fuck, this game too, has got Dwarfs

[I receive a surprising number of hits from "sof2" searches. It's because older versions of my site included match history for several teams I've played for: brand x, Casual Heroes and spiN. So, here's a summary of my SoF2 days for the curious minded.]

I played as bx|eHome, ch:-:ehome, and spiN . ehome. I was “eHome” long before the Chinese made it cool. I was heckled endlessly by other players for a “gay” name, but I was good and that came with the territory. I can’t count the number times I was called a cheater or kicked from a server for a “wall hack” or “aim bot”. I’m also the only SoF2 player I can say with absolutely certainty was not cheating.

SoF2 had two communities: INF and CTF. INF was generally considered the more “prestigious” game type from which teams like zfz and smf (or later, as 5150) dominated CAL-I. If you don’t know either of those teams, then you probably weren’t very good at SoF2. If you didn’t watch the zfz video endlessly; you definitely weren’t any good.

I was a relatively late comer to the scene myself and fell in with the wrong crowd: CTF. The two dominate teams at the time were [LL] and |CAFN|. Now, if you played SoF2 CTF and don’t know these teams then you were just awful at the game. If you started playing after these teams disbanded you were just playing against scrubs – the benchmark was gone. I know this, because I came back to play once.

Before the life was sucked out the game by Real Damage mods and actual hackers CTF saw a mini-resurgence for two seasons in CAL and TWL. At the time, I played for bx| and was the best player on a medicore team. In order to compete with [LL] and |CAFN| I left to form my own team.

“If I have seen further, it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.”

Before leaving I spent a lot time playing with bx|TICK and a relatively unknown player and friend of bx|: [NN]Darel. I pub’d with these two nearly everyday when I began. TICK could strafe-fire faster than anyone I had seen and Darel moved across the map  like a well choreographed dance. I played an obscene amount of hours to be as good as those two, but knew I wasn’t going to get any better with 0-11 losses to [LL]:

I left bx| and formed a new team called Casual Heroes. My theory was, if I could convince five guys like me (good players on mediocre teams) to play together we’d be like when the Power Rangers combine and form Mighty Megazord. The six original team members were myself, SeL, nukleuz, TravDrew, Sactown, and L_Zep. We were each the best players on our former teams and when I pulled everyone together we became a sort of an all-star team.

We practiced every day for nearly a summer. We scrimmed anybody and everybody. It got to the point that nobody would scrim us because they were either (a) not willing to lose scrims or (b) not practicing anymore. We knew the gaming was dying and we wanted to ride that last wave.

Prior to the season beginning SeL went AWOL and was replaced by KoVacs, a former 5150 INF player. And immediately we had an opportunity to dethrone [LL]. We faced them the first game of the CAL season, but lost 1-2 (in the final seconds of the game). It was a real heart breaker. However, there were only one or two teams in the 24-team league who could keep it that close with [LL] and we were one of them. We certaintly had no shortage of people wanting to play with us. I received one or two requests for tryouts once a week for the remainder of the season – from good players.

After that game it was smooth sailing. 90% of our wins were blowouts. Unfortunately, time has washed away my screenshots and demos. All that remains is one screenshot of a 33-2 victory:

When both those CAL and TWL seasons ended (and the game officially died) we finished with  approx. a 16-3 record. I could actually be underselling our wins. But we definitely had 3 losses – as they still haunt me. Our second loss was to |CAFN| in the TWL finals. (Unfortunately, [LL] was upset early in the playoffs and we never got the rematch we hoped for.) Our final loss was to -EfX- in the CAL semi-finals. I’ve never made any excuses for our losses  and I won’t start today (nearly 7yrs later). The theme to The Sandlot wraps this story up nicely:

“Heroes get get remembered, but legends never die, follow your heart kid and you’ll never go wong.”

SoF2 was a brilliant game and to a few of us, the best FPS of all-time. Win or lose the a few months playing with the original six Casual Heroes is the benchmark every other FPS has failed to live up to. It was rivaled only by our return to SoF2 on the TWL Elimination and CTF ladders as spiN. Where between the two ladders we amassed a 45-3 record.  spiN was a wrecking ball, but by then the buildings were already abandoned. Noteable spiN players included: wiggum, trav, wildbeast, nukleuz, sactown, shizzy, and mesh.

I can’t talk this much about SoF2 without making a Top 10 lists. Below is, in my opinion, the Top 10 Best CTF SoF2 players (in no particular order):

• [NN]Darel
• bx|TICK
• [LL]kiSs
• [LL]One
• [LL]smokaj
• ch:-:nukleuz
• ch:-:ehome
• (Bx)TopGun
• -EfX- sicko
• spiN . wildbeast

|CAFN| players and fans everywhere are throwing up their arms in disgust at me. “How can I have a top 10 CTF list without any players from the 2nd best team of all-time?” But you see, |CAFN| wasn’t strong individually it was their team work that made them amazing. They moved up the map like a marching band in perfect sync. PaNiCBuTToN and Jammer are going to find this one day and say “Yah, but we beat you!” and they’re right. They did. So, I’m giving them the last word.