-(DOG)- History

History of the -(DOG)- Clan

The -(DOG)- clan had been founded by SickPuppy-(DOG)- and a few friends of him in 1999.

The tag “-(DOG-)” is an abbreviation for “Death Or Glory”, which represents the enthusiasm and passion of SickPuppy and his mates for Unreal’s DM gameplay, which was the chosen gamemode back in those days.

Main purpose was to establish an Unreal-clan whose members would play with style, respect and fairness and would impose rules on themselves to keep the online clan-gameservers a safe place. The clan could recruit quite some members in the early beginning and soon all members would easily find out that the -(DOG)- clan was far more than just a gaming-clan consisting of online opponents – they became friends and the whole structure could be rather compared to a large family than a “military hierarchy”. Members were helpful to each other, showed respect and tolerance for each other and wanted the servers to keep a place where bad language and intolerance towards others was not tolerated, which was quite different to most other servers/clans. As a result the clan attracted more and more members. An online-presence had been established using the domain newbiesplayground.com – to serve members and interested with latest information and news and to establish a platform to discuss issues and ideas – which pretty much indicated what the clan wanted: to welcome and introduce new members to the world Unreal.

In 2001 founder SickPuppy-(DOG)- almost died due to severe drug abuse. From that day he was not able to play Unreal anymore and suffered from health-issues that made it impossible for him to live his own, independent life (please read “SickPuppy‘s story” on newbiesplayground.net for more details).

From that point, SickPuppy-(DOG)-’s father, OldSparky-(DOG)-, took over the leadership of the clan and made it to his primary life-mission to keep Unreal alive – Unreal, the game that was so important to his son. Sparky, being a very religious man, helped numerous players and people outside the Unreal world with their real-life issues, firmly “preached” to stay off drugs (that’s why one of our server-rules is a strict rejection of drug-reference of any kind) and helped especially younger players to find a straight way in their lifes. He was a person of huge kindness, compassion and humanity. The clan grew and Sparky spent almost every free minute of his life to keep the clan alive, to maintain the servers, to help infinite players to set up their own servers or fix their computer-problems and of course to keep up activity within the Unreal-Community.

He started to bring new custom gamemodes to newbiesplayground’s servers – especially his favored UteamFix, which enhanced Deathmatch gameplay on newbies servers and established the new gamemode of choice “King Of The Hill”. The server “Sickpuppy’s Doghouse” became very popular and endless sessions had been celebrated on it. On request of other clan-members, Sparky brought the MonsterMash servers online, which became first choice of those players who prefered shooting monsters or just to practice for forthcoming KOTH-sessions.
The -(DOG)- clan had become a remarkable component of the Unreal community. Sparky, restless to put his energy and passion into the clan and the game, had been approached by Jackal-(DOG)- (inspired by Nostalgica-Coop) to bring Coop gameplay to newbies. Jackal’s coop-server quickly became one of the most popular servers on the Unreal browser. Jackal-(DOG)- (he is OldSparky-(DOG)-‘s nephew by the way) put huge effort into the construction of this server and within years and the help of many clan-members and friends, Jackal’s Coop-Server is nowadays still probably the most popular Unreal server online.

Starting some years ago, OldSparky-(DOG)-’s health issues got worse and worse. He was hardly able to play online anymore and could only spectate but had to rest most of the time. He took his time, to introduce and teach me (strategy-(DOG)-) into newbiesplaygrounds’ business. In july 2013 OldSparky-(DOG)- handed me over the keys to the clan, as he had to care for his health. I tried my best to match Sparky’s expectations on how the clan should move on and servers had to be maintained.

We often had to face problems with various gamehosters, where we were not able to fully configure our servers without bothering the hoster’s support or when services failed every now and then. At that point I decided to rent a dedicated server where we could run our own Unreal-servers in a professional environment and being independent from gamehosting-services. OldSparky-(DOG)- was very pleased and I knew he was happy to see newbies’ servers on a good way into the future.

On 25th of June, 2014 – the most depressing day in the history of Newbiesplayground and the -(DOG)- clan – we received the sad news that OldSparky-(DOG)- passed away. Needless to say that this was a shock to all of us – not only our family, the clanmembers but all friends within the whole Unreal community, players and people outside the Unreal world showed their sympathy and paid their tribute to this great man! We lost our Leader, our friend and for sure one of the kindest persons I got introduced to in my life.

Our mission is to keep OldSparky-(DOG)-’s vision alive, to keep the -(DOG)- clan alive and of course to support the Unreal community to keep the game Unreal alive. Within the -(DOG)- clan there are really great people who support this spirit and put their energy and passion into this “project” – so, my respect goes to our family, the -(DOG)- clan and a huge thank you for supporting OldSparky-(DOG)-‘s legacy!

WOOF!

written by strategy-(DOG)-, June 2016