_StaR has been around since 1999 and is one of the few clans that are still active after all that time. Currently there are over 20 very active members with another 10 members who do not play as regularly or have taken a break from the game. The clan has adopted Age of Mythology with enthusiasm but continues to play Age of Kings:The Conquerors as there are some members who either do not have the game yet or do not have machines capable of taking part in the clan's regular multi-player games.

Founding the clan

The creation of the _StaR clan was the inspiration of _StaR_JJ, or as he was then, HarD_Lucky of the HarD gaming clan. He and another two HarD members, HarD_Silencer and HarD_FrogDog, were tired of the infighting and some of the members of HarD and decided to form their own small clan with a lower "stress level". The idea would be to only allow people in without a bad attitude and this has remained the single most important defining aspect of the clan to this day.

The initial members of the clan were four: Lucky (HarD_Lucky), Unlucky (HarD_Silencer), Otak (Wide_Arc) and Frog (HarD_FrogDog). What we know of these names is that Lucky’s name was a spoof of his real name (Luc), Unlucky was an ironic counterpoint to Lucky, Otak was the companion of Sparrowhawk in "A Wizard of Earthsea"), and Frog was a truncation of FrogDog, which referred to the rather strange looking pet dog which Frog owned.

Some early adventures

The best remembered encounters in the early days were some match-ups against the JFL and Vile clans. _StaR was often brawling with Vile, a bunch of friends from Qld with some serious attitude. One particularly bruising encounter descended into a slanging match when _StaR fought to the end against Vile_Ob, Vile_Tirade and a couple of their cronies. Apart from frequently being beaten up by JFL, who had some seriously good players on their books, we went quite well against other Australian clans, particularly when Unlucky took the field with his lightning castle times and professional strats.

The discrepancy in playing levels gave rise to many funny incidents, with Unlucky never failing to recount the time he garrisoned his last villagers in Otak's TC, only to have them ejected into the middle of an oncoming knight rush by Otak.

In another disastrous outing, Unlucky, Lucky and Otak were beaten 2v3 after cleaning up the continental map almost completely. In the early AoK days, booming back into a game was feasible because TCs only cost wood, and, after nearly being completely dead, the anonymous opponents blasted back into the game, killing Otak and eventually forcing Lucky and Unlucky to resign. Otak was to discover more than a year after the game that the anonymous pair were in fact JFL_Hanky and SatayKing_Z, two well-known and very talented Australian players.

Another classic match occurred when Otak and Unlucky battled to a standstill against LgN_Christian, again on a continental map. With the game going out-of-sync late in imperial, an argument broke out over who was going to take the day - but Christian must have enjoyed himself because shortly thereafter his clan fell apart and he became _StaR_Christian. After many a change of names (Star_Hun_Ter, _StaR_Man_Dave, Gold_Coast_Dave, _StaR_Xian, _StaR_Badbear), he is still around today, playing as _StaR_Dropbear). Shortly afterwards we also collected _StaR_Striker (now gone) and _StaR_Gladiator (now_StaR_Ob1), but turbulent times were ahead for the clan.

The Great Twilight of the_StaRs

After many months of playing, some of the clan's enthusiasm began to wane. Otak spent some time off playing RPGs, and was also seen cruising the zone as Wide_Arc, Lucky disappeared into Wireplay where he played some relaxed games with other bigpond users, and finding a game began to be tricky. Although _StaRs Crow and Raptor were recruited from Wireplay, a further addition _StaR_Leo_King was to come on board and earn the sad award of being the only person ejected from the clan, as the other members of the clan found his intensity and attitude just didn't match up with _StaR's ideals.

Unlucky, Frog and Striker all vanished as well and the clan became somewhat dormant for a long period which overlapped the introduction of “The Conquerors” x-pack. Of the founders, Frog we understand had real-life commitments and didn't need to spend so much time playing, Unlucky had already been a member of numerous other clans and felt he needed to play in higher level games than _StaR offered (he eventually joined _Z clan as Anarchy_Z), Lucky became Jolly_Joker and spent his time playing games with Crow, Raptor and Lord (players he'd met on Wireplay), and Otak was off playing Baldur's Gate and other RPGs.

The Rebirth of_StaR

The clan's big moment came when the Wireplay guys decided to emerge and play regularly on the zone at night. Soon _StaRs Crow, Raptor, Lord, JJ, DropBear, Phaedra and others were a familiar sight in the game rooms, and new _StaRs were appearing such as Comet, Vader, DirtyHank, Flash and Quark. The solidity of their presence and their offering of regular, fun clan games in turn attracted more players. Within a few months the game rooms became filled with _StaRs and, in an important twist, the 9pm _StaR game was conceived and became a hallmark of the clan.

Otak re-emerged from RPG world and took up his old name, and players came from everywhere to enjoy what _StaR had to offer. _StaRs Taffy, Robo, Chess, Bum, Merc, Major, Razoo, Swamp, Termite, Wesco and CJL began showing up regularly and contributing to the sense of fun and companionship in the clan. _StaR_Wild became the second female _StaR, and was soon a leading player in the clan, and Ob1 eventually convinced his brother _caradoc to become a _StaR, with _StaR_R2D2 emerging on the scene as a result.

In an enjoyable throwback to our founding days, the clan accepted into the fold a _StaR_Grumpy, formerly Vile_Tirade and a veteran of the many _StaR/Vile encounters from the very early days of AoK.

The organisation of several LAN parties also served to bring the clan more tightly together and help form some genuine friendships between clan members.

A New Phase

The clan went without a website for the first three years of its life. We all thought we needed one, but everybody was either too busy, lazy, or unskilled to take the time to type something up. The clan finally obtained it's own website in April 2002 after some abortive early efforts from _StaR_Otak and a temporary MSN communities homepage created by _StaR_Crow. StaR_JJ created the initial site and AD_Raider_L helped establish our first forum. With _StaR_Robo taking a keen interest in the new website, the initial basic design was embellished and for the first time the clan had an online home complete with forums, member profiles and useful clan information. The online forums particularly increased the level of interaction between clan members. StaR_Crow stepped in to fill the role of Clan storyteller and provided some great recountings of memorable clan battles while the friendly banter between StaR_Crow and StaR_DropBear served to keep all StaR members amused.

The introduction of a 1v1 ladder and recorded games section brought some friendly rivalry to the clan and enabled others to enjoy some of the great clan games. This new life in the clan soon attracted a wave of new members and we saw _StaRs Speeder (brother of CJL), Jinx, Shocka, Tymes, Germsy Swamp and Termite join the fold. Unfortunately the influx of new members to the clan meant that we needed to take a more rigorous approach to admitting letting people join and a trial membership scheme was introduced for the first time. The latest wave of members brought new (and youger) blood to the clan and helped to keep the clan's gameplay in top shape.

Throughout this period the clan began to develop a relationship with the Nil8rz clan and August 2002 saw the birth of the Clash of the Clans (COTC). The initial concept for COTC was simple - both clans would field a team of their four best players for a contest with random map and random civilisations (the standard settings for StaR games). However, the interest in COTC was so great that we ended up trying to field three teams for each clan (with some difficulties in co-ordinating so many players to be on-line at the same time). Three COTC have been held so far with the score for the A grade teams standing at 1 all (due to difficulties in getting the teams together for COTC III).

The Age of Mythology

The introduction of Age of Mythology (AOM) in December 2002 signalled the beginning of a new phase in the evolution of _StaR. Unfortunately the impact of AOM was not all positive for the clan. Many of the clan embraced AOM enthusiastically but not everyone had AOM, and some who did found that either their machines or their internet connections were not up to playing multiplayer games on ESO - these people were been forced to remain with The Conquerors and started to lose touch with the main body of the clan. For those moved to AOM, ESO's lack of a clan-friendly interface also lessened interaction outside the game and we were forced to drop the '_' at the start of our nicks and become simple 'StaR_' on ESO.

Luckily the forums continue to provide a common ground for communication within the clan and the web site was revamped to reflect our focus on both Age of Mythology and Conquerors. In April 2003 many of the AOM players started to dabble with AOC again and soon this became a full-fledged return to AOC by most of the AOM players. Unfortunately this left some of our new recruits (StaR_Machine and StaR_Weapons) and one of our original AOC members (StaR_Shock) stranded in AOM and, with few clan mates to play with, they decided to leave StaR and join clans that were more active in AOM. Over the next few months StaR regained it's former strength in AOC and started to gain new recruits (e.g. _StaR_NeXuS_). Unfortunately some of the clans that StaR had played with in the past (like Nil8rz) had not suffered so well and they virtually vanished from the zone. However in May 2003 the idea of the United Clans League was formed .. this brought together StaR, ShagN, FeaR and ViE in a loose framework of competition and StaR clan introduced the United Clans Ladder - a 1v1 competition ladder based on the internal ladder system used by StaR_ Clan.

By July 2003, with the AOC side of _StaR going from strength to strength, a small number of the clan decided that it was time to return to AOM and rebuild the clan's activity in that area. Things were slow at first but the momentum picked up and new recruits started to be found. StaR_Angus joined the clan and was quickly the first StaR_ Clan member to reach a 1900+ rating on ESO. He had the idea to introduce a 1v1 competition styled on the RTS-League and the ANZA League was born with it's first season kicking off in September 2003.

All in all the impact of AOM has turned out to be positive. Despite the difficulties of the last year we have emerged from this period stronger than ever to continue our long and enjoyable association.

Original Text by: _StaR_Otak, 7 June 2002
Updated by: _StaR_Robo, 16 September 2003