from the battlefield
DESCRIPTION
Issue 1 March 2011TRANSCRIPT
A Message from our Commander-in-Chief Being asked to submit something for a newsletter really made me stop and think
about how far we have come since I joined TAW in 2007. I will never stop believing
after this past year that if we want something here in TAW we will have it, period. Our
strength and means is our membership and time and time again the talent is dis-
played as we rise to meet whatever challenges lies before us. TAW as a community is
about success. TAW has had many successes since its founding and there will be
many more to come.
We have a lot on the plate currently for 2011 including the roll out of a new website.
I'm lucky to be serving as CIC during this time not just because of the accomplish-
ments during this time but because of the people I'm so fortunate to serve with. This is
the best leadership team that has ever been assembled in TAW history and I'm confi-
dent that the test of time will prove me right.
On behalf of the TAW community I wish to express gratitude to everyone that is serving
in a leadership role. Thanks for all you do! Your dedication and commitment does not
go unnoticed!
GEN5 Hook
Commander in Chief of TAW
So You Can't Shoot
Straight?
LTC Rinko
You love playing video games,
you enjoy the thrill of being part
of a team acting like you have a
purpose. Yet, when it comes to
a firefight you seem to always
come off worse. Other players
seem to breeze through the
maps, effortlessly picking off
their enemies with one hand
while drinking a cup of tea with
the other.
Continued on Page 6...
TAW on the Social Media Scene
The community of TAW now reaches out to the Facebook and Xfire communities as well. Currently we have
over 600 members in our Facebook community and over 700 members in our Xfire community. If you haven‘t
found us there yet, take a look at the TAW front page. There are links there that will take you to the respective
sites. We are also working on the development of an official TAW STEAM group. It is still in development but
should be launched soon.
Join us—and be a part of the TAW Revolution.
2
Call of Duty Series
review written by
2LT spectralheaven
Call of Duty System Minimum Requirements
* OS: Windows® Vista/ XP / 7
* Processor:Intel® Core2 Duo E6600 or
AMD Phenom X3 8750 or better
* Memory: 2GB
* HDD:12GB
* Video: Shader 3.0 or better 256MB
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600GT / ATI Radeon®
X1950Pro or better
* Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible
-DirectX: 9.0c
What makes a game suc-
cessful? Graphics? Story?
Gameplay? Those 3 values are
definitely ones that people look
up to when talking about suc-
cessful game but if we are to
take sales numbers under con-
sideration there isn‘t a second
franchise in gaming industry
that can stand next to Call of
Duty series. November 9, 2010
marked the day for release of
Call of Duty: Black Ops, the 7th
installment in the series, devel-
oped by Treyarch and so far the
best selling title of whole
series. With over 7 mln copies
sold in first 24 hours and over
19 mln copies sold so far Black
Ops has broken new records as
2010‘s best selling game of
the year.
Continued on Page 3...
The mission statement for "TAW University" is to ensure the continued life
of our organization, through teaching future leaders and continued educa-
tion for our current leaders. This education will ensure the future of TAW
through instilling a "Servant Leadership Mind Set".
Every member of TAW is welcome, from the newest Recruit to the Com-
mander in Chief. All attending will hear what it takes to be a successful
leader in our organization. I will cover the positive aspects of Leadership
such a being a "Servant Leadership", "Mentoring" and "Conflict Resolution".
I'll also cover avoiding the pit falls of "Self promotion", "Bunker Mentality"
and "Position Hogging".
I will be interviewing COL_Feanor of the Vanguard Division at the next TAW
U. We will dig into what is Vanguard and what is their mission statement.
Also how do you form and mold a team out of rag tag group of members? I
know that Feanor will have the answer!
Vanguard is such an important part of TAW's future and it's important that
everyone understand how it works.
Come join us April 3, 2011 at 3:00 pm/est
GEN SoonerOKC - TAW University Commander
It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity,
and the responsibility of individuals to contribute. - William
Pollard
I Corps Spotlight—Team Fortress
Team Fortress division stronger
than ever!
After a mass exodus back in Sep-
tember, leaving us with 11 mem-
bers left, I am happy to report that
Team Fortress Division is back on
track with 50 members and newly
appointed DC and DO.
The new DC is Armony from the US,
who has been the CO of 4th (NA),
taking it from a 3 person member-
ship to 27. He was awarded a sil-
ver star by Army Commander
Sooner for this which was well de-
served. He with his officers, Eriopo-
lis and Shadowmage, has also just
initiated the new from scratch de-
veloped internal campaign called
Domination Fortress.
The new DO is Triumni from
Finland, who has been the CO of 1st
battalion (EU). They have expanded
as well, filling now two squads pre-
paring for the ETF2L european
league. We wish them good luck
and glory to TAW. He was also
awarded the silver star for his ef-
forts.
BGN Dogstar
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Operation Support
Off the successful deployment of Teamspeak 3, Operations Support has re-
focused its efforts on the upcoming release of TAW.net 2.0. Only a couple
months away, the new website will be a dramatic departure from ―business
as usual‖ and will provide a whole new exciting platform for development.
The new site resurrects some features we have lost from the old website
like event calendars and incorporates many new ones like blogs, wikis, and
commendation system. Core code development is mostly completed, and
we have begun updating the layouts and graphics on the site. Also, the
team expects to begin some initial testing with Central Command in the
next two weeks.
I want to give a special thank you to the team members that continue to
devote hours upon hours of work towards completing the project. If you see
these guys in TS, please make sure you tell them how much you appreciate
their efforts!
Bones
Calbrenar
Cutthroat
Dawnthorn
HeyManNiceShot
Marudor
TheGame
I hope for the next newsletter to have additional exciting news about the
site!
Gen Icarus
Central Command – Support Commander
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Snapshot of what the new website might look like....
...Continued from Page 2
In single player campaign we assume
the role of Alex Mason, a special opera-
tions soldier that works deep down be-
hind enemy lines risking his life during
dangerous missions. The story of single
player will take us into many different
parts of our globe spanning from secret
facilities set on deserts, through wild
jungles of Vietnam and even into frozen
land of Antarctica in order to uncover the
threat that can destroy the world that we
know.
Of course no Call of Duty game is
complete without a multiplayer aspect
and even though the single player cam-
paign is excellent to play you will soon
want to test your skills against other play-
ers - this is where the real fun begins.
Black Ops offers you 14 different maps
to play on with several different game
types. Players that want to see how good
are their shooting skills will most likely
want to play Deathmatch or Team Death-
match however running around the map
alone and shooting other players can get
boring after a while and let‘s face it - it‘s
best to play with friends than against
them. That‘s where the game modes like
Search and Destroy, Demolition or Sabo-
tage (to name the few) come to the pic-
ture as in every one of them your victory
is dependant on how well you can act in
a team. Communications and good tac-
tics are the kind of tools you will need in
order to come on top and outsmart the
opponent‘s team.
It all sounds great but it‘s a FPS
game, what do I get to shoot other play-
ers? The answer is simple - guns and a
lot of them. Black Ops features many
different guns from the Cold War era
spanning from SMG‘s and light machine-
guns, through assault rifles and shot-
guns ending on powerful and accurate
sniper rifles - each of them can be cus-
tomized by the player the way the see it
Continued on Page 4...
...Continued from Page 3
fit. You want a gun with
silencer and winter camo?
There u go. You need bet-
ter optics along with ex-
tended mags? No problem,
you can make it. Game
provides you with many
customization tools allow-
ing you to create the type
of gun that not only is
deadly but looks great as
well.
Last but not least, the
perks - one of the series
innovation introduced first
by Call of Duty 4 are here
for the taken. 3 different
groups of perks will let you
create your dream class
that later on you can use in
multiplayer and help your
team achieve victory.
So what you are waiting
for? The Call of Duty divi-
sion in TAW is already play-
ing this amazing game on
one of our very own serv-
ers. If you want good multi-
player action wait no
longer, our hardened Call
of Duty veterans will help
you customize your class
and pick the best set up
that will suit your play style
- then you can continue to
get in the game and play in
a team - ‗cos here in TAW
nobody fights alone and
neither should you.
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State of online gaming by Matthew Reichardt on Aug 15, 2010 12:49 pm
“State of online gaming” is a tech article by Matthew Reichardt of TGN. Reprinted with
permission.
Online Gaming as we know it has molded into a very lucrative business over the years,
with big title like World of Warcraft, Ever-
Quest II, Guild Wars, Ultima Online and
countless more. But what is it that
makes these games special? It is the
sense of having fun with your friends in
a virtual world free of all the problems in
real-life. For many it is a escape. But
what has the Gaming Industry brought in
the past few years? A concoction of
games that seem erily like other games
that we have already played.
There is a sense of bewilderment when I
log into a new game with the expecta-
tion: ―Wow this game looks unbelievable I can‘t wait to see what new features is has!‖;
but instead I find that the game is very similar to another game I have already played
and with no new features. A great example would be the World of Warcraft and Runes of
Magic battle. Runes of Magic is pretty much an exact clone of World of Warcraft, though
it does introduce nice features like player housing and awesome guild management.
Seems like they took a lot of PvP and Guild Management aspect from Age of Conan:
Hyborian Adventures.
Which brings me to my final point, When will a major game company push the envelope
and create something stunning, beautiful and different? That time might finally be on its
way. At the time when Guild Wars was released, the Gaming Industry was especially
stagnant. A lot of good games that had either a Pay to Play (P2P) scheme with great
content, but unwieldy similar instances; or a free game with not too much depth. That‘s
when Arena Net launched it‘s first title, Guild Wars. The tables changed. There was fi-
nally a game with a great ratio of content, beauty and most awesomely no fee to play
after purchase. Since the time of the Guild Wars launch, not much has been done to the
massive degree that Guild Wars did. Again, that is about to change.
In development for years and recently a lot of videos and information has been pouring
out from Arena Net, Guild Wars 2 is on its way and SOON. I can honestly I have never
been more excited for any game launch since the time of the original Guild Wars re-
lease. The team that pushed the envelope the first time is at it again and has learned
from their mistakes. Guild Wars 2 will be a massive game with a lot of features that a
player in any game ever released has never seen before. A few being player engaged
stories, you literally shape the game world; and player engrossed world combat, your in-
game player versus environment (PvE) gameplay will effect the actions of the world in
massive ways. For more information on Guild Wars 2 features and updates visit Guild-
Wars 2 Video Wiki.
Guild Wars 2 has the availability of changing the way we think of gaming all together
with unbelievable feature that other developers only wished they could have imple-
mented. The biggest question remaining is: When will it be released! The good news is
that for anyone going to Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) this year will be able to visit the Guild
Wars 2 booth for a chance to play a demo of the game. Below is a video of what Guild
Wars 2 has in-store for everyone. Until my next article, happy gaming!
Matthew Reichardt is a community manager for TGN. See www.thegamenet.com. He
can be reached via email: [email protected].
Fox’s Maxims: 1. Any virtual gaming team that wishes to be successful must have a passion for their game, a
dependable game-server environment, a website, and voice communications.
Greetings from the BC Division, here's a brief glimpse into recent BC happenings. BC was announced as a winner of
PIO's Division Challenge: Picture Perfect, the rosette proudly adorns our unit pages, virtually all credit lies with the EU
battalion.
The NA battalion's internal competition, approximately at the midway point, format and design is rather unique in con-
ception – contesting European territories rather than the usual 2|3 points. This format, created by GSG Jayy [BC1 FS],
now looks to become the division's competition blueprint.
The command structure of both battalion's now boasts a full compliment of officers, far more stable and active partner-
ships now exist in the battalions, Division Command holds high hopes for both battalions.
Divisional membership levels are as healthy as ever, although traditionally the EU player pool is a fraction of the size of
it's transatlantic cousin. BC2's recruitment team is doing an outstanding job, keeping new applications trickling in and
forwarding U.S applications to BC1. We have recently acquired game server admin support and have been given an
XLRstats site (http://taw.playerstats.net) as a freebie, which is not only a great feature for the division's current mem-
bership but should also prove to be a good recruitment tool.
You‘ve been recommended to be put in the
TAW Member‘s Spotlight. The purpose of the Member‘s
Spotlight is to honor and showcase TAW Members who
have risen above the norm, be it through acts of Meritori-
ous Service or through acts done on the Battlefield.
Thinking back, what drew you to TAW?
For me it was 2 fold. The code of ethics and the promise of
organized game play. I love the fact that everyone in TAW is
treated with respect and the no cheating/glitching policy
was high on my list. As for the organized gaming, here in
TAW that is 2nd to none. I used to jump around the pub
servers for the best part of an hour looking for matches
that had good communication and teamwork.
Do you have any special hobbies or activities outside of
online gaming/TAW?
I build gaming computers on the side as a business and
I've been playing guitar for over 30 years, so I love to col-
lect, play and show off my gear.
Did you admire a famous person? What made them admi-
rable?
I'll go with a sports figure here, Cal Ripken...the ironman,
he's a class act, stayed with one team his entire career
even though he could have made more money elsewhere.
Tell me how you first got involved in with TAW . . .
I just wanted to help out in anyway I could, I let my DC
know that and I was promoted to SO. That satisfied my
desire to feel like I was contributing and to be honest, if I
was still SO, I would be happy.
What was your first impression of TAW?
Lots of rules...lol, seriously I was impressed with all the
hard work everyone in a leadership position put into the
rest of us having fun, to me that's what this is all
about...fun!
What's your first memory of something related to TAW?
How friendly TAW members were on the pubs.
What has surprised you most about working with TAW?
That I get more satisfaction seeing other people having fun
playing then playing myself.
What do you find most challenging about TAW?
When I was DC/CO, keeping things fresh, coming up with
new styles of game play that would keep everyone coming
back. Now that I am in Army Command it would be identify-
ing/grooming leadership potential in other members.
What's the best/worst thing to happen since you started
working with TAW?
The best would be all the great friends I've made since
joining, the worst would be when you have to discharge
someone...never fun.
When you last volunteered, made a donation, etc., how did
that make you feel?
Like part of the team, feels good...right up there with re-
cruiting new members, which unfortunately I am not that
good at.
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III Corps Spotlight 2.0 —BC Division
In the Scope P.I.O. Interview with GEN Bravehardt
BREAKING NEWS: A new CLC has been named for the II Corps. Congratula-
tions to BGN BeerStud [CC 2CLC]. In other II Corps news...Americas Army3
Division has started Friday Night Retro Night. On Fridays at 9pm EDT, we
play the original Americas Army. We welcome all TAW members to join us
in our Fun!!! The Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead division changed its name
to simply The Arma Division to reflect our commitment to the series as it
evolves. The division hit 100 members on Feb. 24...and growing. We
added a 4th squad to the 1 Bn on Feb. 26, and are organizing the battalion
into two platoons. For the first time since we began last summer, AM has a
full complement of officers and NCOs in both its divisions!
CD: First of all congrats with your promotions, medals or new position. As
CO i never give things away, so if you find your name here then it was well
deserved.
Have been awarded the Conduct Medal: * Holt, Click, Adrian Have been awarded the Achievement Medal : * Reaper, Kenobi, Korn Has been awarded the medal of Resilliance: * Reaper Have been awarded the medal of Excellence: * Kenobi, Hawk Has been awarded the Silver Star: * Solymyr Has been awarded with the very prestige GUMP: * Kenobi Promoted in rank: Holt to LCP. Promoted to new staff position: Click becomes our TS and moves on to the rank of SSG. Hawk becomes our new SA.
II Corps Spotlight So you can‘t Shoot
Straight
Continued from page 1
So, what's there to do? Give up
and go back to playing solitaire?
No, and no I say.
In any first person team based
game there are a variety of battle-
field roles. You may be able to
act as a medic and keep a squad
alive, you may be able to call in
artillery and pound the enemy
from afar. You may be able to run
along behind a tank with a
wrench and keep it running. You
may be able to hide on a hill and
call out enemy positions.
The point is, in game, there are
usually more things to do than
just toss hot lead....and that's
before we get to the main point.
You're in TAW now soldier.
Even if you're not the ninja of the
battlefield we can find important
jobs for you. You could work as a
DI, helping new recruits to join in
our fun and games. You might
find work as a TI, coming up with
new methods for improving the
skill level of your division. You
might take a staff role, and con-
tribute to the smooth running of
your battalion. Eventually you
may make it be a member of the
TFO and take part in discussions
that set the future of TAW as a
whole.
TAW is a land of opportunity. You
don't have to be the best shot in
the world to make a contribution.
Whatever you're good at, what-
ever your special skill is, we can
find a use for it here in TAW.
TAW Treasury is working for you!!!
This year Treasury will be about change. The
first change came late last year as a Treas-
ury Support Lt. Commander (TBone) was
found to help out Jedi and to support all the
Treasury tasks. Another change coming is a
possible new TAW PayPal account that will
help lower the fees of donations under 12
USD/EUR/GBP. This means more of the
money members donate will go towards the
divisions and not to PayPal! Lastly TREAS-
URY is working with a software developer to create a Gaming Community
Treasury application from the ground-up that will replace the current treas-
ury report and excel sheet we use at the moment. The application will
make it easier for us to work with, less prone to errors, create a variety of
reports that are better suited for the divisions and help your command
staff know how many donations are coming in and what is needed to keep
YOUR server running. Lastly it will provide TAW with a formal financial re-
cord system that can easily be audited.
Cheers, GEN Jedi & MGN TBone - Treasury Team
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