Community of Gamers (the origins of)

Although CoG is a brand new community, its roots where started in an online- gaming clan called International Frag Force.

[IFF] was started as a SoF2 clan in August 2002 by Fr@gma and the whole clan was based on friendship and respect.

Although [IFF] flourished in the early days, due to family commitments, Fr@gma had to hand over leadership of the clan to Rushty, who remains the ‘Boss’ to this day. Alpha Wolf also got involved and was appointed Deputy Leader.

2003

In March 2003, [IFF] incorporated its first expansion and a Battlefield 1942 team was set up, headed and led by Prodigy. The team played both conquest and capture the flag.

In May 2003, a third team was added, Ravenshield. R1ch (aka Hc1r) and Tazdevil headed the Ravenshield team.

In October of the same year, a Call of Duty team was added and although we did not know at the time, this team, coupled with Battlefield would become the backbone and mainstay of the clan for years to come. Storm_Force was the leader of the initial CoD team.

Due to popularity of other games the Ravenshield team had to be disbanded in October 2003.

No other teams were added for a wee while until UT 2004 was released and initial thoughts and hype within the clan was good, enabling us to start a team, led by Spursmat and Shaun. The team was short lived and most members found it difficult to commit as CoD and BF were so popular and time consuming. The UT team lasted for around 4 months.

2004

Our 2nd major change in personnel was Alpha Wolf stepping down as leader in March 2004, but in stepped Prodigy to fill the gap.

After the release of the Battlefield mod, Desert Combat, the Battlefield team made a major jump and became dedicated to the mod in June 2004.

Playing matches once or twice a week for almost a year, the DC mod was very popular within the clan and attracted members of other teams. This was a hugely successful time for [IFF] playing mainly BF DC and CoD. In March 2005, the BF Vietnam (PoE) was added to the list of current games and the Battlefield squad was headed by Lighty.

2005

In June 2005, [IFF] arranged its first meet up, but due to commitments, only 7 members attended. A great (expensive) weekend was had by Taxi, Jobbo, Taz, Mobium, Souledge, Pan1c and Bluenose in Southend, the ‘Costa Del Essex’.

After the release of Battlefield 2 and CoD United Offensive, the clan streamlined and knuckled down to concentrating on these two games. The BF2 team organising duties were taken on by Homer and Drat and the CoD duties were taken on by Stormin.

In November 2005 the SoF2 team had a last push for success and was run by Taxi and Bluenose, however, due to the popularity of newer games, the diehards of SoF2 found it too difficult to keep up and it was decided to call it a day on the game. This left the clan exclusively playing BF2 and CoD2.

[IFF] enjoyed many years of success through the good old days of SoF2, moving onto BF 1942 / BF2 (including major mods) and playing all the way through the CoD series. However, the greatest success of the clan, and the reason Fr@gma and Rushty started back in 2002 is the very strong friendships that have been forged throughout our ranks.

2008

Real life commitments took over recently and [IFF] found it increasingly difficult to field teams for matches, so inevitably it all got toned down and the clan pulled out of competitive gaming.

Prodigy decided this wasn’t good enough and Community of Gamers was born, with huge technical backing from Rushty a nd general backing form everyone involved with [IFF].

[IFF] was a hugely successful clan and gaming community, but it is now in the past and we are all looking forward to chapter two, making CoG just as successful and looking forward to new members and new clans joining us.

There are far too many members to mention who have been the backbone of [IFF] for many years, and will continue to be so with CoG, but you all know who you are.

2009

CoG got off to a good start in 2009 and thanks to the generosity of Rushty, we even had our own CoD: World at War server at the start of the year. Sadly though not enough people showed interest in the new CoD to make it viable and so after several regular Tuesday night meet ups playing either MP or thwarting Nazi zombies, things died down towards the summer.  We carried on meeting up over the summer mainly to play the odd bit of Guild Wars, and waiting for the eagerly anticipated Modern Warfare 2…

Then the bombshell – Infinity Ward had decided to drop dedicated servers from MW2 and threw any real chance of organised PC gaming well out of the window.

But just as all looked lost for PC FPSing, EA confirmed that the upcoming Battlefield: Bad company 2 would have dedicated servers gave reasurances and that be much more than just a console port, and that there would be a public beta in early 2010 Then in December announced the new Medal of Honor game would be modern day be developed by DICE and be showing up late 2010

So again we are playing a bit of a waiting game – but 2010 is set to be one hell of a gaming year.