Descent: Underground

Soupman · **Posted:** Sat Apr 11, 2015 8:47 pm

Some that know us are aware that team [RIP] Rest in pieces Started in the year 2000 as a D3 Multiplayer team

Team RIP, founded in February of 2000

...it looks like we started out the new century right! Here is an accumulation of our teammates' contributions to the gaming world we all (virtually) live in. We were formed to compete in the D3TL, the Descent3 Teams League. We started out at the bottom of 25 or so teams. Many of those teams fell over the years, new ones took their places. Some were comprised of great people, some not so nice. Many lasting friendships were made, but many enemies were made too. Definitely a hard path we followed. Internal pressures caused us to lose several teammates during those arduous early years, but we always came back stronger. Hard to believe that we are still here when 63 other legitimate teams have faded away. What makes us special? That is hard to pin down. I believe we were not only blessed with good people, but talented and dedicated ones too. The below memoirs are an attempt to chronicle our feats, and perhaps to explain our success in this, our 15th year of existence.

Our Founders: Shark and Lion got together one night and decided to start a team for competition. Together they invited four other D3 pilots they had been flying with, Animal, Iceman, Saw and Off. Team RIP was formed! They applied to the D3TL for membership and started choosing new members. Here is a glossary of the RIP membership from then until present:

Some of these members have left us, for other teams or real-life.

Why did RIP survive when others disbanded? Well, the answer to that question would make any new team a success. Perhaps it is luck, perhaps the individuals themselves. Perhaps the many hardships we endured over the years. Grueling matches, many losses, twice we had internal battles, bitter and even spiteful. But we still survived and became stronger when other teams fell by the wayside. Perhaps there is no perfect formula. But maybe, as you read this, you may come to understand what makes this team so special, even when so many of us are hardheads, heh.

Some teams simply granted membership to anyone who expressed interest. "Welcome, go put on our tag and you are on our team!" was their motto. Not RIP. From the beginning it was pretty much invite-only. No one became a teammate simply by asking to join. Once we chose a person and they accepted they then went through a week of comments on our private board as we reviewed their application. If nothing too bad is said then they are invited to voice comms as we play for meet & greet time. The usual time they are watched is about two months although some have been longer. Once everyone is satisfied with them they are granted a Gauntlet, a time honoured tradition that lasts about 2 1/2 hours. What happens there is a RIP secret, no outsider has ever witnessed it. At the conclusion is a private vote. If passed they can then put on our tag with pride. Average time for membership, almost 3 months. Perhaps this is why we have dedicated members, they did their time and proved their devotion to the team.

We have also had about 7 legacy members, relatives of a current member. They were not bound by our minimum age of 16 requirement. In fact, I once calculated the average age of our members, sometime during our 4th year. It was 35.

From the beginning we had a Bulletin Board, made and hosted by Lion. But most of our postings were by email. As the years went by a few members started to complain about the volume of email they were receiving and we went to strictly BB postings. We evolved from small to medium to large to HUGE BB's! Our newest is here at http://rbb.ripteam.com/Default.aspx , perhaps the 5th incarnation, brand new with the kinks still being worked out. Shortly after this gets posted we should have an even newer Public version with a website front-end once again. Most of our posts go into our Private Sections, of course. We also had voice comms from the beginning. We tested every type that came along to see which was compatable with most of our members. Gamevoice, TeamSound, TeamSpeak, etc... Each time we had a few who couldn't connect and had to settle for in-game typing. Our favorite now is Ventrilo, especially after they released a Mac compatible version. We have two or three dedicated servers.

Officers and Divisions: Our first two years we elected our first and second in command (called the Blackshark and Mega) and they then appointed three officers for Challenges, Tryouts and Tactics/Training. In our third year we went to all officers being elected by the team. Around our 5th year we added our second gaming divsion, America's Army. We also created a new position for each division, an overall Commander. As the games aged we evolved too, with each division now having just a Commander and Deputy Commander who then appointed officers as they saw fit. In our 6th year we sanctioned our third division, World of Warcraft. Then along came our fourth division, Freelancer. Along the way we also played many other games (to this day) like Nascar, Guild Wars and Starcraft but they were not sanctioned as divisions with officers because we did not enter competitive ladders.

Hydra...D3 utilities, AA Anti-cheat, two separate RIPBB's, new server setup

D3 server operators over the years: Animal, DwnUndr, Shark, Animosity, Rob2, Deicide, Gallows, Foil, Nightshade, Phenomena, Hydra, Demon, U2pieces, Sarge, Buddha, Nightmare, Apeman, Pipsqueak, Skull, Icefire, Koolbear, Starbuck, Riot, SilverGST. See a trend here? Most teams never hosted one single server.

===============================================
Descent3 levels made by RIP members:

LOONEY
Animal House
Another BAD Level
BAD Exile
BADlands 1.2
Crash-M
Hot Box
IceShaker Pro
Looney's Exile
Wild Catacombs
XxX

DWNUNDR
Bada Bing
Bankshot
Gauntlet
Canyon Siege/Aftermath
Creepout/Custom
Dark Journey
Doors of Moria
The Fellowship
Field of Sorrow (Reap THIS!)
Gollum's Pursuit
Halloween/Custom
Leap of Faith
Shire Baggins
Steel Vapor 1.1
The WET Spot
Tora Bora
Varicose Veins X4
Waltz'n Matilda
Worlds Apart/2

SKULL
Brain Salad
Green Hell
Skull
Skull's Lair
The Mega Factory

SHARK
Brass Knuckles
Bridge of Khazad-Dum
Gauntlet
MD's R Us (Reap THIS!)
Tower Dread

HYDRA
Bring Your Boys (Reap THIS!)

NIGHTMARE
Circuit Breaker Reloaded
IAT
Disruption

PIPSQUEAK
Impatia
Pentellax
Piptogon/Pro ES
Rockena
Royale 3

FUSION
Kleptomania

BUDDHA
Rome

FOIL
Jailbreak (mod)

BLUE
Fusion Reap
Reap THIS Delta
Zero One

RIOT
Disruption

d3jake
Destruction Junction

Whew, quite the list!

Nightshade also did load screens for 12 of those levels.

Because of our Teams History with D3 and the Fact that we still operate and offer D3 Servers to the public at no charge ... This Site will endorse and help support the new Descent:Underground being created by the folks at Descendent Studios

you can locate our Current D3 server list here http://d3.descent.cx/tracker.d3?sort=server:a Listed as Descent Retirement Home

So for the love of the game and true 6DOF flight why not Dust of that Joystick again and check them out at http://descendentstudios.com/

Quote:

A LEGEND IS REBORN
In the 1990s the gaming world was taken for a wild ride through twisting, turning, narrow corridors where the concepts of up and down meant nothing and danger lurked around every corner. Too long has the first person shooter genre been without six degrees of freedom action; too long has Descent lay dormant, biding its time. The time has come for Descent: Underground.