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See the [http://popre.net/clans.php?id=3 current TDM members] on the PopRe clan page.
See the [http://popre.net/clans.php?id=3 current TDM members] on the PopRe clan page.
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[[Category:Clans]]

Latest revision as of 05:50, 4 February 2014

The Dark Masters
The Dark Masters
The Dark Masters
Members : Smudgey, Ada1054, Supertribe, Basecoat, Phil, MysticalBeast, Red, High Mage, Elizabeth, Harikkerk, Playful, CandyGod, MR-Tank, MooresMurder, ElSupremoNL, SemiShaman, Toruk Macto, Tsuyoshi, Ahmed, Jerec
Leaders : Walhallah, Powerof3, Raven
Tag : [TDM]
Founded : 28 June 2002
Ended: {{{Ended}}}}}

The Clan

TDM is a clan dedicated to Populous the Beginning.

History

2002

It was originally found in 2002. The oldest written trace is dated 28 June 2002 and can be found on CDplayers site, where it states:

"28 June 2002 Walhalla and Supertribe have started a new clan called 'The Dark Masters', with the home page at www.avidgamers.com/TDM. As they say on the site: 'The Dark Masters is a new Populous clan under leadership of Supertribe and Walhallah, we don't accept people that are in other clans, this clan is only for Populous players, so we don't play other games. We're competitive and we will try to beat every other Populous clan.'

Supertribe approached Walhallah one day with the idea of starting a clan. At the time, both players can not be considered top of the bill. Walhallah, who wasn't much of a clansman those days (he long held several clan's invitations under consideration) said yes as he liked the idea of something new.


2003

Under management of Supertribe and Walhallah the clan grew to a considerable size of 80 players. Several improvements were made to the website. Also the first attempts to participate in clan tournaments were made. To fight inactivity of its members the clan introduced a ranking system based on the Populous system of braves-shamans, with demotion of one rank per month inactivity in order to keep the active members on top and slowly remove the inactive members.

2004

Early 2004, with Supertribe having slipped into inactivity, Walhallah searched for active co-leaders to run the clan and found these in Keith181 and a few active members like Shinak, HairyEyeBall.

Towards the middle of 2004 the clan management was pretty desperate to revive the clan. One of the clan's myths is about the moment in time where Keith181 demoted Supertribe and took away his admin powers.

Somewhere around summer 2004 the clan collapsed at a size of 120 members of which 110-115 were inactive. To turn the tide Walhallah decided to start all over, based on what the clan has learned in time. All 120 members were deleted and Shiana and ThePhilosopher were asked to help rebuild the clan. With ThePhilosopher as co-leader, the clan's policy changed to democracy. From now on, all members were equal, with voting and discussing rights on all subjects such as which members to invite. No new member would be invited without the members having discussed about it. This led to a clan of around 15 - 20 active, quality members.


2005

During 2005 TDM has been a very stable clan with many of populous' greatest players such as Ada1054, Basecoat, Chanaman, Genesis, Joe, Robberdog, RuthlesSpy, Smudgey, Supertribe, Walhallah. Many of those players have been training new players and are contributing in various ways to turn the community into a great place for a great game.

28-11-2005 domain "www.thedarkmasters.com" was bought.

2006

The year 2006 was very productive and experiential for The Dark Masters. TDM’s active member base contained a slew of hard-hitting players: Walhallah, Supertribe, Basecoat, Dark_Angel, Smudgey, Ada1054, Mystical Beast, Free_the_Weed, Genesis, and Wildta.

In February, Powerof3 was welcomed into the brotherhood of TDM. Though his skill was still greatly lacking, Ada1054, Walhallah, and Smudgey worked hard to help him improve and also welcomed PhiL into the family of TDMs as well. Shortly thereafter Salty was also welcomed into TDM. Adding a sharp boost to the hard-hitting, global threat that is TDM.

A bit further down the road towards the middle of the year, Powerof3 and Smudgey’s protégé, Zeyta, was inducted into TDM. Warrior joined not long after as well. The clan was a strong body rivaled only by the DT-evolved group of players that had come to be known as the Åsgard. More players continued to join the ranks of TDM to include Khaos Shaolin_Monk, Azinbro, and the return of Urban Chaos. However it was also during this flush of activity that Genesis made the decision to leave TDM. It was a blow to TDM, but they managed to keep things together. Not long after, Salty also left TDM. It was at this time that the fierce rivalry between TDM and AsG solidified and became concrete.

After much waiting and anticipation, TDM launched its new forum at its brand new domain: www.thedarkmasters.com. The AvidGamers site remained available as a reference point, but the new and improved features of TheDarkMasters.com were undeniable. Protected by Guardians Walhallah, Basecoat, and Urban Choas, TDM appointed four field leaders to take charge of activity and tournaments as well as encourage growth within the clan. TDM successfully recruited the aid of RedWarrior and High Mage, powerful reinforcements that could not have come at a better time.

The Four Teams were modeled after the four tribes of the game. Slayer was chosen to lead the Dakini, Phil the Chumara, Smudgey the Matak, and Powerof3 the Phoenix (Blue). The Members were allowed to choose which teams they wanted to join as long as they kept even numbers. The system worked wonders and TDM welcomed the return of ILuvBoobs not too long after Sayuri joined TDM. until a period of inactivity struck. It was at this time that Shao and Khaos decided to make their departures and introduce The Gods of Destruction [GoD].

Determined not to let the clan falter because of a few lost members, the minds working behind TDM made the decision to combine the weakened teams into two groups as opposed to four. Powerof3 was appointed the leader of the Blue Team and Basecoat was appointed the leader of the Red Team. They had both proved to be positive and active leaders throughout the period of inactivity. It was also around this time that TDM began to eye potential new members like AlaN_90, Raven, Squirrel Queen, Shogun, Destor, and some others.

Though it contained its fair share of both ups and downs, the year 2006 ended on a very strong note and bought the TDM family closer than ever before.

2007

During 2007, The Dark Masters has seen many new players come, some stayed, some did not. Firstly, the two brothers MooresMurder and MooresY joined in, although only MooresMurder is with us today. During spring, Raven and AlaN_90 decided to leave Gods of Destruction and join in as well. Time went by, and TDM also managed to recruit Keith52 and OrangeWarrior, two of the best Populous players, who have been great assets to the clan.

In April, TDM was unofficially elected the best/most liked clan in the Populous: Reincarnated forum by its members!

When summer came it was time to celebrate TDM's 5th birthday! TDM invited the whole community to participate in the party, by launching the so called "Pyramid games"! Players, both from clans and independent ones, participated, in order to try to reach to top of one of the 5 pyramids, as each pyramid where to crown the best player of each map of the 5 original 4-player multiplayer maps. The tourney was very successful and will surely be remembered as one of the best universal tournaments in the history of Populous.

TDM also introduced a new council, the Demonic council, which purpose would be to dedicate a respectable amount of time to the running and direction of the clan. The council consisted of the following members, ordered by the power of the rankings:

Daemon: Slayer Seer: Powerof3 Lich: High Mage Hellions: Walhallah, Urban, Alan Guardians: Smudgey, RedWarrior

Other news as of 2007 was the recruitment section, from where Addiction and Black_Wolf, after some times as recruits, were accepted to become full-fledged members. However, these two players are not a part of TDM any longer.

Once again the Demonic Council got updated.

Daemon: Slayer Seer: Dark Phoenix Lich: Fatality Guardian: Walhallah Historian: Raven Clan Match Organizer: Tundar

Other ranks, outside the Demonic Council.

Web Programmer: Red Training Organizers: Playful, Sweaim Tournament Organizer: CandyGod

In the end of 2007, Playful became a full-fledged member after showing patience, loyalty and improvement during almost 8 weeks as a recruit. The last new members from 2007 are SweAim and Tundar, who were voted in after leaving Gods of Destruction. AlaN_90 who left TDM to join AsG, realizes that he had made the wrong decision and returns to TDM after approximately 1 and a half month in AsG as recruit and member. Unfortunately, in early December, Smudgey announced that he wanted to leave TDM. The last player to join TDM in 2007 was Adz.

TDM enters 2008 as a very active clan with respected and very skilled members.

2008

Early in January, TDM was striving, members posting daily, an average of 7-8 members in the lobby everyday. Also, new member-additions such as Dahaka and Adz, and many polls for talented members of the community were a big part of January. As January progressed, Powerof3, a long-time member of TDM announced his departure, stirring up many in the clan, and a mixed feeling as well. As the week progressed though, many felt a presence of the community in TDM gone, but with the addition of new topics as well as many different things going on in TDM involving the website, clan matches, and more, people soon moved on.

During the end of January, disaster struck TDM, as Raven, Keith52, and Dahaka all logged onto TDM forums, noticing a disaster in progress.. Tundar was deleting every single post off the forum with Moderator powers. Of course it was not Tundar, but someone who hacked his account, but they still all watched as 6 years of history disappeared, the many different topics and sections of the forum being deleted before their very eyes. After getting up the next morning, realize there was nothing they could do, they all were shocked. Soon, TDM's were all asking the same question, "WHERE WAS THE POSTS AND THE OLD FORUMS?!"

Many people jumped to conclusions, some blaming Powerof3, others blaming Shao, but no one really knew WHO was behind this. Urban decided to get cracking, along with Red_Warrior and Raven, and they managed to trace the IP's to two people residing in the UK. After that, Red announced: "It was not Power, and it is BECAUSE of him that we have this backup from December 7th, 2007." Realizing all was not lost, Red uploaded the backup file and restored TDM to the state of December 7th, 2007.

TDM Rewind had occurred.

As February started up, members of TDM decided that it was time now more than ever to ban together and become unified. The result? Clan activity had been dwindling to an all-time low in the forums, and with Power leaving, things had been shaky, but thankfully all was not in the gutter totally. After the Rewind, miraculously things started happening quite quickly. Old family returned home in James (Tails, Joe, etc.) and Smudgey, whom the TDM community welcomed back with open arms. TDM as a whole became very active, playing alot of games together, which resulted in a first place in the Clan Leagues in February. http://popre.net/clan_leagues.php?b=6&order=Feb%202008

Funny topics started up in the public section called, "Forum Games," many of which became an instant hit with the community and which TDM members participated in quite heavily as well. Perhaps the most famous topic was "Edit that populous player pic," in which members of the community who had pictures posted would then be photoshop'ed for a funnier version.

March started off with Adz leaving the clan, and Tjured arriving as a new member. The council was disbanded due to not filling its purpose at the time. Things were rather shaky with Urban leaving the clan soon after the new website, "TDM Oldskool", was launched. A project which Urban, Suleiman and RedWarrior had been working on together. Walhallah took charge of the clan and was to lead it on his own until things got stabilized again. Wally did also perform a great job with cleaning up the forums (without deleting anything of course!), in order to give it a better structure and a more solid and clean look.

In April things started to look more promising with TDM-eyes. Powerof3 returned home, and TDM was dominating the lobby daily in terms of highest amount of players online. Also, Mr. Tank joined TDM after showing a great attitude and skill after countless games with many TDM-players, and Suleiman and Powerof3 continued the work on the website. If that wasn't enough, a beta-version for installation of TDM-worlds were released by Red and High_Mage. Also, AsG posts a successful April joke over at Pop:Re, about TDM and AsG merging into one clan, "Dark Asgard". Link: http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4965

Right when most people thought the troubles were over, hell broke loose in May. Internal disagreements regarding potential members and the structure of the clan results in three members leave TDM. Dahaka went clanless, Tundar left and joined GoD and Keith52 left TDM in order to revive the old clan Dragon Team. To bring some additional stability to the clan, a "council" was once again created, called the "House of Shamans", consisting of Walhallah and four members hand-picked by him - Slayer, Powerof3, Smudgey and Raven. The purpose of the council was later described by Walhallah: "Shamans in TDM are ordinary members like the rest, but with a little more responsibility on their shoulders when it comes to the Clan. And possibly a little extra status." Soon after this, Tundar returned to TDM after changing his mind about leaving.

Clan-powers were even more equalized in August, as Raven was given administrator status in the TDM-section over at Pop:Re, alongside Walhallah. Powerof3 was given some administrator access at TDM's forum, in order to keep things running at times when Walhallah wouldn't be present. During summer and beginning of autumn, TDM also welcomed a new member Vertigo (July) and Nefarius (September). However, both guys left TDM as early as in October.

Towards the end of 2008, TDM got two new members in Lich (aka. Keith181, former TDM-member) and ElSupremoNL (the brother of TDM-member Playful). Though, Orange decided to leave TDM in December, in order to test the waters in the new formed clan Dx. Some days before Christmas a new MatchMaker channel/server, for TDM-players was created and launched by Raven. Mainly to be used for clan-related discussions, as TDM-players would keep playing on the regular Freequest channel/server, primarily.

From the day the House of Shamans was established, and through the end of 2008, TDM was running very smooth.

TDM-related key-events within the PopRe-community during 2008:

The Shaman skill cup

Shaman skill cup was launched in February, with TDM participation by Keith52, Kwyjibo, Bubbles and Dahaka. The tournament consisted of a total of 16 players and was held by [AsG]Hundredth and was played on the Ã…sgard map "Valhallah". The tournament was finished in April, and won by [AsG]Sub_Zero. When it comes to the TDM participants, Keith52 finished 4th, Kwyjibo 5th, Bubbles 11th and Dahaka 14th. Link: http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4767

TeratO's ELO Leauges

TeratO's ELO Leauges was one of the biggest and most (un-)popular (both in terms of hatred and joy) events during the year of 2008. Over the year, different members of TDM, and TDM as a whole, managed to break several records:

ELO

05. Feb. 2008 - [TDM]Urban: ELO 1531,7 (All time record) 22. May. 2008 - [TDM]Saved: ELO 1656,8 (All time record) 25. Jun. 2008 - [TDM]Saved: ELO 1659,7 (All time record) 17. Aug. 2008 - [TDM]Saved: ELO 1739,0 (All time record AND First member of the Populous community to breach the 1700 point barrier.)

Other than the above, both Orange and Raven claimed league's first place at different times during the year.

CELO (Clan-ELO)

August - TDM reaches 1st position in TeratO's Clan-ELO Leauges. September - TDM breaks the Clan-ELO All Time Record (1376 points) as a clan and rule all the classes. October - DT pushes TDM down to 2nd place. November - TDM re-claims 1st position.

For the first time in ELO history, the 3 top positions is occupied by players from the same clan. In this case TDM! Raven at 1st place, Saved at 2nd place and Lurtz at 3rd place.

TDM is the first clan with an A-class with a LELO stronger than 1600 (1606), in TeratO's ELO Leauges. The four players to form the line-up are Raven, Saved, Lurtz and Playful.

Link to the ELO-thread: http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4409 Link to the CELO-thread: http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4697

King of Craters

A tournament, King of Craters, is launched by Sharingan and have some players in it wearing the TDM-tag. MR-TaNk lost his first game and was eliminated in the first round of the loser bracket. Orange and Playful were disqualified due to inactivity. However, Saved managed to reach the final by winning all his games and would face either Keith52_DT or [GoD]Snipe who would battle it out in the loser bracket final. After a few months wait, Saved managed to win the King of Craters by beating Keith52_DT in the finals, winning two games straight (best out of 3).

Link to the KoC-thread: http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5189

Alan's chronicles

Alan posts chronicles written by him covering the Populous year of 2008, over at Pop:Re. http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5969&start=0

TDM was also once again voted the clan with the highest potential over at Populous: Reincarnated. http://popre.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4852

Interesting facts about TDM

TDM is the oldest active populous clan, since 2002.

TDM topped at 120 members in 2004

TDM dipped at 1 member in 2004

Members

See the current TDM members on the PopRe clan page.

Åsgard • Dragon Team  • Team Nashua  • The Dark Masters • The Great Wall • The Gods of Destruction