An appeal to LOoL, and the rest of those assembled

A couple of points of order...

First off, I want to be clear that I consider myself a Tactical community member.

Second, I would hope that Jazz et al, might even consider me a Tactical community leader, as he and I (albeit exclusive of one another) along with others have striven for years to keep the genre going.

I was quite deliberate in never posting a link to "that other TR site"...the one that I spent a great deal of time and even some money on to create, only to have differences of opinion obliterate it's chances of survival. I sought to expand the TR community, and NEVER to fragment it. The truth is that seeing this effort begin does pain me, as I thought that we were united in making the TRC work. I never dreamed that differences of opinion among adults could keep that from happening, or I never would have invested myself in that effort to begin with.

You all seem very committed to this effort, and that's just grand. It's interesting to note how each successive effort to create a Tactical Realism community (TCC, THS, TRC) spawns the same pitfalls and quandaries each time though, such as "what rules must be observed for groups to be members?".

All that being said...

Regardless of the time I've wasted and how I feel about that, I'm bigger than that (at least a little), and I'm just happy to see any form of Tactical Realism community. Some of you may be aware of my "essay", that details an evolutionary view of the genre. It was my effort to make the community at large more "inclusive" rather than exclusive, in the goal of growing the community.
LINK TO ESSAY (Jazz, or any moderator, feel free to delete if you care to.)

Just posting such a thing was never going to grow a community, I realize that. Cooperation and a sharing of resources was deemed the best way, which is why the TRC was founded to begin with. I was even prepared to host the downloads for those that wanted to make their special brands of TR community tools (whether mods, maps, rcon, or any other). This brings me to the crux of this post.

I had an opportunity to play the LOoL clan's version of the "AWE4" mod, and quite frankly, it's well done. Scratch that - it's VERY well done in my opinion. I had to hip shoot once when, as I approached a corner, an enemy soldier surprised me by coming around first. When I quickly shot from the hip in reflex nothing happened to me. I'm guessing that the shell shock effect only registers if quick successive hip shots are made for some extended period. Running was well controlled too. You suffered no effects when running for any reasonable amount of time to escape harm, but if you were making a marathon of the map, your weapon was disabled and you were shell shocked. Fairly harmless really, unless of course you had just run yourself into a group of enemy troops, in which case, you deserve to die anyway.

All in all, I thought it was an invaluable tool, and really wanted to load it up. "Baddad53" ended up visiting the TRC Forums, and let us all know about the mod, and this is where things started to sour for me. Although I've been clear that I consider the mod a valuable tool and appreciated the post, I certainly didn't appreciate the inclusion of TWO links, neither of which brought you to a place where you can get this mod. One link was to their clan site (...that's fine), the other was a link to this very board's index page. Not a link to a post that gives more details about this mod mind you, but simply a link to the No RnG Tactical forums!?!?! On many forums, that would just have been considered spam. I hope "Baddad53" understands why I edited his post slightly (and made it a sticky). I actually resisted deleting it altogether, because regardless of having to jump through hoops to get the mod, I left the post that markets it in the hopes that they might have a change of heart about it's distribution...but that's where my goodness will have to end I'm afraid.

In trying to get the mod from their site, I discovered that I would have to submit to someone's approval to get it, and that didn't sit well with me. I'm not sure if the mod tweakers actually care to grow a tactical community that conforms more closely to their own style of play, but if they do, this is a rather backwards way of doing it. By doling out this tool only to those you consider worthy, you're perpetuating the ill-feelings that so many FPS players have historically held against all of us "TR" guys. To my mind, releasing this version of AWE4 everywhere you can would serve the purpose of spreading this playing style much more effectively.

If you would just let anyone and everyone have it, you MIGHT even find groups that were never previously fans of this genre coming into the fold, and NOT because they were forced to register here, or submit to your clan's examination, but simply because they get to experience and truly understand the enjoyment that can come from tactical play. I fear that going about it this way can only breed contempt and animosity.