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From first grade, a friend of Chops, and former PiaS member, dedsapper, has a phrase he liked to say. That Phrase was Poop in a Shoe. Fast forward a few years to high school. Quake 1 was released and soon "discovered" by Chops. He was enthralled by the fully 3d immersive fps world. Life had no better high. After frequenting the same server, Deathgate, for several months, he had noticed the abundance of "Clans." Most Notibly on the server were "DVC: Deadly Venom Clan", "Hate Inc", and "SNC: StarNet Clan." Over time, he had decided that he wanted to join a clan....but alas, he sucked. So came, the time to utilize that phrase he grew up with.... And "Poop In A Shoe" as a clan was born. He gathered a few of his friends: * JeffDork: Chops's Brother, who after many name changes, including "Pizownage", has finally settled on "Jeffie" * WYLFWT: Standing for "would you like fries with that", later shortening it to "Fries" * Azzmonkey: Fries's Brother, who now goes by the name Taadan * Ace: Who later changed his name to Mikeyfoo * dedsapper: The man who coined "Poop in a Shoe" After several months of these individuals running around with PiaS, we managed to develop into a decent clan. We actually started getting recruits, and even the rare event of someone leaving another clan for us. Our appeal was simple: we didn't REALLY care all that much. We didn't have practices. We didn't have a rigid ranking system (we did have one, but it didn't really mean anything). We had very few clan wars. We just played and had fun. We were a buncha nerds who all enjoyed playing the game together. At our peak, we had around 30 players. It was a great group. Quake 2 then came out. Many of us still didn't have the hardware necessary to run Quake 2 reasonably, and soon PiaS factioned. We tried to stay together, but our "Friendly" clans moved on to Quake 2. We survived for a few months after the release of Quake 2, but after the difficulty of 2 different, yet similar, games, Chops decided it was time to retire PiaS After years of not playing any games, Chops, had started getting anxious to play some of the new material. He was out of high school now, and had a job. He had money. It was time to return to his roots. He racked up his Credit Card bill (a bill he didn't recover from for several years, due to poor money management), and ordered a brand new system to replace his wildly obsolete system. Before all his parts had arrived for his new system, he had picked up Quake 3 from the store. Everything arrived. The computer was assembled. Quake 3 was installed. And the cable guy came to give him broadband. PiaS was back. A new skin was made for the new game. Some of the old-school members were rounded up, though many of them had "grown out of games." Lame. Chops, Spinal, and occasionally Phobez (later renamed to Safukau) ran from server to server playing Quake 3 and slowly redeveloping their gaming skills. Sadly, the sense of community that was present in Quake 1 was long gone. Online gaming had been overrun with children who didn't know how to just have fun. They accused, whined, insulted, and just plain made the game less fun to play. This attempt to bring back PiaS yielded few new members, and didn't last long. PiaS, it seemed, was done for. PiaS's initial Quake 3 comeback failed miserably, but in Counterstrike, lead by Spinal, PiaS had thrived. At it's peak in CS, it had gotten to be a serious clan, with members that were quite skilled. Although PiaS in CS lasted over a year, it still was not enough to last in the uber-competitive game that is the worlds most-played game. PiaS eventually died in CS. Another few years passed, and while Chops still played quake 3 occasionally (always wearing the [PiaS]) tag, PiaS was hardly making a comeback. That was, until Ultra Freeze Tag came around. While UFT was a very, very small community within the entire Quake world, the mod was fantastic. It was decided to attempt to bring it back again. He bought poopinashoe.com and quickly whipped together a decent little interactive site for the clan. We had managed to recruit some very quality players who just wanted to have some fun. PiaS it seemed was coming back. Although he loved UFT, we simply didn't manage to recruit enough members. And after a while, it fizzled out again. After years of anticipation, WoW was finally released. Most of the original PiaS members had gotten themselves a copy of the game. Impatient, we all started on different servers. Chops, Spinal and some of Spinal's friends on one server. Niggy and the asians on another server. Fries, Taadan, and Karmerr on another server. After about 2 weeks of learning the game all on our own, we decided it was time to merge, and bring back the Ancient Name yet again. We all agreed on Azgalor for the server and Alliance for the faction. We decided on a lobster as our tabard design and mascot. Now PiaS is growing every day. Though we initially agreed to not really pick up non-personal references, we have since deviated from this rule, and it has been very worth it. Uber November, November of 2005, was a pivotal month in our history: we had several of our first-kills: Hakkar, Onyxia, and Ragnaros. What will the future bring PiaS? Who knows. But we've held strong so far. In Closing, I'd like to just calmly tell you to remember to fear the feces, and to always, ALWAYS do it for the lobster. After all, "Lobster", replace "L" with "P" and "bst" with "w" = "Power". |
