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History
From WikiJawa, The (JAWA) Clan encyclopedia
The Clan Story
The Beginning
The (JAWA) Clan was created in October 2004 by 2 players, Matt and Iniowe. The clan was always on the ClanWarriors server due to its nice staff and great atmosphere. Matt was the main leader and was definitely the most active. He was a very nice player, he would train anyone who needed it and was friendly to all. Some of his first recruits stuck with the clan for a long time such as Eclipse and SiLink. Iniowe vanished one day and hasn't been seen since, he was last seen ranking SiLink up to a full member in January 2005. Matt strived on and kept the clan alive but he also suddenly left without a trace leaving a few members confused and without a leader. These members vanished one by one leaving only SiLink left.
Loyalty
After all the members of JAWA left, SiLink was made an admin of the ClanWarriors server and helped manage the server, keeping lamers and abusive players out. He always wore the (JAWA) tag throughout his JKA career and never took it off. SiLink was mainly searching for his leader (matt) but never came across him. In the end, Gage (The ClanWarriors owner) told SiLink to stop waiting and told him to lead the clan, so he did but it was poorly managed and everyone SiLink recruited left within a week. SiLink then took a time-out from leadership to see what he was doing right and wrong, when this time-out was over he recruited a new team of players who stayed loyal for a long time.
Going Good
Things in (JAWA) were going great and a lot more members were staying loyal. Throughout this process, (JAWA) recruited some of its loyalest members that are in the clan to this date such as Kel, Draggy and Podoplovik.. Old member Eclipse also returned and it was a fresh new start for (JAWA). However the good days didn't last very long....
Going Bad
Things in (JAWA) were going great, however SiLink did not see whatwas happening deep inside the clan as he has never lead a communnity as big as (JAWA) before. The clan was getting too large and way toodifficult to manage alone so SiLink decided to make a new rank called Council and issued it to 6 loyal members (Kel, Battousai, MaStEr, Eclipse, Dark and Sirius). These 6 changed the clan’s course slightly however it was just too late to stop the inevitable from happening.
The explosion of members suddenly became an implosion as many left dueto the way the clan was being managed by SiLink and the other Council Members at the time. Battousai, Shouru and Sirius decided to leave the clan after SiLink never supported them when they were arguing with the ClanWarriors owner Gage over controversial admin decisions, they went on to form Concordance of Fealty which still lives to this very day.
This was the killing blow to the slowly dying (JAWA). SiLink, Kel, Dark and Eclipse were doing everything possible to stop the death happening but unfortunately the clan just could not take any more and over 50% of the members left including Griffin, Assassin. Exile, 1UP, Yoshi and Wodec who also went on to form a new clan called Berzerker Blitz Academy. During this process the founder Matt surprised everyone and returned to aid SiLink with his leadership tasks, but unfortunately it was too late and the clan died in December 2005. This would be the last time that Matt ever returned to the clan.
Federation of JAWA
After the death of (JAWA) many loyal members wanted to stay put and not leave the good stable community behind. So loyal members Kel and Draggy made a new clan called FoJ. This was going great but wasn't really taking off. SiLink then made an announcement that JAWA would make a comeback, this made all FoJ members very very happy. SiLink promised that the clan would not die again and that it would be full of new features.
The Rebirth
(JAWA) was back and was better than ever with features such as the monthly (JAWA) League. Link then promoted Kel to a Leader and aided him with leadership tasks. The new (JAWA) meant that a new Council would form, and as promised Link released the names of the Council Members a week after the rebirth. The members chosen were Shinobi, Fluffy, HI and Chrono. Later on more Council Members were chosen, they were Podoplovik, Draggy, Xibios and Drako. This big team helped SiLink and Kel get the clan right back on its feet and better than ever.
A merge of clans?
The Berzerker Blitz Academy (BBA) clan was facing destruction and the new leader LordGrom and Link got together and talked about the future of their clan. After going through a few things that could be done to prevent the death of BBA, SiLink suggested that BBA could merge back into JAWA to keep the community alive. LordGrom agreed to this and set up a poll on BBA and so did SiLink on JAWA. The votes shown that a merge was going to happen and so it did. The merge looked fine and worked out really well until a few BBA members decided to stay and try to revive the clan (which isn't a bad thing). The Ex-BBA members decided to go back to keep the clan alive.
Return of the (JAWA)
After many months since the failed merge, (JAWA) had become very active again like it once was. The leaders made sure that the clan did not turn into what happened in the past and put strict recruitment guidelines in place. It was recorded that in less than a month over 50 applications we're made to join (JAWA). During the time of the activity boom, the server was ranked one of the best due to always being filled with players and was never empty. SiLink came up with the idea to form a Committee where selected (JAWA) members would be able to see updates before they we're released. This gave members the opportunity to voice their opinions on the updates and gave us feedback on how to improve them. The Committee members are there to give their opinions based on how they think it would affect them as (JAWA) members. During the activity boom, Xibios was given the rank of Leader and Kel returned to leadership also. This means that ideas do not come from SiLink directly anymore, they go through the process of Leaders > Council > Committee > Released. Sadly around this time, Draggy and Chrono (long time clan members) left the clan and were seen without the tags on the forum and server occasionally. (JAWA) has now established itself as a known JKA clan and most players in JKA have either met a (JAWA) member or have heard of it. Sadly false rumours are also spreading leading to false images being built of us, we ask that you get to know us before you judge us on hearsay as there are many sad players out there that feed false rumours or facts that have been twisted dramatically to their friends or others they know.
The New Era
(JAWA) is approaching its third year as a clan and much has changed since the rebirth and improvement of the clan. The New Era consisted of good and bad things. Good being the formation of tons of new features including this Wiki, an FAQ, formation of new alliances (OotR, RGD and UAF) and a lot of new faces. Features like The Committee Were removed due to the time it took for features and suggestions to be released, it also saw a lack in activity. Hall Of Famers such as Xibios also left the clan, we wish them the best of luck in the future. Kel also went on a very long leave of absence due to problems outside of the game. While sadly a lot of legends have left, a lot have returned from the past such as Firebreed, Draggy, Chrono and many more. The biggest thorn in CoF and (JAWA)'s side was the fact that we never really got along, but that all changed and CoF leader TYR and (JAWA) Leader SiLink met on the rift sanctuary and came to terms on peace and friendship. Many great things have happened since the return of the clan but a few bad things have happened too. Paranoia is THE worst thing a clan can ever go through as it spreads a lot of worry and makes others panic. 2007 saw a lot of paranoia and caused a few people to leave the clan... These problems where quickly dealt with and the clan was assured that it was just paranoia and rumours spread by individuals that did not know what they were talking about and insists that all members should come to the Council or a Leader if they have a problem as they do not take criticism as a negative but as a positive to help shape themselves and better themselves. After the paranoia, it put the entire clan down in to one big sigh, eventually things were lifted by the addition of new features , Council Members and new members. The New Era has begun...
The Third Year
(JAWA) is currently in it's prime with many loyal members staying in the clan and many newcomers shining in the clan it is clear that (JAWA) will not be going anywhere for a very long time. During the course of the third year many things have happened such as new alliance formations with C and UAF who have proven to be very very friendly allies. (JAWA) has also formed an alliance with it's old enemy CoF, as mentioned in The New Era, TYR and SiLink came to an agreement and the two clans became neutral, a few months after this happened, (JAWA) approached CoF about possibly forming an alliance and eventually CoF agreed. Sadly (JAWA) had to disband it's alliance with OotR due to the behaviour of the leadership at OotR, for more information on (JAWA) dissolving the alliance Click Here. New council members have also appeared during our third year such as ShadowFire, Wilkey, Valtar, Z and Helena Revan. Old council members also returned to their positions such as Zantos, Podoplovik and Yami. Sadly SiLink had to remove Kel from the clan due to his extreme inactivity, he has not been seen much since before his removal. SiLink brought some new features to the table during (JAWA)'s third year such as the Contribution Award which is rarely given out and The (JAWA) Awards which is held in December just before the new year, to see who won what in 2007 go to our (JAWA) Awards 2007 page. The ranks of the clan have also undergone changes such as the addition of the Apprentice rank which now resides in-between Padawan and Jedi, the addition of the Senator rank which was later removed due to it not fulfilling it's purpose and the removal of the way Initiate dictated which rank a new member got upon entering the clan, it is now just a standard rank. The future is looking very bright indeed for (JAWA) as it heads into it's fourth year as a clan.
The Fourth Year
(JAWA) has just finished celebrating it's 5th year birthday where many members (past and present) got together to celebrate half a decade of being a clan. The celebration took place on the new (JAWA) Temple map. The fourth year of (JAWA) was a very interesting one, we had new Council Members crowned (Pearl and Tao.) who have done a really good job so far. (JAWA) has also formed a new alliance with Hazardous Cool Cats who have proved to be a very nice group of people. Sadly we had to remove two Alliances this year due to their extreme inactivity (Knights of Honor and Unity Among Friends), (JAWA) hopes they will one day return to activity so a new alliance can be formed. As mentioned above, after many attempts (JAWA) has finally got a map! This has been in the (JAWA) To-Do books for many years and was finally built by Helena Revan and Zid. Lots of awards have been given out this year such as the Hall Of Fame which was presented to Z, Valtar, Tao. and Fox. Due to the huge increase of help from members, the Contribution Award was given out a lot more than usual this year, it was presented to Helena Revan (Twice!), HeXagon, Pearl and Cole. (JAWA) also tried to introduce a Teacher/Student system this year which sadly did not work out in the end and was later scrapped. (JAWA) opened applications for members to become Outer Clan Ambassadors and from those who applied, 3 were selected who were Dizzy, Runner and Cole. Many clan members felt that the rank Apprentice was not suitable in the rank system, after many polls it was decided by the members that the rank would be renamed to Adept as it was felt that it fit into the system a lot better than Apprentice did. We are now into our fifth year as a clan, which is a big accomplishment indeed, and with member numbers being larger than they have been in many years, the future is still looking bright for (JAWA)!
Clan Branches
Our CW forum was also were two new clans were born. The first clan named CoF was formed by three JAWA members and one non-JAWA members, their names were Battousai, Sirius, Shouru and YUR. Another clan that was formed a month or so later named BBA and was formed by Griffin, Assassin, Wodec, TheExile, Yoshi and 1UP. BBA and JAWA have always been on good terms but there were a few bad patches mainly between Griffin and the whole JAWA clan. These patches eventually cleared up and the two clans got on very well, however BBA was disbanded on Christmas Eve by Griffin in 2006. Yet another clan that was formed was Orzhov that was made from Ex-JAWA members such as Salazar, Beridos, Jagar and Alex. Orzhov and JAWA get on fine but there is a problem between their leader and the rest of the JAWA clan (that SiLink will not go into). A lot more clans were formed but sadly they died out pretty quick such as UP lead by 89T and DoG lead by Mario. Many players and other clans see us as a tree of many branches and each of those branches is a clan that was created by JAWA members. They think this because without JAWA the founders of the clans would never of met and therefore would not of created the clans together. SiLink is very proud of this because it is clear that JAWA is a place of birth for new clans, SiLink is never angry when JAWA members form new clans as they are going on their own unique journey into the clan world in which they will form communities and go on crazy adventures like JAWA has done over the past 5 years. The longest clan branch we have is the BBA one as many clans where created from the original BBA clan, here is the branch BBA - UB - LTF - UB (Reformer), their community spirit keeps them going but sadly some of their members do not get along with (JAWA) anymore for unknown reasons.
Caelum was a long time member of the clan, and rose up the ranks, the highest he got was to Leader and it became clear that he wanted a challenge. Eventually Caelum left the clan to pursuit his dream of creating his own clan called SR (StormRiders). It is no surprise that SR and (JAWA) get on very very well as both leaders at one point lead (JAWA) and are good friends, SiLink also trained Caelum in the arts of dueling.
Websites
Our first forum was created on the 27th march 2005 and proved to be very active in its 4 day life span with over 200 posts. Our next forum was created on the 1st April 2005 on ClanWarriors and was our home for many many months and was where Matt (the founder) returned and sadly left very suspiciously. JAWA owes ClanWarriors a lot as without their forum or server then we probably wouldn't exist. Clanwarrior's server was one of the most popular clan home servers of all time as it harvested many big clans such as KW, GoS, ESL, JAWA and many more. This forum lasted for 10 months and was getting too big to host so SiLink decided to host JAWA on his own domain and web space to save Gage (ClanWarriors owner) bandwidth. But because it was so big it had to be deleted and sadly we lost a lot of data and posts. SiLink set up a small web design business online and bought sjeweb.com, he then decided to host JAWA on this for a year and a half until he bought thejawaclan.com and transferred the forum over, this meant that SiLink could add a lot of features he always wanted to add on the previous forums. SiLink changed from GoDaddy to a friend of GrizzlyBear called Hex which proved to be a great decision as our forum and wiki take a fraction of the time it did whilst on GoDaddy, the forums were also upgraded from phpBB2 to phpBB3 which improved everything greatly.
SiLink thought it may be a good idea to bring back some sort of website so that it may make the clan look more organized so he contacted Andur Sunrider who was more than happy to take on the role. Sadly when the website was presented to SiLink he wasn't happy with a few things which other members quickly pointed out too... Andur Sunrider made it quite clear that it could not be changed. During this time, (JAWA) dissolved it's alliance with OotR and Andur Sunrider immediately tried to remove information from the website as he was the leader of OotR and had access to remove certain features such as our ally server trackers... SiLink and the members at the time saw this as a very low thing to do and when it became clear no one ever even liked the website, SiLink decided to remove it for good which was the right decision to make.
Servers
After the loss of the ClanWarriors server, SiLink didn't quite know what to do and was desperately looking for a new home for the clan. Eventually he stumbled upon FW Gaming Servers which hosted the (JAWA) server for around 4 months. SiLink was not impressed with the service he was getting from the company, especially with the amount of money he was spending on it a month ($37.50). SiLink went looking for another server provider and was told by Fluffy who ran TFA at the time that he should check out NewBoyzGaming, so SiLink did and was amazed at their prices for what he wanted ($20.00 a month) and bought the server. To this day, SiLink tells players to avoid NewBoyzGaming due to the experience he had with them for 5-8 months... he got accused of being a hacker, got called a "noob" for asking questions in their customer support area, was used as a test dummy for new features when complaining and was heavily ignored... It should be noted that Dark used to send SiLink money via post to keep the server going and the clan was and still is very grateful for his contribution. After months of problems, SiLink left NewBoyzGaming. Around the time of leaving the company, the clan died and SiLink saw it pointless to buy another server under the circumstances and had no money to purchase one. Days before SiLink announced the situation with the server, Drako offered to help by purchasing or donating. SiLink declined the money and help when it was obvious the clan was not going to live for much longer.
Unfortunately, SiLink stumbled upon some very very disturbing facts about Drako just before he left the clan, one of them was that he was multiclanning. The clan Drako was leading was called Eternal Knights and after some research, SiLink also found out that he took away their server his clan played on and gave it to (JAWA) without telling them. (JAWA) of course did not have a clue this took place until a couple of years later. (JAWA) would like to apologize to the members of that clan who lost out on their server.
A few weeks passed by and SiLink announced the revival of the clan and also asked Drako if the offer was still on the table. Drako told SiLink that he would purchase a server for (JAWA) and bought one from EscapedTurkey. (JAWA) had the new server for 11 months until SiLink was made an offer he couldn't refuse from GrizzlyBear who owned Alchemic Servers. SiLink told Drako that he no longer had to worry about paying for the EscapedTurkey server any more and could take it down. (JAWA) used Alchemic Servers for 14 months, during this time GrizzlyBear was given the Contribution Award for giving us a server for so long. Alchemic Servers experienced some financial problems due to the economy and was forced to shut down. SiLink immediately purchased a server from EscapedTurkey on the 13th October 2008 using donations from members however 4 months later due to a price and ping increase (JAWA) was forced to find a new server provider. SiLink asked DSI-Gaming for a quote on a Jedi Academy server and they came back to him with a very reasonable price. With the help of more member donations the DSI-Gaming server was quickly purchased on the 11th January 2009.
In June 2009, SiLink was emailed by DSI-Gaming and was told our server was being moved from Atlanta to Dallas. This of course meant that pings would increase for pretty much everyone as Atlanta is more centralized than Dallas especially for players from Europe. SiLink had a good look around and emailed around 30 companies asking whether they host Jedi Academy servers and whether they were based in Atlanta or New York which seemed like a better option for Euro players. Strangely only a handful of companies bothered to reply and those that did either did not support Jedi Academy, were too expensive or were based in Dallas. Hex then offered SiLink a server for free which would be hosted in the same location as the website (Which Hex also provides for us). SiLink accepted the generous offer and (JAWA) is now hosted completely free of charge thanks to Hex.
