Panic Attack

Symptoms may include trembling, dyspnea (shortness of breath), heart palpitations, chest pain (or chest tightness), hot flashes, cold flashes, burning sensations (particularly in the facial or neck area), sweating, nausea, dizziness (or slight vertigo), light-headedness, hyperventilation, paresthesias (tingling sensations), sensations of choking or smothering or derealization, and the feeling that nothing is real.

Back in the days of Halo 2, I had no clan to call home. I played around with several fly-by-night clans, “Hey! Join my clan!” but nothing real or organized. Then there was this brief stint with the KSI clan. They had a website and such, so I figured this was what I was looking for. Turns out, KSI is just a bunch of kids that want to call themselves Overlord and push around Peons. I spent most of my time getting angry messages to change colors or uniforms, just to have another OL change it a day later. “Crow, we need to have a talk about your TPS reports.” So, that being a bust, I was back to flying solo again.

I don’t know about you, but regardless of the supreme awesomeness that Halo is, it’s nothing without friends to play with. How many times have you gone into a game to find some jackass, baby-mode, de-leveling, no mic having, spoiled, glitching, modding, idle, loud, squeaky, prepubescent betraying little bitch on your team?! Two controllers, and a smashed TV later, I decided I had enough. No more ranked games till I found a proper team; NO MORE. In addition to my out of control “panic”, I had any number of strategies swirling around in my head that needed to be released. Rarely can one convey to a whole team in the 10 seconds before a game how you want to go about rushing the flag, or other tactical maneuvers. Not to mention this is usually responded with a “Shut up kid! You’re a noob!” and coming from one of the aforementioned little pricks that I was trying to avoid in the first place. So after an exceptionally aggravating game where I was betrayed twice for a sniper by some fool with a name like "MLG noob slayer", I went back to the computer in search for a real clan.

At the time I was still ignorant of the Halo community as a whole. I had never played Halo 1 and was just graduating from those dark ages of Playstation2, to the world of Xbox and online gaming. So not knowing where to start, I typed in Bungie.net and low and behold, the Halo community awards were the front page article. As I scanned the list, one clan name stood out. “The Panic Attacks” Maybe it had something to do with my most recent burst of frustration, but the name just called out to me. So I clicked the link and found a picture of 12 or so guys at something called a LAN party. No I didn’t know what LAN meant at the time. First I thought that they all knew each other outside of halo, and had just formed a group. Then as I read the article I discovered that they had traveled as far as 1000 miles to come together and battle during a 4 day marathon of the one true game. What What What??!! People actually do this? Sign me up! Of course I later learned that this was common place within the more organized clans, but at the time I wanted to be TPA. I wanted to have the look on my face that these guys had. The look of a no sleep, adrenaline fueled weekend of frag induced madness. This was to be my home.

As time went on I earned my place in the ranks and slowly moved up to a Staff member. Unfortunately, this crowning achievement was tainted by the retiring of several members to the diseased realm of World of Warcraft. The website got stale and the forums’ most active members started to join more progressive clans in the Halo community. But I and a few other loyal TPA members stayed in hopes of rebuilding the clan. The website was deleted and the forums were reset. Then, like the dumb-ass I am, I took on the task of rebuilding the website. Turns out I know nothing about building websites, and my usual attitude of; “I’ll figure it out as I go,” didn’t work to swiftly. But with the moral support of those few members, and a few guys from TTL who so graciously gave me some advice at a local pub, I managed to teach myself some basic HTML and create the world’s best crappy website. Thanks to everyone who helped and supported our triumphant return to the Halo community.

T.P.A.

Crowdaddy

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