How It All Started

Deep Death .. grrr... I'm gong to kill that guy when he shows up ... CURSE that Deep Death! Damn deserters!

As Mr. Paul Harvey would say .. and now.. 'the rest of the story'

Deep death came to me one day and says .. "ya know .. I would like to have a club for us guys where we can all gather and exchange tactics and make plans etc... so we can sink them smurfs properly! Lets call our club 'Red Tide' ".

Being an excited new player, I started up a web site called Red Tide .... To make a long and full story of this here would be too boring for the average reader .. however .. what we once knew as "Red Tide".. is now Tides of War. !!

The story you ask? Well.. Mr. Deep Death soon disappeared shortly after the real work started .. leaving Pioneer, Mongoose and I to do all the work! Damn deserters! So yes, If I ever find Deep Death, I'm gonna make him walk the plank!

Don't get the wrong idea, really, we love him and he was our mentor when it counted. I often wonder if he knows what his 'little club' turned out to be ... ..

Mr Deep Death always missed that era of the Wolfpack and wanted to bring it back somehow. At Red Tide we made his dream come back. We never reached the numbers the Wolfpack enjoyed playing with .. that is hundreds of players, but we did have the 'family' and loads of fun over a long period of time. Had the 'gods' not made a serious mistake, Iron Wolves would still rule the sea's today. Deep Death left us, MIA after a 'Saturday Night at the Fights" and we never seen nor heard from him since. but .. the Tide rolled on.. ..

Should another Iron Wolves game every cross our path, I have no doubt the spirit of the old Wolfpack and Red Tide would surface again. But no matter my friends, we are still comrads and Capn's .. right here at Tides forever. Tides of War is your home port Capn's!

I was very fortunate in two ways when I joined Iron Wolves. The first was that Tbar, Mongoose and I all joined on the same day, without any or us realising until long after the event, and we hung out together and learnt and trialed our way.

The second was Mr Death was lurking one day when he saw me fire on one of the....shall I say, less like characters, when said character exited the game in the middle of battle. I didn't know it was trait but Mr Death explained a few things to me, and then tutored me in some great submarine lessons. Although the server froze on high score updates long before I ever got my heavy sub high score of 312000, I credit my earky development in the heavy to him.

Long live the memory of Mr. Death.

It would appear Deep has left a mark on many of us. I hope he hasn't made the permanent MIA list.

I too was fortunate to first know him as an exacting (and deadly) teacher as I learned the ways of the K2-force and he remained worthy prey until his disappearance.

I've always suspected that he dropped by Sam's once, disquised as a beautious POW, during our Saturday night ramblings.

BTW...

Jetsam just returned from some social gala as I was typing this.

He mentioned how sad it was that I currently seem to have more 'Good Old Days' than future plans (sigh)

flotsam

...the grizzled fish

Maybe I should'nt bring this up, but, I remember coming up with the name "Red Tide" as a battle cry once I was asked to lead the Red players into battle. It would seem that the Northland Navy was really strong and there was'nt many who wanted to play on the underdog side.

So, part of my stratagy was to "Taunt" the blue team into submission! Telling them the Red Tide had rolled in on the Northland fleet and we will soon own their port base. But, as it was, all we were was 'hot air' because the Northland Navy beat the snot out of us anyway.

That is when ole Argon saw a nich in the game that a team of elite players could fill. Get the best of the best together and play for whoever was the underdog. Thustly the Assassins was born.

None the less, Deep Death is one of my heros and a worthy opponant. I hope we here from him soon.

Shad

Let's see.....

Before the sink toy known as the Westland had gotten their name "Red Tide" They were lovingly known as the Red Horde. The Mighty Northland Navy was known as Smurfs.

When I first started playing IW (just post Beta) There were already some great players but really very little loyalty to a side and absolutely no teamwork whatsoever. It was controlled Chaos at best but it was a blast to play chat and taunt. I remember Drifter pulling up to my Vett Broadsides in his Vett and opening up for a slugfest. I swear that Sailor had Brass Balls (in his cannon of course). I remember organizing the first war; we had about 40 people on each side all cooperating to set it up. Most said we could never pull it off but we did and it was awesome! I think the planning was probably more fun than the actual war. We set up small task forces of about 6 vessel some were all Sub and all DD?s some were mixed, some (I believe my ole friend Robt was one) volunteered to be decoys and die early for the sake of the team. I cannot recall who lead the Horde (Westland) that day but History only remembers the winners (hehe). For along time I had a Website commemorating the first Great War. I was asked to lead the Northland for the second war but I suggested that we have monthly wars with a new Admiral every month and so we did for quite a while until as Shad pointed out it became a bit lopsided. Wow? I could go on forever about some of the great Admiral that followed (like Baddude & Deep Death etc.) but I won?t.

Maybe you won't "go on" Argon.. but I will!

I am sure, that after reading all the above and espcially responces by Shad and Argon .. that DeepDeath was a romantic and really wanted to 'bring back' those days when Red Tide was "on a roll".

You see.. when I came to Iron Wolves you guys had been long gone. Sick of the 'soon' promises of On-Line and the imporivements, fixes, etc that were promised for years .. you guys got mad and left. It was some type of 'exit' the new bunch didn't know much about. Some of the old timers would come in and visit now and then to see if anything was happening. A play named DeepDeath became a 'friend' of mine as well as Pioneer and we would float around and listen to his stories of hundreds of players on line and how well the Smurfs were organized with web site and all that. Then he told us about 'Red Tide" and the Noobs Vrs 'Old timers" war etc ..

Later, months later I think .. he brought up in conversation that he wished he had a group called Red Tide and a web site and organized events again. I heard what he said, didn't say much, but as soon as I logged off the game I started on a Red Tides site just to thank Deep Death for all his help etc.

Red Tide .. the one we know as noobs .. was born from an older version of "Red Tides". By this time the "Wolfpack" stie was being used less and less and the Red Tide site was becoming the 'focal point'. On_line even listed us as the offical fan site! Players like Buxton began to pay atention to us and became a 'friend' as well as mentor. Before long we had mastered the mechanics of the game and then some .. we knew about area51 as well as the 'observer' cheat and how "popeye" was killing us all the time. We started "Sat Night as the War" event .. and every Sat Night like clock work for over two years we hosted the event. We really started getting players back .. even ol' JD would come in and play now and then.

So .. RED TIDE was started by someone else .. old players and then it died like the game did. But, RED TIDE was re-born by Tbar, Deepdeath and Pioneer .. and then soon Mongoose. Red Tide at this point practically ran the game. We actually had one on one contact with On-Line where they would answer emails!

Because RED TIDE had become so popular with the players .. and because those Smurfs could never organize anything .. we started Tides of War so both Red Tide and Northland Navy (Wolfpack sort of group) wold have ONE place to go and share all. Tides of War today was born from Iron Wolves .. and keep going because of the 'need' of old Iron Wolves player needing a place to 'check back' and find old friends. Tides of War has since expanded greatly .. but our roots were .. Iron Wolves and that 'family' thing.

Salutes to the Old Players and all the good times they had .. for what they had .. for what they made it!

Salutes to RED TIDE for bringing it back to life again .. and then never giving up on what we ALL had at one time.

Salutes to Tides of War for the continued efforts of trying to bring something back, even if its a new game based on IW, a clone .. whatever!

If not for a really stupid sys-ops at On-Line .. the game would still be going on now. Probably hosted by Tides of War. I personally know the original author of Iron Wolves, and when he found out what happened he was heart borken. He considered Iron Wolves as one of his children. He was particularly upset that he turned it all over to On-Line to manage, etc under license .... and that he did NOT have a source copy! It is all gone now .. but if we had that source .. we would still be playing that game right on the Tides of War servers! Sad but ture.

Aye, Indeed. I remember some of the battle planning distinctly. We (The Red Horde at that time), would send out the slowest war vessels first, the subs and the new heavy subs to act as spotters splitting to go around the central isles. Then we'd send a few vettes up the middle to act as pawns in the lagoon.

We'd even go as far as sending 'false' information out on the general chat channel as to locations, etc. Add to that a few spy tankers to blanket the areas, and soon we know where the hot spots were. We'd send in the Subs to weaken um up, and our DD's would finish um off.

Those were some great fun times, I must say... and I'd be lie'n if I said I did'nt have sweaty palms during most of those battles, because the action and expectations were very high.

Ahh, those were the days...

Seems we were both sending a reply at about the same time there, Tbar. It does help to know the chronology of events about the Red Tide, as after we had given up on On-Line Entertainment, there were gaps on history I was'nt aware of. Now you made the pieces fit together. Thx Bro !

When I say we 'gave up' on On-Line, It was more of a protest, rather than an abandonment at first. As Mad Max had posted in his "Exit Stratagy" post, The way to get to On-Line was to hit um where it hurts. In the pocketbook. Even then, On-Line did'nt want to let go of the money that easily. It took an act of war it seemed to get On-Line to stop charging for monthly subscriptions. That in itself outraged many which did lead to abandonment for more than a few.

But alass, ole salts never die, that just hit the taverns.

I remember a war... I believe it was the Assassins (or Northland) against Red I cant remember.

What we did was we took all DD's and lined them up nose to tail (crossing the T) waited up north for the Horde to come. we stayed off the deck guns and took the pounding as they got into range and then let loose a wall of torps that covered the whole map from east to west. then we sailed in single file came about and fired again. After 2 passes all that was left was some stragglers to chase down and clean up. It worked like magic. I believed at the end of that war we still had most of our ships intact. They never knew what hit them!

I think I remember being on the recieving end of that one Argon. Yup, If my memory were better, I could tell some tales of the Northland Navy aka 'Smurfs' pulling some moves on those ole Red Weenies too. Alas, most of those memories are buried or lost to the deep blue......

But I do remember, TooTall an I were members of something we called the BASH BROTHERS, there was a third but have forgoten who that name (Komet)????. I think this came about after the BASH III in Reno. I remember IkaIka or somtin near that, always popping me from gawd nows where, with some torps, sheesh I hated seeing him pop up to let me know who was out there stalking me........

BTW RED does'nt feel right to me, I need a BLUE flag icon..................ARGHHHHHHHHH