WOV

Clan WoV, standing for Wanders of the Vanquished, was formed mere days after the launch of the much anticipated First Person Shooter Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast(2002), making it quite possibly one of the oldest Jedi Knight Series clan in continuous existence that remains today. Its Founder, HazelJedi, who in real life was the administrator of his own ISP, spent a good deal of time in many different servers during those early days and discovered that the way in which most clans were running at that point was not to his liking. It was for this reason that, instead of joining a clan and having to endure the way it was run, Hazeljedi decided to take the great leap of faith: he decided to form clan WoV.

HazelJedi remained an important leader of WoV for nearly three years before moving on to other pursuits. During his time in WoV, he and a few other leaders of notable maturity set up the clan WoV much to his own very structured and disciplined tastes. Many of the original members who were an integral part in taking the clan off the ground have since left, but their marks and contributions for WoV will never be forgotten. Some of these originals as they shall henceforth be referred to are Jaxar who was the designer of WoVs first site, Jannik who was the artist behind WoV clan skins, PadaWn who helped with administration and the redesign of WoVs site (mitigating factor; the site template that is currently being used was designed by Intrepid), and JuggaloJedi who, as legend has it, still remains to this day. But as the loss of some of the originals came as a blow to them, new members have stepped up in their place. Dragon, Intrepid, Xanthos, and Noir have been passed the torch and are working off the strong foundations provided by previous members to strengthen and build WoV into something the likes of which have not been seen before in a clan.

In Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, WoV had a very structured system of ranks based on the military featuring: cadets, privates, on all the way up to generals and commanders. Ranks during the time were designated by color differences in the player's tags. On Tuesday nights at 7:00 PM, clan meetings were held in-game, and it gave Hazel an opportunity to speak at great length (for he loved to do so, and was never at a loss to speak about his vision for the clan). Also, HazelJedi paid the famous mapper Shroomduck to design clanbase for its members to relax in, a move which many gamers would scoff at, but one which truly demonstrated the level of dedication which HazelJedi put into the clan. The result was the map "ffa_wov", and the founding of WoV's members' only server, <|WoV|>Valhalla. The orderly nature of the clan and its many complex rituals, coupled with its famous custom map made WoV the ideal clan for many people, and at one point in Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, membership in WoV had swelled to 122 players (this figure is not inflated). Needless to say, this could not last, as disputes over ranks began to tear the clan apart from the inside out.

Amazingly, by the time Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was launched, active membership in WoV had dwindled to roughly six members. At this point, the senior-most member was a player known as Kilroy, who's name later changed to Intrepid. He saw membership lows and the lack of more senior members as a chance for the regrowth and heavy improvement. Ranks were done away with, and with them went some of the role-playing themes which characterized WoV in Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, but these sacrifices had to be made in order to actuate the plan to make WoV into a respectable clan once more. Not satisfied with garnering members simply to beef up numbers, Intrepid a.k.a Kilroy went to great lengths during the early days of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy to entice players who were far better than himself at the time to join.

This type of wooing continued, and after a few months, WoV had become a respectable clan again, as more time passed, it grew to become quite skilled. But the hay-day of WoV did not truly come until the dissolution of several other high-profile american clans, such as OoS, and especially, american powerhouse clan Master. Many Ex-Masters found a new home in WoV, and the collective draw of the skilled players and easygoing atmosphere of WoV was answered by the new memberships of skilled duelists from all different north american clans. For a period of about 6 months or so, and probably quite longer, clan WoV was arguably the best TFFA and NF Duel clan in North America. Winning most US tournaments the clan signed up for, WoV also put together the TFFA team that defeated what was considered the best European clan at that point, clan Zedi, which disbanded shortly thereafter.

But all good things come to an end, and by the winter of 2006, member interest in JKA was waning. While WoV still to this day has many of the best NF duelists in the game, its days of completely dominating seem numbered.