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Top Ten Subsim
Events of the 2000's
Jan. 1, 2010 by Neal Stevens
6. Wolfpack League
 A
core of 14 players was invited to a private Subsim forum to brainstorm a new
players group. The Silent Hunter II Online Fleet was created in late 2000 in
anticipation to the sequel to Silent Hunter and its much ballyhooed interop
multiplayer. Over 1000 players had signed up for the Wolfpack League to play
SHII and Destroyer Command with the belief they wouldn't have long to wait.
No one imagined the wait would last out the year. WPL processed new members,
engaged in endless discussion on the rules and nature of competition,
created mirror pages in seven languages, created custom mugs and mousepads,
and engineered a database/scoring system. And what a scoring system! Created
by Rudi Peck, it tracked tonnage leaders, individual stats, flotilla
rosters, and had a personal dossier for each WPL member. At its highest
point, Sub Club/Wolfpack League had over 12,000 members on the rolls.
Wolfpack League spawned other websites such as the German 9th Flotilla,
Italian Betasom - XI Gruppo Sommergibili , and Spanish 24th Flotilla.
5. Subsim Meetings
 The
virtual world is fine and dandy, but face to face cannot be beat. Subsim
members began organizing get-togethers in 2000 with the German 9th Flotilla
of the Wolfpack League. The first intercontinental meet was hosted in London
in 2003 by Sharkstooth, Panz, and Deehunter. Subsim has gone on to hold
meets in Houston (twice),
Netherlands, and Denmark.
4. Subsim mod community
 One
of the benefits of providing a watering hole for sub game enthusiasts is
synergy. New subsims lead to discussions of the pros and cons of the game,
then ideas for improving the game. Throw some bright and industrious minds
in the mix and you have modders and mod teams that make the games better,
add variety and realism, and improve the longevity of the game. As one of
the first modders, I created a realism pack for Silent Hunter II and a
Second Kampagne that took advantage of some of the wonderful features
Ultimation built into SHII, such as U-boat pens, varying levels of ship
inclusion probability, and shadowing objectives. More mods followed by
Vickers, the SH2 Hi Res Team, the Pacific Aces team, Trigger Maru, Real
Fleet Boat, Grey Wolves, and others. Standout
mod masters include Captain Cox, Ducimus, Andy Bouffard, Jimbuna,
Privateer, Leovampire, Diving Duck, Kpt. Lehmann, Fred8615, Jimimadrid,
Caratio, JScones, Oakgroove, and Beery, and many, many more. Subsim salutes
these modders!
3. The death of Abraham
Zeegers
 Among the firsts and
achievements is a tragedy. It's always hard to lose a friend, like the warm
and creative Dave "LeoVampire" Bunnell, or Richard "Snaptrap" Nahamko, and
Anthony "DustyBoats" Miller. But the loss of one of Subsim's shining stars
was made more significant by the circumstances surrounding his death.
Abraham Zeegers joined Subsim on New Year's Eve 2004. He was a frequent
poster and helpful, and rose to the rank of moderator. He was one of the
hosts for the 2005 Subsim Meet in Holland. Abraham provided a lot of
information and added to the list of events. He was working on an article
for the 2007 Almanac, when he dropped off the radar. In April 2007 he shared
with me that he was a witness in a major court case involving crime boss
Willem Holleeder. Holleeder was on trial for the May 17, 2004, murder of
Dutch real
estate businessman Willem Endstra. Holleeder was also suspected of
blackmailing several other businessmen. Abraham was going to give testimony
that could imprison Holleeder, at a significant risk to his person.
I am now staying at an
"undisclosed location", actually not very far from the place where we
had lunch during our Subsim Meeting with all the Jaguar cars. I have no
computer, no internet and I'll have to stay there at least for the
duration of the court case, which will last from April 2nd, to
somewhere in June. At this moment I'm briefly in my own home to pick up
some belongings and check the forums and send/receive some mail. Too bad
that I can't enjoy SHIV and I'm missing the forums --especially
now...Just too good that no pictures of me were shown on national TV,
otherwise I wouldn't be safe in The Netherlands.
My last e-mail from Abraham
was on Aug. 6, 2007. One week after his testimony in the Holleeder case,
Abraham was found dead in his home in Amsterdam south on Oct 9, 2007. On
October 11 the Amsterdam police announced that Abraham died from an overdose
of MDMA (ecstacy) in combination with alcohol. The Dutch
press discovered
Abraham's "second life" in the Subsim forums and for a while, this was
major news. No connection between Abraham's death and his testimony in the
Willem Holleeder trial has so far been found. Holleeder was found guilty of
extortion and sentenced to nine years in prison, presently held in Nieuw
Vosseveld. His subsequent appeal was turned down by the appeals court in
July 2009. Abraham's death is now widely regarded as an accidental overdose.
Of one thing there is no doubt: he will be missed at Subsim.
2. Subsim forums and
community
 Before
Facebook and social networking took over our consciousness, web forums were
the place to meet people with common interests. Subsim's first forum was a
Matt's BBS script, a simple linear forum. When the number of users prompted
an upgrade, Subsim migrated to EZBoards. Soon, the need for a better system
led to phpBB, and eventually vBulletin.
Subsim's
Radio Room has been the home to over a million posts on sub games, naval
topics, mod work, and general banter. Yes, the membership grew from a few
hundred in 1999 to several thousand. The forum lists 38,848, but the number
of active members is closer to 6500. The newsletter was reaching close to
25,000 by 2008. The community is what makes Subsim special (yeah, I know,
sound like a cliche, but it's true!). Subsim members spur discussion in the
forums, mods that improve the games, provide assistance and welcome to new
players, help weed out spambots, participate in the contests and werewolf
hunts, and support the website. Members like Bill Nichols provide expertise
and keep the World Naval News current, Subnuts keeps cranking out quality
book reviews, Torplexed keeps us laughing with his one-of-a-kind toons,
AVGWarhawk keeps us sane, Dowly keeps us in suspense, and Hitman and the
moderators keep us out of trouble. Jimbuna is the all time champion poster
with nearly 30,000 entries. We can be thankful to members like John Channing,
Sailor Steve, and Takeda for their longstanding wisdom. We can mainly be
thankful we live in an age where people with obscure interests can easily
congregate and exchange thoughts: the Subsim Radio Room.
>>Click here for The Number 1 Subsim event
of the 2000's
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