Inspired by:
15 years in review
Words left unsaid
It's high time that I post my personal story of CF because this is not just a game, but an awesome community of great guys and gals and in which I am honored to be a part of. No matter how many times I may be absent (due to RL mostly), I will always try to come back. I named the thread "Personal Stories" because in case someone else want to drop his/her personal story, feel free.
I am very glad and honored to know you all guys (and girls/women).
Name: ILIYAN V.
Age: 27
Country: BULGARIA
Joined CF: 2005/2006
Current characters: ILIYAN & ILIYANSKI
Current clan: None
Current allegiance: None
Past characters: Raptor, GoD oF WaR, Crysis, Cryzis
Past clans: MN, DC, LP, SMG, CFPD/SFP/CFPD & TSH
Past allegiance: ASF & CSF
(About 10-11yo)
2003
The story goes like this…when I first found out about the game back in 2003 when it was released, I saw my dad playing it and at first I thought it was dull probably because I’ve never seen a space-sim like that before. But after a while, I decided to try it out and fell in love with it. Afterwards I started exploring out several mods for it which didn’t really satisfied me, until I came to Crossfire. Now, the real journey begins…
(About 12-13yo)
2005-2006
I started exploring it first in Singleplayer because I was kind of afraid of joining the Multiplayer for the simple reason being that I would get my a** kicked because I was using “God-Mode” in SP prior to that and got used to it. But someone (can’t recall who, probably my dad) convinced me to join either way and try it out nonetheless and so I did and here goes my journey in the Server.
I joined in the Server immediately without reading the System Rules prior to that (not because I didn’t want to, but I didn’t realized that there were rules, yeah, I know… youth) and the nickname I chose for myself was “Raptor” (from the fighter jet F-22 Raptor) because I was a fan of military tech and I thought it was fitting for a space-sim. So, I started playing and developing my character and along the way I met a guy from the TRF clan, I believe his nickname was “Death Rain” and he even gave me 10mil just like that and I even tried to thank him, but I had no idea how to write (didn’t know the Enter option back then, lol) and even tried to show him by somehow moving my guns, lol I know how ridiculous that sounds like. Anyway, when I departed from him, he engaged his cruise engines and started chasing me and didn’t stop killing me until I gave him back his 10mil, which by the way I have no idea why he even gave them to me in the first place. So, I returned his credits to him and we parted ways. After a while in developing my character, I met a guy called “Dridix” who was a part of the MN (Miles Noxis) clan and I still have no idea to this day what that (Miles Noxis) means by the way. He asked me to join his clan and I agreed. Afterwards however, when I discovered which the greatest fighter was (Shroud - back in the days) I just went to Tarsus and purchased it for myself without even realizing that it was a clan system (CFPD). A certain CFPD member (Ozzy) tried to stop me on my way out, but I killed him and he said that he’ll report me to Gunny (and I was like – “yeah sure, whatever”, lol) and this was a dark day for MN because we were on the verge of war because of me. Shortly afterwards I was KoS (Killed on Sight) by the whole server, especially by CFPD for Grand Theft Shroud-ing their fighter. Also not long after, I went there with my RL best friend (brother) and purchased it for him as well and what happened later was being banned by the SPs (Server Police) for my recklessness and a war between MN & CFPD until a peaceful resolution was made by MN paying 100mil fee to CFPD to end the war, because a war in CF meant that the loosing side leaves CF for good. When the war ended by mutual agreement, I was pardoned by the Server and allowed to continue playing if I learn from my mistake (not following the rules). So I agreed and started developing my character in the MN clan and eventually I encountered a guy named “Darco” who I found out to be a good candidate to join the clan and he did eventually. Along the way, I also encountered my nemesis (Inferno) who was a member of the pirate clan (Lost Prophets - LP) who didn’t stop at the chance of taxing me 
and pretty much kicking my a**.
By some time I even managed to convince my dad and my real life best friend (brother) to try out the MP and we had fun for a while, until Inferno came online and started chasing us (cuz he's a pirate) and even though we were 3v1 he still kicked our a**es because we were newbs. Eventually my dad remained in SP (not because of Inferno, but because MP isn't his style) and my real life best friend just didn't get hooked to it, so eventually I remained alone and continued to develop my character. I was chased by pirates a lot, especially Inferno (I don't know if he singled me out or not) and eventually was getting taxed and my a** kicked. With other words -> I was an easy prey for the pirates and that's why I was chased so much. There was even a time when I used to trade from New York to Sol (Earth) and that's when I heard for the first time from Inferno the famous line "Time's money", lol how right he was/is. Anyway, no matter how hard I tried to avoid the pirates, they always caught up with me and I was helpless against them because I couldn't defend myself. Therefore, the time came that I started to explore the PvP Arts.
First, I started fighting in the Arena with the vets (GalacticFire, Tyrael, Picard, Simba, Kyron, Diablo, Spiky, Dr.Doom, Doppleganger, Lucy in the Sky, Eclipsya, Argos, Iceman, Inferno himself being also a vet and didn’t stop fighting him as well every chance I got…) until I became a decent fighter who can defend himself against anyone. I can’t recall, but I believe it was Eclipsya herself who showed me how to use the CDs (Cruise Disruptors) in battle because prior to that I didn’t know that they were used for PvP, after all I was pretty much new in the PvP arts. I also started participating in every event that included fights (Assault, Team Death Match, Top Gun…) to learn how to fight because I wanted to become 'the best fighter I could ever be' and also along the way I changed my nickname to “Crysis” because I was a hardcore fan of the "just-came-out" FPS game (being a badass soldier and all). So, after a lot of PvPing I started to really enjoy it and started to fall in love with it (to this day I can never grow tired of PvP).
2008-2009 (I believe)
The MN clan has disbanded and I was asked by my good friend Maxbur to join his clan (DC – Dragon Corps), which was yet another police clan (MN was Police as well). By the same time, I was asked to join CFPD (I don’t recall from whom though, either Gunny or Daywalker or actually both) but again because of my pride, I didn’t join back then because they wanted me to remove “War” from one of my other characters (GoD oF WaR) because I believe that reminded them of my "Raptor troublemaker days" (the short war of MN & CFPD) and I refused (yeah, yeah… I know). When some time had passed, Daywalker left CFPD and founded PX (Knights of Mercy) with my old clan mate Darco.
So I chose to join DC and I went through testing until I was approved. This was probably my ‘golden age’ in CF, because I learned most while being in DC and grew to become even a much better fighter in a short period of time and even appointed to be a PvP Trainer later on in the clan along with Maxbur. I also joined the global PvP events (ASF vs CSF) which for those of you who don’t know what they are/were, they are basically ‘houses’ of different clans against each other. One house (ASF) tries to be a Union of Sirius Systems, while the other (CSF) tries to divide them and different clans join each ‘house’ and it’s given equal systems to fight over and conquer in Sirius. We had many glorious fights during those events which I am sure that you can find browsing the old threads of the forum and here:
- VICTORY!!! | |PX| Clan
- The Crysis on it´s boiling point | |PX| Clan
- ASF/CSF Captain Drakons Reports from the Front | |PX| Clan
- Confederated Strike Force Report | |PX| Clan
(For example), we used to have ASF/CSF forums as well, but they no longer exist.
In the DC days (with clan leader being Haegar - amazing guy and a leader by the way), we recruited many pilots (Drale, Sphinx, DbrDbr and others that I no longer remember) and started training them for PvP. Even though we were not a military clan like BG (BloodGuard), we had to make sure that we remain a big and strong clan. Myself and Maxbur started making Training Schedules in our clan system Tohoku where the PvP Trainings took place (I served under Maxbur as a PvP Training helper), we also provided many equipment (I had many 'Store' characters that were filled with weapons, upgrades and credits) so we could equip our new members as quickly as possible and get them ready for service and also had to position guard characters (fighters) to protect our clan system against any intrusion which happened quite a lot (as well as during my other clan days). We also did a lot of trading, especially the one in New Berlin - Stuttgart (trading Prisoners), also other routes that were exploited (for making a tons of money) that also made it quite the RP because pirates were taking advantage of that by taxing us. We also had a rewarding system (medals & ranks) that were used for motivation and we received many during those years, we also had those in the ASF vs CSF as well (I think I still have some pictures of those stacked up somewhere in my archives). I still remember when we (Maxbur in particular because he was our designer / illustrator) made special medals for special occasions, one for example being when defending Nephele (UR territory) from pirates against overwhelming odds and some special for the ASF (ASF still had its own medals). We used to be both ASF & CSF because clans constantly changed their allegiance (don't ask me why because I don't remember, lol).
Anyway, we also prepared our members against alien threats, we made special expeditions (in particular -> to Hyperspace -> that was for Dom Kavash Annihilator hunting and we even had to hit the precise moment when the Hypergate's defenses were deactivated -> that happened on particular days and because the Inner Core systems weren't included in CF yet. These were hardcore expeditions because we had to move through heavy Dom Kavash territory in order to reach Hypersace and on top of that to make sure its defenses were disabled and destroy 5 Motherships (or 4) in Hyperspace so we could get the guns) that were used as PvE training because we had to make sure that our members were ready for anything (not just PvP). One proof for instance is when we were 3 DC members (Myself, Blade & Hipogriff - I call that, the Bulgarian Squad, lol) against 7-8 PXs in X-3043 and one of us had to leave because we were too much for them (I am not bragging, but that's how strong we made the Dragon Corp be... ooor maybe I'm bragging a bit, muahahhaa, deal with it).
Anywho, we made sure that the Dragon Corp clan was well recognized in Crossfire and we made sure that we also took part in the global fights (ASF vs CSF) and had many victories and conquered many systems, especially the Tau systems all at once because usually ASF vs CSF fights is for one system only per event, but not with the Tau systems... that was probably the greatest ASF vs CSF fight that I had the pleasure to be involved in and ended in glorious victory. One of our great members (Drakon) used to be a historian here so he could have some of them written down (and much more memories of CF).
But even with these glorious days in CF and DC, there were many days of arguments over silly things, many bans due to false statements and judgments (sorry for the headaches that I've caused you dude - Jack Bauer) once my other nemesis and a great guy and fighter to have around, you can thank him for the Rapid Fire feature though (not me, I just shared it after he showed it to me back in the days). Also due to my pride (for becoming a greater fighter in such a short period of time) and arrogance (cuz I was an a**hole back in the days), my immature behavior, I made many false judgments as well... many false statements and took things too personally as well, yes, 'youth' was the major issue, but still...
So, when the time of DC also came to an end however, I remained a freelancer and tried other clans such as LP & SMG to see how would it be as a pirate, but didn’t stick for long with it because pirate RP isn't for me probably because I love being a cop. At the same time I also changed my nickname “Crysis” to “Cryzis” with a ‘z’ because I thought it just sounds more cooler and not long after, I joined my good friend Gunny in CFPD (being the leader of the clan and Michael second in command) to help him/them out against any pirates and mercs and just to be in the same clan/group. Not long after, CFPD changed its name to SFP (Sirius Federal Police) with it's HQ in Sovetskaya -> don't ask me why, ask Gunny if you want to know. But later on they returned to their original name - CFPD (Crossfire Police Department) and during my stay (just a few years), we were ASF only (I think I was both ASF & CSF during my DC years) and took part of the ASF vs CSF, with PX being the major force in CSF (PX were our allies during my MN & DC years) and had many battles.
We also had those battles outside of ASF vs CSF, against them (PX), SA (Silver Arrows) and pirates of all kind (both freelancers and clans)... basically it was Police (CFPD - Myself, Gunny & Night-Hunter, BG - Spiky & Husker (mostly)... there were other police members from our own clans and others, but we 5 were the most active) vs Pirates & Mercs because the mercs were hired by the pirates to help them out against us (... ooor were they?). I don't care if the mercs were set on purpose against us, because we had many glorious fights and victories against overwhelming odds.
Though this was just a short summary of my story in CF, there are many events that I no longer remember and many that can't be just said words over the many years of events (I guess you can just browse the SWAT Portal for old threads to catch up with some of the stories), but I did my best of telling my story even though it's just the short version of it.
As for conclusion, I want to express my deepest gratitude to OP and the Server Police (now known as Galaxy Rangers [GR]) for allowing me to play after my immature behavior back in the days, to Inferno and the rest of the pirates who encouraged me to become a PvP fighter and to ALL others (the list below) who contributed more or less to my own CF experience, I will never forget you guys and girls (CF Community) and I am grateful for the amazing time that I've had here, this Community will always remain so special in my heart.
Thank you sincerely,
Iliyan
Special thanks to: SWAT_OP-R&R, Huor, Haegar, Gunny, Drale, Husker, Naomy, Spiky, Martind Forlon, Picard, Diablo, Inferno, Iceman, Hipogriff, Blade, Tyrael, Kyron, Simba, Lucy in the Sky, Jack-Bauer, Drale, Maxbur, Michael, Soul-Eater, SA_Arrow, Black Arrow, Shockwave, Daywalker, Darco, Dridix, Satyr, Ajay, Apache, Abras-Devil, Mizibelle, Faaby, The Cro Legend, Drakon, SHS, Zeroth, Ice-Warrior, Wanderer, Denne, Destructor-Nexus, Vishnu, GrandAndreasK, Bond/Mellon, Vyssotsky/Spock, Silver Fox, Scorpion/Trinity, Night Hunter, Slavimir, Saho, Tribbs, Lord Rayden, Shadows Freaker, Asmodeus, DP_Dark, Pui De Zmeu, LaserJet/Corynthos, Galactic_Fire, Trixx/Scarface, Dented_Ship, Rex, Lashan, Centaurian, Magnet, Marauder, Ancalagon, Azadur, Myric, Burro, Lost Heaven, SeV, Ryder, Doppleganger, Haldir, Privateer, Sphinx, Phoenix, Eclipsya, Argos, RazielLD, StephanoV, Wavey, Kermit, Fixxer, PcForce, Slayer, CBass, Seqan, SA_Orion, Dino, Portal-Earth, Utrack, Dr.Doom, Reptoks.
(Not in particular order and please forgive me if I missed anyone).
PS: And this is my personal CF story.
