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Arachno
From TribalWar
Arachno is a British player who featured somewhat prominently in the North American Tribes 2 community from 2001 to 2004. His role in teams being predominantly offense positions, in particular Heavy Offense. His weapon of choice was the mortar launcher. Currently inactive.
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Beginnings
Arachno was introduced to the world of Tribes 2 in 2001 by Piata and Kurayami. At this time, he was playing on a 56k modem in England on the North American servers, which resulted in high pings. Not only this but his free ISP required that he disconnected after every 2 hours online. Due to these limitations his first year was mostly spent casually playing in pub games with Piata and Krytoss of The Ministry. As these two players specialised as Heavy Offense, Arachno would follow suit and developed a taste for this position. However, it wasn't long before base++ was released and seeing his friends play competitively on the TWL gave him the desire to enter the world of competition.
Competitive Start
It wasn't until 2002 that Arachno upgraded to a broadband Internet connection and could finally consider joining a tribe and competing. It was around this time that during a pub he was given a duel challenge by a seemingly random player. Being an inexperienced player, Arachno was easily defeated but was told that he "moved well but needed to work on [his] disc aim." This person recruited him into the European tribe Hades.
Unfortunately Arachno's time with Hades was very short lived. Though with this team he was able to play with fellow Europeans, he found that his play schedule actually fit in better with North American time. Also as he had been spending most of his time playing base++, he found it hard to adjust to playing base, as the European league required. Arachno left the team having attended only a handful of practice sessions and playing no actual matches or scrims with the team.
It was only a few months later that Arachno was spotted by Opstand and recruited to play with WORM in their 7-man base++ team on the TWL. It was during this time that he really developed his light dueling skills as Opstand and FriY subjected him to torturous sessions of minrabbit. During competitive play for this team, he took the roles of capper and HO. The team did not enjoy much success on the ladder before the Classic mod was released. It was at this time that this incarnation of WORM disbanded and Arachno joined the roster of The Ministry for the coming Classic ladder.
Classic
Though The Ministry was by no means a top-tier team, Arachno had always been a fan of the team, due mainly to those he considered his mentors being a part of the roster. He had been offered a place on the team a year prior, but declined stating that he "wasn't ready". However, by this time, the roster of the team was far different to the group that he originally knew. Many of his friends had moved on and had been replaced by a new roster. By this time he had become quite proficient at Heavy Offense, his specialty being his ability move very quickly around the map in Heavy armor. Over time Arachno rose through the ranks of the The Ministry to become the offense captain and eventually co-leader with jupe. The Ministry enjoyed moderate success on the 14-man Classic ladder but eventually disbanded.
The next team that Arachno would play with would be Diuturnity, again mainly to continue playing with his friends snookums and jupe. It wasn't long before he was again put in charge of offense for the team. This stint in a leadership role made him realise that he was not particularly good at nor did he enjoy taking charge. Diuturnity's run on the ladder came to an end after a short time and had very little success.
After the demise of Diuturnity, Arachno considered retiring from competitive play until his old friend Krytoss invited him to join a new team that he was creating with Rayne. Arachno accepted the offer and joined Nex as one of the main HO until their eventual disbanding.
In the latter stages of Classic competition, Arachno joined a reforming team Asphyxia under the leadership of Skully. Arachno considered his time with this team to be his peak and the highest level of play he had achieved thus far, as the roster contained some of the more widely recognised players in the community. With Asphyxia, Arachno finally achieved a couple of the goals for which his Tribes playing career was based, when Asphyxia defeated Blackout, whom his friend and initial mentor Piata was playing for at the time, and when he managed a "fatcap" against the, at that time, top-tier team Second Nature. Asphyxia reached 7th rung on the 14-man Classic ladder before disbanding after players lost interest in the game. This would be the last competitive team that Arachno played in.
WSBN
Arachno also worked as an announcer for the WSBN during the company's latter stages, under the directorship of Bodyshot and Excal. During his time with the WSBN, Arachno shoutcasted several ladder matches, covered the whole of the NCAA tournement and did a special dual shoutcast with Bodyshot. He was noted for his British accent but never became very widely recognised.
Life after Tribes
Soon after retiring from competitive play, Arachno spent a year studing abroad in Japan and fell out of online gaming. It was during this time that Tribes:Vengence was released and as a result, he never got to play the game before it's short life-span expired.
He now works and resides in Japan.
Team History
Strengths and Weaknesses
Arachno specialised in Heavy Offense but was also relatively proficient in all offensive positions. As a Heavy Offense player, he excelled at traversing maps quickly in heavy armor and long range mortar aim. This made him an ideal outdoor HO for flag clearing and such. However, his indoor game was a little weaker due to the slower movement of heavies when not skiing.
Arachno was also a moderately skilled dueler, his main advantage, again, being his movement ability and mortar or grenade launcher aim.
Arachno was never able to master the shrike and very rarely played any defensive positions. Weapons with which he failed to become competent with include the shocklance and sniper rifle.
Personal Comment
I was very bored at work when I wrote all this.
