SAO Clan

SAO Clan (or Clan) is a International gaming community/Clan started in February 2008 by Colin Chambers (AKA BigC90210, from the UK) with support from Mark Scott (AKA JI Hunter, from Australia) and David Bruce (AKA Magpie, from the UK). http://www.sao-clan.com.
History
SAO first began life in February 2008 after 2 of its founding members (Magpie and JI Hunter) left the Battlefield Vietnam gaming clan, and were persuaded by BigC90210 to start a gaming clan of their own, based around casual play opposed to common strictness/regime associated with gaming clans. After some discussion, it was decided that the name of the clan would be SAO, standing for Strictly Adults Only, in an attempt to draw a more mature audience rather than younger immature players that often plague the gaming scene.
Shortly after this BigC90210 purchased the official domain name of SAO (www.sao-clan.com) as well as web space, and set up a basic website and forums using the Joomla 1.12 CMS system, using Fireboard for the forums, and a simple template which had been slightly modified to accommodate the SAO logo (which at the time, consisted of 4 Golden army badge style stars, on a dark green camo background). JI Hunter paid for a years subscription to a 52 Player Battlefield Vietnam server and Teamspeak server for voice communication, so SAO now had a base.
Expansion
JI Hunter began to learn how to customise and modify the server, while Magpie would study the layouts of maps and work on methods to put new exciting spins on classic Battlefield Vietnam maps to get interest and stake our presence online. Together they painstakingly redesigned and modified every single map, making the SAO Battlefield Vietnam server a completely unique experience. A lot of time was spent testing the maps, and it was agreed that the 3 admins would meet up (bearing in mind the 9 hour time zone difference) to discuss the map modifications, and to test run them together. During this testing public players and other clan members joined in, and by the time it came to log off, there were players wanting to know “when the next meet up was”. From here it was decided that there would be “SAO Events” advertised on the forums, which would be a time where members could meet up with each other across time zones, and play with members which would normally be in bed or at work.
Over a period of months, SAO slowly grew to have a handful of regular forum members, including that of some clan members of who were friends of Magpie and JI Hunter, who would come to well wish and catch up with their old friends and join in with games that SAO were playing in.
Around July 2008, BigC90210 unveiled version 2.0 of the SAO website to its members, which was a new template themed around the real life Vietnam War. The site design was based around a backdrop of a squad photo of real American soldiers, with the rest of the interface being of a similar nature. The website became a hit due to its design compared to its competitors, and new features helped bring more casual members in as the months went by.
It was agreed that the name of SAO should stand for Stand As One, as it was a more fitting name for the clan.
Around December 2008, Left 4 Dead was released, and due to its small team-play nature, it wasn’t long before BigC90210 and Magpie were recruiting L4D players, who were visiting the forums, and joining SAO despite them not playing Battlefield Vietnam or SAO not having a dedicated Left 4 Dead server to play on.
By March 2009, there was enough interest to warrant a dedicated SAO Left 4 Dead, which BigC90210 paid for, and with the help of Boink, made it an extremely popular L4D server, due to its (at the time) unusual modifications and reputed intensity. Shortly after this SAO began to gain a lot of interest and publicity, though Left 4 Dead players were confused as to why the website wasn’t themed anything like Left 4 Dead, which prompted a re-think on the website design. Also at this time there was interest shown in SAO members playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, so this also pointed towards a website revamp.
Throughout March BigC90210 worked throughout creating a new design on the then mature Joomla 1.5 CMS (With Kunena for the forums) which would change the feel of the website from a Military theme to a more rounded “Action Gaming” theme, centered around a photoshopped montage of Zoe (from Left 4 Dead), The Soldier from the box art of Battlefield Vietnam, and a promotional image of a soldier from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, with a few zombies thrown in to boot. After this, all of the website modules needed to be re-installed with the latest version, and then migration scripts prepared to export the old CMS database to the new one.
On March 31st, the SAO website V.3 was released to an excellent reception from its members, and within a couple of weeks the website traffic had quadrupled, and the SAO member base had almost quadrupled too. Around this time JI Hunter and the other SAO Staff decided it would be more beneficial for the clan to split the 52 player Battlefield Vietnam server into a 16 Slot BFV Server and a 16 Slot Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare server. It was also at this time that the “Team SAO” branding was coined, as it reflected more on the fact that SAO was now more of a gaming community than a gaming clan.
Over the forthcoming months, servers were donated to the SAO cause by Yo Momma, Boink, Viper, Commers and Mac-Van. This took the SAO server count to new heights, and SAO were now playing Battlefield Vietnam, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: World at War, Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 2 (and expansions).
SAO Events
The SAO events (which were originally just an admin meet up to test maps and mods) gained popularity, and by 2 had gained enough popularity to have silly codenames attached to them for fun, which also helped publicity in terms of getting players to join in.
2: The Big Number 2 - 3rd January 2009
3: Growing Conflict - 21st February 2009
4: Napalm Rising - 27th March 2009
5: Splinter Cells - 8th May 2009
6: Fresh Blood - 19th June 2009
7: Blood Stained - 31st July 2009
8: Renegade - 4th September 2009
9: Lock n Load - 16th October 2009
SAO Advertising, Media and Communication
SAO has 2 “Steam Community Groups” which it communicates to its members via Steam (The online gaming service) with related community news, upcoming events and news releases on its supported games. One group is the “SAO Clanmember Group”, which is reserved for tag wearing clanmembers only, and the other is the “SAO Public Group” which is for anyone to join, and is intended as a way of SAO to be able to branch out to new members, and keep casual players who like to join in SAO events informed.
BigC90210 sends out a newsletter shortly before an SAO event to everyone in the forum listings, which keeps them up to date with the latest goings on and provides a good summary of what the latest changes are to the community.
The news articles on the homepage themselves are also written by BigC90210, and act as a method to keep members and non-members alike informed without them having to trawl the forums, and to stimulate new forum activity.
SAO Recognition
The SAO website has been showcased on the Official Joomla Website (see references) in the community showcase, showing that SAO is proud of what it has achieved and can produce professional results using the Joomla framework.
http://community.joomla.org/showcase/sites/recreation-and-hobbies/gaming/sao-clan.html

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