The Truth Hurts, doesn't it Surreal?

Apparently my blog post from yesterday on the inactivity of Surreal – or the fact that they didn’t live up to their potential – didn’t fall in good grounds. It seems that Vkultras has left Surreal for TVST and it also seems that a merger between TVST and Surreal backfired. I would say: good on TVST as they are an active clan with superb members who compete in nearly every competition this game has to offer. You don’t want to merge with a dodo, do you?

The fun part for me though was to see my private chat flooded with remarks from both TVST and Surreal Members. I couldn’t fail to notice that some TVST members were rather happy they did not have to merge with Surreal: their messages were more a sign of relief than anger.

What happens is that Surreal calls itself an official Anti-MB clan. They posted on their owner’s corner the following message: “Now officially ANTI-MB. MB are bullies, and we will aplaud every other clan who dares to stand up and declare themselves anti-MB too.” They also changed their badge and added “anti-MB” there as well. That is of course from our point of view probably the highest level of irony you can reach: they are so strongly against Marx Brothers that they consider it to be a core element of their identity. They therefore seem to fail to understand what their latest action means: if you are against something, it means you consider them to be important enough to be against.
As a result, it means that Marx Brothers is considered to be very important, which is not of its making. We didn’t ask to have anti-MB clan(s), we didn’t ask to have a blog read by anyone in this game, we didn’t ask to be kingmakers, we didn’t ask to be “fill in yourself”.
Ironically (part 2) this is what Surreal envies us for. They want to be taken serious, they want to be heard, they want to be considered kingmakers… but they aren’t. The message yesterday simply was an observation: Surreal does not compete in clan competitions for over a month (its core reason of existence, if we read the blog), Surreal does not select people with the right profile (according to their requirements) or does not lower its standards a bit in order to allow active, forward-looking and willing people like Vkultras to join their ranks. You can say many things about Vkultras but not that his short timespan in the clan was a disaster. Granted, he got too many fellow Dutchmen on board, but one of these people was the former number one of Powersoccer, pperplex.

The article on our blog was all about the actual inactivity of Surreal: no clan cups, many members coming and going, no activity on their blog, nothing, niente. It seems the article did stir emotions and did give the “dodo” Surreal another breath of life. I personally never believed its story for many various reasons, but I can be mistaken too from time to time.

Alas it seems that Surreal is back to base one. The first war (won by MB by the way) started by the fact that Powdersnow wanted to get many level 99ers in his to be formed clan, Surreal. People with tons of clan experience, like myself, who build up a clan, a clan philosophy and a brand name which rang a bell with many users, were supposed to leave their own creation and be the underling of something new, something fresh. I actually never recovered from that dagger in my heart. Asking that bluntly to forsake my home was many bridges too far, for me and for many other users.
It seems the old idea is revived again. We cannot forge a community on the basis of who we are (let’s build up a clan worthy of that name and the people will flock to use), so we will start stealing – or trying to steal – members from other clans again. Shame, shame, shame.