RISING FROM THE ASHES

There was however a light in the tunnel. AqoTrooper, posted a mod at Staredit Network (SEN), a popular and well-known mapmaking site. It generated enough response and interest that the SEN administration decided to add special forum sections dedicated exclusively to modding. Since then, SEN became a new haven for the stranded StarCraft modmakers. There were many people eager to learn the arcane art of modding, yet only a handful people who had the knowledge to share. A few oldies somehow made their way to SEN though and provided the much-needed assistance to those who wished to dive into StarCraft modding.
Not so much later, on 1st April 2005, Suicidal Infinity, creator of SCMDraft and a former CamSys member released a new version of MemGraft. While originally perceived as an April Fools joke by many, this was an actual release.
Over that summer, a group of modders at SEN got together and formed a mod-making clan known as Clan [MM] that started and continued a tradition of “mod nights”. Later that year BroodKiller released DatEdit, a very user-friendly modding tool allowing for the fundamental game modifications. DatEdit was being actively and constantly updated, responding to the community feedback, needs and requests. Also at this time DiscipleOfAdun announced and began working on a new tool, FireGraft. With a good base and a promise of new modding capabilities, modmakers began refreshing old creations and creating completely new mods. SEN modding department became very active, hosting modding contests and a very vivid and helpful forum board, as well as a modding tutorial database. Another major tool came out in early 2006 when ShadowFlare released SCMLoader, which allowed modified files to be stored directly in any standard StarCraft map.
Bajadulce from the Broodwar AI Project (BWAI) - a very successful attempt to raise the weak StarCraft AI to a more serious level - has created a very demanding AI for the Open Rebellion StarCraft total conversion. He followed later with a custom AI for another acclaimed mod – Antithesis Rising (by Ermac and Voyager7456[MM]). At the end of 2006, DiscipleOfAdun granted private testing of a beta version of FireGraft.
Year 2007 brought updates to several important modding tools, including a final release of DatEdit and significant improvements to SCMLoader, as well as a badly-needed update to the old, but essential animation script editor, IceCC. Most notably, a public release of FireGraft has finally seen the light of the day, bringing the art of ‘grafting’ back again to the community.

THE END OF ALL THINGS?

So…how does SC modding look on the verge of Starcraft2? Not bad, although its heydays are definitely gone. The modding knowledge was preserved over the hard times and there are still areas that have to be fully explored. There are not many mysteries left in StarCraft however, and thus the main force that was driving the modding community which was discovering the game’s inner workings, is not a strong factor anymore. Ironically, the modding capabilities are right now bigger than they were ever before, but there are not many people around to profit from this palette of creative opportunities. After all, where’s the fun in modding a 10 year old game? Fortunately, there are a few enclaves housing modding veterans and those newcomers who still feel the thrill in making their marines shoot Yamato Gun, cast Psionic Storm and explode on death.

The potentially enormous modding capabilities of its successor will most probably be the kiss of death to the glorious StarCraft modding tradition. People will move on to explore the new upcoming world of wonders, and leave their old sheds to the ghosts of the past. There will be new heroes who will make their marks on the gaming community and who will push the legends of the old days aside. But that’s the way it is…things end, and things begin anew, and this cycle repeats itself, over and over again.

Keeping the memory of the old times is our duty however. After all, we can see as far as we do because we stand on the shoulders of giants…

Clan [MM]

The nomad era
In the summer of '05 a group devoted to Stacraft Modding had already achieved one of the biggest goals in SeN's history, the acceptance of modding as a legitimate way to pushing Stacraft to the limit instead of a "hacking" method. With this move of the SeN administation, curiosity started to grow among new members and old members as well as to "What is modding?". The modding boards, being rather new on SeN, were found rather inactive, after all not many people in SeN were modders but mappers. Slyence with great dedication and courage founded Clan [MM] with the objective of creating enthusiasm and promoting modding. At that time there were no other modding clans, thus, Clan [MM] was a very unique and innovative idea.
In little time Clan [MM] grew to 9 members. This small group of first generation [MM] was formed by still known modders such as: Slyence, Torrasque, m.r.bob (now scwizard), Voyager7456, Fierce, Moogle, EzDay, Jake and FaRTy.
Young Clan [MM] applied to a SeN Clan Forum a few months after it was created but seeing as how it had few members and the fact that SeN was harsher back then it didn't get the forum, instead, Clan [MM] was temporary setup on a free Invision board and on a temporary channel called op xMMx.
Jake left the Clan after a while due to school and real life issues, little did [MM] know that this was going to become a popular fad between future [MM]embers.
Shortly after that Slyence was forced by real life to resign from the clan designating Fierce (leader) and Voyager7456 (co-leader) as the new heads of Clan [MM].

This probably was the cause of young Clan [MM] starting to drop in activity terms greatly.

"It looked like [MM] was going to die"
Voyager7456



The early SeN era
The group of dedicated modders would not let the clan die off easily without a fight. They managed to organize a few projects only to score their deserved SeN Clan Forum.
A huge and unknown period of [MM]'s history begins here, however, little is known due to the deletion of the [MM] board after it faced one of their famous inactivity spikes.
During this period, though, [MM] started to gain popularity aiding new modders on the modding boards of SeN. [MM]embers helping new guys was a common thing to see in the modding boards and although small, [MM] was the best at what they did, help modding.
During this time of almost a year [MM] hadn't have new meat to taste suddenly and unexpectedly Corbo became the first recruit in the clan's history. Clan [MM] rapidly started to gain more recognition in this late period of the SeN era. Good news to [MM] arrived, Slyence was back and was modding again, however this happiness was shattered soon due to an impostor gaining access to Slyence account and getting him suspended from SeN, after this action Voyager7456 was promoted to leader to help a mildy inactive Fierce to run the clan.
Clan [MM] tried to set up their Clan channel back then but Battle.net refused. The xMMx bot was lost at that time which only forced the clan to create a new bot xxMMxx.
Soon Clan [MM] got 3 more recruits, Doodle77, NinjaMonkey, Darktossgen and Jake rejoined the clan as "Forsaken".

"With the xMMx bot lost, we eventually created the xxMMxx bot, a hideously long name."
Voyager7456



The late SeN era
Due to low forum activity both, the [MM] forums and the aE[ forums were deleted. A few PMs to the SeN Administration prooved that Clan [MM] was active and the boards were setup again.
During this period Slyence returned again but his participation was minor and didn't mod, after a while he left again and wasn't seen in a long time. As an addition a growing Clan [MM] got his first mac modder Ian (also Nai) was recruited.
Early of '06 Voyager left for the first time [MM], he left for 3 loooooooooong days.
The motivation of Clan [MM] to get more attention for modding made them create "Mod Nights" the idea was based on the current "Map Nights" being held as a SeN event, however, Mod Nights were founded on a very basic and still kept concept "Everyone is invited to Mod Nights".

Popularity started to grow for [MM], soon the clan had 4 non-members players in the channel and constantly people asking "Can I join?" question which was always answered "Everyone is invited to mod nights" in a funny, yet serious response. Suddenly the channels were packed, if not by people playing on mod nights but with [MM] friends at this points Mod nights managed to make at least 1 full game and around 5 people bitching in the channel waiting and whispering "How much more?!?"
The first mod played on the first mod night was Stacraft: Field Command.
During this time much known [MM]embers joined such as: killer_kow, Lord_Agamemnon, WoaHorde, Excalibur, kookster and others mentioned before. As a funny note Deathman101 tried joining the clan by submitting a map (yeah...).

Just like economy this great phase had to fall, [MM] slowly began to fall again into the inactivity pit making it worse, SeN was suffering problems itself, it was being hacked and Isolated Purity was in defense mode (inactive lol). What had to happen just happened like that. SeN was dead. This created a lot of chaos between the other sister communities. The last accesible data from SeN is found on february second, however, SeN died in late april.



"They went to charge IP's credit card and it was like 'lol maxd' "
Mini Moose 2707



The Modding Revolution

This part is in progress, don't bug me about it