War is Over!

At exactly 12:21 UTC today, June the 30th, 2007 a truce was declared to the bloody flame war that existed between two bitter rival Call of Duty modding factions.

The war had pitted Tally (eXtreme+, RoTR) on one side and Wizard220 (and Mike Nomad's Raiders site) on the other. Both influential modders in their own right, these two code-artists let personal issues cause a rift in the Call of Duty modding community and then saw those issues drag that community into a prolonged and antogonizing war.

The truce was signaled by what has now become a historical posting by Tally on the Raiders own website. His attempt at reconciliation created immediate reverberations around the CoD world.

Here is but a small snippet of the post:

While out at the COD4 preview...I spoke with Rudedog at great length about where we thought the community was going, how it was going to shape up after the release of COD4 because IW is doing such a good job of finally listening to the community base...

It is a chance to forget all the old wounds that were created during COD2, for us to finally get a chance to move forward as one community together again. Standing shoulder to shoulder, and having bags of fun together.

This brought us around to discussing the division in the community that is created in large part to me and my war with the Raiders. We both agreed that the community cant take much more of it.

However, In order for this truce to have any chance of success, I MUST resign from the Support Crew. And this because, when all is said and done, I DID fake a PM, and whereas I had what I still feel was almost overwhelming provocation, it was still very wrong no matter what the circumstances. For that reason, and that reason alone, the only honorable thing to do is go.

...I was planning to go to COD4 with the intention of getting all the important site admins there to actually ban the Raiders throughout the community. To fight fire with fire. I had set up a summit meeting with everyone concerned, and the topic was going to be: "The Raiders: the final Solution?"

But, then, on the night just before I left for LA, the "Rise of the Resistance" site was hacked and decimated. All posts deleted.

My first reaction was anger. But, over the course of the night, and during the 11 hour flight out to LA, I started to feel a sense of shame - that my presence on the RoR team had lead someone to hack the site and destroy, not only my work, but the work of all those talented individuals that make up the dev team.

For the sake of community harmony, this feud has to stop. And stop now. Hence I will resign.

- Tally

This post of reconciliation was met with stunned awe and then accolades from Tally's fiercest critics - the folks at Raiders.

Wizard220, one of the original authors of eXtreme and Tally's fiercest critic had this to say on the raidersmerciless.com site:

Thanks for taking the plunge and doing this peace offering. Tally I would like to say I too accept my part in all this. I too can forgive and I too want the very best for CoD.

- Wizard220

The peeling of churchbells began shortly after Wizz's equally breathtaking post and the air is still echoing with their sounds across Callofdutyville hours afterwards as this piece is being written.

While the details of the peace will be hammered out in voice-to-voice comms between the two groups, optimism reigns right now that the Call of Duty community will come together as one after the release of CoD4. Perhaps the group will go on to rival the success of other large FPS groups like Counterstrike.

The fact that this truce occurred is no surprise to this reporter. I could hear the murmuring coos of peace doves in Tally's voice during my BASH interview two weeks ago. But the lubricant that started the engine of peace was surely the Community Event at Infinity Ward Studios this past week, when the major players of the Call of Duty community were gathered together for a major sit-down. Ostensibly, this event was supposed to be a showcase for Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. In practice, it became much more that that.

It is easy to hate someone you cannot see. It is something else to continue to hate that person after you have met them face-to-face and shaken their hands. That is what happened at IW this week. Meeting your "enemy", seeing that he is not that much different than you and seeking a middle ground is as classic a human behavior as it gets.

Clearly, all of us in the CoD world are elated at this news. Thank you Tally and your supporters. Thank you Wizz and your folks at the Raiders. And most of all thank you to Activision, who made this all possible.

Now, let's get back to playing some video games!