History
The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest, or "OSF" for short and originating from the legend of Robin Hood who selflessly fought with his "merry men" against oppression for the welfare of the downtrodden in the name of fairness and good and who was labelled an outlaw for doing so, was founded in March of 1999 on the principles of good sportsmanship, fair play, and most importantly a fun-loving attitude. The significance of the name was that they wanted to set themselves apart from "clans" as a group of people who were fighting against the arrogant, self-centered attitude that steps all over the casual game player out there. This community was the creation of a group of real-life friends, Star Wars fans, and online gamers (6pk, Kramerika, MDK, StrikeForce, Zurk) who enjoyed playing Jedi Knight together via 56k modems. They would meet regularly several nights a week to have a fun time playing together and to further hone their "Jedi" skills. This is what eventually developed into the current "community night" schedule. Things were kept fresh by a constant influx of new Jedi Knight maps and modifications. A fledgling website was established by Kramerika around the same time of the community's inception. This website went through several evolutions and redesigns to the present day, mainly thanks to the efforts of Death and Kramerika.
Eventually, another Star Wars game, X-Wing Alliance, came along and added a bit more variety, and they dabbled with Tribes. Neither could supplant Jedi Knight as the favorite. However, it became apparent that Jedi Knight would not maintain their collective interest forever, so in June of 2000 they decided to take on a new challenge and expand into Half-life, particularly the mods Counter-strike and Team Fortress Classic. This was around the time of Counter-strike beta 6.5 and the initial Team Fortress 1.5. This rejuvenated the group and brought about a growth spurt in membership. During January of 2001, the first forums were established and greatly improved communications within the community. These forums were eventually replaced in December of 2001 by what you see on this website today though they are constantly being improved over time in tandem with the website.
At this point, they were relying on public servers for a place to play together. On community nights, one person would search for a server and relay the information to the others via ICQ. Even after incorporating Roger Wilco[/ into this operation, it was still a tiresome task to deal with several times a week. So a majority of them decided to make a leap of faith together and share the cost of bandwidth to host their own game server which they would have complete control over and which would serve as a central meeting place. The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest first dedicated server went online in February of 2001 as the result of an effort by the majority of the members to provide a place for all members to play with total control over the environment. This was accomplished by having one member, 6pk, host a 768 kbit (eventually 1.1 Mbit) SDSL connection through Speakeasy at his home. Since there was only enough bandwidth to host one server of reasonable size at a time and since they had learned that variety was the key to longevity and maintaining interest, servers for different games were rotated over the course of each week.
After a year and a half of good service from Speakeasy, a new and much better opportunity presented itself. A machine was collocated with the NetGamer with access to at least 5 MBs of bandwidth. This was more than enough to host almost all of the game servers at once. As a result of this, it was possible to host a larger servers which led to an increase in the membership yet again to what you see listed on the membership page today. Eventually, the NetGamer shifted its collocated customers to WholeSale Internet. At one point, the bandwidth was up to 15 MBs with 3 server boxes, but a more cost-effective strategy was eventually devised in purely renting servers from Branzone. This provides flexibility in making it easier to add or remove game servers and their cost based on usage and better support for performance issues.
Current official community-hosted game servers include Counter-strike:Source, Day of Defeat:Source, Team Fortress 2, and Battlefield 2. Retired servers include Tribes, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Tribes 2, Jedi Outcast, Call of Duty, The Battle Grounds 2, The Ship, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, Counter-strike 1.6, Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefield 1942, Eve of Destruction 2, Point of Existence 2, Desert Conflict, Project Reality, Day of Defeat 1.3, Jedi Academy, Star Wars Battlefront II, Team Fortress Classic, Fortress Forever, Call of Duty 4, Forgotten Hope 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront. The community also has a Ventrilo server hosted with Branzone for voice communication outside of games.
A tradition started in 2003 by Inebriated Master Sargeant, MadCow, and ssa_emalis our annual LAN party, typically taking place during a weekend in the summer. This has been continued on the East coast each year taking place from Southeastern PA to Niagra Falls, Canada to Syracuse, NY. It has also been picked up by members in the Western and Midwestern United States as well. It is a great and fun opportunity to meet and play games with fellow members face-to-face to further foster the bonds of friendship.
The community continues to grow and thrive today while adhering to the same philosophies that it was born out of. It will expand into servers for new games and will continue to look for new opportunities to grow and add more variety. The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest will always strive to provide a clean, relaxed, fair, fun, and sociable atmosphere in which to play online games and make new friends.