The Mafia [TM] was founded in August of 1996 in Ultima Online during its beta test.  This group of gamers initially started out as a circle of friends at Mater Dei High School in Orange County, CA.  With 14.4k modems, they explored the world of Ultima Online with amazement and wonder.  Within a few days, this circle of friends discovered that hunting other players offered much more excitement, danger, and challenge then engaging the various npc’s that populated the world. Upon that realization, [TM] was born. The Mafia quickly established itself as one of the most ruthless PK’ing guilds during beta even causing OSI to implement various gameplay mechanic changes, including adding city guards to moongates, as a result of our proficiency in the art of player killing (PK’ing).

Entering retail, The Mafia quickly staked its claim across various hotspots within the world of UO including the Crossroads, Trinsic Gates, Deceit, and most notoriously, the Britain Cemetary, slaughtering every player that our PK unit ran across.  Mysterio (later to be permanently known as Ranker) created the first Pacific shard PK syndicate and united the majority of the PK’s under one banner.  Our methods were so ruthlessly efficient that within two weeks after release, our guild had already accumulated enough wealth to buy 6 different buildings to wall off on our own claimed island to the east of Trinsic.  Within a month, TM placed a tower that was only accessable by Recall (a teleportation spell to a designated location) due its entrance being securely surrounded by strategically placed small houses.  The efficiency of our player killing skills led to hilarious developments and events: such as players in the dungeon of Deceit drawing straws to determine who would be the designated “stand and fight” sacrificial lamb in the event of a TM raid through the dungeon so that other players would have a chance to escape.  At times the amount of loot that we obtained from our PK’ing raids would require us to “bag drag” across long distances due to our characters’ inability to hold so much looted items from our victims.  An IRC channel was even set up to warn the populace about our incursions so that TM hunting parties could rally up.

Unfortunately, OSI soon found itself competing against Sony’s Everquest and released the long despised “Trammel” and “PK Stat loss” patches.  Finding it no longer lucrative or sustainable to play “red” on a full time basis, [TM] adapted to the changes and entered into the age of guild wars.   The first few guilds that declared war against us quickly withdrew their consent after suffering humiliating losses.  The first 3 guilds that declared war against TM lasted only 4 days before conceding defeat. The Mafia continued to gain strength as it absorbed many other skilled PK’ers and PvP’ers as its notoriety grew.  Stressing unity, PvP competence, and camaraderie over numbers, Mafia became renown for having some of the best PvP’ers on the Pacific Shard with more 7x GM’s than any other guild during that time.  At the height of our power, no other guild could match us on the field of battle.  Every guild that declared war upon us subsequently undeclared war, waiving the white flag, lasting an average of 2 weeks before conceding defeat.

Although most guilds quickly bowed before our might, a two guilds were able to give us a reasonable challenge.  Most notable were KGB (Knights of Glory and Beer) and PoA (Punishment of Asia).  KGB gave us our most fun, if not most memorable, guild war.  Where TM could be compared to a Special Forces Unit (a small, tight knit, highly skilled PvP unit), KGB would analogously be the Chinese army (a large army of medicore, but disciplined PvP’ers).  Even though outnumbered 5:1 in membership, TM defeated KGB on average of three out of every four engagements.  Numerous battles occurred every single day of the week, often ranging between 4-5 engagements a day, across the entire world.  What KGB lacked in individual skill (only 2-3 were competent PvP’ers), they made up with superior numbers, discipline, and war propaganda. TM would dominate the engagements for most of the day resorting to lightning quick attacks before KGB could rally and mobilize its entire guild.

KGB’s self proclaimed “victories” consisted of squatting on our “home turf” whenever they were able to field 25+ members or the rare occasion where we got arrogant after defeating multiple waves of KGB only to finally succumb to a much larger wave than previously thrown at us.   Without a blog of our own to document our “victories” (nor the foresight to recognize its importance), KGB’s use of their blog to screenshot their rare victories provided their player base with constant morale to make up for their habitual losses on the field of battle.  What also proved to be amusing was their “documentation” (screenshots) of kills of players (often random noobies) who weren’t even TM members.  KGB was thoroughly embarrassed after it was factually proven that these people killed weren’t even TM members.  In a move to save face, KGB deemed these people as “TM sympathizers.” To KGB’s further embarrassment, many of Pacific shard’s citizens pointed out that KGB’s claims to victory were unsubstantiated due to the heavy volume of conflicts between TM and KGB, but rare and infrequent proof of success on the battlefield.  A common cynical question from neutral observers was “How could KGB claim victory when such ‘victories’ consisted of merely one or two TM member’s deaths and were so infrequent for a conflict that saw 4-5 battles a day?” KGB’s propaganda continued to lose its effectiveness as their own members and neutral observers witnessed many recruitment drives to replenish their ranks due to their members that quit due to the costly war against TM.

What was interesting to note was the amount of espionage that was utilized between the two guilds.  Jetstar, KGB’s guild leader, often bragged about having spies within TM.  Little did KGB know that we turned one of their spies and fed false information to the other one we permitted to remain within our ranks.  It never dawned upon that their own spy was in actuality a double agent.  Our double agent would often “return” the house keys of fallen KGB members to their rightful owners, but only after having quickly made a copy for our guild.  By doing so, KGB members believed their homes to be secure and continued to utilize them in such a manner.  Such false confidence led to a never ending supply of resources that TM carefully exploited; By only taking a little at a time, these KGB home owners never suspected that their homes were compromised.  To this day, we’re still surprised that KGB never found it suspicious that their “spy” had a 100% success rate in returning house keys.

On October 28, 1998, after a 9 month long war, KGB conceded and undeclared war on TM bringing an end to one of the most significant conflicts on the Pacific server that saw engagements between the two guilds in every town, dungeon, and corner of the world.

Although TM declared war upon every single guild on the Pacific shard, PoA was the only guild left that reciprocated.  PoA, a Taiwanese guild, was a relative newcomer to Pacific but saw a quick rise to fame based upon their coordination, ruthlessness, and PvP skill.  Their coordination was unparalled due to their advantage of gaming together at a PC cafe located in Taiwan fitted with a T1 connection.  At this time, most guilds conversed through ICQ. While a few technically advanced others coordinated through IRC, their real time communication gave them a significant advantage in mobilizing and reinforcing their guild members engaged in battle.  Their PvP skill was second only to ours.  In order to combat their advantages, TM had to rely on its individual PvP skill and resort to lightning raids rather than prolonged static conflicts. PoA often attempted to hold our turf at Britain cemetery with little success.  Our attempts to hold PoA’s turf of Ocllo often resulted in a similar lack of success.

TM’s war with PoA saw an end to any gentlemens’ agreements that may have existed during past wars with other guilds.  Res killing, the killing of a newly resurrected player, was generally avoided but became a standard practice during the TM-PoA wars.  Mount slaying, also a normally abstained from activity, became as common a practice as looting another player.  Although TM was known for leaving pink dresses upon the corpses of our victims, PoA took it a step further by cutting up the bodies and rearranging them to spell out ‘colorful’ phrases.  One would think that such lack of battlefield manners would turn us off; on the contrary we found it extremely amusing and loved the one-upsmanship.  To this day, TM members believe it’s only fun and serious, when it becomes personal.  Although some TM members would claim otherwise (putting pride aside), TM never completely dominated PoA as it did to other guilds, usually only winning 2 out of 3 fights.  PoA forced us to continue to push the PvP skill envelope, something other guilds never managed.  To our disappointment, the TM-PoA war ended when PoA withdrew from the Pacific shard and moved to the newly released asian servers.

With no guilds left willing to war us and OSI implementing “carebear” gameplay changes (PK stat loss, Trammel, pre-cast nerf, EQ-like itemization, etc.), The Mafia decided it was time to move on from the world of Ultima Online.  To this day, no game has given us a bigger high as UO did.  Our older members continue to seek a MMO that can offer us the same enjoyment, adrenaline rush, and passion as UO once did.

A shout-out to the original TM members who played a significant role in our guild’s founding: Ranker, Golgo, Cereal Killa, Hellmonger, Bishop, Yaztromo, USAF, Newbie, Mr. Nice Guy, & Shadow Viper.

TM would also like to acknowledge some of the most notable guilds on Pacific. Some of you warred against us, some of you allied with us, but all of you helped shape Pacific during the true era of PvP. In no particular order: D&S, OPP, FL, KGB, CB, DF,and PoA.