A Brief Look and History of Domination!

[Darth|UA|]

Hey guys, I was going through some old hard drives and came across a small number of demos that somehow survived these 15 years and contained an eclectic mix of matches when I was admin for teamplay.net . Sadly 95% of all my demos and screenshots have been lost to hard drive crashes and other things, but in there were some domination matches, and I wanted to show you all what organized Domination was like back in the day, plus give a little history. I know a lot of you have played sDOM and enjoyed the frantic pacing and strategy that comes with it, but I wanted you all to see what the original DOMINATION had to offer.

Don't know what Domination is? Let this Domination Strategy Guide help you better understand:



History:
Domination started on Clanbase as most things did with UT. The domination ladder was relatively small but still contained the three best clans to ever play Domination, BH, BHS, and AA (later to be reformed with its core members as UA). |BH| was a euro clan that held the top spot as best clan initially. Games were rather hard to play back then as most were still on 56k and USA vs. Euro matches were very tough on the pings. Most matches were decided on final score total, with the team playing on their home server mostly winning their maps. (servers would be rotated) BHS and AA would battle it out for second place, with BHS winning most of these early matchups.

Then came Provinggrounds.com and their Domination ladder. This is when Domination started to really take off. Around 30 clans at its peak, Provinggrounds was very kind to Domination. Dom even had 2v2 ladders and other experimental types. The kings of Provinggrounds were BHS, until a clan called United Assassinz was formed. This brought on one of the best clan rivalries of all time and it is still debated on who is the best DOM clan between the two. The ladder also had some of the best CTF and TDM clans that ever played UT.





The Height of DOMINATION's popularity though can be found during the teamplay.net DOMINATION DUNGEON tournaments. These tournaments brought out all the big guns. Clans like: MMSS, High Voltage, greeD, Supreme Mercenaries, Exodus, pure, z2, PSXcopy, Acid, Drunk Jedi, Radium, prophacy, DHI, overDose, Chosen Ones, sYndicate, and many many other top clans of all gametypes. The results of the tournaments were:

Domination Dungeon Tournament History:
DD1: Mighty Mighty Smiley Squad vs. Domination Squad
Game 1: (DOM-Cryptic) Mighty Mighty Smiley Squad wins 334 - 278
Game 2: (DOM-Olden) Domination Squad wins 302 - 295
Game 3: (DOM-Sesmar) Domination Squad wins 314 - 274

DD2: Exodus vs. Domination Squad
Domination Squad wins Tournament

DD3: PSXcopy vs. United Assassinz
Game 1: (DOM-Cryptic) United Assassinz wins 293-300
Game 2: (DOM-Cinder) United Assassinz wins 234-300

Domination Squad was a subset of the clan Barons of Hell Squad -[BHS]- and was actually considered their B team. BHS can also be considered one of the 2 best Domination clans in the history of Domination. |UA| was not formed yet in DD1 and was still going as -=AA=-, which would disband after the loss in DD1. |UA| formed around the beginning of DD2 and lost in the semi-finals to runner up PSX. UA got their revenge in DD3 while also showing their rise to dominance over the rest of the other Domination clans.

After these tournaments, the release of UT2003 was getting closer, and competition started to dry up, but Domination definitely left its mark on UT. A lot of you were not around then, so now I want to show some of the matches and let you see how Domination was played at a high level. I hope you enjoy these and see how frantic, fast paced, strategic and how vastly underrated DOMINATION was as a mod.

Without further ado, lets look at some matches:

First off is a Domination Dungeon match (3rd person)

PSXcopy vs. Domination Squad
DOM-Sesmar



Players featured:
{PSX} - Barrel, Prodani12, kidsins, Hammer
|DS| - Wimbet, Mrukk, Rhadamus, Slice'N'Dice

Next up is a Provinggrounds.com Ladder match between one of the best CTF clans ever vs. one of, if not the best, DOM clans ever:

High Voltage vs. United Assassinz (3rd person)
DOM-Cryptic



DOM-Cinder



Players featured:
|HV - Khyron, Xero, Xavier, Silence, Cheers
|UA| - Darth, Domino, DankTank, Maniac, Advocate

Here is a writeup of the match done by Proving Grounds that details how the match went down:


Proving Grounds Ladder Match

Zenkai vs. United Assassinz
DOM-Malevolence



Players Featured:
Zenkai - Inrealm, Leedo, Moose, Clyde, Kash
United Assassinz- Darth, Domino, Abooey, ThrobbinHood, Maniac

Write-up of the Match:

Another Domination Dungeon Match

Acid vs. United Assassinz (first person)
DOM-MetalDream



Featured Players:
Acid: AuTEC, ROIDRAGE, Diabolic, Prometheus, Inferno
United Assassinz: Darth, Domino, Abooey, ThrobbinHood, Maniac

Domination Dungeon
prophecY -pY- vs. PSXcopy {PSX}
DOM-CiDom



Featured Players
prophecY: Slyntz, Merc, Optimus, Durron
PSXCopy: Prodani, Hammer, Barrel, wildchild

Provinggrounds Ladder Match

Black Dawn vs. United Assassinz (First person)
DOM-Cryptic



DOM-Lament (First person)



Featured Players:
Black Dawn: Mr. D, Cain, Zen, d-MAC, Fire
United Assassinz: Darth, Domino, Danktank, Abooey, Maniac

Lastly: A Proving grounds Domination Match and last match of |UA|

Suicidal Warriors vs. United Assassinz
DOM-Olden



Featured Players:
Suicidal Warriors: Cain, Elyk, Turbo, Santa, Elsof
United Assassinz: Darth, Domino, Nimbus, Abooey, Damasta



BONUS
Here are some bonus screenshots that I found showing some other top clans participating in DOM

PSXcopy vs. United Assassinz DOMINATION DUNGEON 3 Finals:




DHI vs. UA Domination Dungeon 3



z2 vs. UA Provinggrounds Ladder




|UA| vs. |SC|



You can find more DOM related images from matches of past at:

CONCLUSION
Hopefully you all enjoyed this look back in UT history and came away with a greater appreciation of DOMINATION as a gametype. It really was vastly underrated and when played at the highest level can be more intense than any other game type I have ever played. Lastly, if you still want to read up some more on this, I have found some archived threads in various places and will link here.

Proving Ground Forums:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020124104 ... ounds.com/

ALL Proving Grounds Aftermath Writeups:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020124104 ... ction=list

ALL ProvingGrounds Spotlight On:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020124104 ... chived.cfm

DOMINATION STRATEGIES BY RHAKKA:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020124104 ... hakka1.cfm

Teamplay site:

http://web.archive.org/web/200104152133 ... ?e=3333702

DD2 Prediction Thread:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... topic=4909

AA Remenise post:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... topic=3659

BEST DOM CLAN EVER post:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... topic=4501

Drunken Monkey's Website:

http://web.archive.org/web/200204191729 ... enmonkeys/

TOP 10 moments in UA history:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... opic=18531

DD3 Prediction thread:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... opic=11380

DD3 WIN Thread:

http://web.archive.org/web/200201241047 ... opic=11706

Thank you all for your time.

[Xenoscythe]

Great read thanks for your post! I was a big fan of iDOM and am an even bigger fan of sDOM, have you tried the mod? If not I fully recommend joining us for our next sDOM season!

[Darth|UA|]

I have played sDOM but haven't played iDOM. Aim is not my strong suite and when I play I greatly miss the trans, but the fun of Domination is definitely there. I will be participating in the next season.

[kevinsan1ty]

Some names I haven't seen in years. Great post, Darth.

[KillEmAll]

Nice job Darth.

[Morpheus]

cool

[GaboChoOx]

Yooo darth. DOM <3. Nice post man , now i have something to read and some vids to see .

[whitechocakagod]

-Greatest mod of all time (RIP dom, I miss you)
-Darth always got carried by Domino, though Darth was actually really good at DOM
-I was in {KS} :[ and NERV
-I would easily win a domination weapons tournament
-I miss translocator when we play sDOM. It was such a huge part of domination.
-I was the most powerful 26.4k dom player

Thanks for the vids and stuff though man, good flashbacks.

[Darth|UA|]

Haha thanks Gabo. Glad you enjoyed it

White:
You were also in -=AA=- but ill leave that story out :p

Domino was the best Domination player bar none. He carried most all players. Best NA Dom players were: Domino, Darth, Mrukk, Firewall, Wimbet

A trans in SDOM would definitely make it interesting as people don't realize how crucial the trans was to Domination. (hell when i came back after being away 10 years, people were trying to say DOM pugs should be played with no trans at all. I realized I was not around people that knew what they were talking about.) The strategies with it were innumerable.

Lastly, you would definitely win a Domination tournament today white.... if you were on my team. Otherwise, I'm not liking your chances Now get your ass in #UTpugs for some domination pugs. We have one once in a blue moon.

http://deathstar.site.nfoservers.com/UT ... ch&mid=123
http://deathstar.site.nfoservers.com/UT ... ch&mid=122

[HULKSMASH]

this a lot.

So I featured it on the Facebooks.