The Story of Chaotic United

The First Era - Original Chaotic United
 

Chaotic United started off as two things. Chaotic United itself hosted World of Warcraft and Runescape servers. The more known part of CU was Killerteddy's work, known as Fatality Minecraft. Eventually these two entities merged under the Chaotic United name. At the time, Minecraft was exploding with popularity. Chaotic United's MC server was in a perfect place to skyrocket into history. This server became exceedingly popular and almost entirely ruined the Chaotic United WoW and RS servers.

Late 2013, Chaotic United was on its way to its grave. Killerteddy was found to be abusing the donation money for drugs and shoes and not leaving any funds for Chaotic United to operate. As such, the CU administration had to pick up fees for months. Eventually, they were denied reimbursement for their payments. This is when the staff of Chaotic United decided it was time to walk away and start fresh. This is how Nuclear District was founded. Shortly afterward, Chaotic United was dead.

The Second Era - The Revival of Chaotic United
 

But in reality, it was just dormant. Waiting for two people to come along and bring it back to its former glory. These people were Alycat and Haloman30. Haloman30 started work on a server in early 2014, about the same time Nuclear District was at work. He founded Chaotic District, traces of which are still seen in the Chaotic United MC server today. Fall of 2014 was when things started to get somewhere. Haloman30 rebranded his silent and unknown server as Chaotic United purely to feel it again. Much more was felt beyond just nostalgia. A burning desire was ignited on that day, and September 20th, 2014, Haloman30 purchased the domain name 'chaoticunited.net' which would become the new home for CU.

At first, the old ND staff ignored this operation. They did not approve of it but did not believe it would gain any traction behind it. When 2015 came, the big focus was preservation, to ensure that nobody could take Chaotic United away. This was accomplished with a nice trademark. Later in 2015, talks between Chaotic United and Nuclear District staff about merging the two communities came into play. At first, both sides were hesitant about merging, but both thought it to be the best for the communities, to unite the two names into a joint operation. After settling on various issues, the two ran off of a single forums, the playerbases were united and CU and ND were now one.

In 2016, Nuclear District shut its doors. The ND team was tired. Many of them came from the old Chaotic United. They had been here for many years and were starting to move on with their lives. Many lost interest as time went on, others didn't have time. Some fit both categories. Eventually, the ND forums closed down for good. All topics from the ND forums were merged into the CU forums. The Nuclear District forums license, its graphics assets, social media accounts, and ownership rights were transferred to haloman30. He would carry the torch forward, within CU. He still had plenty of drive and wasn't done with CU just yet.

The following year, 2017, was full of drama. A merge was considered with a community called WindFrontier. The prior year had seen a lot of emptiness within the community. There was a severe lack of traffic and activity among CU. The merge would offer a boost to the community and, in theory, would jump-start the community for future growth. Unfortunately, that isn't what happened. What happened instead was a botched merge. People were already annoyed with Alycat. People were annoyed with Aly's childish mentality and attitudes for a long time. But that in itself was merely a minor annoyance. What set the flames ablaze was when the WF merge was botched. The entire blame was shifted to Aly - despite several others, including haloman30 himself - also having a hand in making this into such an ordeal. This blame caused anger and pitchforks to be risen up and people demanded Aly be removed from the place of Owner. Halo, reluctantly, agreed.

Agreeing to that may had worked at first. Populations were higher than ever since 2014. The promises were being fulfilled and the dream seemed to be coming true. But something was missing. Alycat. Aly never did the most work or had the most involvement, but regardless, was there since the early CU days. Aly had a huge part in getting the revival off the ground by bringing in people such as Collin, AwakenedRage, and GeneralKnapp. Knapp had bought an IP.Board license. Collin and Michael were managers for a while, and Michael continued to be one. Knapp may not had been around anymore, but because of being on IP.Board they had a level of professionalism and flexibility not easily found with other forums. Was it possible to do so with free alternatives? Of course. But not only that, IP.Board was what old CU was built on.

Back and forth several times, Halo brought Aly back and kicked Aly out time and time again. Eventually, Halo had a revelation.

The CU revival shouldn't be explicitly about getting players no matter the cost. This was not a business set to make profit. This was a fun hobby started with the sole intent of making Chaotic United into a recognizable and popular gaming community once again, to reclaim the lost glory. And alas, it had fallen from grace. While Aly could grind people's gears undeniably, that wasn't really the point, was it? Halo had sold out. Not for profit, not for cash. But for 20 people. Aly, a key figure in bringing CU back from the ashes, was shoved aside and outright kicked off of CU for no other purpose than to get a quick batch of players. If CU was about profit, and was what all of those in the pre-merge ND days claimed it to be, this would make sense. But it wasn't true. As time went on, Halo felt his love for the project dwindling away, and he felt that perhaps the time had come to close CU's doors.

This mess had to be fixed. The madness had to stop.

Chaotic United had been split into several groups. The Blizzard Project had re-activated as a result of the events, as well as Blizz's own demotion. Aly had created Chaotic Reborn, and someone who once wanted to join the CU team had given up and moved to create Chaotic Phoenix (now known as Phoenix Empire). The community, despite being tiny, had managed to fracture into numerous shards of its former self.

Halo started the day with more feelings of deep regret. He continued to keep lines open with his friend despite everyone screaming at him to cut Aly off for good. He couldn't. Aly's life was falling to shambles and Halo still considered Aly a friend. At this time, the feeling was not mutual. At first Halo wrote it off as Aly being demanding and immature for not agreeing with a business decision. The truth was, Chaotic United was not a business. This was a fun hobby project for the fun of it. Talking with Aly gave him the confidence one last time to discuss with Michael and attempt to make amends. Wind caught ear of the development and quit CU.

Michael was ready to pack up and leave, and say goodbye to Halo for good. Halo at first said he wouldn't bring Aly back. But then, the perfect opportunity to fix everything as best as possible and keep from losing future staff members stared him in the eye. Elaztek Studios. All CU staff would be granted ranks on Elaztek, those that couldn't stand Aly would be instructed to join Elaztek and would retain their role. Aly returned to Chaotic United. Chaotic Reborn merged once and for all back into its home. The Blizzard Project eventually was merged unofficially with Chaotic United as it eventually ceased operation. Chaotic Phoenix was rebranded as Phoenix Empire, and since then has been silent. WindFrontier broke off and went independent for good - as things were best.

The Third Era - Post-Elaztek Studios
 

Chaotic United suffered a lot during the Spring. Nearly all of its community had abandoned it due to the endless drama. Several staff had left either to WindFrontier or to Elaztek Studios. Some remained, to watch the place burn to the ground.

But it never burned.

Many of those who had left CU returned to their roles. Those who had stuck around to watch it burn down changed their attitudes and realized it wasn't about to go anywhere. Halo felt his drive and undying love for CU return.

Whether you side with WindFrontier or Chaotic United on the matter, it doesn't matter anymore. CU and WF will never mingle again. Chaotic United was damaged by the merge. Whether by the foolish decisions of Halo to bring Aly back time after time, or by merging with WindFrontier in the first place, is your decision to make. But what is fact is that CU was close to its end with these events. At the last minute, the direction was shifted to buy CU some time, and in that time the steps were taken to ensure that we had all the time in the world.

CU is now rebuilding the foundation and cleaning up the broken pieces. Chaotic United will relaunch its Minecraft server for 1.12 and will bring with it a level of stability never seen before, and this time around will be fully baked before being served up for the player's enjoyment. Halo and Wind eventually made peace and continue forward as friends, not enemies. That's not what CU is about. Our mission at Chaotic United has always been to be the good guy. To put the player first, to put you before a dollar. Elaztek Studios carries these same ideals and continues on its own path. In the future, CU and Elaztek may work together on projects, they may not. Only time will tell. One thing is certain, however.

We have learned from our errors. We have finally defined what it is exactly we are all about. Since 2014, the vision for CU was never truly clear, there was no true mission statement, no clear objective. We must never forget the events of 2017. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And CU may not be able to survive another event like this. It has created principles and ideals that are not just kept mentally, but are now binding guidelines for the future of Chaotic United. First and foremost, this is a community centered around building something fun. Even if only a few people enjoy it, it's better to build something you can be proud of that is loved by few, than to build something that feels like a prison that is loved by many.

2018 holds numerous potential for Chaotic United. Halo will soon graduate High School, and will be able to at last get a job and have a lot more money on hand - money to help build Elaztek Studios and to push CU further than it's ever been before. Investments with CU aren't made with the idea of getting it back later. Each step we take is to build something we love, and to hopefully bring back the former glory of the old Chaotic United.

This old train may have come close to stopping, but we never did - and we never will. We aren't done yet, and we have quite a distance to go yet.

And we hope you can join us for the ride.