Our Units Lineage

Our Corps History

Chapter One
The Foundation
15 MAR 10

The Third Battalion, Third Marines was founded on March 15th, 2010 under Cpl. Adam Switz with the opening of it's first company, India Company. Starting his first unit in a little known and dead mod called WW1 Source (Alpha) was a very rare decision and strange amongst the realism community Cpl. A.. Switz served for in Day of Defeat Source. His goal was simple, to start something new, real and with fresh minds.

Chapter Two
The Start Of Something Great
20 MAR 10

The unit started taking its first steps during this short but hectic timeframe. Though the unit was created well in advance before it actually opened, a lot of what you see today was not yet in place. But, with the help of some players interested in a more realistic realism experience and a few players who found WW1 Source the unit was able to enlist five players for its first recruit training class 1001. The class graduated two new Marines Pvt. Marsh and Pfc. Hansen.

Chapter Three
Growing Rapidly
16 MAY 10

By the unit's next training class in which eight where enlisted for things where looking up for the unit even if it seemed the only players in WW1 Source where now wearing 3rd MAR tags. But that did not stop the unit from providing a fun server and small custom made maps to attract the few players who bored easily of the large maps WW1 Source Developers created for no fans. Of this class four would become Marines.

Chapter Four
The Hand That Feeds You
01 JUL 10

By now players where starting to stay in WW1 Source and servers where starting to show traces of high activity spikes during events lead by the 3rd Marines. Soon other groups would emerge in WW1 Source as they saw realism as being a fun thing to do. We openly helped these new units by supplying them with our server script that enabled "Realism" matches in servers. While at the same time taking our first unit's large scale initiative to increase our level of realism in how we operate and run our unit by creating a tougher and more realistic Recruit Training Program and live fire exercises. We quickly earned our fame as being the hardest unit to get into which would last for the rest of our unit's establishment. However, with the new appeal of the other unit's that had emerged who offered a much easier recruitment process, the 3rd Marines saw a drastic decline in training platoon sizes and quality. Discouraged many Marines left the unit to seek new games. The few who stayed became the anchors for what the unit would become in later months.

Chapter Five
Unit Liberty
14 OCT 10

As it became harder to compete for the small number of players in WW1 Source with other units who where much larger than us due to their open door recruiting policies every Marine felt the desire to change where we belonged. Cpl. A. Switz issued liberty to every Marine to follow him into Red Orchestra which was voted on by the Marines as a possible game to move into. However, it was quickly apparent at that time that the unit mixed with its size and activity level would soon go into another long stall which would had possibly meant a heartbreaking disbandment.

Chapter Six
WW1 Source in Turmoil
05 NOV 10

Reports where coming in from our old war front that WW1 Source was in trouble. The increase of players in WW1 Source also caught the eyes of its old developers who abandoned it months prior. They decided to get back to work on it as it seems its not a dead mod after all. The unit met to discuss if the unit should go back to WW1 Source and see what the developers could bring with a new update. Before the final decision was made on this matter the WW1 Developers hired a new coder with high experience onto their staff. However, this person turned out to be much more of a problem than he was worth when he issued a statement declaring that Realism match play was to be removed from WW1 Source because he was getting complaints of bad administration of them from the unit's in WW1 Source. With their premier game in turmoil, the 3rd Marines renewed their energy in proving that realism was in fact the only thing keeping WW1 Source alive and if ran correctly can be a great addition to match play options. A month long feud ensued as this developer displayed incomprehensible acts of immaturity, sabotaging, lying and disrespecting. It ended when he finally played a realism on the 3rd Marine's server and quoted that he was wrong and that if all units ran their realism's like our unit did he could not see why any complaints would ever reach him about realism again.

Chapter Seven
Uneasy Ally
01JAN11

This new developer and the 3rd Marine's became uneasy friends as work continued on a crucial update for WW1 Source and the future of Realism in it. The Third Marines where in great position after proving our strength in getting realism returned to the players and where considered by many the premier organization of WW1 Source and players began relying on us heavily again much like in the beginning to offer them realism's and public events. Recruitment soared again even with our tough requirements and our rosters began to grow once more.

Chapter Eight
The Unsettling of WW1 Source
02 APR 11

At the height of our unit's success in WW1 Source the news we had all feared may happen happened. Our uneasy ally the developer was still a target for many WW1 Source players who he had personally disrespected and made outrages statements to only a few months prior and they continued to make their hatred of him known. The developer became more disgruntled and began relying on the 3rd Marine's to help him regain his image. But the damage was too severe in what he caused to the community and it would eventually lead him to sabotage the crucial update WW1 Source needed and took all of the better developers from the team to start a new mod.

Chapter Nine
Demise of Our Maiden Game
16 MAY 11

As the full knowledge and extent of damage and humiliation this old developer caused to WW1 Source the few remaining developers made a tough but valiant statement saying work on the update will end and gave a detailed explanation of the events around its sabotaging. As with one crack of the whip, every modder, level designer, mod fan, player and community guru rose up in defense of WW1 Source's demise and ousted the old developer who sabotaged it out of the gaming industry for it seemed he had done this with four previous mods he worked on. As great of news this was to our unit, we still did not have a game to play in. All of the players the unit worked so hard to bring into WW1 Source rapidly left as news of WW1 Sources demise spread. It was not long until the 3rd Marines where once again the only group in WW1 Source, which again had no players.

Chapter Ten
A King's Farewell
11 JUN 11

After much deliberation and tough choices, the unit decided it was best to pursue other games for the best of our interest. After announcing for a entire week to our large following of old WW1 Source players WW1 Source was able to end in an amazing five hour long realism in our completely filled server. The day was relaxed with music playing, laughing and no talk about our bitterness of our beloved game being destroyed. At the end of the final realism in WW1 Source the unit officially honored its remaining developers with our 21 gun salute and the Legion of Merit for their contributions and open communications they had with our unit regarding the issues surrounding the sabotaging of their mod. At 2000 EST, the last of our Marines departed the WW1 Source server for the last time.

Chapter Eleven
A New Hope
12 JUN 11

It became clear after yesterday that mods are where this unit belongs. With our unit's fame and professionalism, regular mod players cling to our unit and rely on it to get them the enjoyment they need. And it came to no surprise that we voted unanimously to go into another new mod set to release that week called Ham and Jam.

Chapter Twelve
The Long Wait
05 JUL 11

Now close to a month after we thought Ham and Jam was supposed to be released the unit is still left without a game. Naturally recruitment has stalled. However, the unit decided to make good use of this increase of free time to work on a massive overhaul of our units structure to prepare as best it can for the arriving masses Ham and Jam will surely bring in its first few weeks after launching.

Chapter Thirteen
Back To Action
01 OCT 11

With Ham ad Jam taking further delays, the 3rd Marines set to embark on a route that no one predicted, a return to the now completly dead WW1 Source to try and revive her again. In order to be successful, the Marines launched a massive prize challenge giveaway in hopes to lure some old WW1 Source vets from our Public Steam Group back into WW1 Source. Amped up with a new 64 slot server for the event and weeks of planning and advertising, we opened our doors on October 11th yet again to a familar game with tremendous and unexpected sucess. During the come back event we had over 50 players in the server at one point and went on to recruit the largest Recruit Training Class, Platoon 3006 with 37 recruits. This put the Marines in great shape for now clans where also coming back to WW1 Source after seeing our success.

The New Beggining
07 JAN 12

With the largest recruit training class on record in WW1 Source and for our unit, the unit set out to ambitiously give our recruits yet another unique experience by hosting the class on our newest Parris Island training map. Energy and morale for the unit as a whole had never been higher and the unit was able to add nine new Marines by the end of their training to completly fill our first squad and be able to compete for players in the still small WW1 Source community. In addition the unit finally was able to begin its methods of leadership as directed by its now updated SOP structure which enables each Marine in leadership positions sole authority over his men under his charge which has resulted in micro-managing at the smallest levels and kept Marines from being overworkded and the feeling of not belonging.

Chapter Thirteen
Let The Good Times Roll
01 FEB 12

The descision to return to WW1 Source was perhaps the best move the unit has ever made. With its focus on community relations by investing time and money into organizing never seen before large scale prize giveaway events, the Marines have created the "what's next" atmosphere in the community that has players returning and coming in droves. In addition recruiting is at all time highs months in advance to when our next Boot Camp is scheduled to begin. WW1 Source has been revived and the 3rd Marines are proudly leading the way once again.

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