And thanks Aaron... I was really surprised that this thread took that turn. I thought I was pretty clear about my intentions before I got around to the question asking part of this post.

my bad corndog. I apologize for coming off bitchy. i was totally wrong about you. it seemed as if you were on a high horse about never campaigning, but if it was solely directed to ff, i understand now where you are coming from. so you don't think it's wrong for groups to fundraise for a few seasons in order to become more competitive? it's almost necessary now for new groups to do so if they want to make d1 finals. i've sacrificed a few competitive seasons to focus on ranking up my staff, and it was difficult to watch my groups suffer for those few seasons as my rivals passed us up. however, it seems to have worked out well in the long run. and i never thought it was unfair to do it.

i really wasn't trying to stir up a major debate. the dude comment really ticked me off lol

I won't speak directly for corndogshuffle, though I'm pretty sure after all these years of playing together, I know the answer. Does anyone consider normal campaigning for some seasons to get a leg up cheating or more to the point unethical? I truly don't think so. I've known some great players of the game who have done so with mixed successes. It truly is another way to attack or play the game which is how FF has claimed his play style has been and that's where I think a large majority see a huge character flaw. It took the fun out of the game, not the witch hunt and I'm sorry anyone feels that the witch hunt has been worse than the act by this person, but I don't see it. A large majority of us including many league leaders are fighting this precisely TO get the fun back, to get OUR collective game back from the groups and person who hijacked it. This person didn't just play "differently"...I also have had multiple accounts, really not heard too many complaints about that but it's because they worked very independent of each other and not in any way that truly benefited the other. Often they actually got in each others way to be honest lol

On the subject of my opinion if it helps, I think in moderation seasons of campaigns help. I just always remind people when you are ready to make that push, the somewhat laid back approach you had while campaigning isn't going to come close to cutting it. Your going to need to shut all campaigns off and be out there pushing your group every 5 hours. I came close last season and I only fell short because of a handful of hours that something came up or I missed practicing because of a work focus. Just don't think in the end that any one philosophy is the end all. Even how i practiced evolved of the years. I had a very balanced season long policy for a long time. It won me many championships. Until someone used a better process and season after season my huge lead would quickly deplete at the end. So I figured out, how do they do that, let's try this and sure enough it worked. That's the true, different ways to play the game. That person beating me season after season had all the integrity in the world. I didn't go on a witch hunt for them. I figured out how to beat him. That's a huge difference from how I got beat by FF.

How do you maintain rehearsals at night? The amount I sleep on a normal non-school night doesn't allow me to be on every 5 hours, so I always have to fundraise at night.

I think the most offensive thing in this thread is the "take a midol sweetie". Woah, that would have set me off. Wow.

I can't wait to get back to the time were the forums aren't so mean. It's almost to the point where I wouldn't be here, if it wasn't for my leagues, because of all the drama. I think everyone needs to just chill and play the game. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all...just like momma always said.

lol it's not a big deal MrsRomo. If I didn't know him it would have been offensive, and I was being bitchy. all this drama about ethics has gotten old .. people need to just play their games and stop telling others how to play theirs. if you dont like it remember it's just a game.. dude lol

I wasn't trying to be mean. I was trying to be funny. She knows it, though. I guess, if you don't know my personality, it will come off offensively. I'm sure I'll get smacked for it at the Alton High Marching 100 Alumni show.

totally and dont let him fool you hes a jerk in real life too lol j/k hes alright

i thought it was funny. some people are too sensitive lighten up and stop taking offense to every little comment. its like uptight central on here

As for night rehearsal, I guess I'm lucky I'm old lol old men approaching and over 40 start needing to pee once or twice a night lol so become an old man, problem solved! LOL if that doesn't work I guess I would put fundraising on but at the minimum that will get you through the night and practice right before you go to bed and immediately when you get up.

Thanks for the advice!

My turn.

What season did you join?
I joined in season 19.
I had returned from a night observing some stars, to get back into the groove of looking at those shiny dots when school got back on, when my roommate was on this (FMA), I was like, dude, is that like fantasy marching band? and he showed me, and I saw some crazy names, and I thought, I could do this, so I did. and boom.

How many seasons have you spent campaigning for influence and/or money?
I dunno, I know I did spend some time having my influence or money at 15 energy while rehearsing.

Do you host shows?
Oh yeah! Mars Mania for my Corps
Beatin' the Heat/Race around the Sun for my Drumline
The Ring Toss for my guard (Saturn Spinners)
and the Rocky Road Rager for my Marching Band (Asteroid Belt Band/Jupiter's Big Band) [not jupiter is big band]

How many groups have you created over your time on FMA? Or, do you have B accounts?
*Turns out I did have a B account, I looked at my history, turns out I made a Dragon Based Account, it's non competitive now, Flamdragonslay3r. Back in the CDLC days.
I thought about making one based on the Zodiac, calling it Solaris465
with the groups.
The Karkata Drum and Bugle Corps (Karkata is the Sanskrit name for Cancer)
The Capricorn Marching Sea-Goats (Marching Band)
Virgo's Twirling Maidens
The Gemini Twin-Cities Drumline or The Libra Scale Players for the drumline, who knows I might change the names of my current group to those... or not... (I might get one of my roomies/friends to change their names)

However the name change from Asteroid Belt to Jupiter was somethiing I felt was for the better. The description read (Gonna hit up earth in a few million years) and now (we hit up Jupiter instead) i think, I'll change it to this if it isn't this.

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Finals appearance?
SATURN SPINNERS!!! made D1 finals for season 42 with our show "Rings of the Mandarin" when I did essentially superhero themes.

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI top six finish?
Alrght Ima sub this for a DII/DIII alright so, for DIII, Marching MArtians finished in 5th in season 20 with our show "Space-peanut butter and-JAM!"
DIII, season 20, Mercury's Metronome got third place with our show "Speedsters". Saturn Spinners also got a DIII bronze in season 20 with their show "Round and Round"
Season 20, strangely enough, I got 6th in D2 Marching Band, yeah... well, it's happened a lot, when some of my groups were in one division and another in another divison, which I thought was cool.

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Medal? (copy/pasted from previous question)
Again for DIII, season 20, Mercury's Metronome got third place with our show "Speedsters". Saturn Spinners also got a DIII bronze in season 20 with their show "Round and Round"

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Championship?
I earned my DII championship with the MArching Martians in season 31. After being off and on between this and school and space and stuff... so, 12 seasons, however, I felt it could've been sooner, but, oh well.

For the last four you can sub in DII or DIII if you're a newer player who would like to participate. (I totally did)

If you can think of any interesting questions tidbits that don't apply to these questions feel free to include those, this is more to satisfy my curiosity than anything else. Thanks!

Alright, so, I might not be coming back for a while, I'm doing some heavy upper div Astronomy (Calculus Based), so, I'm hitting books, buttons, and looking into more pictures of dots and measuring and all this other math and space related stuff.

Somehow it duplicated the post.

And I liked the names I was going to use for a potential b account that I was never going to make, that I decided to name them for my A account. For a while anyways.

Nice name changes and very cool information, Solaris. Hopefully soon you'll be back to compete again.

I actually remember that night! Ghost of the Philharmonic (one of the crazy names). The show my group did in s.19. Calculus Based Astronomy sounds fun.

Yeah. I hope to come back for good at somepoint. Hopefully after I graduate or something. And yes calculus is fun, especially if you have a roommate whose done calculus since highschool, you know the one. I'm thinking that my first show will be called "Spectre of the New World Symphony"

*** What season did you join?

Technically I joined in season 18. A friend of mine at the time, with whom I was in a colorguard, introduced the game to me. You might recognize his screen name on here, AaronTibbsVallero. However, season 18 turned out to be a bit of a disaster, and I took a very long break until season 36. My curiosity brought me back to the game, and I've been here since.


*** How many seasons have you spent campaigning for influence and/or money?

I never have campaigned for influence, but I have spent roughly 4 seasons fundraising and rehearsing at the same time. Most of the fundraising occurred because I wanted to quickly rank up my staff and be more competitive in D1, but some of it occurred because of lack of time to rehearse regularly and actually be a contender. Therefore, I did what I could to, at least, continue developing during the downtime.


***Do you host shows?

Absolutely I host shows. In season 18, I was totally clueless. In season 36, I made the rookie mistake of spending all my cash on staff upgrades. Therefore, I didn't host my first show until season 37.


***How many groups have you created over your time on FMA? Or, do you have B accounts?

I have 4 groups and no b accounts.


***After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Finals appearance?

Well, the crappy thing about my drum corps, Dark Knights, is that we've never made D1 finals. The closest we've come is 14th in season 45. For some reason, Dark Knights went from winning the D3 championship in 36 to competing in D1 since season 37. Dark Knights have never competed in D2. However, I have a feeling that we'll finally make D1 finals this season, but to answer the question, it took 1 season for my drum corps to make finals in D3.

On the other hand, my marching band, Marching Elite, finished 2nd in season 36 at the D3 finals, which was their first season of competition. In season 37, Marching Elite placed 10th in D2 and came back to win the D2 championship in season 38. After all of that, it took 7 seasons to finally make D1 finals, placing 11th in season 45.

To make a long story short, my drumline won the D3 silver medal in their first season, season 36.They finished 10th and 7th in D2 the following 2 seasons. It took 7 seasons to finally become D1 finalists, placing 9th last season.

My most successful group is Dark Knights Guard. They won the D3 championship in season 36, which was their first season. In seasons 37 and 38, they placed 9th and 7th. In season 39, they made division 1 finals, which was really surprising. In season 44, they placed 12th in D1, and in season 45, they placed 9th in D1.


***After how many seasons did you earn your first DI top six finish?

We haven't been among the top 6 in division 1, but I hope, that will change this season. It took one season to place in the top 6 in division 3 and two seasons to place in the top 6 in division 2.


***After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Medal?

Unfortunately, we haven't earned a medal in D1, but it took one season to earn medals in D3 and two seasons to earn a medal in D2.


***After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Championship?

I don't count season 18, because it was during a time when you could buy a championship. I've stated this several times. I am not proud of season 18. We went overboard with the purchasing of credits to boost our energy in order to make a huge splash our first season. I never expected for Dark Knights to win the d3 gold by 14 points over 2nd place. I was ashamed of it, and because of it, I quit for a while.

However, Dark Knights came back in season 36 and won the d3 championship without purchasing anything. I was glad that I could come back and prove that I could win fairly. Dark Knights Guard also won the season 36 D3 championship.Thus, I count that as one season to win two D3 championships. It took 2 seasons to win our only D2 championship, thanks to the hard work of Marching Elite.

What season did you join? Season 1 Version 1. I played version 1 until it was terminated. I spent every season building up to be a dominate player and right as I arrived at that point the game was shut down. I did win the Championship in the last season but most players had already abandoned the game for the new version. I also started this game "version 2" in season 1 and played for 2 seasons but I was pretty mad about the game changing right as I was about to dominate so I ended up quitting for a long time after 2 seasons on the new game. I returned to the game in season 20 but there was only a week and a half left of that season. I guess I should have waited until the start of season 21.

How many seasons have you spent campaigning for influence and/or money? I campaigned on max campaign for my first 9 seasons. 90% of the time it was fundraising. However, I spent the rest of my energy in rehearsal. I never "gave up" on a season that I was campaigning. It was hard watching my group slip down the board, but in my mind I would rather slip from 10th to 20th than fall from 10th to 40th over the course of the season.

Do you host shows? Always from season 1. Except when I returned with one week left in season 20.

How many groups have you created over your time on FMA? Or, do you have B accounts? One group in both versions. Drum Corps only on this version. I don't care about the other stuff. Plus, I just don't feel like bothering to rehearse more than one group. No B accounts.

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Finals appearance? 11th season

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI top six finish? 11th season

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Medal? 11th season

After how many seasons did you earn your first DI Championship? 11th season. I won D1 in my first season out of D2. Pretty sure I'm the only to do that. Unfortunately it was at your expense Corndog! I'll never wish away one of my championships but I do wish that you had won one.

It is interesting that Campaigning is a specific option in FMA ... Yet, actually building up Staff or Influence by Campaigning is considered bad form by some players. Good luck with your rehearsing.

Harvesting and campaigning is two different things. Move on.