My status in Facebook today:

Fighters Club is finally gone for good. Cheers to all the friendships made across continents and the lives it touched...I'm only gonna remember the good things and I'm so proud that the Blackheart Warriors were there until the very end. We did it guys! BHW4LIFE!4 hours ago

So finally the developers have pulled the plug from a game that is dying a slow painful death. For all the protests, the begging, the suggestions and complaints the players have made, it seems like a bit too much for the developers to fix. That game is Fighters Club.

Can't blame them though, for some of us, we've already given up. The game has taken up so much time and we do want to go back living a normal life that is not dictated by "Did that sonofabitch pick me on a frickin weekend? Fuckin no life nerds!" or "Stupid loaders, I woke up at 4am to jump and they loaded against us! WTF!!!". Stuff like that.

My husband introduced me to the game in 2007 if I'm not mistaken. Well pretty much weeks after I joined Facebook. I started out without a gang, playing for fun and getting picked on. I didn't have any money in the game. Then he asked me to join Ramly Gang, which was run by Chun Son and founded by Warren Klass. It was a little gang made up of friends from the advertising industry in Malaysia and Singapore, well mostly people in TVC production.

A week after joining I was made admin after winning fights (against my colleagues...hahaha!). And soon it became more and more serious as we started picking out the rich folks in F100 (the richest players in the game). We wanted to make our mark, so that a little gang that's made up for fun can kick ass.

We started rampaging, picking all the F100 rich gwailos who think they rule the game because they played it first. And we never cheated, just had a lot of dedicated jumpers becoming more and more addicted to the game. We became close to 2 other local gangs - Blackheart Warriors and VRS (V R Samseng). Eventually, the 3 respective gang leaders decided to get together and form a monster of an alliance - the Hearty Samseng Burgers.

This alliance is unlike any other at the time, we had gangs we were on ceasefire with and receive additional support from but officially it's only those 3 gangs that were together. We even put together all the gang members under one banner / one gangland - the HSB gang. We were fearless, badass and practically made the entire Sri Lanka feel like turning Tamil Tiger on us.

How could I forget my first big fight, against the F1 (richest player) at the time - Siddharth Patil. We waited until the payout was going to be 1 million, and decided to strike. A lot of people didn't want to pick Sid Patil as supporting him means money, but then again, fighting him = MORE fake money. Hahaha, so being the gungho burgers we were, we decided to pick him. I picked first, and the rest followed. He lost all the fights, deleted us and sent nasty messages to our inboxes about stealing his money. Ooops. Hehe.

Then towards the end HSB started to unravel when many active players left to live their lives and slowly it became political amongst the admins. For someone who spent sleepless nights jumping and supporting and gathering support, it was frustrating for me when others didn't jump. I know, it was only a game and I was too obsessed. The worst was when new Ramly admins started making separate threads that excluded a few of us. Well as usual when people talk privately they would sometimes talk about others, and my aggressiveness were discussed.

I found out about it and all hell broke loose. I left to be with my second home - the Blackhearts. I was already in the BHW group but not an official logo wearing member. Moodie invited me the first time, the most fearless high profile fighter BHW ever had. Anyway, BHW council like Amiri and Izad started bugging my husband and I to join the gang. They said they will make us Immortals and admins right away as we've been fighting alongside them from the very beginning.

So one day we said ok we'll make our hearts black, and we became Blackheart Warriors, and soon after the elite group of the BHW gang - Immortals. We were also elevated to admin positions and of course, continued our spams getting people to jump. We took on Mafia, a longtime BHW friend that backstabbed us (wanting to fight us and forming alliances with our biggest enemy the SLFA) and practically destroyed them that they had to create another gangland to fight back. FC Life was grand.

But things in real life started to unravel. I began to get into trouble at work, getting picked on, for not performing up to standards, absences and basically - not being good / senior enough. The last bit hurt, I never had any experience in that line of work, and no one really, to guide me. Anyway, soon after I was let go and the depression and the rejection I felt made me throw all my energy into Fighters Club.

Like any other obsession, it began to eat into my self esteem and into every other aspect of normal living I had. It was just like a several years back with another addiction. Only this time, you can't go to rehab to cure yourself. The obsession culminated with the appearance of a 3rd party in my marriage. This was the ultimate - it almost destroyed my husband and consequently, both of us had to retire from the game. This happened in July 2008.

Several months later, we decided to come back and play the game. Well it wasn't that anyone really asked us to. We were bored, and we really didn't have much to lose and our marriage was back to happy. When I quit the game at first, I gave away most of my fake cash. Oh yes, did I tell you I managed to become one of the F100s? I was somewhere in the top 15, can't remember what was my highest ranking. Well, I had 200 million plus. If only that was real money!

But when we came back, we were never really truly active like we once were, me and my hubby. There are times when we could go weeks at a time before opening Fc. I mean, our friend lists were safe, we don't get picked on. We did delete a lot of people because we wanted to live a little and not be enslaved to the game so much.

Recently, I was the only one truly active...even in the gang, I was probably the only admin still actively jumping and talking on fightwalls, sending out messages. So many seemed to have given up, didn't have time, couldn't be bothered or were busy tweeting. So one day, after a tense discussion someone brought up the subject of closing the BHW gang. I wanted to, but felt that we could not as once upon a time we had decided to keep the gang around until the death of the FC. We wanted to be the only Malaysian gang still keeping strong until the end. I mean, Ramly was dead, VRS is no longer run by Malaysians and their number of active participants were much smaller.

So it came as a big relief to some, and even myself I have to admit, that the game is finally being shut down. We're finally free!

The relief is bittersweet though. Many close friendships were forged through this game. In fact, some of those closest to me now I met through this game - and I'm not exactly fast friends with everyone. It's sad that something that turned out to be very meaningful had to end. But that's life.

And so we have to move on, reality awaits, but I do hope the friendships never end. That some of us who were already close do stay close, and those who aren't will keep in touch.

BHW4LIFE!