AFLUBADUBDUB!

(Reader Note: Because Chubbles is a part of this clan history, he will refer to himself in the third person, so as to avoid confusion.)

 

The story begins in medias res, as cracks were beginning to show in the armor of the storied clan, Alliance From Hell. AFH’s co-leaders were Quato (#8870) and Jimbowong, and they had chafed under each other’s rule. Jimbo believed many of Quato’s decisions as clan leader were self-motivated, and considered leaving the clan for some time. Early in September of 2004, Jimbowong and Chubbles began talking about clans in channel /trade, and Jimbo invited him into Alliance From Hell. Almost immediately, Quato booted Chubbles from the clan. Upset that his decisions were being second-guessed, Jimbo left AFH, and shortly thereafter set up a new clan, which he christened “Aflubadubdub!”.

Though it basically began as a solo outfit to bring Jimbo 3 extra turns a day, he gradually began adding new members, including many former AFH members who were similarly disenchanted with the clan. Many one-man clans on the leaderboards were also absorbed into the clan, after being approached by Jimbowong. When AFH imploded, Aflubadubdub’s membership skyrocketed; Quato and Bimbel themselves even stayed for a night. In a short time, the clan had grown to a size and stature on par with AFH itself, a collection of powergamers and PvP badasses with a solid in-game presence. A level limit of 20+ was instituted, which was later bumped up to 25+, and power requirements were instituted (first 1200+ power, now 1500+), so as to keep the clan on the power leaderboard. Aflubadubdub is also characterized by an unusual degree of trust; members freely share rares between each other, and its clan stash has always been famously well-stocked.

Aflubadubdub is also probably responsible for a clan mechanics change. Throughout much of 2004, the Most Powerful Clan boards in the Hall of Records were clogged with one-man clans of high power players, who were difficult to dislodge from the leaderboards because their “average power” was so high and increased so quickly compared to larger clans. Some debate ensued on the forums as to whether the term “clan” even made sense for a one-person outfit. On November 16, 2004, eleven of the highest-power members of the clan left it to form their own solo clans, each with the name “Aflubadubdub” somewhere in the title. The next day, the Hall of Records’ clan leaderboards were flooded with “Aflub”; half the clans on the list the day before had been knocked off. Shortly thereafter, Jick changed the board’s calculations such that it will only register clans with 5 or more players in them. (Under the new calculations, Aflubadubdub remains solidly in the top 5.)

Because demand for a spot in the clan was so high, even among players who did not necessarily meet the stated requirements, the clan decided in November 2004 to start a branch clan (following CGC’s lead) to house lower-level players, lower-power players, multis, and so forth. Training Camp of Aflubadubdub! has, itself, grown to considerable size and prominence, and also occupies a spot on the clan leaderboards.

 

Complete Memberlist as of December 2004:

(Note: this is, so far as the author can remember, a comprehensive list of everyone who has ever been in the clan.)

-Jimbowong (#12508) – Founder and leader of Aflubadubdub; ex-co-leader of Alliance From Hell. Jimbowong is (as of this writing) the 15th most powerful player in the Kingdom, and in December 2004 retired from a spectacularly successful PvP career. Despite a glancing presence on the forums, Jimbowong is still one of the most recognizable names in the Kingdom, especially among powergamers.

In late September and early October 2004, Jimbowong began a massive drive to artificially push down the price of Mr. Accessories. He put a large stock in his store (over 30) at a 1/day limit, and managed to keep undercutting the undercutters until he had lowered the price from about 200 million to about 85 million. He then bought out all the Mr. A’s he could afford, which turned out to be 107. He rewarded his clanmates with 5 Mr. A’s each, and sold or gave away the rest of them.

-sickbacchus (#27606) - Founder of the clan Portal of Loathing, a former clan war machine; joined Aflubadubdub in October 2004. Hosts the clan forums. In-game, he is a respected powergamer and PvPer.

-ozelot (#31463) - noted powergamer; sister of Bimbel.

-bigkevinm84 (#33219) - noted powergamer and PvPer, and one of the highest level Turtle Tamers in the game. Bigkevinm84 is a well-known forum poster, and was a longtime member of the Clan of Gundams before joining Aflubadubdub. He has one of the most powerful known multis in the game, bigkevinm844 (#33470), which, inexplicably, is also a turtle tamer. His brother, KJ217 (#34965), also plays; KJ217 is the leader of The Clan of Thieves, which was Chubbles's first clan.

-lionheart9999 (#41122) - Noted powergamer. Lionheart9999's brother is the criminal element (#84818).

-Ribskinski (#86585) - Elite powergamer and Trade channel buffmaster. Ribskinski was a member of Epic, as were Blaze123 and Lionheart9999.

-FightABunny24531 (#61531) - Frequent forum poster and Villa schmoozer; possibly the most well-respected 12-year-old playing the game. (Recently, he turned 13.) He started a thread in the forums in which he honored other players with Photoshopped "trophies" of his own conception and design. He also was able to reduce both his buffed Muscle and Moxie to negative numbers. FightABunny was a popular clan member, having made a website with graphics dedicated to each member. He left over an acrimonious clan debate about whether or not players who choose not to level up should remain in the clan, an argument that both sides now regret. He is currently a member of Alliance From Hell.

-Philanthropist (#43536) - Early member. See Philanthropists.

-Blaze123 (#6911) – Former member of *~Rage~*, w00t Angels, and Alliance From Hell; well-known forum poster. Blaze is the oldest clan member. He was briefly ranked the 2nd-best PvPer in the game when he broke his Hippy stone in December 2004.

-ThugGurl (#35286?) – Formerly of Alliance From Hell. ThugGurl was a familiar face in chat channels (including Villa) for many players, and it came as a shock to the KoL world when, on October 14, 2004, her account was mysteriously deleted. Rumors abounded that she had been hacked, and no word was heard from her until about a week later, when she announced to the forums that she had deleted the account of her own accord. She secretly returned to the game as Thug Gurl (#274431) and Twiddles (#263786); it was as Twiddles that she was rediscovered (see her store, WanderLust, for the hint). That player accounts are now undeletable is partially due to the confusion surrounding her disappearance.

-Jayo (#54083) - Jayo joined Aflubadubdub after AFH's implosion. After selling his account, the unknown new Jayo looted Aflubadubdub's clan stash and left. See Alliance From Hell.

-VornVolken (#12507) - noted powergamer and forum poster. Despite having signed up directly sequentially, Vorn and Jimbowong did not know each other in real life. VornVolken ran a wildly popular trivia program in channel /trade for several months, before channel /games was created. He was also one of several players running crimbo rental services for low collateral in fall '04; he was ripped off by Sheep_Anal_Raper (playerid unknown). After describing his plight in the forums, theitsybitsyspider and Wicana both donated Crimbo suits to him as replacements.

-Ricket (#119911) - noted powergamer and forum poster.

-KC_zz15 (#47851) - noted powergamer; as Amplify, he is a well-known forumgoer.

-Flaaron (#108281) - noted powergamer and forum poster.

-phillllllllll (#141950) - noted powergamer.

-Olaf The Trampler (#102281) - noted powergamer.

-kinky_sex_mace (#28944) - see The Ninja Turtles.

-poad (#22058) - Former Philanthropist; well-loved citizen of channel /trade. Poad is a member of the Turtle Tamer Tag Team, dedicated to giving out free TT buffs in chat. Its other members are King Turtle (#35308), Wicana (#121705; see Knights of Minus Tirith), Idiania (#73601; also a chat mod since November 2004), tehDangrUs (#120725), and Fusion35 (#105666).

-nvru_mind (#50613) - noted powergamer and elite PvPer.

-harml3ss (#115586) - noted powergamer and elite PvPer. Harml3ss's store, Meat Street Cafe, was well known to anyone involved in the Hell Ramen wars of summer 2004, and frequently made the Top Ten of the Mall of Loathing.

-Dark Demon (#12728) - Clan co-leader; Jimbowong's (silent) right hand man. Dark Demon was a low-ranking member of AFH before joining this clan.

-seldon (#43632) - noted powergamer; possibly the second player to acquire the Hippy Trophy. He used to be the leader of CSR Inc., and transferred leadership to ShadyProbeGT to join Aflubadubdub. Seldon was one of the top players both dishing out and receiving Mafia hits in November 2004.

-P4UL (#9446) - longtime powergamer; former member of w00t Angels.

-SaMbOb182 (#28325) - Sambob was the second person to join Aflubadubdub. He was in the clan for several months. See Alliance From Hell.

-archurangu (#108483) – Powergamer, noted PvPer and bughunter. Archurangu was partially responsible (with the help of a multi and a few meat stacks) for the nerfing of mall store advertising increases via sales. He became very well-known in the forums through his Quest For The 32nd Bit, which was begun shortly after the bugmeat explosion. One of the bugs exploited on Black Sunday involved acquiring more than 232 -1 meat, which would "roll over" into quintillions of meat because the language Jick codes in could not handle negative numbers. Archurangu wanted to test what would happen if a player acquired more than 231-1 turns of a buff (about 2.1 billion), which, theoretically, would have the same effect. He had hundreds of Saucerors cast Elemental Saucesphere on him day and night; in less than a week he reached the goal (and found out Jick had coded it such that the “rollover” sets the buffs back to zero).

-beatrix kiddo (#48584) - Former member of The Clan At The End of The Universe; well-known forum poster and chat frequenter. Beatrix caused quite a stir when it was finally revealed that he is male.

-Cheese_Shoes (#28863) - see Alliance From Hell.

-Pops (#24919) - noted powergamer.

-Bantag (#16122) - noted powergamer.

-Johnatton (#124649) - noted powergamer and /trade channel buffer.

-stable (#9585) – Stable may be quiet these days, but he used to be a frequent forum poster and a familiar name to many. Along with Firestorm ZERO (#8849; see Alliance From Hell), he co-led the clan Devils of Heaven, and also runs the KoL Trance site with him. Long ago, he was powergamer enough to nip at the leaderboards; he also collected nearly every tradable item in the game and has them up for display in his store, “Items In The Kingdom”. Stable saved, and posted in the forums, the entire chat log of the infamous Mod Wars incident of May 29, 2004. Stable also received a bugfinder blade for reporting a bug involving the Gourd Quest, in which reloading the page gave more Gourd potions, without requiring any more quest items.

-Spooner (#81753) - noted powergamer and forum frequenter. Spooner is perhaps unfortunately better known as the older brother of Music Man (#115292), who was an oft -flamed forum spammer.

-Jalandy (#56721) - noted powergamer.

-Gertie (#14821) - noted powergamer and important clan administrator.

-Sevain (#13486) - noted powergamer.

-ShadyProbeGT (#47103) - noted powergamer. Former head of the clan CSR Inc.

-stringbeans (#72779) - see The Ninja Turtles.

-Chubbles (#79514) – Powergamer and forum poster. Chubbles was a “late learner” in this game, and did not join a clan until he was level 18. He was active in the Hell Ramen wars as a trader and a mouthpiece for the Warehouse23 bot. He was also, along with Jayo, one of the two players who managed to cash in handsomely on the Wand of Nagamar craze of August 3, 2004. As noted above, he was partially responsible for the breakup of Alliance From Hell. Additionally, he was the player who broke the news, to chat channel trade and the forums, that Poutine had entered the game illicitly.

 

Side Note On Canadia: On September 18, 2004, Chubbles was searching in the mall for various items, and accidentally misspelled something he was looking for; since the mall at this time accepted partial matches for searches, the search returned an item called “Poutine”. There were 5 of them in the store, for 10,000 meat apiece, at a 1/day limit. He had never seen it before.

He bought one, and asked channel /trade if they’d ever seen it. No one had. He started a thread in the forums about it, and a few interested players in trade chat, who quickly bought out the supply in the store, began proposing possible recipes for it (generally involving Goat Cheese, Fairy Gravy, and/or White Castle Fries). Likely combinations had just been exhausted when Mr. Skullhead posted in the Poutine thread, to lament that some players had “opened their Christmas presents early”. This was the first official acknowledgment that a new area existed, which would later be revealed as the as-yet-unimplemented Canadia adventure zone. Shortly thereafter, Philanthropist began a new thread in the forums detailing the method by which players were reaching the hidden zone, and the fact that they were openly advocating this exploitation in the Villa chat channel. Thus began the story of Canadia…Unfortunately, Chubbles’s original thread on this matter was deleted; when, by whom, and why, no one knows. As such, this is currently unrecorded prehistory of the Canadia exploit.

-Ayasymi (#131545) - Once a noted powergamer, Ayasymi's level was extremely high, compared to her start date. She has been recently inactive, and is no longer a member.

-Bragi (#98311) – Chat moderator and Radio KoL DJ. Bragi inspired the Hippy Trophy, and was the first (of course) to acquire it. Bragi was also very active in the Poutine exploit; he had no access to the new area, but a few hours after it was discovered, he had 77 poutines in his shop, which had been given to him by others (various fingers were pointed at him because of this). He kept them on display for a short while, and sent them to Jick.

-Big Dick (#11987) - Early member.

-Atomica1 (#94503) – Joined December ’04. Close associate of Bashy (see Philanthropists); former Training Camp member.

-SableRilyntar (#57901)-Early and longtime member; booted for inactivity.

-Shadez (#17062) - see Alliance From Hell.

-hatereliminator (#23511) - noted powergamer; recently inactive. Trog Dor notes, “At one point hatereliminator had one of the best level to join date ratios. He was seriously smokin' - it's the reason he's lvl 32 even with huge gaps of inactivity. From what I can remember, he was gone when sober pills were duped (thus his profile quote). He's like the powergamer that time forgot - he'd be breathlessly mentioned alongside the best nowadays had he not virtually given up.”

-AngelEyes (#11811) – Early member; now leader of Villa’s Residents.

-balex2290 (#24693) - briefly a member; see Alliance From Hell.

-Quato (#8870) – Slept overnight in Aflubadubdub after AFH’s demise, and left a 50 million meat donation in the clan coffer as a thank-you card. See Alliance From Hell.

-Bimbel (#25913) – Slept overnight in Aflubadubdub after AFH’s demise. See Alliance From Hell.

-Thrang Oul (#2495) – briefly a member; longtime solo clan powergamer. Recently joined the reborn AFH.

-TOmHOwLIn (#8492) – see Alliance From Hell.

-Carrot Dude (#13791) - Jimbowong's multi, who took over for Jimbo as leader during the clan leaderboard takeover. Carrot Dude also served as a surrogate for Jimbo's economic wheeler-dealing after Black Sunday.