The (JAWA) Retrospective: Part 1 – Where It All Began

Published: 22 August 2026     Last Updated: 22 August 2026     Categories: Gaming

Intro

The (JAWA) Clan is a Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy gaming community/clan founded by Matt and Iniowe in 2004. I was its Leader from 2005 – 2017, it’s still very much alive and kicking today.

Writing about the clan has always been a bit difficult for me since I left in 2017 after 12ish years of leading the clan (Fences have since been mended). It was the absolute best of times, and I met literally thousands of really, really cool people who just wanted to bash each other with lightsabers and talk about the most random subjects.

I’m going to write out a bunch of logs for my website explaining my time in the clan and my thoughts on some things retrospectively. If you’re a past member/visitor and finding this, hello! Feel free to leave a comment below =)

Alright, let’s open that sealed box of memories up before I get too old to remember this shit.

Mysteries of the Sith

In the late 90s I played a game called Star Wars: Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith quite a bit. I only had the demo version on CD which I acquired from PCGamer, so I kept having to repeat the same missions. This never bothered me, usually demos were full of content back then and I enjoyed the gameplay a lot.

Jedi Outcast

As time went by, I lost the disc and several years later in 2004 I began searching for a lightsaber based game similar to Mysteries of the Sith to scratch that itch again. I came across two games that matched the criteria, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. I had no idea which one of the two came first (And for some reason I never looked it up?), I wasn’t even aware they came from the same series as Mysteries of the Sith. In retrospect, Outcast DOES sound like its after Academy. Of course, I picked Jedi Outcast 🏴‍☠️, thinking it was the newer of the two games. I wasn’t a huge fan of the single player, despite it being raved about even today. For me, I just wanted to swing a lightsaber around like in Mysteries of the Sith, but in the campaign you don’t get that until much later. I gave up on single player pretty quickly and ventured into multiplayer… it was everything I was looking for and more.

I mostly played Capture The Flag and other competitive events similarly to my time in Quake 3. I rarely came across clans or any sort of social structure in any of my regular servers. After a few months of playing Outcast, I joined a social server and joined a clan called TAG ((TAG) Link). This didn’t last long, as it was in this community that I found out about Jedi Academy  and how it was in fact the newer of games with even more types of lightsabers, even one like Darth Maul! I quit immediately and began looking into buying it, but it was a little pricey. It’s crazy to me that I still remember where I was stood in Jedi Outcast when I heard this information, it was such an exciting moment for younger me.

Jedi Academy

In November 2004 I asked my Dad if I could have Jedi Academy for Christmas, it honestly feels like yesterday when I asked him this. He told me it might arrive for Christmas. Unfortunately for him, I wouldn’t shut up about it, and so he decided to give me the game a little earlier as I was very eager.

Me in 2024 showing off the original game my Dad bought me before Christmas.

I still remember my first time connecting to a server, running around with a red staff saber, using the reborn_new model and getting slept for laming, a term unknown to me even with my Jedi Outcast experience. The learning curve from Outcast to Academy was steep to say the least, in Outcast back then most people were quite predictable and everyone used the same lightsaber + stance… but Academy? There were dual weapons, staffs and a whole load of new moves. I hopped around various servers and got destroyed by experienced players and even fellow new guys until I stumbled across my soon to be home and birthplace of (JAWA) which was already 2 months old by this point.

ClanWarriors

ClanWarriors (CW) was a very popular server (2004 – 2005) run by a player known as Gage. The focus of the community was to encourage the growth of new clans. This worked out incredibly well as 2003-2006 were the most active of times in the game, and everyone wanted to be part of a clan at the very least.

While clan growth was its objective, it also attracted just as many freelancers making it a really diverse community to be a part of. I met A LOT of great people on CW, some of whom I still speak to today such as Fox and my wife DragonGirl. I began participating in the community and eventually became a server admin where I worked alongside some really cool people.

The server itself was always packed, it was sometimes a struggle to get online. All sorts of different clans were banded together under one roof, either sitting in their own areas or participating in very large FFAs. Back then I was incredibly immature and I basically did whatever I wanted. and for some reason Gage decided to give me Forum Moderator and Server Admin, which of course I would abuse to hell  At the time I had no idea certain things would crash the server, such as 30 mutant Rancors, Ragnos, certain single player maps etc so I gained a very poor reputation!

There were some disputes, I remember a guy called exe’k having issues with the admins and JawaOfDoom! hating me A LOT 😂 but they were mostly just little spats, most people got along surprisingly, especially since the server housed different clans.

During this time, I used the Dark Knight skin.

While working on this article, I remembered that I saved ClanWarriors maps (Download here). I decided to open them up and I found some nice portraits of its more active members in the community. See below:

Finding (JAWA)

I had seen a few (JAWA) members on the server (Mostly Matt, the founder) and the clan’s charm immediately appealed to me. The colours reminded me of an old clan I used to be a part of in Quake 3 called ARRO (!ARRO! Link), which really caught my eye. I also really liked the Jawa characters in the Star Wars movies, it just overall seemed very attractive and as soon as I spoke to Matt, I knew this would be a really fun opportunity for me. He took me under his wing and began training me with a lightsaber (I believe we used staffs, then switched to single sabers). At the time, joining the clan seemed impossible as they seemed quite closed off from the rest of the server early on, but after a few days of training, I plucked up the courage and asked him if I could join mid training session by the X-Wing on Tatooine FFA3. At first he hesitated, which makes sense in retrospect as I didn’t have the best reputation and I was definitely a little too eager. Thankfully though he gave me a chance and sometime in December 2004, I officially joined The (JAWA) Clan.

Clan Life Under Matt

Being in the clan during those early days with Matt at the helm was so, so unique. It was something I could never replicate later on as leader, because I was simply not Matt. Despite the clan being very small (I’d guess around 10?), he made it look effortless, he just lead by example and chilled with the rest of us. There was no ego, he was one of us and I was having an absolute blast of a time.

During those days there were very few ranks, they were:

• (JAWA)PadawanName – Everyone that began in the clan was a Padawan.
• (JAWA)KnightName – I remember most people in the clan were a Knight when I joined, it seemed like the path between Padawan and Knight are short but Knight and the next rank was a much larger step.
• (JAWA)Name – You might think this would be before Padawan, but it actually indicated you were a “Full Member”, which made Padawan and Knight somewhat feel like trials.
• (JAWA)FounderName – Only Matt and Iniowe had this. I recall Matt changed it to Leader and Founder a few times but he’d usually come back to Founder.

Everyone back then had to use the full rank and specifically had to use a white name. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone with colours in their name or any symbols. Matt wanted us to all look uniform and it didn’t just extend to our names, we also used same lightsabers (Serren Sceptor from the Revan Dark Weapons is a notable example) and the Jawa skin. It felt like a uniform in a lot of ways and honestly, it was pretty cool and part of me wishes I kept some of those traditions going.

Ranking Up

Before joining, everyone really kept to themselves in the clan and only really seemed to talk to people within the ranks. After joining, I began to familiarise myself with the members, including Eclipse and Weaponmaster who became my first real friends in the clan. I don’t remember the specifics, but I do recall me and Weaponmaster being promoted alongside each other. He was ahead of me by one rank, so when I became a Knight, he would’ve become a Full Member.

As time went on, Matt’s appearances become a little rarer, and one day in January 2005 I noticed Iniowe, the other Founder, was on the server (Vjun, on the first hanging ledge overlooking the pit) who I had never met before. It was super rare to see him, and he was complaining about how boring the game was. Even though I had only just been promoted to Knight, weeks after joining the clan, I took full advantage of Iniowe’s complaining, which in retrospect was pretty awful. I approached him (He had no idea who I was) and asked him if I could be promoted to Full Member. He agreed, said nothing else really and disconnected, never to be seen again. Matt entered the server at some point later and questioned why my name was the way it was. I explained what happened and he was not happy , especially as I had basically just risen to the top from Padawan to Full Member in weeks, but thankfully he decided to let it go (I most likely played innocent, despite nudging things along that way).

The End of the Clan?

Matt’s appearances became fewer and fewer until he vanished entirely, and nobody could contact him at all through MSN. With the disappearance of Iniowe weeks prior, this was a huge blow to the clan and caused most of its members to leave. Remember, this was during the golden age of the game, and people really wanted to participate in active clans and servers back then.

Then, there were two: Weaponmaster and me.

I vividly remember us standing there in Tatooine FFA3 trying to figure out what to do next. He seemed pretty adamant on taking time off from the game, which was a bit of a relief on my side selfishly. You see, I had my sights set on taking the reigns and leading (JAWA) myself. I didn’t want to get into a messy leadership contest, I’d only actually do it if I was the only member remaining. Which I now was. However, I still madly respected Matt, and I waited several weeks for his return. On the 11th February 2005, while on Korriban in the main area next to the gated flame, Gage, the ClanWarriors admin, told me to stop waiting and to just do it. Much like Matt, I madly respected Gage and I figured if there was any time to do it, it was now.

So, I nervously changed my name to (JAWA)LeaderLink which felt very, very wrong at the time. This immediately caught a lot of attention on the server as they assumed the clan was dead. I decided not to wear the dark blue rank, as I always felt that was for Matt alone, rightfully so, as its Founder. Yellow also looked pretty nice next to the tag.

Little did I know I just opened a chapter of my life that would consume my entire focus for the next 12 years.

To be continued…

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Bonus

Here’s some arty stuff I made during this time:

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