[Homba]

Many of you CC2 vets will remember PZLeader from the competitive CC2 scene at at TournamentHouse and Case's.

PZLeader (Réal Paquette) died in 2021, at the age of 55. I learned from Boro who learned from Jihad, who been playing a CC2 Grand Campaign with PZLeader at some point which allowed him to learn the news. I meant to make a post here, but I think I had lost my PW at the time and Mooxe was away. Having discovered the CC discord, I am plugged in again and wanted to make this post.

I don't know how PZL died. Maybe covid, I don't know, but the impression I have was that it was an illness. It was a shock and an enduring saddness to hear that he is gone. He was a big sportsman, you can see from his obituary page (link below) how beloved he was of his various teammates, friends and family, as he was among the CC2 community as well. With an unwaveringly positive and humble attitude, he would praise you if you had won, and console you if you had lost. I counted him a close friend for a decade, played dozens, maybe scores, of games with him. He designed and ran multiple tournaments at T-House, and was a true pillar of that community. He was best known for his AARs which were instructive, entertaining, stylish, and comprehensive accounts of the game, detail for detail. For this, he became fittingly known as "the Bard" (a Shakespeare reference).

You can sample his AARs here, but scroll down to early 2004 - later reports were not archived by the Wayback Machine, which is a shame, because they became ever more elaborate as the years rolled on.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090112235312if_/http://www.tournamenthouse.com/CC2/2view.cgi?username=PZLeader
 
He was also a leading master of the CC2 Grand Campaign, and would write up elaborate campaign reports from the battles against his lucky opponents on the THforum.

I regret not staying in closer contact with him in the decade that followed CC2's decline. He joins polarizing Peiper (2003), and beloved Mousegrey (2008) among the CC2 departed that I know of. Peiper and Mouse were commemorated on T-House. If any of the CC2 diaspora come across this, do post a reply with any memory or remark you care to.

PZLeader's real life obituary:

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/montreal-qc/real-paquette-10151539
 
Rest in peace my friend.

Homba

[mooxe]

Seen PZLeader regularly at the top end of TH and organizing tournaments... I was always keeping an eye on those Canadian flags. Not had the pleasure to play against him. I always understood that CC2 players had some innate capacity for understanding how to play CC3/4/5 quite well so always kept my guard up playing them

Its not uncommon now for someone to give instructions to their loved ones to let an online community know of their demise. Besides who Homba mentions above I only know of one other player who passed away. This community grew up in the internet's infancy. We barely had voice chat and no social media in those days, the internet was still the wild west. Methods to connect with others players was limited to chat and forums. Being quite an old game now most of us have moved on and are probably in our mid 40s to late 50s. There are probably quite a few who have passed away and we have no idea who.

In the other game I play, Eve Online, its quite a large community and many players have passed away. Their friends usually conduct an in game event which includes launching an in game memorial. These memorials are permanent'ish unless destroyed by other players but this is a difficult task. There is an understanding though among the community for these memorials to leave them be. Larger figures in the game who have died had permanent structures created by the games designers which are not destroyable. The player "VileRat" was an Eve player who died in the Benghazi raid in 2012, actually playing as the raid started and his Eve corporation had a large event to honour him and launched an in game memorial.

The exhilaration of winning against certain opponents and shock of losing has forever etched someone's avatar into your memory. We're likely all thinking about each other from time to time... where are they now?

[ArnieTERM]

It bummed Me out hearing of PZLeaders passing. He was always one of the names You would think of when You thought about CC2, at least for Me anyway. You always wanted to beat Him because You knew You would get a nice AAR to read after He was done. I think if the TH website with the forums didn't vanish like it did, more of Us would have kept in touch more than likely, it was def the rallying point for the CC2 community.

[ArnieTERM]

Thinking more on it, CC2 has been in My life and the people that were involved in playing it since 1998, When I was a Young 18 year old. Met Homba and maybe PZLeader in 98. Then life got in the way for about 2 years and I came back playing CC2 strong in early 2000. Back when Microsoft had The Zone to go into lobbies to get into CC2 games. Brings back many fond memories of all the characters that were playing the game. I was reminiscing about it to Homba the other night and remembered things I haven't thought about in literally decades. Life is funny, when You are young, time seems to go by slowly but once You seem to hit 30, the time just seems to fly by and You wonder where it all went. I, like Homba, have always wondered about all the guys I played with and had chats with over The Zone or through TH forums. Although most of us never meet in person, We all still feel like good friends and PZLeader was no exception.

[dj]

RIP PzLeader, I remember him.  I started playing CC also around that time late 90's, 1999 I think.  Makes me wonder about Covid too.  Nobody I know in my direct family or friends died or got very sick.  But many of my co-workers got gravely ill and still catching it, all from business travel or vacation.

[ArnieTERM]

[Pzt_Kanov]

PZLeader was like a legend and celebrity to me, I was about 11-12 when I found the CC2 demo but it took me a few more years to learn about the community and although I only had the demo for years I used to go to THouse and read the AAr's and of course the ones from PZLeader always stand out. it appears he was a good guy very loved by everyone around him and that's always nice. 55 is too young to go, we never know when is our last time so let's be happy and grateful for what we have everyday.