A couple things:

1.  You can go to gravatar.com to get your own custom avatar for use on our site.  Just be sure to follow their instructions, and be patient... it will work after a few minutes as long as you follow their instructions.

2. Wanna play with us?  Click on the "Site Contributors" tab above, and click on one of our names.  That will take you to our bio, where you can send us a message through Xbox.com, challenging us to your favorite game.  This week, we'll be playing 1 vs. 100, as well as some MW2, and who knows what else.

3. You should probably follow us on twitter at twitter.com/teamrndcom if you want the latest information on our updates...

4. Did you miss something important we had to say?  Well, you can click on the navigation bar above where it says "Site News Archive" to catch up on all of the front page news!

5. As usual, we appreciate you stopping by to check us out.  Don't be shy!  Leave us comments, and please, come back soon.  Also, if you like what you see here, TELL A FRIEND!!!

6.  Finally, starting tomorrow, we will be launching a new feature here on TeamRND.com.  We will be putting a post up every day in the "Reviews and More" section which will go over the previous day's video game news, along with a little added sarcasm and humor.  We'll try to keep it informative, but not put you to sleep in the process.  We think you'll like it.

Thanks again,

     -Jason Omega

"You guys are the worst clan ever."

We are a lot of things.  One thing that we're not is a clan.  Clans spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to make their game flawless.  We were once referred to as "the leftover group of misfits".  That was possibly the best description we've ever been given.  The truth is, RnD is simply a group of friends who met over Xbox Live through multiplayer matches of Red Faction: Guerilla.  Honestly, we didn't even have the "RnD" name for several months, until we began chanting "Respect and Dignity" to people who were crying in lobby about how much we suck, etc (immediately after they took a very hard beating).

In the beginning, we recruited people based on two criteria:

1.  You had to have a mic, and use it.

2.  You had to be fun to play with. 

The first of the criteria was simple enough, the second was a little more complex.  Some people were recruited simply because they were fun to talk with, and overall just hang out online with.  Some people were recruited because of their skill, but skill alone wasn't enough to be recruited.  The player had to be fun to play with as well.  That is, he couldn't take the game too seriously, nor his opponents.  At its core, that has always been the most important thing for RnD.  We were there to have fun.

Yes, we would talk trash.  Yes, playing against us often resulted in someone getting t-bagged.  No, there was nothing you could do or say to get to us.  What a lot of people don't realize is that while they were carefully crafting strategies to defeat us, we were talking about politics, or music, or things that were far, far more offensive.  We never played like we cared, because we really didn't.  Somewhere along the line we started winning siege matches on RF:G, and from there we began to dominate.  We would go sometimes thirty consecutive matches without losing... and without ever once talking about the game we were playing.  We were friends having a social event, who happened to be playing a game at the same time.

"Yo, party up."

Chances are, that wasn't going to happen.  We became a tight group, and with time our numbers far exceeded the number of open spots we had in the game.  Although the roster did vary from night to night, it only varied a little.  The core members were always the same, and you can find many of them now contributing to this site.  With time, a lot of our secondary friends (not the core 6 members) fell by the wayside.  It was never anything personal (unless they made it personal), it was just the way things had to be, because you can only have so many people on a team.  People were weeded out.  It is what it is.

"This just in... Corporate endorsed Castle Crashers."

It took one phone call and one catch phrase to change the entire scope of RnD.  "Bro, you've gotta download and check out "Castle Crashers"...it was handed down from corporate".  We now had a response to people whining about our "clan".  "We're not a clan.  We're a corporation."  It was all business.  Our business was having fun. 

...and we were damn good at it.

"Maybe we should make a website... to communicate with all of the members of RnD."

Again, it started with a phone call.  In less then 24 hours, we changed the focus of the site, and ten days later, here we are.  We had almost 50 unique hits yesterday (day 9), which, considering we only have 5 (soon to be 6) contributors on the site, we feel is an accomplishment.  We've not advertised anywhere online, we've only used on Xbox Live and Twitter to get the word out.  Hopefully people like what they're seeing, and they're coming back.  We're sticking to the core philosophy of RnD on this site:

"Video games are supposed to be fun."

...and that's our purpose.  To write reviews and articles with the core ingredient being "fun".  We're trying to make this site as interactive as possible.  That's why each of our contributors sign each article with their XBL Gamertag.  You can send us messages on Live, challenge us to matches... whatever you like.  We also wanted our community to be able to interact with us on here, which is why we have our comment sections on every single article that goes up, as well as why we have a shout box.  Every one of our contributors has a different personality, so we implore you to read our bios, and get to know each of our personalities a little better... it'll help the reviews make a little more sense.  

This website is purely about fun.  We hope you'll have as much fun here as we do.  

Thanks for stopping by.

-Jason Omega 

First, I would like to take a quick moment to welcome Nerdcraft to TEAMRnD.com.  He will be joining us as one of our site contributors, as well as handling the majority of... wait a second, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

With the addition of Facebook, Twitter, and Last.Fm to Xbox Live, we thought that we should get on a couple bandwagons here.  In the next few days, we will be setting up accounts for Twitter and Facebook.  Jha will be handling the majority (read: all) of the Facebook details, and Nerdcraft will be taking care of Twitter for us.  Once we have these details worked out, we'll have our Twitter feed on the side of the main page, and we'll have some links up for our Facebook as well.  Exciting stuff.

Speaking of new and exciting things, we've added avatars to our comment sections.  To get your own personalized avatar, all you need to do is go to gravatar.com, go through the sign up process (it seriously takes about 2 minutes), and then any time you post a comment on TEAMRnD.com, your avatar will automatically be displayed.  Pretty awesome.

So, there's the update.  As you can see, we're constantly moving forward to make TEAMRnD.com better.  If you have any suggestions, or comments, please let us know in the forums.  Thanks again for stopping by, and we hope you'll come back soon.

-Jason Omega

It was less than a week ago that Jha and I first tossed around the idea of putting up a website.  Our evolution in the last six days has been... rapid.  To be honest, we had planned on putting together a website that would essentially be a social outlet for the members of RnD, Inc.  Within two days, the entire scope of the website had changed.  We thought it might be fun to review video games, and post articles that would be entertaining for gamers. 

We had a lot of ideas from the beginning.  Things like comment sections, forums, and a community driven live chat were all things we wanted to implement as soon as possible.  We wanted to have Bio pages for all of our contributors, because we knew that by knowing each of our personalities better, you would enjoy the site more.  We knew the design would be challenging, although certain facets of that were made more difficult due solely to my own inexperience.  I knew it would be a learning process, and I feel as though we're improving every day. 

We've gone through several design changes, as well as style changes.  We think we've found one that we're going to stick with, but things change.  In ways, you could certainly consider this to be our "beta"... hell, our "alpha" stage.  We have a lot of goals, as far as things we would like to implement, and they will come with time.  I consider it to be a triumph that we've accomplished what we have in the last six days.  I am very proud of our work, and I would like to take a moment to congratulate Jha, DLev, and GuNN3R on everything we've done in the last few days, especially because a week ago there was literally nothing.

To close, I would like to take a moment to thank the people who have somehow found this site who aren't the contributors.  Yesterday we had 12 unique visitors.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but considering we've done essentially no advertising, and haven't even registered with a search engine, it is certainly something.  We only have 4 people involved with the making of this site, so assuming each of us visited yesterday, that means there were 8 people out there who somehow stumbled upon us.  We hope you liked what you saw, and we hope you'll come back soon.  We will have a lot to offer you in terms of information, and entertainment.

Sincerely, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. 

-Jason Omega

P.S. If you are one of the strangers who found us already... don't be a stranger.  Introduce yourself in the forums, or leave us comments on the articles.  We would love to hear from you.

P.P.S. If you are one of the jerks who were sitting around sniping me last night in MW2, you can kiss my ass.  Sincerely. 

So, you've found us.  You probably shouldn't have yet.  We're still in the process of building the website. There are more than a few kinks that still need worked out.  There are articles to be written,  links that need to be fixed, artwork that needs to be made, and... well, everything else.

We assure you that this website will be worth your time.  Soon.  We are creating an internet destination where you'll be able to enjoy video game reviews written by actual gamers.  Our vision is to create a web presence where you'll be entertained as well as informed.  We are in the midst of creating website which will give our readers a very personal and fun experience.  

We don't intend to do things the conventional way.  Our reviews will probably be a little less wordy, and (hopefully) a little more interesting than other sites' reviews.  Our columnists aren't getting paid.  We're people who want to be heard and people who know what gamers are interested because we are exactly the same as you.  We are gamers.  

We want to be completely interactive.  From day one, we will have forums and live chat available.  Every single article we post will include a comment section for our readers.  We'll sign our articles with our Xbox Live Gamertags, or PSN IDs, so you can send us a quick message, or even play online with us.  

In the end, we want this site to be about one thing:  having fun.  We formed "RnD" over Xbox Live, and regardless of the game, it was always explicitly about having fun.  We entertain each other, and we would like the chance to inform and entertain you.  So, although things aren't quite ready yet, we hope that you will come back soon and check out our progress.  If you're a gamer, we think you'll like what you see.

Thanks for stopping by.  Come back soon.