UPDATE: CompWiz5000 released a new post on the original UMA website both to verify this interview, and to give an update to the army community. You can read it by clicking here.

This interview is dedicated to Pink Mafias, CompWiz5000, Jrtrotter, and the amazing world that they created.

KLONDIKE, CPA Headquarters – The post you are reading right now is a miracle. Or, as Coolster114 correctly put it, the stars alligned for this interview to be made. The following paragraphs are the proof that with enough determination, and, of course, a good amount of luck, everything is possible. Even an interview with CompWiz5000.

If you joined armies after lets say 2013, its very likely you are pretty confused right now. Who is that CompWiz5000 guy, and why was interviewing him so unlikely and special? To answer those questions, it will be necessary to go through a quick but important history lesson.

The year is 2007. It is a cold day of January, a week after new year, when two friends from an elementary school in the United States decided to create something that would shape Club Penguin Armies for eternity. It was the one and only, the legendary Underground Mafias Army, and the names of those two pioneers were Pink Mafias and Jrtrotter. The concept wasn’t entirely new to them, since Pink Mafias had run his own army-like groups in the past (most notably the group people usually refer to as the “Pink Mafias Army / UMA Clan”). However, in a matter of days they were soon joined by a figure that ended up being the second most recognized individual of this first UMA generation, losing only to Pink Mafias himself. His name was CompWiz5000, also a classmate of Pink Mafias and Jrtrotter.

CompWiz5000 soon became a very successful Leader, and with him UMA reached near total dominance in the then army scene. The only army that could compete with UMA was ACP, with the two being perhaps the strongest armies at the time. This era of complete dominance received a significant hit though once Oagalthorp, ACP Founder and then Leader, convinced Commando717, a member of UMA’s higher command to rebel from the original army and create his own group in May 2007, the well known Rebel Penguin Federation, which assisted ACP. Regardless, UMA was able to cope and retain its great sizes. CompWiz5000 and Pink Mafias left in June 2007 and moved to Runescape, but returned later that year before fully retiring by the beggining of 2008. Both of them made small visits throughout the following years, with the last being from CompWiz in 2011 to stop an impersonation attempt by Trickster. It was at this year when he posted an announcement on the original UMA website, in which he stated that every future claim of someone being either him or Pink Mafias had to be verified through a post on the website, or by them logging into their Club Penguin accounts.

Ten years passed since CompWiz’s last visit, and little to nothing has been heard from him since. Or that was the case, until the 3rd of February, 2021. My friend Coolster114, an ex-UMA Leader and a troop under Pink Mafias’s regime, and I have been researching the history of the earliest days of armies for the last month. We were able to get in touch with CompWiz5000 through his old Club Penguin email, and schedule an interview in order to solve questions we both have about the first year of Club Penguin Armies. Him responding after all those years seemed very unlikely, and we couldn’t believe our luck when he actually did it. It seemed like a one in a thousand chance, and we were so happy that our efforts paid back.

Without further ado, me, Coolster114 and CPAHQ present you our interview with CompWiz5000, one of UMA’s first and biggest legends. The interview is barely altered, except from correcting a few grammar/syntactic mistakes and removing parts where the conversation went off topic. The proof of authenticity is present on UMA’s original website, the only way left for someone to prove they are indeed CompWiz5000. 

Keep in mind that both of us knew the answers to some of the questions asked, but we asked them anyway both for verification purposes and to inform our readers.

Superhero123: Welcome! 

Coolster114: Welcome, CompWiz! It’s an honour to have you with us.

CompWiz5000: Whats up guys? I’m not gonna lie it’s pretty weird after all these years. So you guys are writing a history blog or something?

Superhero123: Well not exactly, but I do have plans for writing a history blog for armies, for now im working on an army news website though where I think an interview with you would fit if you dont mind of course.

Coolster114: Also, I’ve been planning a UMA history project website for some time, and your answers would be very beneficial. I’ve asked Supehero123 and a few others interested in history to help me out with that – with the main goal being to preserve UMA History since a lot of misinformation is out there. It would be nice to keep things preserved for future years, especially regarding the early years (2007/early 08).

CompWiz5000: Yeah sure I mean if you guys have any questions I’ll do my best to try and answer them.

Superhero123: Ok! We are gonna begin the questions now. How did the name CompWiz5000 come to be?

CompWiz5000: I’ve used a lot of names in the past, CompWiz5000 and Lectriclew to name the big ones. How did I make this name? I don’t know I was a kid and liked computers hahaha and thought 5000 would make it more computery and cool hahahaha. Sorry I can’t give a better answer. I was just a kid.

Superhero123: When did you last visit xat?

CompWiz5000: Years and years ago, like it’s hard to even remember this stuff. We were kids then.

Coolster114: The last time I ever recall you visiting XAT was in 2012 – I may be incorrect. You posted on pinkmafias.wordpress.com back then whenever you visited so we knew it was you.

CompWiz5000: Yeah.

Superhero123: How did UMA come to be? I have seen there was a Pink Mafias Army before, how did that come to be as well?

CompWiz5000: Okay, I actually do believe I had written his stuff down somewhere in the past because so many people used to ask that, but just an unofficial answer is that Pink Mafias made the army, we were best friends at school and we were playing different games and then club penguin and basically he created the wordpress and the idea for the army and we just went with it.

Coolster114: Is it true there was a third friend – Jtrotter – who also led early on?

CompWiz5000: Yes he was another IRL friend of ours, but he didn’t really commit the way we did.

Superhero123: According to the research I did, it appears that you joined UMA a bit after Pink Mafias and Jrtrotter. Do you remember exactly when you joined?

CompWiz5000: We cannot forget that the three of us all attended the same elementary school and were friends in real life when talking about these subjects. If we’re talking on a strict technical basis; then yes, I “joined” after it’s formation. Technically. That’s the key word here. While we were at school every day together and hanging out talking about our general lives we were talking about Club Penguin and the idea of an army. Pink Mafias took this idea and turned it into a reality. While I don’t recall the exact date of events (again reminding that we’re discussing events that happened over a decade ago when I was a mere grade-school child and didn’t keep mental records of all my events) I can say that the time frame couldn’t have been off by more than just a few days. I should also make a reminder that my original intention in the website development was the “hints, tips cheats” type of content focused on maximizing gold and other game-play news. Once running two aspects became quite overwhelming I eventually focused solely on the army aspect of game-play.

Superhero123: Were you guys inspired by ACP? Or some other pre-existing army?

CompWiz5000: Like I said I don’t know what really inspired it or what came first. All I know is that I was already interested in the game and he was doing a lot of army stuff. The way we ran the website in the beginning was I was doing all the guide stuff for like the secret items in catalogs like the viking healm and stuff. Also even before UMA the site was just like tips hints cheats and various hacks because it was pretty easy to hack the game before disney. I think the UMA and army stuff arose later but I cant be certain.

Coolster114: Okay so, as I’m sure you remember, there were many impersonation attempts over the years of both you and Pink Mafias. Could you clarify if Pink Mafias has ever visited the community since early 2008, which is when you both retired? There were impersonation attempts of Pink Mafias in 2013 and again in 2017 when Disney shut Club Penguin down, and people impersonated you too between the 2015-2017 period, claiming to have attended UMA events under your name.

CompWiz5000: I can promise you those claims are false, especially Pink Mafias who returned even fewer times than me. It’s true we did used to come back just to say hi every once in a while but we would always just log into the game or make a post on the site for proof. I can’t remember the exact date of our last visit but it wasn’t in 2017.

Coolster114: Wait, so Pink Mafias did visit in the 2010s? I recall his last official visit being in 2008. In 2011 you very publicly stated he never visited after that.

CompWiz5000: Then take what I said then as fact, because it was fresh in my mind then.

Coolster114: So many people impersonated you guys over the years; it was really frustrating. Some of the more naïve newer players fell for it.

CompWiz5000: If they can’t access pinkmafias.wordpress.com they’re fakes.

Superhero123: Today, some people believe the UMA lost its status in mid 2007 as a major power after Pink Mafias’ first account got banned in mid 2007 during the first war with ACP. Is that correct?

CompWiz5000: No. The banning of the official Pink Mafias account honestly didn’t affect anything. By the time his account was banned we already had major infrastructure with a popular website, an even more popular youtube channel, and we were quite large and big and we were able to keep communication through those channels. But I suppose the question is very subjective and open to opinion. In my opinion UMA was always best up until the day we both quit. After that I am not aware.

Superhero123: Could you do a size comparison to ACP? Which, I presume, was the second biggest army. Like how many penguins did you usually have fighting on your battles?

CompWiz5000: Like I said before I’m trying just to remember as all this was over like 15 years ago. I do remember there was a point where we “technically” weren’t the biggest army anymore. So as far as number of penguins in the army itself we were far from rank one. However we had the most active engagement. So whenever we posted on the website or on youtube we had much more active response. If we asked people to log on X server and come to Y spot for a fight they would show up and many times servers lagged heavily. I think the other armies once they got so big it was hard for them to communicate. People were confused who their leader was. And without any clear focus it was hard for them to engage. We had one website, and it was super easy to communicate.

Superhero123: You were still 2nd/3rd biggest at that point right?

CompWiz5000: Yes.

Coolster114: Okay, this might be a bit difficult to recall, but based on the web archive and my own memory – you guys left in Summer 2007 for Runescape but promised to return to enact revenge on ACP. And you guys did return, later in 2007 (October/November) for a couple of months before leaving in early 2008 (January/February) for the last time – does that sound correct? So the way I recall is, there was a First Pink Mafias/CompWiz Era which lasted until Summer 2007, then you guys left and a few others like Angel G8i and Mpenguin led for a couple of months, then you returned for what I call the Second Pink Mafias/CompWiz Era. Then afterwards the army was handed to Abercrombie29.

CompWiz5000: Again, I’d have to take some time to try and recall exactly what happened. We did decide to just return hard to kind of knock all the chaos away. I can’t recall names or dates exactly. But I don’t remember officially actually giving leadership to anyone. Once we left the new powers that came to be just sort of happened. We did not allow use by anyone of our official website. We did come back and we did try to put some order into chaos but then we re-quit again for the same reasons.

Coolster114: The next UMA era used a different website, which you were an admin on.

CompWiz5000: Yes I was given access to other UMA websites over time, but the origial pinkmafias.wordpress.com I have never given access to.

Superhero123: Are you supportive of the UMA generations that came after the original? Despite them not being somehow “officially authorized”.

CompWiz5000: Yeah I’d say all the UMA spin-offs were essentially unofficial since we never endorsed any. As far as we were concerned UMA “disbanded” once we quit. In practicality though things weren’t like that and some of the new UMA websites that emerged were indeed very impressive and it felt nice to know people continuing even though we had left. I would like to say though that audiences and popularity did drop. We, at the time, broke records with out site. I believe our records were 12,000 hits on our best day, 240,000 on our best month and 1.3 million hits total.

Superhero123: One of the most historic recorded events that occured that year is the battle of Wool Socks, any chance you remember anything about it?

CompWiz5000: I’m sorry I don’t recall individual battles. Back then, we would post immediately a battle report on our website. Many time we were posting and making youtube videos live. Unfortunately when I decided to make the website idle all those years ago I foolishly deleted all our old posts. I thought I transferred them into an archive but I did not and I believe them to be lost.

Superhero123: You live streamed battles on youtube?

CompWiz5000: Live streaming wasn’t a thing back then. But we were using screen recorders and uploading very quickly.

Coolster114: There’s another question I wanna ask: Nowadays all battles are scheduled at specific times – both armies log on and fight at say, 4pm PST. Did that happen back then all the time? Or were the battles say, more spontaneous – unscheduled?

CompWiz5000: Thats a great question. Huge wars were scheduled. The ones where the servers would crash and stuff that was indeed planned so that everyone could be online. But that was a small part of our overall existence. We were mostly living true to our name and we did the majority of our battles as spontaneous events on specific servers at specific spots. We would have people logged on wearing the official UMA uniform.

Superhero123: On those spontaneous events, how did you find other armies to fight?

CompWiz5000: Honestly we would just log on different servers and spot gatherings. Sometimes we would all dress up in the uniform and take a screenshot at the location and claim it. Other times we would go where other armies had establishments and claim them and provoke war. This is again very early on. Once we were very established we started to follow the systems you are familiar with. Then everyone was into it and armies were huge.

Superhero123: The answer to this question is considered quite known, I am just asking it to confirm it for good. Why was the Pink Mafias account banned?

CompWiz5000: Hacking. Back in the day it was very easy to hack the game. It wasn’t particularly hard if some grade schoolers could do it.

Coolster114: Was it simply finding bugs or was it actual hacking?

CompWiz5000: Well it depends on how you define it. Once the game became established and had real developers all this stuff became null. Yes there were bugs that we used to intentionally abuse, but Pink Mafias had downloaded third party software and actually was able to get into game files and implant gold into his account, and other various hacks. Our favorite game was the mine cart and jet pack. We used to post a lot of guides on how to maximize gold legitimately. We had some stellar records. But there were ways to hack and cheese the game to just get a bunch of gold which we used to post pics of igloo upgrades etc. Again I should reiterate that I also really wanted to do a lot of non-army stuff. I had so many pages of posts on guides and legitimate tips. I would wake up super early on update dates and make videos on where the secret items were in the catalogs, and farm gold to make igloo layouts. This isn’t officially confirmed but Pink Mafias with all his gold used to cover his igloo floor with the dance mats and post pictures of that, but they were expensive. Then they added an igloo floor layout. Perhaps he influenced that decision.

Coolster114: Are the rumours that Pink Mafias sold his ‘Uma Pm’ account in 2008 in exchange for Runescape gold true?

CompWiz5000: I cannot confirm this. To be honest, having known Pink Mafias in real life, it doesn’t seem impossible. That is to say, if it did happen I wouldn’t be completely surprised. Again though, he never told me anything so I can’t say for 100% certainty.

Coolster114: I remember the ACP rivalries back then. They were very intense. the UMA-ACP rivalry was legendary – any thoughts or comments on that? And on Oagalthorp? And by the way I wanna let you know, that rivalry also sparked a lot of other anti-ACP rivalries over the years.

CompWiz5000: That’s an amazing question. Out of all the people and all the things you asked me if I remember… I do not remember any single one of them except for Oagal. Oagalthorp and ACP was probably the only major real competition we had. Obviously I don’t know the guy or have any personal gripe against him but our in-game rivalry was amazing and what made the game actually fun, and we were also competing on who would update their website faster. It was truly amazing. All the other people have faded from my mind but that name not at all.

Superhero123: Do you remember Commando717 and the events that led to the formation of the Rebel Penguin Federation? If yes, what can you tell us about it?

CompWiz5000: I do indeed remember that name. After so much time has passed I must be honest and admit that I do not remember many character names, but I do remember this one. Unfortunately I must reiterate the name unexiting answer I’ve given to other questions of this nature and that is that I just simply don’t remember those details.

Coolster114: I have to say it’s an honour talking to you.

Superhero123: It was a real honor CompWiz, honestly. You also seem like a very nice person and so I am very glad we had the chance to speak to you.

CompWiz5000: Yeah it was really nice talking with you guys too. I’m sorry if I don’t 100% remember you guys from any prior encounters even though Coolster does ring a bell. It was good nostalgia.

Superhero123: See you!

CompWiz5000: Peace out guys.

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Needless to say, the outcome of this interview was beyond the expectations of both of us. Not only was CompWiz willing to answer any question we had, but he also provided or confirmed very important information about UMA, Pink Mafias, and early CPA in general. Even when asked questions on which he didn’t recall much details, something both expected and completely understandable considering it has been 14 years since those events took place, he responded with some very analytic and insightful answers.

We now know for certain that neither Pink Mafias nor CompWiz have reappeared since 2011. The claimed Pink Mafias visits in 2013 and 2017 were both impersonation attempts. Another thing we now know for certain is that no UMA generation that came after the original was somehow “officially certified” by the UMA founders, but they didn’t have an issue with them regardless. Something else that I feel is a very important aspect of this interview, is the fact that it can provide great advice for Leaders of current Armies, despite the fact that so many years have passed. As CompWiz states, what made UMA that successful wasn’t the sheer amount of troops the army had, but a very important factor many current armies struggle with: retention rate. You can have 10000 troops, but if you can’t get 50 of them on your battles consistently it doesn’t really matter.

But those are the main points I took out of this interview. What do YOU think? Are there any extra questions about CompWiz5000/UMA you would like to see answered? Please let us know in the comments below!

Superhero123

CPA Headquarters Advisor

Coolster114

Retired UMA Leader and Army Veteran

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