In a recent interactive challenge, we asked our community members to rank club penguin armies’ years, from the undoubted highs to the surprising lows. Let’s take a look at how everyone ranked their preferences.
Designed by Dino
Visualized by the CPA Community Committee, the innovative contest asked army members to rank their favorite CPA years in a tier list. Welcome to a brand new edition of ‘My Controversial Opinion’! The first of its kind of rankings, this idea garnered much attention, and we witnessed some interesting submissions. With the ‘best’ army years a hot topic of debate, we saw a wide range of submissions. The era in which community members were most active, potentially also had an impact on the rankings.
With that being said, let’s look at some of the most thoughtful and intriguing submissions. The first one being by CPA legend DMT.
DMT’s tier list submission
While many would agree with this classification, we notice an interesting choice. DMT excludes 2020 from the top tier. As 2020 is popularly known as a ‘golden age’ for armies, many would want to know the reasoning behind it. Club Penguin Armies was fortunate to be able to ask DMT this very question.
What do you feel was special about 2009, 2013 and 2014 for them to make it into the top bracket?
For 2013, it hardly needs explaining. It was the beginning of the second golden age and was highlighted by one of the craziest summers armies have ever seen. Theres so much from that year to break down, but I think the highlight was the tremendously long and strenuous RPF vs Nachos war. I might hold some bias here because I was in Nachos at that time, but I consider it the greatest 1v1 war of all time. It was a bitter rivalry and the extended media coverage added fuel to the fire. It was awesome to be a part of.
2014 was a continuation of the high sizes from the previous year, but it gets into S tier for me because of the media renaissance ushered in by the Blues brothers. Again, I’m pretty partial to this because I’m a media man at heart, but this year was extremely important for how we view news organizations- and by extension, leagues- to this day. This year created the idea that the leading organization in the community must be innovative and professional; it cannot appear that it is being run by some random people online. The perception of CPAC at the time rose so high that it’s decline in the following years effected the entire community. CPAC’s peak showed that good organizations can make the potential for the community higher than ever, and 2014 in terms of media has yet to be topped.
Lastly, 2009 gets included in S tier because I view it as the first year where armies got serious. In the previous years, most skirmishes were unorganized and even if they were organized, the actual battles don’t compare to what was to come. But 2009 is when the community truly began to connect with each other, with blogs and chatrooms becoming more common. It opened the door for conflicts to begin by other means than two armies being big. Of course, it also happens to be the year that CPAC opened, which proved to be one of the biggest innovations in community history. It’s not a year that has a standout conflict, so to speak, but it was the first year where the stakes were elevated.
Why did you decide to leave 2020 out of the first tier?
2020 is interesting cause everyone knows that the summer of that year is undeniably the biggest armies have ever been. And I’m not one of the people that thinks the Covid boom discredits those highs; it was awesome. Truthfully, 2020 falls just short because of how short CPAH was around. It’s hard to believe, but the Hub only came to be at the very end of June. This gave the community 6 awesome months before the closure of flash and CPAH’s demise, but there are still the first 6 months of the year to consider! The first half of 2020 was by no means a bad year, but it definitely wasn’t S tier material. The recovery from the closure of CPA v2 was very slow, things were not very interesting until World War Rewritten. But then, while WWR was cool in theory, the battles were overshadowed by the external drama. It doesn’t quite stack up with all the previous world wars we’ve seen. Though the unification process during this time was pivotal, it doesn’t compare to the feats of innovation in the other years in S tier. Ultimately, a year has to be consistently amazing for it to be in my top tier, and 2020 just wasn’t.
Hence, DMT talks about the first time armies started functioning as a properly arranged community in 2009. He touches on several big developments and conflicts during 2013 and 2014, along with Club Penguin Army Central reaching new highs. However, the explanation for 2020 not being on the same level is the state of the community prior to the famous corona boom. The start of the year was in fact not very auspicious, as mentioned by DMT.
Next, army legend and CPA Battleground creator Superhero123 compiled a nostalgic list, with most of the OG era finding its way into the first two tiers.
Superhero123’s tier list submission
With this record again being on expected lines, we decided to ask Superhero about the close competition between the first eight years of CP Armies.
What made you choose some of the early years over the more recent CPPS times?
I believe (outside the amazing 2020) that armies were doing better in the 2008-2013 period than afterwards, solely because Club Penguin and rest Virtual Worlds had their golden age in that era. There were just more people around.
Do you feel the CPPS era struggles with consistency, or is it just not comparable with older generations?
CPPS era does struggle with consistency yes. It is mainly because there still hasn’t been one long running widely respected org, like CPAC used to be. I have trust in CPA.org though and I believe it has potential to surpass all previous CPPS Army orgs in terms of longevity and stability. There are multiple veterans watching over it.
Moving on, we see CPA legend and a familiar personality, Aaronstone’s thoughts on the best army years.
Aaronstone’s tier list submission
This entry is fascinating due to the fact that maximum years secure a position on the first tier. The observation provides a relatively optimistic outlook on the army community’s success over the years. We requested Aaronstone to opine on his submission.
Going over your picks, why do you think as many years deserved to be given a good rank?
Really feel like 2010-2015 was some of the communities best years I feel like so much happened I might be a bit biased cuz those were my most active years.
What in your opinion, does the CPPS era lack to not be handed similar spots?
Community has changed alot and I agree its not as fun anymore to some extent but that might be because im older now and Ive experienced alot more.
In conclusion, a lot factors into what is termed a good year for the army community. While it’s virtually impossible to have a perfect year, we have seen how the positives can outweigh controversies and dramatic moments. Some of the changes over time have been revolutionary, altering the course of club penguin armies. How would you rank CP armies by years? Do you agree or disagree with the rankings in this post? What have been your favorite moments in this community?