The history of top-level Intermediate-playing began with an international competition called Crespo’s Worms Tournament (CWT). The tourney was first organized by Crespo (Portugal) on Worms World Party’s WormNET2 in 2002 (Worms Armageddon having been released in 1999).

CWT was the cradle of most top-level Intermediate players in the early years. Talented well-known players (including the founding members of NNN) grew up training to participate in CWT, and proved themselves within it. The tourney is considered an unofficial world Intermediate championship.

The young CWT was infused with the spirit of sportsmanship and the friendly atmosphere of a community united by its hobby of playing strategic Worms schemes such as Intermediate, Team17, and Elite. It was in this climate that NNN was founded.

CWT was run by Crespo, later with the assistance of MrTPenguin (United Kingdom), for six years (2002-2007). The community was quite big and included unusual players like Teletubbies (United Kingdom) – a guy over 50 years old who made all the other players feel young! The first champion was an Australian called Xaositect.

The star of the early years of CWT was Jigsaw (Poland). He inspired players of all generations with his titanic performances, and he was the only two-time CWT champion (2003 and 2004) from that era of the tourney.

The American player Bytor is also an icon of CWT, having participated in every single edition of it since its inception! As a character and a “celebrity” in WormNET, he has always contributed to the glamour of CWT.

And Johnmir (Russia) became a prominent competitor who, under the tutelage of Bytor, promoted an aggressive playing style full of then-nonstandard moves.

Since CWT 2008, which was organized by Jigsaw, all subsequent editions have been run by active NNN members – Khamski (Russia), Antares (Romania), Kayz, Joschi, and Zemke (Germany) – who made a great effort to keep the tournament going, to maintain its traditions, and to improve its website.

In this new era of CWT, an influential person was Khamski, who sought to implement strict rules in relation to the timekeeping of matches. He’s currently one of several people who broadcast matches online, and moreover he was the one who instigated money prizes and trophies for the three who finish on the podium.

And thanks must also go to Kayz – an NNN clan leader, and in the last two years a CWT organizer – and Zemke, who took over the CWT site in 2009 and maintained it at a high standard.

Clan NNN – Normal No Noobs – was founded in the beginning of January 2005 by the Argentine player SirGorash, who created the first website and made the first recruitments. The objective of the clan was to gather together the most talented and most suitable Intermediate scheme players in the Worms World Party community.

Initially, only NNN members were permitted in a “maintenance league” organized by the clan. Outsiders had to earn the right to be admitted.

At that time, only a small number of “normal” players (those who cite Intermediate as their preferred scheme) were around, and WormNET was dominated by “Shopper” players.

Since its foundation, NNN has had two main aims: to increase the clan’s popularity, and to increase the popularity of the Intermediate scheme.

A few months into its existence and in the light of the first clan aim, Bytor was invited to join. It is hard to overestimate the significance of Bytor’s role in the clan’s history, as this man taught all three of the clan’s top founding wormers – SirGorash, Dario and Johnmir – basics of top-level worming, helping to facilitate the actualization of the community over time.

As per its second aim, NNN’s goal was to show that “normal” is a complete and challenging way of playing Worms that combines most of the skills developed in other schemes with many skills specific to it. NNN didn’t just want normal-gaming to grow in popularity, but to raise the skill level on WormNET. This has subsequently become NNN's principal goal.

This mentality is synonymous with the clan’s brightest star and its leader of many years – Dario – an exceedingly talented Argentine normal-worming “scientist” and three-time CWT champion.

Before long, NNN opened its league borders to anyone who expressed a willingness to perform within the normal scheme, and the Open Normal League (ONL) was born. New NNN members came and went, but most importantly, normal has become one of the most popular schemes in WormNET.

Later on, with ONL having acquired many members and revolutionized the way normal games were played on WormNET, the site went down due to problems with SirGorash's home computer.

There was consequently no league action for a long time, but in the face of numerous requests and the general concern of the community, clan member Kilobyte (Hungary) stepped forward in November 2008 to build a new website offering similar features to the old one.

In the beginning, he had nothing to help him but a tiny RAR file. But in the end, he successfully built up a site that provided the same functionality as before, with the addition of a completely new well-balanced probability-based ranking system (developed by Dario and SirGorash) and the means for reporting games without the need for external programs. It went live on January 6, 2009.

Having launched it as an updated version of the old site, Kilobyte continuously improved it, bit by bit, based on feedback from the community, enhancing it greatly. The simplistic tables disappeared, the design became more diversified, and with all the new, unique features (user awards, playing stats, etc.) the site became better than ever.

The Normal No Noobs clan is one of the most organized and stable communities in WormNET these days. It admits new talented players both into the clan and into the Open Normal League. The league and the website are governed by a group of creative and sagacious admins who are always happy to see new faces in the league and in the forums.

Bytor says:

“In the early days normal gaming was almost a sin. There were few players who committed any time to it and the level of competition was very low.

I had already been playing normal almost exclusively for a number of years and many times certain players would come and start playing just long enough to start getting good, then abandon normal games. I simply had the advantage of time. Being shown or discovering some of these simple moves and staying at it long enough to put it together would look almost like magic to newcomers.

When players like SirG, Dario and Koras and others came along, I could see something was different. SirG spectated more of my games then he played. He improved by leaps and bounds seemingly by just watching. Dario would play often and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He would not make the same mistake twice and seemed to come away from each game having learned more than I would in months. But the biggest difference was the free sharing of information. I and some others would "use" moves and try to keep the advantage to ourselves, all the while complaining that there were so few decent players. Dario would take those moves to a whole new level of accuracy, or discover new things and freely show and teach anyone anything he discovered to improve overall competition.

When SirG approached me about starting a normal clan, I agreed to join but contributed little aside from simply playing under the NNN tag. There had been many failed attempts at a normal clan, so the idea was not new. But the novelty was the idea of forming a clan NOT for the purpose of furthering one’s own game-play or reputation, but for increasing everyone's competition level and mainstreaming normal games. These were the original ideals of NNN. And in that respect it has more than accomplished its founder's goals and has been incredibly successful.

It has also assured its future success by spawning a new generation of players who are now taking the reins and maintaining it.”

The voice of history:

“Intermediate is a very complete and challenging way of playing worms that combines most of the skills developed in other schemes with many skills specific to it.”
“We all can reach a high skill level, but on the top of the skill the most intelligent guy wins."
“Intermediate-scheme worming is at the conceptual centre of video gaming, and with its optimal balance of skill, strategy, and luck, it can be called the greatest game of all time.”
“I think worms is a great decision-making simulator which develops a reactive thinking that can be really handy in RL.”
“Everything is in your hands, no one can stop you if you know what to do and you can get this knowledge.”

NNN was founded in 2005 by SirGorash, Johnmir and Bytor at WWP with the objective of gathering together the best Normal players. During this time only a little amount of Normal players were around and WormNET's majority consisted of Shopper obsessed people. In the beginning only NNN members were permitted in a league where gradually advancing players were able to become one of them. Later on NNN's main goal was to show that Normal is a very complete and challenging way of playing Worms that combines most of the skills developed in other schemes with many skills specific to it. NNN wanted Normal to increase in popularity and wanted the skill level on WormNET to improve. This is NNN's main goal ever since. Soon NNN opened their league for everyone showing the willingness to perform at Normal scheme, the Open Normal League was born. New NNN members appeared and disappeared but most importantly Normal has become one of the most popular schemes in WormNET.
After some time within ONL gained a lot of new members and revolutionized the way Normal was being played in WormNET the site went down because of problems with SirGorash's home computer. Issued by that there was no league for a long time but due to a lot of requests and community's interests Kilobyte voluntarily decided to build a new website that offers similar features in November of 2008. There was only a tiny *.rar file available to start up from. In the end he has successfully build up a site that provides the same functions as it had been before, additionally a completely new probability based ranking system and no need of external programs for reporting games. Finally it started to work on January 6 of 2009. Starting as a modern version of the old site Kilobyte kept improving it step by step based on requests from the community.
The new site knows all the functions, but much better. The simple tables disappeared, the design became more various. With all the new, unique features we hope to reach the best site's standards.
Bytor: In the early days normal game was almost a sin. There were few players who committed any time to it and level of competition was very low. You have to under stand that many of the common moves we all use today were not yet thought of, or discovered. Things like mine hats, using a bow at close range, shooting a worms feet on a bridge and pushing a mine with the jetpack took years to discover.

I had already been playing normal almost exclusively for a number of years and many times certain players would come and start playing just long enough to start getting good, then abandoned normal games. I simply had the advantage of time. Being shown or discovering some of these simple moves and staying at it long enough to put it together would look almost like magic to newcomers.

When players like SirG, Dario and Koras and others came along. I could see something was different. SirG spectated more of my games then he played. He improved by leaps and bounds seemingly by just watching. Dario would play often and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He would not make the same mistake twice and seamed to come away from each game having learned more then I would in months. But the biggest difference was the free sharing of information. I and some others would "use" moves and try to keep the advantage to ourselves all the while complaining that there were so few decent players. Dario would take those moves to a whole new level of accuracy, or discover new things and freely show and teach anyone anything he discovered to improve overall competition.

When SirG approached me about starting a normal clan. I agreed to join but contributed little aside for simply playing under the NNN tag. There had been many failed attempts at a normal clan. So the idea was not new. But was new was the idea of forming a clan NOT for the purpose of fathering ones own game play or reputation, but for increasing everyone's competition level and mainstreaming normal games. These were the original ideals of NNN. And in that respect it has more then accomplished its founder's goals and has been incredibly successful.

It has also assured it future success by spawning a new generation of players who are now taking the rains and maintaining it.