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Saturday, August 8, 1998
Quake's Historic Victory - Nine Who Rocked the World:
Clan Nine have made a huge impact with their victory over Deathrow in Stockholm, 8 games to 2. American Quake Clans have had a sharp wake-up call, while all of Europe has been given a massive boost. With a large number of Quake countries in such close proximity, a fast network, and so many strong national Clans, Europe is well-placed to spearhead the growth of truly international Quake tournaments. In fact, the very next one is UK Vs Germany :-).

But don't expect the US to stand still and watch. Worldwide attention focused on the Nine Studio as the two Clans produced some of the most exciting Quake games ever witnessed. On the Qizmo proxy last night were broadcasters and viewers from all over the world, with the PGL and the CPL obviously wide awake now to the massive implications of this event. The race to host the first World Cup of Quake is on - it wouldn't be a bad idea to begin the preparation of your national teams.

I've spent all day downloading demos, because our Australian Qizmo connection didn't work last night, for reasons we do not understand. I want to get these demos up for the guys who were up until 5:00am last night and didn't get to see a game. More news will follow later on.

But first - Congratulations to Nine - what a performance! And great sports, Deathrow, the games were getting closer as you guys worked out the strategies you needed to prevent Nine locking down the maps. But despite your skills and your great attitude, Nine won by incredible strategy and teamplay, and the devastating power of their top strikers - Xenon and Paralyzer. In particular, Xenon must be regarded as the Tournament stand-out. Congratulations also to Henrik, of the Nine Studio. You created the event to surpass even the Red Annihilation tournament.

The tournament was held over 10 matches, 5 on Deathrow's favoured platform - Normal Quake, and 5 on Nine's - Quakeworld. I've pulled together the results, as best as I can, in the table below, and I've also posted a demo from each game. Thanks to GolSyd for the FTP. Watch out for more next week.

Best write ups of the games - Hobbex at A Frag in the Dark, followed by SumFuka and FragBate at PlanetQuake.

Friday, August 7, 1998
The News is Yet to Come
Brief update tonight - you know why! It's been a long day at work waiting for tonight to come, and the return of Nine and Deathrow to the match, and a chance to watch these games LIVE. A special feeling knowing that these Clans are meeting again. In Australia, we didn't even try to watch the last games on RQ using FAQ, but tonight many Australian Players will be up at 3:00am to watch the games LIVE from the other side of the planet on GolSyd. As soon as I receive the IP address, I'll forward it to . Then up to 32 Players will be able to spectate. I'll be connecting to a Swedish server :-).

Deathrow Prepare for Round Two:
T1m3R was on a celebrity chat with the DR guys at Passagen (www.passagen.se) and sent in some stuff for the ppl who weren't there:

How prepared are you for the fights in QW tomorrow? And can you keep your spirit high, even now when you need 4 wins to take home gold?
:)
Good question
Most of us have been practicing quite a bit in QW..
And, thank god 2.21 is not really THAT much different..
I believe we are in good shape
yeah, tough question.. we've been practicing QW all day today.. and we're trying to come up with a strategy to combat Nine's.. like we did in the last NQ game.

do you think it was a disadvantage that 9 were used to the computers, or is quake the same on any computer?
Well such disadvantages.. are what the game is about
Quake is not the same on any machine...It took time for us to get use to the machines and configured the way we wanted them.
Hmm.. Quake is pretty different from computer to computer.. but if you install your own mouse drivers.. etc. you can cut down on the differences from each computer..
You are almost Always at a disadvatage when the opposition is at home..
It's like playing hide and seek in someone elses house
I personally had a hard time to adjust to the 21 inch monitors, heheh

<[MF]fADe> Are you guys gonna move on to Half-Life? I mean quake is realy getting old isn't it?
Ehehe
Well, I still love the game dearly... and have yet to find "the next game"
We'll see what happens after the PGL
Quake is getting older....but we still enjoy it...we'll compete in any games that we enjoy playing. '
I am looking forward to Quake Arena
Hmm.. Quake is definitely getting old.. but there hasn't been one game that has wiped it completely off the scene yet.. at least in multiplayer gameplay... I personally will probably play what everyone else is playing

SiteWatch:
Over on Thresh's Fontline, Thresh writes that "Clan Nine deserves all the credit in the world. They are an awesome team. Their teamplay is impeccable, their strategy is unique, and their skills are very good". D2-B2 has written a review of the first couple of days, in which he says: "on DM3, they pulled some very nice strategies. They had two guys camping RA and two guys camping YA. We really couldn't do much. It was amazing how they could get control of the level very quckly". Hobbex, in A Frag in the Dark, as well as writing some nice stuff about some hairy beer-drinker from downunda (thx :-), speculates on how DR might travel the road to victory:

"The next thing that is necessary for DR is the assumption that the final victory in RQ was not as Xenon expressed them getting sloppy, but a true sign that DR had unlocked Nines style on this map. IF this is so, they may well go ahead and use there superior experience to win the two DM3 games, and win them big enough to close the frag gap (200 points) as well. Should this be the case, the final E1M2 game will be one of the most exciting matches of Quake ever played, and us spectators will really get our moneys worth".

Clanscene has a great write-up of the events of the first day, with HeKSeN saying that Sujoy (UK), Timber(UK), Cataclysm(NO), Sectopod(NO), Fenris(SE), LakermaN(SE), the IoP guys (like Nator, oWl, Wilco) were all there: "As said before the atmosphere was beyond the believable, after each map the applause and claps just continued for minutes, and both teams revealed their faces to the public". Methos has got a couple of interviews with [9] Nikodemus - "Boomsticks are the primary weapons and if you learn to use them they can be *VERY* effective" and D2-B2 - "Their boomsticks are insane".

Other sites not necessarily covering this match that you might like to visit are Izn0's new-look Quake.World, which now looks pretty damn crash hot, and another new-look for NZ's Faultline. A new site which I really like is Knight's Knightly News, an Australian news site devoted to the local scene (written by a mighty fine Player). Knight has an interview there with GreySeer, our own local LAN guru who also runs the Challenge.AU ISDN line - a totally excellent dude :-)

Mad Vodka Skillz:
In all the excitement, I didn't have time to check out the news of Sujoy's win in the recent Wireplay knockout duel tournament for Quake 1 in Birmingham. He has some demos up here, including one of him playing against Aerotus in the final on DM2 that I watched tonight. Sure hope he and Timber get the chance to play some good games in Stockholm.

Thursday, August 6, 1998
The Results:

Game 1: NINE defeats DR 70-52 on dm3
Game 2: NINE defeats DR 114-28 on dm3
Game 3: NINE defeats DR 146-29 on e1m2
Game 4: NINE defeats DR 159-69 on e1m2
Game 5: DR Defeats NINE 152-22 on dm3

For some screenshots of the scores, head to http://www.clan.dk/sargon/news.htm. For locations of demos - see below.

Special thanks for tonight's news go to [9] Xenon, BD-m0rm0r, Dr-PoDD, Nezstor, Hobbex, and Malekith.

Xenon's Story:
Caught up with Xenon for a few words and this is what he said:

What did you think of DR's style of play, their teamwork, and their attitude to the games?
Their teamplay was great, and their attitude even better, they didnt get mad when losing and kept their cool throughout the 4 losses. They are really great guys once you get to know them.
What changed to allow them back into the match in the final game? What did they do differently? What happened to Nine?
I think we got a bit sloppy, We lost the 2nd pent which gave them total control of the Yellow armor, and we lost the 3rd pent and 10th quad (at the same time) which let them take control of the Red armor.
What was the atmosphere like at the Nine Studio during the games?
The players were all nervous, Im guessing the crowd was too. I hope the atmosphere will be the same during the QW games :)
Does Henrik look like he needs sleep badly?
Hahahaha lol. I wont answer that question :D
What were some of the personal highlights from the first 5 games, for you?
I Think my best frag was when i shot Thresh up from the water on e1m2 them boomsticked him once in the face. The crowd went mad.
How do the Nine guys feel right now? Did you guys feel like you were playing your best Quake ever?
We feel real good, but its not over yet. 5 matches to go. I think we were playing our best teamplay ever. And probably our best Netquake ever. I think we can do a better job in the QW games. Gotta get back into shape in QW now :D
Anything you'd like to say to the world about what it's like playing an International Quake match like this?
Well, there is a lot of pressure on you. Not just you, everyone in the 2 clans playing. I think that even the spectators felt the pressure :)I think that these 5 games were the biggest ones of my life. I just hope that we in clan 9 proved that we are to be taken seriously :) Perhaps someone will arrange a European PGL or something? Now that would be cool.

Through BD-m0rm0r's Eyes:
Swedish Clan Brutal Deluxe, aside from having one of the coolest Clan names on the planet, is home to m0rm0r - one of those typical bad ass Scandinavian Quake Players and owner of a pair of sharp tactical eyeballs. So Challenge.AU is fortunate and proud indeed to present m0rm0r's view of the first 5 games between Nine and Deathrow:

"When I arrived at the Nine Studio at 18.45pm the place was pretty empty. On the left wall, 4 large projection screens were set up, one for each player in Clan Nine. The front wall held the screens for the players in DR.

In one corner the Nine guys sat practicing and in the other the DR guys. The atmosphere in the team corners felt a bit tense. When I asked some of the spectators for their prediction of the match I got a lot of different answers, though most of them agreed that it was gonna be tight. My guess was 7 - 3 to Nine.

After some minor problems with the proxys the first game (DM3, regular quake) was ready to start. The players were: 9-Paralyzer, 9-Spice, 9-DOOMer, 9-Xenon, DR-Thresh, DR-B2, DR-Unholy, DR-Frick. The only real surprise in these lineups is maybe that DR-Reptile was left out.

Ok, lets get to it!

The players spawned and the first spawns were pretty fair. Nine got the first Quad and DR the first Pentagram. Pretty quickly Nine got control of the vital positions. The Red Armour - Quad - Yellow Armour tactic that Nine uses worked fine for more than half of the match. The scores were now 40 - 20 in favour of Nine. What happened next was that DR managed to get hold of the Pentagram and on top of that the Penta guy also had a Rocket launcher. Mr Pentagram moved up to the Quad-area and made sure that another DR guy got the Quad. DR secured the Red Armour area and started their comeback. At one point Nine only led by like 5 frags. What halted Deathrow's comeback was that Frick managed to boor himself with the Quad. Nine kept the fragcount low in the end and the very exciting first match ended 70 - 52 to Nine.

Best player must have been Xenon who only died three times and also had the most frags.

A very excited crowd had a hard time believing that Nine actually managed to win against DR in RQ on DM3!

Match number 2, same map still RQ. For this map, Nine swopped DOOMer for Nikodemus but the Deathrow team stayed the same. The spawns in this map really went in Nine's way. Paralyzer got first Pentagram, Xenon got Quad and Nikodemus got RA. Nine secured RA and later began to secure the rest of the positions. When half of the match had passed, Nine had total control of the map. This game wasn't at all as fun to watch as the first one but none the less impressive. When Nine gets this iron grip on the map they only have one weak spot in their tactics and that's the Pentagram. The Pentagrams that DR got their hands on in this game didn't give them much at all, although they tried some neat tactics to give the Penta guy a RL when the only weapon he had was a boomstick. The trick was a teammate who had RL coming to Mr Penta and suiciding, leaving a Rocket launcher in the backpack.

When 20 minutes had passed the score was 97 - 15 to Nine. They had done it again!! And now it was time for E1M2, could anything stop these Swedish super quakers?

The big question regarding the next map was if the Americans had trained enough on this map and if they had any good tactics. The results in this game are best explained by Thresh and Unholy:

D11-Thresh: "Very impressive"
D9-Unholy: "Neat"

The score was 149 - 29, with Nine's score first.

What DR seemed to do wrong on this map was that they didn't seize the important positions fast enough, and they concentrated on the wrong positions on this map. Spending to much time at the RL room and not thinking that the YA/GL area was more important. Nine now led by 3 games to 0 and the next game was on the same map. Now Reptile was put into the DR team. This time DR seemed to have learned from their mistakes in the last match, and they put a lot more pressure on YA/GL/Q area. DR actually had control of that area at one time in the match. Still Nine controlled the map for most of the time and won this game with 159 - 68.

Comment after the match by Unholy:

D9-Unholy: "Ok, if I don't piss...... I'm going to explode"

After this match the crowd began to doubt that anything or anyone could take down clan Nine and many spectators were pretty disappointed with DR's performance. The Nine guys didn't even seem nervous anymore.

One thing you should never do in a Clanwar is to get sloppy and underestimate your opponents. This seems to be something that happened to the Swedes in the last match for this night. This time DM3. The Nine guys seemed a little too calm and they came to pay for that. Although Nine got the first Penta, Ring and Quad, DeathRow quickly took control of the map and never let it go. After 20 minutes of very good play from all in DR (especially Thresh and Reptile) the scores were 132 to 22 to DR.

Spice comment after the match:

[9] Spice: "Very impressive ;)"

This put an end to the Regular Quake part of this 10 map game and a bit suprisingly Nine was a head with 4 - 1.

/m0rm0r of Brutal Deluxe signing off".

Hobbex Coverage:
Some more excellent coverage of the games can be found in A Frag in the Darkness by Hobbex, who was on hand and writes that the games produced some of the most enjoyable deathmatch he has ever witnessed. His feature article throws some more light on how Clan Nine managed to dominate Deathrow in DR's favoured map - DM3:

"I think that Nine surprised Deathrow, as well as myself, by using a tactic on [DM3] that is different from what we have seen before. Lending much from their proven tactics on E1M2, Nine did not seem to bother about the RL, the Shaft, or the GL (in fact they hardly touched the water). Instead, they concentrated only on holding the two powerful armors and the quad. After about ten minutes, things were looking very good for Nine, with at least 30 points up and complete control. This is when I started rubbing my eyes".

One thing I read which surprised the DR guys was how quickly the Nine Players spread out from the initial spawns at the start of each game, and quickly secured the vital positions. Of course, it helps to know which positions are the vital ones:

"But what I had not expected was that Deathrow did not seem to know the E1M2_at_ all. At the two minute mark, DR had given every single member an RL, while Nine all had armor and other weapons. The rocket launcher may be the ultimate weapon in that fuct up game, but everybody knows that you do NOT start E1M2 by waiting for the RL to respawn. The quad/gl/yellow armor is where it is at on this level, and that is where one must go, weapon or not. Nine know this, DR do not, and the rest is in the numbers".

Methos Interviews Xenon:
Methos has a really interesting interview with Xenon, which provides an insight into how tough the DR guys were to play against (of course!). If you watched some demos, and you thought that Nine seemed to have an easy game of it, you need to take another look :-). According to Xenon, DR's "tactics and teamplay were REALLY good (especially on the last dm3)" - "They are a Top Notch clan". The games were closely fought, regardless of some of the score-lines. Xenon relates that "in the second game DR managed to get control back about 12 min into the game. They did it very well, 3 guys rocket jumped up to the 150, then took over gl. When there were 5 min left we got control back, perhaps if they would have kept control they might have won". When you read this interview, you will also have the feeling that the match is far from over. Xenon recalls the last game on DM3: "so the second we got sloppy they took over and beat us".

PlanetQuake Coverage:
FragBate and SumFuka provide extensive coverage of the match over at PlanetQuake. You can find the main page here, and from there link to pages which look at each match individually in great detail, as well as much other interesting stuff such as Clan profiles (Nine and Deathrow), a piece (with photos) on the Nine Studio, an interview with Nine, and some pre-match analysis.

I loved this bit from the Interview with Nine:

SumFuka : Do you play quake2 ? Will you ever ?
Doomer[9] : No !
Xenon[9] : No, unless there was money in it !
Spice[9] : No !
Nikodamus[9] : No. Quake Arena maybe.
Paralyzer[9] : No !

SumFuka : If you guys could sit down with John Carmack and have a hand in making Quake Arena the perfect multiplayer game, what changes would you make ?
NINE : Quake1 IS the perfect multiplayer game. It always will be.

Another thing I liked about this coverage was the huge effort put into it - well done guys. Also the match coverage splits each game into the "Startgame", the "Midgame" and the "Endgame". This reminds me of Chess, which is a similar game in some respects (you sit down and try to kill your opponent within a time limit by using your brains) but different in others (the game is a virtual reality battle-field which calls for you to be nimble, fast and physical, and you don't move pieces - you move yourself in the virtual reality environment).

PQ scored these quotes from the combatants at the end of the match:

DR: "We're back !".... "we hope for better luck next friday. C9 have impeccable teamplay. In the last game we didn't change our strategy, we just focused on the things we do well and a key area of the map. (Thresh:) there's a lot of luck involved, whoever locks down the map first can usually win".

NINE: "We're happy to take four wins. In the last game DR got control and kept it. We learnt alot. They are really good. No alcohol tonight for us... we're going to wait until Friday".

Nine Vs DR Demos:
Demos are working their way onto various websites as I hammer this out, but here's the state of play right now. First pit stop to snag 'em is probably best to go to http://www.demolition.org/ninedr/ you'll find these (and no doubt more):

9-DR_day1_B2.zip
9-DR_day1_Frick.zip
9-DR_day1_Niko.zip
9-DR_day1_Para.zip
9-DR_day1_Spice.zip
9-DR_day1_proxy.zip

Then head to Methos - he'll have some good ones up soon.

Proxy Info:
We can only provide limited proxy coverage, with the help of GolSyd. If you're in Australia and you're curious about watching the next games "live" on proxy, you'll need to be a GolSyd customer - sorry but this is the best option for us here in Australia. Why? Because GolSyd is a Quake-dedicated local ISP and it has the best Internet connection to Sweden, the local hardcore Quake Players, and a number of phone-lines. No-brainer. BTW, the matches start at 4:00 AM NSW-time on Saturday morning. Make note of this for Saturday morning's 5 QW games (jeesh - up at 4:00am).

The proxy thing works like this: the Nine Studio connects a Qizmo proxy to the QW server where the matches are played. Guzz at GolSyd will then connect his proxy to the Nine proxy (chain-linking ). To connect, you need to run the Quakeworld client, and when connected to the internet, pull down the console of Quake, and simply type: Connect "insert IP here". The IP is the internet-adress ( number, 165.214.56.188 for example ) where Guzz's proxy is running. Once you?re connected, type proxy:observe 0 and you should be seeing the action.

Guzz and Challenge.AU will publish the IP address on Friday night (late - as soon as we get it from Nine). This will provide limited coverage for a few lucky ppl - better than nothing, and if you mad enough to be up at 4:00am good luck in finding a slot. I'm gonna try to be there.

Riding the Rocket:
I believe that Nine's performance has succeeded in showing the US, and the world, the depth of European Quake, no question about it. Nine are not alone in this league of great Quake playing, although they are clearly Europe's brightest stars right now.

The world is no longer the same. It takes two great Clans to have a great Clan battle. Now we know that there are enough great Clans to have a World Cup. Thresh once wrote, that it seemed there were no more competitive challenges left in Quake. I hope now it is clear that international Quake has created new competitive challenges unlike anything we have seen before. Nine have indeed rocked our world.

Is the game over already? It seems certain that Nine will win, such is their reputation on E1M2. Even if Deathrow somehow tied the games, the frag-count is still heavily in Nine's favour. But DR's performance in the final game, and their near-comeback on one or two occasions, leave me with a feeling that it ain't over yet. The scores CAN flip - look at the margin in that final game. Deathrow will be playing like hell and their game, despite the scoreline at times, is absolutely dangerous.

Personally, I hope that regardless of the outcome, Quake Players everywhere will be inspired to make their own international challenges, to organise events where gamers can watch the most intense and skillful combats, and to aim for world domination as Nine are doing. It's a shitload of fun for a bunch of Quake Players :-).

Wednesday, August 5, 1998
Would Australia Be Interested in an International Quake Tournament?:

Got an email from Frank "Ignatu" Cabanski, who is the ClanRing Director and The Commissioner of the CPL. They call him the big Mama of online Quake tournaments, in fact with the Clanring's T-series (T1-T3) for Quake Clans and the Red Annihilation 1-on-1 tournament (the one where Thresh won JC's Ferrari), Frank is pretty much the guy with shit-loads of experience and good ideas.

He emailed me to say:

I may have a lead to direct dial ISDN server. More later this week.
Did any of the Cyberathletes get back to you? Rix and Gollum said they'd be interested
QTV...read your blurb on QTV for DR v Clan 9. Clanring has broadcast many matches in QTV.
International Tournament: Would Australia be interested in an International Quake Tournament?

So there you go, AstroBoy, Frank read your article on QuakeTV - onya matey. Frank may also be lining up direct dial ISDN for Challenge.AU to dial into - maybe that means some NSW Quake Players might soon have the chance to have those "fun games" against Kornelia and sCary at last, and also perhaps Rix, Gollum, and/or Lord Vader, or any one of the top 16 from the recent CPL Event . Imagine that :-))).

But the thing that knocked me right out of my everloving mind was the last question - "Would Australia be interested in an international Quake Tournament?". Have a think about that one for a bit :-). International means representative Players from around the world - and we know there are a lot of quality Players out there from a lot of countries. Quake means the bad ass game we all love to play. Australia means that locally, we will need to organise a national championships to pick the AU team.

If Frank asks this sort of question, you can bet he has some exciting ideas forming. When I have any more information on this subject, you'll hear about it - promise. (BTW, my answer was "yes" - duh).

Deathrow Beaten by Icon of Pain:

Reports are just filtering in of Swedish Clan Icon of Pain defeating Deathrow in a practice match. A very cool Danish Quake news site called Clanscene had this hot story:

"Tonight DR played a practice match against IoP (you could call them the local 2nd team of 9, though its a whole seperate clan) and surprisingly IoP won by a close 18 frags in the lead. Apparently the match was played in RQ (Regular Quake) and on map DM3. It was said that after the match Thresh wasn't in the mood of playing any more, why?, I really don't know but something must've been wrong".

According to FragZone, Sweden's premier news site, Icon of Pain are a RQ Clan. [9] Xenon used to be a member of IoP and this is what they had to say about him leaving to join Clan Nine:

"Xenon left us to join Nine. Man, like they wheren't good enuff without him. Now nobody will have the slightest chance against them. But hey, it only logical that one of Swedens best quaker plays in Swedens best clan.... (This will probably mean that the rest of Icon of Pain will have to be sober during matches from now on :)".

All Star QW Warm Up Team:
Unconfirmed rumours are also circulating that an "All Star" team might be formed for the purposes of warming up DR and Nine before the QW matches. One of the line-ups mentioned included Timber, Sujoy, Lakerman, M0rm0r and HeKSeN.

Reload and JaC DeTH in the News in Denmark:

Check it out, the very excellent Danish site Clanscene has coverage of the two top placing Quake Players in NSW's recent GibCon LAN (quoting some old geezer). The world is hanging out for demos guys :-))). HeKSeN writes:

"The next couple of days I'll see if I can scoop some demos from the lanparty and maybe some words from the different winners (as I have no real idea how good these ppl are)".

While you're there, make sure to check out the interview with Equinox, one of Norway's top Players, and the cool profile of [9]Spice. Both provide up-to-date insight into the European Quake scene and are very very bad ass:

HeKSeN: so.. DR vs 9, whats the odds?
Spice: i hope we win, tho it will be tight.. most of all i hope our "virginity" will still be there.. never lost a game.. ;)
HeKSeN: Do you honestly think you guys have a chance in RQ against DR?
Spice: not skill, but tactics may work.. i mean, if we got all the rl, and nice weps, what the heck will they do? but that isnt happening.. so we are going to be fucked for the first time.. but so far we are still virgins.. ;)

Leprechaun's Story:
What would you do if you were in the final of a Professional Quake LAN Tournament, and you found out the guy who beat you in a close game was using hacked models and fullbrights?

"I had chosen a female model as my character, along with a grey skin, "cobalt" if you really want to see what it looked like. During the entire match, I was showing on Kuin's monitor as a bright red and white male model. Many people believe that the cheat was a skin hack, when in reality it was a model hack. The only way to accomplish this is to remove all female models and skins from your baseq2\players\female directory and all skins from your baseq2\players\male directory and to replace the lost male skins with one of your choosing, renaming it to say, cipher.pcx".

What would you do? You expect a re-match, but it doesn't happen. Your friends all say you've been fucked over, what do you do? Well, Andy "leprechaun" Vajda decided to do --- nothing:

"I've had suggestions that I should file a lawsuit to ease my oh so hurt ego. Unfortunately for my would-be-lawyer, I'm not a greedy person. A lawsuit would only put pro-gaming back on square one, and I honestly would love to see Quake Arena in the Olympics. No lawsuit, no compensation (other than my plane tickets and hotel room) and no credit taken away from Kuin. The on going concept of pro-gaming is what is at stake here".

And what was the result? The organisers apologised, they accepted that they had screwed up, they promised it would never happen again. What would have happened if Leprechaun had caused a big stink? What do you think would have happened? Would it have been better, for anyone? Leprechaun decided --- it wouldn't:

"Pro gaming can become a reality given time and the right circumstances, and I want to see it succeed. Two things can come of this event, PGL can grow, or PGL can crash. I'd really prefer to have PGL around for a long time, they are making mistakes but they are trying and for the most part, doing a fine job".

For the full story, check out the CSN final article (from a series of 4) comparing the PGL and the CPL, by Leprechaun, a Player who has experienced both first hand.

AU Quake-TV Coverage of QW Games:

For those Australians interested in watching some of the DR Vs 9 games LIVE, Challenge.AU and GolSyd are working together to bring you the 5 QW games on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, we are unable to bring you the 5 Normal Quake (NQ) games scheduled for Thursday morning, partly because of the timing and partly because QW is much easier to set-up for us. Challenge.AU also will not be showing the games on a big screen as I had originally thought we might do, because on Thursday morning my work day is too busy. It also makes more sense to make the QW games on Saturday morning available to a larger audience through GolSyd, who have a faster Internet connection to Sweden and, because they are an ISP specialising in Quake, have the extra phone lines and a lot of dedicated Quake Players.

How it will work is as follows: Guzz will connect to a server in Sweden using the Qizmo proxy, and will publish the IP of the machine he is using to spectate from. GolSyd's Quake customers will then be able to connect to his server and watch the game from it. Keep your eye on the GolSyd News page and here at Challenge.AU for more details, such as the IP address you'll need to connect to. Remember, the games will start at about 10:00am on Saturday morning. Slots will be available, I believe, on a "first-come-first-served" basis, but you may want to offer Guzz bribes :-? (j/k).

Tuesday, August 4, 1998
Germany Vs England - Spark to Ignite the Continent:

DocSynder sends word of some really nice news, namely that the German Quake Players have decided to rebuild their national team and take on the Brits:

"After following the 5 nations with interest we decided to rebuild a German national team and challenge those wacky brits.:P Totmacher from Ocrana and I are organizing the German team. Yesterday we talked to English captain Nightwing and agreed to the following settings:

Two 30 minutes halves on death32c with DMM1 and TP2 will be played, 10 vs. 10 so the servers won't be too stressed. One half on a UK server, the other on a German server. We'll play on August 16. at 21.00, thats 8pm GMT for the English.

I think the settings are pretty fair, we won't burden them DMM3 where they are totally lost ;-) and from the ping side I can say that our players get about the same ping on the UK server as the English on ours. (+/-100 with ISDN, around 60 on the homeserver). The SK guys will even try to get on a T1 (we really want to win ;) )".

What an excellent idea this is :-). The Germans and the Brits - it'll be like the World Cup with Rockets. As the Doc writes:

"It's always special when England and Germany clash in a sports game (those guys simply can't shoot penaltys :P) and it will be no different in this match".

He also promises to tell us all more about the upcoming decl stuff, so that is something nice to look forward to as well:

P.S. you can have a look at the new Decl page at: http://quake.webtown.de/decl/ but it's all in German so you wont understand a word. :P I'll tell you something about it soon".

Look, at this rate international Quake will soon be well and truly taking off in Europe. There are a large number of countries that are fairly bristling with rockets and large numbers of bad ass Players with the experience to match. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, and all of the UK spring to mind just for starters. Then if you have been reading Izn0's reports on Quake.World, you'll have to add Poland, Turkey, Italy, Russia, and Hungary. And don't forget Lithuania and Yugoslavia, or the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain either :-).

Tales of Irish Quake:
Knight has been chatting with EWJ about the playing conditions he'll face when he travels over to Europe later on in the year. He has kindly shared this picture of the Quake scene in Ireland with us:

"Hi Knight, we have a local cybercafe which is owned by some mates so we can do most of our LAN /LPB play from there. I get a 350-500 ping to goldsyd duel servers, and about 100 to Irish and 50 to English servers (depending on how many ppl are in the cafe).

The standard of duelling in England is higher in general. There'd be no problem getting you a game with sujoy/timber if you come over - they crop up most nights and I often have my butt spanked by them. The norm over here is to use QW for net play and Winquake for LAN games. There is a college in Limerick and the student accomodations come with free net access for the students. They get pings of about 30 to Irish and English servers, and there is about three clans based in this college at present, one of which, na Daghda, is one of Irelands top clans. You could play in oz with a 300 ping from there :)

Now for the bit that scares the foreigners :): In Ireland and England, Duels are played with weapons go and all powerups enabled. I know quads sound mad, but it actually makes the game more exciting when you get used to it I think. I'm playing quake since day one, but left it for a year or so and got back into it by setting up a clan last christmas. It took us a few months to get up to speed, so don't mind the wars results..we're in the top 5 Irish clans at the moment I'd say. Clan Trinity are still the best clan by far though, with Celtic Warriors trailing them close. Our homepage is at: http://clans.quake.ie/cd. Though it may be moving soon".

Speaking of Sujoy:
He sends word, just before jet-setting off to Stockholm, of a highly successful showing in the Wireplay tournament up north:

"I've just got back from the Wireplay event (I won woohoo!) and I'm off tomorrow to Sweden so, yep, I wont be able to do this interview for a little while. I have a few days break between Sweden and Denmark so I'll try to get it done then. Thanks, Sujoy".

Imagine that, you're on your way to Denmark, from Sweden, and you manage to squeeze in an interview. Ahhh, the life of the International Quake star (sorry Gandalf - you have a challenger here).

Future of Gaming #1 - Quake on Your TV
AstroBoy sent in an article on how Quake may one day be well-suited to spectator viewing on your TV. I think this is a really interesting article and I'm very proud to publish it in the Features section:

"Today, I realised what the future of gaming can be. I saw all the information about the DeathRow vs. Clan 9 match, and the professional and spectator-friendly setup the matches will be played in. It excites me that games are headed from being merely a pastime and leisure activity to a really serious, professionally-run sport where spectators can watch and the best players are rewarded with big prizes and financial rewards".

"I doubt it will be long before gaming is given t.v coverage, with a regular telecast of a gaming league's matches. Some may say I am wishfully thinking, but think about it, a game like quake is very exiting to watch when the players involved are skillful and if it's telecast on t.v many things could be done to make it even more exciting".

Future of Gaming #2 - Reaction to CPL Announcement
Hot on the heels of last night's story about how the CPL seems to be leaving a great number of talented Quake Players out in the cold, comes an email from the Dalai Lama (the one in Western Australia). Now, Dalai Lama is a Quake2 Player and is himself helping to organise competitive structures on a state level over in WA, mostly focused around Quake2, but he also questions whether the CPL are doing the right thing in (apparently) dropping support for Quake:

"I've known for a while (about 3 months now) that the CPL was planning on wrapping up its Q1 competition at Quakecon this year, so it didn't really surprise me. I do however feel its a bit of a rough deal for people who have invested hour upon hour of gaming time into learning the Q1skill set only to have it rendered useless now in a competitive sense. I don't quite understand why they can't hold the 2 games in the one competition and elongate it somehow, or basically make it a 2 part event. Seems strange to me.

Also - consider this: If the established stars of Q1 are now put out to pasture if they don't move on, what will happen when the market is saturated 4 times over with Sin, Half-Life, Duke 2000, Q3 etc is released. Which will become the new competitive standard? Games are released over a considerably smaller time-frame now, so there is no real time to get established in a sport. So which game is to be used? What effect will this have on pro gaming? How can players get up a high enough level to compete in such a short amount of practice time, with so many games to learn? Lots of questions, it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

On a personal note, one of the reasons I started playing Quake2 was because I knew it would get to this point, and I wanted to be one of the best players around come the end of the year. Now what I thought a long time ago is justified to some degree, as even Thresh and his amazing Quake skill cannot compete with the top Quake2 players. No matter how much he practices, no matter how much he tries, there are players that are more competent in the particular skill sets needed to win in Q2. He really cannot beat Kuin, Rosco, Immortal no matter how many games they have had recently.

He is still great, but no longer near the best. I find it fascinating that two similar games can have this effect. It is reflected here in WA. Only a few of the top Q1 players are still the best Q2 players. The Q1 players compete in Q2 dm very well, but in duels they come unstuck in a major way. Sort of like when a Q2 player plays in a Q1 duel. So all that is really left for us is to concentrate on one game that best utilises your skill set, as you simply cannot play both and hope to excel.

The only problem is, when the CPL etal start making this choice for you what does this say for the future of gaming?"

Let's hope that we see Quake make a return, in both the CPL and the PGL. Certainly, what happens on the international level may have an impact on that - it will be hard to ignore if some incredible action is taking place, and the international networks, the depth of Players, and the willpower all seem to exist to make it happen.

I agree with the Dalai Lama that the Q2 skill set is very different to that of Quake. While the Kiwis were staying over at my house during GibCon, I had the opportunity to take a close look at the Q2 duel style of play. As one of the top Kiwi Q2 Players, Incubus, said to me, in Q2 the game is much more strategic and slower-paced, requiring patience and a different style of hand-eye coordination. This can be clearly seen in the piccy of Incubus below, which I have pinched from Eraser's hilarious write-up of GibCon:

Monday, August 3, 1998
This Is It:
This is the week that Deathrow meet Clan Nine, in Stockholm, to play a most kick ass and excellent Quake match. As I write these words on Monday evening, it is in fact Monday morning over there on the behind-side of the planet, where the DR guys will be on their way to meet their destiny in Stockholm, while the Nine guys will be preparing for battle as only the Swedes know how.

What ancient tribal rituals of the Northern lands will they be performing? According to [9] Xenon, for example, they are dying their hair blue/yellow for the matches. One can be sure that they are preparing a welcoming party of epic proportions, particularly on E1M2 ;-).

Since the DR guys are from California, they will be used to dyed-hair stuff, but much has been made over the impact Swedish blonde bombshells may have on the will-power of the DR stalwarts. In fact, reading between the lines, one can see the DR guys are hoping for a BIG impact - Thresh writes in his Frontline page: "I'm sure all of you are wondering what it's like in the European gaming scene, and if there are indeed 6 ft tall blond chicks playin' nekkid on the computers like some of the Swedes told me".

Well, soon he will see with his own eyes, the secret weapon of the Swedes - brunettes. You expect blondes and they hit you with brunettes, works every time ;-). But I digress, the schedule has now been posted, and it is:

Timeschedule:
First match: 5:th of August 19.00
5 Matches of NQ
Second match: 7:th of August 19.00
5 Matches of QW

For those of you downunda, I make that to be Thursday and Saturday mornings at about 10:00. For those in Sydney wondering about the proxy thing, I'm working to get something set up and will make an announcement here asap.

Back to the preparations, have Deathrow prepared enough? Are they in form, fighting fit, rearing to go, and bad ass? You bet, according to B2, who sounded pumped up and confident in a recent email:

"I've been really busy practicing Quake with the rest of the DeathRow guys to prepare for the biggest match we'll face throughout our Quake career... I'm pretty happy with how everything's turning out right now... I've been practicing with Frick and Thresh at the same room, and we've reached the very top shape that we have never been at since last year or so. We're leaving on this coming Monday..so tonight and tommorow is our final practice for the match! =)"

And Thresh also confirms this in his Frontline article:

"We've been practicing all day, since our match is only 4 days away. A few guys asked me on IRC the other day if we indeed are practicing for this match, or if we're going just for the parties. So, ummm, are we practicing? The answer: Yes, Yes, YES! :) I admit we were in horrid shape for the PGL All-Star match, but that was due to not having played for a few months beforehand (and not bothering to get back in shape for it). It won't happen again. I'm sure we'll be in good form for the match. The parties are for after the match. :)".

For more news on the DR Vs Nine match, Lady Emerald of Cali Girl News emailed me to say that CGN has some great coverage including news about and from the DR guys.

Sujoy's Travels:
Sujoy is living the dream of international Quake. I emailed him the Challenge.AU interview over the weekend, but I expect he won't see it until his return, for as he writes over on Sujoy.com:

"It's a busy Schedule for the next few weeks: 31st I leave for the Wireplay event in Birmingham returning on the 2nd, then on the 4th I leave for Stockholm and 9 vs DR returning on the 9th, then on the 14th I leave for Denmark and the Cybergate challenge. It's going to be exhausting but a lot of fun too I expect... plus there'll be a few new demos at the end!"

Dru's Views:
Ben Dobbs writes Dru's Views, a new semi-daily column over at CSN which is well-worth a read. In his first column he takes the CPL to task for it's use of a form of double elimination which does not actually enable a loser to come right back and win the tournament. Instead, you only get to fight for your position in the loser's bracket. If the PGL has used this rule in it's last Quake 1-on-1 tourney, Thresh would not have been able to come right back and win it.

Another interesting idea he proposes is for the final four Players to play "best two out of three maps":

"I figure once you get down to the final four, you could do the best two out of three. That way you'd get more of the exciting action and see it on all the levels. Therefore you would give no unfair advantage to one player or the other when randomly choosing a level. Let's face it, although players are expected to know and be good at all three levels, there are some players that are better than others at certain levels. ...playing the best two out of three levels towards the end at least shows the crowd a little of everything and leaves them without much doubt who the true winner of the tournament is. Of course time restraints and a few other things factor in".

This idea really makes a lot of sense to me, with the biggest challenge being, as he says, finding the time to be able to do it in this way.

Quake Players Hung Out To Dry:
Today the CPL announced that the upcoming FRAG II will host an official CPL one-on-one Quake II Tournament, but no Quake, despite it being the preferred game of most of the top Players around the world.

If you're trying to make $$$ out of professional gaming, of course, the sponsors, gaming companies and gaming media will all be jumping on your ass to promote and support the latest games. Nobody makes any money out of experienced Quake Players who already have their copy of Quake, or from 2-year old games. They make their margin out of selling new games to newbies, and all the stuff that goes with it.

Neither Kornelia nor Lord Vader, according to recent interviews that I have seen, have been playing much Quake 2 and yet they and other Quake Players who have invested 2 years of skill development are now going to have to move to a game they don't particularly like.

Lord Vader came third in the CPL Event, narrowly losing to Rix in an exciting game on DM6. He said this in the Frag dot Com interview by Hanif, recorded on July 26:

"Q: Are you playing quake2 yet?
A: I played it for about a month.. about 3 months ago.. Cause my room mate got me into it.. but I have not played it since.. However in my opinoin, the CPL tournament will be the last Quake1 based event of its size, and I think most of the tournaments coming up are going to be either quake2 or some other upcoming 3dfps".

Yep, let's just biff out a near-perfect competitive game engine plus a swag of seasoned Players (unless they devote themselves to Quake 2) - what a good idea. We must keep moving on. I've got nothing against having new tourneys with the new game engines, but why stop Quake competitions?

It's WAR Dammit:
Izn0 over at Quake.World has written an interesting piece on the Italian Quake scene, with a link to an Italian Quake site called - Gib.it - and this quote from CiC:

"a lot of players are passing to q2... cause loss of decent ping conditions, and probably lack of servers... there are alot of newbies playing q2 - qw players... well alot plays qw only some switch to q2 ..some both...I really dunno however..qw will not die.... I know a lot of players that won't just stop playing qw for a long long time... qw is having some losses..but the war is not over..." .

and on the Polish Quake scene, with a link to a cool Polish demos site called Demosklad, and this quote from Acid:

"ppl are switchin to Q2 like in USA... and the thing about q2 and qw.... imagine a 13 year old newbie that buys a computer game magazine and there's "woooo - the q2 is so fuckin' great and q1 is soooo old and shitty" - what will he do? he will play q2 of coz... the developers just don't get the damn idea we want quake1 with better graphics, faster engine and the same playability... so there's a group of hardcore q1 players formin now - and I'm sure we gonna stick to it preety long :)... the war is up here and we are in the frontline.... q2's not goin to beat us that easy :)".

Methos and Baywatch:
Turns out that Methos didn't see surf and bikinis at the Great Lakes as I had guessed, but instead he watches Baywatch :-):

"Well Hoony, I'll guarantee you that you won't find any surf and very few bikinis in the Great Lakes. Even though I live about 1000 miles away from the closest one. Since I live far inland, when I want to see surf and bikinis, I do what everybody else does. I just turn on the tube and put on Baywatch. :)"

I happen to live near the beach, so I stopped by and took this snap to show Methos what an average day here is like. Come on downunda matey! :)

Map Cheating:
Map Cheating - it's one of those things that is very hard to do anything about on the Internet. Sydney's GolSyd news has the scoop and some pics of what must be one of the nastiest froms of cheating out there in the Wild West of QW: