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CPL Europe

Monday, May 18, 1998
Saw this in the news today. The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, announced that Pakistan will soon blow off a big one. "I cannot disclose when to you...", he said, " ...it's not going to be in a public stadium where we will have a big bang for all to see". Hrmm, don't know about you, but I think maybe we should investigate Pakistan for a future .AU Challenge. If the Foreign Minister is like that, imagine what the Paki Clans are like! :P.

BIG thanks to all those ppl who are suggesting various strategies for getting a team together to go over to NZ. What I've done is to create a page where the main suggestions can get flushed out. What you can see there after one day is the skeleton (minus a few bones). It's called the NZ PLAN - and it's in the new Features section. It's the collective wisdom of everyone who has so far emailed, talked or posted a message about it (that I have seen or heard :-?). Have a look and see what you think so far.

Finally, remember that other project I mentioned a few days back - our History? Well, that's up too. Once again it's a very potted history, but I'll be looking to add some interesting stories to it over the next few months. There are still some grand tales to tell!

Sunday, May 17, 1998
The Kiwis have laid down the gauntlet, challenging Australia to send it's top Players to the huge Kiwi LAN, A Gaming Nation, planned for late September, or just to come on over and mix it sometime. The AGN Event Manager ValHallen, put it this way: "we would be quite happy to organise a NZ vs Aus Challenge if some of you guys wanted to get over here for it .... then we would find out who was the best wouldn't we?"

And Scott "Rincewind" White, self-described as "Herr Rincenfruber, Tourney Nazi, AGN", added: "Naturally, I can see the result being similar to that of the Bledisole Cup -that is, the Silver Fern triumphing".

Well, well, fighting words indeed :-). The Kiwis are offering to provide accomodation, and Rincewind mentioned the possibility of helping with travel - I'll find out more about that. The immediate question would appear to be, assuming those logistical problems were sorted out, who should go?

The AGN LAN looks pretty interesting, with ValHallen telling me that "as of yesterday, we will have Reptile, Blue, Goddess, KillCreek and Zoid here for the event... ...we are awaiting a reply from Thresh and id software at the moment". All details are up on the AGN site (http://www.uwd.co.nz/agn) and anyone can register there. Or email with reactions =)

Saturday, May 16, 1998
Got the Interviews section up today, and posted an interview with [ao] Bro in the USA so check it out to see what he's been doing in the land of Yanks =)

Speaking of foreign lands, exchanged emails with ZoSo, a Kiwi Quaker who also produces one of the best interviews pages I've seen. You can check out ZoSo's Q&A here. You'll find interviews ranging from: 'Abaddon'.. founder of 'NZ Quakenews', to the BR2 champs leader 'Orange9mm', to NZ's current top deathmatcher.. 'Immortal', or maybe you prefer to read up on 'M'o'D'.. the godfather muffin, or 'CB'.. one of the original online Quakers, and finally you might care to check out the "ever present 'rkm'". I wonder what they think when they hear the nick "Bro". In NZ, a "Bro" is usually a large Maori bloke with lots of tattoos . Tell you something else plain freaky, ZoSo's Clan, 'Hades' Orphans', also contains the legendary Immortal and some guy named Hoon ;) Yep, my namesake (and he's one of the top 10 Players in NZ). :-?

Still on New Zealand news, the big A Gaming Nation LAN has announced that Reptile has confirmed his desire to be at AGN. So who's going to pay to fly him out? Well, AGN may well get sponsorship for that - they already have got a subsidised travel deal with NZ's Tranz Scenic Rail, Tranz Metro and the Interislander ferry. I wouldn't put it past them to get support from Air New Zealand. What's this mean to you? Well, AGN have also been talking to Zoid, Killcreek and others from the US. What about getting an Aussie team together? The date is sometime in September. I'll find out more.

Finally, this is slightly old news from sCarys, but if you didn't see it...

The new CPL website has been launched. The immediate focus of this site will be our upcoming QuakeCon CPL event to take place on July 23 to July 26 in Dallas, Texas. This event will host one of the most sophisticated LAN setups ever developed for a gaming event of any type. Starting with a T-3 Internet connection available to everyone attending the event, courtesy of Verio. Followed by Cisco Catalyst 5000 switches and hubs to manage the entire LAN, courtesy of Exodus Communications. Culminating with redundant high-end servers, courtesy of VRGN.

Friday, May 15, 1998
Zenith posted this on Malby's Message Board: "On the night of 2 June 1997 Clan Highlanders played Quake World Japan. We're pretty sure it was the first international clan match for Aus". It sparked a discussion on History - the "good old days", where it all started, etc. I'll create a web page on this and try to pull together a story from various sources. I'll post it, gaps and all. If you have info, you can me and slowly fill in the gaps. Call it an experiment in collective memory =)

Got Bitchy's profile up, in the Players section :-) Also, I've interviewed Bro about what's been going on in the USA. I'll post that tomorrow night, but here's a sneek peek: BRO: "I'd hazard a guess that the average Aus quaker is a better RL fighter, and a worse LG fighter than the average US Quaker ".

Q: How much are the Season 2 playoffs of the AMD Professional Gamers' League worth? A: $65,000 in cash and prizes. The finals are due to be held at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Atlanta, USA, during May 28-30. Apparently they're also going to do an "All-Star game", featuring eight all-time great Quake Players. I wonder if that includes Bezerka and Borg :-) (Blues/ sCarys/ ZDNNews)

For a fresh perspective, check out the Clanring Big12 league for a look at large-scale US QW Clan tourney stuff. (sCarys)

Friday night yay! Friday night is good for going out, having some fun with your mates, which is why the servers are often a little less crowded. At least until after 11 or so, when those gamers who were temporarily afflicted with "A Life" generally come to their senses and jump back on. The early hours of the morning can sometimes be magic =)

Thursday, May 14, 1998
Old news by now, but last night Malby left the Tormented Souls for Ash Ock. While my first thought was that he may have mistaken Ash Ock for a new Dutch lager (apparently Malby is partial to Grolsch), Deep Throat had a different theory. S/he said it had more to do with the secret NASA anti-gravity experiments (see latest WIRED magazine), either that or Guzz (TS) didn't trust Wireplay's claims that they only wanted to share the online Quake market. Malby himself later claimed it was just something he wanted to do, though he admitted that he was on Pringles and Mountain Dew (laced?) at the time he made the fateful news update on his site, which might explain how he neglected to inform the other Tormented Souls of his decision [this happens all the time doesn't it?] before posting the news. Reacting to this fact, one of the three co-leaders of the Tormented Souls, HeRCULeZ (TS), said only that such an oversight "will not pass lightly". He also maintained that TS were essentially unfazed: "We had been looking for new players before Malby had left and although he is seen as a great player, his shoes will be easily filled. There are many great players out there".

As for Malby, he was already remembering his TS days with fondness:

Speaking of the Mohicans, that Clan is back in business with a revamped website. Hopefully we'll see more of them =). And just btw, the thought occured to me that if we'd seen any more Malby-like moves then we could have ended up with The Tormented Ockers or The Ash Souls :?

Wednesday, May 13, 1998
Just posted what I hope is the first of some interviews with local Players - Talking with Malby. Webmaster of Quake.AU, Malby is always very generous of his time. Thank you matey! If people have any suggestions or feedback on the interview thing (do I need to get more controversial?) please let me know. If you want to do an interview, i.e. interview someone you think is interesting, me and let's work out a plan.?

Added a couple of button links essential to any one interested in Player-type stuff - the Tormented Souls' Duel Rankings, and a site-in-the-making called Demos Down Under (DDU). Now if you put these two sites together, you'd get "Top Ranked Duel Demos Down Unda". Getting top players to record demos and post 'em is not easy, so good luck to the new demo producers.

Something else I saw today worth mentioning was an article titled: "Online Gaming? Still Sucks". Couple of interesting things in there. First, that the top 20 percent of game titles in the market (such as Quake and Quake II) supposedly account for 80 percent of the sales. Second, that the player base is static, if not shrinking. That's tough news for the swag of new FPS shooter titles due out this year. What's more, when a bunch of industry experts at last week's Computer Game Developers Conference were asked if anyone in online games was making any money, "several people yelled out "Nope!" while the rest looked at the floor". Thanks Blues.

I wonder if John Carmack was there, or whether he was out in his Ferrari ripping along at 200kph with the wind blowing his thin straggly hair all around, with a Miss USA in the passenger seat. Actually, we all know he was in his office working, as usual.

Tuesday, May 12, 1998
I let Kornelia and sCary know about the new website and sCary emailed me back to say: "w00, sounds great. I'm looking forward to it. Kornelia and myself have been staying in practice so it should be fun :)" Thanks dude =) Staying in practice is an understatement by the look of those demos he keeps cranking out. Good thing 's favourite map is DM4, methinks. And after seeing 's high score on Guzz's GolSyd messageboard (the 1,000 frags post) I feel that we are in strong form as well.

Meantime, has been scouting around some Kiwi sites, such as A Gaming Nation (AGN), which is a huge Kiwi LAN event under preparation, and NZ Quakenews, which is run by Abbadon. About the same time, a Kiwi contact named Arial emailed me to say that he had been struck down by A Life, and was unable to continue to pursue the Challenge thing in New Zealand. He suggested I email Abaddon and told me some bloke called GreySeer was apparently doing the same thing. So, between Grey and myself we should be able to get some Kiwis interested. Surely the chance to put on an All Black skin and go bash the Green and Gold would be too tempting to resist?

Telstra rang me today to say they needed to create a new account (meaning, new salesperson?) and so I had to fax them more information. On being asked if this would delay the 20th May installation date, I was told "it shouldn't, if we can get provisioning to create a job for it in time". Sounds ... er... worrying.

Finally, I was looking at the site and thinking - it looks really ... basic. Oh well, never mind. The point is to get the games happening, maybe then I'll worry about more graphics and stuff.

Saturday, May 9, 1998
We have a new site. has been rather busy of late so it makes sense for me to take on more of the workload. If you have any suggestions, you can email me .

Crazy Daisy had to take a rain check on playing against those Americans for the moment. Really sorry about that, and we hope to see her back later. After looking round for a female player who could replace her (not easy), we asked . She said she'd love to have a go :-)

Been waiting a while now for Telstra to install the ISDN connection. Rang them up on Friday and they told that the line will be installed on Wednesay the 20th of May. Hrmmmm.

Meantime, Ozy, our partner in the US, is on holiday next week and we'll have to wait and see if he's been successful in locating an ISP there with ISDN that we can dial straight into with an international call, one which has a fast connection to his servers. In any case, the first test is coming up soon :)