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Friday, July 10, 1998
Clan Nine in Preparation:
What would you do if you were set to play Deathrow in front of an international audience in a month's time? Practice like hell of course!!

It helps if you have heaps of experience playing international games. But nothing will compare to sitting down across the table from Thresh, Reptile, Unholy and the rest of Deathrow.

I asked [9] Xenon what role he'd be playing in the games:

"I'm usually very much playing the offensive, and I'm the quad whore along with Paralyzer :) Right now were considering the idea that each one of our "starters" (Me, Paralyzer, DOOMer, Nikodemus, Spice, and oKKun) skips 1 level in RQ and 1 in QW (note: one of us will have to skip 2 matches) So its likely that I will be playing in about 7 of the matches".

Imagine playing Quad Whore when your immediate opponent is quite possibly Thresh.

One amazing thing about these games is that Deathrow are going to be playing QuakeWorld, something they never seem to do, while Clan Nine will have to mix it up using RQ (RealQuake). Xenon tells us:

"Well it's only fair that we play 50% RQ and 50% QW, since both teams specialize in different quake versions. We have already started to train RQ day and night, and my guess is that DR are training QW day and night :)".

Preparations for war. Over on the the GX MB the talk so far is all about imploring all the guys on both teams, win or lose, to please record POV demos. I agree 100% - this is like Borg Vs McEnroe, except you get to watch the matches through each Player's eyes.

"I expect the coverage to be huge, there will definitely be press coverage, and perhaps T.V. coverage aswell. Yes we already have a large screen installed for spectators to watch. We are considering broadcasting the game live on the internet, using QuakeTV or a spectator proxy".

Sujoy in PC Zone:
Look out for the August edition of PC Zone, as there's a four page article on England's Sujoy Roy. For a sneak preview of it online, you can go here.

Big Wireplay Comp:
Malby has been doing a great job over at Wireplay, there are now 187 Players registered for the WIREPLAY INVADES BRISBANE QUAKE & QUAKE 2 FREE FOR ALL COMPETITIONS. You can find out more here.

NZ Message Board:
Over on the Kiwi message board they've stopped talking about their favourite books and now they're talking about Rugby. Coincidentally, New Zealand's All Blacks take on the Wallabies in the legendary Bledisloe Cup series this Saturday (did I mention I'm a Kiwi?).

This Weekend:
Unless there is some incredible news over the weekend, I am going to devote the time to catching up on a few website chores, like finishing the demos page that I have promised Kane, and getting last weekend's games between New Zealand and Australia up into the Games section. Have a good weekend all, and see you on Monday.

Thursday, July 9, 1998
Kane Interview:
It's up, an interview with young German Quake god, [SK] Kane of Clan Schr?t Kommando - head on over to the Interviews section.

Swedish Lessons:
Ok, ok, ok, I need 'em. There were no plastered Finns coming from the forest, as erroneously reported last night. I'm sorry about that :P. Some of the other stuff I translated was pretty close though, which is pretty scary huh? ;-).

Here is the true translation, with thanks to HeKSeN:

Q: Date?
A: 3 August- 10 August
Q: Where is the Nine Studio?
A: Stockholm, Odeng. 44 (T-bana R?dmansgatan, Odenplan)
Q Who is coming from DR ?
A: Thresh, B2, Unholy, Da5id, Frick, LittleDragon , Reptile
Q: Who will play for Clan 9 ?
A: Paralyzer , DOOMer, Xenon , Nikodemus, oKKun, Spice, liquid
Q: Can you watch the match live at 9?
A: Yea, cost will be around 200 SKR (about US$25)
Q: How much room do you got?
A: Got place for 200 people, some of them are reserved.
Q: Can I watch the games live on the Internet?
A: We are looking for a possibility of sending the matches live on the Internet.
Q: Is it possible to have a chat with Thresh ?
A: If he feels like it (he doesn't understand swedish;))
Q: Will it be possible to play anyone from DR?
A: No, only Nine has the rights to play DR and maybe some european quakers.
Q: Will it be possible to play anyone from Nine?
A: No, only DR has the rights to play Nine and maybe some european quakers.
Q: Will there be any other European Clans?
A: Yes, we are going to invite quite a few 1on1 players, if DR agrees we are going to arrange a 1on1 tourney for these individuals (in RQ).
Q: What are you going to play (RQ, QW)?
A: We are going to play 5 of each.
Q: And which maps?
A: DM3, DM2, E1M2, E2M1(perhaps).
Q: Will there be any 1-on-1's between Nine and DR members?
A: Ya, even 2-on-2.

Lakerman:
Received some news from a couple of Swedish sources, on Lakerman, who won the 1-on-1 at the big Swedish LAN over last weekend - at http://www.fragzone.se/cots/lan/lanweb/. Apparently, Lakerman is from one of Sweden's oldest clans - the Swedish Chefs (yes, from the Muppets Show :-). He was undefeated in the playoff to reach the final, where he met Sectopod. Lakerman is not new, but he has been in the US for a while so he may have learnt some new tricks. He's known as a modem player in Sweden, so my sources were very impressed that he won a LAN over real LPB?s. On the GX MB, he's been highly praised by some Americans.

As well as at the COTS site, you'll find some Lakerman demos at Methos.

Methos' Ideas:
Methos has updated his "Plan(ned) File" with some suggestions on how to help make the upcoming DR Vs Nine match succeeed, and "carry on-line gaming to the next level". Here are the 5 points he makes:

1. Make sure it's run on a closed network with access for 1 single internet feed. This will enable the use of QuakeTV (or similar) and protect against ping floods etc.
2. As mentioned in #1, QuakeTV. With matches as important as these, the whole gaming world will want to watch the live feed.
3. All players use "exactly" the same systems. This includes Quake & all models, maps, network connection software and even network cards.
4. Live web updates (in multiple languages) to be done as it happens. The same way up to the minute updates are done for live sporting events like the Worldcup.
5. All players record demos for every game. Not just for my page :) but all the people that will watch these matches for months to come.

The match is a fantastic vehicle to develop international Quake as an Internet sport. As Methos mentions, there are a number of examples (such as the World Cup) of websites providing "live" coverage of sporting events in the *real* world. I imagine that Gamers Extreme have the resources and the skills to "push the envelope" here, as does the 9 Studio in Stockholm.

On Realistic Gameplay:
sCary has written an interesting editorial titled "Realism and Fun?" which asks whether some game developers are risking the "fun" when they strive to achieve greater "realism". Here's my thoughts:

I think that fun is a function of great gameplay, and gameplay in turn is determined by how effectively all the components in the game enable skilled and smart Players to be rewarded with "frags".

In theory, great gameplay is independent of the degree of realism. In other words, a game could be utterly "unrealistic" and still be "great to play", but it could also be mind-numbingly realistic and yet be "great to play". It depends on gameplay, not realism. How you achieve great gameplay is the Holy Grail here, achieving realism for it's own sake is a dead end.

Getting great gameplay is not easy, there are too many distractions, such as the temptation to create really weird weapons, and the distraction of new technologies like coloured lights, portals, smoke, reflective water, etc etc, all of which might contribute zip to gameplay. The burden of the new and more powerful game engines is that game developers are tempted to produce incredible architectures that look great but don't play well. Ever noticed how simple DM6 is?

Quake has near-perfect gameplay, but this is more as a result of luck than pre-meditation. It's like getting a symphony right - all those instruments must play the same tune or they produce a pile of noise.

By limiting gameplay to "reality", the danger is that you end up by reducing your options. If you really know how to use what you've got, you can still create great gameplay. But if you let "reality" dictate gameplay, chances are you'll create a game that isn't much fun to play.

An interesting example of a game that is using reality to define gameplay is the upcoming FPS called Rainbow Six, which has been developed with the help of Tom Clancy. According to July's PC Gamer:

"The level of realism should be absolutely convincing - no bogus Rambo-esque posturing, no Quake-style exaggerations, no "video-game conventions such as "power ups", "level bosses" or (Oh, the excitement!) SECRET MOVES!"

It will be interesting to see if it works :-).

Wednesday, July 8, 1998
Deathrow to Play Clan 9 in Stockholm:
It's official, the match of the century is set to take place in Stockholm this August, between Sweden's Clan Nine, and the legendary Deathrow. What a dust-up, what a party! Details are sketchy at present, but a FAQ page is up on the Clan Nine website, in Swedish. Now, my Swedish has improved considerably over the past week, so I am going to have a crack at translating it for you. There may be the odd interpretative difference... but it looks spot on. (my comments in blue).

Q: Datum ? date... um...?
A: 3 Augusti- 10 Augusti duh!
Q: Var ligger Nine Studion ? Where?
A: Stockholm, Odeng. 44 (T-bana R?dmansgatan, Odenplan)
Q Vilka kommer fr?n DR ?
A: Thresh, B2, Unholy, Da5id, Frick, LittleDragon , Reptile
Q: Vilka spelar f?r Clan 9 ?
A: Paralyzer , DOOMer, Xenon , Nikodemus, oKKun, Spice, liquid
Q: Kan man se matchen live p? Nine ? Can you watch the match live at 9?
A: Ja, det kommer kosta 200kr Ya, to come costs 200 smackaroos
Q: Hur m?nga platser finns det ? How many plastered Finns will be there?
A: 200 platser varav n?gra kommer vara f?rreserverade 200 very plastered Finns are coming from the forest
Q: Kan man se matchen genom internet ? Can I watch the games live on the Internet?
A: Vi utreder m?jligheterna att s?nda matchen live genom internet, mer info senare. No
Q: Kan man f? snacka med Thresh ? Can any man have lunch with Thresh?
A: Om han sj?lv orkar (han kan inte svenska ;)) Only if it's ham and anchovies (Swedish ham ;-))
Q: Kan man f? spela 1on1 mot n?gon i DR ? Will any bloke be able to play some 1-on-1's with DR members?
A: Nej, r?tten att spela mot DR f?rbeh?lles Nine och eventuella k?nda europeiska spelare. Are you kidding?
Q: Spela 1on1 mot n?gon i Nine ? Will any bloke be able to play some 1-on-1's with Nine members?
A: Nej, r?tten att spela mot Nine f?rbeh?lles DR och eventuella k?nda europeiska spelare. Do I have to repeat myself??
Q: Kommer flera k?nda spelare fr?n andra klaner i Europa ? Will any other European Clans get a chance to play?
A: Ja, vi kommer bjuda in flertalet europeiska 1on1 spelare. Om DR accepterar kommer vi arrangera en 1on1 t?vling i RQ f?r dessa personer. Hopefully...
Q: Vad kommer ni spela ? (RQ, QW ?) RQ or QW?
A: Vi kommer att spela 5 matcher QW och 5 matcher RQ. 5 of each, yeah baby!!
Q: Vilka banor kommer att spelas ? Which maps?
A: DM3, DM2, E1M2, E2M1(troligen).
Q: Kommer Clan 9 medlemmar spela 1on1 mot DR medlemmar ? Will there be any 1-on-1's between Nine and DR members?
A: Ja, ?ven 2on2 Ya baby, even 2-on-2

Tommorrow Night - Interview with Kane of Schroet Kommando:
I promised you an interview with the extraordinary Kane of German Clan Schroet Kommando, and it's all set to go live tomorrow night. Here's something to tide you over till then:

How did you come by your screen-name "Kane"? What does it mean? Where do you live in Germany? How old are you (if you don't mind me asking ;-). Which is your favourite beer?
"My Name is from a book called "The book Kane" from Karl Edward Wagner, its a fantasy saga. So i think Kane doesnt mean anything :). But i came to this name while searching a nick for Quake.... then i was looking around in my big brothers room (Griff) and found this book, and borrowed this name :). I live in Oberhausen, wich is near of Essen/D?sseldorf like most of the SKs. 9 of us SK live in Oberhausen, 2 30mins away and one in Stuttgart (Therion). Im 15 years old. Cause im 15 im not that familiar with beer, but my brother Griff thinks Koenig Pilsener is the best :)".

Knight and Webby Vs Wolph and [TiG] Sarge:
The final demo we have for you from Sunday's games between Australia and New Zealand, is the last 2-on-2 game played on DM6, using dm3 rules. If you downloaded last night's demo of Knight Vs Wolph on DM6, you would have seen that the wiley Wellingtonian played extremely well and took the match 8, 6.

In the doubles, the Kiwis began by pasting Webby and Knight in a DM3 game using dm1 rules, 25 to 17. Dynamop was unable to be there, so [TiG] Sarge took his place. I don't have a demo from that game ;-). Adding up the cumulative frags, Australia needed a margin of 9 to draw and 10 to win. They got 8, and so the final score was NZ 90, and AU 89.

This demo is from Webby's POV, who plays mostly defence of the RA area. It was a good game, with some funny moments, such as when Knight's mouse ball fell out in the middle of the action. Download kniwebvswolsardm6.zip here.

NSW News and GibCon Predictions:
For local news, with a focus on Players, Clan battles, and various fun stuff, a good place to check out is the new GolSyd News page, being run by Bitchy. Check out the various Player's predictions of who is going to do what to whom at GibCon, in the LANs section. This kind of coverage will do NSW Quake a heap of good, that's my prediction :-).

More Yugoslavian Demos:
Abohac sends word that some new Belgrade Quake demos are up at http://24.112.106.14/quake/.

No Rest for the Wicked:
What happens now that the 5 Nations tournament is completed? I asked Ewan, the organiser, what life held in store and here's his response:

How do you feel now that it's over?
Glad its over, i just wish that it had had less problems (mostly my fault :/
What were the highlights for you?
The highlights were the final game between Eng B and All Ireland which was a cool game and also had much less ping trouble, and seeing Scotland win a game :)
What were the major lessons for you, what would you do differently next time?
The main lessons were: Getting 21people on a server at once and then getting them to type ready is near impossible, and that modems and internationals dont mix :) Next time (if there is one) id use much fewer people, probably 5-a-side, and all lpb. Also id use home/away legs (which was the initial plan for the 5 Nations before all the delays meant we had 4weeks to play all the games).
Will there be a "next time"? What are your plans (if any) for the future?
A next time, umm maybe. It wont be until at least October though to allow the university students to go back to their connections. If it does happen (and it all depends on how much work i have a uni) then it'll be a lager competition, id like to include France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy Ireland and the UK team along with maybe one or 2 others who want to. I think this size would be both managable from my point of view, and also give the competing teams some kind of benchmark for themselves, and the winner the right to call themselves the best in Europe, something no country can do right now.
Can you say who "Player of the Match" was and stuff like that?
Player of the tournament, hmm, not sure, but Timber had some excellent games (especially the last, almost doubling anyone elses score). He also never complained which gives him lots of plus marks :)
Maybe you guys cld think about having a few 1-on-1's and 2-on-2s between England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France? We had some 1-on-1s and 2-on-2s this weekend between Australia and New Zealand using a single ISDN line and it went pretty well. The connection was great for the 1-on-1's, although sharing 2 persons generated a few laggy bits.
Id be willing to give it a go, and im sure the players would be up for it too. The 1on1s could be difficult due to the sheer volume of players who can all win at 1on1s against almost anyone in all the countries, leading to the problem of deciding who plays. However, a 2on2 tournament would be very interesting (There was a UK2on2 league a while back which had a massive entry list with very high quality teams - Nightwing and Sujoy as 'The Team' anyone :), but fell apart after only a few weeks due to that massive number- I remeber it was around 60 or 70 players)

I also asked Von Swine, Captain of the Irish team, the Hibernians, what he was going to be up to and he told me that he was looking forward to the upcoming Irish Quake Clan League, on a LAN, naturally:

"No rest nope. The IQCL Finals are this weekend so normal clan hostilities have been resumed after being suspended for the international games. It's being well organized and we're all itching to go at each other on a LAN again".

Tuesday, July 7, 1998
Loads of Good Stuff Starting Up in Oz:
There are a shit-load of good Quake comps getting started in Australia right now. As mentioned last night, VuduChild's Grudge Duels gives Players who really need to spend more time together the perfect opportunity to do so. Just one of the many good things happening over at the Duel Manifesto

In NSW, Bitchy is about ready to start a new Duel Rankings comp at GolSyd for the Group One members. Should be some amazing games. The Group One Players who are expected to play are listed below:

And GoDZillA is running a 2-on-2 Comp also at GolSyd, the draw for which can be found here. Hope to be able to bring you some coverage of these games and point you in the direction of some great demos :-).

The top 3 duellists and the top 2-on-2 team from these comps will have the opportunity to play NZ using the Challenge.AU ISDN.

Second NZ Vs AU Game:
Well, if you downloaded last night's demo of Webby Vs Wolph, you will have seen that Webby won, 11 to 10, with an extremely close finish. The next game was Knight's, and being in a good mood, we readily agreed to play it on Wolph's favourite map, DM6.

?Knight Vs Wolph, DM6 The second of the weekend's games we bring you is Knight [mhcn] vs Wolph [void] on DM6, dm1 rules - knivswoldm6.zip. This was Knight's second game against Wolph on DM6 using dm1 rules, and he was determined to maintain control of the RA area and not let Wolph into the game. As luck would have it, the initial spawns gave him early control and Wolph was set the task of taking RA from Knight.

Huge Scandinavian LAN Over the Weekend:
Nezstor_COTS sends word of a big LAN that took place in Sweden over the weekend, details of which can be found at http://www.fragzone.se/cots/lan/lanweb/.

The LAN featured Quake 1-on-1's, 2-on-2's, DM-Final, Q2 1-on-1's, as well as a Starcraft match. Some nicks of Players who were there that Australians may recognise are Sniket, Sectopod, [9]Nikodemus, Mr.Kill, and Mastah_Killah. The 1-on-1 final was between Sectopod and Lakerman and the results were:

"We have seen VoLC win in StarCraft, Cataclysm in Q1-DM, LakerMan in Q1-1on1 and then Mastah^Killah and Sectopod in the Q1-2on2!"

Sujoy On The Road?:
Saw over on Sujoy.com that Sujoy is thinking of heading over to Denmark to play Quake against those dangerous Euros:

"I've been invited to the Cyber Gate cafe in Aalborg, Denmark to take part in a rather special competition. Armageddon has arrange for some of the best players in Europe to meet on the 15th of August in what could be the biggest Quake showdown this continent has ever seen. Already pencilled in are Sectopod, RayZe, Sniket and Xenon so the competition already looks extremely fierce".

Check out the Aalborg Continental Showdown website here. (btw, I've been to Aalborg, brings back nice memories :-). I also saw on the Irish MB that Sujoy was thinking about heading over to play in the Irish Quake Clan League.

EWJ also posted the following bit of interesting stuff:

"FUNKY RJUMP:
He did a nice move last night on dm4 - first time I saw it. Basically it's possible to quad rjump from the lower level on dm4 WITHOUT ANY ARMOUR! Coming from the 100H room, he does a hop a little to the side over the lava turns round to look at the edge of the walkway and fires the quad rock. The height over the lava gives him enough room to take the quad rjump without getting creased by damage. Haven't practiced it yet but it looks cool and useful too. JD was speccing as well and said he taught sujoy the move".

Methos Does Romero:
Did you try and read through that massive IRC log of Romero talking on the Effnet #Doom2 channel on Sunday night? If you didn't, lucky you, because Methos has summarised the main points for you. If you did, check it out to see if you missed anything.

More 5 Nations Roundup:
The final results were:

1. England A
2. England B
3. All Ireland
4. Scotland
5. Wales

Von Swine has written up an excellent match report over on the Hibernians News page of the All Ireland Vs England B game. Despite making some huge efforts, and even with the help of Sujoy in getting a multiple client proxy, there were still a bunch of connection problems. Still, the Hibs seemed to have really enjoyed themselves. Von Swine said:

"I think we lost the game between the 5 and 15 minute mark. I was guarding the Yellow armour/Red Armour intersection and during that time the frags were just mounting for England :( Cool game though. Frustrating that we couldn't get better connections but it was playable enough for everyone except Koopa, 40% packet loss :(( There's also a few demos up on the news page. Ser v Koopa is probably the best one".

Also on Methos, the English Captain Nightwing provides another excellent summary of the 5 Nations games. Nightwing makes some interesting comments about what worked and didn't work:

"The choice of a team size of 10 was good and suited the level (previous internationals had been 15 v 15 which was very difficult to organize and servers were a problem too). I would like to see a few different levels used though, base32b might be an idea. Home/Away legs might be a good idea too for those matches with ping problems, however this would rely on a minimum standard of server for both legs.

I'd certainly like to see the rules changed from teamplay 3 to teamplay 2. After all these are the top players in their countries, and as such should be able to shoot at the right people :) Certainly TP2 needs more skill to play, and should lead to better games :)".

Monday, July 6, 1998
New Zealand Beats Australia by 1 Frag:
Yeah, I know it's really Mohicans Vs Wolph, but on Sunday we set up the ISDN connection to New Zealand again and played four fun games against those wiley Wellingtonians. As you can see, the outcome was an extremely close one. Over two 1-on-1's each lasting 20 minutes, and two 2-on-2's the final score was 2 games each, with NZ on 90 frags and Australia on 89. Like, how close is that??

? Webby Vs Wolph, DM2 Over the week we'll bring you those four games. The first is Webby [mhcn] vs Wolph [void] on DM2, dm3 rules - webvswoldm2.zip. This was a very close game in the classic dark hallways. Webby takes an early lead but then has a couple of unlucky lava swims and with some smart rocket duelling by Wolph the New Zealander begins to catch up and before you know it, we have a cliff-hanger with the final seconds ticking down. I won't post the scores here now, you can watch it for yourself and find out the result :-). It took a while to get to this point. We had an hour or so of warm-up and then 40 minutes or so of trying to connect before we managed to get a stable 95-100 ms ping. A big thank you, as always, goes to Paradise.net in New Zealand and www.consult in Sydney for making these games possible. Also, without the help of Lawrence in NZ and especially GreySeer, master of the networking in Sydney, it wouldn't have happened.

Kane Interview:
Also coming up this week, an interview with the extraordinary Kane of German Clan Schroet Kommando :-)).

5 Nations Games Held Over Weekend:
More 5 Nations - this weekend saw England A comfortably win against Scotland (604 to 129) and England B won against All Ireland (364 to 255). There's some good match coverage over at Sujoy.com, with Sujoy providing a Player's-eye-view of the England A Team's control of the DM4 area in Death32c:

"Nightwing had placed myself Timber and Naz on dm4, and suffice to say we got that area pretty much locked out the whole game :). Naz complained at the end he had nothing to do! Best part was that both me and Timber wanted the Quad each time so he'd come back and be sitting in the dm4 quad alcove 10 seconds before it respawned. I got a bit sick of this so I jumped in with him for a laugh, but ended up pushing him into the lava :-)".

Coerj has a demo of the England B Vs All Ireland game, and he had this to say:

"The England - B Vs Ireland game went ahead rather later than planned but when it got going the first 15 mins were great. Ser and Slick the only 2 Irish LPBs (and Slick being in some top UK clan, oh yea QPD!) were flying along keeping Ireland in the running. Unfortunately for Ireland England - B got there act together a bit more and started racking up the kills, then Ser dropped and it was pretty much downhill from then on".

Quake in Belgrade:
Saw a link to some cool Yugoslavian demos over on the GX MB, so I took a look and the play is pretty strong. I emailed the Player in the demo I checked out, whose nick is [FRL] Abohac and he kindly answered a few questions:

How big is the Quake scene there? How many Players do you think there are?
Well, the Quake scene is not very big because of lack of any media coverage. One of the problems is that we started playing Quake only before half a year and Q2 was allready out. And there are about 50 ppl who play Quake.
Where do you mostly play? (LAN, online)
Only LAN. Nobody here has good enough connections to play lagless and we have LAN clubs which are really cheap; an hour playing cost only about 5 dinars which is a 1/2 of US dollar. And we also organize many LAN parties.
Have you played against ppl from other countries at all?
Not very much. Nobody wants to give the money to come here only for playing Quake and we don't want to play on the Internet because of the lag. (we are used to play on LAN)
Where are you in Yugoslavia? (Isn't it called somehting else now - what with Croatia and Bosnia doing their own thing?)
Well, Yugoslavia consisted of 6 republics (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro). Now it consists only of Serbia and Montenegro. I live in the capitol, Belgrade.
Do you think Quake will "live on" there or are ppl getting bored of it already?
Well, it is a complicated question. Believe it or not, more than 90% of the first person shooters gamers are playing Duke Nukem! I think that there are here in Belgrade about 50 Quake players who know to use the mouse and the keyboard at the same time. :) But they are pretty good, and there are about 20 players who are great. There is also a great number of people who are just starting to play Quake. Also, there is a great number of people who play Q2. Most of them are newbies who swiched from Duke to Quake because Q2 has cooler weapons.

Irish Quake Clan League (IQCL):
The IQCL is gearing up for their finals, you can find the official website here. Don't forget to check out the Irish Message Board for the latest info.

Cenobite's Write-Up on Quake in the UK:
This is a "must-read" if you'd like to learn about what's happening over in the UK. Cenobite has written a huge piece here, and there is a lot of material. For me, some of the more interesting things he said were related to the strength of the UK Quake Players compared to some of the Europeans:

"Quake as a clan game is excellent however in the UK it has some very major flaws as i see it. This flaw, as far as I am concerned, is the general lacking in Skill Level in UK Clans.... In our practices we play quite a few Foreign clans and i feel that we can only compete with them on DM3 :} Any other map we play we manage to get soundly beaten on :{ The UK as a whole i feel just do not have the skill levels to compete... ... In Duels Timber is generally thought of as being the best in the UK (and again i dont want to go into arguements about this) and he can just about beat Euro players. But after timber the skill level seems to drop and most of the other players seem to struggle against the Euro players".

Another familiar section deals with the decline of Quake and the reasons why Players are choosing to play Quake 2. Interestingly, Cenobite comes to the same conclusions that were reached in Australia and elsewhere, namely that Quake enables highly skilled Players to completely dominate a game:

"The quake scene is dying and its dying fast. The difference from when Uther wrote his piece is that it actually seems to be happenning now. Quake2 seems to be taking all the new players and alot of the Quake players have moved to Quake 2... ...the biggest problem that players have with it is that it basically isnt Quake1 (doh). No longer are they able to go through a level systamatically destroying everyone with Quad rls and suchlike. The domination of levels has disappeared as each weapon has its own strengths".

These are just a couple of the things in his article, you'll also find discussion about Clans in the UK, Leagues & Admins, and even a brief profile of most of the Players in the UK scene. Go read it now at Cenobites page. I haven't seen any real reaction yet, but it's interesting that in the Euro countries where they still enjoy dominating the game there doesn't seem to be any talk of such a move to Quake2.

Duel Manifesto Grudges:
VuduChild has created a monster - grudge duels between Players who enjoy flaming each other on various message boards.

"Arent we all just sick and tired of the message board posts, the IRC flames, the bullshit reputations that some players have and/or make up about themselves and other players. Well I thought its about time we started to sort this out".

?What a brilliant idea :-). There are already some profiles up and news of matches being organised. Go check it out here.