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CPL Europe

Friday, August 28, 1998
Germans on the Prowl:
Checked out the SK homepage and those guys are on the rampage around Europe, fired up by the good showing they had in Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll.

Daddelgott TotMacher has left Ocrana to join SK, which now has the lead in the first Division of the DecL. SK have recently played two internationals, against Hungary's Top Clan CORE (Won: 298:121), and Clan FS (Won: 636:191).

Also, check out what's coming up:

"On Sunday we will play famous Clan Z from Finland. I think these guys are surely in the top 5 of the Worlds top clans and i voted them on the Methos Poll for best clan. We will see how we can compete with these guys. Funny to mention is that neithor Z nor SK chooses their homemap DM2 DMM1. Usually its homemap of both clans :). Think we have great respect for each other so E1M2 DMM1 (Z choice) and DM6 DMM3 (SK choice) will be played. After that match the mighty German National Team will play Finnland. This will definitly be a great match. Both the Z match and the National Team match will be played on a neutral Server in UK. Hope everything will went smooth".

Griff is sending me one of the SK demo CD's, so I'll post a review of that when I've looked at it. You can check out the contents here. It looks hot.

The President of the Danish Online Gamers Committee:
HeKSeN reports that the Danes created a "Board of Justice" to determine their position with respect to the WDT. I love the Danish language - did you know that the Danish translation for "waterfall" is "laughing water"? What a brilliant perspective on life. In plain old English it's just "water" + "fall" - duh!

The Danes seemed to agree at an IRC meeting of about 20 Players that they would have a LAN somewhere to pick their team, and that they would send a real team instead of a "dreamteam of allstars". Hmm, if they send a real team they will be more dangerous. Hey guys, don't do that!

Interestingly, the Danes do not seem to want even a 1-on-1 at the WDT as a side-line, they want to keep the focus on the Team Games. They are now at the stage where they are going to create their DOGC rules and vote for a president. Can we have a president in Australia too? It'd be cool to have an international meeting of the presidents of Quake.

The UK Team:
There seems to be much rustling under the covers over in the UK, with the organisers working mostly behind the scenes. Coerj I see has read that Australia decided to go for a real team and not a dreamteam - dammit again! I'm beginning to think that I should have spun some story about us fielding old-aged lifeguard grannies from Wogga Wogga. Do you think he would have bought it?

It would be much better if these countries all fielded nice teams of allstars who didn't have much teamplay experience together. Come on guys, let's see the stars! (when AU turns up with our killer allstar team... hehe - Ministry of Disinformation).

No Spanish Fly:
I have heard word that the Spanish Quake community are keen to go to the WDT but they feel unable to raise the sponsorship money to fly across to America. Dammit! The Spanish team would bring their guitars and we don't want to miss that! No international party is complete without at least one Spanish guitarist. Also, I really want to see Cortez' Killers retake the New World.

Light my Way:
Hobbex makes a good point about Thresh's suggestion that we should be looking to find out which the best allround Quake DM country in the world is at the WDT:

"[T]eam and one on one are far from the only ways of playing Quake. Two on two matches are very popular here (there are both leagues and compos at almost every LAN), as is Arena, CTF, Teamfortress, etc etc. And what about Speed running? doesn't that count. Whatever we include, their is no fair way of trying to find out which country is best at "all things quake", the game is just to versatile (after all, that is what we love about it, right?).

So, we want to have a World Championship in one on one as well? Well, then, if we find it worth the trouble, lets do it. Only then lets do it for the purpose of finding the best one on one player, not for finding a "World Quake DM Champion", because such a title will always be bogus. Personally, I find that we should concentrate more on teamplay as it is more exciting and spectator friendly, but I can't expect everybody to agree".

Dru's View:
Ben has updated his page with an editorial on various stuff, including the ongoing travails of the Liga and PGL, the possibilities of Q2CTF stuff, and the imminent start up of the Genocide 4 QW tournament, in which DR may just possibly take part (but Dru suspects not):

"I don't believe DR will play based on a few reasons. In G3 they dropped out before playing UT because they were suspicious of cheating, I believe they asked for a game played on lan which never happened. They never really liked QW at the time and still might have some issues with it although Thresh stated on Frontline he thinks it's better for internet play. DR now plays quite a bit of Q2 and I don't know if they'd feel like they were wasting their time with a tournament that pays them nothing and risk the possibility of losing. They may just want to concentrate on PGL and the cash rewards it has to offer".

Methos:
Some stuff in Methos' planned file section thingy you may have missed:

• Best other game - 508 votes for "There is no other game than Quake"
• Methos Quake would've finished 3rd for best site (not counted)
• Methos would've finished 2nd for Quake Personality (not counted)
• Although not winners, retired players Danold and Ettu received a total of 840 votes in various categories. (he loves that)
• Methos Quake had it's biggest day ever on the day the results were released :)

Voting Countries (percentage of all votes)

• 25.1% - Sweden, Norway, Finland (combined)
• 18.7% - Australia, New Zealand (combined)
• 18.7% - USA, Canada (combined)
• 15.1% - UK (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales combined)
• 6.9% - Germany
• 15.5% - 21 Other Countries

John Romero:
I'm still waiting to hear confirmation, but it looks like a case of mistaken identity. sCary's seems to have the best updates and he's gonna stick around until he knows for sure.

Thursday, August 27, 1998
16 Player Test Duel Invitational Update:
Tonight Greyseer and I checked out the venue again for the 16 Player Duel Invitational test tourney we are holding on the 5th September at the Western Suburbs Leagues Club in Ashfield, (check out this section for further info). We were arranging tables and deciding where we would position our big screens, and standing round pointing and saying out loud - "Marshalls are there" and "server admins will sit there", and "bar is just over there".

The set-up is coming along nicely - there is plenty of room for what we plan to do. The most exciting thing for me, though, is when I take a look at the draft Player draw that GreySeer is working on. I'm really looking forward to being able to announce that soon, as there are some really fantastic games to look forward to.

AU Team Issues:
Sorry about the lack of updates tonight, but there are some other issues I am having to address first. I recommend you go and visit HeKseN's Clanscene tonight, as he has some really interesting news up about various international sites, including Knightly News - which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago but bloody forgot to add to my own toolbar - duh!

Wednesday, August 26, 1998
Coverage of Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll:
In the site voted the favourite Quake/ Gaming site, Bluesnews, Blues mentions not a thing about the 1,000+ Quake Poll, although I noticed he was up at 4:00am preparing for another visit to the Dentist. The second placed site, Fragzone, has a large news item on it :-D. The third placed site, sCary's ShugaShack, does not mention the voting on the Players, levels or clans, but sCary digs on the HPB/LPB, GL/SW and QW/NQ votes. Writes sCary:

"With what looks like a large percentage of overseas voting, Methos Ultimate Quake Poll has come to a conclusion with some interesting results".

Planetquake had a big announcement which must have overshadowed the news somewhat:

"GameSpy went big today and announced that GameSpy T-shirts are now for sale! Sassy's sporting one here while doing her best Duke Nukem impression".

As for *ahem* the site which placed equal with PlanetQuake - well, of course it bloody blabs about Methos' Poll for the second day running doesn't it ;-).

Some other comment I spotted around the traps - Hobbex writes over on A Frag in the Dark that:

"I won't comment on the results other than that I don't understand some people (myself, I put BD-Calvin for every category) and that I wonder how Thresh can be the best player in seven categories, best overall player, and most overrated...

Also, I can't see why people made sCary as their favorite personality. All honor to him and his washed out Bluesnews copy of a page, but if you weren't gonna vote for me (and obviously you weren't :-) ) you should have voted for Hoony. That dude has a doctorate in national economy, beat that..."

Hehe, actually I voted for sCary too - despite his slow move into the mainstream over the last couple of months, he still manages to be cool and produce the best demos in the USA. But it is sad (to me - this is imho stuff) when some of these great Quake sites ignore Methos' Poll and what it's significance is. It's like, "hellooo, there's a world out there".

But it's no big surprise is it, really. Actually, of far greater importance is the fact that Hobbex seems to be going offline for a period:

"I got my plane tickets so I now know that I am leaving Saturday afternoon from Stockholm, arriving in Singapore some time the next day (it takes like 14 hours plus a six hour difference) and in Djakarta on Monday (staying in Singapore over night).

I have no real idea when I will make my next online appearance after that, but it could be several weeks, could be I actually manage to get online from Singapore in time for the WDA meeting. And nor do I know how good a connection I will be able to get their at all. Something tells me Quakeing will be out of the question..."

Now THAT is something that DOES get me down - life without Hobbex's humour. Come on dude - pls get wired in Indo, and yell out when you skip across to Sydney OK?

New World Demos Site:
Received an email from Slash about his (and MalcomX's) new demos site at http://demos.quake.at/. It's got a lot of recent international demos - definitely worth checking out.

1-on-1 as Part of WDT:
Thresh has added some more thoughts to his case for making the WDT a mix of 1-on-1 and Team Quake.

"A common misconception people have of my argument is that by involving a 1on1 competition into this World tournament, we will be forced to pick between a good teamplayer or a good 1on1 player. Of course I realize there are seriously different skills involved for each type of game. What I was proposing was possibly adding three (or whatever #) additional players to the team, who specialize in 1on1 play. Maybe one player to represent each map: dm2/dm4/dm6? If there are players that overlap each category (i.e. 1on1 player is also on the team category, or a player is the best in all three), then that's fine. But my question is this: Why leave 1on1s out of this unprecedented, worldwide event when they play such an integral part of our Quake community?"

Interestingly, most of the feedback I've seen on the Frontline MB has been to keep the Team tourney and any 1-on-1's separate. That's the Australian and the Swedish view, at least according to Izn0 and Hoony there ;-). A bit of smokescreen was kicked up when someone suggested maybe Thresh had an agenda - the US is very strong in 1-on-1 play, and maybe Thresh was thinking this would strengthen their chances. Haha - a conspiracy theory of the WDT :P

Something keeps bugging me about the idea and I think it's because making 1-on-1's part of what determines which country wins the WDT would put the focus on individuals rather than on teams. I'm not even sure why this should bug me, I guess it's because if a bunch of individuals got together and Played a Tourney I wouldn't consider the winner "the world's best country", I'd just think of that person as "the world's best Duel Player".

Other considerations are that it makes it more complex and expensive for countries intending to send teams - not only do they need to send a team of 4 Players (say) but they also have to field some Duel specialists. It's a little bit of an extra hassle, but this isn't the main reason why it bugs me.

In any case, representatives of 5 Australian States voted to keep the two separate, so that is kind of the position of Australia on the subject for the moment.

Tuesday, August 25, 1998
Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll:
Methos has obviously put in a huge amount of work and has just published his Ultimate Quake Poll of some 1,000+ voters from around the world. Head straight on over to have a look.

Some of the highlights for me:

• Nearly 40% of the voters were LPB
• Beer came in only third
• The Bad Place was both fav 1-on-1 and 3rd worst 1-on-1 map
• E1M2 was voted 2nd worst Clan level
• CTF tied with TF
• LakermaN_of_SC was close to D11-Thresh for "Best LPB"
• Reload (of Australia) made the Best DM2 Player list (to my knowledge no-one outside of Australia has seen him :-)
• SK-Kane was a clear DM4 winner
• DD-Sniket came close for DM6
• [9] Xenon came very close to taking "Best Aim"
• D11-Thresh was 7 times above the nearest Player (LakermaN_of_SC) for "Smartest Player"
• QPD-Timber beat both Sniket and Kane for "Best 1-on-1 Player"
• D11-Thresh won a helluva lot, including "Most Overrated Player"
• LakermaN_of_SC, [9]Xenon, and SK-Kane were "Best New Players" (Aerotek made 4th)
• Clan 9 was 13 times it's nearest rival, Schroet Kommando, for "Best Clan"
• Tormented Souls (from Australia) made third place for "Most Hated Clan"
• [9] Xenon scored more than twice Thresh's votes for "Best Team Player" ([9]Paralyzer was 3rd)
• QPD-Coerj made third place for "Best Clan Leader"
• sCary was more than twice as popular as John Romero for "Favourite Quake Personality"
• Challenge.AU made the "Favorite Quake / Gaming Site", drawing 4th-equal with PlanetQuake, behind BluesNews, Fragzone, and sCary's ShugaShack
• Methos was 16 times his nearest rival for "Favourite Demo Site"
• Unreal beat Quake 2 as "Best Game Other Than Quake" (but neither won)

There's lots more - make sure you head over to Methos and take a look. I have to say, Methos what a bloody brilliant job :-).

Well, look at the recognition given to a host of European Players - it's good to see. Particularly nice to see SK-Kane get the recognition he deserves for his performances on DM4. Lakerman_of_SC is just in a class of his own - did you see him tearing MastahKillah apart on DM2 and DM6? Nice to see [9]Xenon doing so well, that guy is a full-on legend at the age of ... well, he's just beginning ;-). Interesting that the best Clans are European, and nice that Schroet Kommando is recognised so well. But QPD-Timber will be buzzed that he trumps class Players like Sniket and Kane for "Best 1-on-1". Looks like everyone has received their dues. D11-Thresh has the biggest reputation - clearly a stand-out among the very world's best Players. Really nice to see - we gotta keep Thresh active in the Quake scene ;-).

Methos richly deserves his incredible showing for being the World's Best Library of Quake Demos^TM. As for Challenge.AU making the list of Favourite Quake/Gaming Site in such awesome company, well yeah, Hoony is gobsmacked, you can believe it ;-). Thank you for that support :-).

I gotta say that I think the reason for that unusual vote is because the Challenge.AU site stands for news about you - the Players, and news about all the incredible Quake stuff happening all around the world.

World Deathmatch Tournament Website:
Frank published a temporary website this morning - at http://www.mpog.com/clanring/wda.html

WHAT: The concept is simple, an International Quake Tournament. 20+ countries will send teams to compete.
WHEN: The World Tournament will take place in December 1998, January 1999, with possible regional competitions and a final later in Feb-June of 1999.
WHERE: This is a LAN event. The finals will take place in the US. Regionals have been discussed for places like Switzerland, Brazil, Turkey, Australia and Japan.
WHO: The tournament is open to teams of any country that wants to participate. The list of countries is growing every day. Organizers are preparring in: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, UK, and the USA. More are on the way.
US Team: A selection method for the first US Team has already begun. Thresh, Rix, Scary and Hobbes will select the US Team. There may be more than one team allowed per country.
HOW: Each country is responsible for obtaining funding for travel and expenses for their team. Event sponsors will be obtained for the final and any regional tournaments.
Details are not yet set. Rules and facts are only preliminary, until all the national organizations can meet and finalize them. This web page is only temporary.

Also announced there: "National organizations are meeting on August 30, 1998 in EFNET IRC in #wquake at 8am Central US time, 1500 CET. The subject will be to finalize the rules such as NQ/QW, maps etc. The full agenda will be published later in the week. Anyone is welcome to join and observe, but only two reps per country will be able to speak in the meeting. The meeting will be a maximum of 2 hours in length".

I make that to be 11:00 PM, Monday August 30, Australia-time. Will keep you posted.

Team Plus 1-on1?:
Thresh asks over on his Frontline page whether incorporating an individual (Duel) competition that represents the overall team would be a good idea or not:

"I've been trying hard to find a proper sports analogy for this event, and the only one I can come up with is professional tennis and the Davis cup. In the Davis cup, there is both a singles competition and a doubles. Each individual match, whether it be for singles or doubles, is worth one point. Generally, it's a best out of five match, with three singles matches and two doubles (This can be changed to favor team competition for Quake.) The team with the most points at the end wins the match. It's a simple yet effective way to determine which overall team is better.

A Quake tournament like this can be run in a very similar fashion. A best out of five series, featuring three 4on4 games, and two 1on1 games. It can be played consecutively, such as three 4on4 team games then two 1on1s, vice versa, or in between each other. Imagine the pressure when an entire nation is rooting for you to win the final match. :) Eeek".

In our IRC meeting (Australian) we considered this question and decided that it was preferable to keep the Duel and Team components separate, but we also would like to see Duel if possible at the WDT. What do YOU think?

Australian Team Feedback and Discussion:
A temporary webpage has been created here at Challenge.AU where discussion can be aired concerning the "position" adopted by the organising group last Sunday (see yesterday's news). You can find this page at the top of the MENU TOOLBAR - it's called AU Team. It's a bit of a rough hack job - but if you send me an email I'll post it there.

Amendment:
I put a line through E1M2 in the Rules and Platform section of the AU position (see below). This was done after Wargel rightly pointed out that it's inclusion implied that E1M2 was a preference of the Australian team, when it reality the organising group were simply acknowledging that the Europeans were likely to pick this level. E1M2 is not played in Australia for team or clan games.

As far as preferences for team maps go, I feel more discussion is in order - it would be good to talk about these things with your State organisers.

Slovenian Quake Team:
Slovenian Quake has some of the best bloody websites I have ever seen - there's obviously some major talent over there.

Check out the ChAoS Clan website at: http://www2.arnes.si/~ssdtlasi/quake/ and the Slovenian Demos Page at: http://www2.arnes.si/~ssdtlasi/slodemo/. Also, check out the English language version of the Slovenian Dream Team page at http://dreamt.g-kabel.si/dream/english/index.html. As well as being very cool, all these sites have the most amazing graphics.

TrOn emailed me to say that the Dream Team is coming along, and that mad Slovenian Quake Players will most likely be fragging the world's ass at the WDT :-)

"We already have some sponsors and we have also made a new page for picking the best players. We call it “The Slovenian Dream Team” (http://dreamt.g-kabel.si/). On this page we will first vote for the best players and then this players will take part in a tournament (duel) so that we will get only the best from the best. I think this is the only right way, so nobody will be angry for not being in the team. The good thing about Slovenia is, that we only have a population of 2 million, so there really shouldn’t be any problems :)".

WDT Emails:
Maybe you wondered if there is some sort of big international discussion going on between the country organisations about the WDT by email. Well, Frank emails ppl from around the world from time to time, but mostly we all seem to be busy trying to organise stuff in our own countries. Today, however, we got downright "chatty" (by comparison to the norm) and I thought you might find this kind of funny:

Frank: A TEMPORARY web site is up at www.mpog.com/clanring/wda.html.
HeKSeN: Just a question, can i post this site? or is it for internal use only ?
Sujoy: I think after Frank's incident at our favourite Australian based website, he'll be posting **NOT FOR PUBLICATION** in 100pt, bold, flashing red font at the top of anything vaguely private :).
HeKSeN: Well i wouldn't want to do the same BIG mistake Hoony did, had Ignatu forgotten to BOLD it out =)
Frank: The URL is for anyone. It can be posted!
Hoony: no more "World Secret Policeman's Ball", by Klaatu :-
Frank: :)
Frank: What happened at the Australian website wasn't that terrible really. But I will make clear what can't and can't be published.

Monday, August 24, 1998
Team AU - Coming To Get YaR:
Over the weekend a bunch of Australian Quake Players from New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), Victoria (VIC), South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) got together on IRC to decide what Australia's position would be with respect to sending a team to the World Deathmatch Tournament (WDT).

For Aussies reading this, Dalai Lama represented WA, VeGie looked after VIC for Vudu (who had some urgent business), Happy Killmore filled in for GreySeer (who was still lanning in Wollongong), Trixter was there for SA, and TerM and Dethon looked after QLD. The ACT (Australian Capital Territory), NT (Northern Territory) and TAS (Tasmania) weren't there, but heck, it was a reasonable crack at geographical representation.

We went through an agenda, with Hoony recording the decisions. It took about 2 hours or so to get through maybe 20 plus items, and it was a smooth process without any major disagreements. We only had to have one vote. If you are from a State not represented, just and hop on board.

If you have any major problems with any of our decisions, let me know. If there is widespread opposition to something, I'll ask for a bigger group to reconvene and we'll have a vote. But unless there's a big hoo-haa over something, I recommend we let the decisions stand.

The Organising Group:
The first issue was, how do we organise ourselves across this huge country so that it's not a mega-hassle and we can make collective decisions? We decided to use a State-based organisational structure. Basically, each State is responsible for it's own geographical area.

It was agreed that Hoony (yup) would be our representative to whatever world body thing was created, but the emphasis is on *representing* the Australian position. So Hoony doesn't make policy on his own. One State rep from each State will be the primary point of contact to Hoony, though that role can be shared/distributed as needed. Otherwise, the size and composition of any State organising group is entirely up to that State.

We decided that meetings should happen as and when we need them. I've been emailing the goup any stuff I've heard, so the level of communication was seen as ok. A website was needed, and we decided to host a page at Challenge.AU with an option to get a domain name later if need be. The organising group is independent of Challenge.AU and other organisations. The web page is simply hosted at Challenge.AU. I'll create it next weekend.

Picking the Team:
The next section dealt with picking our national team. A common debate going on in many countries is - Should we go for an "allstar" or a "real team"? An "allstar" team would be some bunch of legends picked from around the country. A "real team" might be some members from an existing clan who play exceptionally well together.

Australia decided on the "real team". The view was, that creating an "allstar" team is risky, although in theory it could work if they could practice enough and they were good "team players". (There is nothing to stop a bunch of "allstars" forming a team and entering a State comp - it's just that we won't form a national team out of individual "stars").

How many Players should be in the national Australian team? We decided on 2 teams, with an upper limit of 8-10 players. Each team would consist (ideally) of 4 players plus a substitute (if resources permit). It may be that we are only allowed to send "one team" - but this was our preferred position.

We didn't come up with a name for the team, instead, we decided that we would have a national vote on a team name, using web form voting. A national team name was preferred to a clan name, so that it reflects "Australia" rather than any particular Clan or State.

How to get to the national team? We decided that each State would be able to field 2 teams to a national playoff. In the national playoff, the winning 2 teams (resources permitting) would be sent to the US. Following a vote, the majority decision was that after the WDT rules and settings are announced, the national comp should adopt those and each State comp should also adopt those rules and settings.

In which State would we hold a national LAN to pick the team? NSW was decided due to geographical centrality and available resources. Of course, this makes it costly and difficult for teams from WA and SA, so this is not a trivial exercise to consider.

What about teams with members who are in multiple States? Do they pick the "nearest" State? We decided that teams with players from more than one State will have to pick the State which has the majority of their members, and travel to that State's playoffs.

What about NT, TAS and ACT? We decided they are to be treated as their own State - they can send a team to the national finals like any other State (i.e. we decided against asking them to "affiliate" with some nearby larger State).

When is this likely to happen? I think the national play-offs would happen sometime in late November or maybe December, but that is a guess. Something to remember is, that for something of this scale to work we need to have a real carrot to offer the sponsors. To a large degree, that is up to how attractive Ignatu can make the World Deathmatch Tournament to potential sponsors.

So the States are unlikely to begin doing anything until we have some firm information on how this thing is shaping up. Likewise for the national play-off. The important thing is, we have a clear idea what it is that we will be doing, and how. We just need the ammunition to take to our potential sponors - to be able to say "this is going to be huge".

The Rules and Platform:
Australia's position on the subject of rules and so on was decided remarkably smoothly. Remember that all we can do is represent this position to other countries, and aim to be clear and persuasive.

Should a world Quake tournament be either ONLY QW or ONLY NQ? We decided pretty firmly that there should be no mix and match. Australia's position is that it should be one or the other, and between the two Australia prefers NQ. This means we don't support something like QW plus NQ (e.g. best 2 out of 3 with third being random).

Similarly, we didn't think the comp should consist of, say, 3 team games and 2 one-on-ones. Australia prefers to have a team comp separately to a duel comp. We would like to focus on the team comp as the first priority, and if it is possible to hold a duel comp an the same time, but separately, we will support that. But Australia does not want a team tourney to be decided by duels.

Should there be regionals or should all countries go to the one world tournament? Australia says a firm "no" to regionals, primarily because it would be too expensive. All countries should play at the one WDT.

Should countries send multiple teams, based on sizes? Australia's view is that the number of teams should NOT be based on size of Quake population (however that is calculated). Instead, 2 teams are allowable for ANY country, with the upper limit being 8-10 players: two 4-Player teams, plus 2 substitutes. No country may enter more than 2 teams, including the USA.

Australia's preferred teamplay and deathmatch settings are dm1, teamplay 2.

In addition, Australia suggests team maps are primarily DM3 and E1M2. There should be a defined map list. Maps must be "widely used" for team games. Australia suggests that, in a best 2 out of 3 format, each team can pick it's favourite map from a list, with the decider (if required) being randomly generated. Games should be 20 minutes.

Finally, if we were asked what we felt about a world tourney being Q2 or Q2 CTF - Australia would like to concentrate on doing Q1 first, and seeing how that goes. There is support for Q2 team, and Q2 CTF at a later time. But let's do Quake1 :-).

This is just "the Australian position" - we recognise that whatever rules and settings are adopted will be the result of some sort of international conference, perhaps a vote, or perhaps will be decided by some US organising group. Whatever, we just want to publish what our position is, and invite any countries that have a similar position to let know.

The way these things work, if a "position" has the support of a large number of countries, or even a small number of "influential" countries, there is a stronger chance that such a "position" may be adopted.

Bastards and Atmosphere:
Over the last week or so there have been a number of interviews with various ppl in the US Quake scene, that some of you may have seen. My personal favourite was Zdim's talk with American McGee. Zdim's questions actually compete with American's answers for sheer entertainment value.

Something I found particularly interesting was how for American, Quake and DOOM are still absolute classics. For example, American's favourite game by idsoftware is Quake, but:

"it's almost a tie with original DOOM. I have yet to find another game that captures that feeling that DOOM gave me the first time I played it. I would have to say that DOOM had the best atmosphere of any game I've ever played... Quake just "felt right" in the way it played".

I think a lot of ppl would feel this way. It might be because with DOOM, it was the first time anybody had seen stuff like this. But also, I think DOOM is still very atmospheric even by today's standards. Somehow, some of today's games can seem a little "over-produced", "over-graphical", "too-cartoony" or something. I don't really know what it is.

American's favourite idsoftware map designer is John Romero. I think there is a book waiting to be written on who did what with the Quake levels, and how they came about. Some of my all-time favourite idsoftware maps include DM3, E1M1, and E2M1 by John Romero. I hope he's turned his hand to some of the maps in Daikatana, because he is a master.

John Romero talks in an interview by Methos about some of what he sees as contributing to Quake's enduring appeal:

"Quake brings gameplay to the player that was never available before on a PC. Intense, blood-pumping shotgun blasts and rocket fire and dark, scary, fearful places with moody music and awesome sound effects"

Again, it's the "atmosphere thing" - Quake has it too. Of course, it also has unparalled weapon imbalance (still the best) and totally kick-ass multiplayer "feel". But the artwork, and the level design - there's something really special going on there. American says that he loves to create moody and shadowy spaces, because:

"Levels that do not include those elements seem lifeless (see above section on lava)".

I think the atmosphere created in Quake is truly brilliant, and is largely a combination of the talents of John Romero, American McGee, Tim Willits and Kevin Cloud. With apologies to Paul Steed, who is also a brilliant artist, Kevin Cloud's models and animations have something which I can only allude to by asking - why is the base skin so popular despite all the skins that were produced and why is the Shambler such a star? Paul Steed has never hesitated to acknowledge the mastery of Kevin Cloud - I think this guy is so important to the "atmosphere" of DOOM and Quake. By comparison, many of the other games being produced now look like "BattleStar Gallactica" compared to "Star Wars" (or something like that).

Somehow, in that brief calm before the storm, before technology and the mass market would tempt FPS designers to "go overboard" with what they could create, this idsoftware team produced an absolute couple of masterpieces. The "Sgt Peppers" of 3D games.

Another good interview out there, and one that has been kicking around for a while now, is Gestalt's talk with Mark "Bastard" Surfas. Bastard is the founder/ creator of CriticalMass Communications, the web hosting company behind perhaps the largest Quake site in the world (?) - Planetquake.

As Bastard explains, Planetquake is based around the concept of a cooperative - "sites join and advertise each other. PlanetQuake was the first site in the community to do anything like this and soon we had popular mods beating down our door to join".

Despite the fact that PQ immediately strikes you as very professional, very large, and very well resourced, the Planetquake guys seem to be mostly committed to having fun, as evidenced by the monthly Beatdown LAN parties Bastard hosts:

"The Beatdown was inspired by the problem that no one was running lan parties that I thought were done correctly. Most lan parties were solemn affairs with guys wearing headphones and attempting to win a tourney. FUCK THAT. :) Lan parties should include the concept of PARTY. And that's where we came from."

But they are also business people, and their business model is based on attracting enough eyeballs to their mega-site to generate ad revenue. Are they making money? Not according to Bastard, who reports that they are still working towards breaking even. This hasn't stopped the tall poppy syndrome though:

"The worst part is the insane jealousy that we have inspired from some of our competition. It's disappointing that people I'd rather be Quaking with would rather attack us as some sort of corporate demon."

Look, I'm jealous of that Bastard myself, for doing such a freakin' good job and getting to play shitloads of Quake at his own Beatdown. What a Bastard! I am guilty of viewing PQ at times as "Planet Stroggos Corporation", I have taken a swing at the tall poppy. But the other side of the coin is that PQ is really, really good at what it does, and those guys really do deserve to "make it" doing what they love doing. I hope they do.

Obscure I know:
Saw this over on Methos, and it cracked me up:

"Strange conversation with Hoony the other day. Me: "Can you mention that the Ultimate Quake Poll ends on Sunday?" Hoony: "Okay, I'll mention it in my next update on Monday." :)

Right now (11:00PM on Monday night) I think Methos is somewhere in "Canada Central" which, according to Burbs Time Converter, is 15 hours behind, which means it's 8:00AM over there (daylight saving in operation) on Monday morning. Damn! Missed again :-.