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Tuesday, June 9, 1998
Bitchy's Demo:
The connection had pretty much deteriorated, sadly, by the time The_Bitch and Malby took on Wolph and Dynamop in DM4, but here is the demo Bitchy recorded.

Quake1 Finnished:
Naturally, I'm talking about the Finnish Allied Quakers :-). Perkele tells me there are about 100 QW clans currently in Finland. Check them out at http://www.quake.sci.fi/links.html. 100 clans? Look, this Quake1 business keeps keeping on, and a good thing too. Don't ppl still play Chess? Is anyone bored of Tennis? Aren't the Beatles still regarded as quality music? Quake1 has got the gameplay thing wired, and after 2 years players are still reaching new levels. We haven't even seen Thresh Vs Timber yet. This is NOT the time to hang up the rocket launchers. Just look at these Finnish Allied Quakers - they're an inspiration :-).

Interview with GoosE_:
There's an interesting interview with GoosE_, owner of Paradise.net and Q2 fiend, over at Zoso's Q&A. In the interview, Zoso asks GoosE_ who may be coming up on the NZ side against AU:

After these friendly's, I'm probably gonna dish out some Quake accounts to the likes of Ajax and Immy [Immortal] to dial in, if they wanna do the $5 weekend deal or something to get in some good games against the ozzies.

Killmore on Gamers Extreme:
Happy |{illmore had a sensible discussion today about DM rules on various maps with GX-Spear (aka Kenn) over on the GX MB:

IMHO different maps require different rules DM2 for instance, is a hopeless map to play dm1 rules in. It is just rape after rape after rape, its way too easy to time the weapon run, and there are no lightning guns or SNG, so there is really nothing that even comes close to the RL. DM4, however, is better in dm1 rules, as for them to time the rl's, require that they move into the compromising position of going into the small room with the 100 health box. If they haven't managed to pick up the GL before they went down, they can be trapped in there while the RL respawns. dm1 rules are very good in DM4. DM6... best played in dm1 due to the lack of ammo, but also pretty good in dm3. In dm3 it tends to be just red armour camping though, that's another plus for dm1 rules. Team games... I find in team games DM3 can be a bit unfair depending on the size of the teams. One team can take control early and run away to a huge landslide victory - the score not really indicative of the skill difference between the teams, it adds a lot of luck factor to the game, and less teamwork (especially over Internet). Over lan is a different story though.. as team members can openly shout at each other while they play. Anywho, just my two cents. Killmore

To which Kenn replied:

Hi Killmore, In the US, where DM3 is pretty much the only game in town, team games are either 4 on 4 (standard), or 3 on 3 if not enough people are available. 4 on 4 is definitely the best number of players for this map, however, as it allows a good team to dominate a level, but is still too big to completely shut it down for the other team to stage a comeback. Also, while I've never played DM2 on deathmatch 3, I'd have to agree with you - it's just too small and open, and the game can quickly degenerate into one person running the RLs... Kenn

Happy, where did we go wrong?!!?

Monday, June 8, 1998
Second two games from Saturday's NZ vs Australia:
Part B of the match report from the games on Saturday between New Zealand and Australia. Big thanks, again, to Paradise.net and www.consult :-).

Just like to say, that these were still TEST games, "fun matches" if you like. They helped us to understand some of the technical issues and to see what worked and didn't work.

For example, it has emerged that NZ Players prefer DM1 over DM3 rules in duel games, whereas the Australians tend to play with DM3 rules. Also, the map "DM4" is perhaps more of a risky field of battle than "DM6" due to the occasional lag spikes we experience. Another thing, the Australians probably need a few "warm up" games to get used to the strange feel of ISDN. Even when it's smooth, it feels plain weird.

And another thing, I personally think we need to focus "on the day" on a match between 2 Players from either side. I think we should focus on some 1-on-1's involving the best 2 Players, and some 2-on-2's. But if we have any more Players on any particular day it means there is a lot of flaffing around with the connections. It takes time and it means the Players don't have a good run. It also seems that as the day wears on the connection quality deteriorates.

So my view is that for any "serious" games, we keep it focused to two Players from each side. Feedback welcomed :-).

These are just some of the things we need to sort out before we have any "serious match". Bearing these things in mind, the next games will not take place for a couple of weeks or so, until all Players concerned are satisfied that we have the issues agreed.

Finally, before we take a look at the games, I just want to say that Challenge.AU wants to quash any unproductive argument over spectators giving "their side" tactical info about the whereabouts of enemy Players during a game. It's poison people, pls avoid this sort of stuff like the plague. Dynamop has emailed me and told me that he was not in the same room as Wolph and didn't tell Wolph where Malby was. Here is a demo which shows all the spectator chitchat during the game - WOLVSMAL.ZIP, which shows that when Dynamop said "up at the top" he was answering a question from another spectator about where Wolph stood in terms of the best NZ Players.

Wolph's demo just in:
Have just received Wolph's pov demo of his match against Malby in DM4. You can d/l it here. After a quick look, a few things seem apparent. First, Wolph very much plays strategically within the DM1 rules. He not only denies rocket launchers, armour and other weapons to his opponent, but even health. Second, Wolph stops and tries to pause the game when he realises Malby is lagging out. Third, the fact that Malby was not denying Wolph weapons meant that several times Wolph got out of a tight situation. Most notably, towards the end where he is waiting in the 200 Health room with no rocket launcher. Overall, it was a close and exciting game. I hope we get to see these two meet again :-)

KNIVSNZ.ZIP - Knight vs Wolph on DM6
The second game was Knight [mhcn] vs Wolph [void], the Rematch on DM6. You can d/l KNIVSNZ.ZIP here.

DM6 is Wolph's favourite level, and it showed. Playing DM1 rules, which the Kiwis favour, he did a very good job of controlling the RA area. For the first few minuutes, both Players pretty much stick to their two areas, playing a very defensive game. When Knight ventures over to the RA, more often than not he gets fragged. When he has Wolph on the run, more often than not the wiley NZ escapes through a teleporter just as the rocket hits. Several times Knight lets out a "damn!" as Wolph escaped a near-frag. Finally, with the score at 5,0 to NZ, Knight gets more aggressive and with a good rj attack gains control of the RA and scores his first frag. But rather than letting himself get raped Wolph grabs the 200 health and 100 armour and waits at the top of the stairs. When Knight ventures over he drops and makes his way back to the RA. Knight again plays very aggressively and at one point almost bounces Wolph up to the GL from the floor of the main room. By the end of the game, Knight has the RA secured and scores a lucky last-minute frag. The score: 5, 2 to New Zealand.

MHCNVSNZ.ZIP - Knight and Wargel vs Wolph and Dynamop on DM6
The first 2-on-2 game was played on DM6 using DM3 rules. You can d/l MHCNVSNZ.ZIP here.

This match was probably the most entertaining of the lot for me, and not just because Australia won ;-). The connection quality was good for most of the game, but would occasionally spike out to 400ms (from an average of around 90-120ms). This would cause Wargel to shriek "I'm lagged!!" which made everybody jump out of their chairs.

The pov is from Knight, again. Watch in the first few minutes as he tried to escape a frag by Wargel, who was obviously a mite colour-confused! But Knight has his own revenge on his team-mate, 3 out of NZ's first 4 points were "own-goals"!!

The NZrs could argue, with some justification, that the Australians had an advantage from being in the same room. But it was pretty farcical, I can tell you. Wargel and Knight were on opposite ends of the room, and Wargel was wearing a ginormous pair of headphones. He couldn't hear a thing, and nor could Knight. Despite this, Wargel tried shouting out at the top of his lungs what he was doing, and Knight and Wargel did successfully mount many concerted attacks. The thing that made the difference, though, was probably the DM3 rules.

If you watch the demo, you'll wonder when it is that the Australians are supposed to start winning. It takes a long time, and at one stage they are behind 16,0!! I won't spoil the fun for you - it's a good demo. The Australians finally get it together and, playing effectively and aggressively they pull off a much deserved victory. Congratulations guys :-) At the end, Wolph is heard to say: "Now our rules :-)".

Malby and The_Bitch vs Wolph and Dynamop on DM4
Late in the afternoon, another 2-on-2 was played with Bitchy and Malby teaming up against the New Zealanders. Sadly, the conection had deteriorated pretty badly by then. If Bitchy uploads her demo to the GolSyd FTP I'll post a link, but I recommend that you wait for a better game. I think it's great that Malby and Bitchy played together though - thanks for being good sports =).

Sunday, June 7, 1998
First two games from Saturday's NZ vs Australia:
Part A of the match report from the games on Saturday. Part B follows tomorrow night. Before proceeding I just want to say a big thanks to GreySeer, who worked extremely hard on getting every one's connections sorted out, and to Bitchy, who had a sniffle (you hearing that over in i.e.? Bitchy hasn't been feeling too crash hot this past week).

DUELNZ - Malby vs Wolph on DM4
The first game was [ao] Malby vs Wolph [void], the Rematch on DM4. You can d/l DUELNZ.ZIP here. It was the first game of the day, and Malby had spent an hour unsuccessfully trying to resolve some bizarre IP address conflict. In the end he switched to my machine, and I think the TITANIC wallpaper I have probably freaked him out (I am a huge Jim Cameron nut).

Malby and Wolph played a close game - the final score was a draw 6 frags each. Along the way, though, it looked like both would win it at various stages. Malby, who prefers DM4, got off to a good start putting Wolph in negative frags, but a few minutes later the tables got turned (as can happen in DM4). A key moment came when the scores were Wolph (1) and Malby (0). Malby had just got 200 health and was brought down by a good drop-and-shoot attack. Somehow, Malby managed to frag Wolph with the db shotty to bring the scores to 2,1 in favour of NZ. But then Wolph racked up about 4 frags in a row (at least one of which was a major lag attack). The score was now 7,1. At this stage, Malby was heard to say: "I'll need a raping session to get out of this one". By playing well, Malby evened the score, sending Wolph into the lava a couple of times. Finally, the score was Malby (6) and Wolph (4). It looked like it might be a win for Australia. But then Wolph pulled off the shot of the game - a leap from the Quad ledge firing off a very accurate rocket, followed up by another good frag. The result was a 6-all tie.

After the game, I told Wolph that we'd have to bring in the "next level" of Australian Players. Here's what he said: "The next level of players? shit :( I guess I should get practicing. We really need to get Immortal and Ajax hooked up to this thing, they are some other top NZ players. These are the guys that stopped me from taking out 1on1 comp at Auckmageddon 2 (you must have heard about it from someone, if not it was a big mutha of a lan. :) Ajax mentioned to me that they can hook up a t1 and connect to paradise with 30 ms pings....... but that would'nt be very fair on you guys. If you guys could get a team to AGN that would rock :)"

Just in case anyone thought Wolph enjoyed a lag-free game, he told me later that "my ping fluctuates from anywhere between 150 - 250 and the packet loss is very high (5 - 20%). For some reason I'm the only one who gets packet loss that high, everyone else gets 0 - 3 % :( I even bought a new modem and it didn't fix it :( it doesn't really matter that much anyway, I'm used to it now. There is the occasional spike to around 500, but thats very occaisional. It depends on what max box I dial into, and I usually redial until I get on one that won't lag me".

Malby also kindly wrote a brief review of his game, which pays fine tribute to Wolph's skillz, as well as providing an interesting look into the experience of playing an "international" over ISDN:

"Wolph is definitely one of the sneakiest players I have met. Its been a while since I played any serious games of quake, so I was a little nervous, and my hands were shaking a bit =]

At first the connection was great, then, it would lag, and I would die. When it wasn't lagging, I felt I was on top (as I started to calm my nerves down a little). But the lag really frustrated me at times, because it gave him a definite advantage. His ping was higher than mine, but he never had the lag problems I got. I was thinking during the game "Give me a modem connection any day"

Playing on a connection that is smooth feels wierd too. Being on ISDN I was able to put my rate up to about 5000, which makes quake run a lot smoother, but at the same time, it appears to run slowly.. somehting that takes getting used to. Something that I didn't really get a chance to do.

Getting the first frag in on Wolph, was a slight nerve settler, but I was still shaky, because of all the people watching me (agh, I'm not used to it), but at some stages, the spectators were actually saying "He's up the top" and helping wolph out. There is also the suspicion, he had people telling him where I was, because he would come around a corner shooting a rocket, and hitting me directly., as if he knew exactly where I was.

Those facts aside, it was an exciting game, and I had a lot of fun, and Wolph proved to be a sneaky player, with fantastic aim. Although, I feel that if I was to play the game again, without the lag issue, as well as the fact of having a knowledge of how he plays dm4, I am confident I could beat him ;)"

HOVSDY - Hook vs Dynamop on DM4
This game was played later on the day and was lagged out, but Dynamop won it and that's it - well done! You can d/l HOVSDY.ZIP here. Because Hook doesn't like to record demos in a match, I recorded it from Knight's machine, and I set the frame rate very low to minimise any disruption to the game. Hook got off to a good start, with a (6,2) lead before Dynamop rallied. By the 10 minute mark, some rather severe problems occured, causing Wolph to exclaim "servers screwed". The score was at that stage 5,6 to Dynamop, and Wolph had to pause the game. The server then timed out on Knight's machine, as a result of one of the other guys changing their IP address to the same as Knight's (duh!). Hook and Dynamop went on to play the game out, with Dynamop playing very strongly. But Hook was struggling heavily with the lag/server problem. I'm sure they would both like a rematch :-)

Tomorrow night we'll bring you - Knight vs Morph on DM6, and a team game 2-on-2 featuring Knight and Wargel vs Wolph and Dynamop.
That one is a classic!

sCary thought - life without the Shack:
Saw over at sCary's that Steve Gibson is going through a rough patch. As he says: "Yea, bummer. need a new home. If I actually start getting payed again I bet the page will pick back up a bit. Hell, I may even have to sign a contract saying that I'll update the weekly sections regularly. (heh)". I speak for a lot of ppl, I'm sure, when I say that we wish him well in his search for a new home. The work sCary does is A1, especially all those great demos. I'm sure that he'll soon be relocated somewhere cruisy.

US Players rocking the world?:
It has been reported that Clan DeathRow may be heading over to Sweden to play the fabled Clan 9. The Swedes have a fearsome reputation, what with players like Nicodemus, Doomer, and Sniket. At E3, D13-Unholy and U4-Thorn took on Nicodemus and another player from Clan 9 on DM3 and DM6, and reportedly won by about 40 or 50 each game. It would be interesting to see how they fared in Sweden.

Kenn also said over on the GX MB: "Well, it's possible that Thresh may be visiting the UK sometime soon, care of the WirePlay gaming service over there :) If that happens, maybe we'll finally have a good match on LAN!" If this happens, it is a good sign for the future. I'll be hanging out to d/l the demo of Thresh Vs Sujoy or Timber - those guys absolutely rock!

One weird thing, D9-Frick said over on the GX-MB that "Thresh and Reptile rarely play Quake1 anymore at all, let alone together". Thresh and Reptile not playing Q1!!??! Come on - the fun has barely started yet!

Also, I saw that in the recent PGL Quake All-Star Match the teams were 1. Gollum, Thorn, Reptile, Kornelia and 2. Thresh, Unholy, B2, Dmann. The team that won was led by Gollum, They thrashed their opponents by 91 to 59 in the first game, and 117 to 52 in the second game. History in the making.

Finally, Kenn had this to say about Borg's incredible meeting with Immortal [US] (for full details go to the Sons of Quad clan site and look for Borg's write-up of E3):

"As for Borg from Sons of Quad, it was evident that he was a great player, but it was quite clear that he was flabbergasted at some of Immortal's shots (all of us watching had our mouths hanging open as well). Remember though, Quake2 is still young, and Immy is one of the game's first innovator with that railgun...it could be the "shooting ground" of Quake2 :) There's still time for everyone from ANY country to improve and take charge of the game!"

Some v cool Quake Tournaments you should check out:
The rest of the world are organising some fantastic Quake tournaments. Check these out: for New Zealand go to http://bloodrain.netnet.net.nz/ and for Ireland visit http://quakelords.quake.ie/. Both look very nice indeed :-)

Saturday, June 6, 1998
Wolph in Sheep's Clothing:
We had more games between NZ and Australia via ISDN this Saturday, and Wolph again played a very strong game, coming up with a draw in the 1-on-1's against Malby, and a win against Knight. Dynamop was also playing well, scoring a win against Hook. In the 2-on-2's, Knight and Wargel beat Wolph and Dynamop, but sadly Bitchy and Malby's game was plagued by lag/server problems and the result was pretty much void (pun intended ;-).

Thanks to Paradise.Net for again hosting the NZ server and ISDN connection, and to www.consult for sponsorship of the Australian ISDN connection and awesome support for this unique event. Your correspondent, Hoony, will post more details and demos of the games tomorrow, and over the following couple of days.

Congratulations to New Zealand on a second straight win, to Wolph in particular for being the star of the show, but also to all the Players and spectators on both sides who put in the effort to give it a go. It was a bit of a marathon effort at times.

Last week and today we proved that, when the conditions are right, we can have "international" games between Australia and New Zealand. We also know that our New Zealand Quake counterparts are highly competitive. It's a damn good thing. :-)

Thursday, June 4, 1998
5 Nations Tournament teams:
Bit of a dip into Quake Euro-style tonight. Von Swine sends word that teams are being finalised for the 5 Nations Tournament, which pits the European Houses against each other. What a great battle this is shaping up to be :-).

The Scots, Welsh and French teams are yet to be named but the Irish A and Irish B, and the English A and English B, Teams, are almost ready (just a few final details). Since we've come to know a fair few of the Quake.ie crew, this is starting to look really interesting. The scale is mind-boggling - 5 countries, something like 100 Players, they deserve a prize just for trying to organise it :P.

Don't know about you, but I'd say Quake1 is still pretty much alive over there in Europe =).

Size Matters:
Speaking of mega-scale, you might like to head over to BarrysWorld to see how they're doing with the MegaGame. The MegaGame!!?? Here's some hints as to what it's all about (ripped straight from their website, unashamedly):

• Q2 does not like more than 55ish players.
• It doesnt like large numbers of players joining at the same time either
• Our hardware coped with 90 players easily. With good code (release 315 maybe?)
• We would have no trouble getting to 100 players. 120 might be possible too.
• We need 2 irc channels for these events. 1 moderated channel for server news and 1 for the chat.
• Our Mod made no difference to the crash problem. With or without it, it still died. Zarjazz is off the hook! ;) Nice mod btw the way Zar.....
• We need a large playtest of the server before the next MegaGame. Will ask for volunteers when we have something to work with.

A very Good Demo site:
If you like demos, I recommend you check out http://www.llamanet.net/methos/qdemos.htm. The collection they have there is top class, and you'll get a look at Players from the UK, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, and Canada, to name just a few countries. Also, there's a "Best Players" section at Methos which makes for interesting reading and a truly excellent "Interviews" section. Among the interviews are Reptile, Sujoy, and Romero.

I've downloaded about 5 demos, and I'm just about to pig out on them in a marathon session ;-)

We're having some more "test" games this weekend, so you could think of them as a "rematch" after that pasting by Wolph [void] =]. We're going to try out a few different combos and things, including a go at a 4-on-4 "Clan-type" game. Wolph and co say they're ready, and looking forward to it - that's the spirit :-)

Wednesday, June 3, 1998
Silicon Valley OC12:
Talked with our US Challenge partner, Ozy (Clan 311) today :-) We're going to chase up some avenues later this week in the quest to bring the Challenge to Kornelia and sCary.

In case you're wondering, Ozy's servers are probably on one of the fastest Internet links in the world. He's located in the middle of Silicon Valley in San Francisco, at the California State University, Hayward. The university has a "multi-homed" Internet connection, including a T3 into the MCI backbone. But the real power comes from the "Gigapop", which is the term for the "Internet 2" being currently developed in the USA. That's right, the old Internet, first developed by AARPANET and the US military, is being upgraded but with much higher bandwidth and faster technology, and it's being piloted in a few key universities.

Ozy works for Sprint, and Sprint provide one of the test beds for OC12 implementation at the California State University, Hayward. An OC12 connection has 655 megabits of bandwidth, which equates to 14 and a half times the bandwidth of a T3, or 425 T1's. Ozy gets a 250ms PING to Ozemail just from his student dorm, over the Internet. He plays on servers in Phoenix, Arizona, at 30ms. Ozy is also a very strong Player, and I gave him the GolSyd server addresses, so let's hope he comes over for a game or two :-)

QUAKE.IE Demos:
"Demos? okey dokey", responded the Irish Quake guys over on Malby's message board. Von Swine suggested a visit to the Irish Clan League:
ftp://ftp.quake.ie/pub/demos/iqcl/cwxc01.zip map:e4m3
ftp://ftp.quake.ie/pub/demos/iqcl/cwgi01.zip map:ukcldm6
ftp://ftp.quake.ie/pub/demos/iqcl/givxcom.zip map:andromeda9

and for sheer comedy:
ftp://ftp.quake.ie/pub/demos/iqcl/bact01.zip map:dm3

"We have tended to miss recording the best recent 1 on 1 demos", he said, "though there's been some great matches between Ser, Reaper, Cloud, Overlord and Braincell". There's also a ffa demo of dm3 and dm4 at http://homepage.tinet.ie/~hyena/ffa1.zip, and clan mate Tomb's page http://indigo.ie/~burnell/cw has some cool demos all done on e4m3. Gandalf suggested the Players to watch out for were Overlord, Krusty, Zero, Bunny, Reaper & Ser, "I'm sure I've forgotten some ;-)". Also check out http://clans.quake.ie as some of the clans have demos on their sites as well. Finally, EWJ offered his personal fave demo, "a pommy lad called timber. I played him last week - yuk! He's playing a top Norway bloke. It's aussie rules (noquad =]) It's a dm4 1-1 and if you haven't seen it, it's at: ftp://ftp1.barrysworld.com/QuakeWorldFiles/demo/sujoy/tim_mast.zip. It's skillful and good fun to watch - even the warm-up is funny".

I checked out [QPD] Timber vz MastahKilah [SC] and it was indeed a gem, my fav being the bit where Tim strings together a combo over three platforms involving the RL, LG and a lava jump. Interesting that it lives at a site called BarrysWorld, which Tray probably should take a look at. Another good place for Quake.IE demos is the Quake.ie News site (of course). You'll have to go to the Demos section :P. The demo of the week there when I visited was Sujoy in a display of sheer domination in DM2, playing against Tyro. There's also a huge collection of Duel Demos there. I checked out krze01.zip, from the final of QuakeLords '97, which features [nD] Krusty vs [nD] Zero in E3M7. Ever seen a duel in E3M7 before? It's a claustrophobic snake of twisting corridors littered with multiple Quads, lava and all the powerups. Also looked at clov03.zip, which is a bruising punchup between GLCloudWarrior and [nD] Overlord on DM6. I'd say most of those demos are classics. I'll be going back for more - cheers lads :-)

Malby posted a demo on his MB recently, this time playing on the Irish duel servers against the Irish guys. He tells us that "I made a big mistake by using GL, as the sensitivity is higher, and I made mistakes coz of it (excuses excuses). The guy I played was also not a top quality player, (or he just couldn't hit my lagged ass). So I'm not tryin to say that Irish guys suck.. What I'm saying, is that you can play with the 700 ping, and WIN! yeahyeah!" You can find the demo at the GolSyd FTP.

Hacked Models, Fullbrights, Sad Stuff:
The PGL recently got burnt when it emerged that they were slow to crack down on the use of hacked Player models and fullbrights in a LAN final being held at E3. The original article can be found here. As sCary said, "considering the qualifying rounds for PGL were held online, you think these kind of tactics were limited to the finals held on a lan? Until they have some solid cheat / modification detection in place they need to pull that word "Professional" out of PGL". How will we avoid this happening to any future "internationals"? Well, it's obviously why we'll have to use the latest version of QW. We'll also have to rely on the integrity of our partners.

Tuesday, June 2, 1998
Singaporean Quake checks out AU:
The Singa Newspepper boyz have us in their sights now :-). A news item posted there titled "Challenge The Dudes Down Under", says that "the dudes down under would like to arrange matches against us Singaporeans, that is if we can set up a fast ISDN link". There's a quote there too, CheapMonk says: "As far as I know, the only dude who has ISDN around here is JawBrkr, and he doesn't seem to be playing much Quake anymore. Anyway, LAN shops like CyberCup Cafe have ISDN, right? Actually, you don't need to have ISDN to challenge international players, we have players of Turkish, Indian, Australian and Malaysian nationalities right here in Pepper Crab Clan". Pepper Crab Clan? What a cool name =) Yeah, Singa would be a very international community. You guys probably kick arse in about 7 different languages =)

Malaysian Quake checks out AU:
The Malay Clan Backroom boyz have the rl's aimed squarely in this direction too. A news item posted there titled "Down Under", says that "the quakers down South (it's Australia and NOT Antartica or South Africa) has emailed us a challenge. According to [Hoony], he has already tested an international ISDN link with New Zealand. ... But Internet Service Providers here in Malaysia have yet to supply international links to anywhere just yet. It is an upsetting news but we'll just have to wait or maybe we can find someone or some board to sponsor us... =)". Heh, "first contact" has been made :-) Well, it might take a while, but international matches with these countries are going to provide some incredible competition for AU Players in the near future =).

Love affair with The_Bitch:
Accompanied by THE photo, the Irish Quake.ie News has a piece about some recent games with our own beloved Bitchy. According to the reporter, "Dunno why it happened exactly but a bunch of Irish quakers (led by EWJ and Ronin) decided to take over the (uncensored) Australian Quake web board. They seem a sound bunch though the bigot in me can't help feeling that if their board was censored then none of them would be able to put a sentence together. Aussie Quake queen "Bitchy" showed up and played Overlord on Dm4. Overlord (40 ping) , the true gent woudn't use grenades against her (450 ping)".

Knight's Travels:
I noticed that Knight[mhcn] is going to be heading over to Ireland in October, over on the Irish Message Board. According to the intrepid AU traveller himself, "I will have no pc with me, but I just wish to check out a regular lan or a comp or something. Any suggestions would be most appreciated". According to Fischbach, Limerick is the place to be, with the University of Limerick being one of the major Quake centres in Ireland, and "seeing as twill be October the term will be on so there'll be no shortage of PC's available for Quakin'". Or according to Helvis, "you could come to Trinity, P 200s and extremely fast connection speeds it would be pretty quite during the summer and u could play the CT guys. Whip your ass mutha". Man, Knight is onto a good thing there =)

More on Malby's Irish Challenge:
Malby has been getting together a "high-ping" challenge against the Irish. According to Von Swine, Captain of the Irish team, "our chaps are to show him no mercy even if he's got 700 ping. So Cloud, Mouserat Ser , Reaper etc...Destroy him!" Hope to bring you some coverage of that one ;-) Go Malbs =]. Looking from the other side, EWJ says that he played the other day on the GolSyd servers, "and my ping was a steady 400/500 - sound! A decent college lpb should get at least that. They play mostly with weapons stay and noquads, and are pretty handy, but I managed an 8:2 on dm4 in my only game, so I reckon Ser, Reaper, Mouserat. et. al should kick some over there from ucg". For all those DM4 gods, check out the Irish DM4 Duel God Challenge.

Raven interview with Ajax:
Sorry it took me so long to get it up in the Interviews section. My link went down last night and this morning I had only a short time to get quite lot of stuff uploaded before heading off to work. Raven's talk with Ajax was described by Zoso as "one of the more intelligent exchanges between the two countires". Check it out :-)

Some fucking saga:
Some more light is shed on Sumfuka's legal campaign against the organisers of GibCon'98, over at AusQuakeII.

Monday, June 1, 1998
What they're saying, over in NZ:
Ozzies in Paradise - updated by Zoso
Sunday 31 May 1998
"Just noticed GoosE_'s comments on the discussion page about how the Australians connected to paradise.net for a 'friendly' test game and were trounced by Wolph and co. :) Challenge-au has a bit of a writeup about it, as well as a few demos. More OZ vs NZ games to come by the looks of it. Should be good".
ab's news
GoosE_ - Sat May 30 20:09 PST
URL: http://www.paradise.net.nz
Topic: NZ kicks Aussie Butt
Comments: "Hehe, Check out http://www.challenge-au.com, Wolph kicked their ass in a friendly test :)".
ab's MB

Quaking in ASEAN:
As promised, some stuff on Quake in Southeast Asia. I couldn't get online last night, btw :P.

The guys I've emailed sound keen to have a game, but there seems to have been an attempt at an international tournament over there which didn't go so well. As one said: "I'll let the other guys check out your site, and see what feedback I can get on international matches. But don't get your hopes up. The guys had a bad experience when the last round when some clown held a terribly organized South-East-Asia tourney using QuakeWorld".

Here's part of an interesting reply I got from another guy:
Hoony: Hope to have an "international" with you some day in the future :-)

"Singa Guy": ... i would discuss this "international" with the guys. 50% of our guys got t1/cable modems, so it shdnt be a laggy issue for us when we play with u guys. gimme some of australia's nicey nice servers. i wanna play in your servers.

For any one interested, check out the servers links on the toolbar (under both AU and NZ) :-).

Quake in Singapore:
The main Singaporean news site appears to be Newspepper. By the looks of it it's very active, with yesterday's news telling us that they just reached "50000 Hits ... Halfway to the six-digit 100000 hit barrier, and we are just about 3 weeks short of the first year anniversary of the NewsPepper. Thanks for visiting dudes, and come again soon".

It's well worth checking out, in particular for some interesting interviews, which feature a bunch of oddly familiar-looking nicks:

• Merlin - SingNet Quake Admin.
• Reward - Deathmatch FFA Superman.
• CheapMonk - NewsPepper Editor.
• Shearer - SingNET DM2 God.
• Immortal - Top 1-1 Quake Player.
• Gr][nder - Controversial Clan Leader.
• Tika - Female Rage Player.

Some useful Singaporean Links (with thx to Newspepper):

It seems that multiplayer gaming in Malaysia has had a boost due to the emergence of "Cyber-Cafes". One such cafe is Sky Surf, which claims to be the 1st Quake 1 on 1 Tournament organized in Malaysia. With the tournament supposed to have taken place in April 1998, and a prize pool including RM 150 and microsoft mouse which costs around RM 100 to Rm 200, I was surprised to find nothing on the result. Hope it went well guys :-)

One of the more active Quake clans in Malaysia appears to be Clan Backroom, which also has a fine collection of demos including many with Malaysians. I checked out one with Gu|tArMAn and, as the Irish would say, he's a ninja!