Quake3Arena Stuff
Part I: The delays from id Software with all but the Mac version of the Q3ATest has ruffled some feathers. I can almost hear the Mac users snickering at the rest of the gaming world. Good for them, they deserve this chance after being forced to wait for nearly every popular program released previously.

What I would like to know is, how did this happen? What the hell was id thinking? I'm sure it wasn't id's plan to release the test for only the Mac after being a month late with the release for the other platforms. If anybody knows what brought on this "bush-league" type of decision, please let me know as I'm sure it would be interesting for all of us to hear.

Part II: In my last update, I mentioned that I was scared to see Q3A. This was a true comment and still applies. Now, I think I'm just sick of it. I'm tired of seeing all the cartoonist screenshots, the movies, the editorials about how good / bad it is, how much it is / isn't like Quake, Quake2, QW, etc...

I hope the Q3Atest dies a quick death and the "real" game can be released. Was it Microsoft that started this public beta / preview stuff with Windows95? If so, I hate them for it.

Part III: Is it just me or does id Software try to make us think that Q3A is "this close" to being finished and that only a few details are left for the final product? Well, by looking at Carmack's daily logs, they're far from finished. A lot of the stuff he's doing is from the early stages of the game. After reading his daily logs, I have the feeling that they're not going to meet their release date planned for July.

Oh, does that surprise you too? Yes, it will be months before we see the final product. This doesn't bother me because I remember what happened with Quake2 which, even though it was late, was released about 3 months too early. So, as far as I'm concerned, id can keep Q3A until they get it completely finished. No, not the Q2 completely finished, but more like a LucasArts completely finished.

Methos Interviewed
I was asked to do an interview by Zombie who runs a Russian Quake site. So, if you are able to read Russian, you can read the interview here. The questions were your standard type of interview questions but, it sure looks weird in Russian.

Editorial Updates
Hmm, must be a full moon. I received not one, but two updates for the editorial section. The two updates were from Gobo and Cataklysque.

• Gobo's Gibbage: I've always considered Gobo to be one of the best editorial writers on the web. This update should prove this point to everybody. Gobo talks about the Q3A fiasco from id and the shooting in Colorado. This one is a "must read".
• Cataklysque's Corridor: Cata's back and has some wise words about the Q3A release and I'm sure we'll be quoting him for at least a week. He also talks about my Ultimate Quake Poll 3. Make sure you take a look.

Demos Posted
I have (finally) posted some new demos, but I haven't reviewed them on the Quake Demos page. So, what I'll do is link them here so you don't have to go searching through the ftp site. Here they are:

• Enigma vs Bullybohlan (DM6, QW2.3, 1.4 MB) - Pretty good match between two good players.
• Kranium vs Iceman (DM4, QW2.3, 1.2 MB) - Kranium surprises Iceman with some great play and total domination.
• Lakerman vs Reload (DM6, QW2.3, 2.2MB) - From the TGI, lots of great frags here.
• Xenon vs Reload (DM2, QW2.3, 1.7MB) - Never before seen demo from the TGI tourney. Xenon plays a good match but, Reload is a tough hombre on DM2.
• Xenon vs Reload (DM4, QW2.3, 1.7MB) - Also from the TGI, this demo is corrupt but, it'll play fine for the first 13 minutes. Even though Xenon wins running away, it's not as easy a win as you might think.

Enjoy these great demos

Methos Site Stuff
Methos is a bastard. Oh, I know you're saying that I always was a bastard but, now I'm officially a low-ping bastard. The local cable company finally got around to my area of the "burbs". Actually, it's pretty cool. They have a maximum of 500 users per switch. The good thing is that since my area has just been setup, I'm the ONLY one on the switch. This thing MOVES! :)

• Gobo updated "Gobo's Gibbage". It's a must see
• Cata updated "Cataklysque's Corridor" with some cool news
• Uploaded 5 demos to the Quake Demos Page but, I haven't reviewed them yet.

Q3ATest Delayed
Although there has not been an official release date for Q3test (other than the original "end of March" prediction), many people expected to see it this weekend. Graeme Devine from id Software has updated his .plan yesterday with some surprising news regarding the status of the test. Thanks Nolan.

"The test is not coming out tonight, but we do have a Macintosh candidate ready to go. If all goes well tonight, it will be out over the weekend. The Linux/Win32 builds are not yet ready.

The test version of Quake 3 Arena is just that, a test, and as such we here at id software need to have some controls over it as we start to test it out publicly. Without these controls we cannot actively track and improve the product in a manageable manner.

We wanted, and are eager to be completely "out there" on all platforms, but the OpenGL drivers the product needs for all the platforms are not yet finalized. By launching on the Mac first it gives the various 3D board manufacturers some time to get their Win32 OpenGL 3D drivers certified with Microsoft. We're using, and depend on, the latest and greatest drivers and want to be able to distribute those drivers for the Win32 platform.

The Macintosh market is smaller than the Win32 market, and has less configuration options than the Linux market. There is only a single OpenGL driver, and the hardware is essentially always the same. This is an ideal "controlled" environment for the initial testing. Basically, if there is a huge issue with the initial release we're exposing a smaller audience to it. This turns out to be a good thing.

The plan is to release the Macintosh version first, followed by the Linux version, followed by the Win32 version. We will release on the other platforms as soon as possible. We will rev the other platforms as we make new releases.

I hope you understand and agree with this decision/process. It is a good step towards a timely release of the full demo and retail product."

So, the bottom line is that we won't see the Linux or Win32 versions until the various 3D board manufacturers get their OpenGL drivers registered with Microsoft. Does this seem a bit strange to you? I can understand the TNT2 OpenGL drivers not being registered but, how would that stop id from releasing the test which is suppose to be backward compatible to the Voodoo1 and original TNT cards?

Now the word from John Carmack's .plan regarding the Mac release of Q3ATest.

"We hope it will be done soon, but there are factors out of our direct control involved. Don't be spiteful. This is just the beginning of the testing and release process.

One conspiracy theory suggests that Apple is somehow getting us to do this. What we have "gotten" from Apple is a few development machines. No cash payoff. No bundling deal. No marketing contract.

I am looking at this long term. I want to see OS X become a top notch platform for graphics development. I think highly of the NEXTSTEP heritage and I might move my development from NT if it turns out well. There is a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid with apple for this to happen, and my working on the mac right now is part of that. Plus a lot of complaining to various apple engineers and executives. :-)

To be clear:

At this time, there is no mac that is as fast for gaming (or just about anything, actually) as a pentium III with a top of the line 3D card. Period. I have been misquoted by some mac evangelists as saying otherwise.

Gaming is not a reason to buy a mac, but Apple is taking steps so that it may not be a reason to avoid a mac if you have other reasons for wanting one.

MacOS still sucks."

I received a message from Cataklysque which seemed to sum up most peoples feelings regarding the delay.

"They're doing it just to make me cry aren't they?"

We know how you feel Cata.

Official Q3ATest Message Board
Christian "Disruptor" Antkow from id Software updated his .plan file with news of an official Quake 3 Arena Messageboard. Here's some of what he had to say about it.

"I've written a message board for use in discussing the impending Q3Test releases. It's primary function will be a central place for you to post bugs so that we can quickly peruse the boards and see what some of the main problems are. It's still in development, there are a few problems that I still need to iron out, but it's mostly functional.

I'm interested in seeing how it performs under a high load. I originally used MS Access MDB format, but became frustrated with file locking issues with a minimal load of activity, so I spent most of the afternoon today installing MS SQL Server 7 and adjusting the code to work with it. Coming from a database background (Oracle at my previous job), I was quite impressed with SQL Server 7. Really easy to set up, and the performance seems very good.

If any of you would like to use that as a discussion forum, and generate some data for the database, I'd appreciate it. If you find any serious bugs or get any error messages, please post in the "Q3Test: Bugs" forum.

The board will be moderated by id staff to retain it's focus."

As he mentioned, it's only temporary for now. I'm sure the new address will be posted as soon as he finds one.

Columbine High School Shooting
I didn't get a chance to mention this earlier in the week. Columbine HS is in a suburb of Denver, Colorado and is the place where the two teenagers killed 14 students and injured many other last week.

First off, my condolences to all the family and friends of the people who were killed or injured in this tragic event.

The point I wanted to mention is that some people are blaming TV violence and in this case, video games. Apparently, the two killers were big Doom fans and at least one was a member of a Quake clan. I suppose that this is much like the topic of whether reading a Playboy magazine causes people to become rapists.

In my opinion, the answer to these questions are, no. I can't speak for everybody that plays Quake, but most 17 year olds know the difference between a video game murder and real-life. Whatever problems these two murderers had, they would've manifested without any visual aid from video games or TV.

Once again, my condolences to the people that lost their family members and friends.

Fear Of Quake3?
While chatting on IRC the other day with Zoid, I professed to him that I have a fear of Q3A. Zoid was nice enough to answer a few of my questions. Here's what we had to say.

Methos: I'm not sure I want to see Q3A because I'm scared that Q3A will be Quake2 with fancier graphics.
Zoid: You have nothing to worry about.

Methos: Okay, enough of my negativity, tell me something that's great about Q3A?
Zoid: Weapons that don't suck.

Methos: Weapons are the best thing about Q3A?
Zoid: The Deathmatch maps are much better than Quake2

Methos: What's the toughest thing about programming for Q3A?
Zoid: Typing  "CD QUAKE2" instead of "CD QUAKE3". :)

Methos: I have a fix for that, try "deltree quake2" :)

Methos: Umm Zoid? Still there? :)

I talked to Thresh after that and I asked him if he agreed with Zoid's statements regarding the weapons and the maps. His comment was "Errr, no". Oh well, I guess we'll see what happens whenever we see the game.

Site Seeing, Err, maybe Not
I noticed that Izn0 has closed the Truegamers site for the next few weeks as he prepares for his move to the GX network. Good luck to him.

Along the same lines, Owl who runs the Demolition demo site has lost his connection and the site has been shut down. The problem with Demolition closing is that among the many demos on the Demolition site, they also hosted all the demos from the TGI tournament.

Read below for more info on these demos.

Methos Site Stuff
People have been complaining (with good reason) that I haven't updated the Quake Demos page in a while. This coming Monday, I (finally) get a better internet connection and I'll be able to drop this modem in the trash. I'll also update the demos page with a bunch of demos.

• Removed 2 pictures from the Quake Babes page. Both of these were at the request of the people involved. The two pictures were of Zoid and Smoke. Oddly enough, Smoke sent me mail 6 months ago saying how cool it was that her picture was there.

Ultimate Quake Poll 3 Stuff
Doing the Ultimate Quake Poll 3 was hard work but, lots of fun. I think I'll need to get some Visine to clear up my bloodshot eyes.

When doing the poll, there are a lot of things you see that unfortunately never make it into the poll. For example, sCary received a lot of votes for best DM3 player but, there was no way he was going to make it into the top 4 with players like Thresh, Xenon, Cable and Lakerman. This doesn't mean that he's not good enough, it just means that the voters chose other people instead.

While I was going through each player category, I saw a lot of players get many votes but, not enough to make it into the rankings. Most of these were American players such as Pure, Gollum, Drakken and many others. Strangely enough, RiX got very few votes in the poll except for about 20 votes for Best DM6 player.

I'll go through some of the categories and give you some of my thought and added info.

• Voters: The top 5 voting countries were USA (1921 voters), Sweden (1915), Finland (1699), United Kingdom (1077) and Australia/NZ (878).
• Clan: Over 70% of voters were in a clan, that's very cool.
• 85% QW Voters: err, no comment :)
• Single Player Map: E1M2? Geez, that's such a boring map and there are tons of great single player maps.
• Fav 1on1 Level - DM4: Interesting to see that this map is still very popular.
• Fav Custom Map - AeroWalk: Hmm, never liked this map. No strategy involved, just a dm mode 3 shooting range. It also won as "Worst Custom Map" so, I guess there are some people who agree with me.
• Fav Clan Level - DM3: Hoony mentioned that id should find out why this level is so popular and duplicate it for Q3A. I can't agree more, it is the quintessential clan map and it won by a landslide.
• Favorite Mod: It's interesting to note that the Kombat Teams mod by Kemikal is the only mod to be on the list that doesn't modify the game. It's just the best clan mod around.
• Best LPB: Lots of great players got votes in this category. It was a shame that all of them couldn't be mentioned.
• Best HPB: It was nice to see my old buddy Jimbob get 3rd place. He's a good player and well deserved.
• Best DM3 Player: It's nice to see Cable get a mention. He's one of those players that doesn't get enough attention. If I were to have included a "Most Underrated" category, I'm sure that Cable would've finished second behind Columbo.
• Best DM6 Player: I'm glad that people remember that Thresh is a DM6 monster. I had always thought that nobody could beat Reptile (who got tons of votes) on DM6 but, Thresh is truly the DM6 master. Oh, and thanks for all the votes for myself and Hoony. :)
• Best 1on1 Player: I agree with Spookie and Hoony. When will Thresh and Lakerman play?
• Most Overrated Player: These are 5 pretty talented players. Are they really overrated?
• Most Hated Player: Unfortunately, Thresh pays the price for fame. He is the most recognized name in the gaming world and everybody that has met him says that he's a very nice guy. Timber received most of his votes from Australia for his "lag frag" on Reload at the TGI.
• Best All-Around Player: Damn good choices
• Best NQ and QW Clans: Bit surprising not to see SK in there. Nice to see a few American clans there.
• Most Hated Clan: Once again, the price of fame. These are the same clans in the best clan categories.
• Fav Personality: sCary is da bomb! Nice to see my pal Hoony make the grade.
• Fav Quake Site: Fragzone still cares about the players, that's why they're number one. Lots of votes for Methos Quake (would have finished 3rd) and Barrysworld received over 600 votes.
• Fav Clan Site: The N3D site rocks. I thought I was watching a movie. It was awesome.
• Fav Demo Site: All I can say is "Thanks".
• Most Annoying Person: The only one that will be proud of this award is Paul2. :)
• Best Other Game: Is anybody surprised that Quake2 wasn't top vote getter?
• Best Demo: All great choices
• Switch to Q3A: Hmm, not a very good vote of confidence.
• Most Important Match Ever: All great choices
• Best Player of All-Time: Thresh deserves this award. Quake legend Ettu received 150 votes in this category.
• Best Clan of All-time: Good choices. Nice to see people remembering Clan Legends. Many, many clans received votes for this one including UK clans, DC, QL & QPD.
• Person / Player That Changed Quake: This category impressed me the most. I can't think of 4 better recipients for this.

There you have it. I have many other thoughts about the poll but, these are the main ones. Thanks again to all the people that voted. Without you, this never would've happened.

More UQP3 Stuff
Doing a poll is a tough thing to do. Oh, it's easy when you have 100 people answering questions but, when you have 10,000+, it's a whole different ball of wax. I should've remembered the saying I used on the last poll which was "don't shoot the messenger".

The reactions from other web sites have been very nice. I have seen completely different reactions from all sites. There was a one line blurb on Bluesnews all the way up to the 19 paragraph novel that Hoony posted on Challenge-AU. Most sites mentioned one paragraph with some results that they found interesting. Thanks to all the sites that mentioned the poll and the results.

The responses have been from one end of the spectrum to the other. All the way from "why wasn't I in "this" category" to "that guy shouldn't have won". Well, for those that have questions about the poll, you can send e-mail to all 10,000 people who voted. (e-mail list supplied for a small fee)

Now, I've always said that Quake players can't spell. This is still true but, apparently, most can't read either. When I posted the poll, I put these 3 simple rules at the top of the page.

• If you don't have an answer for a question, leave it blank.
• When entering player names, put the clan name AFTER the player name.
• Only answer the question, Don't add personal comments to the answers.

Now, to me, these seem like simple rules to live by but, it seems that most people either didn't read them or just ignored them. The 1st and 2nd rules really cost me lots of time and work. As for people entering their votes numerous times, this was easy, I made a macro that deleted their votes. Who did I vote for? Nobody. I didn't vote in the poll. Not that it would've made a difference with this many voters but, I wanted the results to be from the visitors.

After the 2nd UQP, I made a MS-Access template for future polls but, I lost it when I had an hdd crash a few months back. I could've really used it for this poll. I used Excel which is a nice program but, cumbersome to use. Since Excel only handles up to 65,000 lines per page, I had to juggle 8 different pages of data.

Ultimate Quake Poll 3 Results
They're Done!! The results from Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll 3 have been posted. Wow, lots of work but, well worthwhile. Over 10,000 people voted in this poll and it turned out great.

I won't bore you with more details until my next post. Go take a look at the results. Thanks to all the people who voted.

Spookie has updated "The Spookie Side" with his thoughts on the TGI, Q3A, "the worm" and Boobs! (huh?)

Working On The Poll
The Ultimate Quake Poll 3 has ended and I'm sorting through all the data. There were a total of 10,377 voters. Out of those, there were approx. 275 duplicate votes. Some people thought it would be funny to submit their votes multiple times.

After the dupes were removed, that left 10,102 voters multiplied by 52 categories which equals 525,304 pieces of data to compile into a pretty results page. So far, I have completed 20 of the 52 categories. It takes approx. 45 minutes per category so, the results should be finished this weekend.

I received some word of encouragement Hoony who said:

"My god, lock yourself in a room and do nothing else but work on your website... umm, you do that already.. ok, no blonde neighbor for you until it's done ok? Well, count sex out, so that only leaves sleeping, eating and farting. Keep at it Ray! we appreciate it :)"

Some of the results I've seen so far have been very cool. I'm sure you'll be impressed with most of the voting. With over 10,000 votes, it really makes a difference to the diversity of the voting but, with that many votes, the cream has certainly risen to the top. Although the predictable amount of votes for players like Thresh, Lakerman, Kane and Xenon are present, there have been many votes for all the other great players too.

So, stay tuned, I'll have the poll results available "when it's done". Heh, I always wanted to say that but, it won't take as long as some other things we're forced to wait for.

Thanks again to all the voters for coming out in force. Thanks to all the sites that mentioned the poll and contributed by getting their readers to come and vote. With Quake reaching it's twilight, these results will be cool to look back as a nice memory of some of the things that made Quake so great. Stay tuned...

Ultimate Quake Poll III Ends
It's over! The votes are in and there are tons of them. I now have over 5 megs of results to sort through and decide who the winners and runner-ups are. After the first poll, it took me about 19 hours to compile all the data. The second poll took about 2 days. The current poll had more than 3 times the votes of the second poll. At that rate, I should have them done by the end of the year. :)

Seriously though, thanks to all the people who voted. The people have spoken and they've made sure that they yelled loud enough for the world to hear. The results will be awesome. I glanced at some of the early results and I found them very interesting. The TGI had quite a bit of influence on the poll but, not as much as some might think. I will work diligently and try to have them posted as soon as possible. Stay tuned, you're gonna love these. 10,000+ voters can't be wrong!

QuakeNation Ownz Methos!
I didn't realize it but, apparently, Methos Quake is now a sub-site of the UK site called Quake Nation. I don't remember joining them but, I visited there today and they had a link to my site. The link was as follows:

http://www.quakenation.com/news/methos.barrysworld.com

The link didn't work but, I guess I'll be moving all my demos there tomorrow. Hmm, I wonder who I have to bitch at when the site goes down? :)

Q3A Update
Okay, for the 100th site today, here's the latest from Graeme Devine's .plan regarding the "almost done" Q3Test.

"At this point, we still have no release date on the test. We're testing builds here and at Activision and continuing to go through cycles. As soon as feedback from both internal testing and our testers at Activision dies down, we'll be ready, but while this is providing heavy reports, as it still is today, we're still not ready to come out with the public test.

There will be two maps in the test; these maps will also be in the final product. The feedback we're looking for is specific to the technology in the test. We're pretty happy with the design, and feedback on things like weapon switch times, models, gibs, and so forth are not things we'll pay as much attention to as real issues with the technology. We're looking closely at modem, ISDN, and cable play to see how our new network code works, and how that works when a bunch of different connections are playing together on the same server. We're anxious to gauge server load and use with the maps we have to see how the server works under heavy use, and to make sure we've got a lot of the new client/server communication working reliably and securely."

What do I think of this? Glad you asked. I say they should keep it until they get everything right. I'd rather have a game released that has only a few updates and not a whack of them like Q2 had.

Recluse Rates The Sites
In his latest update, Recluse from FPS-Spectator gives his thought on some of the Quake web sites. I agree with most of his comments but, he doesn't really say too much that would be considered earth-shattering.

Come to think of it, I never did like the FPS-Spectator site. That guy rarely ever updates and when he does, he babbles on forever. Always whining and bitching about bigger sites, he posts the odd demo and then thinks everybody is going to read his site. Hmm, that actually sounds like my site. And Thresh's site. And Hoony's site. And sCary's site. And err umm, nevermind, just go and read Recluse's comments. :)

(Note: For those anal people out there, the above comments were a joke. Also, there were no animals used in the testing of this article.)

Cataklysque Speaks
Cataklysque (notice the [R2] is missing?) has updated his page and talks a lot about playing CTF (wtf?). He also mentions the TGI and that Gobo guy. Go take a look if you dare.

Methos Site Stuff

• Cataklysque has updated "Cataklysque's Corridor". Make sure you stop by
• Closed down the "Ultimate Quake Poll III" voting page. I will be working hard to sort through all the data. Trust me, there is more than you can believe.

Ultimate Quake Poll III Status
Needless to say, the response to the Ultimate Quake Poll III has been great. There were more votes in the first day of poll #3 than there was is the entire poll #2. When Bluesnews mentioned the poll on the second day, the votes skyrocketed again. Thanks to all the great sites that mentioned the poll, you're help was greatly appreciated.

From the few votes that I have seen, I'm sure that people will be surprised at some of the results. The ones that have surprised me so far are, "Best DM6 player", "Best Quake Player Ever" and "Person / Player that Changed Quake the most".

I'll probably leave the poll up for another couple of days and then I'll start the arduous task of sorting through all the results. If you haven't voted yet, go to Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll III page and do your duty!

Hoony's TGI Review Posted
Hoony from Challenge-AU has posted what I like to see regarding the coverage of a tournament. That is, a complete chronology of events from start to finish of the TGI. Make sure you head over and take a read. It's a beauty.

Free Diamond Rio
The folks at Teamplay.Net are giving away 8 Diamond Rio PMP300's for people joining their free service. If you'd like to win one, go and join up for free. Make sure you tell them Methos referred you. :)

Q3ATest Mail Notification (Shugashack)
It's old news now but, still kinda nifty. Quakefiles.com has put up this page that will automatically send you e-mail as soon as the Q3A test is released.

Quake(2) Oscars Presented
The Quake Movie Library handed out their coveted Quake 2 Movie Oscars last night. There were two movies in particular that cleaned up in the major voting.

• Best Movie Group: Quake Done Quick Team
• Best Camera Work: Father Frags Best
• Best Comedy: Father Frags Best
• Best Plot: Devil\'s Covenant
• Best Use Of Music: Father Frags Best
• Best Film: Devil\'s Covenant

You can see the rest of the award winners and download the movies from their home page.

Fusion99 Update
For those that don't already know, Fusion99 is a big Lan tourney being held in Leeds, England on May 15th & 16th, 1999. The tourney will host a number of international clans. Some of the clans confirmed for the tournament are Z, GO, SK, LoD and of course, ClanUK. There will also be tons of 1on1 action as well. For more info, check out the Fusion99 Home Page.

Methos Site Stuff

• Updated Methos .plan today with some miscellaneous stuff
• I completed an interview a few days ago but, I have to tweak it first before it can be posted
• I haven't posted many demos lately so, I have a lot of them to view. I'll probably go through them all after the Ultimate Quake Poll III is finished.

Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll III
The Ultimate Quake Poll has returned. The end of Quake is coming soon so, you are bound by your duty as a Quake fan to vote. I will leave the poll up for 4-5 days depending on how busy the voting is. Please make sure you vote for all your favorites in the world of Quake.

Click here to go to Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll III page.

Gobo's TGI Impressions
I usually don't get too excited about many things (cept my gorgeous blond neighbor :) but, our pal Gobo seems to be very excited about the recent happenings at the TGI tournament. Make sure you take a look at "Gobo's Gibbage" so you can share in the excitement.

Methos Site Stuff

• Changed the "Quake's Best Players" page to reflect Reload as the best DM2 player

TGI POV Demos Posted
Izn0 from Truegamers sent word that he has posted a pile of POV demos from the TGI tournament. After seeing a bunch of them, everyone I watched was better than the Reload vs Lakerman demo I posted earlier. Not to put down the Reload / Lakerman demo but, it certainly wasn't the most exciting demo I saw.

You can download all the TGI POV demos here. Have fun storming the castle!

Methos TGI Thoughts
Well, since the TGI was such a huge success, I decided to post my thoughts on the whole thing. You can read my TGI impressions on Methos .plan page. I'm sure that most of you will find it interesting to read.

Ultimate Quake Poll III Status
The Ultimate Quake Poll III is ready to roll. I have finished the page design & questions. I removed 10 or so questions from the second poll and added approx. 10 new ones. The only thing left to do is test it out on-line before it's made public. I'll test it tonight and if all is okay, I'll post it tomorrow.

Burpy Comes Clean!
After I posted the R3V-Burpy Demo about a month ago, Burpy's identity has remained a secret. Okay, even though people have guessed, I never confirmed who Burpy really was.

Since then, I guess Burpy had a case of the guilts and decided to confess his sins and his true identity. It turns out that Burpy is none other than USA Quake player extraordinaire, Thresh! Really? I never knew that! :) Here's what Thresh had to say about the demo on Firingsquad.

"This one is interesting. The match was R3v vs. FITH to advance to the finals of the QIL2, and I was playing under the nick "R3v-Burpy." Appaerently word got out that I played this game, so without further ado, here ya go."

For the seemingly hundreds of people that have e-mailed me with this shocking news, I knew that it was Thresh before I even posted the demo. That's why I made the comments about Burpy being good enough to play in the TGI.

Methos Site Stuff

• I'll be checking the Ultimate Quake Poll III on-line after I post this update. If it's okay, I'll release it publicly tomorrow (fingers crossed)
• Updated Methos .plan file with lots of info from the TGI tournament and a few other tidbits.
• Archived the Methos Quake News from March 99. You can find it in the archives section in the java menu on the left.
• Archived Methos .plan for March 1999, it's also now in the archives section.

Lakerman Wins TGI - Updated
It's over! Lakerman has just won the TGI 1on1 tournament by beating Kane 11-10 in the 3rd game in the best of three finals. Imagine going through all those games and it all coming down to one frag! Congratulations to Lakerman, Kane and all the players in the TGI. Every game was played at the highest talent level.

Columbo (the amazing success player at the tourney) is just about to play Sectopod to decide 3rd place (Update: Sectopod has defeated Columbo to win 3rd place in the tourney).I'll do a wrap-up update later. The demos will be available at the Truegamer's ftp and the Barrysworld ftp in a short while. Make sure you download lots of them. There were some great matches.

Update on the demos. They should all be posted. Here's the catch, there were no 1st person pov demos recorded except for a few from Timber and Reload yesterday. :(

Another odd thing that happened today was that one of the tourney favorites, Xenon, was disqualified from the tournament for arriving 1 1/2 hours late. A friend of his contacted me and told me that Xenon had missed his wake-up call from the hotel he was staying at and if I could get one of the TGI guys to contact Xenon on his cel phone. I passed the message along and Xenon showed up a bit later. Once there, he found out that he had been dq'd from the tourney. This was an unfortunate turn of events but, all the players have to live by the same rules. After losing to Columbo on day 1 and then this happening on day 2, this just wasn't a good weekend for Xenon.

Lakerman Interview (Fragzone)
Fragzone has posted an interview with the TGI champion, Lakerman. The problem is, it's in Swedish (only a problem if you can't read Swedish). Here's the interview translated "as is" into English.

FZ:
Tell us a bit about the games.

Lakerman:
Well... I first won DM4 pretty easy. Then on DM6 he held RA in an iron grip and I was beaten like shit. DM2 was the worst thriller in Quake history, I had 6 spawnfrags after the first frag and went up to 8-0. Then I went on defence too early and Kane could dominate kind of whatever he wanted to. With 2 mins left I had a 11-7 lead and he went up to 11-10 and trapped me in the Bigroom. I managed to escape though with 50H and 150A out of the squish and he didn't manage to catch me. That's how it ended.

FZ:
How did it feel after two days of fighting to win with 1 single frag?

Lakerman:
Damn good, would have been such a disappointment to lose.

FZ:
Will there be any prizes or is it the glory that counts?

Lakerman:
There was a nice trophy :), and a big relief.

FZ:
Are you hoping for any fat sponsoring after this victory?

Lakerman:
A new computer would be nice.

FZ:
What will happen tonight? Will everybody travel home or is there a party?

Lakerman:
I'm heading home in three hours, so there will probably not be a party.

FZ:
If you want to thank anyone or something like that; here's your chance.

Lakerman:
OK, One big thanks to the following ppl: Fnys, Demi, Nutcase, Yo, Anri, malO, Tokit, Munktell, Hellsangel, Mooseman, Darkone, Steelduck, ET, Dragan, Bobban, Hoony, Methos, Izno.

For those that ask, no, I didn't add my name in there. :)

Methos' Lakerman Interview
I ran into Lakerman shortly after the match and I asked him to tell me about the games. He basically told me the same thing with a bit more info.

Methos:
Tell me about the final matches and your reaction at the end.

LakermaN_of_SC:
In the first game Kane stood in the MH room on dm4 for 7 minutes, at the 8 minute mark I ran into MH room and got him out. Then I took control and got quite a few frags I won it pretty comfortably with 15-3.

On dm6 he got RA spawn and i got MH I tried to fight him at gl but he just outbattled me easily he was up 7-0 when I got my first frag with 4 minutes to go. I got back to 6-2 but then he got me. He won by 9-2 I think.

On dm2 I managed to get the first frag and after that I got 6 spawnfrags in 20 seconds or so. Then I started playing way to defensive and he got back into the game. Kane was pushing me around the map and he got back to 7-11 with 2 minutes to go. He got 3 more with 30 seconds remaning.

I got into MH/RA room and he shot me through the tele, about 15 seconds remaning now. I got up close with the SSG and hes down to 25 health when I'm standing on top of the squisher. Kane is standing on the teleplatform in the corner when I tele out and go to ng room. I kept running to low rl then the game ended

Methos:
What was your reaction right after the game ended?

LakermaN_of_SC:
I screamed for about a minute, jumped around and shit :) Then I calmed down and realized how lucky I was :P

Methos:
Were you scared in the final minute?

LakermaN_of_SC:
Like hell

Methos:
How many people were around you when you won the match?

LakermaN_of_SC:
I have no idea :) My guess is lots, maybe 50 people. It was 100% full plus the ppl watching the big screen outside.

Methos:
Thanks, now go and enjoy your victory.

LakermaN_of_SC:
Thx :D

Thanks again to Lakerman and all the people involved with the TGI. All the players, Izn0, Hoony, Heksen and all the others that made it happen.

Truegamers Invitational
Well, day 1 is over. All the players are now sleeping (or should be) and Izn0 is trying to find a way to stop Hoony from snoring louder than any plane on earth. From my point of view, the Truegamers Invitational 1on1 Tournament rocked big time!

Did everything go right today? Not by a long shot. As with every Lan tournament there are always things that are problematic. The network had a few concerns, player equipment didn't work right (like Kane's mouse), proxies were up and down and just general tourney problem all caused the Tourney to start a couple of hours late.

Having said this, the games themselves were truly outstanding and the players at the TGI have raised the Quake (QW) talent bar to heights never seen before. Non-attendees like Thresh, sCary, Rix and others should be kicking their butts for not being there. Guys, you don't know what you've missed.

IRC Overload
I was going to post this in my .plan file but, I decided to post it here so that people could see how I spent my Friday night to Saturday afternoon. To all the people in the #tgi_results channel, thanks for being there. Here we go...

The mood on IRC was electric. There were 3 channels with over 350 people in each. Virtually every well known quaker in the world (including the TGI ones) was in one of the channels. You would think it would be easy to get a game going but, the only thing the players were interested in were the TGI results. After a while, most of the people on IRC started to put their country name in their IRC nickname. There were about 80 AU-xxx names in the channel plus, many other countries represented. It was to a scale that I had never seen before.

Most people waited anxiously for over 3 hours for the matches to begin. At 1 p.m. Sweden time, the wait was over. The talking in the channel was flying by on the screen so fast that you couldn't read much of the typing. Then, of course, some people started acting like idiots. A few (7) were kicked and things calmed down a bit. I warned Paul2 that he would be kicked and he said "yeah, no problem, I'm used to it, I don't take it personally anymore". :) It became quickly apparent that the channels needed to be moderated.

The proxies hadn't been setup when the matches started and they wouldn't be available for a couple of hours. The few of us that had access to the ip's (myself, FunkyB and Hakeem) were relaying scores as they happened to the different channels. We tried to give the scores (which were hard to keep up with) and a little play by play to the people in the channel.

To quote Spock, "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the one". I was given the ip's for the proxies. At this point, I was the only one broadcasting scores to the #tgi_results channel (FunkyB had left to watch the matches). I had to decide whether I was going to abandon the channel and watch the games myself or, do I stay keep the 350+ quakers updated?

I decided to stay as I could always watch the demos later. On my connection, proxies and my modem have never gotten along. I ended up broadcasting the scores for another few hours.

The games that excited people the most were Columbo beating Xenon on dm6 and Columbo beating Reload on dm4. There was a short respite in the action so, I opened up the channel so that people could talk (within reason). I even got a chance to tell my Quake joke. :)

Then came the pinnacle of matches played on Saturday. Reload vs Lakerman on DM2. To say that the crowd in the channel was excited is an understatement. The 70+ Australians in the channel almost wet themselves (with good reason) while I was posting the scores. reload got out to a great start as the score went to 5-0. The IRC channel was going nuts. Then Lakerman started his comeback. The crowd became continually more quiet as I announced Lakerman's frags. It seemed that the score was 5-4 for about an hour when I posted Reload's 6-4 lead, then it picked up. In the last minute, tensions were very high until Reload pulled away.

When I announced that the Reload win was official, the channel went crazy.I couldn't believe what I was seeing. after about 1 minute, I silenced the channel again to get people calmed down. When I opened it up again, people were much better but, still delirious over Reload's win.

The Lakerman / Reload dm4 match started almost immediately and was almost anti-climactic to the previous match. Lakerman got off to fast starts in both the dm4 & dm6 match and it became quickly apparent that Reload may have won the battle but, he was going to lose the war. The AU guys in the channel wanted me to make sure that I told Reload that "his country was damn proud of him".

I continued posting scores for about another hour or so, then I had to get some sleep. Thanks to all the great people in the channels including some players that I haven't seen for quite a while. The excitement wouldn't have been there without you guys.

TGI Scores
Okay Methos, enough of your mindless banter, we want the facts! Okay, I hear you and I want them too. The best place to get them is at Truegamers but, they don't have them all posted yet. You can also get partial results at QuakeNation and OCR|Slop's site. Most of these scores came from me posting them in the channel so, you can be sure that they're all wrong. :)

Anyway, we can all view the pov demos when they're posted to see the scores and how players played in each match. Here are the winners of the rounds...

There were a few more games after this but, the scores aren't posted anywhere. I'm sure we'll see these tomorrow or soon after. Kane and Sectopod are going through to the finals. Xenon has to play 2 more rounds on Sunday against Lakerman and Reload. Group A could have a 3-way tie. Then they'll probably decide by games won against each other, games won and then if required, total frags.

Groups In TGI
I was a bit skeptical about this when I first heard about the groups in the 1on1 tourney. I had always thought we'd see a round robin type of tourney where everybody plays each other. The TGI admin and the players decided that splitting the players into 2 groups would be the best way to go. Here are the groups...

The first thing that came to mind was "how much did Kane pay to have Lakerman, Reload and Xenon in the other group?" :) I'm not going to question how the groups were selected but, I was a bit surprised that 3 of the pre-tourney favorites ended up in the same group.

The alternative of the round robin sounds great in theory but, it wasn't practical in this 2 day tourney. Even if they shortened the matches to 10 minutes, each player would still have to play 18-27 games in one day. This way, they end up playing 8-12 games. I guess it's the only way it could be done and still fit into the given timeframe.

TGI Demos
Some of the demos can be found on the truegamers ftp. I'm not sure why the POV demos haven't been posted but, there are a few pov demos there. The ones that are pov start with either "tim" or "rel". All other ones listed there are spec demos. I hope they'll have the other demos available soon. There's also a mirror on the Barrysworld ftp.

Does Kane Have A Furry Tail
Since before the tourney, things have been going Kane's way. Last week, he won the Darkbreed Lan tournament in Germany, this week, he's in the TGI. Now, the legend of the Easter Bunny was started in Germany a long time ago. Kane is from Germany and happens to be in the finals of the TGI on Easter Sunday. Hmm, it's almost like everything is set for him to win. We'll see what happens.

Gobo's Gibbage
Gobo is back and has updated his "Gobo's Gibbage" page with his thoughts on the Truegamers Invitational tourney (before the tourney started).  Make sure you take a look.

Nine Vs AMD Stats
You've all waited for them, here are the game statistics from all 10 matches of 9 vs AMD. Most of the stats are very predictable but, there are a few surprises.

Just the fact that there were 240 self and team kills in the matches. That's 24 per match folks! Devil from clan AMD had 293 frags in the ten games (before taking away selfkills and team kills) which works out to 29 frags a game. He was killed 51 times per game. He must have some talent because if I was fragged 51 times per game, I'd never get 29 frags.

Best defense goes to Para who was killed 22 times per game, Brat was killed 65 times per game. Best offense was Xenon with 65 frags a game and worst was Agent at 18 frags per game.

For those that don't know, "Toughest Enemy" is the enemy that killed the player the most times. "Easiest Prey" is the enemy that was killed the most times by that particular player.

To get the demos from the tournament, my buddy Owl has them on his site.

TGI Almost Here
This weekend, some of the best players in the world will meet in Gothenburg, Sweden for the Truegamers Invitational 1on1 Tournament. This should be the most important 1on1 tourney that Quake has seen. The previous PGL tourneys have been great but, they only contained USA players.

For those that have been living under a rock for the past two months, here's a list of the players attending the tournament.

• Blitzer (Finland)
• Columbo (Denmark)
• Kane (Germany)
• Lakerman (Sweden)
• Nikodemus (Sweden)
• Reload (Australia)
• Sectopod (Norway)
• Sujoy (England)
• Timber (England)
• Xenon (Sweden).

These players are all very talented and should put on a great show at the tournament. We're all looking forward to the great competition by all the players this weekend.

Incase I haven't mentioned it before, a huge thanks to Izn0, Hoony, Heksen and everybody else that made the TGI happen. Without you guys, this wouldn't have been possible. Give yourselves a pat on the back. I can only imagine how much organizing had to be done for this tournament.

Reload Lands In Sweden
Australian Quake star and Intel pimp, Reload along with his bodyguard Hoony arrived in Sweden after their 24 hour trip. Geez, you'd almost think it was halfway around the world. :)

Hoony has posted an update on his site and tells all about the way things are in Sweden. Apparently, they have big Pizza there. They are staying with Izn0 from Truegamers and he's teaching them Swedish. Just today, they learned how to say "is your sister 18?". :)

Hoony has also posted another installment of "The Hoon House" where he discusses the future of broadcasted gaming.

Final TGI Voting Update
Well, the votes are all in. With the tournament only a day or two away, this will be the final voting update for the TGI tournament. Lakerman wins the voting but, the others aren't that far behind. Thanks for voting and I hope everybody enjoys the matches.

You'll notice that Sujoy's name is not included. It would be unfair of me to mention him as he has only been confirmed for the TGI for a couple of days. Once again, thanks to all the people who voted and to the players for being such good sports about this.

Speaking Of Sujoy
Since I've spoken many times about the other players involved, I think it's time to take a look at Sujoy. Sujoy has been a star Quake / QW player since the start of Quake. For those that remember the thrill of seeing the classic Sujoy vs Danold demo for the first time, you'll know what I'm talking about. He continued to be a very prominent player in the UK along with his clan mates in Demonic Core. Considered a Quake legend in many parts of the world, he is one of the top 4 most recognizable names in the Quake scene.

While most of the older (by Quake years) players have gone on to other games or retired, Sujoy has remained a staple in the UK Quake scene. Now, the question that people ask is whether or not he's as good as he once was. The answer to this is "probably not". But, as we all know, great players have a way of "coming through" in the big matches. A lot of people thought Sujoy's Quake days were over a year ago until one day when he won a couple of exciting games against a UK DM4 monster named Timber (who is also in the TGI).

Much like sCary would have done, Sujoy also brings other things to the TGI. First off, he's a class act. He's always been true to the game of Quake and has been an innovator in the game (remember the lavajump demo?) since the start. I also like the fact that while some players have shown a lethargic attitude towards the TGI, Sujoy was genuinely excited and accepted the offer immediately.

How will he do at the tourney? I'm not sure about this. Sujoy was considered a DM4 expert. He used to be very good on DM2 until he stopped playing it a while back. DM6 has never been a strong level for Sujoy. Since Sujoy is flying in from New York to compete in the TGI, I'll assume he hasn't been practicing much. This will cause him trouble as most of the players are in very good form. My prediction for Sujoy is 8th-5th place. Having said this, it's wouldn't surprise me if he did much better.

It's not where he finishes in the tournament, just the fact that he's there is great for the TGI. I posted an interview with Sujoy last year for those of you that want to know more about this Quake legend.

Spookie's Back Again!
OMG! For the second time in a month, Spookie has updated "The Spookie Side". Not only that, he's done it while being a globetrotter. He's in the eastern USA right now and will be in Canada in a couple of days. Spookie talks about many things from the TGI to Clan AMD. Make sure you read what he has to say.

Methos Site Stuff
Still working on the Ultimate Quake Poll 3 questions. I'll probably post it after the TGI is over. I'm still waiting for Gobo's next posting. I'll start bugging him soon.

• Spookie has updated "The Spookie Side". Make sure you read it.

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