May 2000 Archive
29 May 2000 - The State of UK Quake 2 Introduction
I think most people realised that the arrival of Quake 3 would have a profound effect on the Quake 2 scene, but I'm sure few predicted how great. Most of the "top" clans have quit Quake 2 leaving a void of class which hasn't been filled by those who've taken their places. Looking at the scene as it is now there are only one or two really class clans, the obvious one being CS, the other two are Rv and FED. Of course, when I say "top clans" I'm talking about skill alone, but there are still plenty of decent clans about, and you could argue that it's the truly dedicated players who've stayed with Quake 2, because they still love it. What I'm going to do now is to look at different aspects of the scene, starting with Irc and message boards, moving onto the servers, then the leagues and finally a look at the top clans. It may be that my views are inaccurate, I don't know everything, but my views should hopefully be those of the average player, so don't jeer if I'm inaccurate or completely wrong ;). Irc, Message Boards and Newsgroups #quake2.uk is a shadow of the channel it used to be. It used to be brimming with actively, full of users but now it's half empty. The channel has been largely abandoned in favour of #quake3.uk. I've never been a big irc user, except when I was in HooD but the big difference seems to be that #quake3.uk is a very quiet channel. There are a lot of people in there but they're pure idlers. I've done it myself. People just don't speak, they're just in there in case they miss something, or for the reason of showing themselves to be part of the scene by being in there ;). I never went in #quake2.uk more than a couple of times so I can't comment authoritatively on it but, from what I've heard, it wasn't a very pleasant channel. Lots of l33t bullshit talk and slagging off. Each to their own I suppose. Irc is important to the scene, you can't chat on a Quake server, so by this token, an element of the Quake 2 scene has died.
The other forum of debate outside of the servers are message boards. Six months ago the central Quake 2 message board was the UKCCL's board. This, was effectively ruined in the latter days by people using false nicks and putting up pathetic messages "[UNR]Luke: I am gh3y", that kind of thing. It got very tiresome and there were petty feuds between people like Psycho and Exor. Fortunately the UKCCL reformed itself into a company and that board was happily scrapped. It's replacement on the new site is an open board for all the games. No one uses the Quake 2 specific one, everyone uses the "open" one. Because of the traditions of the UKCCL as a predominantly Quake 2 organisation, it's mainly the Q2'ers who post. The board is active but the silly feuds do remain. Rarely, if ever, is there any serious debate about the game. Boards of this kind are strangely interesting though, mainly because you want to see what's going on, things which are impossible to learn on the servers alone. Other important boards are the Barrysworld board, which is better, with, at times, more considered debate, the Savage board, and the Wireplay board, neither of which I read tbh. Another aspect of forum debate are newsgroups. uk.games.computer.quake2 is still a very active newsgroup, though it was alwasy pretty cliquey I felt, with the same people posting, but then most groups are like that. The main world one is alt.games.quake2 which is also very busy still. The newsgroups are still going strong. Servers I'm perhaps not the best person to talk about servers because I have always tended to stick to one or two. 75% of the time I play on Minos (weapon stay - 194.88.93.59:27910). 10% I'll play on Barrysworld DM (non-weapon stay 194.88.93.10:27810) and the remaining 15% I'll play on Barrysworld RA2 server (194.88.93.11:27840). As far as I can see there are just as many people on these servers as there ever have been. There are still newbies, which is quite surprising, I mean who are they. Surely they haven't only just bought a two-year old game? Then again maybe they've had it all this time and only just tried it, who knows. It's good that there are newbies anyway, to keep the game going. A lot of the top players have left the scene of course, moving to Quake 3, but then I think it's fair to say that you never really saw the very top players anyway. Looking back to division 1 players that I actually ever "saw" I can only really list: Bassman, Witz, Exor (Maskaler), Comatosed, DNM, Yakumo and Nimrod. That's a poor statistic. Either the others weren't playing, which is unlikely, or, which is likely, they aliased. Aliasing has been a bugbear of mine for some time because I think it does no good to the scene to have a load of anonymous names on a server. It does nothing for community spirit and means that no one is "known". As an example, try to think to yourself who CS' players are. I can name four (Jecks, Rob*, Puppetmaster, and Skydancer). Of these I've only seen Skydancer on servers, an excellent HPB. I'm not picking on CS there, look at the other teams in division 1 and do the same. PK - er, Saddam? or something, um.. that's it. PB - San Raal, Seabass, and er..., you get the picture. These are the top clans now but they're filled with anonymous members who no one knows.
This is a recent shot. How many are unaliased? - Me and two newbies, tartjagger and bUcHaJ. That for me has always been the great contradiction of full-time aliasing. The primary and by far most common reason for aliasing, whether admitted or not, is to protect a reputation, not only their own but also that of their clan. But really what's the point if no one knows who you are because of it. Face it, you don't have a reputation except by way of your tag, unless you create one by playing. Anyway, this isn't supposed to be an aliasing rant, I'll leave that for another time. The main point I'm trying to make as that there are no "personalities" anymore. Look at the UNR team of old, the great team of Tasan, Luke, Rude, Flex, Spawny, Spog, Yakumo, Insomniak, Diabolic. These are names known by everyone, you don't need to look them up. You can't say the same anymore. The scene is folding in on itself and becoming more insular and anonymous. Another feature of this trend is people's general, in my opinion, apathy about the results in division 1. I used to follow it religiously, now I don't really care because the clans just don't stir any imagination in me. They're just tags. It's a shame but that's the way it's gone in my opinion. Other people may feel differently. Anyway, back to the servers :). The fact that people still play highlights how popular the game still is but that's definitely less of a community spirit on the servers now. it's not just a case of people aliasing, people always have done but nowadays people seem to talk less, except to abuse other - hehe. League As I've already mentioned, every scene needs a league to give it some structure, so that there's some point to forming into clans and practising together. Quake 2 has always been focused around two main leagues. The UKCCL for deathmatch and Savage for CTF. Savage was a very thriving and exciting league and it's one of my regrets that I never got involved in CTF when it was at its peek. The UKCCL is the largest organised league of its sort in the world, which is an amazing statistic. Vincent, Witz, and a team of dedicated admins have thanklessly run the league for nine seasons now. Just think about the number of games they've organised and adminned. It's incredible. The UKCCL formed itself into an organisation and there was some initial excitement about this. However, players have been very negative about the connection problems, often just making sweeping comments about how poor the UKCCL is, without trying to get help from the UKCCL's support team, or having any consideration for the fact that a lot of these people are working for free. In fact there are a lot of snide people about that seem shocked that Vincent & Co. should have the audacity to try to make some money out of this venture. Like he should put in hours every night for the good of his health. This kind of cynicism seems to be quite a persistent feature of net-addicts I find. They even begrudge the need to connect to the UKCCL for a game. Come on, I mean so what if you do have to connect for half an hour to an hour? A quid or so for a game. God you can spend that on a couple of games of pool that are over in five minutes. Go back to irc idling on BT Free afterwards ;). Put the cost in perspective - being on the net is cheaper now that it's ever been. I think that a venture like the modern UKCCL is very brave. It's trying to make a business out of something you enjoy doing which is what everyone dreams of, but few have the guts to make a go of. It's not as if they'll be reaping in the money either. The ISP business is very competitive and the initial investment is great. Good luck to them I say and to the ungrateful whiners I say, just be grateful it's free and that there are people who aren't entirely selfish about to make it all possible for you. Both leagues are still running and are now run by the UKCCL company. Some people say it's less well organised but the season I've just played with MKC was pretty much problem free. I think there was one night when a match ran 20 minutes late. Shock horror, oh the humanity! (Hehe, not being very subtle with this point am I). Results weren't updated as they should have been, to be fair, but I think they've been having trouble with formerly helpful admins now asking why they should work for free. The final point of contention was the fact that the custom map for the last game was kept in the dark until the last day. Again, I don't see why this was such a big deal. UNRDM1 is the most popular custom map and it was pretty obvious that it would be chosen, it didn't take a brain surgeon. Also, to my mind as long as everyone finds out at the same time, it doesn't really matter. It was the same for everyone, and so it was fair. Complaining about things like that is counter-productive and nit-picking. Barring the lack of results updates, the league was organised well enough in my opinion and there are just as many clans competing as there have ever been. The big difference between the UKCCL and Savage is that Savage is run entirely by volunteers. The UKCCL was run in the same way until recently, but is now essentially a commercial venture, as I've mentioned. However, most of the essential admins work for free, which kind of demonstrates how healthy the leagues are and how enthusiastic people are about keeping them going. Both leagues, Savage and UKCCL, have been hit by dropouts, clans who've moved to Quake 3, or those who've found the going a little bit tough in the high up divisions and couldn't take losing. As far as I can see, the leagues are healthy, but appear to lack the class opposition of the past. Having said that, Slave from the Savage Council informs me that competition is still just as strong as it's ever been, if not stronger. Clans may have left but a lot of players have simply clan-hopped to new ones taking their skills and experience with them. Savage has five divisions and 40 clans which is still a massive scene. In the same way the UKCCL is still massive and there's always a waiting list to join both leagues. Looking at the leagues in that way it's pretty clear that they're both still going strong. Clans There are still a huge number of clans in the UKCCL. In fact this isn't even a fair estimate because there are a lot of smaller clans outside of league play in smaller scenes based around individual ISPs. As I've already discussed, a lot of clans have abandoned Quake 2, but that tide should subside now and I expect the teamlists to remain more stable now. A lot of the players from the top clans who left have moved around and now reside in clans that have been boosted in skill for the recruitment. I'm now going to look at the top few divisions of the UKCCL and give a few comments on each clan (if I have any comments). Please don't take any offense at these comments, I'm really just trying to show what the impression of an ordinary person is (I'm ordinary - hehe).
CS^Clan Stealth: These guys have been dominating the league for three seasons straight. Not just winning, but annihilating, never losing a match. In a way that's better than Unreal managed, they ran some close games with NME. However, the strength of opposition isn't as strong anymore. They remain a top quality clan in a Division of relatively average clans. The only real exceptions in division 1 are PK and Rv in my opinion. Players that stick in my mind include Skydancer, one of the few to play unaliased sometimes, Rob*, Puppetmaster, who's an amazing player and Jecks who's just been recruited. Clan Stealth seem to have carried with them a bad reputation from the past. I don't know any of the details of this, which concerns fielding Euro-players I think, but as far as I can see, if that happened it was long in the past and they seem to play the game professionally and without whining (probably because they have nothing to complain about). I'm also impressed by their website where they give away some demos. Most clans are too shit scared to release their sacred "secrets". PK-Painkillers: These guys are pretty quiet and you never seem to hear a peep out of them. They just get on with playing and have been solid in division 1 for many seasons. Individually I don't think it's being unfair to say that they aren't the best skilled players, but as a team and tactics-wise their play is fantastically refined and they can take anyone on and give them a good game. I'm trying to think of a player that I can quote but one isn't coming to mind, so elusive are they :). [PB]Playboys: Another quiet clan. I've only really ever seen two of their players - the ever present San Raal, a very sound player and regular UKCCL admin and Seabass, both of whom seem decent. Perhaps it's my memory of the shape of division 1 from the past but PB has never struck me as a division 1 clan, I have to say. However, they did finish third above Rv and =Mr= so they must be a strong team now. [HIV]Hot Internet Virgins: Another natural division 2 clan that's had to improve to cut the mustard in division 1. I'm sure that recruiting ex-NME Bass and Retro has helped them massively and they finished fourth overall, which is a great achievement. These guys seem all right with quite a relaxed attitude to the game as far as I can see. Players that stick in my memory include Cube, ButcherNog and Janeymack. Rv[Clan Revenge]: This, to my mind, is one of the few remaining "top" clans. They're mostly known as a Wireplay clan, for having dominated the Wireplay league for many seasons. They're having some trouble at the moment I think because of a lack of players, what with people moving to Quake 3 and running out of modemers, which is a bit of a shame. Before this season began I expected them to be the first clan to seriously challenge CS for the title but in the end they've finished up fifth. Still respectable, but with players like Nimrod and Vorv they can hopefully do better next season. =Mr=Man Go Ram It=: Mister are another one of these secretive clans that you never see about but who are very strong as a team. They don't release any demos, as a matter of policy, which is something that irks me somewhat. How many teams are really going to study your tactics that seriously and come up with counter-tactics? Not many, most clans just praccy their own tactics and get on with it, in my opinion. They let their play do their talking though and have stormed up through the divisions, overshadowed only by Rv in their rise to the top. Players that stick in my mind include Boom and Stonecold. You don't see them about though. {AbFab}AbFab: Vincent's clan is one of the oldest and has been running since the league started. They seem to have the best attitude to the game, treating it as such and their players have largely run the UKCCL that we've all enjoyed for all these months. Skillwise they've only been out of division 1 once or twice, which is impressive, but division 1 play is very serious and they've said themselves that division 2 would suit them better. Players that I remember include, of course, Vincent and also Cheese, who's one of the coolest players you could hope to see on a deathmatch server. Clan From Hell[CFH]: This is another cool clan. They have always just got on with playing and have always finished in the top couple of places. Amongst their ranks they have some of the finest players in the UK, with Shiguru, Comatosed and DNM, aka Mr.Grumpy - hehe. They've dropped out of the league now, due to a lack of modemers, which is a big shame and a great loss to the league.
[DS]Defenders of Sherwood: Hehe, whenever I think of DS I think of Stormkeep's quote when they beat HooD in Division 3, "I can't believe we got beat by a bunch of f*cking merry men". They're a strong clan and when HooD played them in Division 2 they were the only ones to pose a serious challenge, only losing by one frag. Their strength seems to be strong tactical play rather than l33t skills, much like PK in that sense. I think they're good enough to take on anyone and they certainly gave us, MKC, a pasting on Tokays this season. They always use two letter abbreviations (which is supposed to help with team messages, so they're all aligned, hehe), but names from their team include Littlejoh, who now runs the Q2 side of the UKCCL, and um, some other merry men type names.... ^TR^The Righteousness^: I'd never even heard of these guys until just after I joined MKC and heard we'd lost to them. Obviously a quiet clan on the scene but they were strong enough to beat some good opposition in division 2. I really don't know anything about them to comment, so I won't :). LE-Lethal Enforcers: Another clan I don't really know anything about, tbh. I know that LE-Gem is one of the best HPBs in the country, as I saw at the team trials a few months ago, other than that, um, no. zSI seems to play for them too, strange seeing as how he's on CS' members page too. Anyway....maybe he plays for them in WP only, who knows. [MKC]Massive Killing Capacity: The clan I was happy to join back in April. I'm not just saying this but I'd always felt that if I wasn't in HooD, I'd want to be in MKC, or maybe SLH. MKC's a clan that has the right attitude, letting their play do their talking. MKC were also good enough to reach the final of the last Free Cup, only losing to SS, in their final swan-song of Quake 2 play, the game where SS finally won something :). Obviously I'm biased but there are a few well known names that a lot of players will know including, Tribal, Moneypenny and Luprachan. [SLH]Satan's Little Helpers: Another clan with a decent attitude to the game, another clan I might have liked to join :). They've been solidly fixed in division 2 and 3 for several seasons, but I think their Quake 2 playing is getting less serious now, to the point where they might abandon it. I hope not. Big names are, Swelter and, um some others that I do know, honest. [EVIL], [sAn], [SM]: I'm grouping these because I don't know much about them. EVIL, I know nothing, not one player. sAn, I know that strudles joined them from NME, and that's all, and SM has folded. SM's website was the best clan site on the net imo, created and maintained by CS^Jecks. And that's as far as I'm going to go, there are other divisions and other clans of course but there are too many to cover really. I might just mention XTC in Division 3b (their website is linked on my links page), who I think are a very cool clan and that's it. Conclusions Wow, it's turned into a long essay this, three and a half thousand words in fact. I struggled to write essays of that length at university :). If you're still reading then hurrah, if you gave up then erm, you aren't reading this. What conclusions can be drawn from this analysis. I would say that the Quake 2 is still alive and well in the UK. Sure, a lot of clans have left, but the league is still brimming with activity. OK there may be less people on servers overall, but the big, popular servers are never empty. There aren't as many class players about either, but then again, players and clans get better all the time and will reach that standard eventually. Competition is still fierce in every division and the fact that feuds exist only goes to show how emotive people are about the game. Eventually people will abandon it and move to Quake 3 or maybe the next big online "thing". I imagine that RPGs like Asheron's Call will be massive once we get free phone calls. Remember too that players were still keenly playing Quakeworld until recently and it's only now started a sharp decline since the source code was released and cheating's become rife. There's nothing to worry about yet, Quake 2's taken a battering recently but it's not out for the count just yet :).
29 May 2000 - Updates I've updated the links page and I've also added a new demo to the Quake 2 section, thanks to [MKC]Zipgun for that.
28 May 2000 - Pastures New? OK, keep refreshing - you should be seeing a dark blue background rather than yesterday's black. I'm a fussy bast like that. I'm pretty happy with the design update now. The next likely change will be when I can work out asp or ssi or something, but that'll be months off.... :). I've redone and updated a lot of the links, it's amazing how quickly they change. They now feature longer comments, especially on the clan links. That's actually a hint at a major column update I'm working on right now. Hope you like the new look, if not then tough sh..., er, I mean I'll happily take your opinions on board, of course, of course.
27 May 2000 - Yet Another Redesign Alright, I decided to rework the basic design of the site to make it easier to read and also to be friendlier to those users at 800x600. It still needs tweaking though. I'm not sure about the dark red bordering to the left and right, but the rest seems fine... If any pages look dodgy, just refresh, they have all been sorted out.
Gratuitous RA3 Screenshot
25 May 2000 - TFFT Phew, completed both 3 hour exams today, what a nightmare. Teach me to leave it all to the last minute. What's better though, long months of constant work or two weeks of hellish panic. Not sure :). Anyway, they're out of the way now so I can get back to updating this and the MKC site, the Q2 side of which is now mine, muhaha. To tide you over ;), check this site out. It's a strange concept, a site where you can create different farts, but it's very funny. Try a short, cheesy, wet fart, that's really bad. LOL! (Cheers to Marius Mauler for the link).
15 May 2000 - Lamerkatz Cool Lolol, I've mentioned the Lamerkatz Quake 3 clan site several times before, it's very cool indeed. Anyway they have a really weird little Shockwave Quake 3 animation. with characters saying "Wazzzup" a lot. You kind of have to be there to appreciate it. Check it out :).
13 May 2000 - Dusting off the Archive.... Lo, ickle update time. Just had a request off <HooD>Ads for ex-HooD Bladerider's artwork, so it's up on the HooD Homage page if you want a look. Also, I've put up the pictures of the two HooD LAN partys, Hoodadelica and Hoodstock, which I forgot I still had (love the name of the second one - lol). Both of these were before my time, but it's great to see pictures of the real life HooDs, if rather painful ;) j/k.
13 May 2000 - Dustballs....
MKC eventually finished fourth in Division 2, beaten by DS, TR and LE. The last match of the season was quite an exciting one, with us drawing with LE on UNRDM1. Personally, I was pleased with this result because we had nothing to gain, whereas LE had the chance of promotion had they won, so we got a decent result even though we didn't need one. The job of updating the MKC site is mine at the moment and I'm doing a crap job at it, concentrating more on this one when I get the chance ;). Still, I've whacked up Incan's Spectator demo to my Xoom demo area (Btw, I've just noticed that Xoom seems to be having problems at the moment so it may not be available right now). I played in the match and got a positive frag difference which was nice, I'm trying not to die as much now. I've realised that I'm way too reckless and I've now started running away more. It does work mind. I was playing RA2 last night and I was the last one on my team, up against four others and by running off when the odds were against and taking them on my own terms I won the round. Expect to see me running away more and more ;). I've told you the result of the MKC match above but it's still a good one to watch, close ones usually are :). I've had to cut back on playing on public servers, though I usually try to fit at least one deathmatch in per day. I know from experience that it only takes a few days to lose your skills :). I'm thinking of getting re-involved with league RA2 when I start playing full-time again. I've played a few matches and enjoy it still, as I did playing with HooD. MKC definitely won't be interested in RA2 as far as I can see so I may join a separate RA2 clan. I've had a few suggestions for improvements to the site recently, including guest columns or interviews. On the interview front, I personally believe that it would rip off Warforge, who's interview site is simply unbeatable. Further, I don't think I'm well enough known in the community to be able to get interviews off the top players that people would want to read. So, that's a no-no. Guest columns? Well, apart from the fact that I like this site to be my own personal domain, with me as King ;), I'm not sure that people would really contribute. On previous clan sites I've worked on, people tend to let others do the work if they can, and people also tend to struggle for new things to write about, so they get frustrated and give up - or they lack confidence in their writing skills. And then there's the question of what people might write about :). I'm reasonably easy-going I'd say, but then some things about the game do annoy me more than they should, but the idea of giving uncensored space to others would be a bit dodgy, unless I knew them well enough :). It's OK on Barrys, or UK Gamer but this site is called "REViLLA" so any opinions on it are associated with me personally. Designing a site like this isn't easy, mainly because there are hundreds of sites out there and unless you offer something special, no-one's going to give it a second look. I don't think my site offers anything special at the moment, although there aren't that many regularly maintained personal Quake sites by UK players, as far as I know. Also, though demos are easily available from Shod Gamers or other sites, people don't always want to trawl through archives, so selecting the choisest demos is a help to people. As for the tips, they are a help to newbies, as are the links for anyone new to Quake, or interested in the clan scene. The hits have taken off slightly as well, 500 last month alone, mainly due to me pimping the site on a newsgroup, in irc, and occasionally on the Quake servers ;). 1200 hits over four and a half months is hardly fantastic though, and the site clearly hasn't achieved any kind of popularity (yet). However, I am going to continue with the site when I finish my exams, mainly because I like tinkering and updating it, and also it's a "presence" on the net, which every regular net user should have imo :). By the way, the Clanbase Eurocup finals are on this weekend, all the games from the past couple of months culminating in a top quality LAN tournament between Ars Moriendi, Tulls, Schroet Kommando and Eyeballers. Follow the tournament here, and Barrysworld have some QTV servers running, so I'm just nipping off to try. Btw, my money's on AM to win :).
6 May 2000 - No Guts No Glory....
I've finished my second season in the Barrysworld Q3 FFA league, and I believe I've finished a respectable fourth, behind the three LPBs. Shame, but I'm happy to stay in the Division I'm in to be honest, Division 2 would be quite demoralising I think. Anyway, my Nildram connection let me down in the last match, disconnecting me half way through. I returned to finish the game, but obviously enough the damage was done and I finished last. Ah well :(. Might just mention a couple of changes to the site. I've done some work on tidying up the eXtra section, separating the resources into a separate area, and adding in a link to the HooD Homage I did recently and I've also ported across the guestbook from my old site. So there's already a few entries in there. The new Q3 demo of the two Russian players is also well worth a look if you haven't already downloaded it. There's also a new Quake 2 demo up of some Q2DM1 Trick Jumps. I found this on the UKCCL messageboard and thought it was the best trick jump demo yet (better than UNR's - though not as nicely presented). Another improvement I've made is to re-tweak the tips, and add more to them. The main reason for this is to make them into tips for both Quake 2 and 3, rather than just Quake 3 as they were before. I will of course be adding in a map-playing guide to the standard eight DM maps pretty soon and I intend to expand the binds section a little to cover clan team play binds, which I haven't done until now. As I mentioned recently I'm taking exams at the end of May so I shouldn't even be writing this but I hate to neglect the site totally. I'll still be knocking about on Minos or maybe Barrys DM, so I'll see you's on the servers...
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Quite a sweeping title that, and not an easy topic to approach. Quake 2 was, and still is, a big online game in the UK. The scene has always revolved around the UKCCL League. Performances there are the true measure of a clan and that's what gives all clans some structure. I remember in the early days of Quake 3, it all seemed a bit aimless until the leagues started. Anyway, the traditions of the UKCCL are only a couple of years old but it's surprising how much history there is. Looking back through the results some big names strike you, I'm thinking Unreal, NME, CFH, PK, AbFab, SS. Unreal were the best clan in the UK, no question, it only takes the briefest look at the results to see that. All these early clans still exist as well, which is great to see. Sadly though, they aren't all competing in Quake 2 anymore.
Yeah my site is a desert at the moment. Revision's going poorly as well :(. Still, just two more weeks before I can forget about it all for another few months :).  |
Contact Information - E-Mail: REViLLA, ICQ: 21345065 Site Created on 1 January 2000. All Content, Design and Graphics by REViLLA.
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