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November 2000 Archive

28 November 2000 - Quake 2 Timers

When I was at the XTC LAN this weekend I got hold of a brilliant Red Armour timer created by [XTC]Degz. It's a very funny but effective timer and so I've uploaded it along with my other item timers for download. Find them in the Resources section.

Also, if you fancy having a go at making your own timers how's about using the wav file creator here. It allows you to type in messages that are converted into speech wav files. Pretty much like my Amiga computer could do 10 years ago ;).

28 November 2000 - Updates

I've uploaded some demos to my filespace of CS versus Acura, Rv and UNR for anyone who hasn't already seen them. Later in the week I will upload some demos of the new UK Quake 2 Team as soon as I can find some space to put them!

I've also added to the UK clan links and will soon start a clan sites chart similar to the one I've done on the MKC site but in more depth this time. I've also made minor updates to my profile and history.

27 November 2000 - XTC LAN

This weekend I have experienced my first ever LAN. It was organised by clan XTC and almost all of them managed to make it to Chester for the event. This meant a small contingent of players travelling over from Northern Ireland to attend. The LAN was for around 50 people and was held in one of the conference rooms at the Queen Hotel, Chester. I stayed there for the weekend and it was a posh place :).

I must admit to having been apprehensive about going in the beginning and when the original idea was mentioned a couple of months previously I sort of expected not to go in the end. I just thought it would be too weird actually going to an event and not knowing a single face, only knowing online nicks. However, the fact that two players from my clan were going (Toadkilla and Kaa), the fact that it was in Chester which is only 60 miles from my home, and the fact that XTC are a sound clan was motive enough to get over it and go :).

I travelled down with Toadkilla who is at university close to where I live. It was very strange meeting someone in real life who you have talked to online for so long. Personally, I don't tend to think of what people are really like when I'm online. You know people are real :) but the surreal nature of Quake servers or ICQ/IRC means that at the end of the day it's a personality attached to a nick, but the face and person behind it is, for the most part, a mystery.

Anyway, we loaded his stuff into my car, and god do you need a lot of stuff, and journeyed down. When we arrived the LAN was already in full progress as some of them (Fraggaman, Orion, etc.) had arrived early the night before to set things up. The room wasn't massive but it was just about big enough for 50 people and their pride and joy computers :). This being my first LAN I'd had to spend some money on a Netgear network card and cable. I had some trouble connecting to the network at first but with help from Kalessin and Sith we eventually sorted out the technical problem. I had put the cable in my ISDN card and not the network card. Hey, it was dark under the table there :).

Within half an hour though I was connected to the network and connected to one of the free for all servers. Playing on a LAN is playing the game the way it was intended. Lag isn't something we should have to experience and in a perfect world we wouldn't. A LAN gives you that perfect Quake experience. Railing is awesome and the kind of mid-air shots you can pull off makes you realise how crap the net lag makes you!

It's not just the pings though that makes the experience so brilliant. A great thing about it was the standard of players you're up against. Most players who go to LANs are obviously experienced and skillful players so you're playing some top quality opposition. You obviously don't have to put up with campers or abusive players like you get on the net all too often. I can well imagine that players who go to a lot of LANs get very good very quickly with practice like this.

But it's not just that! Another great thing is that because you're all together in the same room you can hear people's reactions to what you and other players do. You hear the curses and the laughter and it's a far cry from the silent and solitary net experience in your bedroom :). I also found it interesting seeing how other players play, the computer equipment they use and the view they get through their monitors.

People were mainly playing the FPS games Quake 2 and Counter Strike but Quake 3 got a look in as did a couple of RTS games by a minority. All through the weekend players were on Quake 2 FFA servers. We also played Instagib and Rail Arena. {AbFab}Vincent organised a duel and 2v2 tournament that most people entered. I'm a FFA'er at heart and never duel online so I didn't expect to do too well and I was right, hehe. I was knocked out of the duel competition by Toady in the second round and we were knocked out of the 2v2 by Cov and Aph after a couple of one-sided games. They managed to rack up 27-6 on Q2DM1 and then we scored 26-7 on Q2DM5 by quad-whoring, so we just missed out on aggregate :(.

Unfortunately I regret not having had Counter Strike installed before the event but I'm definitely going to give it a go online after seeing some very exciting looking games on other people's computer screens.

One thing that surprised me was the sheer stamina of the players at the LAN! The games went on until very late and then started again early in the morning. Some players were getting less than 3 hours sleep in sleeping bags under the desk but were still playing some great games the next day.

All in all it was a great weekend. Meeting people I've known online for months, people with whom you can actually talk about Quake :), and playing some quality games was brilliant. Many thanks to Fraggaman, Orion and all the XTC crew who made it all possible and cheers to Vince for taking timeout from Counter Strike to organise the tournaments :).

22 November 2000 - Back from the Dead

Three months is the longest I've ever gone without updating my site. The main reason for this was that I became captain of the MKC Q2 squad. This doesn't necessarily take up a lot of time in itself especially since everything isn't left to me like in some clans, but I have also been responsible for the clan's website which has taken precedence. I have been keeping that site up to date while neglecting my own. Another problem was that I was disappointed with the low number of hits that I actually get to this site. Although quite a few people seem to be aware of it and all comments have been positive it still hasn't took off in the way that some sites have.

Anyway, I am going to return to updating this site and I'm encouraged to see that a few people seem to check it every day despite me never updating! I will probably try to improve on my HTML knowledge and I'll experiment with a few things, but I am still a great believer in sites being as simple as possible. There's enough prettiness around the net, it's content people want.

The big news for me recently has been that I have finally got ISDN. After two years of playing on my trusty Pace 56K I decided to join the enemy at last :). This was hurried along by my clan becoming LPB only but it's actually something I had been planning since the beginning of the year. I delayed only because we were supposed to be moving house and I didn't want the hassle of getting it transferred. Ten months later and we haven't moved so I've given up waiting and got the ISDN.

Railing in particular is an awful lot easier and you do not need to lead nearly so much. I'm slowly getting used to aiming on target but occasionally I slip back into modem mode and fire well ahead of my target. The other big change is that you can react quicker to sudden changes. If you run round a corner into a HPB for example your weapon always fires first. A better connection also makes life easier when not on a server. Browsing isn't a great deal faster but downloading and uploading files sometimes seems as much as twice as fast. It's also great how you can connect in literally 3 seconds. Q3 is also playable all of a sudden though I haven't got into it yet. I will though.

The major negative point I suppose is that there is perhaps more pressure to perform. On a modem you always have a kind of excuse and can blame your connection if you lose. On ISDN you're on a level playing field at worst or at best you have a massive advantage over the HPBs. This is probably why so many low pingers alias.

Anyway, that's not the last you will hear from me for another few months. I will update and get some new demos uploaded. There are also a few features I intend to add and something I always intended to develop which is the links and site reviews pages. Recently someone at HooD saw fit to delete a whole load of my demos that I was hosting on their domain and I got a few mails about missing demos. Running out of space on the 2 Gb domain perhaps? There weren't many so I put them back. Please report any problems with demo downloads or links to me and I will sort them out.

Contact Information - E-Mail: REViLLA, ICQ: 21345065

Site Created on 1 January 2000. All Content, Design and Graphics by REViLLA.