qcorner
by
Time Traveler
and
Snow White
Welcome to the first edition of Quake Corner. Within this small corner of this website, we hope to bring you a series of opinions and quasi-factoids about Quake and how it relates to us. We're going by the basic assumption that people who click on this page know a little something about this game. For further info, go to the bottom of the page.
Last Update:
05.31.97
04/29/97: Ferrari 328GTS. It's an all-consuming desire. To that end, we hope to put our skills to good use and save the world from destruction or win an
Italian sports car, whichever comes first. We will keep you updated on how we are fairing in the
weeks to come. We also hope to try and track a couple of Clanners with bad-ass reputations, but
we wouldn't want to be Impulse-ive or Ruthless about who is selected. We will post
a short list here soon as to who we think will make the Final 16 cutoff and earn a trip to
E3. Until then, stay tuned.
05/05/97: Ok, here are Time Traveler's favorite picks and their clan affiliations -
Chaos of Clan Ruthless Bastards: I had the occasion to come across a server where Chaos was playing. Of course, curiosity got the better of me and I jumped in. He had pings in the 30s and 40s. I had about 100-150. I should have realized that something was up when EVERYONE was getting killed by him with almost no exceptions. I was mugged for about 5 frags before the level ended and he bailed.
Entropy of Clan Impulse 9: Entropy possesses a formidable reputation backed up by a number of demos in release on the internet. In more than one, I wached him almost singlehandedly rally Impulse 9 back from a defeat to victory. My hats off to this machine.
Thresh of Clan Legends: 1995 was quite a year for Thresh. His Dooming abilities gave him the ultimate bragging rights in Dwango's national tournament that year. Apparently he was also interviewed for CNET not too long ago at a recent frag fest. Rumor has it that he was a keyboarder in his Doom days. Rumor also has it that Thresh plays Quake with a SpaceOrb 360.
Reptile of Clan Postal: I had the pleasure of playing Reptile and the rest of his clan (Clan Postal) many months ago on our local LAN. Without saying too much, let's just say that they showed some impressive team skills and put the hurt on our guys. Clan Postal has undergone some serious changes recently, but Reptile has remained the leader and only surviving member after the last time they splintered. He was impressive then, more than 7 months ago. One can only assume he really rocks now.
These psycho players have proven to be some of the best of the best. I have personally had the pleasure of fragging or being fragged by a couple of the above named. We shall see in the upcoming days who rises to the top and who sinks to the muck below.
05/07/97: Snow White and I got into an interesting situation on this day. After some talking, he set up a match between us and two members of Clan Ruthless Bastards. The two RBs were Defraction and Polaris. Turns out that the server we played on was local to Defraction, so he got pings in the 20s to 40s. Polaris, who also lives toward the east, had pings in the 70s. Our poor T1 connection suffered a little and our resulting pings ranged from 120 to 180. After 20 minutes of a clanring style match, the score was 58 to 18 in their favor. If memory serves me right (i.e. I shoulda taken a screenshot) Defraction had 39, Polaris had 19, Snow White had 13, and I came in at an abyssmal 5. No excuses, though, and I enjoyed playing against them immensely. In my words the first Time I connected to their server, "Snow, what have you gotten us into??"
05/08/97: Interesting events are unfolding in the Red Annihilation Tournament in which the ultimate prize is a 1987 Ferrari. As of 5:03pm PST on May 8, 1997, Time Traveler's picks have been ranked thus:
#1 - Entropy9 of Clan Impulse 9
#2 - Chaos-RB of Clan Ruthless Bastards
#3 - LGD Thresh of Clan Legends
#8 - Reptile-POSTAL of Clan Postal-Knightmare
And there you have 'em. 3 of my 4 picks are 1, 2, and 3. All are still Top 10. As for myself and Snow White:
#32 - Snow-White
#72 - Time-Traveler
I suppose I could do more to improve my situation, but #72 still means making the Phase I cutoffs. No sweat.
05/09/97: Things got quite interesting last night afterhours. While hanging out in the main Mplayer lobby, we spotted the one and only Chaos of the Ruthless Bastards hanging out with the commoners. Snow White, being the brash nutcase that he is, immediately paged Chaos and asked if he wanted to play. I didn't expect his answer to be an affirmative, but he was game to play. Of course, I didn't think he would consider humoring a couple of punks like ourselves, but he did.
After some connection problems we finally got underway. The conditions were DM6 with a fraglimit of 30. No teams, just good ol' fashioned 'every man fer hisself.' Yee-haw. Due to the T1 here at SlamSite, we enjoyed pings in the 40s. Chaos, lagged by his geographical location, could get no lower than about 150 on his cablemodem. Despite his handicap, this Quaking madman still showed off his skills to good effect. Chaos jumped out to an early lead and proved to be, well, Ruthless.
Eventually Snow White and I finally calmed down and it became a really down and dirty killfest. With a fraglimit of 30, I managed to come out on top.
After messing around a bit more, we tried to connect to Chaos' local listen server without success. Still, Chaos proved to be a great opponent and played hard despite an inferior connection. Our hats off to you, Chaos.
Quick update on Time Traveler's "all-star" picks. All of them still hold their positions since the last update, although Reptile did lose a place or two for a while when someone named A.Macho.Bunny made the top ten then took a backwards slide. For some strange reason I suspect that this may be John Romero. You heard it hear first. As for our rankings... They have taken a bit of a slide, which wasn't unexpected. But everyone knows that just making the first cutoffs is what counts... Yeah... and size doesn't matter either...
#36 Snow-White
#78 Time-Traveler
05/09/97: Today we ran across another highly ranked opponent. Monger from Clan Shrike Force. His ranking is just above Snow White (Currently #40 as of May 10 8:02pm). Again DM6 was chosen, with a 40 fraglimit. The action was hard and fast with mediocre pings for all (generally 110-140 pings, with Monger averaging about 20ms worse). The funny thing was, various people kept jumping into our game which was labeled "LPBs only," so we found it rather funny that about 4 different people jumped in and were shut out at various points throughout the game.
After that map, we played a short while on DM1 where Monger proceeded to put the serious hurt on both of us. I don't have a screenshot but suffice to say that he had about 22 when I had 12 or so and Snow had a little less. Praises go to yet another kick-butt competitor. The Red Annihilation tournament is going to be a hotly contested event. Hoo-ah.
05/10/97: Yet another interesting night on Mplayer yesterday. Snow White and I ran across a highly ranked competitor in the Annihilation tournament. As of the May 10 8:03pm update, Sr. Fletch is ranked #18 on the list. Last night he agreed to play a FFA on DM6. Despite his inferior pings (roughly 140-180) he still played hard and proved to be a mighty opponent.
I think that got Fletch a bit fired up because he was ready for a rematch, which we were happy to play. After all, we're always after a heapin' helpin' o' hurtin' wherever we can get it.
Shortly before this, Snow White had 44 kills and pings equivalent to mine, but due to obvious connection problems he had to disconnect and reconnect. We ended up calling it a night after this. In any case, we were thoroughly impressed by Fletch's skills and hope to combat him again in the future. And I must get around to asking him which clan is TC...
Moral of the story, kids, is that when you're dealing with people of very similar skill levels or even slightly lesser skill, better pings will make a big difference.
05/12/97: A quick update on rankings as of May 12 11:03am PST.
#1 Entropy9 of Impulse 9
#2 Chaos-RB of Ruthless Bastards
#3 LGD Thresh of Legends
#11 Reptile-POSTAL of Postal-Knightmare
#21 Sr. Fletch of TC(Could it be Thunder Clan?)
#46 Monger of Shrike Force
#47 Snow-White
#100 Time-Traveler
Yes, I've slipped to 100th. And before the day is out, I'll slip even lower. With my current record I'll never make it higher than about 78th right now. Do I care? I made first cutoff. Nyah.
Earlier today we arranged a little meeting with Reptile at our Burbank SlamSite, but due to scheduling difficulties it looks like he won't be able to stop by for some quick frags. We hope to be able to play this Quaking demon on the LAN before Phase II of Red Annihilation so stay tuned for future updates.
05/12/97:
Giant Lizard Invades SlamSite
What's 400 feet tall, breathes fire and loves lightning? No, not our favorite Japanese movie monster. Except for the part about being 400 feet tall (He might as well have been.) all other parts of the description are true. Reptile of the clan formerly known as Postal, stopped by SlamSite today and joined us in a big round of butt-kicking. Unfortunately, only his shoes came away stained.
We decided to square off in a couple of one-on-ones. Suffice to say that Reptile has earned his reputation:
Pings?? What about pings.. This was on a LAN with identical computers side by side. First to 20. The only excuse I could possibly serve up is that I wasn't playing on my own machine. Then again, neither was he. After my sorry performance, it was Snow White's chance to step up to the chopping block. He fared slightly better.
So there you have it. This force of nature proved that he can wreak some serious havoc on DM6. At least he was a powerful demonstration of "the next level" of playing ability. We hope to run across him again in the future. Of this I have no doubt. Mr. Reptile, sir, we salute you.
05/13/97: Quick updates for Tue, May 13 10:03AM PST:
#1 Entropy9 of Impulse 9
#2 Chaos-RB of Ruthless Bastards
#4 LGD Thresh of Legends
#12 Reptile-POSTAL of Postal
#24 Sr. Fletch of TC
#51 Monger of Shrike Force
#52 Snow-White
#108 Time-Traveler
#108???? How humiliatin'. And as you can see, someone named ManDingO managed to muscle his way past Thresh and into third place. y0wza.
05/15/97:
Giant Lizard Invades SlamSite. Again.
Perhaps wooed by the prospect of easy pickin's and a T1, it appears that Reptile of Clan Postal has made a more permanent residence between Game Station #12 and Flight Simulator #2 at Slam.Site Burbank. Apparently he has already traumatized some of the locals with his playing style that can be described as "terrifying." If you feel like a potential "dragonslayer," you can probably butt heads with him by going up and telling him he's not all that and a bag of chips. You have been warned.
In Red Annihilation news, another Impulse Niner has broken into the ranks of the Top 20. And although he does technically lower Clan Impulse 9's Top 20 average ranking, it does speak volumes about this clan's strong Quaking lineage.
05/14/97: It seems that Snow White has taken a slight offense at the words "And despite that Snow White is ranked much higher than myself, I usually beat him in 1 on 1 duels." No big deal. He should feel so lucky that I don't post all the screenshots. :)
05/14/97: Word came from Club of Clan Postal that ManDingO "...is a postal, along with me (Club)..." Hmm... Looks like no Ferrari for a Llama and also looks like this whole event is Clan dominated. How 'bout a quick analysis of the Top 20 spots then.
As of May 14 12:03am PST
As one can see from this list, Clan players appear stronly on this list, and even those who are listed as "unknown," I'd peg most of them as clanners as well. A couple of the "unknowns" have clan abbreviations.. I just don't know which clans they hail from yet. From this list, we can see that the average Impulse 9 clanner is ranked #10. The average of the two Ruthless Bastards is #5. Clan Postal's three players are ranked #9.333 with Clan Legends' duo coming in at #7. Finally, the Clan Extreme Prejudice average is #13. Keep in mind that this is only a relative gauge and it is possible to "fudge" the averages with questionable tactics (like binding disconnect to a key). Not to say these guys do, but let's just say it's being done by some.
In any case, the numbers may be a reflection of the relative strengths of key members of their respective clans. I know, for example, that there is a Ruthless Bastard ranked below my own rapidly dropping rank. And despite that Snow White is ranked much higher than myself, I usually beat him in 1 on 1 duels. So for many, the final ranking they achieve in Phase I means very little or absolutely nothing. Make the 1000 and then worry about kicking butt and taking names for the next phase. As for the other rankings...
#27 Sr. Fletch of TC
#51 Monger of Shrike Force
#56 Snow-White
#115 Time-Traveler
#115... Must hide face in shame..
05/15/97: Phase I of MPlayer's Red Annihilation Tournament is over. Only 896 (902 according to the official rankings list) managed to make the cutoffs into Phase II. In honor of those who made the top list, Here is the exact reprint from MPlayer's web page.
Okokokok, I confess, this is a blatant lie. Snow White and myself aren't quite THAT highly ranked.. He made it to #59, I lagged behind at #126. The top 20 list is still correct, errr, except for us at the top. At least it made you look.
05/17/97: Phase II of MPlayer's Red Annihilation Tournament has started. From the list of Phase I qualifiers only 256 will advance to Phase III. With a little luck and a lot of playing, we hope to make it to Phase III and beyond.
05/18/97: Phase II play has begun and one word comes to mind; disappointing. In most of the games I jumped into and jumped right back out of, camping was rampant and nobody was willing to commit. I'm not an innocent party myself, but trying to mix it up proved equally fruitless. As the tournament days progress, I'm sure that people will begin to loosen up and play hard.
05/20/97: Kill Kraze Kontinues. As of the last update of Phase II play on MPlayer, (May 20, 5:02pm) Snow White and I haven't qualified yet. Snow White is currently 58 and 15 while am 45 and 17. This is actually an improvement for me, since I was 18 and 13 since yesterday. Blah. Let the bodies stack up. This isn't over yet by a longshot. Well, there's 4 more days to qualify, anyway. Stay tuned for updates on Time Traveler's 'all-star' picks. Now I gotta go play.
05/22/97: The past couple of days in tournament play have been good ones. Snow White finished qualifying at 269 and 70, which ranks him at #37 as of May 22, 1:02pm. I am currently 205 and 51 and I hope to finish qualifying today. I better or else. Phase II qualifying ends tomorrow at noon Stay tuned longer for a quick rundown of the top qualifiers, after I finish qualifying myself.
05/22/97: Qualifying is over for Snow White and myself. As of right now, May 22 6:03pm, I am ranked #38 with a 274/65 (4.2154) ratio and Snow White is ranked #44 with a 269/70 (3.8429) ratio. Nyah, nyah, nyah, Snow White. :) Anyway, Time Traveler's picks (Chaos-RB, Entropy9, LGD Thresh, and Reptile-POSTAL) are currently ranked:
#1 Thresh of Clan Legends
#2 Reptile of Clan Postal
#5 Entropy of Clan Impulse 9
#25 Chaos of Clan Ruthless Bastards
Other people that we have run across are ranked as well;
#8 Monger of Clan Shrike Force
Sr. Fletch hasn't made an appearance yet. I wonder if he'll even play.. Stay tuned for a complete breakdown of the top 32 players once Phase II is over.
05/23/97: Well, this is it. Phase II is over and people have been assigned into play groups. Check out the 256 finalists, of whom only 16 will go to Atlanta to compete for all the marbles. Of course, getting there will not be easy. As luck would have it, Snow White and I each drew one of my "favorite picks" into our respective play nights. I had the misfortune of drawing Entropy from Clan Impulse 9, as well as hOnus from Clan Gib, another very tough opponent. The fortunes frowned even more at Snow White. He drew the one and only Thresh from Clan Legends, as well as Thresh's clanmate WhiteWolf. Not to demean the skills of any of our opponents, but I think that Snow White got a slightly tougher draw overall. In any case, may the planets be in alignment, may our weapons be properly oiled, and may our clothing be wrinkle-free, for this truly will be a bloodbath of epic proportions.
Stay tuned for a Clanner breakdown coming to you really really soon.
05/27/97: Snow White's chance to go to Atlanta was dashed yesterday in a hail of nails and rockets. After getting a bye in the first round of Phase III, he had a good start in round two right before Mplayer crashed. Despite the fact that they still credited all the players with their respective kills before the game dumped, it still meant that Snow White had to re-retrieve everything he had before. Starting at arguably the worst possible spot on the map (E1M4, The Grisly Grotto, the beginning of the map), his chances of winning his round were sunk when the Rocket Launcher, Pentagram, Super Nailgun, Grenade Launcher, and Yellow Armor were all spoken for before he moved ten steps. Armed with a Double Barreled Shotgun and Yellow Armor, he succumbed once to an invincible rocket attack and then things got worse. He perished multiple Times in a row as people covered the respawn spots until finally he would appear at points devoid of other players and equipment. Being the marshmallow in a good ol' fashioned campfire roast is never a pleasing situation, and Snow White was taking it pretty hard. In the last minute of the round he did manage to acquire some gear and fragged several people in a row, but alas it was not enough and Snow White lost his opportunity to advance by roughly 8 kills. Congratulations to LGD Thresh and LGD WhiteWolf who both will receive tickets to Atlanta.
For a very good in depth analysis of the rest of Phase III, check out Lindril's Corner at Mplayer's Red Annihilation section.
05/28/97: Condolences are extended to Reptile for his failed attempt at going to Atlanta. Despite being the favorite going into the event, Reptile succumbed to the might of 3 members of Clan Legends who were in the final round with him. I suppose one could speculate wildly about the possible shadiness of the whole scenario, but giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, congratulations go to Clan Legends.
05/29/97:
Giant Lizard pulls a fast one.
Well, well, well. Lookie here. Seems like Reptile switched places with a fellow Postal clanner and played in his stead. Basically they played for each other rather than playing under their usual names. You can read the whole story here. For a general overview of how the tournament is going, click Lindril's Corner.
05/30/97:
Slam Site Burbank LAN party
Tonight, Slam.Site Burbank played host to a veritable smorgasbord of quality quakers. The roster of attendants included the likes of Reptile, Club, Hardcode and other members of Clan Postal, Unholy and Kiljoy from Xtreme Prejudice, and Sturtz from Evil Geniuses. Numerous other Quakers were in attendance and several demos/screenshots were recorded. Two clan on clan matches were Clan Postal vs. Xtreme Prejudice as well as Postal vs. Evil Geniuses headed up by their notorious frontman, Mikej. Check back to the page soon and hopefully the screenshots and demos will be available for download.
05/31/97: 30 minutes and counting... At 4 pm today, Time Traveler enters the Mplayer Red Annihilation lobby. Good luck to him...
05/31/97: The tournament bid is over for me now. After playing some vicious matches against skilled opponents, I was eliminated in the 3rd round of competition. The semifinals. Drat.
Round one was fairly routine and I don't mind playing on E1M1.
After that, it was off to Round 2 and E1M2, where the competition was significantly tougher. In fact, at one point I was in fourth place with a single frag while the leader was in the double digits.
I should have realized that this was a premonition of things to come. It was also after round 2 that I found out that CGIB-h0nus had been eliminated. I share his disappointment as I also fell victim to one of the people who edged out the Clan Gib LPB. I don't have a screenshot because I was too dazed by disappointment to hit the F12. The Final score was 29, 22, 19, 3, with SpankUVeryMuch coming in first followed by AzureRain (who played round 2 with h0nus) and myself, with OverTime trailing behind. Not to mention the level was my most hated of hated shareware levels, E1M6. I hate that map. Mind you that's no excuse for losing (if anything, that should have been the map I practiced the most if I disliked it so much). All in all it was still an excellent tournament and although I know that something like this isn't likely to happen again (indeed, how many programmers decide to give away their exotic Italian sports cars away) I hope that future tournaments are held with large audiences. Until the next Red Annihilation, see you all on the battlefield.
Happy Quaking
Time Traveler
Snow White
Let's answer the unimportant question: Who the hell are you guys anyway? We're just a couple of Quake fanatics who have spent far too much
Time (or far too little, depending on who you are) playing this fantastic game.
Snow White: A game freak who thinks that using a "female" name will make people
hesitate before plastering him with a rocket. Hasn't worked so far. Let's play, punk.
Fragging ability: "Runs like a girl but hits like a man."
Time Traveler: Another freak who's been using this particular nickname for over 10 years.
We're talking about Hayes 1200 baud modems, IBM XTs, WWIV 3.21d, Trade Wars 1.0, etc.. So back
off, name thieves.
Fragging ability: "uh, pretty good, I guess. :)"
("I would like to stand on a soapbox for a second. I understand that there may be a Quake clan going by the name Clan Time Traveler. This is wholly unacceptable. I am willing to arrange a challenge for the rights to the name." - Time Traveler)
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the Quake Corner, or if you wanna step up to the plate and play (we're always on the lookout for a good mugging) please feel free to email:
Time Traveler
