The year was 1996 and it was summer. Tupac was still alive, gas was about $1.25 per gallon and the Macarena had white people everywhere thinking they could dance.

I, however was glued to the radiant glow of a 17" crt monitor awash in the colors of rendered carnage.


You will learn to crave quad damage and loathe the Shambler.


Origin of an Addiction
The demo for Quake was released in June 1996 and a good chunk of my social life and how I looked at gaming would be forever changed.

The first time I was ever exposed to Quake was at a local cybercafe aptly titled CyberWorx. It was here that I first laid eyes on what would be the eventual downfall of my social graces.
In those dimly lit back rooms kept away from the storefront AOLers there dwelt a different kind of netizen. One that wasn't concerned with the a/s/l of his peers, but focused more on their frag count and latency.

It was here that I cut my teeth on the gibs of my enemies and here that I abandoned the neophyte milk of the keyboard to sup upon the meat that which was +mlook.

There are a few key memories that have stayed with me as I've grown. The day I learned to circle strafe is one of them.


A bastard child of Commander Keen and Thor, Quake was originally intended to have more RPG-esque qualities than what was normally attributed to the previous FPS titles Id had put out. Evidently a good amount of the reason why Quake's original concept differs so much is due to the gigantic workload John Carmack had undertaken by trying to code the engine AND the networking model for the multiplayer aspects.

Regardless of the rhyme or reason I, for one, am glad the final product had a rocket launcher.



A Series of tubes..

If you have ever played any game on PSN, Xbox Live, or via any other game matching application and/or service not only do you owe Id a debt of gratitude but also these fine young men;
Jack Mathews, Tim Cook, and Joe Powell.
Shortly after the commercial release of Quake these three saw a need for players to "..easily search for internet-based multiplayer Quake game servers."

Qspy(QuakeSpy) grew into GameSpy and the rest was history. For those of you that weren't there from the beginning it's hard to imagine Gamespy.com being birthed from one simple, yet powerful tool.
Sadly, GameSpy was eventually acquired by IGN in Spring of 2004.

It was these two factors; a great game combined with a great piece of software that enabled me to discover the joys of being an HPB fragging LPBs.



When I was a newb I $p0k3 as a n00b, I played as a newb, I thought as a newb; but when I became a man I installed Team Fortress.


Following the release of QuakeC and other development tools the mod community began producing everything from graphical mods to a gun that shot dobermans. Since then a multitude of mods have come and gone but on December 22nd 1996 Team Fortress was unleashed. It was a very merry Christmas.

To my knowledge TF was the first mod at the time, let alone any game, to introduce a class based system of gameplay that not only altered the gaming experience for the player based on what class they chose but TF also aspired to require, if not urge teamplay tactics.

It was this mod that paved the way for much of the archetypes you currently see in most of today's popular shooters.
For example; The Sniper Whore, The Rocket Whore, The Spawn Camper, etc..

I could go on and on about my fondness for Quake and the original Team Fortress but I'd rather not bore you. Instead I'd rather end this with a suggestion;

If you've never played deathmatch on E1m7 then you're doing yourself an injustice.


Since this was my first post I tried to keep it short and sweet. I hope I was able to at least rouse a few nostalgic memories for those other old school Quake players.