And now in a change of direction, we interview Ray Morrin, or Spoonman from Quake 2 clan DoozeR. Welcome to the hot seat, it should be nice and warm because Zero just got out of it I’ll start on an easy one, how long have you been playing Quake 2?

I first started playing Quake2 online in January ‘98 on a p120 (& no sound) with a ping of 999 this was more due to the state of the non Dublin ISP nodes that a crapy setup. Well the setup wasn’t too hot either but things started to happen tho around March as I found out the Dublin ISP numbers and started playing with decent pings at the weekends.

Now I know the answer to this one because I asked you before where your name came from (_not_ the Underworld song!), but tell the rest of the readers where your name came from and what were the other alternatives you considered (was it really Forkgirl as rumoured by WhiteWashMan)?

Well I got it much the same way Zero got his name, I was playing a Soundgarden tape in the background while thinking for an online name and it stuck ever since. I’ve only heard the underworld song a few months ago it isn’t a patch on the Soundgarden one

Well as most people who plays regular on q2war1.quake.ie would know I’m always using alias names… MerVine Brag, Splodge, [CoF]Skank etc… I used to find that if I was first to the server and used [DzR]Spoonman nobody would join in so I resorted to using fake names to reel them in

Yes I tried to get into HIV under the disguise ‘Forkgirl’ to steal their em, ‘tactics’ but somehow they found out, maybe WWM told them.

How many Quake 2 players does it take to make a body bridge across Tokay’s Towers?

Quite a few I’d imagine, but I don’t think we’d be able to get enough players on the server to try it out…

If you were God, what would you do and who would you pick for the Irish National Quake 2 Team (Team2.ie)?

Its a tough one and likely to upset a lot of people no matter who I choose (their seems to be a lot of different opinions around atm) TBH I cant see us playing outside of Ireland without doing what team.ie are doing .ie fly over to a LAN. As everyone knows all the Irish ISPs are in tatters at the mo. This also solves the issues of lpb/hpb teams. I’d have no problem however playing internationals on our own quake.ie servers.

The actual team I’d pick would have to have these players in it: [EM]Dr.Teeth, [DzR]Junkie, [DzR]Spoonman, [DzR]Shank and [DzR]PeterPan. Which I consider to be the best irish Quake2 players at this time. I’m sure this will change as people improve. I was very disappointed in the reactions on having Peterpan on the team because hes not an Irish citizen. He started playing quake2 from TCD and has a right to play as much as any of us. I don’t think the Irish soccer team would win any games if they were all Irish citizens not that they do win many games either come to think of it.

I’ve asked this one before, do you think Quake 3 will bring the Quake 1 munchkins and the Quake 2 muppets together? Any tips for those QuakeWorlders considering trying out Quake 2?

Well from watching the Quake3 AVI and reading reviews, it looks like the gameplay will be somewhere inbetween Quake2 and QuakeWorld. Hopefully the best from both games mixed into one (QW networking with the Quake2 weapons thrown in). I don’t know if any of the Quake1 diehards will fancy the idea of being railed to death by the likes of Dr.Teeth but it sure would be fun watching them getting to grips with the Railgun. I’d love to see Q3a bring the Q1 and Q2 players together as it is we have little enough quake players in Ireland for them to be divided.

Because of the slowness of Q2 rockets, the first thing anyone starting Quake2 should practice on is the railgun. IMO its the most fun weapon ever to use in any game but it takes a lot of practice to be able to use it effectively. The Q2 RL is more useful in close combat hence all the jumping in Q2 as opposed to the Q1 RL which you can hit lads miles away with :). As for the BFG I don’t like it either but on levels with powershields (q2dm8) its vital.

What are your favourite Quake 2 levels and why?

Q2DM6 (the lava tomb) has to be my favourite. I guess the lava distracts most people (its everywhere) making them hesitate from moving too quickly and its that small hesitation that gives you the edge on such a level. With the quad its very easy notch up the frags on a small level like this one.

Also match1 the duel level based on quakes dm4 is nice for the exact same reasons QUAD + LAVA = DEATH

Is the Quake 2 standard in the UK a lot higher than here and how do we compare to other European countries, like for example, let me see, Luxembourg?

I guess were behind most european countries in general. Most of us only play DM which is a shame I’d like to see more CTF games played but the interest seems to be fading.

We’ve (DzR) only recently quit the UKCCL because of the terrible lag to the UK servers at the moment (It was bad all along but not its ridiculous). Any games we lost in the UK was due to poor connections… I guess some of the Irish clans would do well in the UK leagues if it wasn’t for the lag.

The same applies for Quake2 as Quake regarding our european neighbours, countries like Sweden/German seem to have lots of talent compared to UK/Eire.

Any team playing tips for those new clans starting up there, Scram, VHI, etc.? Do you drop items for teammates when playing clan games (something I only found out about after I stopped playing Q2)?

Practice teamplay, without it you’ll be murdered. I see a lot of these weekly (here today gone tomorrow) Quake2 clans popping up and as soon as they play one of the regular clans they quit because they get murdered. Of course the’ll get murdered, they hardly expect to walk straight in and beat clans that were around for ages. Practice makes perfect.

Yeah dropping items is commonplace now you can drop all your weapons and ammo and give them to your teammates at any time. Handy for getting that RL straight after a respawn if the opposition have it well guarded. I find it actually makes it easier to control levels.

What do you think of the Edge versus Q2N slagging match (/me pokes the fire with this question!)? Should they spend more time reporting than retorting?

Well it makes interesting reading, I don’t think they all take it too seriously well at least I hope not. I’m sure it will get very tiring if it continues. I like to stay well out of it.

Do you think that as Quake has progressed from 1 to 3 that skins are becoming _so_ realistic that they are getting harder to identify from each other, and we should all return to the simple colours of Doom?

Well I have no problems distinguishing team players in Quake2 if their using different models, ie. Male vs. Female so long as they have different base colours. But anything like male vs. male in Quake2 regardless of colour is a nightmare. I can see Quake3 clans using male vs. female models that has become so popular in Quake2. I think going back to doom colours is a bit dramatic

Thanks Spoonman, I will look forward to flame throwing you in Quake 3.

And I look foward to railing you all

Next up under the spotlight it’s Andy Johnson, AKA Spud. Where’d you get your name from, anything to do with spud guns?

Gah, if only i had a MB of RAM for every time I’m asked that question - why I would have a decent machine to play quake :-). Well, when i first started playing quake, long before all these whipper snappers around us today, i couldn’t face being called Terminator, Gutwrencher or something equally ridiculous and serious, such as Nightwing ;-). So i picked spud out of my extremely overactive imagination as its short to type and stands for nothing other than something good to go with sausages and beans!

What’s your earliest Quake memory?

Hmm thats a hard one, about 5:00 am id say My first memory of quake was downloading the initial beta and playing the shareware levels. Finished them in about 30mins and thought the game was pretty boring actually - so i deleted it. 3-4 weeks later i went to another building in the university and caught the IT man playing netquake i thought WOOO i didnt know you could do that! So he set up a lan server for the building and i haven’t done a days work since! Some of the best days were when i was playing for BB (Buckshot Brigade) one of the first UK clans to spring up along with CP and DC. For the first year or so i was a keyboard llama - was a real mind bender to learn the mouse after that i can tell ya. You try remapping your key config in yer head now and see how you get on

What do you make of this new European spirit of togetherness, Euroquake, QuakeNet, Euros and all that?

The only one out of those ive heard of is Euro’s! Im all for this quake euro togetherness if it means we can beat up all these johnny foreigners with a quad rocket! I really dont take too much notice of organised events these days. At the moment i prefer playing FFA and joining in fights where ever, which is why quake was such good fun in the beginning, way before all this serious team and clan stuff, 1 on 1 champions etc etc… Dont get me wrong the clan stuff was good but i got tired of it as most people know and decided to just play.

Can you name the members of your ideal Quake clan (not a “yes or no” answer!)?

Erm maybe… How big can this clan be Id say the following people would be in my ideal clan.

• Ettu (Still cool as far as im concerned)
• CP-Keeper (A underated player and was the driving force to CP’s UKCL/MCW success)
• Orlith (Just before he lost JANET connect, he was so hot at FFA)
• Carnage (Great all round player, good 1 on 1 sparring partner for years he was)
• Poor Monkey (remember him - awsome player!)
• Granny,Phord and Paul2 (Just for moral alone is enough to include them) and of course all of GI

(Cloud-Warrior sends out the GI recruitment forms to the above.)

A recent survey showed Quake has more followers than Roman Catholicism. True or false?

Well thats obviously true since quake is religious to the masses now isnt it. Perhaps if the Pope had a quad staff he’d be onto a winner. Mind you it appears he’s holding onto the pent quite well at the moment

Why do you think the UKCL has been such a success, and that people seem to take it a lot more seriously than the IQCL (no Irish sad hamster comments please)?

I think you answered your own question - i.e. UK clans take it so seriously. IMO there are other factors too though. The UK is blessed with JANET and there is just a much bigger pool of LPB talent and always has been from the outset. This has led to the building of a good solid quake base in the UK. Once you have established names and clans that everyone wants to beat or join the numbers just swell. The UK has its big names such as sujoy/ettu/coerj/ceno etc etc. A lot is also due to the fact that these guys have kept up playing all this time. Were they all to leave overnight, IRC channels would be quiet, competitions wouldn’t get run and the scene would fold (IMO). Nice to see new hot shots appearing now though.

Ireland seemed to be a bit slower to build a good base, probably because there were fewer academic blessed connections. Also, the connections in Ireland seem to run on elasticated spaghetti, with modem and lpb pings being twice what they normally are in the UK. There are many times ive joined a quake.ie server with much lower ping than people a few miles down the road from it. Having said that, the irish are the friendliest quakers about - part of the reason i was keen to play in IQCL with GI. It has its good and excellent players too but unless the pings come down, people outside Ireland wont take much notice. The UK is fortunate enough to have good connections to european servers which is great for playing people of different gamepley styles - good for your game.

Is Mouserat the biggest lamer you’ve ever come across in Quake or what? Or is it me? Huh, huh, huh?

PASS!

What’s the most useful hint you can give our duel god wannabes, be it a bind or a tactic?

exec inivisible.cfg This is what im worst at, analysing how i play. If i could i think id be a lot better. A few things i reckon help are:-

• Have a 3 button mouse or Mousewheel mouse
• Get a 3M precision mousemat and selotape its edges to desk to prevent sliding
• Use a rj bind for perfect rjumps every time! My alias is:

  alias rjump “impulse 7;qld;+jump;wait;-jump;+attack;wait;-attack;impulse 0;force_centerview”
  bind “R” “rjump”

• Learn when to hide and when to attack - dont go all out to kill all of the time.
• Sound is the biggest help in quake. Learn all of them and where they come from in each level and you’ll have a huge advantage over someone that doesnt.
• Use software 320×200 for serious games. GL just doesn’t cut it.

Looking forward to Quake 3? Did you see the Macintosh preview? Will it knock the geigers off Half-Life?

Yes i look forward to quake 3 with baited breath. However i look forward to the single player game only. As far as i can see id are going backwards when it comes to a multiplayer game setup. My biggest dissappointment for quake 2 and all its offshoots was its crap multiplayer feel. Not just the play but the feel and sounds - i mean the rocket launcher in quake2 sounds like the sliding doors on the starship enterprise. The explosions sound like somone rustling a sweetie paper. I mean it doesnt get yer blood racing like the raw explosions and fast playability of quake 1. The fact that quake/qw is still going strong is testiment to the fact that id have neglected a large part of their potential market as far as i can see. Hence i expect quake 3 to look more gorgeous than ever with fog, windows and mirrors etc but i expect multiplayer to be crap, demanding p2-450’s and top of the range graphics cards and probably an inventory. I mean to say an inventory - lol. Playing quake 2 makes you think you’ve just popped down to the shops - “Hmm let me see what weapon i can pull out of this bag…!” More often than not you’d grab the carton of milk!

What was your greatest Quake moment to date?

Thats a difficult one as i enjoy quake most of the time. It was nice to beat sujoy on dm4 and dm2 but i reckon he musta been knitting or something with his other hand at the time

Thanks Spud, we shall meet again.

Cheers John. Id just like to say its also been good to know all the GI peeps still, as they were around from an early date. I am leaving the university here at the end of March 1999 and that will probably be it, no more. Unless someone gives me a free isdn/cable modem connection

Gosh i feel all important like - doing an interview :-). If im ever in Ireland, which i intend to be, i’ll do my darndest to look yas all up!

Cheers,

Spud.