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.