Your history in Quake 2

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Thought it would be fun to hear stories from you guys about how, when and where you started playing Quake 2.

Also, if you're a mapper, give us your story on how you got started and anything else you can think of.

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

O.K. I'll go first!

Well, I was introduced to Quake 2 by my good friend Kiddie_Fresh in 2002, so I guess I got into it a little late. We used to play with about 4 to 6 guys here at work and we had a blast. Then I remember getting online for the first time and it was really cool. I played online until they shut us down here at work, which was about a year ago. We still play locally here at work almost every day. We play the Awakening 2 mod, which I think is really fun! As for mapping, I remember asking someone from Backshooters if they could hook me up with a mapping program, I think it was Sherm or TheBigGuy, and they gave me the Tread 3D v. 1.12 program. At that point I read Maric's online mapping tutorial and I've been mapping ever since. I then started the Quake 2 Cafe' a few months ago to keep Quake 2 alive and well and I think it's been pretty successful.



What's your Quake 2 story?

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

What, you guys don't have a Q2 History?

Come on, don't be scared

[Stah]

I can't remember when did i exactly play q2 for the first time, but it was long ago, probably shortly after the game was released. unfortunately my computer couldn't handle it, so i just played single player in lo-res from time to time. i did some q1 mapping then, but not much, as i sucked in mapping, and it took too much time to compile even a simple map (i had a P120 with 16MB RAM ). After a serious machinery improovment (P233, 64MB RAM + STB Velocity 4400 = riva TNT ) i could finally play q2 in comfortable conditions, and i also got a bit more interested in q2 mapping as it was offering many interesting features, like transparent stuff, colored lights and so. Of course i still sucked, cause i was lacking experience, but when i finally gained an internet connection, the fun started. It was 3-4 years ago; i met a great guy called Vader (Maric should know him a bit), who helped me much with his comments on my maps, and from time to time playing with me on-line. This is, when i really started doing maps that could actually be played (earlier works sucked heavily - did i mention it?), it looked so beautifull, i was going to get a stable connection mounted at home, but unfortunately quake started to colide with vaders work too much and he had t resign of it. i lost my interest, i no longer developed my skills, i still mapped, but now i see, that i could do much better with active help from Vader. Fortunately it changed when i encountered you guys here at the cafe'. q2 mapping started to have sense, and i really enjoy it again, so thank you all

i have some time problems lately as i have to tevote really much time to my studies. It turned out to be harder than i thought, but i'll try to make it till the contest deadline!

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Thanks for the story Stah, very interesting.

[TriPhaze]

I started playing Quake 2 at the end of 1999. The ISP where I work had a server and we had some great deathmatches over the LAN. In January 2000 I picked up a Rage Orion (Rage 128) card for my Power Mac 8500 so I could play Quake 2 with OpenGL. At the time it only had a 233MHz 604e processor and I got just 18 fps, but I had a lot of fun.

Since that time, believe it or not, I am still using the same computer, only now it has a 400MHz G3 and a Radeon card. Sometime early next year, I am planning on purchasing a new G5 Power Mac. Possibly I am the only Macintosh user on this board? With great thanks to Fruitz Of Dojo www.fruitz-of-dojo.de/php/download.php4?dlnr=6 we have a native OS X version of Quake 2 which runs very nicely.

That is my Quake 2 story. I hope you enjoyed it.

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Good story, thanks.

[draxi]

well, my quake2 story starts with my old old old computer, well, actually my first computer!.. it had about 2gb disk space!.. so it was a really big one!!!(at the time)...
I played with m8s and unknown people that i spoke to on mIRC.. local channels!...
i didnt get so in to it before the computer crashed..or whatever it did!..but then it took some months before i got a new computer, and i was ready to play again!... so i happend to find this page called Zone.com, where i could play quake2 on!.. was really funny!... i was 12 i remember... cuz you had to be 13 to play at the zone!..but shh!! ...
there i met this guy called "miles", he was creating this cool clan called RIB!!... so i played a lot with him and his gang before i got into the clan, and then played even more =)..
on this clan, it was a well-known-mapper called ****** .... i cencored his name because it seems like he don't want to be known as my first mapping teacher!.. =)..
but!!.. he was a really good teacher, and he learned me all stuff ( mostly all ) about q2 mapping!!! even if it took a while before i got my opengl to work, he tried his best to tell me how to get it work! But as a young, too handsome, little norwegian boy, i didnt understand too much of what he was trying to tell me!..
The RIB clan broke up( just TOO SOON!!!!!!!!) and i didnt play q2 for a while, but i was still trying to map, and sometimes it happened that i played along with my teacher and tested his maps!.. he always made this funny little secrets!.. and he knew i loved secrets.. so if the map was a middle good map!.. he just added a little secret and it was the top map in the world!!!....
in my mind that is!
But, my hard-drive wouldn't be my bestfriend, so it crashed and leaved me back with months of "not-quake2-playing"... stupid computers!!!... when i again came into quake2, zone.com wouldnt cooperate with me, so i downloaded game spy!... there i found a mod called jump! it was the best thing that had happened to me... there i got into this clan called AOD!..( Angels of Darkness )..
but, here my mapping really took off!.. making jump maps was SOOO funny!!!... and watching ppl jumping them was even funnier!...
well, that is my story.. atleast some of it!!! cheers!

[Stah]

jump mod i find great too! i'm trying to make one map for it, but i'm a lame jumper so it's very hard for me to test it

[Yun]

I found a Super Shotgun the first time I play Quake 2. I joined the Dirt Clan as Dirt Kid. I the Grey skin. Times were good.

[Recon]

My times with q2 began late 1999-2000. Those days were middle school....I remember myself having a slow computer (133 mhz Packard Bell P1 w/16 mb ram 4mb video) ;D. So I could only play q2 in software 320 x 240.....I spent most of my gaming space on classic Doom and Quake but never really got into the community. My friends made clan q3a, and I couldn't officially join because I couldn't play q2 online at the time. Then came salvation.

When I got an ISP through AOL I played Quake for the first time online, then moved on to q2. I started to get tired of losing a lot, but it was fun. I chose to move into the Q2 community, which was semi-fading away by 2001... I decided to work on a mod. to help ot of sorts. It was in 2002 with the release of the Quake2 GPL source code that I found what I was looking for. I stumbled onto Protosphere, a Quake2 Engine recoding headed by Yoshi (www.yoshiware.com), and we had a wild ride up to our 4.0 alpha release. I was Yoshi's right-hand man, and together, we made a game with a team consisting of literally two people. Since then, the project leader has given up, but not I! I will continue to work on it until something happens lol. www.freewebs.com/recon4228 I need a coder, so help if you plz. Anyway, I recently got a machine rehaul (compaq s5000j athlon 2400+ 128 mb ram 128 mb video (geforce fx 5200) and have been ptsing and quaking ever since in OpenGL glory. woot. I've played through many mods, most prominent were my Action Quake2 days....where I began my skinning/modelling/mapping experience which led me ultimately to pts(with my old computer). I still play q2 a lot, mainly rail only and vanilla dm. I recently purchased Doom3 and its great but slow on my system. Unfortunately, the Q2 community has sort of died down since our time....so I'm slowly moving into the Doom3 community.

In my opinion, the Quake community are the beter bunch, since the lamers and kids have left and moved on to play whatever is popular these days....leaving the more mature, respectful players to play q2. Granted, there are still idiots out there playing q2, but for the most part, the players are a releatively nice bunch.

[Retract]

About eight years ago a friend of mine who goes by "Everkill" and his brother "Kube" got into AQ2. At the time I thought this was the coolest thing ever (and I still do), however, I found myself with no computer capable of running it at the time. So around 2 years later I managed to install Quake2 and Mod it for AQ2 on my first computer. I was running it in software mode at 800x600.

While I was installing Quake2 I was trying to decide on a nickname for myself and I saw a retractable pen lying on my desk. So I decided "Retract" was a good name and I stuck with it ever since.

Around two years ago I joined the Great Canadian Butchers [GCB] AQ2 Clan (a clan that both Kube and Everkill were in and it is only for Canadians). It was my first clan and I am still in it and will be to the end. AQ2 is definitly my favorite Mod/Game-type for Quake2, however, around a year ago I began to branch out and found JumpMod.

I had always thought the jumping aspect was one of the coolest parts of Quake, and once I found a Mod that was soley dedicated to jumping I was immediatly hooked. So over the past year I have played AQ2, JumpMod and a little bit of regular DM.

My JumpMod server of choice has been "Ozric's House of Jumps" because I grew to like the communitly involved in that server as well as my low ping. After my first couple of months jumping I met a player named xQ. Castro, he was (and still is) one of the leading mappers for this server. The mapping process interested me quite a bit and I asked him about it, he pointed me towards Quark and a few other programs which began my mapping career.

About 6 months ago I discovered a mapping forum (this one) and found it to be the best place for Quake2 mappers out there. I then joined the first contest (which I failed to finish for due to accidental formatting of computer without backup) I was very intrigued by it and studied some DM maps for the next contest. I then took part in it and finished my first DM map which is going to beat everyone!

So thats about it for my history. I'm learning new things everyday and still loving it.

-Retract

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Thanks for the history guys!