Wirehead Studios

I've been gone for awhile now. I don't remember when I bailed out, but it was no later than the beginning of May.

I wanted to just share with the rest of you the reasons as to why I've been on hiatus.

I've mentioned it in the past, but my coming to WHS to participate in the forum games was ill-received by a great deal of the Gen community. despite this, because Con was away after the birth of his son, I volunteered to manage the forum games. I think that we had a successful run with Gen .99d during this point in time, but a lot of bickering amongst those who I will boldly say do not know how to play CTF properly wound up killing the forum game that I enjoyed the most.

I recognize the fact that we have a mixed crowd here of veterans as far back to the days of Quake and a slew of new people that don't know wtf a dial-up modem and a Voodoo1 are. I myself have been in "the game" since early 1997 -- I've done and seen a lot of different things, spread across over 10 different mods for Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3. I reached my competitive peak in 2000 with shockWave and Minutemen of Anarchy, and frankly, I became highly burned out on the direction that the RA2 community was going with the cheating hacks and bots and the like. I fought an uphill battle with a lot of people in MMA essentially not giving me the respect that I deserved, and being the teenager I was, I lashed out in great angst. I missed out on an opportunity to play in an OGL match where MMA would take #1 in RA2 Open because I couldn't shut up.

it still burns me to this day, that after all the years that I have played, not once have I ever gotten to taste championship gold. about 4 months later in August 2001, MMA due to inactivity and lack of interest dropped out of OGL. this was when I picked up car moding for the Need For Speed series at www.nfscars.net. although MMA was finished in OGL, I still wanted to test the waters of MMA finally evolving to the next level of Quake 3, so I pitched the idea of playing Threewave Classic CTF. it failed. I was in the midst of a relationship around this time and gaming became secondary to well... sex.

if you understand this, my Quake days never had a proper finish, as MMA just more or less faded away. there was no final match. there was no ending. there wasn't even really a parting. every single time the notion of me "quitting" Quake has ever come up, I honestly can't say that I want to leave it. and a lot of it is due in part to the lacking "proper ending". I have thrown it around over 5 different times that I would be quitting, and not once have I been able to go through with it because I'm still seeking that epic finishing match.


I have reached the conclusion that the end of the road will be in Generations Arena 1.0, in a Slipgate vs. Doom match.

now there's a reason outside of this as to why I've been gone. I'm being perfectly honest, I don't feel that I fit in with this community. we are like oil and water. I have tried to do my part in getting Gen forum games up again, and I guess it worked out, but I didn't have the time to do it anymore, which is why I'm thankful that Makou picked up the responsibility. I'm guessing he's fared well at doing it better than I ever could (I only took criticism from him every single week about how I was seemingly doing it all wrong), so whatever works, right?

I will not quit MMA so long as the member body continues to keep it alive. I really wanted to go an extra step with the MMA site, but it seems that the days of old are truly gone and will never be relived. I have contacted various MMA veterans about the possibility of doing reunion matches and all that I have spoken to about it are for it. some of these lineups haven't been seen in over 7 years, so it would certainly prove interesting if we can arrange something.


in the meantime, I have reformed my NFS editing group, F-body Faction, and will continue to remain there doing that until further notice. until then, I hope everyone here has a fun time at Quakecon, (even though you can meet people and play LAN games anywhere else) and keep the chainsaws revving and the axes swinging. I look forward to seeing Gen 1.0, and am quite surprised it wasn't finished for Qcon, but I guess patience will bring us a better finished product.

later

Well mecha i for one kinda miss ya! and i sure hope you'll return and do that slippy vs. doom match :) :ownage:

I can only add that 'epic' games are rare, hard to organize - and if expected to be, generally tend to disappoint. It may be just me, but I don't think the whole 'going out with a bang' thing works. If that's really what you're after, good luck! - otherwise, just enjoy a quickie for fun every once in a while, and slowly degenerate, like the rest of us..

As for 'not fitting in' - I guess I'll have to be blunt: there is no such thing as 'fitting in', unless you're trying to impress teenagers on a prom night. Whenever I talked to you on IRC, however briefly, you didn't seem like the odd one out - we all are weird collectively, I suppose. Maybe this is just about the games..

I'm not much of a fan of CTF. I don't mind the game gets a mess with the small, diverse and pretty much unorganised crowd playing Generations - we're no pro league material. CTF would be more fun if there were trained, balanced teams, with people sharing a single goal. Alas, this is a pipe-dream, unless Gen picks up a fan or 40 and they take a serious interest in a CTF ladder. But to be vexed by this doesn't make you a wretch to this community - unless it is your own choosing.
Personally I'd like to see a serious 1on1 ladder, to really play Gen intensely and competitively - but there's no 'market' for this, and discussion would most likely get me some angry looks. Justly so, because this just is not that kind of game. Not that kind of community? Hardly. Unless you count the size of a community to be an intrinsic, unchangeble part of it. I'm still waiting for us to pick up some more fans ;]

I will try and help you get that epic battle going, when the time is right. Here's hoping the servers will be crammed to the brim for hours on end, and that the results will be inconclusive in regards to class strength...

/me raises his virtual glass to mecha

While its been about a year since i played Gen with any regularity and even longer since i actually played it with real people i cant really grasp the idea of an end to my quake days. There seems to be a lot of this going around these days people just up and decide they don't like fragging anymore or in the more extreme Tekhead sense decide they don't want anything to do with computers at all. Yet another friend of mine told me the other day he just didn't like gaming anymore no real reason for it he just didn't want to play. I'm not worried though. I think a good 80% of people who say they have sworn off gaming/computers/blah blah are deluding themselves.
 As for fittings in does anybody really fit in? Were not teenagers moving to a new school and making sure we dress like the other kids are we? Are we going to start playing pogs because the other kids do it? What the hell is fitting in anyway?

Mecha, you dolt, I thought you would have taken a clue from me at least about "fitting in".  I stick out like the bright red and gold, ketchup and mustard railtrails I leave all over the servers.  I've never cared what people think of me.  They think I'm silly, or crazy, or delusional - whatever, it doesn't change who I am, nor do I let what people think of me impede what I set out to do.  I say screw "fitting in", just be who you are, and if someone doesn't like you for it, well poop on them.  It doesn't matter if you fit in or not, just how you treat people.  And why the "must go out with a bang"?  Why not just play what you want to play to have fun doing it?

... hell... i like CTF more than DM any day  :rules: ...

I've been getting invites to games and asked when I'm going to return to Gen.

while I've told you why I left WHS, I'd like to tell you all why I'm still technically gone, and will not be playing for quite some time.


I'm entering my last year of college (soon) and I won't be living in a measly dorm room anymore, but rather a townhouse. the class load isn't exactly heavy, but the classes are going to be a pain in the ass, and I'm going to be assisting in a lot of video productions at work as well.

I also made the rather unwise choice of jumpstarting my NFS group F-body Faction with what are rapidly becoming more false promises since I've been working all summer and have been unable to get a single car released yet. my free time, what's left of it after class, work, home maintenance (gotta clean my own bathroom :o!), and time with my real life friends, will be allocated towards F-body Faction and whatever happenings will be taking place at NFSCars or wherever else I get game connections to release our cars for. I'm thoroughly enjoying being back at the NFS scene again for the first time in a couple of years because the nazi mod tactics have finally taken a back seat to ruination and a lot of people are glad to see me back there doing what I do best.

that being said, the most obvious is I'm waiting for Gen 1.0 to get released, which is still being marked as "when it's done", and I say take your time because this official 1.0 release is going to be 'epic' ;)  whenever the release is, permitting I'm not scheduled to do anything else, you can be rest assured I'll be in attendance for the release party games.

ok, so maybe I might not get that epic final game of Quake, and maybe I will, whatever the case I'd like to at least get a proper string of Gen games (ya know, real CTF?) and maybe finally beat Phoenix (we can all dream, can't we?) ... I'm just glad to read Makou's news that the forum games continue even in his absence. are we getting pumped up for 1.0 or what?

it's gonna be brutal, especially if Pho implements a Qball/Catch the Chicken (minus the chicken of course) mode... I'd like to hit up a little more nostalgia before I have to part with it all.

the moral of the story: growing up kinda sucks.

-the mechanix

You got to do what you got to do man, I'm sure everyone understands that.  By the way, Tab beats me on a regular basis even on the US server, so don't think it's impossible.  You just have to be as good as Tab is all! :D

As for 1.0 being "epic", you bet your ass it'll be.  :ninja:

I understand I also had a time I didnt like playing games anymore, and I still don't know , my highdays are gone, sometimes i think of all the time i lost behind this PC. then other days i think of all the fun I have had in some online games.
from the old doom days till doom 3.

but even i start slacking, if it was up to me I was still playing some of the old games like SIN , DOOM , HEXEN , Warzone 2100, .....
but it aint possible anymore to have a good lan with those games , people arent intrested in playing those games anymore .

and the new games dont really offer all the things i want. doom 3 was a great idea , but it lacks of some things. so will the veteran gamer like us not get scared of any monster coming at ya ( maybe the first helknight in the hell level since ya only have a shotty ) so it looses its charm for us.

it is also all 2 scripted. while in the old games you had this wee bit of AI ( wich made them actually dumb , yet funny )



anyway back on topic.

sometimes its just time to move an , things change around me , if I see how many people are left that I grew up with , i see things changing al around me like time stands still for me only.  the only thing we can hope is that you dont abandon us just like that , and show your head in hear sometimes.

This is why we play Generations! it is like the old games, but with better graphics! (or at least its the best I've found.)

quake 3 gets old 2

You will never perfectly emulate the old games. Because:

1) Games' limitations. (i.e no jumping, look)
2) Sprites. (Wolf, Doom) Even though people critisize them, they are in some ways better then models. My opinion.
3) Gameplay
4) Game Design (Different from gameplay)

And it's not our goal to perfectly emulate anything, just get close enough to mimic the most important multiplayer aspects of the original games within the Quake 3 environment.

That's why mods exist. :P

I'm hoping for Co-Op, Generations Resurgence.
 :!:  :evil:  :ninja:  :thumb:

... and just because a game gets old, doesn't mean people must abandon it. 'Oh look, a new fancy-lookin engine! Lets crap on our old game and just play the new one, even if it does exactly the same as the previous, but with better lag!' ...

I've been playing Hexen 2 a little.  I haven't played it in years.  There's nothing wrong with playing old games.  I still play Atari 2600 games occasionally.  Besides, look at sports.  Don't people just play the same ones over and over?

I'd like to play some hexen 2. is that a good engine that won't screw up my telejano quake? GL stuff seems to stop it running.

btw hexen owns hexen 2 ;)

Indeed it does Boot, but one thing I've loved about Hexen 2 is you can bash the snot out of just about everything in the map, plus it has a Mayan and Egyptian level.  I love anything Egyptian, so that's an instant like for me, even if they screwed up on the Wheel of Ages puzzle.  Summer Solstace is NOT an equinox!  That drove me nuts the first time I played it because I set the wheel properly (both equinoxes at the same time, and adjusted per the other plaque) and nothing happened. :)~

Shambler:  Out-of-the-box Hexen 2 is software rendering, like Quake 1.  It's based on the Quake 1 engine.  GLHexen does not work properly anymore since it only supports 3DFX, so you'd need NewHexen (http://newhexen.raven-games.com/) if you want to play it in OpenGL.  I haven't run into any problems with it, except for the fact it does not like to retain the "always run" setting even if I force it in my config file.  The intermissions are a little wonky too.  Minor annoyances really.  If you go with this engine, be sure to RTFM carefully about how to run it, and be sure to select "Old Mission", not "New Mission" if you don't have the Portal of Praevus expansion pack installed.  Hexen 2 does like to crash when you change levels sometimes, so always save before changing maps.  It's not very often, but it likes to do it in specific places.

I'm all for playing the oldies, i still have SIN, Hexen 1 & 2 plus doom (all versions and Mods) still installed and play loads

what we need it a dedicated server like gen where we can play classics, and beat the snot out of he other

as for CTF, id love to set up a league and play loads, ctf is my favorite game type anyhow, and well there isn't enough ctf gen in my opinion

plus on a further note, who care if gen is exactly like the old games, i love it as it is and most people should too

Finally Version 1.0 do you have a release date yet ?, i can't stand the anticipation anymore :thumb:

Not if Electronic Arts have anything to do with it :P

Stuff all of this "swan song" stuff. If you like a game, play it. I still dust off the likes of Starfox and Gunstar Heroes once in a while (and my 20-odd-year-old Atari 2600 STILL WORKS!!). If you get bored of a game, move on, but don't ditch it completely. You never know when you'll get the urge to dig it out again, even if only for a quick piss-about.

... DooM Collector's Edition and [emulated] Sonic & Knuckles make my current playing day... apart from UT and Generations, that is...

Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem: Time To Kill, Duke Nukem: Planet of the Babes, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project...=]

---

Back on topic: I'll probably be seeing you round mecha in other communities, when we do, I'll be sure to tacklehug you until you say "die!!11 :ninja: " :} Maybe we'll see one another in City Of Heroes? Can't miss "Commander Yick" and his very familiar looking costume :D

Regards,

Yickle.

Exactly.


He must be on really good terms with you then.  Typically, the average dialogue exchange between mecha and I is "Kain" "Mecha" "die!!11 :ninja:"  Of course, you'd think after so many times of my owning him, he'd give up. ;)

Oh and mecha:  :shout:  +  :!:  =   O_o

kain

die


kthxbye!

<3  +  :zzz:  =  :wtf:

That is .. somehow.. disturbing..

I dont get it. :huh:

Noooo! Ranger, use your shaft! ... no, the OTHER ONE!

Ranger: But I really need to-*BANG!*-*snsskkkttt*

DooM: Hehehe- OH! NEXT VICTIM!!1 LOLS!!!1 *runs in circels*

Regards,

Yickle.

:rules:  +  <3  =  :zzz:


 ;)

:doomed: + -_- = :ninja: