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

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

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

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.

quake 3 gets old 2

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

btw hexen owns hexen 2