The Quake III Arena Experience

Platform - Dreamcast

I'll be honest. The only reason I purchased Quake III Arena for the Dreamcast was to see what it looked like. What I never anticipated was the endless hours spent online happily fragging, and being fragged by, complete strangers.

Prior to this, I was pretty lukewarm with regard to the concept of online gaming. I had experienced networked Doom in cooperative and deathmatch modes, and networked Heretic, and while a good way to pass a few hours, it didn't leave me begging for more.

Years passed, and the online gaming scene took off like a Titan missile. I suffered in silence the enthusiastic reviews of classics like Quake and Quake 2, knowing full well from past experience that the whole thing was greatly overrated. Then along came the Sega Dreamcast.

Online gaming was expected to be a major selling point of this new console, but games were slow to appear, and apart from the occasional foray onto the Internet, the modem on my Dreamcast remained quiescent. News of games that would be online-capable excited little interest in me beyond the purely technical.

So what happened? Well, Quake III Arena happened. Actually, it's a little more involved than that. First, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I switched jobs and states, moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Tucson, Arizona. At this point I discovered that the Mindspring account I had previously used with my Dreamcast no longer functioned from Tucson, though it still worked fine in Atlanta, leading me to get a SegaNet account. Then I purchased a copy of Quake III Arena, and rapidly growing tired of the first level of the single-player game, I went online.

Oh boy. Talk about waking up and smelling the roses.

This article is not intended to be about Quake III the game, it is about Quake III the online experience, so don't expect me to launch into a conventional review. I suppose some kind of comment is necessary, so let me briefly say Quake III Arena looks fantastic, sounds fantastic, plays very well with the controller, has a wonderful online interface, and is one of the best games available on the Dreamcast being worthy of mention along with Soul Calibur and Shenmue.

At this point I should point out that I play the game with the standard Dreamcast controller. I do have a Dreamcast mouse, and I have tried to learn the keyboard and mouse combination that everyone raves about, but for what it's worth I prefer using the controller. I am of the opinion that Turok-style is the single best way to implement control in first person shooters. Whether it is implemented with joystick and buttons as in Quake III, or twin joysticks as in TimeSplitters, the simple combination of a joystick to look and buttons or a second joystick to move is entirely logical, relatively fast, quick to learn, and eminently playable.

I suppose some of you may be wondering if you've run into me online. Well, let me give you a hint or two. My online name is "Talon", for reasons that are largely lost to me, but have something to do with a Louis L'Amour story I read a long time ago. I usually play as the Patriot variant called Id, and I like a lot of space to move around in, meaning that my favorite Deathmatch arenas are The Longest Yard and Space CTF, though I also enjoy the feeding frenzy known as The Boiler Room. Unfortunately the server I used to hang out at to play Space CTF as a Deathmatch no longer has this map.

One of the biggest attractions about playing online is the people you meet. Of course there are the good (hello MegaDeath and Draconus), the bad (anybody who has a hissy fit whilst online), and the Ugly (hello person whose name is associated with the activities and name of a mythological city best known for being the licentious twin of Gomorrah). Yes, you read that aright. On my very first outing I ran across someone with the unbelievable bad taste to call themselves that. I would put the name down, but this is a family forum, not PC Accelerator magazine. What runs through the head of someone like that? Imagine yourself sitting at your keyboard wondering what to call yourself whilst online, and the most attractive name that occurs to you is that one. If you were to think about it for even half a second, you would realize that your opponents would be highly tempted to stick a rocket where the sun don't shine, and furthermore tell you so in no uncertain detail.

But you do run across some characters, don't you? Due to things like Christmas, being away from my Dreamcast for a couple of weeks, a new PS2 and what have you, I'm a little out of touch with what's going on out there. However the last time I went online, I was rather amused to be asked to join someone's clan. So I talked to the guy about it, and ultimately turned him down, which I was going to anyway. The thing is that some people appear to be forming different clans. The idea is that you all play the same, or similar characters, use related names, and watch out for each other in Deathmatches. Now, if someone wants to do this that is fine by me, but I should point out to such people that there are modes of game play that encourage working together. They're called Capture the Flag, and Team Deathmatch. If I want to watch someone's back, I'll play one of those. If I want a free for all, I'll play Deathmatch. Why then the need for clans? Is it all the terribly bad players getting together for protection?

When first I went online with Quake III, I was rather surprised that most players were, at the very least, civil to one another. It was some time before I started to encounter juvenile behavior, by which I mean obscene and foul language. Initially, the experience was surprisingly positive and good-natured. People were there to kill and get killed, and generally have fun with it. I'm guessing that these were older individuals like myself who could afford to buy the game immediately, or people who are more serious about their game play who might also have purchased the game pretty quickly. Later on, those who had to save up for the game, meaning that they were younger, began to appear, along with the more casual players. This is all pure speculation, mind you, and I would appreciate hearing any alternative theories.

So now we have the serious and contemptible players all thrown together. I have run into games where at least one person seemed to think that they were in a XXX rated chat room. I have a general rule that I employ under such occasions, and that is, you guessed it, frag 'em...as hard and as often as I conceivably can.... and then stand over the body shooting at it until you get the blood and gibs. Yeah, it's a cheap kill, but they deserve it. If you want a chat room, go to a chat room. Don't come to an active Deathmatch and expect immunity if all you want to do is talk, especially if it is your desire to push the bounds of the obscenity laws.

The ability to chat to other players is a good one, though frankly I can't wait for voice over the net to make it into console games. There seems to be a certain style, at least amongst the more mature players, with regard to dying gracefully. It is polite to compliment your murderer on a particularly good shot. When I say "mature", incidentally, it has nothing to do with age.

There are risks, of course, when it comes to typing on the keyboard during a match. The very first time I saw that symbol above a player's head I simply shot them. It took a while before my slow mind put two and two together and realized that such a person was trying to say something. Now, of course, we're getting into online etiquette. Is it appropriate to frag someone while they are typing? For what its worth, I think it is. Like I say, this is supposed to be a Deathmatch, not a chat room. If you all want to get together at the very start of a match and agree not to shoot typists then fine. I've seen that happen. I've also seen matches become chat rooms when people leave, and the two remaining decide to wait around and see who turns up. Of course, when people do finally appear, because there's not a huge amount of time left, the chat continues and we politely tell the newcomer to wait until the next match before the killing starts. However as a general rule I think it appropriate to shoot typists. After all, if they don't want to get shot, they don't have to type, and if you can't accept the risks, then either find a safer place to type in or learn to type faster.

Personally, when I do type I accept the risk that someone might take a shot at me. It happens, and frankly I don't care. I've seen my opponents attempt to engage me in conversation for the sole purpose of slowing me down. Some of you may be familiar with the tactic. You know the situation. Your score is in the thirties, everyone else is still at single figures, and suddenly you start to get messages on the screen like "Talon?", "Hey Talon?", "Where are you, Talon?", "Talon you're an ", "Talon, . ". Most amusing of all is the "Talon, I am the greatest. I'm going to kill you. You play worse than my grandmother" type of message. At this point you check the score, realize you're still twenty frags ahead despite having been there for only half the time everyone else has, and wonder about the person's grasp on reality.

Typing, then, can be a tactic. I've often wondered about the people you see who just stand around with the typing symbol above their heads, yet from whom you never get a message. Sometimes it is lag. Yet on other occasions I think not. I think I'm seeing an attempt at a tactic that I'd theorized about early on, yet never seen properly implemented. It's the typing ambush. Your opponent switches into chat mode, yet doesn't actually type anything. What they're doing you see, is waiting with their finger on the escape button. You come along, and see that the person is typing. You wait around for a while because you're feeling kind to see if they'll stop typing so that you can feel better about fragging them, but after a while nothing happens and you go on your way. Then they shoot you. I've never died that way, but it has happened sufficiently frequently for me to wonder about it.

So maybe I'm paranoid, but typists who don't take precautions have come to be known by me as a cheap, but valid, kill. There are some delightfully easy kills sometimes. I'm not talking about waiting near a respawning location, that's a cheap kill too. Funny, but cheap. It's even funnier when it happens by accident. No, I'm talking about those that actually require a degree of skill and knowledge of the map, but when everything works out you get a safe and easy kill. The best example I can think of is, inevitably, in Space CTF Deathmatch. You know those two platforms, one on each end of the arena? Attractive locations for rail gun snipers, aren't they? That is what I call an easy kill. Simply launch yourself into the air off the bounce pad towards them firing rockets at them. If you don't actually frag the person, they'll probably get blown off the platform, or be forced to retreat.

If you're really lucky, the rail gunner won't even notice your presence so intent is he or she or it on watching the ground below. It is at times like this I really wish for voice over the net. That way I would be able sneak up behind them and yell, "boo!". As it is I settle for blasting them off the platform with a rocket. One of the hardest easy kills I ever managed was on the Longest Yard arena. This required not only me to be in the right place at the right time, but sufficiently aggressive opponents. I've only pulled it off once, but ever since I've waited for someone to do to me what I did to three or four people. First, make sure you have a loaded shotgun. Secondly, get the quad damage and make sure everyone else sees you get it. Stand at the back of the platform near the teleporter facing away from it. That way ground fire isn't likely to frag you. Then, as the aggressive types try to land on the platform, blow them apart in mid-air with the shotgun.

Reactions to people successfully grabbing the quad damage are always interesting, but only once have I seen having the quad damage be equivalent to fragging yourself. It was the single most ferocious game I have ever played, and it was in the Boiler Room. For some reason, every time someone picked up the quad damage everyone else ran to that location and assisted in killing the person with the shimmery blue aura. It proved to be the highest scoring game I've yet seen, with total frags somewhere in the 160's. The winner was in the fifties as I recall, I myself scored somewhere in the forties, and the other two were both in the thirties. The design of the Boiler Room certainly helped. It is a tight, fast little arena with nowhere to hide.

With all the fun going on, you might be tempted to think that everyone was enjoying themselves in a similar spirit, but no. Even here you get those who pout, have a hissy fit, accuse you of cheating, and generally throw a small tantrum. Normally, there's just the one, but sometimes it'll happen in groups. On one occasion I entered a Team Deathmatch arena, and reviewing the scores, which weren't high, picked the single losing Blue as a teammate and pitched in. I am not a great player. Certainly I am no Thresh, but I am not bad and rarely come dead last, so soon I was winning, which meant the blue team was winning. All of a sudden the other three decided to play "Let's all pick on Talon", leaving me to wonder if I had wronged them in some previous life. My fellow Blue didn't even bother to switch sides, he just opened up on me. To this day I have no idea what I did to irritate everybody, but clearly I managed to give grave offense, and before you ask no, I was not executing typists. Oh yeah, I still won.

That remains an isolated event, but the single Mr. Precious that turns up on occasion is always amusing (mostly in retrospect), though often to the point of irritation. He seems to follow a particular pattern. He knows the console commands, he's obviously played the game, but he's still not winning. He might not be dead last, but he is still not winning. So, instead of doing something constructive like, heavens forefend, learning the maps or practicing more, he turns to his much vaunted knowledge of the console commands to try and get people voted off. Of course the person he wants to kick off is either winning, or took advantage of his lapse in concentration as he tried to impress you and so fragged the little show-off. What is rather amusing is what happens when everyone else gets irritated at him. I mean the game has been completely disrupted by this idiot, so you would think that one of us would suggest we vote him off. Instead, he gets fragged a lot.

Another example of this genus is Mr. Petulant, the guy who wants to play a different map. He doesn't like the one the rest of you are enjoying, so he thinks we all should kowtow to his prissy little me-first attitude. The incident that most sticks in my mind was a Longest Yard Deathmatch three of us were playing. As games go it wasn't a standout except for this character that turned up, discovered that he was no good on this particular map, at which point he wants to change to a different arena. Now you or I might elect to leave and find a game in progress on the map we want. Not Mr. Petulant. Oh no. He calls for a vote on the subject, proudly announcing that he knows the console commands to get us a new map, at which point the three of us all say no. Now, at that point you might think he'd get the message wouldn't you? Uh-huh. This character actually seems to take offence that everyone else is quite happy with the map despite being informed by each of us that we really do like The Longest Yard.

I get a mental image at this point of a child somewhere sticking his lower lip out and stamping his widdle foot.

Being really quite a nice guy, I inform Mr. Petulant that if he waited around, the game would end, and a new map will get loaded, but that in the meantime, the rest of us are enjoying this map. As it happens, the game ended shortly thereafter, and another map does get loaded. Well, that was the theory. It turned out that this particular server was only playing The Longest Yard. Okay. My bad. I didn't know, but I make a note of the IP address for future reference. Our friend, of course, doesn't leave. That would be too reasonable, wouldn't it? Instead he resumes his tirade against the map, telling us that he hates it and that this other map is so much better, and I can almost see the blood vessels standing out on his online avatar's forehead as I walk up to him in plain view and stick a rocket where it'll do the most good.

The final example of the genus is Mr. Petty. Mr. Petty can't stand to lose either, but unlike Mr. Precious and Mr. Petulant, he doesn't know the console commands that allow maps to be changed or votes to be taken to kick people off. Mr. Precious and Mr. Petulant are, at the very least, reasonably well informed. Mr. Petty is both ignorant, and just a little stupid. I've run across Mr. Petty just the once, but he formed a sufficiently deep impression in my memory that I feel it is appropriate to class him as a member. I forget the name of the map, but during the course of the game those of us who were familiar with it found and picked up the grenade launcher. I don't like the grenade launcher particularly, but for general random mayhem it can be amusing, and anything beats not having anything at all, and besides, any weapon you collect denies that same weapon for a short time to someone else.

Anywho, me and this other character have grenade launchers, and so inevitably grenades are popping off and bouncing all over the place and randomly exploding in unexpected locations. Now two people pounding grenades into one small area occupied by two others will result in the inevitable. I never did know whose grenade it was fragged Mr. Petty, somehow I messed the message, but rather than take it like an adult, Mr. Petty comes to a certain inescapable conclusion. How he reaches this conclusion I do not know, and I'm not sure I want to. Regardless, it appears that given he has not picked up a grenade launcher himself, then obviously there isn't one available anywhere on the map. The flaws in this logic are simply too obvious, but rather than keep his opinion to himself, Mr. Petty accuses those of us who do have a grenade launcher of cheating. I said he was a little bit thick, didn't I? Fortunately that's where it ends. Mr. Petty was informed where the grenade launcher was and furthermore, what he could do with it.

What you have then, is examples of some of the more...interesting characters I have run into whilst online with Quake III. I would dearly love to hear from you if you have experienced something similar, or something completely different, or have your own observations of the Dreamcast Quake III community. Better yet, if you recognise yourself in my descriptions of Messers Precious, Petulant and Petty, then please feel free to write in a justify yourselves.

Jeremy Pallant - jpallant@yahoo.com