loonygames' MailBag: Issue #3

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The "What'd You Say About My Mother??" Dept.:
MailBag for Issue #3

Comments by Stephanie "Bobbi" Bergman

Every week our associate editor takes on the big ol' pile of mail for your reading enjoyment...got something to say? Send it in. You just might win a swanky loonygames t-shirt. Letters are presented exactly as they are recieved.

Is id overrated??

Subject: id schmid

Minions of Lunacy:

id hasn't released anything fun since the Doom era. Isn't it about time we all admit that the Quake series is boring? You'll feel better if you do.

(The views presented are strictly my own but are the undeniable truth. Any dissention will result in quick and decisive punishment. Obey me. That is all.)

--Freez

Quake is boring??? I don’t think so.

I recently went back and played Doom...I made the jump straight from Wolfenstein to Quake initially, and really never got into Doom. And ya know what I discovered? I like Wolfenstein more than Doom. I dunno, something about Doom just struck me weird, I got dizzy when trying to run around corners, the lack of control I felt drove me nuts...it just didn’t hack it for me. Quake 1, however (I don’t play Quake2), is still my favorite game. I love how fast it is, how I can totally get into a game and find I’m talking to myself when someone kills me ("Damn, nice shot!"), and how my heart pounds when I make what I know is a great frag. I’ve started, very recently, trying to untangle the world of Team Fortress, and am finding it a bit difficult for a newbie so far. But, given all there is out there for people to play, I don’t think I’d ever call Quake boring.

:)

More on the community...

Subject: RE: Blue's Editorial

Blue is pretty-much smack-dab on-target (to over-hyphenate a bit), but needed a little more specific information. It's like Genesis:

First there was Quake, and it was good. We were all equal with our nasty little modem connections and no real mods to speak of. No "professional" players to be compared to, either. There were few of us and we knew each other. About the second time I went online with Quake, I was on a server with just one other player, who took the time to show me how to jump, sidestep, and find listen for doors/lifts etc. to scope-out where other players were. I later did the same for other "newbies". I used to join a game and see "Elvis! Baby!" and "Dude! Glad you're here!", and say I was leaving and see "Great game! Thanks!". Now when I join a server, I have no idea who I'm playing with or against. I rarely see the same names twice.

It started before Q2. Remember the skinhead invasions? We got rid of them by refusing to play with them - they're off on their own servers now, spouting their anti-semitic crap at each other instead of us. But the apple of paradise was beginning to rot - the camaraderie dissolved. Anonymity took over. Too many players on too many servers running too many different mods. The arguments started. Remember the absolute hatred focused on the Thunder Walker guys? Just because they weakened the rocket launcher, for God's sake.

With Q2 we got the "Empire Builders" - people trying to make a buck off Carmack and Associates' work. The home tinkerers had to make way for these commercial weenies. And if they weren't trying to make a buck, they were trying to monopolize the Web scene. Planet Quake is the obvious example here. A big Quake sponge absorbing everything around it and homogenizing the community. Those with an independent bent have left that fold - I'll cite the Thunder Walkers again as an early example.

And now we have the glut of FPS games on the market - Unreal, SiN, Forsaken, etc. Now we're arguing about which game is better, rather than which mod. The performance levels for hardware and connections have been pushed to the limit, disenfranchising the HPBs who really started it all. The community is gone, replaced by a producer/consumer relationship. We buy it and we play it - but we don't LIVE it anymore, unless you happen to be one of the industry celebrities (notice I didn't say community celebrities - that's gone - even Blue's News has a certain commercial slant to it these days - c'mon Blue, you aren't BUYING all that stuff you blurb).

Some bemoan the fall of the community. Some, like myself, see it as the natural progression of all such things. It is unfortunate that "growing up" seems to be synonymous with "moving on", but there you are. Hell, look at the flock of folks who have left id as it struggles to stay on top. The 1960's of online gaming have come to a close. We are firmly in the 1970's "Me Generation" now. And just a few old hipsters like Blue and myself are left to get nostalgic over the "good old days".

Maybe I'll knock together a new player model for QuakeWorld - I'll put bell bottoms and love beads on the old boy. But I won't really shed any tears over days gone by....

Sure, none of the changes in the community that have happened occurred overnight. Bit by bit, everything changed. I remember the ThunderWalker debate very clearly myself, being a big fan of CTF, I was horrified when I discovered what had been done to the rocket launcher. But, I still played (and still DO play) ThunderWalker, and just bitch a little bit when the lack of splash damage gets to me.

Fact is, no game, or developer, or ‘web personality’ is perfect. Even Quake. (Even loonygames!) And people will fiddle with everything and knock anything, or anyone, until they get what they personally want from it.

Subject: peachy keen jelly bean

heylo bobbi, and esteemed loonies. i have to congratulate you all on a kicking site. as others in the feedback have said before, it's not another news site. i can guarantee others have tried the gamer magazine, or just the strictly quake magazine. you have seemed to hit the mark with this webmag.i gave the site a thorough reading before writing this to see make sure i have all my bases covered.

i can probably say i owe quite a bit to a game. being part of something bigger, a community has helped me decide in where my life is headed. being 16 yrs. old, i have my whole life in front of me to think about. i was never serious about computers and wanting to have a career in them before i played quake. i will admit that i was never really part of the community in the beginning. but i came to it's beckoned call when i started to realize what was out there. i was starting to feel like i belonged to something bigger when quake 2 was released. having a copy of it as soon as it was released, i was able to jump on the opportunity to get involved. but something changed. people started to argue about silly things like what game was better. to me, it didn't matter, it was all a point of opinion, and it still is. i felt even farther from the loop than i did before. then something hit me. if the only way my opinion was recognized was by my skillz and by my careful words then so be it. i played and played. until i was sick of quake/quakeworld. i played so i was worthy enough of an opinion about which game I liked better. then i was accepted into a clan. a harsh and unrelenting community developed as i played, when i found the "safety" of a clan. i could look "out onto the town" so to speak and see how everything had grown so hostile. Blue has some great points, i feel that i have to re-iterate some and add my own. the community has changed. and people just now have to started developing manners, and common courtesy. sadly that is easier said than done on the boundless internet. i hope that someday before quake fades into the dark corners of games gone by, the community can be close again.

what is the deal with Duke Nukem anyway? i thought the game died with it's flat commander keen maps.(speaking of commander keen someone should make a 3d ver of that!) then i was wrong. i thought it would die again with the advent of a real 3d engine. gee, wrong again. all i have left to say about duke is, this better be good. no really, i hope the game does well, it has a long history and should go down in the books. despite it's obnoxiously chauvinistic attitude. =)

PMS-Myshra

I hope the community can pull itself back together too. However, we can’t forget that some good came with the bad...yeah, in some ways, our community was much friendlier when qtest came out. But in other ways, it was much worse. As a female player, I was safer playing with a male name then...only then would I feel ‘accepted.’ That isn’t anywhere near as prevalent anymore, and I do believe that’s a very good thing. So, I can play as a woman, but nobody talks to anybody anymore. Hrm....win some lose some?

On Duke and plagarism???

Subject: Duke Interview, tired of Dukes plagaristic tendencies

ARGGG....

Just read the interview with George Brousard, and thought that was well done and all that, so this isn't a complaint with your or your site by any means, I rather like it.

BUT I just feel the need to rant about Duke and all 'his' one liners. They aren't Dukes DAMNIT, and it's about time that someone make this very clear, it's stunning that they don't get sued.

Ok, what am I on about, ok here we go

The following Dukisms are from Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness (aka Evil Dead 3)

"Come get some"
"Groovy"
"Hail to the king, baby"
etc....

And The bubblegum bit is from 'They Live' and maybe even a Dirty Harry flick.... Sorry, for this, I just like these movies and the idea that people don't know where Dukes attitude comes from annoys me....

Shawn M. Pezzuto

Yup, Duke’s "Dukeisms" can’t entirely be called original. But Duke definitely delivered them with a different flair than did, say, Roddy Roddy Piper.... :)

The "King of All Gaming"

Subject: George B and Howard Stern

Maybe it isn't the most flattering comparison, but Howard Stern knows damned well what sells. Sex and sexism. Women flock to him regardless because he is entertaining. Duke is the same way and George knows it. It was designed with that in mind. And what action movie doesn't have the obligatory strip club scene. Controversy, sex, women, guns. Sexism or whatever you call it, if that doesn't sell a million copies, I'll buy up the difference. :)

spAzm

George Broussard and Howard Stern. You’ve got a good point. However, if butt bongo shows up in DNF, I may have to protest....

(Continued on next page)

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Credits: MailBag logo illustrated and is © 1998 Dan Zalkus. The MailBag is © 1998 Stephanie Bergman. All other content is © 1998 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited and not nice.