"I was only tagged as the 'director' because I had the fastest internet connection and a fairly powerful computer to run the server and record the action. Other Rangers grew excited by their breakthroughs and pitched in. Another Ranger, Eric 'ArchV' Fowler, jumped on board and engineered custom tools to reposition the in-game camera and splice together footage.īrown dashed off a simple story while Fowler took charge of technical considerations. However, Girlich's discoveries had not yet been disseminated at the time Brown got it in his head to shoot a movie in Quake. After some dabbling, he reverse-engineered Quake's demo file format and gained insight into processes such as adjusting camera positions and player coordinates. He was a doctoral student based in Germany and was the object of a game of tug-of-war between Quake and attending classes. Girlich shared much in common with the Rangers. Discoveries documented by fellow Quake player Uwe Girlich would have streamlined his idea of cutting gameplay sequences into movie-like productions possible-if he'd known about them. In October 1996, Rangers member Heath Brown (known in Quake circles as ColdSun) got an idea for a story he and the other Rangers could tell by splicing gameplay recordings into a short film. Not only did it give players the means to record gameplay events, its enhanced array of gameplay possibilities-such as firing rockets at the ground to jump higher, and its engine's ability to render true 3D environments-facilitated more elaborate recordings in the form of demo files that could be played back in the game. Stunt Island, a flight simulator published by Disney Interactive 1992, wiped away the line in the sand that separated hackers and users by giving players tools to set up, record, and review stunts.Ī year later, id Software's Doom attracted widespread praise not just for its groundbreaking 2.5D engine and deathmatch mode, but for simplifying the work involved in building levels, and in capturing gameplay sequences that users could weave together. It started as a way to plump their feathers: They'd work out how to crack an encryption, then add their own splash screens or animated introductions to pirated versions to call attention to their handiwork. Hackers had been recording and playing back game footage since the 1980s. Over time, tinkering with ways to play Quake led them to built-in tools that let players capture gameplay and show off demo reels to friends. They were just a bunch of Quake addicts who aspired to make games, and who liked dreaming up new ways to play their favorite game exponentially more fun than they liked going to class. Van Sickler and his buddies didn't take their gaming too seriously at first. "I think we played against Clan Dong, not sure though-but I do remember we got our ass beat in front of John Carmack himself. "I remember playing a sort of exhibition match on id Software's own Quake server, with the gods of id watching us play," van Sickler recalled. The Rangers prevailed so often and so decisively that Quake's creators, the crew at id Software, invariably took notice. "Yes, we were LPBs and proud of it," he said, proudly labeling his clan low-ping bastards. Think of van Sickler and his cohorts as Han Solo: they always shot first. Faster connections meant lower ping rates, translating to their networks sending and receiving data at lightning speeds. Playing over T-1 connections gave the Rangers an advantage. "We were fairly competitive since a lot of us cheated by being in college and having access to university T-1 lines," recalled van Sickler, who played under the online handle 'Unknown Soldier.' Based in far-flung countries, they ran roughshod over Quake's then-nascent online scene every time they convened in the game to pincushion foes with nails and ride rockets to victory. Van Sickler and half a dozen of his friends belonged to a clan known as the Rangers. Like many teens and college students who acquired their gaming legs during the golden age of first-person shooters, van Sickler divided 1996 unevenly between pursuing higher education and blasting opponents into bloody gibs in high-octane bouts of Quake. Matthew van Sickler is a special kind of bastard, and he's the first to admit it.
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