[Thompson]:  CAL was created in 2001. It was the brainchild of Angel Munoz. In March of that year Angel acquired a large stake of “Domain of Games” founded by Frank Nuccio. The league is tied to the CPL. Which everyone knows is the premier Pro Gamer league.  CAL started out as a Counter Strike only league but quickly spread to become what is known today as the biggest league of all online gaming competition.

[Brandon]:  CAL is the premiere center for online gaming tournaments in North America. The league attracts both seasoned veterans of online competitive gaming, as well as individuals just starting out.  On the RA3 side of things, it was formed by a few members on the community. smf|dex, kord, and atastypie, and others I'm sure that I'm forgetting.  We recently lost one of our best admins, CAL|Stephens aka [T2K]Elvis, and I would say he was the most beloved member.

[Damon]:  CAL was around before me and I really don’t know the leagues history which is bad. I was interested in becoming an admin after my friend [T2K]Elvis got involved. He was a fair admin and was totally against cheating. [T2K]Elvis passed recently, but I plan to honor his memory by keeping CAL and RA3 fair and respectable and cheat free to the best of my ability as he would have. It’s a fun league with topnotch RA3 clans, plain and simple.

[LadyGamers]: Do you think RA3 should be an official tourney at QuakeCon? What makes it qualified to deserve that kind of attention? Will you be attending Quakecon 2004 even if RA3 doesn't make it into the events schedule next year? Would you compete in another mod in 2004 if that happens?

[Thompson]:  Personally I don’t think RA3 would be a good tournament for Qcon. While I love the mod, and it’s definitely a HUGE hit (dating back to the original Rocket Arena for Quake [1] by crt), but it just wouldn’t work well as a 1 versus 1 tournament style game. For teamplay that’s another story. I think RA3 would fair well in the grand scheme of things, but there tends to be a lot of pressure to leave the major tournaments very close to original game specs, using very little modifications with the exception of maps. Since RA3 is a complete mod, it probably wouldn’t fit as the right kind of game.

I’ve planned to go to each qcon since the early days, starting with the large LAN they had in New York. But so far I haven’t made a single one :p. Seems like real life tends to get in the way too often. Plus, I’m involved with so many different areas, leagues, companies and sites, and that’s on top of real life jobs. So, I can’t see myself having the time.

As for the RA3 mod and OSP, OSP has the best physics around, bar none. RA3 has a great following, but if the truth be known, the best combination of play and mod is without a doubt Threewave. There’s a version called Threewave arena that replicates everything RA3 can do and a lot it can’t. The game play is much more smooth. The problem is, Threewave waited FAR too long into the shelf life of Quake III to become dominant. They already had a huge following (by the way, Threewave is a MOD of capture the flag, and it’s original concept and release was developed by Zoid on Quake I) with the other Quake games I and II. But, by the time they released their mod for Quake III Arena, it was over 2 years after the fact, and most players had already committed to another mod. So, it’s really a matter of too little too late, which is sad, because if compared side by side, Threewave is hands down the best developed of the two.

[Brandon]:  RA3 by far should be the only mod included in the Qcon tourneys. It's one of the most popular mods, if not the most successful. With the new release of RA3 1.7, it's been brought to the level of OSP and Threewave. RA3 is the most skilled-based game play of them all, it's all skill. Domination is not based on map control, it's all AIM and Moves. I have attended every Qcon since 2000, and will continue even if RA3 isn't included. Helping run the 2002 RA3 tourney and being involved in the others, and having 40+ teams for a non-official tourney speaks for itself.

[Damon]:  I am 100% for having an official RA3 tourney at Quakecon. I tried to organize a CAL League RA3 tournament for Quakecon 2003, but politics and sponsorship crushed that movement. As a second resort I considered running my own Clan Creeping Death-sponsored RA3 tournament, but the logistics of me being from New York and this being my first Quakecon would have made it almost impossible to setup . I was happy to see that Xzibit followed through and was able to not only set up a 4 vs 4 clan tourney, but he was able to get some of the major vendors of Quakecon to sponsor it.

Personally, I attended Quakecon 2003 because of the people I have met playing Quake II Lithium and Rocket Arena 2 and 3. I wouldn’t base my going on whether there was an official RA3 tournament or not. If there was no tournament, I would do the same thing I did this year. Play RA3 and Threewave and have fun. That’s what it’s all about.

Regardless of what some people say, RA3 is addictive and it’s one of the most fun mods out there. I’m more a fan of the teamplay than I am of the 1 vs 1 play, but in any case, it’s ignorant to say that there is no skill involved in RA3. The same people that call it “noobish” play it every day under an alias. I play varieties of OSP and CTF and all of the mods bring fun and skill to the table. But RA3 has kept players coming back for over 2 years without a single update. Even when everyone was screaming, “OGC” and, “switch to CPMA”. That to me speaks volumes. And now that there is a team dedicated to updating the mod, the potential for RA3 is unlimited.

I would like to attend Quakecon next year, however, unless I bring a notebook, I won’t be showing. What a risk that was flying my new rig back and forth for the event. But it was worth it.

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[LadyGamers]: Is there anything that we have to look forward to in the future of CAL? Will there be any major changes happening whether it be in staff or something that you will be assigned to do personally?

[Thompson]:  We have three new admins coming in to replace some that won’t be joining us for season 3. The new admins are CAL|Jagar, CAL|Jennings and CAL|Armstrong. Jagar will work in the West with CAL|Jones, CAL|Armstrong in the East with CAL|Damon and CAL|Jennings in the Central with CAL|Brandon. We’ve got some great admins coming in, and some old timers that will really help.

To date the RA3 division of CAL has over 800 members. This season has some exciting stuff coming but I don’t want to spoil all of that just yet ;) so everyone will just have to wait and keep updated on the CAL web page. The RA3 divisional news and info can be found here.

[Brandon]:  Hopefully, we can work better with the community--we try to--but sometimes things happen. With tons of real-life stuff happening during season 2 it's been hard to be around. Next season I will be around more, and hopefully we can do more this go around.

[Damon]:  Well, I’m looking for a better performance from my clan in the next season. We lost a couple close matches and missed the playoffs. My position is East CAL Admin. This season was my first with CAL. It is my goal to see that we refine our processes and rules, gain more respect for RA3 and CAL, and improve upon a great foundation. Maybe one day RA3 as a mod won’t be just “Amateur League” material.

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[LadyGamers]: Of all the RA3 focused clans out there what was it about the one you joined that attracted you the most? 

[Thompson]:  I had some early exposure to X-D back in 1999. I got to know menthol a little. As time went on, I got to know the rest of the members.  Resdog is a very good friend in real life, as well as menthol and primate, so I’ve got some great real time friends out of this. But in actuality, I feel like X-D is more of a family than a clan. We just all get along so well it’s UNREAL. In the 4 years I’ve been around I can remember only one time there was even any real turmoil within the clan. Even then it was squashed very fast, and we all regrouped and got as strong as we ever were. I know everyone feels this way about their clan, but I can safely tell you I won’t leave X-D unless everything falls apart, and it won’t. We have an extremely strong core group, and we are all over 21. That’s a rule. So there isn’t’ any kid stuff going on. We’re all mature, real life people who have jobs, families, and we just enjoy each other’s company. Right now X-D is most active in Threewave, which I don’t play, but our clan is extremely successful there and we will be again when the next game that sucks us all in comes out.

[Brandon]:  I joined [X-D] purely for the members. I couldn't see myself anywhere else.  There's too many "Clan of the Week" clans out there. That's part of the problem. Sure we aren't one of the "Top" clans out there, but for as little as we play, we do pretty good. I'm sure if we got things going and actually put forth an effort, we could be.

[Damon]:  I’ve been in -=Creeping Death since 2000 which is also the year I took over as “Clan Leader”. I was playing on AOL 56K and I met some people that didn’t talk trash. They just played and had fun. Soon after I asked to join most of the players started going inactive and I didn’t want it to become a clan of the past like so many other clans, so I asked how I could help and tried my hardest to get the clan motivated again. RA3 had just come out at that time and Quake II Lithium was our main thing. We went on a recruiting spree for people that played to have fun and didn’t talk crap. From that I’ve helped our clan grow into a very family oriented clan and I encourage communication among all the members. We have an open door for policy for our members so if they are not actively playing for whatever reason, they never lose the privilege of wearing our tag. We have members that haven’t played Quake in a year or more still pop in to say, “Hi.” Often a member of our clan will ask us for real life advice. That’s when you know that it’s about more than just the game and frags. I could go on but we would need violins. No relation to the question, I’d just like to give mention to Dan aka “400-=CD” who went over to serve our country in our recent war vs Iraq and dodged a couple Scud missles for our freedom.

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[LadyGamers]:  Do you think your clan has a chance of being the champion of your division in the CAL finals? If not, who do you think will be?

[Thompson]:  X-D is always a threat, but the RA3 team hasn’t been nearly as committed this year as they were in the past. There used to be 3 practice sessions a week, and regular scrims. Now it just seems like the drive for the game isn’t there anymore. But we still have a large group that plays RA3. We won our first round match, and this next one is going to probably be the hardest. It’s going to be against either 4I or dll, both of which are very active teams. But don’t count X-D out. When our RA3 team is on the mark, I don’t think any team can beat them.

[Brandon]:  Everyone has a chance to be the champ, but I don't think it will be us (at least not this season). My pick for central is 4 Eyed Ffist Fight.

[Damon]:  One thing my brother always said was, “No matter how good you think something is, there’s always something better…” I think anyone could be champion if they put in the teamwork necessary to get there. I know my clan won’t be there this year, but the future is open for us. I hope I don’t get in trouble for this. SyKko from Four Eyed Fist Fight paid me to say this. “I think 4i can take it, but they already had a pretty good scare.” – ii.SyKkO.ii

heh , j/k. I have a lot of respect for SyKKo. He was a co-captain in my clan and I really like what he’s done so far since he moved on to 4i.

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[LadyGamers]: Are there females that are also CAL admins? If not, why not?

[Thompson]:  Right now there isn’t. But that’s certainly not saying there can’t be. We do have seppuku as our E-sports writer, and she’s part of the team just like anyone else is, but the only real reason I can say we don’t have a female admin, is because we’ve never been asked by one. We’ve never had to go looking for admins, there’s always a line of people wanting to join us, and to date I don’t remember any women asking. But, as the lead admin in the division, I can tell you that we’d gladly accept any woman interested and she would be considered with the same scrutiny that any man. Right now we’re full with me bringing in 3 new admins, but ladies, we’d love to have you, all you need to do is ask.

[Brandon]:  I'm sure if the right one came around, and a position was open, we would have one.

[Damon]:  No females have asked me for a CAL|Admin spot so therein lies part of the problem… ;/

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[LadyGamers]: Have you ever fallen down in public?

[Thompson]:  There was one time, while eating a can of Campbell’s Chicken and Stars… Nah, I better not :)

[Brandon]:  After a bottle of Crown, who hasn't?

[Damon]:  No I haven't but I do have a funny story about falling. A couple years ago VirusEater aka CAL|Thompson "lost his balance", his face fell in my lap and we’ve been a couple ever since.

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