Friday, June 22nd, 2001

Quake History In A Nutshell
Here is a chronological timeline for some of the notable Quake, Quake2 & Quake 3 Arena events and news that affected the Quake community over the past 5 years. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of information on Quake2 as I didn't follow it very closely so, you'll only see release dates etc for Q2. Obviously, I couldn't mention every great Quake player, clan, tournament or mod but, I have tried to cover some of the important firsts in Quake from the past 5 years. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find some of the dates for the early entries. Even the guys at id Software didn't know the official release date of Quake. Some of the lesser known events were even more difficult to find info on.  :)

Note: Before you start reading this and say to yourself "where is <insert favorite player or event> in the timeline?", the hardest part about doing this wasn't what should be in the timeline, it is what couldn't be in the timeline. There are probably a million things that could have gone in here but, I had to stop somewhere. Just because "my favorite player" played great in this tournament, doesn't mean that it was a "first" for Quake or on-line gaming. I apologize in advance if you feel there is a notable event, story or great player missing.

Here we go...

1996

• Qtest released Feb 24th, 1996
• Quake shareware released worldwide on June 22nd, 1996. It is at this point that most people realize that their trusty 386 computer will need a drastic upgrade to play Quake
• Linux shareware version released on July 5th, 1996
• On July 22nd, 1996, the full release was shipped to people who ordered directly from id Software
• id Software releases first "bug fix" for Quake to allow modem play on July 23rd, 1996
• Illegal European full version of Quake shows up in USA stores on July 25th 
• Quake C source and compiler is released allowing programmers to start making wonderful mods on July 25th, 1996
• First ever Quake tournament to be called Quake Gibfest 96' announced on Aug. 2nd, 1996. It would feature "four on four teamplay with a referee and have separate contests for modem players and direct players"
• Creative Labs releases first ever 3D drivers for Quake (or any other game) called Verite for use with the Creative PCI 3D Blaster 2meg  video card. There will be many more 3D cards and drivers to come
• John Romero announces that he is leaving id Software for a new company tentatively called "Dream Design" on Aug 7th, 1996 (becomes ION Storm on Sept 25th, 1996)
• First confirmation that John Romero was "asked to quit" revealed by John Carmack on Aug 17th, 1996
• Quake full retail version hits USA store shelves on Aug 30th, 1996
• First "real" version of Quakespy released on Sept 7th, 1996 with lots of bug fixes to follow. Later becomes Gamespy
• Roger's Wave of Canada tests first Cable Modem with Quake (through Quakespy) on Sept 30th, 1996. About 1/2 of the servers ping less than 100. After a week of testing, they quote "All in all, I am blown away. Everyone will have one of these in their home real soon". This is done months before 56k modem are available
• David "Zoid" Kirsch sets up the first Threewave Capture The Flag server on Oct 2nd, 1996. CTF (in various forms) will go on to become the most popular Quake mod ever made
• Steve Polge releases first ever ReaperBot for Quake on Oct 3rd, 1996. Not the first bot released and certainly not the last but, the Reaperbot was considered the best bot until the Omicron bots, which were optimized for DM levels are released. My favorite Quake bot was the VictimBot which didn't shoot at you but, ran around in free for all games and stood right in your face yelling "Help Me!" and "Run AWAY!" over and over. If you killed it, you would lose a frag from your score.
• First "Ranger Gone Bad" Quake movie released on Nov 6th, 1996
• Quakeworld released on Dec 17th, 1996 after being talked about for 4 months in John Carmack's .plan

1997

• GLQuake released in beta on Jan 22nd, 1997
• Sujoy "DC-Sujoy" Roy releases the infamous LavaJump demo on Jan 27th, 1997. Possibly the most watched demo of all time made more enjoyable by the running commentary. This demo was a must see for anybody that hated falling in lava while playing Quake
• Juha " Perkele" Kujala and Illka " Zibbo" Rajala from Finland release FAQproxy for Quake on Jan 30th, 1997. It would later transform into Qizmo for QW and QTV for Quake 3
• John Carmack announces on Jan 31st, 1997, that he will give away his first Ferrari (1987 328 GTS with turbocharged engine) to the winner of a Quake tournament
• Quakeworld releases it's official QW world rankings on Feb 11th, 1997, Canadian Quaker MikeJ is rated #1 on the list and he is able to retain his #1 status for over 3 months
• Steven "Blue" Heaslip quits his regular day job to work as fulltime webmaster on his very successful Quake site called BluesNews on Feb 14th, 1997
• John Carmack and Bill Gates argue over the benefits of OpenGL vs D3D on Feb 15th, 1997
• Quake Mission Pack: Scourge Of Armagon hits stores on Feb 27th, 1997
• Female Quaker, Stevie "Killcreek" Case has shrine posted on ION Storm site as prize for KC's "man-beating" of John Romero on Mar 6th, 1997
• WinQuake v1.0 officially released on Mar 11th, 1997, with most people using GLquake or Quakeworld, Winquake is met with limited reaction from most players
• Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution Of Eternity (could they think up a cornier name?) released on Mar 26th, 1997
• First Quake Done Quick demo released on April 2nd, 1997 with the QDQ guys finishing the entire single player Quake at Nightmare skill level in 19 minutes and 49 seconds. In the next releases, it would drop to 16m35s and then again to 12 minutes 23 seconds. These demos would become the most popular Quake demos ever and still amazes people to this day 
• id releases Death32 and Base32 maps specifically designed for 32 players on April 3rd, 1997. Both maps are combinations of 3 original Quake maps and after a few tweaks, Death32c is widely used on servers
• Transparent water is available in GLQuake released April 4th, 1997, most players won't use it because of the performance hit to their system. Others consider it to be a form of cheating and it is disabled on most servers
• Comedian Robin Williams mentions during the David Letterman show on April 29th, 1997, that he plays Quake on-line from his home in California (and dies frequently)
• 3DRealms announces they are working on Duke Nukem Forever on April 29th, 1997. It still hasn't been released after 4 years. Hey, that's not Quake, how did that get in here!
• Scottish Quaker QL-Ettu goes on an American server (Clan 311 server) on May 27th, 1997 and destroys all the players he faces on DM4 by using sequential respawns to his advantage. John Cash from id Software is watching and is amazed by what he is seeing. Four days later, a new Quake and Quakeworld server code update is released with random respawns implemented. This will quickly become the standard for all future deathmatch style games. On the same night, Methos convinces John Cash that a player should get credit for a frag when he squishes somebody on DM2. This is also changed in the next release
• Sujoy "DC-Sujoy" Roy and Mark "DC-Carnage" Davies from England recorded the first ever public Quakeworld demo on June 10th, 1997. Quakeworld demos could not be recorded until v1.64 was released on June 13th, 1997. Sujoy and Carnage recorded their match on an unreleased version of QW v1.62 which I sent them. (oops, did I admit that?) For interest sake, Carnage beat Sujoy handily on DM4
• Dennis "LGD-Thresh" Fong wins Red Annihilation tournament on June 21st, 1997 and the prize is John Carmack's 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS. This tournament has some controversy (cheating in pre-lims, unfair map selection etc) but, manages to throw Thresh into the limelight as a superstar player
• Quake celebrates 1st Birthday on June 22nd, 1997
• Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) is founded by Angel Munoz on June 26th, 1997
• Thresh's Quake Bible goes on-line on July 16th, 1997 with many tricks and tips that even great players didn't know about
• David "Zoid" Kirsch from Threewave CTF is hired (contracted) by id Software on July 19th, 1997. His duties will include CTF for Quake 2 and Quakeworld. He will also handle CTF and Teamplay for Q3A
• First ever All Female Quake tourney is held in Los Angeles on Aug 17th, 1997. Kornelia "Kornelia-311" Takacs wins by defeating Stevie "Killcreek" Case in the finals
• id Software decides to release Quake DM7 map that had been "kicking around for ages" on Aug 25th, 1997
• Rocket / Clan Arena is released on Sept 25th, 1997 and quickly becomes the 2nd most popular Quake mod and is still popular today. Only CTF is played more than RA.
• Quake2 Test released on Oct 13th, 1997
• Professional Gaming League (PGL) sponsored by the Total Entertainment Network (TEN) is unveiled on Oct 16th, 1997 claiming to be the first professional gaming league. A title that leads to an instant dispute with the CPL which was started 4 months prior
• Tom "Gollum" Dawson wins the first CPL tourney called The Frag on Nov 2nd, 1997
• Canadian cartoonist Illiad, posts the often Quake related daily comic strip called "User Friendly" for the first time on Nov 17th, 1997
• Quake 2 released worldwide on Dec 9th, 1997. Even though Q2 was released without teamplay, deathmatch maps and many other standard features, id stated that they didn't rush Q2 for Christmas and that "nothing in the point release would have been included in the original Dec. 9th Quake 2 release". (wtf?) The point release was promised for two weeks later but, it arrived Feb 19th, 1998

1998

• Dennis "Thresh" Fong of clan Deathrow loses an "official" Quake 1on1 match to Jim "Reptile" Dangcil from Clan Postal during the PGL tournament on Jan 31st, 1998. It will be the only official 1on1 Quake match that Thresh would lose
• John Carmack announces Quake 3 on April 2nd, 1998
• Rocket Arena 2 (for Quake 2) released on April 11th, 1998
• Richard "Hoony" Sandlant opens the Australian Quake site called Challenge-AU on April 30th, 1998. It would grow to become part of the Challenge-World network that would boast 21 worldwide sites by 2001
• Jim "Reptile" Dangcil, now of Clan Deathrow, announces on May 1st, 1998 that a summit clan match will be held between Deathrow from the USA and Clan 9 from Sweden
• Quake 2 mission pack called The Reckoning released May15th, 1998
• John Carmack announces on June 16th, 1998 that there will not be a Quake 3. Instead, id Software will release a multi-player only, online game called "Quake Arena". This announcement seems to shock the gaming world
• Barrysworld gaming servers in England, beta test a mega-server and try to get 100 players on a Q2 map at the same time on June 20th, 1998. They can only get to 63 before the server crashes. When you think about how many are allowed on most servers (12-24), 63 is a fairly impressive total (thanks Ted)  
• Quake celebrates 2nd Birthday on June 22nd, 1998
• Professional Gamers League (PGL) announces on July 25th, 1998 that their season 3 prizes will total $70,000. At the time, it is the highest prize offered for any gaming tournament
• In a 10 game series, Clan Nine from Sweden defeats Deathrow from the USA by a total of 8 games to 2 on Aug 7th, 1998. The games were held at the 9 Studios in Sweden and quickly became one of the most talked about clan match-ups ever. Although players outside the USA knew how good Clan 9 was, most American players were shocked at the results
• Dallas newspapers report that ION Storm owner John Romero was shot and killed in Dallas on Aug 27th, 1998. In Quake's version of "Who shot J.R.?", it turns out that it was a different John Romero who was killed
• Quakeworld v2.3 released on Aug 28th, 1998. It would be the final "official" version
• Britain's James "Billox" Page wins the Quakeadelica Q2 tourney in London on Oct 15th, 1998. His prize is the right to play 1 game against Dennis "Thresh" Fong from the USA. Thresh wins the one-sided game by a score of 56 to -1. It would solidify Thresh as possibly the best Q2 player in the world
• Quake2 released on Nintendo64 on Nov 8th, 1998
• Quake modified from a graphics game to a "text mode" version of Quake for Linux on November 12, 1998. This still raises the question,, "What the hell was this guy thinking?"
• Final Quake 2 patch (v3.20) released on Dec 6th, 1998 almost 1 year to the day that Q3 was released

1999

• TrueGamers Invitational (TGI) tournament was officially announced by Izn0 on Jan 23rd, 1999
• Two epic 1on1 Quakeworld matches on DM6 and DM2 between Richard "Hoony" Sandlant & Ray "Methos" Walsh takes place on Feb 13th, 1999. The demo of the DM6 match brings worldwide responses, such as "you don't see action like that everyday" and "it shows you just how overrated bunny-hopping really is". For the record, the DM6 game was a draw and Methos wins the DM2 game by an impressive score of 0 to -1 :)
• id's Tim Willits releases a Quake 1 conversion of Q2DM1 (The Edge) map on Mar 19th, 1999
• TGI tournament was held at IT Palace in Sweden on April 3rd & 4th, 1999. It was the first Quakeworld tournament to invite 10 players from around the world. Oskar "Lakerman" Ljungström from Sweden beat Benjamin "Kane" Reichert from Germany  by 1 frag to win the tournament. The TGI would go down in Quake history as the most exciting Quakeworld tournament and possibly the most exciting gaming tournament ever held
• Methos Quake posts the results of the Ultimate Quake Poll III on April 18th, 1999. More than 10,100 people voted in over 50 categories. Clan 9 from Sweden would win most of the clan categories while Oskar "Lakerman" Ljungström (Sweden) and Dennis "Thresh" Fong (USA) win nearly all of the individual titles
• 14 Students are shot and killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20th, 1999. Since one of the 2 students who did the killing played Quake and Doom, pc game violence is partially blamed for the crime 
• Quake 3 Arena "test" is released on May 11th, 1999. Downloading of the most anticipated game since Quake, slows the internet to a crawl for days to come
• Quake celebrates 3rd Birthday on June 22nd, 1999. After 3 years and the release of Quake2, SiN, Unreal and many other games, Quake and Quakeworld are still the 2nd most popular on-line games (behind Q2)
• The QDQ guys release Quake2 Done Quick Too on July 5th, 1999. It is a very impressive 21 minute and 6 second run through the entire single player Q2 on the hardest skill level
• Rapture99 tournament takes place in Scotland on July 26th, 1999. The tourney features 2 all-star clans from North America and Europe. The Euro Selects defeated North America 5 games to 4 in a very close tournament that was tied after 8 games
• Methos is involved in a Q3A player stacking demo (players standing on top of each others head) on Aug 10th, 1999. Breaking the previous record of 23 (umm, where do they get this info?), we were able to record 29 players stacked vertically on map Q3DM17.  The top player in the stack was 7 players higher than the quad platform. For interest sake, I was about 4 players from the top :)
• Canadian Quake player George "DieharD" Myshlyayev from clan R3volution wins the first ever Q3A 1on1 tourney called QuakeCon 99 in Mesquite, Tx. on Aug 12th, 1999
• Quake 3: Arena "official" demo released on Nov 16th, 1999
• Quake 3: Arena released in North America on December 2nd, 1999 and sells 50,000 copies in the first 3 days of release
• Quake 3: Arena released worldwide on December 5th, 1999

2000

• Jonathan "Fatality" Wendel goes undefeated to win the XSReality Invitational (XSi) tournament on Jan 23rd, 2000. Similar to the TGI tourney, where players were invited from around the world, the XSi proved that 1on1 tourneys could be played at the highest level even without huge money prizes.
• For the first time, QuakeTV proxy, made by Juha "Perkele" Kujala and Illka "Zibbo" Rajala from Finland, was used at the XSI on Jan 22-23. It was a huge step forward for gaming when we were able to connect to a server and watch the entire tournament through the players eyes without any lag. Although this could be done in Quakeworld using Qizmo (also made by Perkele and Zibbo), the viewing quality was far superior in QTV
• First public release of the popular Challenge Promode on Mar 24th, 2000. The Promode mod helps make Q3A into a much more exciting game, similar to the way QW helped Quake
• Jonathan "Fatality" Wendel wins the Razer CPL tourney on April 16th, 2000. This tourney is the richest Quake tournament ever held with a first place prize of $40,000
• Female Quake player Stevie "Killcreek" Case appears sans clothes in Playboy on May 11th, 2000
• Rocket Arena 3 for Q3A released on July 23rd, 2000

2001

• For the first time in almost 5 years, neither Quake, QW, Quake2 or Q3A is the top on-line game. On Feb 12, 2001, the Half-Life add-on called Counter-Strike is the number 1 on-line game. It's popularity will continue to grow
• CPL announces on Mar 14th, 2000, that they will be dropping Quake 3: Arena as the official game in their USA tournaments in favor of the Half-Life add-on Counter-Strike. In the USA, many players take this as a sign that Q3A has had it's day in the sun
• Richard "Hoony" Sandlant from Challenge-World releases first public QW demo with voice commentary on June 14th, 2001. It's done very well and something that could have been done years ago
• Quake 3: Arena v1.29 released on June 18th, 2001. As well as a bunch of bug fixes, It also includes some nice Pro maps and a new network compression code that will probably be around for a few years to come
• Quake celebrates it's 5th birthday on June 22, 2001
• On June 28th - July 1st, 2001, Quakeworld will be the game of choice at the CPL's 4th anniversary event. Although most of the top QW players have gone on to other games, the competition should be very good with players like Paul "cK-czm" Nelson, Timothy "C3" Cowan and many others

Obviously, this isn't every news item about Quake over the last 5 years and the Quake news gets a bit thin in the last 2 years. Also, there has been more news about add-ons, great players, great clans, great tournaments, cheating, web sites and great games than I could possibly mention. However, I hope this will give you your fill of Quake trivia and facts for a while. 

If you've managed to read this far, you are a true Quaker and you don't have a life. Come to think of it, I spent over a week writing this so, that should tell you how much of a life I have. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this trip through Quake history. It's highly doubtful that Quake will be around in another 5 years (Quake 8:Arena?), so we should all enjoy some of these great memories while we can. Happy 5th Birthday Quake (and many more).