Hi ParadokS introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello my name is David Larsen. I’m 30 years old and I was born in Denmark,but I live in Sweden now. I've been playing quake for 16 years.

How did you start out playing QuakeWorld?
One of the first danish PC-Café's opened in my building in Copenhagen in 1994 or something.

It was a place many kids came to hangout and when Quake1 was released it was of course played a lot. We had no internet though and we played little under 1 year just on LAN. We mostly played team fortress, capture the flag or Arena if only 2 wanted to play.

It wasn't untill a rival netcafé opened with internet connection that I tried to play online and discovered FFA, 1on1/2on2/4on4 deathmatch formats.

But QW was not my first FPS experience. We played both doom II, Rise of the Triads and a lot of Duke Nuke 'Em. QW was the first REAL 3D game. To be honest, the graphics put me off in the start. Duke Nuke 'Em's cartoon feel felt much better. QW with default graphics felt just very .. clunky, ugly and pixilated.

Back then we used keyboard only to play FPS games, and QW felt kind of boring. But after some friends showed us how to play with mouse it just opened up new world and was impossible to stop playing and developing skill. Competing with friends and foes. Discovering Online play and the clan community surrounding QW there was no turning back.. hook line and sinker. Best experience of my young adult life. Created many memories and stories. Both on screen and off screen.

What still holds you here in QW?
It was not long after Quake1 and QuakeWorld client was released that Quake2 came.
Up to this point it had been natural to move to the next new shiny game. As I said we played doom2, duke nuke em, rise of triads and many other, so ofcourse we tried Quake2 as well. It was not just the fact that you felt connected with community and competetion in QW that held me here. QW was just always the best game put up against any new releases. Unreal tournament series, Quake2, Quake3, CounterStrike and it's predecessors. None of it was a match for QW. Quake2 felt mushy.. sluggish.. rockets felt like marshmellows with no real punch. Physics were so limited and slow compared to QW. It was just a no-brainer.

Sure you could argue the graphics was better in the newer games, but the feel was not. QW was still faster, more pure and just fullfilled all our action needs. After 15 years of gaming, something crazy still happens everytime I play. Bizzare, weird shit in 4on4. No game is ever the same even after that many years. With such a simple concept is quite amazing.

CS had it's mass appeal from the terrorist/anti-terror theme and real guns. It also came at the right time to get massive sponsor support from manufactors and events to push it into eSport, where it to this day is still enjoyed by many gamers. Most QW'ers have left over the years to newer games, just as they have been indoctrinated to do so by gaming companies, magazines, tv commercials and web advertisement. They do all they can to push new products on the market, that require top of the line PC's. Also people have just stopped playing for other reasons. QW can be quite stressfull if you try to play competetively and it's not fun for everyone that are 30+ years old. Which many are, who got introduced to QW at it's release in 1996. More to the point of the question, what keeps me here.. The community is huge part. Without others to play against, QW would just be a great memory instead of something I can still enjoy today. The history of the game is also a big part. For a new player it might not be the most important thing, but I would think that knowing you join a dedicated community where people stick around, has a special feel to it. It's not like other new games where you expect every new friend you make to be gone in 2 months in favour of the latest new thing.

QW maybe seem simple on the outside and not as flashy as newer games, but underneath the surface are many worlds. QW is the most customizable FPS game I know of where you can change just about anything you want. In terms of graphics you can do pretty much ANYTHING. You have very high freedom of making custom scripts for teamplay or weapons or other things. You are not restricted so much like in many other games which makes you able to personalize your QW. This gives a special relation between the game and yourself I think.

This game also has quite a steep learning curve, but the rewards feel relatively high as well. The layers in the gameplay and tactics just peel away the more you play and learn, and while you learn the action and direct pure feeling with the game will keep you entertained at the same time.

What do you want to see in the future of QW?
More players! More organized online events. The community in EU is pretty mature, sprinkled with some drama here and there. But compared to many other gaming communities (and despite what some people are saying), we are actually very helpfull community. The core of this community is not 16 years old but rather in the 25-35 range. We would love new young players and we will be here to mentor them, AND completely obliterate them on the servers when they get out of line
But I really just want a lot more players. Cause the community has great foundation, great history and great characters that with more active players you will see amazing things grow out of it, just like it has in the past.


What do you want to say to rookies?
Rookies... newbies... newcomers.. fresh meat... cute kids have many names. I think it is a misconception to always see new players as rookies. They are rookies in QW, but they might not be rookies in life or in the gaming scene in generel. New games have done big deals out of holding the hands of new players every step of the way. With QW it is quite a simple game. Learn 3-4 weapons. Learn to move around. Start killing your enemies, end up with most frags.
But as with poker, it takes 5 minutes to learn - and a lifetime to master =D A lot of the things you need to learn in QW to become really good, you have to learn on your own. Practicing, observing, talking with people. There are no tooltips or voices in the game telling you what to do. From that I think the own discovery and feel of improvement brings the biggest rewards.

Even if I played for 15 years, I don't think my overall skills really changed much from 10+ years ago. My game style changed, but that's because you adapt with how the game is being played on the scene. And today you have so much information available that you did not have back then, so you will get a head start compared to the old days. Also back then we played with serial mouse (60hz), and ~50 FPS was considered 'nice!' in viewsize 60% and really bad graphics. Today I play in Full HD resolution with 1001 FPS, 1000hz on mouse and nice gaming screen. That also makes it a lot easier to play. Ofcourse less will do it, but compared to old days, it's heaven to play.

Play FFA, play 1on1 with your friends, play 2on2 to learn basic teamplay. Watch demos of great players, follow live streams and tournaments. Talk and interact with the community via forum, IRC or on the servers and just play. Play and enjoy the game. Noone says when you play QW you will never play anything else. Most of us play QW and "some other games". But we ALWAYS come back to QW for maximum ammount of action and heat
We come back to our online friends, for the drama, the 'mature' discussions. The friendly flamewars and just to try and beat each other up on the servers.. fkn awesome! see you soon!