I don't remember much from this period. I first played online on the saturday after the shareware version of Quake was released (can't remember if it was late June or early July). My first real teamplay was in TeamQuake (TeamQuake was a league internal to the CiX ISP), as the founder-member of the Red Team. Although that time was far from the Utopian ideal that is nice to recall (it certainly had its bad times, all of which are best forgotten), in some ways it was nice that 'tried-and-tested' did not exist back then. This was the time when BW referred to a dubiously circulated Dos-based TCP/IP stack, and tactics usually meant knowing levels like the back of your hand. With hindsight, some of my best games were played at this time, even though my playing ability was nowhere near as good as it is now.
And just to up-stage Sheol, who
is writing his own Quake chronicles:
Recently I went digging among some old papers, and I found the packing
that Quake (mail-ordered from the USA - the manual/packing was pretty minimal)
was delivered to me in: It has a UK Customs release datestamped for the
15th August 1996.. :)
Red
Clan (late 1996-1997):
The Red Clan was an offshoot of the TeamQuake Red team, when TeamQuake started to fall apart due to the increasing prevailance of Clans. It never really got off the ground as a clan, partly because back then connects over the internet were nowhere near as good as they are now: This was still long before QuakeWorld, and when 28.8 modems were considered fast. Most of its members (including myself) joined Clan Nasty.
With hindsight, my first games of Quake back in 1996 were some of the best, even if i was nowhere near as good as i am now. Back then knowing the levels really did rule supreme.
Clan
Nasty (1997-1998)
First real time playing in internet leagues. QuakeWorld had finally displaced NetQuake and some sort of order had come to Leagueplay. While Clan Nasty did have fairly long nice times, my lasting memory is unfortunatly the acrimony (which with hindsight I helped to fuel) that led to its collapse: While members of Nasty were fairly decent players, a laid-back attitude eventually led to a serious lack of practice. Now guess why the clan typically lost QWctf matches 80-1100 (in terms of frags).
Clan Nasty were a good bunch, but there's a always a limit before disillusionment takes hold. I eventually snapped and decided to join the CiX Clan. I sometimes still have contact with other members (the communication network still exists), but we have all now gone our seperate ways.
CiX
Clan (April 1998-1999)
CiX had been long established when i joined, which was not that long before CiX started its run of good results, including winning Division1 of the MCW undefeated (the reports from the 1998 MCW Cup which i wrote at the time are still up). I quite liked the clan, because it knew what practice meant, and it was the change i wanted after my Clan Nasty frustrations/
However, the atmosphere in CiX was often toxic, and with hindsight i
was lucky because rearrangment my email setup meant i did not receive some
of the worst mailing list flamings (i suspect these are what ultimatly
caused the CiX-CoB split). I also happened to be offline during a short
CiX-CoB argument over comments about which clan i should be in (first i
heard of it was a personal apology).
With hindsight I was probably in the wrong clan for my then skill level (i probably should've joined CoB rather than remain in CiX), although I did learn quite a few concepts about tactics. However, CiX suddenly had a collapse in membership and before long folded.
Cix
Old Bastards Clan (1999-December 2000)
Formed as a breakaway from CiX clan, I joined when nothing was left of CiX. However, the good times did not last for me, because Bristol Uni had recently decided to start throttlling net connections. As a result, at the end of UKCL season7, i had to go from being CoB's most active player to watching from the sidelines. What really rubbed it in is that I had to miss the last QW UKCL Cup in which CoB made it into the final. I never forgave ResNet for this (they did not warn me), and ever since I have developed a hatred for 'student' servics.
Because Quake3 is no good over modems (even my trusty Pace Internal), i only had a limited period of full activity that started once I had ISDN installed in mid-august. However, come October (back at Uni) i was back to modem due to the CableModem install getting dalayed by several months due to an admin fuckup by TeleWest. Connection problems basically wrecked my remaining time in CoB.
While i was (again) inactive, many other members of CoB had things crop
up, in addition to some complacancy over practice. Eventually, this led
to a resignation or two. In the aftermath it was decided to fold the clan
rather than limp on. Although there were attempts to avoid losing contact
my prediction of people going their seperate ways is slowly becoming true.
Last time i checked, most of the still active players joined SPS.
Clanless Period (December 2000-present):
Although I tended to hang around with SPS (since that is where some of CoB went), I never formally applied to join. Workload (caused by group project problems) in early 2001 occupied far too much of my time, and I suspected that SPS was full when I finally gained the extra spare time. To this day i don't know how SPS viewed me.
Currently I am deciding which of several clans to try for. In all probability this is continued on the news page.. :)