QWTF Chronicles

Early QWTF History (1996-1997) by Mr. Potato Head-[CE]

Mr. Potato Head-[CE], who updated the news at Ethereal Team Fortress (tf.ethereal.net) in the very early days of TF, reexamines his original updates, which occurred during the rapid growth and development of TF and its online community, with notable events including the release of maps like 2fort4 and well1, the emergence of TF clans and the first official clan match, the anticipation of new features like 32-player support and the Spy and Engineer classes, and an interview with Robin Walker, the lead designer of Team Fortress.

(Edited by Arc)

Episode 1

According to a recent study, more people play Team Fortress than any other form of Quake on the internet. But it wasn't always that way....

This is a 3 part series where I (Mr. Potato Head-[CE]) will be taking you on a tour of early TF history. I had some old ETF (Ethereal Team Fortress) news stored on my hard drive from December 30, 1996 to March 17, 1997. This spans the time from right before I was hired onto the ETF news team until my final update there. In those few short months Team Fortress really took off and developed into an outstanding patch and also into a wonderful online community.

I have rearranged the news on this page so that it begins with the oldest news and moves forward from there. I have endeavored to keep the formatting and spelling in their original form so that you can have an accurate representation of how this news was first seen. There are some real gems here and you will no doubt recognize some familiar names. But by far the most interesting thing about reviewing this old news is watching how TF developed and grew into what it has become today.

[30 Dec 1996: Clarification that Medic bioweapon/medikit are the same.] This news update was written by SirLiam who lives in Norway and who is still active at ETF. On December 30, 1996, TF was at version 2.03. Quakeworld had been released only a week before. Prior to Quakeworld netplay was extrememly hampered by lag. You can get a good feel for this by setting your pushlatency to 0 in Quakeworld. At this time there were less than 10 TF web sites in existence (none of which are still around--other than ETF, The Grassy Knoll, and Gorgon's TF Site) and there were maybe just over a dozen servers dedicated to the mod.

[2 Jan 1997: Map idaho released.] Here's my first mention ever on a news site. I had been pretty blatantly promoting Idaho through email to the main news sites (ETF, Mordor, and The Grassy Knoll). At this time TF maps were still quite bad and I thought I had a good product to sell. I believe I received an okay rating on their map review page but I had hoped for something higher.

[18 Jan 1997: John playing Diablo instead of working on TF.] This is John Cook from Team Fortress Software. Of course, at this moment in time TFS didn't exist yet as a company. Notice also the long amount of time between updates. This was pretty standard at the time since TF wasn't producing much news to report.

[19-21 Jan 1997: Updates regarding maps.] Quakeworld only supported 16 players at this time (no spectators either). It's funny to see how Hedge was considered a huge map. Pyramids was just on the horizon and that map blew everyone away due to its massive scale. I still don't think any TF map has approached it in scope. After having my name in lights with the release of Idaho I didn't want that glare to stop. I began corresponding with the various news sites and sent information in as I received it (as well as spelling tips...hehe). Roger Soder (the author of Pyramids) was also the maintainer of Mordor, one of the top TF sites at the time. Jeremy Morton is none other than our beloved Raistlan. He later took over the EntEd program from TFS and made it great. Initially it had its problems. :-)

[22-23 Jan 1997: More map updates.] Hooray! This is the release date of our beloved 2fort4. TF version 2.1 had been released the day before with some major changes in the code (you can view the versions.txt file that comes with TF to see the evolution of the game's code over time). 2fort4 was an update for 2fort23 which was an absolute nightmare to play on, but quite a popular map nonetheless. As you can see, map news pretty much dominated the reporting scene. One of the most important aspects of TF development was the involvement of the players in making maps. CTF and DM already had official map packs and as a result, new player levels never made it into the mainstream. The designers of TF, however, always encouraged the players to create their own maps and stretch the possibilities of the TF code. This open attitude towards player involvement in TF development helped establish a very loyal following for TF.

[23 Jan 1997: Site moves.] Soon after this last update, the proposed offer made by Roger Soder about merging Mordor and ETF was accepted. In the following week the two of them sent me an email asking if I would like to join them on the site. I quickly said yes even though I had never written one bit of html before. In the next installment in this series we'll continue where we left off and see how TF continued to grow by leaps and bounds. You'll also get to see my first meager attempts at web writing. Get ready to witness the Idaho saga unfold, the creation of TF Clans, the first ever 2fort4 rant, coverage of the first official TF clan battle, the first announcement of ICQ, the introduction of some famous TF maps, my favorite update of all time, and much, much more.

Episode 2

[30 Jan 1997: New site.] Thus the new era begins. ETF and Mordor have merged into the new ETF, and the three of us set off to make this the best TF site on the planet.

[31 Jan 1997: Map problems.] The biggest reason that so many old maps were bug-ridden was that almost no one had the resources to properly test them for errors. Today you can just setup a private server and examine every detail of a map with all your friends, but back then this was not an option. You did a full release and then hoped for the best.

[1 Feb 1997: More map problems.] I wish I could say that the Idaho saga ended here, but then it would hardly merit the term "saga". :-)

[2-3 Feb 1997: Positive map news.] The creators of Team Fortress had posted some pre-packaged map entities on their homepage which could be freely taken and experimented with in user-made maps. Roger Soder took the "president" style entities and created Hunted, the first of its kind. Other more recent maps that use the president entities include Gates and Cross the Border.

[3 Feb 1997: Gib contest.] Jim Cable and The Grassy Knoll are still around, although the site no longer holds the prominence it once had. Cableless (Jim Cable's Quake name) had an enormous influence on the development of Team Fortress. Not only did he have the first "class specific" TF site, but he also had the #3 highest Quakeworld ranking out of all the Quakeworld players in the world. (There was a time when all the Quakeworld servers were polled for player data and each player was given a numeric ranking based upon their kill/death ratio. Thankfully, id discontinued this practice.) Because of his prowess with the sniper rifle Cableless helped build a very large fan-base for TF.

[3 Feb 1997: Best map vote.] Vavel, located in Poland, was another one of the very first TF sites. With the Team Fortress creators in Australia, ETF in Norway, and Vavel in Poland, the foundation was already firmly established for a worldwide TF community. To this day I do not understand how Idaho managed to hold the #1 spot. Thanks if you voted for it. :-)

[5 Feb 1997: TF creators want to see matches.] It was February 5th, and believe it or not there had still never been a TF clan game. There were a number of clans that were beginning to organize and recruit players but none of them were ready to compete.

[7 Feb 1997: Desire for map creativity.] Here it is, the first 2forts rant ever to hit the internet. By February, the population of TF servers was coming along nicely, but a small number of maps still hogged most of the playing fields.

[9 Feb 1997: Bad spellers playing Quake.] This "sed cummentry" is my all-time favorite update. It was a watershed moment for me. At this point I really began feeling comfortable with my role as a news reporter and my own particular style was starting to come together. I began to feel more freedom to add humor to the site (and color!), even if it didn't strictly involve TF news. This post also elicited a lot of friendly email. Even Robin Walker, one of the TF creators from Australia, sent me a message. It jokingly read something like: "Well, then I'm glad I'm not a normal, ordinary, everday American."

[10-11 Feb 1997: Map/clan optimism.] This was, without a doubt, the "vibe" in the TF community at the time. The future was looking tremendously bright and there was an awful lot of excitement and anticipation in the air.

[15 Feb 1997: CE/WM first QWTF match.] It's fitting that the first official clan match was played on 2fort4. Notice how small the teams were. There was a 16 player limit in Quakeworld, and besides that, clans were still quite small. In this picture you can see how the old ranking system was displayed by your name when you played. Is that my name up there? :-)

[16 Feb 1997: TF clans/map info.] The original TF Clans site was (infrequently) updated by John and Ian, two of the TF creators from Australia. There were no TF leagues or tournaments in existence so clans simply challenged each other and decided on the rules from there. Clan games opened up a whole new frontier for Team Fortress. Suddenly the team aspect of the name was coming alive. The fundamental concept of the patch was beginning to be grasped by its players. This added an even greater intensity to the growing popularity of TF. New map and web-page development was sprouting up all over, and as a news site we tried to track it.

[20 Feb 1997: QW expanding to 32 players.] The TF code is amazingly versatile and we were always on our toes anticipating the next incredible map design that would come out and forever change the way we played the game. When news of 32 player support in Quakeworld was added to this mix we were reeling with glee at all the possibilities that were opening up. By the way, John has kept us waiting quite a long time for that next version of 2fort4. :-)

[22 Feb 1997: Network map announcement.] This is the same Network who currently runs the TF Console page, an absolutely amazing resource for TF map makers.

[23 Feb 1997: TF Guild.] You can still see The Guild on ETF. It's obsolete now, especially since the TF community has grown to be so enormous, but there's some neat posts there, and you can get a feel for who was who back in the old days.

[24 Feb 1997: ICQ, clan announcement, new site.] My prediction here certainly came true! What would we ever do without ICQ? By the way, that ICQ # is no longer valid. This is the announcement of the formation of Gothic Terror, the "brute-forcest" clan around at the time, and perhaps still today. This episode ends with a mention of Mockingbird Central, which would quickly rise up to become one of the major players on the TF news scene. Their endeavors are further chronicled in the upcoming Episode 3 in this series. Also in Episode 3 is a Mr. Potato Head identity crisis, some excellent Australia jokes, lots of color, one of the funniest TF gags of all time, a note goodbye, and much, much more.

Episode 3

[25 Feb 1997: TF Guild expanding.] By this point in time Team Fortress was producing plenty of news for eager reporters. So much was happening so quickly. Daily news updates were always the goal, and now it was becoming much easier.

[26 Feb 1997: John pretends to be Ian and asks to be called 'Chinless.'] This practical joke is a classic and it gives an indication of how personable and accessible the TF creators were. Team Fortress has never felt like a "top down" organization, where the development is inaccessible to the common player, instead it has functioned as a collective community where every player knows they have the possibility of making an impact on the future of the mod. The spy class and the engineer class were not added to the TF lineup until April 13, 1997, in version 2.5a, but rumors and leaks about their possible existence already had most of us drooling in eager anticipation. The scuba-diver class, which was also discussed as a possible addition, never made it.

[26 Feb 1997: News coming in too quickly.] The popularity of ETF was growing tremendously and I got a bit nervous. We were receiving over 400 hits a day at some points. Praise was coming in from all sides and the expectation levels were rising. I wanted to post every news item in a unique and entertaining way and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do that if the volume of news got out of hand. Looking back, I don't think I should have posted this.

[27 Feb 1997: Map ideas that would affect only one team.] The clan base idea never panned out although it had a lot of support. Some clans did begin work on bases but many factors led to the failure of the overall concept. The water-pump area in the red base of 2fort_32 was originally designed as part of a clan base. The uncompleted map Twin Peaks, by TyR-(T2), also began as a clan base map.

[28 Feb 1997: TyR map.] TyR-(T2) was a CTF map-maker for quite a while before he switched to building for the Team Fortress patch. His map Tale of Two Cities was one of the maps in the original CTF map pack. He began designing levels for Team Fortress after seeing how much more versatile the map code was. After impressing the Team Fortress creators down in Australia with his great personality and excellent skills, TyR-(T2) was hired by Team Fortress Software and moved to Australia. His homeland beckoned to him, however, and today he's back in Canada working on a computer design degree.

[3 Mar 1997: Mockingbird Central.] Mockingbird Central was run by Rudebwoy and Boo Radley from their college dorm. It was the only TF page with a white background (hehe) and quickly developed into a central source for Team Fortress information. After The Sycamore Tree and The Grassy Knoll departed from the news scene in April, Mockingbird Central followed suit in March. This was the end of the second wave of TF websites. Gibkeeg's Fortress, Sgt. Coolguy's Detail Duty, and the TF Battlegrounds took up the slack and began the third wave.

[3 Mar 1997: Robin "Big Chin" Walker.] I always walked the line in joking about Australia and the TF creators. Sometimes I stepped over it. Not this time though. :-)

[4 Mar 1997: RJ = cheating?] Believe it or not, rocket jumping was a very hotly debated subject in the TF community at the time.

[7 Mar 1997: Leaving ETF.] Clan Erinyes was getting it's own domain and I wanted to move out on my own.

[8 Mar 1997: GT actually plans tactics?!] Gothic Terror was the first clan to use communications in matches. Messagemode2 wasn't around during the early TF clan battles and so clans tended to play silently.

[10 Mar 1997: Interview with Robin Walker.] This interview is a great read looking back on it from today. You can get an interesting idea of how Team Fortress was developing in the head of it's lead coder and then compare it with what we have today. You can read the interview here.

[11 Mar 1997: Well released.] Well1 did not last long. The author chopped it down and released the smaller version of Well (sans the well!) that is played today. It is definitely worth the download to go look at the original creation.

[17 Mar 1997: Moving on to The Sycamore Tree.] In the period between December 30, 1996 and March 17, 1997, Team Fortress had grown by leaps and bounds with no indication of things slowing up. All of us involved in the community knew that we were a part of the best Quake mod ever released and that it was only going to get better as time went on. There is a lot more fascinating Team Fortress history that could be relived, like the unforgettable April Fool's joke, the first ever 32 player clan match with Blue and sCary in attendance, the emergence of Gibkeeg's Fortress and the next wave of TF news sites, and much, much more. But this romp through TF history has come to an end.

QWTF Chronicles