Quakeweek
July 25, 1997


Archives

Quake Website 'Pirated' From Former Host

Pauly Shore Joins id

Microsoft Announces MS Gun 98

id Drops OpenGL, Embraces Direct3D

l33t d00dz Software Licenses Quake Engine

NASA Unveils MarsQuake

Game Developers Sue 'Iron' Mike Tyson

John Carmack Denies Quake Was Written By Extraterrestrials

GLQuake 2 Needs No Special Hardware, Says id

Catholic Church Finds Quake 'Demonic,' Condemns id Software
New Client-Side Bot Discovered in Quakeworld


For lack of a better picture. . . .THE INTERNET (Downgrade) - The Quake community was up in arms today after a sweep of local Quakeworld servers revealed that 35% of all players online were actually a new, devastating form of AI known as the DimBot.

Written by an anonymous QuakeC hacker, the DimBot runs off numerous untraceable clients and sends erroneous information to Quake servers, distorting the gameplay as seen by other clients. The bot's artifical intelligence is designed to mimic the actions of an unskilled, highly lagged Quake player named "Player" or "Unnamed," which involves wandering aimlessly around a level racking up negative frags while spamming the console with phrases such as "WHERE'S TEH FLAG?????" and "YOU'RE A CHEETER!!!!!"

Should the hapless DimBot accidentally obtain a Rocket Launcher, it would immediately seek out a nearby wall and commit suicide by splash damage. For good measure, following any head-to-head shotgun combat out in the open, the DimBot--inevitably lying dead at this point-- would blurt out the phrase "CAMPERS SUK!!!!!" Examination of the source code also revealed a special lava-detection subroutine that would draw a DimBot to magma as if sucked in by a black hole.

Experienced Quakers were shocked by the news:

"The DimBot author must be really desperate to resort to flooding Quakeworld with idiots in order to improve his rankings," said John Cash of id Software. "I'd try and write a DimBot detection system for Quake 2, but that would lock out most AOLers."

"All the while I thought I was an excellent player myself," lamented Thresh, winner of the Red Annihilation tournament. "I can't possibly keep Carmack's Ferrari with the possibility that I've been up against DimBots."

"All my clanmates must be DimBots!" exclaimed Killerman of Clan SooperKEWL. "I mean, why else would we keep losing matches?"

Rumors of a CTF-specific DimBot are spreading, with reports citing incidents where "Unnamed" would rocket launch his own team's flag carrier into molten lava, or disrupt a defensive posture by burning off everyone's armor. These claims have yet to be confirmed.