1997

From QWiki

A summary of QuakeWorld for the year:
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022


Tournaments

New clans

Clients

Tutorials

Interviews

Maps

Movies

Tools

Mods

Websites

Taken from MethosQuake

  • Quake 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