From the Hardcore Side There are people who play Quake, and then there are people who live and breathe it. In "From the Hardcore Side", a new semi-regular feature at PQ, Pappy-R brings all his hardcore gaming experience to you and talks about what's going on in the hardcore scene today.   — by Pappy-R The UT Champs, from right (And rank!) Dozer, [xeno]Dy-Syng, Dr_Jeddeye, Ill-Techneeqs After most of the gamers got settled, the first tournaments got kicking and a UT 1 on 1 was top of the list. My clan mate DY-Syng showed up for the event and I was surprised to see him sign up for the UT tourney. When I asked him about this, "a shooter's a shooter" was the reply. I've not been to great a fan of UT, and most know it, but there was some severe head to head action being laid down and that's all it takes to get my blood up. Round and round they went with multiple rockets flying everywhere till the top few were lined up to grab their well deserved prizes. Time for some Quake III juice now, and I was in my glory. Redleader, the tourney co-ordinator made sure I was part of the show, and passed all things by me for approval. He was doing a good job on his own and I think he just felt the pressure of having some old guy watching his every move. I later found out they were mostly Tribes players, and Quake III, although not new to them, wasn't second nature as it is with yours truly. The 1 on 1 tourney ran along fine and I don't think I heard any complaints amidst the heated action. Actually there was more tourneys going on than I could keep track of. There was a Starcraft tournament, several Tribes smack downs, and there could have been a checkers beatdown for all I knew. I was there for the Quaking and we all knew it. The Q3A 1 vs 1 came down to pretty much what I figured from watching the tourney progress; [xeno]Dy-Syng took first to a grudging ki.MadBilly and FonFon and his "pile o' computer" pulling in for third. [xeno]Dy-Syng cleaned up scooping 3 video cards and a Razer Mouse. Fun, fun, fun or FFA time was at hand and Quake III was first up. The matches were fast, frenzied and full of the now familiar calls of "impressive" and "excellent" from the in-game announcer. Your winner - [xeno]Dy-Syng. Quake 2 free for all was the last match of Fragtopia, and was a winner take all in one massive fragathon in Q2DM8. The winner was again [xeno]Dy-Syng. Is anyone seeing a trend here? Dy-Syng was the cause for the staff to come up with the "one tourney win per player" rule for the next event. So how does this all work out with my last Hardcore Side piece on the PapLAN, and the previous piece to that, Running a LAN Event. Yes there was a theme and moral to all these pieces running back to back. The Fragtopia event was ready to hold 200 players, and grabbed about 60. PapLAN was to hold 40 and grabbed 30. Both events had well laid out networks, tournaments, venues and a load of prizes. The biggest problem was in guaranteed attendance. Both events had staff running for the gamers for two days to make sure they had all they could want. Both events had satisfied gamers. The lesson here I think, and I could be wrong, is that the first one in a series will be shy of your expectations. But I do believe that making the effort, to make sure it's a success for the crowd you get and getting the word out, will make the next event in a series a success. LAN goodness! I'd like to take a moment here to thank the staff and players at Fragtopia. The staff was dedicated, tireless and they deserve some attention. My personal "hats off" to Kingpin, Marauder, Dopper, Redleader, Skotos (you Tribes nut!), Nolman, Praetorian and Mr. E Mahn. Get ready to kick it up in 2001 guys, and count on me. Now what treats do I have for you today? Demos of course, and this time it's Defiant's Demos that has them for you. Head over to see what went down in fast 'n furious Q3A action. Next time we'll take a look at some of the top clans in North America. Till then, practice hard, and I'll see you on the servers.   — Pappy-R Questions? Comments? Random screaming? Send it all to feedback!