TOA was the best Lithium Q2 server in the world.

We had a blast! This is how I remember it in 5 parts.
1. How I Discovered Q2 at TOA
2. The Clans and Players
3. DSL, Camping and Cheating
4. The Max[Glue] Incident
5. The End

Hopefully this will bring back some memories for those who read this.

Part 1: How I Discovered Quake 2 at TOA

(This is the boring part)

My name is Ron. It was 1998 when I was introduced to The Temple of Assassins and Quake II. A veteran of Alt.Tastless for several years, I really enjoyed communication. I also enjoyed videogames, but hadn't moved much beyond Super Mario World. It was summer and I went over to Eric's house to go swimming. Eric was playing some first person shooter game when I got there. It looked better than Doom I thought. These messages kept popping up on the screen in tiny green letters. I leaned forward to read them. The font was ugly and hard to read.

"So the game sends you these messages along the way"?

He says, "no, the other players are sending these messages".

"You're playing against real people"? He says, "yeah, it's pretty cool. I can send them messages and they can send me messages. See, I hit ~ and I type what I want to say, hit enter and everyone can read it. I can also do chat binds. I bind a certain phrase to a key. For instance, I can bind 'good game' to the U key and just hit that key at the end of a map". 

"You can say anything" I asked?

"Pretty much".

I was stunned. This was a sweet moment for me. Video games had become boring because there was no real reward for investing the time to defeat a game. With Quake II online, it was different. Completely different. The experience never got old. It would always be exciting. You could play the same game everyday and not get bored. After 15 minutes the map would end and a new one would begin or someone would hit the fraglimit (50 kills) and a new map would begin. There was no winning. No final battle. No prize. Just fragging. The Temple of Assassins was known to people who play quake as simply TOA. At TOA they played a form of Quake called Lithium. In our form it added a grappling hook, runes and you always begin with the rocket launcher. What are runes? They were these giant spinning gems that would give you double damage (red), Double speed (yellow), and so on. Who decided this? Pat. The man who started TOA. He owned a small ISP called Accunet. Everyone knew him as "TheKind". He and a guy who went by "Madman" were the admins. It wasn't long before a guy named RocketOz would also be added as an admin and eventually Gulf.

I was eager to play! Eric gave me a quick tutorial. Right hand on the mouse, left on the directional keys and my pinky on the ctrl key for the grappling hook. After a few maps I realized something. I was terrible at Quake II. The game was very difficult. I couldn't hit anyone. Eric said, "you've got to lead them a bit because our ping is high".

"What"?

"We have a high ping. We are on dial up. Our connection is slow and we are pretty far from Carlinville Illinois. (The server's location) We are HPBs or High Ping Bastards. Those guys that are flashing past us are LPBs, Low Ping Bastards".

"Get a faster connection"!

"I can't. All that is available to us is dial up. I hope cable or DSL will be available soon. They have it in Charlotte, but Charlotte is a lot bigger than Gastonia".

"This sucks"!

"Our connection is what sucks. We have packet loss which compounds our problems".

When you have packet loss you can be running down a hall and the screen freezes up for a few moments and then you're dead. Your computer didn't receive the packets of information letting you know that someone had entered the hall and was firing upon you. Bang you're dead and never had a chance.

"What can we do about this"? I ask.

So Eric tells me about bots. Bots are auto aimers that do the aiming for you. All you have to do is click the fire button.

"I wanna try it".

So Eric downloads the Ratbot and I use it. There are several problems with running around holding the fire button down. First, if you have a high ping, you are shooting at a place were a player used to be. Second, players tend to notice rockets flying out of a player's back. Sure enough, people noticed that there were rockets flying out of my back.

The result? Eric's IP was banned.

Eric was not particularly happy at getting his IP banned from this, his favorite Q2 server.

I emailed TheKind and promised never to use a bot again. I said that I just did it that one time out of frustration at having such a poor connection and being unable to have any success. After several such pleas, he relented and restored our access. 

I then began to employ a new strategy. Camping. I would find a hiding place where I would not be so easily seen and fire from there. Most maps provided areas where one could successfully do this. As I got better I became cocky with my improvement. I began to employ chatbinds that expressed my pleasure at being difficult to remove from a camping spot. Some of these taunts were met with laughter from the ones who had a sense of humor. They found me amusing. I would become friends with those people. The ones that got mad and hated it, would just get angrier with time. Either you loved me or hated me. There weren't that many riding the fence when it came to Spiderman on TOA.

That's right, I went by "Spiderman". As time went by I would play under other names, like Steve McQueen.

Among my favorite taunts were classics like:

"I am pitching a tent on your remains!"

"Reamed by Spidey again!"

"I'm naked!"

"I'm only playing with one hand!

"Death from above"

"I love you"

"I'm coming!"

"Please drive through"

Those were just a few.

Much as I enjoyed talking trash during the game, that was nothing compared with my joy at discovering the Temple of Assassins Forum. More on that later.

Part 2: The Clans and Players

Let me tell you about this game, it was personal. That's why it was so much fun!

It WAS personal. You got to decide what you looked like in the game. You could be male or female. White or black. You could choose from an incredible number of skins that could make you look anyway you wanted.

Then there was the society of it all. The Clans.

There were several popular ones like the [GFC] Which stood for The Gibb Family Clan. The little red chunks of flesh left behind after a frag are called Gibbs. The people who started the GFC took their names after the Gibbs Barry, Maurice, Robin and Andy. Their best player was this kid named Grimm. He was a bad ass. He and this guy named Dartanion hated each other big-time. I believe both Dar and Grimm claimed to be and dial up, but lived close to the server which is why they had good connections. I can't remember all the particulars, but I do remember that they hated each other. Other players included Lavish, Rich and Peacho. Lavish used to be {cm}Sniper and was WAAAYYYY into Prince. Yeah, that Prince, the midget singer in purple. Grimm ended up being good friends with Orion who hated Dartanion too. I think Orion was in the clan HTO, but I can't be sure. Either way, Orion was always defending Grimm and Grimm was always defending Orion. It's like they were "together". Know what I mean? I think Orion joined GFC too. I think so. He tried to get the Asus transparent drivers from me, but that's another story.

Then there was the Cajun Mafia {CF}. They were all in Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. They were sometimes suspicious of me, but mostly laughed their asses off at my shenanigans. Their members included Shadow, Ice, Stinger, Odie, Warlock, Gulf, Black Bass, Sniper, Kind Peacho and others. I actually met Stinger. He is a pretty nice guy. We had a blast trading stories about the people on TOA over drinks. I tried to get in their clan, but there was no way that was going to happen. I was too much of a troublemaker.

The Frag Bastards <FB> had members like Slaphappy, Bloodfart, Metalskull, Don Mega and I think DaSavage. Man, I used to really wail on those guys. It was Metalskull that got the special attention from me. He was aptly named. Metalskull. What an imbecile. The Frag bastards used to say "Yag-Yook!@!" to each other as some sort of greeting. Ridiculous. They were definitely there to occupy the basement.

Then there was the <GoM>, Gods of Mortality and their Deathmetal loving leader DeathAngel<GoM>. I used to call them Gommers like Gommer Pyle. Death angel and I had quite a few flame wars on each other on the TOA message board, but I'll tell you more about that later. I'm pretty sure that Bloodfart joined <GoM> at some point as well as Furback and Slash There were many others in <GoM> too. Almost forgot FragSinatra.

I started my own clan at one point called the Marvel Clan ^M^. Several regulars took the name of a super hero. I was surprised by the interest. It was all anonymous. I would eventually join the GFC along with Postal. Several people quit in protest to my presence. There were several occasions where Grimm, Postal and I were all three on at the same time and cooperating against the rest. Man, that was fun.

I can't remember all the clans. The PSC, PBB and BNC come to mind.

The PSC are headed by The Big Guy. He was really nice and always helpful or encouraging. Especially to newbies. I loved newbies too! They were easy frags. The PSC included Joker, Bobafett, Dickstien and Slash and I can't remember who else.

The BNC were headed up by this really dumb kid named Neo. His spelling was on a third grade level. I wanted to read what they were saying on their clan's private message board. So I devised a plan. I would play pretending to be my daughter and ask to join his clan. One thing, I don't have a daughter. So I used a picture of my cousin and Neo bought it all. I got in and their message board was filled with crap. It was disappointing.

I do remember the players though. The number of people playing was just incredible. You could try to log on at 3 am on a Monday morning and be refused because the server was full. TheKind quickly added a second server to accommodate the HPBs called appropriately enough, The High Ping Bastard Server. I played there till I got a DSL connection from AT&T. What a happy day that was! I was playing from my house as Spiderman and Eric called himself Hulk.

Let us NOT forget, Giggling Cat. God this dude was weird. He had the strangest Ideas about politics. {CM}Stinger and I spent some time trying to figure this one out. Where in the hell was this guy from? Palestine? Cuba? Who knows. He was a strange guy. He could have easily gone to prison for crimes against the English language. I could write a chapter on him alone.

Part 3: DSL, Camping and Cheating

It didn't take long for me to develop a seriously nasty reputation as a camper after getting a good internet connection. IF I had a nice camping spot, I had no fear of anyone. Not Dartanion, not Grimm, not Postal, not Orion. None of them were scary after we were on equal footing. Still though, I wanted to win. If anyone called me out for a one on one, Eric would play as Spiderman. Why? He was better at Quake than I was. Then it happened. I found a cheat. It was like radar and put a red dot on the screen on a grid that would let me know a player's relative position to me. That made it a little easier. The anti bot measures that TheKind installed couldn't detect this and I used it for a little while until it too was detectable. After that Eric modified a nosepack to include a dorsal fin like hump in the middle at the point where splash damage from a rocket would affect the target. This made me a much much more effective camper.

By now I was leading TOA on the stats board in Efficiency and Skill. I didn't get killed very often. I could alter the way people played the game. I wasn't a map-runner at all. I was a camper through and through.

The game was fun. I loved it. We even had a tournament. It fell apart after only three rounds. I won the most rounds so I declared myself the winner. Obviously the tournament was never completed, so I never did win it. I mean, I couldn't have anyway. There was no way I could have beaten Dar, Grimm, Orion or Postal. Those guys were the best on the server and I would have had to have a perfect game to beat one of them. Frag them once then run and hide! :-) Postal was in the THK clan, Trigger Happy Killers. He was one of the only guys that could give Dartanion a run for his money.

There was a monthly ranking system for the millions of people who played Quake 2. CLQ, the Champions League for Quake. TOA was always ranked #2 or #1 of all Lithium Servers. Dartanion was one of the top ten players in the world. We had a bunch in the top 100. My all time best ranking was number 54 in the world.

Yeah, the game was fun, but the message board was just as entertaining. I have no idea how many times TheKind banned me from the message board only to reinstate me after cooling off. Eric and I caused so much chaos on that board that they had to make changes. On one occasion, Dartanion couldn't get Eric out of a camping spot. He fragged Dar 6 or 7 times in a row. It was great! He had the red rune and was wailing on him. He was hitting the chatbinds.

"I am pitching a tent on your remains"

"I am naked"

So funny to see Dar losing!

Apparently Dar had admin rights and used them to boot him from the server. I was pissed. This guy goes around winning CONSTANTLY almost. He usually gets the frag limit every game he plays. Suddenly he's losing for a couple of minutes and can't take it? I was pissed. So what did I do to retaliate? I posted as Dartanion on the message board later that night. Talking of life being bitter. My wife leaving me and taking the kids. I just don't want to live anymore. The people who knew him started posting messages that he had lots to live for. They emailed him begging him to reconsider his plans for suicide. "Don't do it man, don't kill yourself". The next morning when he checked his email, I'm sure he knew it was me who pranked him. He had to assure everybody that he was happy and didn't want to die. It was priceless. Eric and I did this sort of thing several times. Posting as others to stir the pot. One time I posted as Grimm pledging eternal love for Orion. Man, I remember when Orion got banned for posting modified Matallica lyrics to King Nothing dedicated to Dartanion with a photoshopped picture of Dartanion giving a man oral sex. I had nothing to do with that one. They went through several message boards till the got one that made this sort of thing difficult.

Ever wondered who "Grammatical Corrections" was? That was Eric.

Part 4: The Max[Glue] Incident

Here's the big one that really shook the place up. One day Eric, who liked to play anonymously under other names, came up with Maximum glue or Max [Glue] of the Glue clan. There was no Glue clan. He used the label from a bottle of Gorilla Glue for the clan mascot. On alt.tastless someone had posted links to top Nazi books for children. No. I'm not kidding. There are actually Nazi themed children's books. Yes, that is disgusting and vile. How can I use that to my advantage? This was an opportunity to cause some real trouble. So I started posting as Max [Glue] on the message board. Posting all kinds of awful racist garbage to get everyone riled up. Then I informed everyone that the [Glue] clan was coming to take over the server! Really? Take over the server? Yes. That's what I said. We're going to take over the server. That is once "Epoxy comes". I know what you're thinking. "How does someone take over a server"? Stop right there. Don't think about it. Just remember that I'm dealing with reactionary mouth breathers. The ones that I was targeting are the kinds of guys that watched Wrestling and thought it was real.

The idiots who took this seriously (like MetalSkull) were asking "who is Epoxy". "You don't know who Epoxy[Glue] is? He is the greatest gamer of all! None of you can beat me and I am but a mere extension of the glory that is Epoxy[Glue]. You are all nothing. We will take over your server. You will do as we say. We are your masters now". Pure crap. I mean, pro wrestling isn't this stupid. Members of the Cajun Mafia saw right through this and laughed their asses off. On the other end of the spectrum, the slack-jawed fools that fell for it were totally pissed off and ready for war.

It was priceless.

Then came the ultimatum. This was the best post ever on TOA. "We will take your server Tuesday night at 8 pm". I actually gave a specific time for the rubes to unit against their great enemy! Needless to say, Tuesday night at 8pm came and went with no appearance of the Glue clan. The server was packed! TheKind wanted to know who Max[Glue] was so he was waiting to record the IP to ban it. Neither Eric or I was were stupid enough to take that bait. Instead we waited till the next day and posted yet another defiant threat.

"One of you obviously hacked our LAN. We weren't able to connect. We have since secured our LAN and this will not happen again. You will pay for this. The entire Glue clan will be there. Resin is coming! He is really pissed at you guys".

Okay, now that is just plain ridiculous. Who could possibly take this seriously? It's such an obvious troll. I was the number one suspect and TheKind banned me from the message board based on his suspicions. I had to clear my name. So the next day I go online from home and I'm playing vs Don Mega. Eric signs on through a stolen AOL account under Max[Glue] and we frag for a little while. Once Don Mega tells everyone on the message board that I'm innocent and that Spidey defended him against the rude and racist comments of Man[Glue], I was cleared of being a suspect. It was beautiful. TOA was on fire with Max[Glue] hate. The message board was ablaze. It was fantastic. Hundreds and hundreds of posts. Needles to say, no glue clan ever showed up and Max[Glue] went away. TOA was united by their hate for an enemy that didn't even exist. My greatest moment. To all who remember this, you're welcome.

There were other crazy incidents along the way, but nothing like the Max[Glue] situation.

Part 5: The End

After some time Quake II started to die out. I had less and less time to play. People moved on from Quake II and III to Soldier of Fortune or Unreal or Call of Duty. As the server started dying, I moved on like everyone else. I never did pick up another game. My current game system is still a Super Nintendo. Those years at TOA were a lot of fun.

I miss the fragging. The Fragbastards with the "Yag-Yook", Odie with the No "Soup For You", Leggs with the "Heehee", Andy[GFC] with the "Get You Some", Lavish with the "WooHoo".

On second thought, I don't miss the "yag-yook". That shit was annoying.

After the fall of TOA, there were three groups of former players left.

1. The Cajun Mafia types could be found at Fluxgateway. They were playing Jedi games. Fluxgateway is now gone.

2. The Gommers are sort of still around. I get an email once in a while from Tom (Death Angel). Talk to him on the phone once a year or two. Tom turned out to be a real good guy.

3. TheBigGuy's PSC are still maintaining a message board. Not much activity.

It's just kind of empty now. I had a folder full of screen shots and Spidey art. Can't find it. This is a bit of a bummer. Remembering all this stuff and then looking on the web for some signs of life from Q2.

The Temple is gone.

Quake is dead

No pulse.

Time of death?

Hard to determine.

We should thank Pat McGrady for making it all possible. He was generous.

If anyone wants, they may reach me at: pioneersx780@gmail.com

BTW, I can also be occasionally found on the /b/ forum of 4chan. What a surprise!