| I was, ah, involved in the Stanford Graphics Quake Project (SGQP). The
primary output of the SGQP was the StoogeBot. The StoogeBot is not actually a robot, but
instead a proxy, which performs fire control for a human driver. As you might expect,
computers are really good at predicting motion, perfectly leading shots, compensating for
network latency, and all sorts of other things. This makes a StoogeBot-enhanced player a
virtually unstoppable killing machine. Hehehehe.
Against the better judgement of many people, the SGQP decided to release the StoogeBot to
the
general quake playing public. It received rave reviews:
"I hope all of you burn in hell."
"I just wanted to let you know that you're all a bunch of assholes... I hope you
realize that every real quake player in the universe hates you all."
"No real quakeplayer will touch this mod and the only ones who will use it is
pathetic individuals with puny skills and low self asteem."
"I can imagine all the 14-18 year old babies that are drooling over this right now,
because as we know all they care about doing is winning and taking away the fun from
others."
"I realize that somebody would have done it eventually, but I hope you guys know that
at least 90% of dedicated quake players hate your guts. Sleep with that one."
"I also hate the pitiful excuses you have for making such a bot... Aroused by your
little speech I will now go down to the daycare center and piss in the sandbox to enhance
public fencing."
Even one of the big guys at id software got in on the fun:
John Cash updated his .plan, and includes:
llama list
----------
a minor bot rant:
complete bots are cool. I mean bots that try to play entirely by themselves with
absolutely no human input (Reaper style).
augmentation bots (aka proxy bots, like the stooge bot) are NOT. I am sick and tired of
lamers using these things and trying to lie and saying they are not. Those fools are
giving llamas a bad name. |
One guy was so furious that he was going to tattle to the postmaster on
me for having the nerve to send him email in response to his news posting. Here is my mail
to him, and his reply. I've changed the name to protect his anonymity.
I happened to corresponed with a Glenn Mutton (not his real
name) in reply to a post he made in a quake newsgroup, regarding the StoogeBot:
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 12:30:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Matthew Eldridge <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
cc: SGQP <[email protected]>
Subject: Great Usenet comments
Hi Glenn,
I'd like to personally thank you for the time you have taken to comment on the evils of
the StoogeBot. I must admit, I've found your posts to be endlessly entertaining. I thought
my favorite "Muttonism" was the insistence that your opinion was actually the
opinion of all quake players, but I was wrong. My now all-time-favorite is:
> ... I don't really see any need in responding anymore to this
> thread. It only displays your immaturity, and I'm getting tired of
> "disciplining the child" as it were.
In one fell swoop you firmly placed yourself on the moral high ground! Not only are we
immature, but it is your responsibility to discipline us! Hee hee! Too much fun!
Well, time for this child to go run amok. Hope I don't get in trouble with my net parents!
-Matthew
--
Matthew Eldridge, 415/725-3648, "Lightning: the Stanford Pixel Collider"
I'll admit I might have been provoking him just a little. Demonstrating his cool
levelheadedness, Glenn replied with:
> Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 12:30:08 -0800 (PST)
> From: Matthew Eldridge <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: SGQP <[email protected]>
> Subject: Great Usenet comments
>
>
> Hi Glenn,
>
> I'd like to personally thank you for the time you have taken to
> comment on the evils of the StoogeBot. I must admit, I've found your
> posts to be endlessly entertaining. I thought my favorite "Muttonism"
> was the insistence that your opinion was actually the opinion of all
> quake players, but I was wrong. My now all-time-favorite is:
I wasn't insisting any such thing, and the fact that you'd have blinders on to assume I
was seems to be consistent with the entire stanford "team" ideal.
Every (well, except for the one HPW *sshole who said it made the game "fair"...
been reading that thread?) post I saw about the stooge bot that was not from someone at
stanford said that it was unfair and should be banned. I never claimed to speak for
everyone, I just claimed to
be saying the same thing everyone else was. I've seen several posts from stanford saying
you guys have exchanged email with people who thought they were fun. Let's see some of
those
on USENET. Let's tally up the score of those for vs those against.
> > ... I don't really see any need in responding anymore to this
> > thread. It only displays your immaturity, and I'm getting tired of
> > "disciplining the child" as it were.
>
> In one fell swoop you firmly placed yourself on the moral high ground!
> Not only are we immature, but it is your responsibility to discipline
> us! Hee hee! Too much fun!
It is a good thing I wasn't going for any moral high ground. As I had said earlier in this
same post, I do not believe it a moral issue. Ya know, I actually could not think of a
different way to put that to express my thoughts. If I have to respond to insulting posts
and emails and keep repeating myself over and over and over and over and over to someone
who doesn't listen, I do indeed feel like I'm disciplining a child. Despite your sarcasm,
the euphemism fits.
My response was to go along with the way I had been treated. I had been similarly called a
child and immature in previous posts by the "team" at stanford. If you can't
take it without copping an attitude, don't dish it.
> Well, time for this child to go run amok. Hope I don't get in trouble
> with my net parents!
I notice these remarks weren't made to usenet (at least, they haven't shown up on my
server yet)... afraid of getting similar email?
I do not appreciate receiving this sort of email, and I am sending a complaint to
[email protected], and anyone else there in authority I can find the email address
for. I do not email any of you concerning this topic, and I do not want to hear
(especially your insults) from any of you concerning it.
This and all future correspondence thru email will be CC'd to [email protected].
|
Hee hee! Too much fun. I hope Mr. Mutton never encounters anything that
really upsets him.
Update: December 30th, 1998
The irate email hasn't completely petered out! This missive just trickled in from the UK.
I (well, the quake mail alias) recently got an irate email
from somebody in the UK. Here is the email, with [ed:] comment indicating things I've
edited out. The really interesting thing is the arrival date. Wednesday, December 30th,
1998. More than a year since the release of the StoogeBot. I'm not sure why it took this
guy to join the ranting and raving party.
From: [ed: email address deleted]
To: [email protected]
Subject: sbots shite
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 12:02:22 GMT
lo
just wanted to say that your bot is a wonderfull idea... as a means to piss people off.
today i played against some lamer using your bot (this is the third time i've seen an sbot
use and without exception, they have all been complete [ed: obscene]) and have never felt
more anger in my life.
i don't know what normal sbot users are accustomed to but this one actually had the guts
to accuse me of cheating because he could not kill me a single time and i kept on winning.
however he managed to spoil the game anyway since all the other players on the server left
in frustration.
further more, i could not kick him off it because of some irregularity with the name.
just thought to let you know, [ed: irate user's service provider deleted] (biggest isp in
europe)
will now be banning sbots from its server. you should not encourige people to use it. the
public release of such a product is not something that you should be proud of. admitedly
the idea is slick but then again, so is nuclear power and you don't just give it to
anyone.
i found that there is even a clan called [sbot]. how kewl. so when asked: 'are you using a
bot?', 'no, i'm a member of the sbot clan.' is the answer you get. so clearly the usage
agreement that you have on the site is not worth its size either.
so take it off the site. at least the damage can be contained. before it spreads out too
much. and no, it does not enourage ID to develop a safer tcp/ip stack. :)
see you around quake servers, if you dare to come without your mods.
--
[ed: ascii graphics signature]
[ed: quake clan affiliation]: [ed: personal url]
[ed: random unattributed quote] |
A friend of mine summed it up best:
"I don't remember the last time so many nerds got angry about something so
unimportant, but it probably had something to do with Star Trek." |
