i think my head is melting. after four and a half years flapping on the sand, gasping in vain through dying gills, the mighty fish heads have climbed into the mercy seat. when myself, lorcan, and johno decided to set up the clan, our main goal was to establish a clan that played for fun and would remember that it is just a game. we came into it too late, august 2000 and everything after was a broadbander's world.

our first season was great, although circumstances prevented us from ever fielding our best team at the time (56k problems mainly) we remained true to our cause and enjoyed almost every game thoroughly. the highlight was beating ps by 3 frags on ztn3dm1. i realise they had a weak team, but then again so did we, with lorcan, pred, and quozl all out of action, the work was left to: spoonman (our star), dest (ireland's most consistent q3 player ever), illkillya (120-deaths-per-game) and honky (]gt[ qw player playing his second game of q3 ever - he didn't know how to join a team). although the game had already reached the beginning of the end in ireland (even though it was less than a year old), we could experience the thrill of a proper irish quake league, for what would be the last time. from then on the only really great games that irish clans could have would be on lan. like a moth that tries to enter the bright light, narrowbanders were only fooling themselves online. it was the great lan games - vs acid at trinlan, vs nd at the nd-fh lans, and more recently vs n8z in ctf - that made it all worthwhile.

i don't know why exactly we continued to suffer for so long online. probably because dsl was always just around the corner, or new netcode would be released, or things would start to get better. but for four and a half years we were hamstrung with connection woes, playing far below par, and as a result not really enjoying ourselves. but just like the dude, we abided. a long-suffering shackle collaring all that rebel blood. on the few occasions when oceanfree was kind, we lol'ed and rofl'ed in messagemode 2 as the germans accused us of cheating, and when the british big fish in very small ponds sought excuses to justify losing to division 3 players on 80 ping. but its a shame we never went abroad to a lan. ireland has always had 4 or 5 top notch players capable of teaching these new upstarts a couple of things. and now, they have taken over. the 16 year old dutch kids who frantically speclock, the arrogant english 15-ping ra3 players with pink smiley binds, the pokemon generation, pickuppers, black, bottom kind, who never had to adjust com_maxfps. they are the sick breath at my hind.

i should thank wow for putting the nail in fh's coffin. otherwise we might still be stumbling around on league night purely out of habit. wow achieved what we all hoped doom 3 might do, and what some of us are praying quake 4 can manage... it brought players from all games together in a competitive atmosphere, even better than q3 did originally. you found the hardcore mmorpgers from daoc and the likes, grouping with their veterans to form clans reminiscent of se7en/dk/nd... and the counter strikers came en masse, along with the delta forcers, rainbow 6 clans - players who endulge in the myriad of unknown 'realistic' fps games that clog up games3.iol.ie teamspeak server - banding with faceless single-players and icqers to form the likes of irish rangers. in a game like wow, however, it doesn't take long for the standard to level out, and even the most useless 52 year-old keyboarder will find himself top of the pile if he plays enough. in the hope of resurrecting the glory of mudding, i've been playing it myself and have been enjoying it (especially myself and spaceman terrorising the horde in stv) but its not fully my cupán tae. i read a few of those terry pratchett books years ago, there was one part about a guy (ridcully?) who didn't like classical music, because he believed music was at its purest and most perfect while written down on paper. i have similar feelings towards mmorpg's. no matter how good the execution, it will always be restricted by human limitations... and so mmorpgs are at their purest in text form. very little lag, no fps problems, and you won't be frozen for twenty seconds as your gryphon is landing.

and so we shuffle out of life, to where the ark of his testament is stowed. still treading the sunday night league routine as myself and dest are now playing ctf for ts, after five months or so not touching the game. on isdn as bad as ever, although i was pleased to see 57ms ping on a jolt server yesterday --> the desire is still there to play and maybe get good again and punish the filthy five. they are the sick breath at my hind. and now my head is shaved, my head is wired, and for the first time ever, irish q3 appears completely dead. i would like to play tdm again... if theres any of you who still like the game, please let me know. i have always preferred tdm to ctf. and the mercy seat is glowing, and i think my head is smoking and in a way i'm hoping to be done with all these looks of disbelief, a life for a life and a truth for a truth, and i've got nothing left to lose, and i'm not afraid to die.