PlanetQuake: The Fragtown Gazette

About the Author

My name is Bruce Oberleitner and I go by the Quake nickname of Demolition Man. I am a member of the Idaho Death squad Clan which meets regularly on Saturday evenings in the Boise, Idaho area. My nickname for Quake was given to me by my good friend Steve Dahlin. The name comes from the fact that a few years ago I created a sound wad file for Doom from the movie by the same name. At least I managed to ditch my first nickname of “FragBait” which has now been cheerfully given to Peter Dahlin. I am 35 years old and work as a contract computer programmer for the National Park Service at the National Fire Center here in Boise. My job is to maintain a application written in COBOL that keeps track of Fire Fighters Job Qualifications. At present, I am starting my sixth year with that project. I am also a big fan of the Masters of Orion game, Nascar and Model Railroading in addition to Quake and Quake2.

Fragtown History

Back in the days before quake I was creating levels for Doom2 and Duke Nukem. When Duke Nukem arrived, I got fascinated with the idea of creating city death match levels. I actually released a series of Duke city levels (i.e. EscapeLA, EscapeNY and EscapeSM) that are in many ways the first Fragtowns. Then it happened, Quake was released…

November 1996

A few months after quake was released, Ben Morris created a wonderful editor called Worldcraft. I was so impressed with the editor that I became one of the first persons to purchase the registered version of the package. After experimenting with the editor, I released my first level called IDCBASE. After that, I began experimenting with textures. I took a wad file from doom called “Trinity” and converted some of its textures to Quake. These are the main city textures that you now see in all of the Fragtown levels.

January 1997

I released the first batch of Fragtown levels (i.e. 1 – 4) on an unsuspecting internet public. Since then I have managed to release levels about every two or three months months to keep the series alive and well. Over the last year I have received over 400 emails from fans, managed to get the levels on PC Zones Quake Christmas CD-ROM and now have managed to reach PlanetQuake!! What a year!!

A project like this would never have happened without the following people who were willing to try out these new levels.  Thanks again Guys!

Steve Dahlin (aka Kali)
Jim Grossl (aka The Great Spiff)
Kevin Rank (aka Rifter)
Peter Dahlin (aka FragBait)
Bruce Oberleitner (aka Demolition Man)

Past and/or Honaray Members

Don Shoemaker (aka Your Mamma)
Patrick Ian B. Peralta (aka The Rogue)
Marty Martell (aka Orion)

Latest News: 29 March 1998

Progress slowed due to Flu.

Well, I managed to catch that damm Flu virus going around town this week so I didn’t get as far along as I would have under normal circumstances. However, some progress was made on conversion efforts on Fragtowns 1,2,4 and the new Omaha project. At present, I think there will be some more converted levels by Mid April.

 

Latest News: 22 March 1998

Fragtown3 – Hillsdale now available for Quake 2!!

Ok. Here’s an old classic converted for Quake2!! It includes the .BSP, .MAP and a short .DM2 demo file of the level in action. Enjoy. Fragtown 3 – HillsDale for Quake 2

If you need a death match robot patch for Quake 2, I highly recommend C.R. Bots

 

Latest News: 15 March 1998

Fragtown 1,2 and 3 Beta testing results
Last night our local quake group tested the latest versions of Fragtown 1,2 and 3 for Quake 2. At this point, Fragtown 3 is the almost ready to be released while 1 and 2 still require a bit of work. I have included a couple photos of Fragtown 3 for your enjoyment.

The previous images shows the new colored lighting that 3d accelerator card owners will see under Quake 2. These pictures also show some new features that have been added to the level (i.e. building ladders, Railgun and a new room location). When will it be completed? I hope to have something as soon as next week.

 

Latest News: 08 March 1998

Worldcraft 1.6 has been Released
The latest version of Worldcraft (i.e 1.6) has now been released to the public. I downloaded it yesterday and have been I am now in the process of converting over the old Fragtown maps to Quake 2. At present, I am thinking about releasing the levels in the following order.

Conversion Order
• Fragtown 1 – The Bronx
• Fragtown 2 – Motor City
• Fragtown 3 – Hillsdale
• Fragtown 4 – East La
• Fragtown 5 – Dallas
• Fragtown 16 – Redmond
• Fragtown 6 – Pirate’s Cove
• Fragtown 7 – BattleField Chicago
• Fragtown CTF – Hoboken
• Fragtown CTF death match – Hoboken

Server Information
If anyone knows the in’s and out’s of setting up an internet quake server, please send any and all information my direction. I have had a number of requests for this information so if you can help out I would be in your debt. I did come across the following link yesterday that might be helpful to some of you who are trying the setup a server site on a lan. Check out On The Way

Email, Email and even more Email
Thanks for all of the email encouragement. At present, I have received over 150 emails since January of 1998!! Wow!!

Modified Download Page
I have now switched the download web page so that all fragtown files are now available via the planet quake download center. Please let me know if you have any problems with the download section

 

Latest News: 01 March 1998

Another new Temporary Web Page Layout
Ok Sports Fans, here’s another attempt at building a bigger and better web site for Fragtown. Please note that I still consider this an “Temporary” layout as I am still in high hopes of working with Per ‘Ellusion’ Nyhaug on the new web site as soon as his schedule permits. Here’s what he had to say in a recent email.

Hi there,

Sorry for the late response. As you guessed I have a lot of things going on, mostly in real life. However it seems to have been solved now and I have more time on-line :). Fragtown is still #1 in my list of ‘things to do’ and I hope we can get started very soon now. As soon as I have time to concentrate on it, I’ll start sending you suggestions and updates. Thanks for holding up with me :). I just recently finished Gene Spinks’ Lt. Dan’s SPQ2 – go take a look at how it turned ut – http://www.planetquake.com/ltdan/

Sincerely,
Per ‘Ellusion’ Nyhaug

You can see some samples of his other work at these fine web sites. I think that you will agree that it’s worth the wait.

Lotus Look
Lt. Dan

Project Omaha begins to take shape
The “Omaha” projects went in for its first round of play testing on 02/28/98. Everyone seemed to have a good time (i.e. 7 players) and the battle ended with most of use have more than 80 frags apiece!! That really says something to me since another finished level that I picked to play from another author didn’t make it past 10 frags point. Here’s a couple of pictures of the level at it present state.

In the pictures above, you can see that a LOT of work needs to be done with the textures. The rectangular objects in the center of the level are supposed to be railroad boxcars on the rail yard storage tracks. You can also see the highway which runs over the top of one end of the rail yard. The last photo here was taken of Jim Grossl (aka “The Great Spiff”) after our battle on the Ohama level.https://web.archive.org/web/20050218075418/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0398.html

Latest News: 27 April 1998

Missed Sunday’s update!!
Sorry about that gang, but I have been pretty busy as of late. I am close to finishing up Fragtown 2 and Fragtown CTF. I need about 5 more hours to finish them but I probably will not find that until next weekend.

 

Latest News: 19 April 1998

Play testing efforts slowed this week
It seems that our regular group of Quake players were unable to get together Saturday to do our regular testing session. So all of the projects were put on hold for one more week. I am still hopeful to bring you the Hoboken level for Quake 2 by the end of the month.

So, just what did “Demolition Man” do with an evening off? Well, I started work on another new level called “Cincinnati”. This level is going to be a Quake 2 level for 4-6 players and will be the first level to support the BFG!! One shot kills them all!!

Misc Notes
If you haven’t given BATTLEZONE from Activision a try, please do so!! It’s a very addictive game and I think that your typical quake player will enjoy this game.

I recently received an email about a new TC package for Quake called 2041 which might be of interest to Fragtown players. Basically, the TC plans to put you in the streets of futuristic cities as a policeman of your choice. Of course, the “Demolition Man” has already been living this lifestyle for a little while. Thanks Dan.

I have started a Total Conversion (TC) for Quake, called 2041. Please if you know ANYONE that is good at Level Making, Coding (QuakeC), Modeling, or that just wants to help out. Please have them (or if it’s you) contact me and we can talk about it. For progress, Information, Features, Screen Shoots, Downloads, and more please visit http://www.snowcrest.net/smoken/2041/

7600 Hits in a little over one month!
Wow!! Thanks for checking out the web site!! I am amazed at how popular its getting.

 

Latest News: 12 April 1998

Fragtown4 now available for Quake 2
Here’s another old classic level that has been converted to Quake 2. It’s perfect for 2-4 player battles.
Fragtown 4 – East LA for Quake 2

New Demo file for Quake 2 Fragtown 3
Every Saturday night my local Quake clan gets together to put their skills to the test on the Quake Battlefield. This demo was recorded on 04/11/98 with six people on Fragtown 3 for Quake 2 using a new camera patch for Quake 2. Check it out!!

Fragtown 3 – Hillsdale Demo File
Fragtown 3 – Hillsdale Level
More information on Quake 2 Camera

 

Latest News: 05 April 1998

Latest update on the projects
I have now run all of the levels through an initial conversion process and I am in the process of fine tunning them for Quake 2. Some levels came through the conversion process in good shape (i.e. Fragtown 1,2, 4, CTF and 16) while others are going to require more work (i.e. Fragtown 5,6,7). I think that level 4 and CTF will be finished first since they require the fewest changes. As for the rest, we shall see how much I get done next week.

Project Omaha Continues
Project Omaha is moving along at a good clip. This week I have added a new freeway over the rail yard and it’s looking pretty good. Robot and play testing have indicated that there are some spots that cause the level to slow down a bit. This probably means that I will have to change my idea a bit to fit the Quake 2 engine. I should have some new Omaha pictures for you next week.

Texture Problems in Quake2
I have received some reports from people that they are having trouble installing the new Quake 2 textures needed for Fragtown 3. I think the problem is in the zip package how I built its handling of creating the sub-directories for proper installation. If you are having troubles with this, try the following steps assuming that Quake2 is installed in the c:\quake2 directory.

Installation Steps
• Create a directory called c:\quake2\baseq2\maps.
• Extract the *.BSP file into this directory.
• Create a directory called c:\quake2\baseq2\demos.
• Extract the *.DM2 file into this sub directory.
• Create a directory called c:\quake2\baseq2\textures.
• Extract all of the *.WAL files into that sub directory from the zip file.
• Fire up Quake2
• At the console, type MAP FRAGTWN3.DM2
• You should now see the demo

Note: The quake2 engine displays missing textures with a Black/Red checkerboard pattern. If you see this, pull down the console and note the name of the missing *.WAL files. Make sure that they are in the TEXTURES directory.

Special Thanks
Special Thanks goes out to Andy “CyBeRDoG” Bates who created a neat new intro screen and a cool banner ad for this web site. Thanks Andy!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20050218014356/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0498.html

Latest News: 18 May 1998

Misc Fragtown Projects
Recently, I have been receiving email from a few people regarding Fragtown projects that they are working on outside of my efforts. First, EvilHoracesends words that some of the Fragtown levels have been converted for use with the PainKeep patch. Contact EvilHorace for more details. Secondly,Dominique Stender is currently working on putting all of the fragtown levels for Quake 1 into a couple of .PAK files to make life easier on people wanting to install the entire setup (i.e. levels, demos, sounds, skins). I was kind of amazed at this because it made me realize that over the last year I have created enough stuff to make a full TC for quake. Hopefully, I will have these files from both authors available on the web site real soon

Work Efforts Slowed again
I have been very busy lately with other things and I haven’t had much spare time to work on the Fragtown project this month. Hopefully, I will have some time over the three day weekend to get back on the project. Or perhaps I will be the luck winner of that 150 million dollar power ball jackpot at which time I will be able to do anything I want to do…..

 

Latest News: 11 May 1998

Fragtown 1 is now available for Quake 2
Well, Here’s another converted level for Quake 2. This is the original Fragtown level made back in the days when I had no idea that the levels would become so popular. Enjoy

Fragtown 1 – The Bronx

 

Latest News: 03 May 1998

Fragtown 2 is now available for Quake 2
I think that you are going to like this one. Last night the crew gave Fragtown 2 the final testing run and it was amazing. We had six people all firing from rooftops and I think that every position I tried to hold onto was attacked from at least two directions!! It’s a good sign when the play testing group keeps playing to over 80 frags and all I hear is laughter and rocket fire!! Special thanks goes out to all those people who gave me some input from the beta testing and I hope that the results were worth the wait.

Fragtown 2 – Motor City

New Projects Update
While a have been sending a lot of time converting the older Fragtown levels to Quake 2, I have also been working on some new levels. Last night we gave Fragtown 9 – Cincinatti its first test and it seems that the group really enjoyed this new level. The level is designed for about 2 – 6 players and features a smaller city layout with overhead highways like Fragtown 7 with lots of spots for snipers to hide in. Start learning to use the rail gun because it seems to be the weapon of choice on the Fragtown levels for Quake 2.

The Omaha, Nebraska project is still in development and will place deathmatch players in the Union Pacific freights yard. It currently needs me to start working on creating some new textures for railroad tracks, building factories and freight car textures. Hopefully I will have some more time later this month to get this project back on track (bad pun intended).

Project Dresden is currently in the planning stages. I have created a sketch of what I want to create and I have managed to find a gentleman to help me with the textures. I expect that this level is still a month or two away from beta testing and probably will be finished by the end of the summer.

The San Francisco project is still in the planning stages. I haven’t come up with a sketch that I like because I haven’t figured out how to limit the scope to something that Quake 2 can handle. At this point, I think I will focus on the area under the Bay Bridge near Pier 51, Mission and Market street and perhaps include a small section of Oakland on the other side of the Bridge. This will allow me to create a small section of Bart that runs from the Oakland West station, to one or two locations in downtown San Francisco. Btw, does anybody know were Chinatown is located in San Francisco?? It’s been so long since I lived their that I can’t remember it’s location. I guess it’s true that the first thing that goes with age is the mind…..

https://web.archive.org/web/20050217162915/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0598.html

Latest News: 21 June 1998

Slow week for Fragtown Development
Real life has crept into my Fragtown development time during the last week with a number of “Home Improvement” projects that had to be done around the house. Next week will also be bad since I will be taking a short vacation to attend a model train convention in the Pasco, Washington area. However, it looks like I will be staying in town for the July 4th Holiday, so I might be able to get some work done on the Fragtown levels in the near future.

 

Latest News: 15 June 1998

Fragtown PAK files now available for Quake 1!!
I started receiving email around May 1st of 1998 from Dominique Stender (i.e. Saloonl2yrd) from Clan SCP about placing all of the Fragtown files into a giant PAK file. I decided to give him permission to put the project together and here are the results. Three seperate PAK files have been created which can be run separately or they can be combined together to create a Fragtown mini TC for Quake. I will be releasing the Pak files over the next few days to relieve the pressure on the planet quake download center. Thanks again Dominique for your efforts!!

Visit Clan SCP (i.e. Slipgate Central Processing) Web site

 

Latest News: 08 June 1998

Status of Outstanding Quake 2 projects
At this point, Levels 1 – 4 are finished which leaves us with 5,6,7,16 and CTF that are undergoing testing by my local clan members. These projects are moving along slower than I thought they would primary because Quake 2 seems to run slower when rendering levels with lots of outdoor areas. I have been trying to speed things up but at the moment were I am at a bit of a loss as to just how to proceed on further speed improvements. Hopefully, I will come up with some more ideas real soon.

The new Fragtown projects (i.e. Omaha and Cincinatti) have been put on hold while I try to resolve the speed issues mentioned above. Cincinatti is about 70% completed and Omaha is about 55% finished. So I hope to bring these out to you sometime this summer.

New Honorary title bestowed to Local Clan member
Many of you long time fans are probably aware that my local quake clan The Idaho Deathsquad meets every Saturday night to set up a lan and play computer games all night long. Most of the Fragtown testing is done during these evenings and the sessions are always open for anyone to attend. We had a special treat last night in that one of our members was awarded a new “Honorary” title by the clan. And so without further delay, here’s the big announcment.

 

Let it be known to all the Quake players in the world that

Peter Dahlin’s

Quake Nickname has officially been changed from

FragBait

To

RoadKill

Let it be written, let it be done.
From a recently taken picture of Peter Dahlin accepting his new honorary title!!

Latest News: 01 June 1998

What happened to the Web site Updates?
Well, its been a while since I made and update of the page so perhaps its time for a little explanation. Last month was a difficult one as we wrapped up another round of Year 2000 testing at the office. This left me with no desire to look at computers during my spare time so many Fragtown projects were just put on hold for most of the month. This is probably ok since the play test team is into playing Unreal and Battlezone these days and Quake2 is barely being looked at while everyone tries out the new games. Perhaps we will start playing more Quake2 in the future once the newness of these programs wears off.

In addition, it now takes me about 40 minutes a day attempting to answer my email on fragtown questions and/or comments. When you add this to the hour or so I now spend on Sunday’s trying to update this web site, the spare time I have to work on the levels has gone down significantly. This is also why I can’t work with all of those people who want me to work on their TC projects (i.e. I get about three offers a month) because I just don’t have that much spare time. Believe me, I wish I had the time to work on all this stuff but the cost would be to stop working on Fragtown. So, the way I figure it, I will keep working on Fragtown and I will let others work on those other projects.

First thoughts on the latest PC Games
Another reason that I have had little time to do Quake stuff is because I have been playing some of the new PC games that have come out. So here’s some thoughts about some new games.

Unreal
Well, the jury is still out on this game. Colored lighting, Lens Flare and fantastic looking water and/or slime make this a joy to look at. The textures are cool looking and I wish I had this many textures to use for my quake efforts. While it looks impressive from a level builders perspective, the AI does not seem to live up to all of the hype that was put into that part of the game.

Of course, my old non mmx equipped P-150 with a monster video card has meet its match for gaming with this package. I have spent most of my time trying to adjust settings to get this package to run on my computer. It’s too bad the program couldn’t do more of these optimization for me.

BattleZone
I love this game, please give it a try!! Basically, the game pits the US against the Russians on distant planets fighting over who controls an alien material called “Bio Metal”. This material has given scientists a huge amount of additional technology and allowed each race to build anti-grav tanks. These tanks are the primary weapon used by each race to defend there remote outposts.

There are three modes the game can be played in. Single Player, Deathmatch and Strategic Deathmatch. Strategic Deathmatch allows you to build bases, factories, armories and fleets of tanks to battle your opponent with. Each tank can be equipped with a variety of weapons. Some tanks are designed to support beam type weapons while others are designed to support rocket fire. In addition, you can build defense turrets to protect your base and giant Walkers (i.e. MechWarrior type objects) to duke it out. All in all its a well done game and my hat is off to the design team.

PainKeep Fragtown
I made a mistake with last month’s news section. When I referred to the fragtown “PainKeep” project I mentioned that EvilHorace was heading it up. That’s not correct and the real person who is converting the maps is Quo Vadis. Sorry if this caused any confusion. Also, here’s the latest email I received from EvilHorace about the project.

Hi Bruce, I assume that you now have Painkeep? So here’s the latest map sent to me by Quo Vadis. I asked him again about a PK Fragtown7 and he said it’s too big to PKize. So-there’s now 2 PK Fragtown maps. Maybe you want to make them downloadable from your site? I don’t remember if I told you before-but the QW server that uses these PnK maps is: 208.140.93.100:27500. They’re presently running QW 2.10 though, so for anyone running the newer 2.20 or 2.21-they can’t join it, until these guys decide to upgrade. Quo Vadis told me that no one wants to upgrade yet-so, we’ll see? Talk to you later-John (EvilHorace).

Fragtown Servers
Cyclone sent me an email to let me know that his group has setup some servers to play Fragtown on. Check out the following locations and visit The Cage website

Thecage QuakeWorld Requiem Server 206.74.20.50:275
Thecage II “Sudden Death” QuakeWorld Server 206.74.20.54:27500

https://web.archive.org/web/20050217092031/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0698.html

Latest News: 26 July 1998

More Fragtown Servers
I received this email about another server location that is running Fragtown levels from Spacie earlier today.

hey man I am running your maps for QW and Q2 on my servers and I am getting a lot of feed back on them. When can we get more for Q2? They are truly great!

quake.pernet.net:27910 ~ Lithium
quake.perent.net:27600

Project Status
Hopefully, the wait for more Q2 Fragtown levels will not be much longer. I was originally planning on releasing the Hoboken project today for Quake 2 but I found another flaw that I want to fix before releasing the level. With luck, I should have that ready by next week. Also in the works are getting Fragtown Redmond (i.e. 16 player support) working for Q2 and creating a small tournament map that could be used by the people at TEN (i.e. Total Entertainment Network).

The tournament level went out for its first spin last night and seemed to be well received by my fellow clan mates of the Idaho Deathsquad Clan. Here’s a couple of photos from the new levels for you to look at. The first two pictures are from the new Cincinatti level and the last photo is from the new tournament level, code named “BLOCKWAR”. Please note that I am holding a BFG on the Cincinatti level and presently I am thinking about releasing this level with two .BSP files, one which includes the BFG and one without it on the level.

LavaCam demo files
Last night me and the “boys” decided to give the new “LavaCam” patch for quake2 a whirl. This patch basically moves the camera around the level every 4 seconds and follows a different player. It produces some really cool camera shots of the action during a deathmatch by taking a snapshot of the action from the closes deathmatch or intermission beam in point to the player that it is focused on at the time. Here’s a new demo recording of the clan in action for the Quake 2 version of Fragtown 3. Click here for Demo file . Enjoy!!

 

Latest News: 08 July 1998

More Fragtown Servers
This email message come in from Colonel Zerk about another Fragtown server. Be sure to check out his cool web site!! Thanks for your support Colonel Zerk!!

A full time Fragtown/ Demolition Man map server is being operated by Colonel ZerK of the clan xPOK on quake.theisp.net:27913. Visit his Web Site, the Files page, to get zips of any non-Fragtown maps that may be running.

Australian Fragtown Server in the works
Wow, I have gotten word that the TEN Australian server will also be featuring my levels on one of their servers in the near future. When I have more details, I will send them along to you!!

24,000 Hits since March!!!
I couldn’t believe it today when I saw the hit counter. Thanks to everyone for visiting the site and for the continued support via email. It really makes my day to hear that you guys like the levels…

 

Latest News: 02 July 1998

Happy Fourth of July!!
First of all, I would like to wish all of you a happy Fourth of July!! While I can’t treat you all to a personal fireworks display, you can check out the following link for a niffy firework’s Display for your computer. And to my friend Steven Dahlin, I will remind you that your Quake Rocket Launcher is not supposed to be used to celebrate the Fourth of July!! How many times do I have to tell you but its the grenade launcher that you want to use!!

Well, its nice to be back from vacation but I sure did have a good time at the Desert Rails 98 model train convention in Pasco, Washington. The show was great and the highlight for me was watching Doug Hole get his NMRA Master Modeler award at the show. Way to go Doug!!

Server Update
Many of you have been asking if there are any servers that are operational that feature the fragtown levels. You may be pleased to read the following email messages that I have received in the last few days about this topic.

—– Original Message—–
From: Sukhbir Sidhu [mailto:sukhbir@tenetwork.com]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 1998 1:41 PM
To: bober@micron.net
Subject: Fragtown maps on TEN

Bruce,
We plan to put your Fragtown Maps for Quake II up on TEN tomorrow morning. We made a small setup program that installs the maps, textures, and readme’s for each map, and I made sure your name and URL was listed on the first screen of the setup program. I hope you can log on tomorrow and check them out.

Thanks for letting us make your excellent maps available for play on TEN! If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Regards,
Sukhbir Sidhu aka ‘alien’ on TEN
Producer
Total Entertainment Network

When I asked if it was ok to put this information up on the web site, I got the following response.

Bruce,

Heck yeah, feel free to put up a link! The most appropriate link is http://www.ten.net/games/quake2/ or you can just link to www.ten.net.

If you need a logo or something, I can dig one up for you. Also, how do you feel about taking part in a contest night (“Demolish Demolition Man!” or perhaps something clever or even witty ;) where you take on players on the Fragtown levels and teach them a lesson? If you, or your test crew, are interested, let me know and I can arrange a time/date/web page/prizes, etc. BTW, the Fragtown Maps are doing great on TEN…you can always find a ft map game at any time, and they’re a lot of fun. later,

– sukhbir

Demolish Demolition Man?? Not on your life!! But you can give it a try as I accept the challenge!! I will have more details once we work out the details.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050216235248/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0798.html

Latest News: 23 August 1998

Thunder’s lan party
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to attend Thunders Lan party here in Boise, Idaho and the action from 25 deathmatching machines was amazing!! If you ever get a chance to go to a large Quake lan party you wont regret it. My only problem was that after 10 hours of deathmatching, my trigger finger wore out!!

Fragtown 16 beta testing
This weekend, I finally got a chance to try out Fragtown 16 (i.e. 16 player level – Redmond) and it seemed to go pretty good. There are a few texture problems that need to be worked out, more ammo/health is needed and I want to add some more ladders so that you can get to more of the rooftops. Speed wise, it worked pretty well for most folks at the lan party with the exception of one guy playing with a P-120. Hopefully, I will be able to get this level wrapped up in the next few weeks and it will probably be renamed to Fragtown 8. The 16 part was intended to tell people that the level had been designed for 16 players. After hearing for the last year about those missing levels (i.e. 9 thru 15), I have decided to end the debate once and for all. Special thanks goes out to Clan 21+ which has beta testing the level and has sent me some good comments about this project.

New FAQ page added to the web site
It seems to me that there are some questions that people constantly email me about and so I created the FAQ to answer some of those questions. I plan on adding to it each week until I have covered most of your frequently asked questions. Please check it out.

IdcBase3 nearing completion
Here’s another one of those project that I have been working on that isn’t a Fragtown level. I hope to get this level tested this weekend and perhaps even release it next Sunday. Here’s a sneak peak at what is to come…

Latest News: 09 August 1998

Fragtown Textures zip file for Quake 2
Many people have commented that they are having troubles with the textures files that have to be included with the Quake 2 versions of the levels. The main problem seems to be that the Windows 95 long file names causes some problems with unzipping programs like Pkzip. First, if your having trouble, try using WinZip and if your still having trouble, here is a zip file FragText.zip with every textures that I currently have on the old hard disk. Hopefully, this will solve the problem.

Quake 2 versions of Fragtown 16 and Fragtown 9 in Beta testing
I managed to send out copies of both Fragtown 16 (i.e. Redmond) and Fragtown 9 (i.e. Cincinatti) off to some of the beta testers last week. Hopefully I will be getting some meaningful comments back from them soon as to what I need to do to improve these levels. Btw, the Redmond project was originally designed to support 16 players on Quake 1 so hopefully we can have some BIG death match games on Quake 2 in the future.

Fragtown Server page now available
Check out the new Fragtown sever web page. If you know of anyone who is running a Fragtown server and is not on this list, please get them to contact me so that we can give them some free advertising.

Battle Royal planned for August 22
If you live in the Boise, Idaho area a major Quake 2 battle is being planned for August 22 and we are looking for more players. Right now, the infamous Phase2 and IDC clans are going to get together at this meet and it should result in a wild Fragfest. Of course, the IDC clan will come out on top as always….

IDCBase 1 now available for Quake 2
I realize that this isn’t a Fragtown level but what the heck, the my local clan (i.e. IDC) considers this level to be one of our personnel favorites. I present to you my latest version of Idcbase 1 for Quake 2.

 

Latest News: 02 August 1998

Fragtown CTF now available for Quake 2
Well, its been a long time since I actually released anything new for Quake2 but the wait it over. Here is Fragtown CTF (i.e. Hoboken) project which can be played in either CTF mode or regular death match mode on a LAN or via the internet.

Fragtown Servers
I will be putting up a web page on this site for people who have gone to the trouble of setting up Quake and Quake2 servers that are running the Fragtown levels. So if you have a server and want your site mentioned on the page just send me an email and I will get the information up there ASAP. This message also came in from Colornal Zerk who mentions that he needs more players on his site.

ZerK@Mindspring.Com
http://www.mindspring.com/~wwilkinson/reallife.htm
http://surf.to/zerks
Servers-quake.theisp.net:27500,27910,27913,22450

SinCity
I got to play my first Death match game on SinCity last night and I was very impressed by the demo that they have released. Great work guys!! I can’t wait to see what’s in the final package.

Another LavaCam demo
Last night me and the “boys” decided to give the new “LavaCam” patch for Quake2 a whirl. This patch basically moves the camera around the level every 4 seconds and follows a different player. It produces some really cool camera shots of the action during a death match by taking a snapshot of the action from the closes death match or intermission beam in point to the player that it is focused on at the time. Here’s a new demo recording of the clan in action for the Quake 2 version of Fragtown 2. Click here for Demo file . Enjoy!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20050216115018/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0898.html

Latest News: 25 September 1998

Fragtown 8 now available for Quake 2!!
Are you ready for a large number of players battling in Fragtown?? If so, this level is for you. The Redmond level is designed to be run on a dedicated sever and it should support 8+ people at one time. Special thanks goes out to Spacie ,Brandon and all the folks at Clan 21+ for there help in testing this level. Enjoy.

Fragtown 8 – Redmond for Quake 2.

Fragtown Release Party
Since the Redmond level has now been released with a lot of help from the guys at Clan 21+, a little lan party is being planned to celebrate the event. The plan is to meet at the Clan 21+ server on October 6th. I will have more information about the event once a few more details have been worked out. Stay tuned.

Project status
Well, there’s some good news on this front this month. Fragtown levels 8 and 9 are nearing completion and may be released as soon as two week from today. These will represent the first NEW Fragtown levels in month so I hope you like them.

After these levels are released, I will be turning my attention to converting Fragtown levels 5,6 and 7 to Quake2. Beta versions of these levels are already in the works so I hope to finish up level 5 sometime around the end of October.

 

Latest News: 21 October 1998

And Bad News….
Well, this is a real difficult thing for me to say. I have been working on Fragtown (and Idcbase) levels during my spare time for almost two years now and something has happened which has placed the series of levels in danger of not being completed. And what could possible do that you ask?

Simple. My clan no longer plays Quake or Quake 2.

I guess it was bound to happen. So perhaps you can understand that my enthusiasm has dropped signnificantly for working on any of the remaining projects.

Quake 2 versions of Fragtown 16 and Fragtown 9 in Beta testing
I managed to send out copies of both Fragtown 16 (i.e. Redmond) and Fragtown 9 (i.e. Cincinatti) off last month to some of the beta testers. Hopefully I will be getting some meaningful comments back from them soon as to what I need to do to improve these levels.

IDCBase 3 now available for Quake 2
I realize that this isn’t a Fragtown level but what the heck, the my local clan (i.e. IDC) considers this level to be one of our personnel favorites. I present to you my latest version of Idcbase 3 for Quake 2.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050216071328/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News0998.html

Latest News: 25 October 1998

Another shot at an Internet Party
Well, last month I tried to set up a LAN battle with the kind folks at Clan21+ and our timing didn’t work out to well. With a little luck we will be able to have the Fragtown battle today at 4:00 CNT. Please join us if you can.

server address quake.pernet.net:27910

Additional information can be found at the following web sites
http://www.gibbed.com/21plus/news.html

Good News. New Fragtown levels available for Quake 2
Sorry about the delay this month in getting an update for the web site. However, this might make the wait worthwhile. Here is the latest levels in the Fragtown series

Fragtown 9 – Cincinnati for Quake 2.

Fragtown 10 – Santa Fe for Quake 2.

And the Bad News…..
This month has been a strange one for me. I am coming close to my second anniversary on producing Quake levels and something has happened which threaten the ending of my level development. And what could end my desire to create levels you ask??

Simple. My clan no longer plays Quake or Quake 2.

I guess it was bound to happen someday. The clan has now moved on to playing Rainbow Six and my computer isn’t fast enough to play the game. This puts me in a very strange position and has plummeted my enthusiasm for building Quake levels to an all time low. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050215004245/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News1098.html

Latest News: 28 November 1998

Project Status
During the last month I have been working on Fragtown 5, Fragtown 7 and IDCbase 2 levels. Fragtown 5 is currently in Beta testing and it will probably be released as soon as I can get some comments from the beta testers. Fragtown 7 is slowly improving but still runs a bit slow on my P-150. Idcbase 2 will be going in for another round of testing this evening if all goes well. Here’s some pictures of IDCbase2 for your enjoyment.

Also, don’t forget to get last month’s levels
Fragtown 9 – Cincinnati for Quake 2.
Fragtown 10 – Santa Fe for Quake 2.

Hello Clan 21+
As many of you may already know, my local clan is moving away from Quake and Quake 2 to play other games like Rainbow Six and Delta Force. Because of this move, I have decided to join the wonderful folks over at Clan21+ Check out there web site for more detail on the this great clan.

Is there a new PC in Demolition Man’s Future??
Yes sports fans, it true. Demolition Man is currently working on creating a new computer based on the Celeron 300A chip. The new machine is to be equipped with a Monster 2 graphics card with 12meg ram so it should be a screamer when it comes to playing quake!! More details next time

https://web.archive.org/web/20050214161446/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News1198.html

Latest News: 27 December 1998

New Levels for the New Year!!
Ok, here are two new levels for your Quake2 playing enjoyment. I present Fragtown 5 – Dallas and Idcbase 2 – The Hanger. Enjoy!!

Fragtown 5 – Dallas for Quake 2.
IdcBase2 – The Hanger for Quake 2.

Demolition Man’s New PC
Yes Sport Fans, Demolition Man’s new PC is on-line!! The new machine is a Celeron 300a with a Voodoo 2 graphics accelerator board. It clocks in at 54 frames per second at 800 x 600 resolution before any over clocking is done!! Fragtown 5 compiled in about 20 minutes on the new machine versus an 1.5 hours on the old P-150. I like it!!

And now for the Bad News…..
I don’t know why these things keep happening to me. Maybe it’s just that 1998 isn’t my year. As of today I am putting all activities on this site on hold because my mother had a Stroke earlier this month. This event will require all of my spare time and hopefully in a few months I will be able to return to level building and Web site updating. Also, if you have sent me email recently and I have not responded, please understand that it’s nothing personnel.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050212103704/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/News1298.html

Latest News: 29 May 1999

Fragtown 6 is now available for Quake 2!!
Well, here it is at long last!! I have been plagued with computer problems during the month of April which slowed down development. In addition, the IRS had a little chore for me to do which kept me busy for part of last month… Anyway, I hope you enjoy this new toy for Quake 2.

Fragtown 6 – Pirates Cove for Quake 2.

Idcbase 5 rolls out of the shops
Here’s another new level toy that is now available. I hope you like it!!

Idcbase 5 – Outpost on Ceti Alpha 5 for Quake 2.

What’s next?
Now that Fragtown 6 and Idcbase5 are wrapped up, I will be taking a vaction from the deathmatch level building world for awhile. I really don’t have anything in development that I think should be released so I feel that taking some time and re-charging my creative batteries is in order. Anyway, thanks again for all of your support for this project. I am glad that so many of you have enjoyed my work over the years.

Bruce Oberleitner (i.e. Demolition Man)
Boise, Idaho

 

Latest News: 05 May 1999

Fragtown 7 is now available for Quake 2!!
Well, here it is at long last!! I have been plagued with computer problems during the month of April which slowed down development. In addition, the IRS had a little chore for me to do which kept me busy for part of last month… Anyway, I hope you enjoy this new toy for Quake 2. Fragtown 6 will be coming soon now that the PC is working again.

Fragtown 7 – Battlefield Chicago for Quake 2.

 

Latest News: 01 April 1999

Demolition Man Returns!!
Well, it’s been a LONG time since I was able to get an update out to the old web site. As many of you may already know, my mother had a Stroke on December 18, 1998 and since then it has been up to me to take care of her. This has caused a tremendous slow down on all of my level building since the amount of spare time that I have had until recently has been very limited. However, I would like to thanks all of up who sent email during the last few months. Your kind words have helped me through a very difficult time in my life.

Fragtown 6 and 7 Progress Notes
The good news is that starting last month, I began getting back to my old tricks. I have recently been testing beta copies of Fragtown 6 and 7 and I have received a lot of favorable comments on those levels from the play test team. I think that these levels will be ready sometime during the month of April as we put the finishing touches on those projects. To wet your appetite a little, here are some snapshots of Fragtown 6 and 7 as they stand today. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge the image.

If you own the Blues Brothers original soundtrack CD, you will now hear “Sweet Home Chicago” when you play Fragtown7. It turns out to be some great background music.

Idcbase4 is now available
Here’s a new level that I hope that you will enjoy. The idea for this little monster came to me one evening while driving back home from the Hospital way back in December of last year. It’s a small level designed from about 4 people based around a nuclear power planet on some distant world. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge the image.

IdcBase4 – The Vantanna Nuclear Power Plant for Quake 2.

Ouch! That hurt!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20010802085336/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/fragtown.html

Frequently Asked Questions

I seem to be missing some of the Fragtown textures for Quake 2. What went wrong??
Typically, the *.WAL files are included within the zip package for the level. Sometimes people run into trouble if they have used PKZIP to unzip the file because this program does not support Windows 95 long file names. I suggest that you use WINZIP instead.

Another problem could be that you have installed the textures into the wrong directory. Assuming that Quake 2 is installed in the c:\quake2 directory, you should have a c:\quake2\baseq2\textures directory and the *.wal files should be copies into that directory. Make sure that this is the case.

Lastly, I might have missed included a *.wal file when I built the package in the first place. Please recheck the zip file and if you are still missing a texture file, please let me know which level you downloaded and what texture is missing so that I can change the level zipfile. You can download a complete set of textures by using the following link

Complete texture set for Quake 2 – FragText.zip

We are making a Quake modification and would like you to be our level editor.
First of all, thanks for the HUGE compliment. Being asked to be a level editor for a modification is a great honor as far as I am concerned. The only problem is that unless its a paying position so that I can quit my regular job, the answer at this time has to be no. The reason for this is that I barely have time to keep the Fragtown project alive and the only way that I could join your team would be if I ended the Fragtown level project. At this point, I am not ready to do this.

Can I use your textures in my Quake patch??
I would love to let you guys use them but, they are not my textures!! If you look at the read me file that comes with the levels, you might note that the textures originally came from the Doom wad file named “Trinity” and the textures belong to that author. Sorry, but I can not give you permission to use something that I don’t own in the first place.

I have been playing some of your Q1 maps and found some bad spawn/texture placement in the levels. Are there any updates available that correct these problems??
Your right, there are problems with spawn point/textures problems with those maps. The only trouble is that if I release another version of the level, how do I insure that everyone gets a copy of the new version?? This really becomes a problem when you consider that the levels have been released on CD-ROM and have been available on a number of web sites in the past. I have been thinking about this for over a year and still haven’t come to a good resolution to the problem. Please note that I am trying to convert these levels to Quake 2 and I am making my best attempt to fix these problems.

What ever happened to Fragtown 8 thru 15?? It looks like Fragtown 7 and Fragtown 16 were created but were are those missing levels??
Well, this is kind of a funny story. I originally got an email from a guy who wanted to have a REALLY big Fragtown level that would support 32 players. While I did try my best to create such a level, the map would only support 16 players tops. So, the level was released as Fragtown 16 because it was a reference to the fact that it could support 16 players. I suspect that once the Quake 2 version of this level is completed that I will rename it Fragtown 8 to avoid any future confusion.

Btw, who would be able to have a lan big enough to support 32 players?? Well, there is a reason that the name of the level is REDMOND. I wonder what big company is located there??

Will you ever make a PAK file for Quake2??
It’s been talked about but right now I am spending my time trying to get the levels converted to Quake2.

Will you be making maps for Unreal, Sin, Half-life or Quake3?? Also, will you convert these levels to those games??
I plan on making Quake 3 maps in the future and possible some for Sin but those are the only games I plan to work on right now. Will I be converting maps to those games, the answer probably will be no since it just takes to much time. Right now, it takes TWICE as long to convert a map that it take to build a new one because of the differences in the game engines. For example, I like adding ladders to Quake 2 maps and that wasn’t so easy with Quake 1. Also, the old maps come with a lot of problems because I wasn’t very good with the level building tools as I am nowadays.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050209192914/http://planetquake.com:80/fragtown/FragFaq.html

Gibfest ’99
A Boise tradition since 1994

Hello and welcome to the Gibfest ’99 web site. Gibfest is a new concept in the Quake Lan parties in that it is not held once or twice a year, but every weekend!! The party is open to anyone who wants to attend and if you have a computer, bring it along with you. We normally play Quake2, Rainbow Six, Tribes and Starseige but we have been known to play other games as well. Pizza is usually available during the evening for those who didn’t have time for dinner

Saturdays 4:00pm – 11:30pm (or later) MDT

https://web.archive.org/web/19991004110226/http://www.planetquake.com:80/fragtown/gibfest.html