posted by jayP 5/3/10

I just want to lay out what happened from our perspective in this season’s BiBS game and why we ultimately decided to leave BiBS.  This is not meant as a list of excuses for our loss, or an attack on FILP as a clan. The purpose of this article is to explain what happened and why we ultimately decided to leave BiBS.

Some of what happened was clearly bad judgment on our part. A big part of it I’ll take the blame for because I was there and did not stop it, when I know I should have. I’m not proud of our choices on that game because I think we went against a principle we have tried to maintain since LQ was formed way back in the late 90’s.

Again, I'm describing what happened not as an attempt to slam FILP or make excuses for a loss. We've lost games before, (and will again I'm sure) this is about a sense of unfairness we felt at the time of the match and ultimately about our own failings as a clan in addressing that sense of unfairness. What follows is the background under which we started that game and is presented to give context to our actions.

We were set to play FILP as our first match of the second season of BiBS; right from the start setting the match up was difficult. FILP wanted to play the games late night between 11PM and 12AM which was not something we were able to accommodate as most of our guys work during the day or have other commitments that require them to get up early. Apparently FILP wanted their west coast players to play and could not have players available at an earlier time.

Basically we could not reach a mutually agreeable time so we needed to get a ruling from HomicidalWaffle on a default match time. The match was set for Sunday at 9PM.  When we entered the game server BiBS admins, Effortless and HomicidalWaffle were in attendance to oversee the match.

One of the first things we noticed was that Effortless was sporting a FILP tag (I found out later that he was ringing for FILP earlier in a PU), at the time, this really made us wonder about the level of impartiality of our BiBS admin.  After the game I learned later that Mr. Green was a BiBS admin as well, in addition to playing in the match for FILP. An amazing situation were the people enforcing the rules are playing in the game itself.

Next issue to resolve was what server to play on. We suggested Chicago and they suggested Texas. We went and checked pings on a Chicago server and a Texas server to compare pings. When I looked at our relative ping on Texas in pre-game warm-up I saw FILP with wintersorrow in the low 40’s and the rest (Jovier, Mr, Green and luh8) all in the sixties; LQ had me (jayP) at 77-81 and the rest (tox|c, reflex and fear) in the 60’s (although fear has said he was spiking pretty badly).

In Chicago the pings were more in our favor, but it seemed like the differences between the teams pings were greater. I can concede this point that if we played Texas and our pings that were recorded in pre-game warm-up with FILP at 40,60, 60, 60 and LQ at 80,60,60,60 the team pings were closer than in Chicago.

The problem is that once the game began, Jovier’s ping dropped to the 40’s. So in effect the ping balance, which favored FILP already, suddenly got all that much better for them. We played our first match on Ironworks and predictably got beaten pretty badly.  

FILP plays Texas servers all the time; it’s basically their home turf. We on the other hand have two players (jayP and Tox|c) in Massachusetts and Toronto with terrible routing to Texas. It’s remarkable that the BiBS admins did not seem to notice the change in the ping balance once the game began.

But that brings me back to Effortless wearing a FILP tag when he entered the server. Part of why the sight of a BiBS admin joining the server with our opponents tag on was so disturbing to us was that Effortless and Fear have had ongoing tensions between them, culminating in Effortless threatening to have Fear removed from our roster and Fear banning him from our public channel. I’m not sure of the history of their tensions and I won’t comment on that; I bring it up because all of this sets the background for our poor judgment that resulted in Avenged and reflex getting banned from both BiBS and Quakelive.

Back to the BiBS match, after our game on the Texas server, we really felt pretty strongly that there was no point in playing on Texas because we felt it was basically a gift from the BiBS admins to FILP. We were getting screwed and we knew it. So, second game FILP agrees to play us on Chicago; they switch in one of their extra players (xpo) and we play Troubled Waters; our worst map. We’ve always had difficulty on that map, but remarkably we won that game.

FILP complained to the admins and we got sent back to play Texas again (no surprise). At this point, reflex announces that he has to leave. This puts us in a shitty position because we have nobody to replace him. Without reflex, we would be forced to forfeit the game. Nobody wanted that on our record, but at the same we knew we were going to lose the next game because we would be playing on Texas. Either way things were not going to be good for us.

This is when we screwed up. Here is where we forgot our basic code of honor and did something stupid that tarnished our name. I’m not sure who floated the idea first, but somebody suggested we have avenged log in using reflex’s account so we can finish the game. Avenged wasn’t on our roster for BiBS so we knew in order to get him to play he’d have to use a different account. Our thinking was that we could at least avoid a forfeit.

This of course was a stupid idea. One that seemed to make sense at the time, but in looking back, I know it was a fundamental betrayal of everything we have tried to maintain in LQ’s long history as a clan. I regret the decision that we made because we lowered ourselves when we should not have. We should have accepted the forfeit and walked way.

However that is not what we did, we went ahead and played the game with Avenged using reflex’s account; and (no surprise) Effortless notices the ping difference in reflex and guesses that Avenged is playing under reflex’s account. He lets us know that he will be reporting this to syncerror and within a few days Avenged and Reflex are banned from Quakelive.

I’m not going to make excuses for what we did, it was clearly wrong on our part to switch accounts to play that game. I will say that at the time we felt like we were getting screwed on server selection and that BiBS admins were not there to be impartial.

That sense of being treated unfairly colored our thinking that night and set the backdrop for us to not live up to our own ideals. This is what I regret the most about that whole night. The match loss was forgettable, but our actions and the fallout from it will linger, because we ultimately decided to forget our own values and play a game under dishonest circumstances.

I’m posting this on our front page in a very public way to try to get us back to our fundamental belief in being honest and to try to put us back on the correct path. It’s only in being able to look at ourselves and acknowledge the flaws or missteps that we’ve made that we are able to move on and grow beyond our mistakes. I make no excuses for how we acted. There are no true excuses. I can just say with confidence that it will never happen again.

That said, it is the feeling that BiBS is not set up, or run in a way that is impartial that ultimately made us decide to drop out of the league. When the team we face has one BiBS admin on its roster playing in the match (Mr. Green) and another BiBS admin (Effortless), shows up wearing our opponents tag to oversee the games, any illusion of fairness is stripped away.

I think the results of this whole mess further illustrate the general favoritism that FILP enjoyed.  While I again acknowledge our wrongdoing I don’t feel the punishment of a game wide ban by id software is warranted for a stupid decision on our part.  I think a league ban is understandable and reasonable in this circumstance, having our players banned from the game smacks of administrative overreach. 

I think as a rule BiBS admins should not be allowed to play in games or be allowed on the server when their clan is involved in a game. If BiBS wants to have some semblance of credibility it should implement this as a guideline for admins. We’ve scrimmed FILP a number of times without incident in the past (none of those scrims were in Texas BTW) it’s remarkable to me that this one game could have spun so far out of control, but I suppose when the people in charge of the league are actually playing in the game bullshit like this will happen.

We felt that we were set up to fail on that game by supposedly fair rulings that always seemed to give advantages to our opponents. Rather than continue, we opted to vote with our feet and chose not to participate. Our thinking is that there will always be other leagues; there is no reason to participate in one that seems less than impartial.  

posted by jayP 4/26/10

We'd like to extend a warm welcome to our latest addition to the team LQ|Antic_.

A long time Quake 3 player, antic_ is known for his beastly presence in mid and knack for frustrating the hopes and dreams of offense players everywhere. We're pretty psyched to have him aboard to round out our team and look forward to many good games with him.

posted by jayP 4/13/10

We faced off against PH8Emoticon in the grand finals of the Instawars iCTF tourney last night. We didn't get the win, but we felt we played well in spite of the instability of our starting line up. It was a good game either way and we were happy to participate in the games. Congratz go out to PH8emoticon for a good win. GGZ to all

As always, screenshot are below:

posted by jayP 3/17/10

LQ faced off against /RUN in round 3 of the losers bracket this evening and went 2-0 securing the win for out team. Early in the first map, Ironworks /RUN took the lead forcing us to rethink our positions. We adjusted and were able to pull out a win crawling back from a 3 point deficit to take the win.

Second map was Courtyard Conundrum, we kept with our game plan from the previous match and brought home the win. This match puts us in the finals to face the winner of the winners bracket, PH8Emoticon.

PH8 is the team that dropped us down to the losers bracket, so we're looking forward to facing them again in the finals. Should be a good game. Here are the screenies of the match:

posted by jayP 3/17/10

Congratulations to Blatrix for taking third place at the LAN ETS Quake Live tornament. Since 2001, LAN ETS has been Quebec's largest LAN event, hosting over 700 participants.

posted by jayP 3/10/10

LQ took it to +back a.k.a Back-Peddlers last night in round two of the losers bracket at the "Instawars" iCTF tournament. Round three will bring us head to head with /RUN who recently defeated their round two opponents O2 a.k.a Optimal Obliteration. I see /RUN o the servers quite a bit, should be a good game.

Here are the screenies:

posted by jayP 3/1/10

Bane posted in the private forum some photos of the Lords of Quake stickers he had made up, emblazoned on his truck. I thought the pics kicked ass so I decided to toss them up here to share some of the LQ sexiness.

Check it out:

posted by jayP 2/22/10

We are tentatively set to play Blight tonight at 9:30 pm EST. The time is flexible so those who are playing should plan to be available in vent between 9 and 10PM, or at least be idling in our channel so we can get organized for tonights match.

Good luck guys!

posted by jayP 2/22/10

A warm welcome to our latest addition to the team,[LQ] gRoo. Known for his impenetrable flag defense Groo hails from the now inactive ( or dead), Lights Out clan. Prior to that he was a member of [eM] along with fellow LQ members fear, reflex and wasabi_. We're happy to have him aboard and look forward to bringing the pain in future matches.

posted by jayP 1/26/10

We just added [LQ]wasabi_, formerly of eM, and more recently from Lights-Out to our roster. Wasabi_ is a close friend of [LQ] and former new guy, [LQ]fear. We're psyched to have him with us and look forward to future matches, scrims and other various forms of mayhem which we regularly enjoy .

posted by jayP 1/26/10

This must be the day for video content because Blatrix just passed the word that he has released the the final version of a frag video he's been working on for quite some time. Not to be out done Rapture jumped in on the project and worked up an original track to accompany Blatrix's frag video. I have to say I'm impressed with the results, check it:

posted by jayP 1/26/10

QL.tv just released the high quality VOD's of our three way scrim with FilP and Soy, If you missed the games or would just like to check out the matches again you can find it here.

posted by jayP 1/19/10

LQ took part in a 3 clan scrim organized and shoutcast on QL.tv last night. The other teams participating were FilP and Soy. We were able to shut out both teams going undefeated in our matches. Our vent channel was electric as we sealed the deal on our last game against Soy on Ironworks; taking them into overtime and cementing our 4-0 win streak.

Playing for us was Avenged, Blatrix, Rapture and Staind. Going into the games the team was relaxed and confident having warmed up with clan IDK earlier. There was great anticipation for this match after our disappointing showing in the first AYB competition were we lost to FiLP. We went into that match unprepared with no warm up and were handily beaten by FiLP. We took last night game as a kind of vindication for that earlier loss were we felt we had played below our normal level.

I haven't gotten the screenshot yet, but once I get them I'll post them here.

EDIT: Just got the screenies

posted by jayP 1/15/10

The other day I was exposed to some of Rapture's music, apparently for the last ten years or so Rapture's been creating his own original hip hop music under the name Obsoleet. I have to say it's some pretty bad-ass shit I've uploaded a few of his songs to his members page for anyone who's interested to check out.

posted by jayP 1/13/10

I just noticed on the forums that we are signed up for QL.TV's "All Your Base - King of the Hill style CTF". The fun starts tonight at 9pm EST, anyone that wants to play should be in vent or in IRC so we can organize this and know who's playing.

posted by jayP 1/8/10

Using promises of access to our fabled Dave Mathews / Incubus mp3 archives we've managed to lure fear_ to our clan. Fear_'s been in the community for many years tearing it up with clan eM in Q3 and later with Lights-Out in QL. In addition to being a fixture in all things Quake, he's currently a contributor over at QuakeLive.tv bringing commentary and shoutcasting to the table.

We're happy to have [LQ]fear_ with us and look forward to scrims and other general mayhem with our new bro', especially at our upcoming gamecube lan party (lol).

posted by jayP 12/15/09

Looks like Blatr1x, our resident frenchmen has taken the top spot on the GGL/AGP online Duel ladder. Check it out. Just click the "Ladders" link to see the standings.

posted by jayP 12/15/09

Game is set for tomorrow at 10PM EST. The match will be shoutcast so bring your popcorn :]

EDIT: Looks like Kitten quit as the North American BiBS admin. So we're not quite sure what is going to happen with the play off games. There is a good chance there will be no playoffs now unless we hear something about how the play-offs are suppose to happen.

posted by jayP 12/14/09

Lords of Quake defeated Paramedics 2-1 in our last match up in the BiBS QuakeLive CTF league, earning us the division 2 title. The matches started off on Ironworks were we secured a strong 4-0 victor, and then to Troubled Waters were Paramedics came out strong doing a great job of controlling mid and taking the map for a 2-1 victory. The tie-breaker map was Siberia were Paramedics took an early lead securing the first cap of the game. Our team rallied after that locking down Quad for the majority of the remaining game and came through with a hard fought 2-1 victory and gaining us the top slot in our division. My understanding of the BiBS play-offs is that the div 2 and div 3 champions( Fire In the Hole) will face off to earn a shot at the division 1 champions (Who Run It). As always I'll post the results here on our front page.

Screenshots are below:

posted by jayP 12/11/09

Well, as a result of miscommunication, Paramedics were not ready for our scheduled match so we have rescheduled our final BiBS match for Sunday 12/13/09 at 10PM EST. Anyone playing try to get in vent early so we can avoid any unnecessary problems. Again,...Good luck guys.

posted by jayP 12/07/09

Our next and final BiBS match has been scheduled for Wed 12/9/09 at 10PM EST. Anyone playing try to get in vent early so we can avoid any unnecessary problems. Good luck guys.

posted by jayP 12/07/09

Sunday night LQ faced off against FILP (Fuck it Let's Play) on the BiBS Division 2 tourney. We've played FiLP numerous times in the past and they've always been a solid team to play against. Last night was no exception. We came out on top this time but the games were both close with a 1 point spread on Siberia and a 2 point spread on Ironworks. A very "Good Game" extended to the guys at FILP a close game as always.

Screenshots are below:

posted by jayP 12/04/09

Our team went 2-0 over Pipeline last night in the BiBS CTF division 2 tournament. The maps played were Ironworks were we secured a dominating 8-0 win and Courtyard Conundrum which went into overtime without a score from either team. We managed to get the winning cap5 minutes into overtime. Pipeline was pretty solid on that map, props to them for a good game on Courtyard.

Screenshots are below:

posted by jayP 11/29/09

I just got the word from Rhythm That our next BiBs match is scheduled for Thursday 12/3/09 at 10pm EST. Everyone playing please set the time aside for the match and gather on vent early so we can work out any last minute problems.

posted by jayP 11/27/09

Oh how sweet it is! You may recall in our previous BiBs match a few week back we were to face clan Hof in a Division 2 match up that was to be aired on QL.TV. That night ended up as a mad cluster-fuck as Hof decided to go AFK for our match and left us hanging. We ended up agreeing to face off against Division 1 team Lights Out in an impromptu scrim that ended up being an epic series of games that dragged into overtime

We left that scrim bloodied, but in our minds unbeaten. We felt pretty damn good about dragging a division 1 team in the mud and forcing them to deal with us as a legitimate team. We felt that we gained a measure respect with that game and that we would scrim lights out again and the story would be different.

Well earlier this evening myself (jayP), Blatr1x, Staind and Deathr0w got that chance and faced off against Lights Out on Ironworks, trouncing them 5-1.As they say "Screenshot or it didn't happen", so feast your eyes on this bitches :]

Yeah I know it was just a scrim, so it means nothing; but the victory was too sweet not to celebrate with a posting on our front page :]

posted by jayP 11/23/09

LQ's resident French Canadian is putting on his directors hat and jumping into the perilous world of frag videos. He's compiling demo footage from our matches, scrims and inner-scrims to come up with a 10 minute frag video of LQ kickn' it were it hurts. Blatr1x has hooked us up with a taste of the what's to come with this short teaser.

Check it out:

posted by jayP 11/14/09

Chainsaw posted in our forums today that he will no longer be maintaining our channel on Enterthegame. I'll change our banner to reflect this change soon. We started on the ETG network in the early days of Quake 3 and all the way through Quake IV. Once Quake Live launched and we made the decision to move away from Q4, the Quake Live team started a channel on Gamesurge were the majority of the North American Quake Live community seemed to be. Farewell ETG its been fun!

posted by jayP 11/11/09

Our team faced of against Kittens Litter last night in game 3 of the Bring it Back Safely Quake Live CTF Tourney. Currently we are 3-0 in our quest to take the Division two title. GGZ extended to KL. Screenshots are below :]

REMINDER: We have a game scheduled with FiTH tonight at 9:30 PM EST for the GGL ladder, anyone playing needs to be available for warm-up by 9:00.

posted by jayP 11/10/09

Just a heads up we have our 3rd BiBS match scheduled for 10PM EST tonight (tuesday-11/10/09) with Kittens Litter.

Tomorrow (wednesday-11/11/09) we have a match with FiTH on the GGL ladder scheduled at 9:30 PM EST.

Try to be on vent early for any warm ups that might take place.

posted by jayP 11/10/09

Just wanted to announce two new additions to our team. A big welcome to [LQ]deathr0w and [LQ]_reflex we're happy to have them with us and look forward to working with them in our upcoming matches and scrims :]

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