I started with Quake during the QTest era, almost 11 years ago (holy crap I feel old). Back then I was still living in Moscow and being the little computer-addicted child that I was, I often frequented my dad's workplace where they had a bunch of programmers working on computers on a big LAN. These guys introduced me to QTest and multiplayer deathmatch the week it was released :)

Sometime later I moved to Finland with my family and the son of my dad's coworker introduced me to Quake shareware and I became interested in level design pretty much a few weeks of playing the full game on my 486 dx/33 laptop :)

I released my first Quake map titled "Dark, Blue, Scary..." using IKBlue textures sometime in 1997 (I think) and this was also around the time I found this community although by now I can't remember what name it went by at that point in time (Peej 'n Frib's, QBoard, Qmap are all mixed up in my mind) and I also got hooked on #terrafusion. The map was crap, had a leak (so it was not VISed) but I got totally hooked on creating my own virtual worlds.

I made 3 Quake 2 maps and at that point, my interest was stolen by Unreal, so I spent a long time mapping for that (5 SP maps and 5 DM maps released). I had a serious mappers block for a rather long period and when it was gone, I got back into Quake because no new FPS games could keep my interest for a long time, this was around early 2003.

I started playing QuakeWorld every day and got back into mapping. Contributed to the 1000brush DKT-themed map pack, released "Apinaraivo / Monkey Rage" Q1SP in early 2005 and a DM version of that same map ("Enraged") with some help from Bambuz in early 2006.

Wow, my fingers hurt after all this typing :D 

IMO:

Quake is the best single player computer/video game ever.
It was the best when it was released 10 years ago, and its still the best today. 

quakeworld is the best multiplayer game. It's best when you are playing opponents of your own skill level. 

multiplayer game is real real real fun, but since my kid born i lost all the practic and now almost all kick my ass real bad :| :) but 2 years ago i found out quake single player comunity that are real great (scampie out :p) 

Yes, I was drunk. 

I still play Quake. Just on my xbox these days. Good control, looks very sharp. Loads faster then hell. QuakeX is the must have addition to Quake. 

I remember my first impressions werent that great, I too liked duke3d better. But the more I played the shareware version, the mor eit grew on me. The monsters were evil, the locations were moody and the 3d thing finally hit me.

after that, matt sefton's site provided hours of fun and the great work rom you guys in the later years has made it arguably the best purchase I ever made. 

Man this brings back memories!

Did the annual "stick my nick names in to google and see what comes out" manouvre and found my way here. Nice to see some names I recognise still kicking about!

Happy birthday Quake! You're still my favorite multiplayer game :)

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I'm putting together my own game now, coding it from scratch. If anyone's interested have a look at http://www.nunswithguns.net. It hasn't been updated in a while :/

I shall bookmark this site!

Edd/HC 

My first time:

I saw a Quake shareware CD at the register at a CompUSA. I was approximately 10 years old. Took the CD home, installed it on my dad's computer (P133 at the time, absolutely incredible), and started getting my ass absolutely KICKED on e1m1.

I played a lot on our 2 computers, over null modem cable(!), with one of my best friends after school...

A few years later I discovered qboard (I think it was that incarnation of "the board") and irc. The rest, as they say, is history...

Oh, and then I released a map and went idle and now it's 2006 :P