Again, this is a long read, so if you feel you can't take the time to read all this, then don't read it and don't make mindless comments after reading a paragraph or so. This is best read in its entirety for the most effective message.

e·piph·a·ny

A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: "I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself" (Frank Maier).

So, it's been a year since I first picked up Quake 4 and, thus, started committing much of my free time towards duelling. As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I felt I'd learned a lot about the fundamentals of 1-on-1 as well as Quake 4 specifically. However, I feel my biggest lesson was learned tonight, and here is why:

For a long time, there have been four important aspects of my game that have been very weak: my aim with the shaft, my aim with the hyperblaster and, most importantly, my fragging ability and my ability to play under pressure. I've been aware of this for about as long as it's been apparent, but I felt I was working on these two aspects while compensating for my deficiency at these two things with my good knowledge of the maps, timing, and decent/good aim with everything else. However, I learned a lesson that I, unfortunately, have been oblivious to for a long time and have now learned the hard way: I will get nowhere without directly addressing these holes in my game, and I must rebuild my playing style from the ground up.

The story behind involves a former acquaintance of mine named Scott, known to most of you as Anub1s. A fellow West Coast player, I played with him for a bit before I met him at the Intel Summer Championships. At the time, he didn't seem too great at the game and was sort of -- how do you put this -- dim. I'd beat him with relative ease most of the time (although he denies this) before he disappeared for a while. About a month passed and when 1.3 had been out for a while and Q4max .76 came out, I saw him again. My memory of the match we had played on Monsoon is hazy, but he killed a few times in a row after I didn't spawn in the best place while he did. I was playing stupidly, but didn't realize this at the time, so I blamed my lag (and I was lagging, but that's not really the point) and left the server.

Fast-forward to this past week: at this point, we were still on good terms. I noticed him on Xfire one night, so I decided to hang out with him for the night and do various things like play UT2004 and discuss which version of Q3 is better for competition. The impression that I had gotten from him that night was that he was still the same person I had met at ISC: cocky, lame, immature and stupid. What I didn't realize, however, was that he had improved on his aim since I last played with him frequently, and that was what I realized tonight.

Long story short, he was talking trash to me in IRC, so I decided to ask him if he wanted to 1v1. He accepted, but decided to pick a server where he would ping an average of 2. I thought this was lame, but said "whatever" and decided to play him. He seemed pretty predictable in warmup as I was often able to run around and just rail him. And although I often caught him camping the same spots with the railgun in hand, he accused me of being boring and threatened to leave if I would not play differently. I had a good laugh, readied up, and then realized that were on the old version of Galang instead of the new version. So I voted for Galang 1.1 and he ignored the vote and readied up.

Sure enough, just like the last time and just as I expected from the original Galang, he and I spawned right in front of each other in those two spots by the RL. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat surprised, and I felt pressured in the situation. Having failed to jump onto the riser where the RL was held after spamming MG fire at him for a while, Anub1s beat me to the punch and hit me with a rocket before I fell back. I picked up the RA while he retreated to go get the mega and screw me over by taking control of the weapons from there. From there, I just ran around apathetically before he killed me. I then voted for Galang 1.1 again, so he left out of frustration. Our argument on IRC afterwards ended with him saying "fuck you," "don't talk to me," etc., etc.

After this, I went to go play some more and bumped into Griffin. After playing against him and losing 31-15 (granted, he wasn't putting any effort towards playing smart, but I got some good kills on him and I could see he was trying to aim), he would be the second person that night to accuse me of playing a boring style. However, he was more specific than Scott was -- he said that my style of play involved falling back pretty much every time and, thus, was boring. My excuse was that he could easily outaim me if I gave him the chance and that I moved around a lot while utilizing my knowledge of the map. However, this was the first real step I made towards my eventual epiphany.

Later, I saw Scott playing in the same server he was in earlier, so I decided to use an alias and hop in. However, as he was watching the way I used my lightning gun (I don't constantly hold the button like most people, but I often adjust my aim in a trial-and-error style for I still don't have a clear understanding of how the shaft works), he quickly recognized who I was. And so did another person who came in, and that same person would also accuse me of playing boring. And then we started playing: no crappy spawns, no lucky shots, no excuses. It would all come crashing down, and as he would beat me by a noticeable margin, I realized during all this that he was outaiming me every time I would engage with him and that I was making crucial mistakes every time I had an advantage over him.

I was the most modest I had ever been during a duel. I'll often spam you to death with silly binds, blame the lag and call you lucky if you're beating me and I feel I'm a better player than you. But I had no excuses -- despite having terrible internet and a subpar computer that can barely run the game, I never really had an excuse. Sure, one can lose to a lesser player occasionally due to bad internet, but I was constantly losing.

Could a person as seemingly dumb as Scott really be a smarter player than me? I've known for a long time now, although never really applied to Quake, that people can be smart in certain areas -- for instance, my sister is not very bright at mathematics, but is a darn good writer. The same goes for many athletes, like a wide receiver in (American) football who may only be able to muster C's at best in college, but is somehow smart enough to read the defense and give themselves an opening for the QB to throw the pass at them. Now I had learn that this can apply to a person like Anub1s, someone who takes a debate and turns it into juvenile slop, yet can aim pretty damn well and realize how to approach someone like me.

To conclude, although I still think you are a very lame and immature person to socialize with, I'm sorry I ever underestimated your capabilities as a player, Scott. You have great aim and a good understand of the game, and although I know you'll do something that's typical of you like rub this into my face and such, I guess I deserve some of it, for I've done the same thing to countless other people in the community. I've overrated myself a lot and I feel like a fool for it.

Regardless, I still feel I can become a very good player -- or even one of the best -- if I become more open-minded. I feel that, as long as I can find the time to dedicate myself towards learning the game and improving on my weaknesses, I can eventually rise to the top. Thank you, community -- thank you for teaching me this very important lesson.