Welcome to RA2: Inside and Out or RA2IO. This page is a strategy guide to many different facets of the best Quake 2 mod ever thunk up... Rocket Arena 2. It will be updated with tidbits on a semi-daily basis below, with large sectional updates periodically (probably weekly). See the sidebar for specialized sections. I'm your host, Essobie.

Essobie (ES' OH' BEE') 1. n. Bastardization of the term "son of a bitch" which abbreviated is S.O.B.  2. n. One that plays like a son of a bitch, but doesn't act like one.  3. adj. ruthless, cunning, extremely modest.  4. n. Webmaster of RA2IO.

November 16th, 1999

More NON-RA2 Related Quake 3 Demo Test Stuff
Redid my "funname.cfg" file to give new instructions on how to use colors in your name in Q3A... they changed the requirement for the color change code from being some whack high ascii block to a simple carrot (^).  Download the new file (which has the instructions included IN the .cfg file) here.

-Essobie

name "^1ES^7SOB^1IE^7"

November 14th, 1999

Q3demoTEST Released; Essobie's Updated Configuration
Grabbed the demoTEST last night while I slept, and awoke to check it out.   So far I like all the changes, and have had a few fun matches against the bots.   I've changed my configuration to reflect the command changes, and reworked some of the way I did the settings since all cvars have standard prefixes now.  Don't know what I'm talking about? You don't have to.  Just download the configuration. :)

-Essobie

Looks like there's a playeranimation toggle... but it's cheat protected right now. Weird. Is RA3 out yet? ;)

November 6th, 1999

Rocket Arena 2 on GameCenter
Unfortunately RA2 got lumped together with the other "Deathmatch Mods", but at least it got top billing. Quote from the page:

David Wright's Rocket Arena is one of the best known Quake II deathmatch mods. Whereas many mods open up vastly different characters and configurations among players, Rocket Arena is a great equalizer. It matches players with the same weapons and health against each other, so their skill is the determining factor. In Mr. Wright's words, the goal of his design is "to facilitate a style of deathmatch that is as fair and equal to all participants as possible. It is no longer an items game, but a test of reflexes and strategy." It's a fast and furious preview of what id hopes to accomplish with Quake III: Arena.

I'm not sure, but I don't think that id has any intention to accomplish an itemless deathmatch experience that emphasizes reflexes and strategy. No wait... I am sure that's not what they are trying to make. :)

-Essobie

I'm curious as to how you all are waiting for Quake 3: Arena's demo. Drop me a line and tell me how you are getting through these tough times.

November 4th, 1999

crt on RA2 Mailing List: Damage Scoring in RA3?
Due to that little exploit thing I mentioned on Halloween, there's been some discussion about Damage Scoring going on in the RA2 Mailing List, and quite a bit of it over the last day or so. David "crt" Wright put his two cents in with this email about it, and shedding some light on what RA3's scoring is going to entail:

I'm glad to see the active (and mostly civil) discussion about this feature on the list (that's really why the list is here). I myself am split on the value of Damage Scoring in Rocket Arena (which is why it didn't make it in until the last version.. and even then, mostly as an experiment). It has good points (like stopping frag stealing) and bad points (like encouraging selfish play), but overall I think it's been a good learning experience.

My current plan for Rocket Arena 3 is to have both damage and frags on the scoreboard, but sort by frags (since I think that is the most important thing in the end). You will still be able to see the people that hide out till the end to get easy kills (they will have high frag counts but low damage numbers) and the people that charge in at the start without thinking (they will have high damage but low frags). It should give the best of both worlds.

-David Wright
wrightd@gamespy.com

-Essobie

I'm not split on which one is the better scoring method because basically I see RA2 Pickup as just a big teamgame in which the point is to win each round regardless of frags. I guess every game has to have its individual stats in there though... I just can't figure out why.

Halloween, 1999

Bad TV and Too Much Chocolate
A nice relaxing evening at home this All Hallow's Eve for me... I've got IBC rootbeer, really bad television, and a bucket full of those Hershey's miniture candy (I stocked up on it, knowing full well that I wouldn't get more than a small handful of sniveling brats... er... trick or treaters).

I see the future... it's... me... with a very large stomach ache!

Damage Scoring Problems?
There's been a few little side effects of damage scoring that might need to be addressed by server admins.  The major one that I've been hearing about is the fact that with damage scoring on, a couple of jokers can go off into a 1v1 arena, jack up the initial health to say, 900 health, and then after only like 4 or 5 one on one rounds, one of them hits a fraglimit of 40, much to the chagrin of the poor bastards in Pickup that probably only have about 4 or 5 frags at best.

The solution to the problem? Server admins should edit their arena.cfg files to have the following lines near the top if you plan on allowing damage scoring on your server:

allowvotinghealth: 0;

This will make upping the armor impossible, and fix the little exploiters.  :)

-Essobie

Does anyone get the feeling that the CLQ is the indirect cause of this kind of childish nonsense? I do. Even if it isn't, I'd like to think it is. Ranking based on kills per hour or whatever just seems silly. Scoreboards are for competitions... not public servers. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

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