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By Stephanie "Bobbi" Bergman
Before the All Female Tournament, before GameGirlz, before *insert shameless plug* Lilith&Eve, there was the Quake Women’s Forum, run on this hosting site you might have heard of, called Planet Quake. It’s been around longer than many of the huge sites we all visit daily, and is filled with humor, stories, and serious talk. We sat down with the woman behind the QWF, Leann. Name/rank/serial number? Leann :)) What is the Quake Women's Forum? It's a Quake resource site that gives info about anything that has to do with women in the Quake gaming community, anything from female skin and clans to women's issues Where did the idea from the site come from? Well, when it started, over 2 years ago, it was actually a humor site, a satirical women's trash magazine that poked fun at the men in the community. But after about 6 months of satire, it became evident that women were coming to the site looking for info about women rather then jokes about men, so the focus changed. What's the current/future focus of the site? Currently the site focus' on aspects of the game that women use ie: female skins, sounds, models as well as the community women are involved in ie: female clans. Often the focus is on issues relating to women in the Quake community. Are/were you active in the clan/Quake scene? Until 3 months ago I lived in Scotland and I was very active in the UK Quake community. I admin'd the UK Clan League and helped set up LAN Parties in Scotland and England. The UK Quake community is a nice small tight knit group, and I had the opportunity to know many members of the community in real life due to LAN parties I was involved in. Do you find the community has changed over the last couple of years in their attitudes because of to sites like the QWF? QWF was always embraced by the majority of the Quake community, probably since it's been a part of the PlanetQuake network since it's beginning so I haven't experienced any change... I do know that the number of sites run by women has increased, but that was bound to happen not because of being more accepted but because the number of women in the internet community is increasing. I of course, like most of us women do, get negative emails about the site but I just laugh at the immature boyish comments, and continue :) What do you do in real life? Until 3 months ago I was a high school teacher. Now I'm working in Web Development and Design. Did the website have anything to do with the switch? Well, I never planned on teaching my entire life, but in a way yes, at the minimum it's given me alot of exposure with Web Design and a lot of success in maintaining a HUGE site. What are your favorite games? Well, the game I play depends on it's viewpoint. I get motionsick with first person view games, so I'm a bit limited in what I play. I've never played enuf Quake to get "good" due to the motionsickness. Currently I'm an Ultima Online addict. You were active in the UK Quake scene though...how did you handle the motion sickness? When I was adminning Internet league games I didn't need to move around alot, most of the adminning was done on IRC, or just starting the server so the motion sickness wasn't a problem. But when I did LAN Party work, especially watching those great competition matches, I took motionsickness pills to stop the sickness... Was it the community, more than the game, that drew you to Quake? Definitely... We began playing Quake because of the game but stayed because of the community. Now that I'm in the USA again I really miss the UK Quake Community. It's much different then the Quake community in the US. Motion sickness seems to be something that effects women more than men...have you found that to be true? Hmmm, does it affect more women then men? I guess I've never thought about which gender experiences it more. I know American McGee get's motion sick as well and I actually have many male friends who are avid gamers that get sick in some games so, I'm not sure it's more prevalent in women. Do the motion sickness pills help? They do, but a day of motionsick pills will sometimes leave me with a groggy headache, I have to decide if it's worth it. Just this week I searched for dietary ways to alleviate motion sickness and learned that ginger helps ie: ginger ale, ginger tea, ginger snap cookies So, I've tried that with a RPG game I'm beta testing. It's helped a bit so far, maybe I'll give Quake a whirl after eating ginger snaps. The real test would be the 3D Nintendo 64. That is the worst motion sickness from a game I've ever experienced! Really? Oh yeah... Any of the 3D Nintendos are terrible...Even if I sit across the room sometimes the distance from the monitor helps (depends on the game though) but even across the room from the tv with a 3D Nintendo 64 and I was VERY sick. Do you think you know what causes the motion sickness for you? (I remember reading that it can be different things for different people) I see more motion than the average person...(not sure if I can explain this in text heh, but I'll try) for example: when you pass your hand in front of your face, most ppl see a sweeping motion which looks like ONE large movement. People that get motion sick are actually seeing each separate movement (not that they actually experience it :). So during a game, there's just too much movement for the mind to handle. Oh wow. So do things like framerate effect you as well? (Me, I never notice how many fps I'm getting) Yeah, framerate makes a difference as well...I can always tell what are slower framerate games American McGee played Quake in a postage stamp sized window (well a bit bigger then that) so he didn't get as motion sick. The smaller the window meant less movement for him The higher the framerate, the less sick he got? Or was it just the window size? Probably a combination of both. Higher framerate would make the movement much more fluid and the small window size makes the movements smaller, so when walking down a hallway, the small window size makes the wall movement seem almost static etc... What are your favorite websites? Well at the moment, I'm a graphix addict so... there's some great shockwave flash and dynamic html sites out there. I have 4 faves: http://www.eye4u.com/home/index.htm http://www.theremediproject.com/ The first Gabocorp, made me begin designing shockwave flash sites, although the second Eye4U I actually like best. The last 2 are dynamic html sites... my next web development endeavor, which I'm just beginning to learn. Thanks :) - Stephanie "Bobbi" Bergman is an associate editor for loonygames.
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