Part 2 - Using Gamespy: The Basics |
THE BASICS - CONNECTING TO A
SERVER!
Well, you've spent all this time learning the basics to deathmatch but you have yet to
actually connect to a server and start playing!!! Congratulations because your patience is
about to pay off! Just follow these steps to begin your first deathmatch!
- If you haven't already, start Gamespy.
- When you first start Gamespy a couple windows popup. The
first is just a little nag screen that reminds you of the fact that you can register
Gamespy if you want (and why not, it's a great program!). Just click Continue
to proceed.
- The next screen is called the player profile screen. This is
where you can choose which player name you want to play with. If you haven't created a
name yet click the New button.

- The next window that appears is the Modify player
settings screen. First, enter a name for your player in the Player Name
field. Below that is the Change settings for box. Select "Quake
2" as your game. Once you've selected that more options become available. Don't worry
about the CFG file thing right now, you'll learn more about those later. Just select a Player
model (male, female, cyborg), a Player skin (Gamespy will let
you look at the skins before you choose), and the Handedness which is the
location of your gun target: right, left, or center. When you're done click the OK
button.

- We are now at the main interface window for Gamespy. On the
far left side of the window is a column of buttons with names like "Quake2."
These are source buttons. Selecting them tells Gamespy what kind of servers you want to
search for. Since we want Quake 2 servers click the Quake2 source button.
Make sure that "Quake 2" is the only source button selected (you can tell a
source is selected because all the source buttons under that "Quake 2" button
turn white).
You may notice the little briefcase icon
next to the "Quake2" source button.
Note that for all the Quake2 servers to be selected that arrow on that briefcase icon
should always be pointing down. If it's pointing to the right that means the Quake2 source
has been deselcted and Gamespy won't look for any Quake2 servers.
- Now that we've told Gamespy we're looking for Quake 2
servers we need to tell it to go out and find these servers. Click the Update from
current source button on the toolbar (as pictured below). Gamespy will then
contact several other servers which maintain lists of Quake 2 servers. After downloading
the most current server lists it will go out and "ping" each of these servers.
This process can take a minute or two so be patient (now would be a good time to go grab a
caffeinated beverage).

- When Gamespy is done "pinging" servers you will be
presented with a list of all the Quake 2 servers it pinged. They are listed from top to
bottom in order of fastest to slowest. Look at the ping times for each of the servers -
they're right next to the server name. Try to find the smallest ping time you can. Pings
over 400 aren't very playable, the 300's are playable but can be jumpy at times, and
anything above that is typically smooth. Find a server that isn't empty, or full, and has
a low ping number. Double click on the name of that server and Gamespy will launch your
Quake 2 deathmatch game!!
Note |
Well I'll be saying goodbye for a few
hours now, because you're likely going to be having too much fun on those deathmatch
servers playing Quake 2 to worry about this tutorial! When you do manage to wrestle
yourself away from the fray join me back on this page and we'll continue! If you have any trouble trying to connect to
a server read the information down below. |
WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT
Now if everything has gone okay up to this point you should be well into your first
deathmatch! However in some cases things go haywire and for a variety of technical (and
some non-technical) reasons you may not have been able to connect to a server. Before you
shoot the monitor, or worse yet curse my name, check out the help
page. It answers several common technical questions I get and has a link to Gamespy's
troubleshooting web site.
Click below to continue on in the tutorial. Lag and ping is
our next topic.