"SandZ journal" Sandman's AG bio/interview seriesPart I
A Name Is Nothing More Than A Name. I've been playing online under the name S@NDM@N for nearly 5 years now but the name I use dates back to 1992, taken from the film "Death Warrant" staring "Jean Claude Van Damme" the evil dude was called Sandman and from that day onwards my gaming name has stuck as Sandman. I'm also known to many as "Sandz" or "Sandy" for short. Not to get me mistaken with "old skool" DM-er "SandZ-Of-KR" who also is British and enjoys kicking ass. Names don't make players great it's the players who make the names great. Later on I will be talking about such players, names like GaRpY, Dr.Dank, Ch|ef, CHiNX, MaGiX, Eddz, Troj & so many more. Who am I? My real name only known by a few close online friends is 'Mark' I'm 25 years of age, single (that's how I like it… no strings attached) Employed full time as a freelance CAD Designer (Computer Aided Design) for London Underground LTD based is St. James's Park, Central London (UK). My job involves drawing technical plans for all LUL's tube stations some 400 in total. I drive a Toyota MR2 Roadster (new model) complete with personal plates sponsoring my home team 'MOD'. Other past jobs include working for AMEC (International Construction Company). working on both the ?5.3 Billion CTRL (Channel Tunnel Rail Link) & the ?800 million DLR (Docklands Light Railway) rail projects, again as their CAD engineer. I also use to work in I.T. as a Web Designer & Developer for an I.T. Consultancy based in the southeast (UK). It's A Drug? Some of you reading this who have never picked up the game or seen it played may find it hard to understand what I'm about to rabbit on about for those who know only to well the game will know just what I mean when I use the term "It's A Drug". Some may class it as "sad" but then every one has an interest or hobby to do with something and those who have time to mumble "that's sad" are perhaps sad themselves wishing they had an interest or being apart of something? Online gaming whether it be hardcore, extreme level or just beginner level is taking off big style. Not only do kids play but adults from all walks of live including celebrity such as Robin Williams and even female porn stars!! Where Did It All Start? I've been a bit of a "computer nut" or fan for some time now, back in the old days every young lad on the block wanted a games console which these days come as standard in most homes. I remember back to my days when graphics were basic, sound was better turned off and game play was the hot thing. When the first 16Bit Sega Mega Drive was release me like others went nuts for one and at ?200 it was the leading edge of gaming power. If only we all knew what this would lead to in later life heehee. The first big game & I mean "BIG" in the way of braking technology for me has to be the arcade classic 'Street Fighter 2' release on the SNES in the mid 90's. The day my best mate picked up an imported copy from the USA for ?80 I went crazy & ran all the way to his house just to play it. After a few short months me & him were pro's mastering every fighter. In them days PC's were very basic and couldn't match that of top gaming consoles but all was to change. In the year of 1996 I picked up a copy of 'Duke Nukems 3D' like Doom2 it was a classic first person shooter but it had elements never seen in games of this type before such as cameras which could be viewed to locate bad guys & 'LAN' (networking) options. All we needed now was games with better graphics, sounds & more advance weapons. We didn't have to wait long, in just one short year both "Sin" & "King Pin" were on the cards bring with them a new level of quality gaming. When games like the famous Westwood 'Red Alert' Microsoft's 'Age of Empires' hit the shops the world of network gaming was hitting an all time high. For the first time in years PC's were kicking the ass off consoles with their limited split screen gaming they were no match for that of hardcore PC LAN action. Picture it now for the first time, every one playing on their own screens not knowing or seeing what the other players was doing. The fun of gaming had hit all new heights and this was just the beginning. The Game Of All Games When the game Half-Life developed by 'Valve' built from the Quake 2 engine was splashed on a PC-Gamer magazine back in the summer of 1997 I took one long look at the preview and knew this was going to be a super game. The wait was long, over a year from the first preview to the release but it was well worth the wait. Like most owners I started the one player missions and as most games... Yes, HL rocked but the real fun isn't in the one player mode. It wasn't until 6 months later when me, Dave (-aka- -|MOD|-GeNeRaL-) & two other mates connected our PC's for a local LAN game did the real fun & love for the game take off. As tag teams it was Me & Dave against the other two on maps like Op4_gasworks, Op4_bootcamp & Op4_Outpost. We played for 8 hours non-stop only breaking for the odd drink & of course for Chinese take aways. The game in those early days was so different to how we play today. We were slow, sneaky, camping players. We all lie in waiting, holding the crossbow & sniper rifle zones just waiting for the other player to show up before taking them out with a deadly but silent headshot. Online & Fired Up It wasn't until 1999 when me & Dave entered the online gaming world of Half-Life and as we played Op4 (Opposing Force HL Mod) offline for a few months solid that's where we started. We tracked a server down called 'Sniper' the gravity was switched off and it was total madness but good fun. Both me & Dave teamed it under cover of course, both playing using 'Roxxan' & 'Jim West' skins & Roger Wilco (voice chat freeware) for communication between each other. It wasn't long before we started topping every server played in but there was one team that gave us a dam good fight. They were [Kermit] unknown to us at the time that they were clan players we liked the [tag] idea so much that we made our own and from that point we formed the clan [M.O.D] playing under the names [M.O.D]S@NDM@N & [M.O.D]*Y2J* we also had to make up a name for this so called MOD team. The name still haunts me to this day…. Why oh why did we call ourselves by this name I will never know but MOD now stood for "Ministry Of Darkness". M.O.D Enter Valve Late 1999 after 4 months of Opposing Force we decided to hit standard Half-Life DeathMatch (HLDM). Still armed with 56K modems we found HLDM to be so much faster & smoother than Op4. We started our quest for "ownage" in Barry's World public DM servers and again under the same names. Some of these screen shots from 1999 can be seen in the MOD public ownage pages take a look you may see your name on the list and do forgive me if I've been cheeky in the comments. From here we would meet the first HLCCL players unknown to us at the time but their skills on the battlefield would set them apart. JANER of clan "marx" (Now known as [RFC]JANER read his interview) was a BW house hold name and even though Janer played on ISDN (64K) one of the very few to have such a fast connection back in 1999 the MOD boys still out fragged him but could not out ratio his kills to deaths. Even against the likes of [beir]Judas & the mighty [KIA]GaRpY the MOD twosome came out on top without even know just who these players were. Next Stop ClanBase It was all down to Dave who got us involved in online HL leagues. After he spotted 'Clanbase.com' and signed us up. We were very excited to say the least and when the first game came in we were off like a shot to the server.