With the arrival of Quake 4, the community has often found itself disconnected and distant from one another. This is largely due in part to specific requirements that must be adhered to in every server, as well as the need to consistently update your competitive mod of choice - and potentially Q4 itself. Looking at the whole situation from another stand point, it really makes players that have transferred over from Steam-based games grateful of the simplistic interface that they moan about every day.

So who is taking that extra step to improve the camaraderie and connection within the community? I bet you never imagined that the most underrated contributor to the future of the North American Q4 scene would be an Automatic Control Engineer from Paris, France with a knack for coding. At 27, he has already written several versions of his program for the Unreal Tournament series, known as FavUT. With his utility conversion to Quake 4, he is refurbishing a lot of burnt bridges between the many (albeit spread out) players. Don't take it from me, though; find out for yourself as GotFrag goes one on one with Skorpsss.

Tool: SkQ4
Developer: SkorpSSS
Download: SkQ4 1.1
IRC: #SkQ4 on GameSurge & QuakeNet

Could you start us off by telling us a little about yourself and your history in the Quake scene?

I am 27 years old, live near Paris and work as an Automatic Control Engineer. Yea, I don't even work in computer science and I just can't write a single line of C++. My history in the Quake scene is rather nonexistent as I come from UT2k3. I started playing the multiplayer demo in late 2002 and played UT2k4 in clan Smile!, Unholy Alliance and SexyFraggers. With Q4 coming out and UT2k4 CTF activity falling off, I tried to move with Smile! to Q4, with some terrible results. I have never seriously trained Quake 4, as I was always coding SkQ4. I started my mIRC script addiction in 2004 when porting a mIRC script called TUT to UT2k4.

Tell me a bit about the features SkQ4 has.

SkQ4 is a port of FavUT and has inherited all the features my previous scripts had.

- Favorite servers query
- Masterserver query with editable filters
- Demo manager
- Packages manager
- IRC community tab (allowing to get info and status from all SkQ4 users)
- Quick CFG tweaker
- Password support
- IP catch
- Clanbase GUID query

What makes SkQ4 so unique compared to other tools?

At the moment, SkQ4 is rather similar to other Q4 server browsers like ASE, KQuery, and Echelon. I mentioned before all the features I had included in SkQ4 - it may seem that this tool is trying to do everything and will be weak in every feature. In fact, all those features are built together in a very linked way in order to provide the most convenience to the competitive Quake 4 player. My upcoming features to organize duels and pick-ups through IRC will make SkQ4 even more unique.

I've come to understand that you have been trying to speak with Q4Max about working with you a bit on some things. First, what are those things, and second, why do you need their assistance?

I have not attempted to speak to the Q4Max team, nor ask them to work with me. I doubt they know my tool, and if they do, I wouldn't blame them not to take it seriously right now. I first need to build a strong SkQ4 base and then I may ask them if they could provide me with some access to their mod, as I have a lot of ideas for enhancements that working with them would allow me. I had an opportunity to speak a bit with Champi from XBattle, and I had added the "pakfilelist" required to join a server and start working on a unified host for all pk4 downloading, at www.sexyfraggers.com/skq4/. The first thing I'd ask the Q4Max team is what they are currently working on, and if it's similar to what I'm doing.

About my others ideas, I have ideas of Team score/Players' scores/time/ping format as well as a clock and other stuff I keep secret.

What's the hardest part about making a tool such as SkQ4?

I am working on it alone, so my motivation has its ups and downs. I also have a lot of difficulty focusing on the most important features, when I am busy exploring more creative ones. Last point is that I waste a lot of time designing a GUI that people probably wouldn't like.

What motivates you to continue working on your tool with little to no recognition?

That question made a lot of sense in my early FavUT work. I created a valuable script, but nothing awesome looking and the UT2004 browser was good already. I wasn't thinking about continuing to work on it, but a few mates gave me ideas on how to improve it. So I worked on the harder sections of the script (FavUT can authentificate to EPIC masterserver the same way as the game), released improved versions and finally got skilled in mIRC scripting. As a result my port to Q4 was quite easy and the script has had relative success, so I continue working on it.

From personal experience, SkQ4 is the best server browsing and community tool available for Quake 4. Why do you think it hasn't fully found a home yet in North America?

When trying to advertise my FavUT script, I repeatedly heard four reasons NOT to try it.

- It is a mIRC script so it must be crap, a virus or a bunch of useless colored spams (I am horrified by what people consider a "mIRC script").
- I already have NoNameScript.
- I don't need it!
- I can't be bothered.

For SkQ4 I hope the main reason is only that they never heard about it....

What features are you working on for the next installment?

A few interesting additions. I will try to add the "Ingame message" and "Monitor" features and a duel pick-up support as a start.

How exactly do you plan to make the pick-up game feature? How will it work?

Hehe, good question!. My main idea was to make a similar system to WarCraft 3. For example, you are a CTF div 1 defender and you want to play a pick-up. You just register as "available" and SkQ4 will look for available pick-ups or create a new one to do a full lineup of even teams, allowing you to automatically join server when the lineup is done, even using "reserve" players incase of disconnects. That is the basic concept. That won't be released anytime soon, though, because it involves a lot of work and testing. I will first try to work on a duel pick-up which is a lot easier to develop, but can still provide a lot of improvement from the current "Looking for a 1v1 now" IRC spam.

What's the one complaint you seem to be getting most about SkQ4?

I never get any complaints from users who actually tried it seriously. I just get mad at people who claim it is "useless ****" because they are unable to load a mIRC script properly.

How long until the next installment?

It depends a lot on my motivation, my work, and the feedback I will receive. If my IRC community is reaching 500 users, I think that the next installment will be a lot sooner, due to higher demand.

You're looking for help regarding your packet manager and downloading files; could you elaborate on that?

Help of any kind is welcome. Providing me new map previews, new pk4 links and instructions to download them and host them, new idlers in SkQ4 (yea that helps me), feedback, etc... and advertising the tool for me.

Thanks for your time, it was a joy trading a few words with you. Before we go, is there anything you want to say? Do you have any last words?

Thank you for the interview. You can't even imagine how good a bit of recognition feels, and the advertisement for my work is nice as well. All my thanks go to Phylloscopus as he is providing the webserver SkQ4 is on and has always supported me.