The Victim Bot or "VictimBot" was developed by Tony Tang aka "The TangMaster" based on the BGBot.
It is a unique bot, that is neither singleplayer helper bot, nor deathmatch opponent bot. It is a victim bot, the killing of which gives you a worse score in a deathmatch game.
It's an obstacle bot that gets in the way. A clever idea for a bot and very funny to play.
The first version of the bot was released as vbot1.zip.
A copy of the bot was made available on the "CD Zone Issue #48" magazine CD released in March 1997 and archived on archive.org.
The release was announced on BluesNews on September 27th 1996, quoting an announcement from Tony directly
September 27th
...
It's the benign bot! I received the following email from Tony Tang:
"I just thought I might bring to your attention that since Quake seems like
such a "satanic" and "evil" game (by parents), I thought I might make
something that would make Quake seem a bit funnier. As a result, I managed
to program VictimBot. The bot does not attack anyone. In fact, all he does
is run around and get into the client's face, yelling "run away!" or
"help me!" etc. The VictimBot is killable, and the killer loses a frag for
killing the VictimBot; this, of course, creates an interesting twist to your
typical Deathmatch."
"My friends so far find that VictimBot is very fun to play with, even though
it is a tad annoying at times."
"If you want to have a look, it's in FTP.CDROM.COM under VBOT1.ZIP"
Fun but annoying, huh? My kind of guy... Here's the text file.
-- Blues News, Archived January 29, 1998.
The announcement links to the release on ftp.cdrom.com in the bots/ directory.
The release contains a readme file (VBOT10.TXT), the source code (SRC.ZIP), a player model with custom skin (PROGS/) and custom player sounds (SOUNDS/).
A compiled version of the game code was not provided, making the first version challenging to use for non-technical players.
2915 24 Sep 1996 VBOT10.TXT
115178 24 Sep 1996 SRC.ZIP
3115 24 Sep 1996 CONFIG.CFG
96 24 Sep 1996 PROGS
224 24 Sep 1996 SOUND
The readme lists the release date as September 24th 1996, which is confirmed by the timestamps of files in the zip file.
Title : Victim Bot
Filename : vbot10.zip
Version : 1.0
Date : 96/9/24
Author : The TangMaster
-- VBOT10.TXT
The readme lists the release file as vbot10.zip, although only reference to "vbot1.zip" could be located publicly.
Credit is given to the BGBot, on which this bot was based. The release date of September 24th suggests that the version of the BGBot used was v1.6, release on September 13 1996.
Credit also given to "WACko", the developer of the "BotSkin" Bot, and real-life friend of Tony.
Credit : WACko <WAC@intergate.bc.ca>
(moral support, coding support, beta testing and good bud)
Punisher <punisher@trojan.neta.com>
(created BGBOTS! I used this code extensively!)
Everyone else who had something to do with QuakeBots so far
iD Software
-- VBOT10.TXT
The mod is described as adding innocent bystanders to deathmatch games that must be avoided, e.g. not killed.
Tony describes helper bots like the TMBot and deathmatch bots like the BGBot and Eliminator bot, and introduces the Victim Bot as something in between.
So. You think you're pretty hot stuff. You can rock _anyone_
you know in a DeathMatch. Well. Try this baby. victimBOT.
Now there are innocent bystanders everywhere! Can you avoid them
while still attacking your target??
It began with the TM bot. It was good, and the people rejoiced.
But it wasn't enough. EliminatorBot was made, and it was good.
The people rejoiced. BGBots was made, and it was good also. The
people rejoiced. The TangMaster began playing with the BGBots
code. People looked in astonishment. Suddenly. vBot was born.
VICTIM BOTS! These guys play in Deathmatch, run around, act like
total fools, get in your way, and if you kill them, you _lose a
frag_! They're innocent bystanders! Don't kill them!
-- VBOT10.TXT
It's an impressively simple mod, especially developed by a highschooler.
Author Information
------------------
A 17 year old kid living in Vancouver, BC.
Likes to goof around with stuff.
-- VBOT10.TXT
The second and last version of the bot was released as vbot11.zip.
It was uploaded to quakec/bots/ directory on ftp.cdrom.com.
vbot11.txt 26-Oct-96 23:21 3k
vbot11.zip 26-Oct-96 23:22 370k
-- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archive December 25 1996)
It remained as part of the directory and still exists there in modern mirrors.
The archive contains the same assortment of files as the first version, with the addition of a compiled version of the game code (prods.dat) and a configuration file.
3229 26 Oct 1996 VBOT11.TXT
96 26 Oct 1996 PROGS
224 26 Oct 1996 SOUND
430344 18 Oct 1996 PROGS.DAT
115178 24 Sep 1996 SRC.ZIP
3115 24 Sep 1996 CONFIG.CFG
The readme file lists the release date as September 24th and the same zip file as the first version "vbot10.zip". I suspect this part of the file was left unchanged.
The timestamp of files in the archive suggests a release date of October 26th, confirmed by the timestamp of files on ftp.cdrom.com.
Title : Victim Bot
Filename : vbot10.zip
Version : 1.1
Date : 96/9/24
Author : The TangMaster
-- vbot11.txt
The release, although one month later, is a bug fix release that includes the missing compiled game code (progs.dat).
I suspect Tony received many emails highlighting that it was missing and that the mod "didn't work".
Update since 1.0
----------------
* Basically, I haven't changed anything. This is just a housekeeping
job. People were complaining that the PROGS.DAT wasn't in the ZIP.
That was true, but I just forgot -- you had to actually compile it
before. Now you don't. The PROGS.DAT is in here! Yay! ;-)
-- vbot11.txt
Although the readme file did not list a personal homepage, Tony did get a university homepage a number of years later.
On it, he listed his Victim bot with pride.
This was my most significant contribution to the gaming community as a whole. The "main gaming sites" in the day had entries about the mod, but only one entry remains archived (Blues' news).
-- Projects, victimbot (Archived March 09 2009).
On the page, tony linked to the announcement of the bot on BluesNews, an interview in PC Gamer magazine (Sept, 1996), and the entry of the bot in "Quake History In A Nutshell", shared on methosq.com on June 22nd 2001, stating:
"My favorite Quake bot was the VictimBot which didn't shoot at you but, ran around in free for all games and stood right in your face yelling "Help Me!" and "Run AWAY!" over and over. If you killed it, you would lose a frag from your score."
-- Quake History In A Nutshell, archived February 07, 2002.
- Victim Bot 1.0, vbot1.zip, September 24 1996.
- Victim Bot 1.1, vbot11.zip, October 26 1996.
- CD Zone Issue #48 (March 1997), archive.org
- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archive December 25 1996)
- Projects, victimbot (Archived March 09 2009).
- Quake History In A Nutshell, archived February 07, 2002.