Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is lamest of them all?

Sunday 10th February, 2008 | Skip to comments (45)

Fakenicking, faking, aliasing or whatever you might call it, means that a player is using a nickname that he/she isn’t previously known for or just something hiding his/her indentity. Fakenicking has been part of gaming for years and it is not likely to go away any time soon, at least when it comes to QuakeWorld. A lot of people hate fakenicking and fakenickers but what do they actually hate? The person who is faking or the fact that the player is not using his usual nickname? It’s most likely very case dependent.

Why do people use fakenicks? The most common reason is obviously the fact that people want to hide their identity and thus also their skill level, at least for certain amount of time. Why do people want to hide their identity and skill? For some people, fakenicking is the only option to get action because if they would be using the nicks they are known for, everyone would be scared of their skill and simply wouldn’t play against them. The types of player intentions depend on the player itself; some people want to find easy opponents and smash them while others simply try to find anyone to play with. However, not every fakenicker is a top player and these fakers hide their identity to lure the less skilled and rookie players into their traps.

Good reputation is something most people want to have in life and in games just as well. Surprisingly enough, some fairly good reputationed players actually use fakenicks so they can act childishly, drop during games or do other lame activities on the server. This arguably sounds very stupid but it’s a fact that people actually do this for enjoyment purposes as well as when being angry. There’s no reputation to lose if nobody knows you who are.

Fakenicking is often done by people out of shape or simply playing bad. In a duel, for example, the fakenicking player would probably think something along the lines of ”Oh no! If I lose now, he’s gonna think he’s better than me. And there’s even specs here right now. They’re gonna think I suck when actually I’m just rusty. And what if someone uploads the demo to challenge-tv? Everything I built will collapse, ohnoez!”. Naturally, everyone wants to perform well in a match, but sometimes the will is just not enough to do the trick and therefore the fakenick is there to cover their image and ego.

A point when fakenicking gets really ugly is when somebody fakenicks as someone else. In most cases this is easy to detect since the fakenickers are usually dumb enough to use the nickname of someone that is very good while the faker himself isn’t. Also, fakenicking while using cheats is something that people have done - luckily not so much lately. The point of this is obviously to bring down the reputation of a certain player and cause as many problems as possible for him.

Another species of QuakeWorld player, closely related to the fakenicker, is the excusenicker. He will not fake, but change his nickname to something that makes it obvious to other players or spectators that he has a valid excuse in case of severe suckage. Excusenickers can usually be identied by the suffixes of their nickname. Popular choices would be _mp3, _newmouse, _fuh, _gl, or _newcfg. These suffixes are supposed to make the other players and spectators think that: ”Ahhhh, so I guess he usually owns, but it’s perfectly logical that he’s sucking today: He’s listening to mp3s while playing!”. As both the fakenicker and the execusenicker are very closely related mammals, crossbreeds are not uncommon either. These crossbreeds don’t even bother to attach a suffix to their nickname, they just use the suffix as a name itself. Popular choices for the latter would be ’newmouse’, ’test’ or ’cfg_test’. Needless to say, this behaviour can be seen as a defensive-mechanism for repuation.

Some fakenickers actually use the same fake nick for an extended duration of time. In mix games for example, these players are likely to reveal the division they play in, but not their identity. They think everything is okay now since, having revealed their strength to the public, they won’t mess up the evenness of batteling teams. In most cases however, these players still feel free to behave badly, call other players ”noobs” for making miniscule mistakes, or perhaps even drop.

All in all, it is obvious that most people don’t like fakenicking or fakenickers, one way or another. However, the most funny fact is that some fakenickers don’t actually like other fakenickers. Maybe because they’re annoying?

45 responses to “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is lamest of them all?”

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Hagge
Sunday 10th February, 2008

there has been a lot of fakers throughout the time and I guess there's no way to get rid of them.. what is your worst experience with fakers?

I think mine was when whole LegeArtis joined the servers faking as a div2 team, just because they knew we wouldn't play them otherwise :) there's no doubt that most of the biggest fakers have been playing for LA :)

eizid
Sunday 10th February, 2008

My worst experience was probably back in 2004 when I had just started QW. My clan was playing prac vs some other div5 clan and ParadokS faked as div5 standin for them. He ended up making over 100 frags on dm3 and obviously completely ruined the game.

ruskie
Sunday 10th February, 2008

hm, worst is probably greco faking as me.
and as long you aren't impersonating someone i think it's semi-ok. and in a perfect world(mine) nobody would fake

samon
Monday 11th February, 2008

goqsane likes to fakenick other players :/ crazy guy!

Zepp
Monday 11th February, 2008

nice social investigation :)
well done

Hooraytio
Monday 11th February, 2008

stop faking as me during clangames eizid!

mushi
Monday 11th February, 2008

i ve been a faker for the last 8 years

:)

I was known as
..

JP_teq

there. I've said it
:=)

Eta-bETa
Monday 11th February, 2008

I might be known as one of the most fakenicker hating maniacs ever... And I can easily agree!

I couldn't have said this better myself my dear eizid. Very nice article indeed.

The very most annoying thing is when the fakenicker doesn't reveal his nickname during the rpick mixed games. Then we just HAVE to kick them to make even teams and minimize the fake-dropping/-not-so-well-behaviour/-whining/-factor. I'm talking all out of experience (LOTS OF EXPERIENCE)... Even those small things Eizid menitons about commentate newbies misstakes is a big deal really. What if they think that the qw community suck and doesn't let it take some time to learn the way of teamplay.

One of the best fakes was a few years ago when tVs was about to face "Campbusters". Acutally it wasn't us "Campbusters" (they were named Eta-bETa, Hagge, Broning etc.) (div2) they were about to face, but Legeartis (might've been Disorder). Luckily I arrived to Hib´s qizmo during countdown and tVs dropped quickly in their face. What if they'd realnicked from the first place? The game would probably've gone through... But no!

Since easyriders hardly ever plays any pracs I mix a lot, and so do other ppl. Lots of fakenickers drop in mix games and behave very bad, just as Eizid says. That's only 2 out of MANY reasons why I do not start a mix without having kicked the fakers. I cannot and I do not say that _all_ fakenickers behave bad, but I don't want it to take 15 minutes before I might find that out by him dropping............ .!!!!!??!?! No matter how much shit they're saying I will not change my mind. And often, when they have their realnicks they're back to normal behaviour again. Fu**ing Schizofaking... If you don't like me as your fakenickalias, then don't like me at all... The other day some idiot called me "Hitler-eta" just for trying to make an even mix without fakers... Very gg kid :). Keep em' coming...

And keep up the good work Eizid!

phren
Monday 11th February, 2008

They are MANY new players to qw nowdays, so have that in mind, there is not always a faker involved :)

Hagge
Monday 11th February, 2008

no, just 99% of the time :) haha a true classic fakernicker reply on when you ask them about who they are is "I'm new to qw, but I come from q3" :)

ruskie
Monday 11th February, 2008

go dr bazooka

Hagge
Monday 11th February, 2008

haha yeah, can't even remember who that was :) but surely someone out of riker, memil, slime or vladde :)

ruskie
Monday 11th February, 2008

it was slime

awaynick
Monday 11th February, 2008

fakenickers is the worst i know about quake
it ruins the qw scene and takes away the happy times for the rookies

flamethrower
Monday 11th February, 2008

i agree with awaynick, its the worst i know!!! i hope everyone stops doing it

RAPIST
Monday 11th February, 2008

I agree with the last 2 writers, good read eizid
u know how to speak

JORGEN
Monday 11th February, 2008

good read ezed, its bad people who fakenick!! but after this article i think there will be less of them

oase
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

The comment below still makes me grin

"Psycho Dad - 030317 @ 23:28:32
WHAT!?!?!? DID _RIKER_ FAKENICK!?!?!? WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THAT!?!?!??!"

Was about some fakenick drama in nqr4 concerning riker playing in div6 ;-)

fst
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

You forget about the guys faking as their favourite movie stars :D Take Avenger for example :D

PS.
I always play under my nick and thus everyone knows i suck :E

pleuraXeraphim
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

Good article Eizid.

fog
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

Ruskie: That guy you mentioned also fakenicked as me (why now anyone would wanna do that) some years ago, after a game where I was waiting for a mate and he joins the server and refuses to leave. He refused stop using my nick, and kept nicking it like 2-3 months.

During that time i got like 2-3 msgs on irc from people asking wtf I wanted by calling them stupid things. Really lame and annoying behaviour by him.

On the other hand I don't mind 2 mates fakenicking and just play some 1on1 dmm4 for fun or just to play non serious games. Still I know atleast 1 person who really likes to fakenick povdmm4, and never reply when asking for realnick, no names mentioned though :)

Fakenicking in mix games are lame. Thats my opinion :)

eizid
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

Thanks guys! Also props to Soma for helping me out with this one :)

pattah
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

I consider it sad that some admins tolerated the use of fake nicks in the Ownage Duel Tournament, claiming that it would be hard to sort them out anyway. Such a legitimation is just wrong.

hellsan
Tuesday 12th February, 2008

i don't agree that suffixes like _mp3 _newcfg _newmouse _beer or whatever would be excuses. that's just a fast way of explaining the situation (that one might suck harder than usual and might not put up a fight) :)

kryddturken
Wednesday 13th February, 2008

The suffixes are spot on. Why on the hell would you need to explain yourself for listening to a mp3 or using the new mouse you just bought? Is your ego so inflated that you can't lose/play a little worse than usual in this 11 year old computer game VS players you've probably never, and will never, meet?

hellsan
Wednesday 13th February, 2008

wow. that one might reach top 3 in "the world's most leading questions". no. that's not it.

hellsan
Wednesday 13th February, 2008

_beer suffix for instance, comes in really handy when your opponent is asking why the hell you fire rockets in the sky and other random places. it's no excuse, just an effective way to explain what's going on.

djevulsk
Thursday 14th February, 2008

What happened to that "exposure" (if i remember the name correctly) thing we had a while back? You could look up a fakenick or ip and get a list of nicks that this player had used.

ruskie
Thursday 14th February, 2008

hehe exposure <3 gotta love that dude who had like 3000 entries as unnamed, never played with realnick :DD anybody know who it was?

fog
Thursday 14th February, 2008

Maybe nicked unnamed? :)

fog
Thursday 14th February, 2008

LOL that sounded smart, meant he took the nick Unnamed not realizing what it stood for .. Thought he got a cool random nick from the QW-client and was satisfied :D

Zepp
Thursday 14th February, 2008

don't you know such strong player with "Unnamed" nickname?
It is XN...

mawe
Thursday 14th February, 2008

Yea ruskie, that guy (swedish) with like 5k connects as unnamed. He really kicked ass in duels

Zepp
Friday 15th February, 2008

He is russian but lives in Finland last years

djevulsk
Friday 15th February, 2008

I don't think you're talking about the same person.

Anyway, my question remains; what happened to it?

GODIS!
Saturday 16th February, 2008

essoid is the worst rookie faker :'C he always tries to play "funny".. -_-

Hagge
Monday 18th February, 2008

he always uses my nick :[

z0det
Wednesday 20th February, 2008

essoid, fakes all the time, i hate that guy :/

Hooraytio
Friday 22nd February, 2008

hagge fakes as me in nqr and eql games!

Eta-bETa
Friday 22nd February, 2008

It was jezaja I believe, from clan Earthquake (the old Earthquake, not the new one I assume), who made the ever so GREAT exposure! Sure would want that again. It was easy getting mix without fakenickers. If there was an unnamed joining -> kick. If he claimed he was XN, a quick look on irc and -> Kick... :). Bring exposure back... it was great fun in the beginning when all the old fakenicks popped up and the worst fakers got it in their face :(... :):):):) Call jezaja at once!

FlePser
Tuesday 4th March, 2008

I fake as jeZper, happy all!>!

FlePser
Tuesday 4th March, 2008

Oh and anyway I was playing on the FFA today and the top five consisted of me and four fakenicks/nonicks (player1 and 2, ......, unnamed) gg :D

tiddles
Monday 17th March, 2008

lo :) i started playing qw in 1998 i was called assasin for the first year, then in 1999 i changed to tiddles, i never really alias, dont see the point, i only play dm4 dools, and i think its safe to say, any reputation i've got, is i suck lol, i play outta love for quake, plus addicted to this game, the only valid reason to fake nick, is if you're really a top player, and no one wants to play you

ruskie
Tuesday 8th April, 2008

apparently the unnamed guys was most likely embah

gravedigger
Tuesday 29th April, 2008

All fakenickers are cowards and cumguzzling rapists, they are to proud to loose and therefor they will not show their true identity, pathetic freaks.

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