The Oak or the Oak Bot was developed by John Crickett and Neil Henderson as an extension to the BGBot.
John was the programmer and Neil was responsible for documentation, marketing, and art assets.
The Oak series of bots are written by John Crickett. Neil Henderson helped with The Oak, creating and hosting the website as well as arranging the custom skins and sound clips.
-- http://www.oakbots.co.uk/about/ (archived February 02 2006)
The bot was developed late, compared to some other bots with the firs version appearing in mid 1997, although there is evidence that development probably started 6 months earlier.
The Oak is also important because John Crickett went on to develop bots for other games, most notably the popular Oak II for Quake II.
Development for the Oak Bot probably began in early 1997.
A announcement about the upcoming bot was announced on Usenet in January in the rec.games.computer.quake.announce by Neil Henderson.
The announcement mentions the use of the terminator skin, which the bot eventually had along with terminator sounds. It also lists a homepage as a subpage of the QuakeC Headquarters, although if this page ever existed, it has been lost.
At this point the bot had it's name "oak" as evidence in the listed URL.
Hi,
If anyone is interested in finding out about this new exciting Quake bot
then please take a look at:
http://www.planetquake.com/qchq/oak/
It uses a brilliant Terminator skin by Dan Bickell, which will actually
show the damage inflicted on the bot! When it is released, we hope that
not only will it be as good or better than the Reaper bot, but much much
more "human" like as an opponent or team-mate.
Thanks,
Neil Henderson
Quake Manifest:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/Members/neil.henderson/quake.htm
-- The Oak - a new Quake Bot, rec.games.computer.quake.announce, Neil Henderson, 20 Jan 1997
Neil also had an announcement on his personal homepage from January 1997, highlighting his collaboration with John Crickett on the bot.
The post links to a page describing the bot, that sadly was not captured by archive.org and has been list.
11 January, 1997
Take a look at The Oak homepage for information about this cool new Quake bot
that John Crickett is writing and I am contributing to.
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/Members/neil.henderson/quake.htm (archived June 14 1997)
The first version of the bot was released as oak0405.zip.
The release was shared on ftp.cdrom.com in the quakec/bots/ directory. It remained on the ftp site, and mirrors, and remains there as part of modern mirrors of the archive.
oak0405.txt 04-May-97 10:25 5k
oak0405.zip 04-May-97 10:45 1.0M
-- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archived June 09 1997)
The release contains the compiled game code (progs.dat), a readme file (TheOak.txt) and a PAK file (PAK0.PAK)
440724 4 May 1997 progs.dat 5290 4 May 1997 TheOak.txt 1950910 15 Apr 1997 PAK0.PAK
The PAK file contains model files for the player, including a terminating skin, as well as custom terminator sounds.
newpack/created_by_qpu20.bin
progs/t1.mdl
progs/t2.mdl
progs/t3.mdl
progs/t4.mdl
progs/t5.mdl
progs/term_head.mdl
sound/player/beback.wav
sound/player/noprobs.wav
sound/player/plasma.wav
sound/player/term.wav
sound/player/trustme.wav
sound/player/uzi.wav
The readme lists the release date as May 04 1997. This matches the timestamps of files in the zip file and timestamps on the public FTP.
Title : The Oak
Filename : oak0405.zip
Version : Public Beta: 04-May-1997
-- TheOak.txt
The release is described as a "Public Beta" and the filename has the release date rather than a version, e.g. "0405" for May 4th.
You will only need to download this file once.
Public Beta 04 May, 1997 (1024K) -- The first Public Beta. Here is the Readme.
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/download.html (archived December 05 1998)
The release was also made available on Neil Henderson's personal homepage with links to a programmers log on John Crickett's homepage. Only small portions of Neil's homepage have been saved in archive.org and John's page has been lost completely.
The readme file credits the BGBot source code and likely base for the bot, as well as the terminator player skins by Dan Bickell.
THe Oak is a deathmatch bot and this first release supports different game styles such as a free-for-all deathmatch, team deathmatch, as well as cooperative play.
The Oak is a Quake Bot written in QuakeC which simulates a Quake player.
You can play Deathmatch, Co-Operative, and Team games on your own computer.
The Oak is named after body-building champion Arnold Schwarzenneger and,
using state of the art combat tactics and brilliant A.I., The Oak promises
to be one of the best, and toughest Bots around!
-- TheOak.txt
Given controversy with the reaper bot's "cheating", the readme is explicit in describing the bot as not cheating.
Guaranteed not to "cheat", The Oak will provide a challenging opponent or a
superb ally! Teamplay will be supported so that you and a team of bots can
take on another team. Not only will you get immense enjoyment, but you will
also increase your Quake skills too!
-- TheOak.txt
Author information is provided, where John describes himself as a computer science university and student Neil as an IT solutions provider.
The release was announced on Blues News one day later on May 5th. This may be due to Neil emailing the site directly, or to Blue noticing the file appear on ftp.cdrom.com. I suspect the former given the links to Neil's homepage included in the news post.
May 5, 1997
Oak Bot
The first public beta of the Oak Bot (one of the cool bots that allow you to
simulate multiplayer play on your PC, rather than "evil" proxy bots) has been released.
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
The release of the bot was announced on Redwood's News in lockstep with much that same description.
Redwood links to Niels page and to hosted versions of the release and readme file on ftp.stomped.com.
May 5, 1997
Also announced on redwood
New Bot, The Oak
The Oak is a Quake C bot made for Deathmatch, Co-operative, and teammatch
games. Hopefully we can get something that will improve on the Reaper Bot.
I plan on checking this thing out tonight. Download oak0405.zip (1027k) Be
sure to check out the readme first.
-- http://redwood.stomped.com/597.html (archived July 16 1998)
There's just one problem, the release didn't and doesn't work.
Attempting to play the bot using the oak0405.zip will fail.
THe PAK file is missing a key file, specifically "progs/term_h.mdl".
Attempting to play the bot always results in an error.
Reviewing the timestamps of files in the release, we can see the PAK file has a date of April 15, whereas the game code and readme have the same date as the release date, May 4th. I suspect the PAK file was old and included in the release by mistake.
In fact, the PAK file contains "progs/term_head.mdl" which I believe does nothing and should have the name "progs/term_h.mdl"
Given that the version of ftp.cdrom.com was mirrored, it is not clear how anyone played the bot at or around the time of release, unless they were a sophisticated user, unpacked the PAK file and repaired the filename by hand.
A copy of the release was shared by John Crickett as the file "oak0405.zip" in 2021 and was added to the Quake Bot Archive as "oak0405_final.zip".
I believe this was the intended release, and probably the version of the release that was shared on Neil and John's personal webpages.
The archive contains the same 3 files and in this case all 3 have a timestamp of the release date, May 4 1997, including the PAK file.
1950910 4 May 1997 PAK0.PAK
440724 4 May 1997 progs.dat
5290 4 May 1997 TheOak.txt
Checking the contents of the PAK file shows the file that was missing in the ftp.cdrom.com release, "progs/term_h.mdl", is included, and the file that was included in the cdrom.com release, "progs/term_head.mdl" is not present. This suggests a typo in filename in the cdrom.com.
newpack/created_by_qpu20.bin
progs/t1.mdl
progs/t2.mdl
progs/t3.mdl
progs/t4.mdl
progs/t5.mdl
progs/term_h.mdl
sound/player/beback.wav
sound/player/noprobs.wav
sound/player/plasma.wav
sound/player/term.wav
sound/player/trustme.wav
sound/player/uzi.wav
Other's did figure out how to make the Oak bot work.
One example is Ruud Heemskerk aka "Mephisto" who operated the website BotArea51.
He created and distributed a version of the Oak bot as the file oak0405_fixed.zip that contains a fix for the PAK file.
The file is a fix of the original release, which had an error in it's pak file.
-- http://www.planetquake.com/botarea51/main/qbot.asp?id=25 (archived August 17 2002)
The release contains the same game code and readme with the same timestamps as the original release and an update PAK file dated February 07 2002, 5 years later when Ruud was operating his website.
1075986 7 Feb 2002 PAK0.PAK
440724 4 May 1997 progs.dat
5290 4 May 1997 TheOak.txt
Checking the conents of the PAK, we can see the original misnamed file "progs/term_head.mdl" and the correct file "progs/term_h.mdl" are included.
newpack/created_by_qpu20.bin
progs/t1.mdl
progs/t2.mdl
progs/t3.mdl
progs/t4.mdl
progs/t5.mdl
progs/term_h.mdl
progs/term_head.mdl
sound/player/beback.wav
sound/player/noprobs.wav
sound/player/plasma.wav
sound/player/term.wav
sound/player/trustme.wav
sound/player/uzi.wav
This oak0405.zip release in its fixed form is required to use any of the later releases that only contain updated compiled game code.
An update to the release was distributed as oak081.zip.
Releases from this point use a numbering system from which we can assume a versioning with this release representing 0.81. I suspect the authors were working up to a full 1.0 release.
The release was announced on Blues News on May 6th 1997, two days after the first release and one day after the announcement of the release on the site.
May 6, 1997
Oak Update
Version 0.81 of the Oak Bot has been released on John's World of Quake
(thanks GGarf).
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
The post links to John Crickett's homepage, which was not archived. THis is frustrating as it appears that the only log of changes in this, and later releases, was on John's personal webpage.
The release was also announced on Redwoods News and again linked to a mirrored version of the file on ftp.stomped.com, as well as to Neil's and John's homepages.
May 6, 1997, 12:05a.m. CDT
Oak Bot .81
The Oak Bot I mentioned earlier has a .81 patch (124k) that improves some
things. Check out the work notes to find out what's changed.
-- http://redwood.stomped.com/597.html (archived July 16 1998)
The release was also added to the "QuakeC Downloads" page on "Quake Mecca" and is listed with a date of May 5th 1997.
This page was captured by archive.org, and thankfully a copy of the release file was also captured.
QuakeC Downloads
OakBot v.81, 136k, 5/5/97
Hey, cool, a new QuakeBot! It's the OakBot! Its contains new sounds and models.
It can deathmatch, play co-op, and even do teams. Requires this file (1.0mb)
as well.
-- http://quakemecca.simplenet.com/quakec.htm (archived May 29 1997)
The release contains an updated compiled game file (progs.dat) and no readme.
As such, we do not know the nature of the change.
442088 5 May 1997 progs.dat
The file is timestamped May 5th, which is probably the release date of the file on the author's personal webpages.
This and subsequent releases do not appear on ftp.cdrom.com and mirrors.
The next release was most likely distributed as oak082.zip, although no direct links to a release file have been located.
It was announced on Blues News on May 7th 1997, again with links to the description of the change on John's personal homepage, which was not archived.
May 7, 1997
Oak Update
Version 0.82 of the Oak Bot is now out on John's World of Quake
(thanks Mike Kelly).
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
The release is mentioned briefly on Redwood's News and links to John's homepage, and no local mirror in this case.
May 7, 1997
Oak Bot .82
Oak Bot .82 is out. Thanks Darkday.
-- http://redwood.stomped.com/597.html (archived July 16 1998)
Around this time Neil announced the bot on Usenet in the rec.games.computer.quake.announce group.
The announcement is brief, although includes its name "The Oak", a link to his personal webpage that in turn linked to the bot, and the fact that the bot is a terminator.
Hi,
The Oak is a new Quake Bot which has been under development for a while
now. We have now released the first public beta, which can be found at The
Oak's web site:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/index.htm
It uses the incredibly cool Terminator skin by Dan Bickell, along with some
new sounds and much more that you can read about on the site.
Neil Henderson
-- The Oak Public Beta, rec.games.computer.quake.announce, Neil Henderson, 7 May 1997
A copy of this version cannot be located at the time of writing.
The release date was probably May 6th 1997.
The next version of the bot was released as oak083.zip.
It was announced on Blues News with some commentary on the content of the changes, including improved navigation and combat AI.
The announcement links to Neil's homepage, as well as the original "Public Beta" release and this releases hosted locally.
May 8, 1997
New Oak
Version 0.83 of the Oak Bot is up on the Oak Homepage, featuring improved
Roaming AI, Chasing AI, nailgun firing, and the option to disable the sounds.
The upgrade is just a new Progs.dat (133 KB), which is all you need if you
already have the May 4, 1997 Public Beta (1 MB).
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
An updated news post was shared the next day indicating that the local mirror of the file was corrupted and has since been repaired.
May 9, 1997
Oak Goof
I had a corrupt zip in my Oak .03 story yesterday, so if you had a bad
download, my apologies, here we go, once more with feeling: Version 0.83 of
the Oak Bot is up on the Oak Homepage, featuring improved Roaming AI,
Chasing AI, nailgun firing, and the option to disable the sounds. The upgrade
is just a new Progs.dat (133 KB), which is all you need if you already have
the May 4, 1997 Public Beta (1 MB).
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
A copy of the release was donated to the Quake Bot Archive bo John himself.
The release contains the compiled game code (progs.dat) and a zip file (prognew.zip).
150739 14 Jul 1997 prognew.zip
445032 7 May 1997 progs.dat
The zip file also contains compiled game code (prognew.dat).
491524 7 Jul 1997 prognew.dat
The release date is taken from the timestamp of the game code, May 7th, one day be he announcement on Blues News and one day after the suspected release of the previous version.
The timestamp of the prognew.zip file and its prognew.dat contents is suspicious and may have been accidentally added to this version of the release at a later date.
The next version of the bot was released as oak084.zip.
This version appears on an archived version of a download page on Neil's personal homepage, with a release date of May 7th, the same as the previous release.
I suspect the release date on this page was in fact for the 0.83 release and was mistakenly left in place when the page was updated for the 0.84 release.
Build 0.84 07-May-1997 (136K)
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/download.html (archived December 05 1998)
This release was announced on Blues News on June 17th 1997.
The announcement links to a locally hosted mirror of the release file and to Neil's personal homepage in order to learn more about it.
Tuesday, June 17, 1997
New Releases
Catching up mode: The new Oak Bot, version 0.84 (135 KB) has been released on
the Oak Bot page.
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/june97-2.html (archived January 29 1998)
The release was not announced on Redwood's News.
It was added to the "QuakeC Downloads" page on "Quake Mecca" and listed with a release date of Jun 13 1997, 4 days before the announcement on Blues News.
QuakeC Downloads
OakBot v.84, 136k, 6/13/97
Hey, cool, a new QuakeBot! It's the OakBot! Its contains new sounds and models.
It can deathmatch, play co-op, and even do teams. Requires this file (1.0mb)
as well. New in this version: It actually displays the scores if you press
tab! Thats rules!
-- http://quakemecca.simplenet.com/quakec.htm (archived July 07 1997)
A copy of the release was captured by archive.org on Quake Mecca.
It contains a compiled game code with a timestamp of June 13th, the same as that listed on the Quake Mecca download page, which is probably the release date of this version of the bot. This is more than a month since the previous release.
447176 13 Jun 1997 progs.dat
The nature of the changes in this version are not known.
The next version of the Oak bot was released as oak085.zip.
This version is listed on the download page on Neil's personal homepage and the release is dated June 23 1997.
Build 0.85 23 June, 1997 (137K)
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/download.html (archived December 05 1998)
The release was announced on Blues News, that links to a locally mirrored version of the file and to Neil's personal homepage.
A snippet of the changes in this release are also listed including improvements to the AI and scoring.
Monday, June 23, 1997
New Oak Bot
Version 0.85 of Neil Henderson's Oak Bot (135 KB) has been released on the Oak
Bot Homepage. The new release features improved Chasing AI, the ability to
spawn a single bot at a time, and bug-free scoring.
-- https://www.bluesnews.com/archives/june97-3.html (archived January 29 1998)
This release was also announced on Redwood's News. The announcement links directly to Neil's homepage and to the release file hosted on Neil's homepage.
June 23, 1997
New OakBot
The OakBot has been updated to 0.85, go to the homepage to get the May 4th
base code plus the upgrade patch, or download the upgrade patch directly if
you have a previous version. Only the progs.dat has been updated
-- http://redwood.stomped.com/697.html (archived July 16 1998)
QuakeMecca added the release to their "QuakeC Downloads" page. The release file was also captured by archive.org from this page.
QuakeC Downloads
OakBot v.85, 140k, 6/26/97
Hey, cool, a new QuakeBot! It's the OakBot! Its contains new sounds and models.
It can deathmatch, play co-op, and even do teams. Requires this file (1.0mb)
as well. New in this version: It actually displays the scores if you press
tab! Thats rules!
-- http://quakemecca.simplenet.com/quakec.htm (archived July 07 1997)
The release contains compiled game code (progs.dat) and a readme file (oak085.txt).
304 23 Jun 1997 oak085.txt
452464 22 Jun 1997 progs.dat
The timestamps of the files is listed as June 22 and 22 1997. This matches the announcements on Blues News and Redwood on the 23rd.
The readme file in the release is minimal, listing quick-start instructions.
Here's just a quick note on Build 0.85's new impulse commands:
impulse 100 - create a single bot
impulse 101 - toggle sounds on/off
impulse 104 - create 4 bots (max of 8)
Remember to launch Quake by:
quake -game oak -listen 16
(where "oak" is the subdirectory under Quake containing The Oak.)
-- oak085.txt
The next version of the bot was the last public release.
It was distributed as oak0855.zip.
An announcement about this release appears on Neil's personal homepage, listing improved roaming and links to John's page for a fuller description of the changes.
Announced on Neil Henderson's homepage.
Build 0.855 has been released! John describes it as a "1/2 way build with the
new movement code". Some of it's new features include a new Roaming function
and the bot will now die in lava & slime. Remember to check out John's Worklog
Page for a more detailed list of new features.
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/ (archived December 01 1998)
Neil's download page lists the release with a locally hosted link and a release date of August 11th.
Build 0.855 11 August, 1997 (137K)
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/download.html (archived December 05 1998)
The release was announced on Blues News on August 7th 1997 which mirrors the minimal comments from Neil's homepage about the nature of the change.
The announcement links to a locally mirrored version of the oak0855.zip release and the original oak0405.zip, and to a page on John's homepage describing the bot.
Thursday, August 7, 1997
New Oak Bot
Oak Bot 0.855 (147 KB) has been released on the Oak Bot page. This release is
described as a half way build which includes new movement code. The update has
a new progs.dat, but if you don't already have it, the most recent version with
the .pak file (1 MB) is also required (thanks Night for reminding me to post
that).
-- https://www.bluesnews.com/archives/aug97-1.html (archived Feb 13 1998)
The release was also announced on Redwood's News a day later with locally mirrored versions of the files.
August 8, 1997
Oak Bot .855
I saw on Blue's that the Oak Bot is now up to version .855. Download the new
.855 patch. You must have the original Pak if you don't have it already.
-- http://redwood.stomped.com/897.html (archived July 16 1998)
A copy of this release has not been located at the time of writing.
The release date was probably August 7th, or a day before.
Work on the oak bot probably continued.
A captured archive on Niel's homepage lists new mirrors of the bot homepage.
Sadly, the new mirrors have not been archived.
12 August, 1997
We now have a US mirror located at:
http://quake.extreme3d.com/theoak/
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/ (archived December 01 1998)
A news post on Neil's homepage on August 18th suggest a version 1.0 of the bot was imminent.
If developed, this version of the bot was never made public.
18 August, 1997
A major release is going to be out soon! It may even be version 1.0 of The Oak!
John has been working extremely hard on new Roaming & Pathing AI, Teamplay
support (which is long overdue), shot prediction & avoidance, and better skill
levels. Some Bot Personality code is also being worked on. All in all, this
new release is gonna be pretty cool.
Check back soon!
-- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/ (archived December 01 1998)
John donated a file "oak_old.zip" to the Quake Bot Archive in 2021.
This file contains a config file (config.cfg), compiled game code (progs.dat), and a working version of the PAK file.
2451 30 Aug 1997 config.cfg
498996 27 Aug 1997 progs.dat
2111050 4 May 1997 Pak0.pak
The compiled game code is dated August 27, about 11 days after Niel's news announcement about an imminent version 1.0 of the bot.
We might reasonably suspect that this version of the bot donated by John represents a working copy or beta test of this release that was never finished or made public.
John continued on to finish university and work in It.
John was introduced to the Quake series of games in 1996 by Krunch-X. He developed The Oak in early 1997 and began work on Oak II as soon as the SDK was available for Quake 2. During 1997 John worked with Team BDP on their Quake mod, Ebb of Life. In July 1998 John graduated from the University of Swansea with a degree in Computer Science, unfortunately after that John begain writing business software which left no time for bot programming.
-- http://www.oakbots.co.uk/about/ (archived February 02 2006)
Work stopped on the Oak bot, probably because work began a on bot for Quake II, called OAK II.
An announcement was made about the developing of the bot about one month later in September 1997 linking to John's personal homepage.
Tuesday, September 2, 1997
First Quake II Bot Announced
The Oak II page is now online, representative of the project to create the
Quake II sequel to the Oak bot, Oak II.
-- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/aug97-5.html (archived January 29 1998)
An Oak II bot for Quake II was made public about 9 months later and John's work was later hosted on the popular telefragged network of websites at telefragged.com/oak/.
14th June 98 - It's alive!
Finally I`ve finished my exams! :) Work on Oak II will be recomencing
immediately. I`ve still got a few things to finish in the new build but hope
it`ll be ready by the 20th, I`ll also release a linux version at the same
time, though I still have to figure out how to get my 3DFX card going under
linux, and install Quake2... If anyone wants to drop me some pointers do feel
free... After which I`ll also port the Arena Oak to linux. Finally I`ve also
gotten round to writing the botinfo section too :)
-- http://www.telefragged.com/oak/ (archived June 26 1998)
Many years later, perhaps in 2005, John created a homepage dedicated to his series of Oak bots for the Quake series of games, although did not have preserved copies of the original Oak bot for Quake to host on the site.
The Oak
The original Oak Bot for the original Quake. I'm currently trying to recover
copies and documentation. If you have anything related to The Oak please get
in touch and let me know.
-- http://www.oakbots.co.uk/the-oak/ (archived February 09 2006)
- Oak Bot v0405, oak0405.zip, May 04 1997
- Oak Bot v0.81, oak081.zip, May 05 1997
- Oak Bot v0.82, oak082.zip, May 06 1997
- Oak Bot v0.83, oak083.zip, May 07 1997
- Oak Bot v0.84, oak084.zip, June 17 1997
- Oak Bot v0.85, oak085.zip, June 23 1997
- Oak Bot v0.855, oak0855.zip, August 07 1997
- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/download.html (archived December 05 1998)
- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archived June 09 1997)
- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/may97-1.html (archived January 29 1998)
- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/june97-2.html (archived January 29 1998)
- https://www.bluesnews.com/archives/aug97-1.html (archived Feb 13 1998)
- https://www.bluesnews.com/archives/june97-3.html (archived January 29 1998)
- http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/aug97-5.html (archived January 29 1998)
- http://redwood.stomped.com/597.html (archived July 16 1998)
- http://redwood.stomped.com/697.html (archived July 16 1998)
- http://redwood.stomped.com/897.html (archived July 16 1998)
- http://web.ukonline.co.uk/neil.henderson/theoak/ (archived December 01 1998)
- http://quakemecca.simplenet.com/quakec.htm (archived July 07 1997)
- http://www.oakbots.co.uk/the-oak/ (archived February 09 2006)