Attack Retrieve Capture

Infobox VG| title = Attack Retrieve Capture


developer = Hoopy Entertainment
publisher = Hoopy Entertainment (1997 - 1998) Total Entertainment Network (1998 - 1999)
World Opponent Network
(2000 - 2001)
Sierra Entertainment
(2001 - 2007)
designer =
engine =
released = 1997 (public beta)
genre = Action
modes = Multiplayer
ratings = ESRB: Not Rated (NR)
platforms = PC (Windows)
media = Download
requirements =
input =

"Attack Retrieve Capture" (ARC) was a free multiplayer, 2D computer game created by John Vechey (jv) and Brian Fiete (bf) as a college project and later published by Hoopy Entertainment in 1997. The game was primarily capture the flag (CTF), but other game modes existed. In the 2-team CTF mode, each team tried to capture the other's flag(s). Players piloted small ships equipped with 4 types of weapons: lasers, missiles, bouncy lasers, and grenades.

Gameplay

Movement

There are two to four teams (green, red, blue, and yellow). Each player pilots a ship of his or her team's color. The ships move around a plane. There are obstacles which the ships cannot pass through (walls, areas with no floor, etc.).

Weapons

There exist two categories of weapons, which are the laser and the special weapons. When the laser is fired, its power drains. Laser power returns at a constant rate. The specials are made up of the three weapons which follow:
*The missile — does a large amount of damage on impact and has a small radius in which it does damage to nearby ships,
*The "bouncy" — a laser that bounces off walls and does greater damage than the standard laser.
*The grenade — a bomb which can be "thrown" over walls and kills instantly on a direct impact, with a large damage radius if it hits the ground.

A player spawns with no specials but gains them over time. He or she can hold only a certain number of special ammunition at a time (three "bouncies" and missiles, and two grenades).

Objectives

Capture the Flag

In "Capture the Flag" mode, a team wins by bringing the other team's or teams' flags to their own flagpost corresponding to the color of the flag. A team may have multiple flags. There are also neutral flags, which are white. A player carrying a flag moves more slowly than normal; also, he or she cannot use a teleporter or move "against" a conveyor belt.

If a player drops a team flag (not white), a player from that team or another opposing team can pick up the flag after a few seconds. If a player touches their own dropped flag or the flag is left alone for a certain time, the flag is returned to its home post immediately. Neutral flags do not return by themselves.

witch

In "switch" or "button" mode, the map has one or more switches on it. A player "claims" a switch for their team by touching it. A team wins by gaining control of all the switches.

Deathmatch

There is no team objective in this mode. Players only attempt to kill each other to gain a high score.

History

The game has developed into a cult hit since the first beta releases, and its small but devoted fanbase has followed it for several years. Initially ARC was hosted on a server rented out by Hoopy, and clients ran it via HFront (Hoopy Front End). The original developers of ARC, John Vechey (jv) and Brian Fiete (bf), took ARC to Total Entertainment Network (TEN) (now pogo.com) in 1998 for its 1.0 release. In 1999, TEN went under and ARC appeared to go with it. But by December 1999, World Opponent Network (WON) had acquired ARC and began to run another beta test. During this time, WON attempted to make ARC a source of income, by adding advertisements into the game interface. However, the idea never got off the ground, and WON suffered the same fate as TEN in 2001. The future of ARC was again uncertain, but Sierra Entertainment bought WON which included ARC. This kept ARC going under much the same operation as WON had. A few updates were added to ARC but these were only security issues. In 2002, development was handed to a community member called Err0r. Due to lack of co-operation from Sierra Entertainment, no patch has been released. In a fairly expected turn of events, Err0r resigned on April 21, 2005 handing leadership of the admin team to Goose, one of the first users of the game, and Sonique, a prominent admin. [ [http://forums.arc-hq.net/viewtopic.php?t=21944 arc-hq.net] - "Err0r Resignation post. April 21, 2005."]

Termination

On July 16th, 2007, Sierra Entertainment posted a news release on their website [ [http://www.sierra.com/en/home/news/product_news/071607_-_sierra_heritage.html Sierra Entertainment] - "Sierra - Notice of Multiplayer Functionality Termination. July 16th, 2007"] expressing intentions to terminate multiplayer support for several Sierra Heritage titles (including ARC) as of August 16, 2007.

Community

ARC has a very strong community, perhaps the reason for its longevity. Some players have played for close to 11 years. The length of time a player has played is somewhat of a status symbol within the community, and players are frequently classified by when they started playing (see the ARC Eras). The community also revolves around clans and leagues. The most dominant clans over the years have been EgO, TBWA, PB, CaDF, and sYn. The oldest clan still active is *Area51* started by Eek in 1996.

League Play

Near the end of HFront, Pharcyde organized a tournament he called Clanwars. Gortex and Sexybooty helped him run this tournament as Pharcyde could not make himself available for all the matches. This single elimination tournament was very crude in implementation but it helped spawn many arc leagues, some which are still in action today. When TEN arrived, Clanwars came under new management and became ARC's first league, taking on a new name: the Arc Premier League (APL). The APL and other leagues ran seasons and tournaments between the clans, mostly for pride, but occasionally a prize was offered. Naming of the chat lobbies on TEN was a prize for the first APL, and a few seasons later, APL was sponsored by Diamond Multimedia, resulting in the winning clan receiving discmans.

Game Maps

The most popular maps are the following:
* Golden Oldie (Go)
* Madwars
* Smear da Queer
* Basewarz
* Battleground
* Castlewars
* CanVsUsa

With a map editor such as MapEd or Sedit, players may create custom maps.

Map History

Golden Oldie

Golden Oldie has been the most successful map and is the main map of choice for the arc veterans and is also the current league map. Go consists of two teams, green vs red in a middle size map using the maximum game width. With two neutral flags, one at each end. This map has been slightly edited to aplgo to have an area for spectators which is the blue team. Blue team is also where the ref can view the match from.

Map Creation

A community member by the alias of sedition created SEdit, the most popular map editor. There are other map editors as well, such as maped and qmaped.

Important People

* bf - Brian Fiete, co-founder of Hoopy Entertainment
* jv - John Vechey, co-founder of Hoopy Entertainment
* C: - Josh Langley, Graphics designer
* bob - Hoopy Webmaster and Server Administrator
* WarPig - Jason Kapalka - Hoopy, TEN liaison
* Osiris - Head Administrator of ARC (Nov, 2002 - July 3, 2003) R.I.P
* Err0r - Developer and Lead Admin (July 10, 2003 - April 21, 2005)
* Goose - Final Administrator of ARC (April 21, 2005 - August 16, 2007)
* Sonique - Final Co-Administrator of ARC (April 21, 2005 - August 16, 2007)

Lingo

* Air - When the player gets damaged without actually getting hit, this is referred to as air damage. The lag nades are an example of air damage (see below).
* Camper - A player who waits by spawning points of the opposite team(s) and kills their ship as they spawn.
* Lag Nade - A grenade that is thrown at a ship and before it actually hits, the ship explodes. (LN for short)
* Lagshooting - In ARC, hitting the enemy on your screen does not mean he/she was actually hit, due to lag. To successfully hit an enemy, one must try to predict the enemy ship's movement, and shoot in the predicted path, instead of right on the enemy. If done right, the enemy ship will take damage even if the shots did not hit on your screen. This is the vital art of lagshooting. The distance to lagshoot is determined by your, and your enemy's connection to the server.
* Nip - A players ship, referring to the similarity between the original graphics (beta 32 and before) and a nipple.
* Smoker - A player is smoked or a smoker when a smoke cloud animation appears on their ship. This occurs when the player is low on health.
* Spread - Literally a spread/wall of lasers fired from left to right, up to down, etc.
* Vet - Short for veteran, a vet is someone who has been playing ARC or who has been in the community for an extended period of time. Primarily used in the TEN and WON eras when lots of newer players arrived; the title was generally reserved for a player who began during the Hfront era.
* Vulch/Vulcher - A kill that another player thought they had a claim on. One who steals kills repeatedly is known as a vulcher (derived from the English word vulture).

References

Website History

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20001018021550/http://arc.won.net/ arc.won.net] - October 18, 2000 "archive.org"
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20001018021550/http://arc.won.net/ arc.won.net] - October 18, 2000 "archive.org"

External links

* [http://www.arc-hq.net/ ARC Headquarters (official)]
* [http://www.arc-stuff.net/ ARC-Stuff]
* [http://www.SquishyRecords.com/ ARC Soundtrack]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/me/archm/ ARC Historic Museum] History up until 1998
* [http://www.popcap.com/ PopCap.com] The creators of ARC founded a new company.
* [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/arcattackretrivecapture/index.html ARC on gamespot.com]
* [http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928105.asp ARC on gamerankings.com]