Xenaero
From Unidoom Wiki
Nick McCarthy (Born Feb 23rd, 1990), who is better known as Xenaero, and formerly as DD_133, is a former-56k wielding American doomer hailing from the swamplands of Florida. Often has a short temper and an over-inflated sense of pride. Hates most people.
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Pre-Online
Around the year 2000, the age of ten, Nick purchased all the doom games in one go from id software over the internet. After downloading them, and finding out that it wouldn't work so well on windows, he began searching around for a solution. Finding Doomworld's source port page as a result, he downloaded Doom Legacy.
After running through the iwads, he found the bot feature in Legacy's multiplayer options. And so Xen found deathmatch. Returning to Doomworld, the /idgames archive's deathmatch directory proved to be a great friend for providing quality botmatch maps. Spending whole months on different wads, including dwango5, exec, brit11 and others, Xen came to the point of wondering if he could play with other people. And so after finding Doom Connector, it began.
Discoveries Online
After finding Doom Connector and installing it, the login prompt came up. Confused, Xen attempted to think of a name for his profile, but failing to come up with one, he simply punch in different letters and numbers along with the shift key until it looked acceptable. And so DD_133 began (Although later, he would say it was an acronym so he could think that the name had some kind of meaning).
Soon, he began mixing up with other people. After attempting to join other Legacy matches, and finding out that it slowed the game down dramatically due to his dialup connection, then getting kickbanned from the games, he began to question and yell at the mods, resulting in getting kicked from doom connector several times. Not realising that dialup was the malfunction, Xen deleted Doom Legacy from his computer, and began exploring other options.
Zdaemon Warrior
Around late 2000, Xen discovered Zdaemon. Choosing the name Psylocked for himself, he began playing several matches on his first day. Still using the arrow keys instead of the mouse and typical WSAD format, times were tough. Soon he realised, that after constantly whining about why the shots were not instant, that the ping was to blame, and the 56k was the cause of the ping. Broadband was unheard of, and the computer he was on would not support many newer games without crashing.
Trudging on, he adapted by beginning to use the mouse and the WSAD format in his games. Playing for a few months, before quitting again due to frustration of constant losses, it would be some time before Xen picked up playing again.
Rebirth Of A Lagged God
After practicing much against Zdaemon's and Legacy's bots, Xen, now age 12, in early 2002, began playing again. This time dropping Psylocked, he again assumed form as DD_133. Slowly he began wrestling with the constant latency dialup provided. Playing many CTF games and 1on1s provided to be good training, and as his reponse time and accuracy grew better, he set his sights higher.
Noticing how high and mighty clan Unidoom was at the time, he decided to beat them all, or so he thought. The mighty UD fighters crushed him in 1on1 combat. Vowing to complete his goal, he played others near his skill level to increase his power. Soon after that, he registered on the Zdaemon forums, and generally made a fool of himself, as he did in-game.
Tagging A Skull
Early 2003, DD_133 found Skulltag, a lesser played port. Indeed, he liked the increased smoothness in the game, not to mention the new weapons, maps and powerups. He decided here would be a good place to make a name for himself. However, The next few days proved to be dissapointing, as he usually saw no one playing at all on the servers, compared to at least 20 on Zdaemon. Soon, though, he caught sight of some players, most notably JohnnyRules, <LC>L33tor, and Womble. Playing several games, Johnnyrules gave him several tips on his control configuration, which helped his game immensely.
Soon afterwards, DD found himself in a game with Womble and Mephisto. After playing several games, the three formed [MAC], but for what the tag meant, no one knows, as Womble dissapeared a few weeks later, taking the clan down with it. Mephisto and DD_133 tried again, this time with [WoS], Warriors of Steel. This was destined to die even quicker than [MAC] did, not in any small part due to the clan challenges from (7th), the most powerful Skulltag clan at the time.
Zerg Rush Kekeke
A true cornerstone of DD_133's dooming career, Zerg Rush Kekeke was formed when DD_133 and Rexator, convinced Mephisto and newcomers Tom_D and Crash_Man to join. This is considered a joke clan to many, but DD_133 took it seriously, issueing many chalenges to current clans. Even after months of practice and wars with other clans, 7th still remained undefeatable.
Trouble arose within the ranks, even after a golden period of mapping for the clan. Infighting on leader status and childish bickering drove Mephisto out, and Tom_D soon followed. The rest of the clan, still undeterred, recruited Plz_Die_Kthx and HumanBones into the leagues, only to kick pdk out due to inactivity, and HumanBones left for Unidoom. Things were looking bleak.
Rexator, distracted by Ragnarok Online, left only Crash_Man and DD_133 left. It was soon after that that ZRK's fate was decided. The clan disbanded.
Drama Queen
It was during this time that DD_133, at the age of 13, began spamming the forums, pissing off the mods, and flaming other users, and generally making himself a nuisance all around, resulting in two bans, and numerous excersions from IRC. Bugging the clan leaders of 7th to let him in didn't help things, as soon DD_133 got very frustrated with not getting his way, and left the community for a few weeks, before returning. This return was not greeted with fanfare, however, and much taunting and teasing ensued.
This stages lasts with him even to today, where he is trying to return his reputation to a stable level once again.
Post-ZRK
Soon after ZRK's disbandment, he got into several arguments with Carnevil, Raider, and the mods of both ports, resulting in numerous bans from both. Most of the reasons DD_133 made against them were out of the blue and inconsistant.
After chilling out for awhile, he began aiming to get better again, constantly playing in DMs, CTF games and 1on1s to adapt against tougher players. More and more dialup users upgraded to broadband, thereby securing an advantage over the one level playing field DD_133 liked.
As times passed, more internal problems with Zdaemon occured, resulting in his expulsion from the port, for opposing Kilgore and Raider's reasons for banning most of UD from Zdaemon. Disgusted, DD_133 turned back to Skulltag. In an attempt to help the port grow, he participated in numerous milestones, including running Friday Night Fragnight, helping promote Skulltag Online, among others.
This quickly came to a close as DD_133, disgusted with the constant lack of moderation on both the forums and in-game, brought it to the attention of Carnevil, who simply did not care. Telling Carnevil he will resign from his relatively high position, Carnevil unloaded on him, and instead of posting the reason for DD's departure, he posted links to logs from one of DD's more infamous ranting sprees, the 'cleansing of the internet', and stated that he had left in a fit of emo rage. Infurated, he lost any sense of caring for any direction the main communities of both ports would go.
The International Doom League and more Skulltag omgf!!
Beginning in 2006, and leading up to the early months of 2012, DD_133, who eventually during this time period changed his screenname a billion times over a month's period before sticking with Xenaero, played in the International Doom League. This competitive organization was led by Ralphis. Xen, as of the time of this writing, participated in all eleven seasons of the IDL, yet has failed numerous times in various stages in the playoffs to secure the title itself, making him the longest contender without a Masterbowl title.
In early 2007, he also got some type of weird backwater sub-par DSL, which didn't really make him much better at games at all, much to the disappointment of ladies everywhere. Xen speculates he was actually better on 56k. Although interestingly, he has been able to trade blows with most of the highest level players Doom offers, whereas previously he wasn't anywhere near that level.
In the eleventh season of IDL, then-commissioner HumanBones brought everyone's favorite basket-case onto the IDL Board, a 'team' of 5 individuals led by the Commissioner to adjust rules, policies, maplists, and the such. It was this season that proved to be the downfall for the board. Nearly every member quit at the end of the season for various reasons.
During this six year stretch, Xenaero was also brought back to Skulltag by Metalhead to help administrate the community following Carnevil's departure to work on his multiplayer/singleplayer/coop/whoknowswhat game of Wrack. Soon after telling Skulltag to get off his server, Carnevil had a change of heart and absorbed Skulltag back into his fatzone and total control once again so he could market Wrack to the userbase. During this time period one of his conditions was to completely demote Xenaero due to past grudges. After this, Xen once again left Skulltag behind to probably rot forever.
Events that transpired during the last season of the International Doom League drove Xen out of multiplayer competitive Doom for an indefinite amount of time. There are rumors that the IDL is much better off as a result!
Current Status
Xenaero can be found on Steam, where he spends most of his gaming time playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2.
He is on hiatus from Doom entirely for the time being. It is unknown if he will return to the community (or one of the various sub-communities) in some shape or form, but given his past history, it is likely he will be seen playing Doom to some degree again before long.
His status as a staple of Unidoom's ranks remain unchanged, although with his current inactive. Believes tags are mostly silly unless a clan fight happens.
