Sad news for fans of the Deathcon gaming server as Steve Pirk has passed away from a quick battle with Leukemia. Pirk, best known as the webmaster of the Deathcon game server that hosted dedicated game servers for such classic games as Quake II, Soldier of Fortune II, and Tribes 2, played under the aliases 'egrep' and 'Orion'.
I first met Steve around 1998. I was playing Quake II around that time and found a nice server with a low ping located a few miles from where I lived. Steve, going by the alias Orion at that time, would play on the server and we got chat every now and then about the game or who shot who. Around the same time I started fiddling around with websites and Macromedia Flash 3 had been released recently so I made a little cheesy Flash animation intro for the Deathcon website. I sent it to Steve and he posted added it to the site.
We got to talking more and he asked what I did. I was working at a small hole in the wall website developer so he asked that I send him my resume to pass around his office. I asked where he worked and he said Disney. I cleaned up my resume as fast as I could and sent it over and got a call for an interview a week or two later.
The first interview didn't go well because I think Steve thought I was more on the artist side but I was more the code guy so the interview was with creative types and I didn't have a creative portfolio and I never heard back. I did ask if they could show me where Steve was so I could say hello and we chatted and he gave me a copy of Tribes that I stunk at.
Fast forward a few months later and Steve said send a resume again. This time the interview was for a technical role but even then, I didn't meet with any technical people. Mostly producers. Apparently they liked me because I got a call back for a second interview but the producer I met with first said they were actually hiring me and he wanted to introduce me to the team. That's when I met the technical guy I would be working with and he started asking interview questions but it was too late. I was already hired so if he didn't like me, he missed his shot.
I spent 13 years there. 9 with Steve. He hosted several LANs there and outside of Disney that brought together many of the locals who would frequent the Deathcon server. One even driving from Colorado for the day.
Steve loaned me a Linux server to mess around with and showed me how to use Linux and set up my own game servers. My Linux skills would go on to help me in some of my duties at Disney and in some freelance projects.
Steve and I started to go our separate ways after he left Disney but every now and then he would call to see what was going on or help me with server issues if I was having trouble.
He was always fun to yuck around with and will be sorely missed.
Rest in peace, brother.