Background:

Dominus started playing Doom2 deathmatch sometime around 1995 or 96 (I'll have to ask him for clarification when I see him again on IRC). He began frequenting the local Dallas Dwango server, where at first, players named codine, rcantu, and conan were among the top guys. When he was learning his game, he played against them and other people, and was particularly inspired in his game by rcantu and conan. Codine was known to taunt him, despite eventually losing badly once Dominus had become among the top players himself. In addition to being a regular on Dallas Dwango, Dominus also lanned with locals.

Rcantu and conan were the first people he saw do one-shot SSG kills from what appeared to be ridiculously long range. At LANs, he and his locals would refer to such a succesful shot as "a conan". He worked on his own one-shot SSG abilities, and remains well known for this ability to this day.

In 2000, Xenos and Dominus had a long LAN shortly before the CPL Frag4 Doom2 tournament in Dallas. Dom placed second in the tournament, the final round being Doom2 map1 with Vapor. A year later, he placed first at the CPL doom tournament in 2001, Waldon placed second and I was third.

In 2003 he attended the Summer, 2003 netparty in South Riding, VA. There are a number of AVI files and still photographs from this LAN at http://www.doom2.net/bahdlan3 .

He is typically semi-active in the Doom2 Deathmatch scene at any given time. He'll disappear from IRC and the doom scene for a while, being busy with other things, then return to play a few games or just say hello, then disappear again later.

 

Stylistic information:

Dominus is well known for his inexplicable ability to perform an inordinate number of medium and long range, single shot kills with the supershotgun. Now, we all know that the SSG is indeed *the* weapon for single shot kills, but, Dominus takes it to a whole different level of regularity. It makes him murder on any map that has a ssg, even maps where you wouldn't expect the SSG to be the weapon of choice (such as D5m2 (Danzig 11)). He is of course no slouch with any of the other weapons and is known to enjoy accurate chaingunning, but his SSG kills will really get your attention.

I remember one Map1 game with him where I was at the bottom of the Map1 hallway, in the plasma room, and he was at the top of the hall. He single shot killed me, while I was nearly 100% health, from the top of the hall. Also at my LAN, we had a Dwango5 map1 game where it seemed like I just could not get any kills in due to dying too quickly from his high-damage SSG hits. It's the kills like that which you just can't forget.

My impression is that Dominus came into his prime, skill-wise, around the Fall/Winter of 2001. The time that I got to LAN with him in Dallas, at the second CPL tournament, was 6 months before this, and the first CPL tournanent was a year and a half prior. His SSG was quite evil at our small Dallas LAN, but in our Map1 games I was getting scores on him that I would not have later that year.

Before the end of 2001 he was best known for his Map7 game. It has been speculated that if the final round of the Frag4 tournament had been played on Map7, Dominus might have won the tournament.

As of this writing (Fall, 2003) I believe him to be the strongest of the active doom2.exe D5m1 and Map7 LAN players in the United States. He also has a strong Map1 game.

He generally has good nerves in game, but he has a hard time playing to his full potential when something interferes with his player controls, such as the mouse imprecision caused by doom2.exe recording, or internet lag. I doubt his real skill level shows all the way through in internet based games. I believe LAN to be his best medium. 

Other details:

I first met Dominus in Dallas at the CPL Doom2 tournament in early July of 2001. The tournament went really interesting. In the end, it came down to 4 people: Dominus, one of Dominus' friends whose name I forget, Me, and Waldon. Dominus played Waldon, as indigo, and won by a significant margin, I attribute part of the score difference in that match to Waldon being less experienced at the time in the high-pressure doom2 tournament gameplay styles. I managed to beat Dominus' friend, but it was a close game, and I happened to be green; I think that match  could have potentially gone to whoever had green. And then, one of the final rounds was Me vs. Dominus, and I gave Dominus a harder time than Waldon did, and I think I was even winning in the beginning of the game. Realize though, that Waldon was doubling my score consistantly in the weeks before the tournament. Such is how it goes with Doom skill sometimes; when you get 3 players together, the scores between them in 1 on 1 games don't always make sense.

Waldon, Ugwad, Dominus and I lanned in my hotel room for a few days on the weekend of the tournament. Dominus was always eager to play, and in fact actually showed up when we weren't there, and had to wait for about an hour in the hotel lobby with his computer and table for us to get back. He said that he had wanted to surprise us by coming early, which I guess you could say, he did. Definately a dedicated doomer, there.

I met him for the second time when he came to my LAN in South Riding, Virginia in August of 2003. Dominus made spagetti for us, and somehow, he managed to make the best tasting spagetti I've ever had. I've had lots of different kinds of spagetti, too, and I don't know how he pulled it off with the ingredients he had, but he did. He also made hot habernero salsa. It was really, really hot. I kind of could not really eat it, but some of the others seemed able to.

My Dwango5 Map1 and Doom2 Map7 games with him were memorable. In the Dwango5 game, I called into the other room at one point, saying "Can I get a frag in edgewise, please?". I could not seem to get close enough to him, or get enough time alive, to get frags. The SSG damage i'd take, even at a distance, was very high, and I couldn't seem to do enough damage in return. On Map7 it was something of a clusterfuck, combining the SSG plus BFG plus he knows what he's doing there in terms of where to go and what to do.

At this second LAN, he sometimes said funny things aloud in game, including things that could be construed to be taunting his opponent but were not insulting or personal. They did not seem to be intended disrespectfully and he seems to be saying them more to himself than anyone else. He responds to verbalizations from the opponent similarly, and was even caught on camera doing it by Toke, in  http://www.doom2.net/bahdlan3/dom-vs-dev.avi.

Dominus is 6'1", the pictures above don't really show that.