Fair warning: this piece of "writing" is more or less life story crap.
I remember way back in the bad old days as a newer newbie, I played my real life friends in 1v1 and small FFA games with baseq2. Despite being a horrible player, I was usually the one with more kills. I can't be THAT good, I naturally thought to myself. I believe at this time, my friends introduced me to the MSN Gaming Zone for some online competition. My belief was strengthened for a time as I struggled to take even a middle position on the leaderboards in FFA.
Eventually though, I learned a few basics in FFA. Stuff like switching from rail to chain/ssg after weakening someone, stringing together strafe jumps for speed, and that I should always have 101+ health/armor points to survive a rail slug. As I learned more of Q2's mechanics and engine, I finally had consistent results at the top of the FFA scoreboard. But even though I realized that you do need to have a fair amount of skill to get to the top consistently, I was doubtful that it proved you had truly outplayed someone with a lower score than yours. Naturally, I discovered duels.
Having no knowledge of the current community, I browsed sites on PlanetQuake for any tips I could find. I remember watching a demo of a q2dm1 duel which was somewhat slow-paced (walking, some startup time needed for the double jump to MH), but I think I learned a little about rocket prediction and item control. After a little more searching to no avail, I finally decided that I'd just have to get in there and pick it up with firsthand experience.
So, at first, I just stayed on the sidelines, spectating other people having matches (falsely believing that 'oh that looks easy, I think I can pull off a good fight'), learning the mod commands, and so on. People came and went on the servers as I tried to learn as much as I could. Once I felt ready, I hopped on an tourney server and waited for someone to drop by.
And the 10 minute dance of death on the edge began. Although I saw that my opponent was an HPB, I was pretty sure that he was holding back on me. I can't remember the final result, but regardless I think I did a half-decent job against my opponent (wish I could remember the name, think it was timb0). We had some post-match antics, and my opponent was showing off the infamous MH room circle jump from YA to MH and back. I knew about this jump, but I couldn't pull it off for the life of me. The other person was glad to help, and during this little training session I saw someone named naymlis connected to the server.
(I don't know how I can write this tidbit in while keeping flow, but naym was using chat binds, like the ones thrown by the more pretentious players in FFA! Heheheh...hm. I don't know why I find that amusing, but moving on...)
Seeing that I was still struggling with the jump, my recent sparring partner asked naym if he could help out. After some time, I was unable to perform the circle jump and just stated I'd keep practicing. Fair enough, I suppose. Naymlis left and I continued to newbed up the server some more. Before I parted ways with the mystery player, he told me the name of an IRC channel where competitive Q2 players met up and shot the shit. I thanked him for the offer (in my mind at least heh), but I didn't hop into the channel. I think that was because the channel name had the word 'pro' in it, which I obviously was not. Too bad I didn't realize that maybe it wasn't JUST FOR pros, but for competitive players, old and aspiring.
But at least I felt welcomed and wanted regardless of my high level of suckiness at the time. I was glad that there were people out there who welcome new players. Most of the attitudes I saw against newer/low-skilled players during my spectator phase weren't positive, to say the least. I then realized that it's a community, and every community would have their fair share of characters.
I discovered q2players.org later on, and had finally gotten enough confidence and skill to play TDM/1v1 games and not be negatively affected when someone lambasted my poor performance. Maybe I could've been a more active player. Maybe I should've played more and spectated less out of fear of getting an ass kicking. Whatever the case, I had made it in...
After thinking about my story, it's hard not to wonder about how things are now in the NA Q2 scene. If someone is even slightly interested in wanting to take part in 1v1/TDM, would they be welcomed if they just hopped into a game and try to play without knowing most of the basics like myself? And what about those who jump in, take an immediate beating, and then promptly disconnect? Sure, you can say that they didn't have enough interest in 1v1 because they quit and never looked back, but maybe that person would've stuck around some more had they known the basics?
I know that some people like myself would rather just read up on guides by their lonesome and try to gain experience without asking questions at first. Others need to be shown and taught the fundamentals straight away. And some people can just instantly pick it up like that, but I'm sure they don't need a welcome.
But the first two types of people I've described probably do. Unfortunately, it's not really a great place to ask questions on the server, where people would want to play instead of train newcomers. Luckily, we have forums and IRC for that. I'm sure if someone introduced him/herself in a relatively calm manner, someone would eventually take some time to help the person out. And TS also has the Q2 training camp, although I haven't seen much recent activity in that subforum (maybe on IRC?).
The best way to improve and have fun matches is to break into the community. Once you're in and recognized, you can ask lots of people for lots of matches in IRC and get lots of practical experience. That's much better than what I did, which was not talk to anyone (still not much of a talker today), try to figure things out myself, and just hop on the server with little confidence due to worrying about what other players thought of me.
In any case, I think that if you have even the slightest interest in 1v1/TDM, you should post up on the forums or hop on IRC regardless of introversion. After you spend a little time, if you decide you don't like it, you can just disappear, but at least you'll learn a few advanced techniques that you can show off to players in FFA. And maybe they'll start to wonder and get interested, and then...