The "Bot Player" or BPlayer was developed by Wolfgang Lehrach aka "Wolf" aka "Rainking, based on the BGBot.
This is a modest bot, but does provide the basis for Wolfgang's follow-up bot, TFBOTS for team fortress, and a lineage of extensions.
The first version of the BPlayer was released as bplayer1.zip.
No copy of the bplayer1.zip release can be acquired.
We know of this release because the file released with the second version, bplayer2.txt, appears to accidently be the readme file for the first release, and is different to the readme file in the bplayer2.zip containing the second release.
The release date of this first release according to the readme file is September 9th, perhaps the same day as BGBot version 1.5.
Title : BPLAYER - Bot Player.
Filename : bplayer1.zip
Version : 1.00 beta.
Date : 96/9/6
Author : Wolf
-- bplayer1.txt (released as bplayer2.txt)
Wolfgang gives credit to the authors of the BGBot, DMBot, TMBot, and RoamBot at the top of the readme and explicitly calls out the BPlayer as an extension of BGBot version 1.5.
Based upon BG Bot 1.5.
-- bplayer1.txt (released as bplayer2.txt)
The focus of this first release appears to be focused on lists of scores for the bots.
Impulse 101 lists the current scores of the bots. Shows up
on all clients. List the number of bots and the bot with
the highest score.
Nearly all of this code is mine.
-- bplayer1.txt (released as bplayer2.txt)
Wolfgang comments that the mod is available from ftp.cdrom.com, as well as his personal webpage.
FTP : ftp.cdrom.com
WWW : http://www.pro-net.co.uk/home/wolfg_l
-- bplayer1.txt (released as bplayer2.txt)
His webpage does appear in the internet archive, although the earliest capture was on January 16, 1999, two and a half years after this release. There are few quake and bot files captured other than a ad hoc graphic for an older website.
A CV on the webpage that was archived, lists Wolf's full name as Wolfgang Lehrach.
The second release of the bplayer was distributed as bplayer2.zip
This version was distributed on ftp.cdrom.com, where it remained as apart of the archive.
The release contains the text file, a pak file containing the compiled game code, and a zip file of the source code for the release.
129069 21 Sep 1996 SRC.ZIP
454466 21 Sep 1996 PAK0.PAK
2998 21 Sep 1996 BPLAYER2.TXT
As noted, the readme distributed along side the zip file was for version 1.00 of the release, not version 2.00.
The readme within the zip file is correct and lists the release data as September 21st.
Title : BPLAYER - Bot Player.
Filename : bplayer2.zip
Version : v2.00 beta
Date : 21/9/96
Author : Wolf
-- bplayer2.txt
The timestamps of the files on the FTP serer match this release date. Given the dates match, we might assume that the date and file names for the first release, listed in the text file for the first release, are probably correct.
bplayer2.txt 21-Sep-96 15:35 2k
bplayer2.zip 21-Sep-96 15:38 260k
-- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archived December 25 1996)
This second release appears to be a bug fix release.
Updates
-------
bug fixes from v1.00 beta:
Correct docs
Client handling
Removed cheats (oops)!
Basicly, delete old version and get this!
-- bplayer2.txt
This appears to be the final release of the BPlayer.
Nevertheless, Wolfgang did revisit quake bot developer later with his TFBot, a bot for the popular team fortress mod for quake.
- bplayer v1.00, bplayer1.zip, September 06 1996.
- bplayer v2.00, bplayer2.zip, September 21 1996.
- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/quakec/bots/ (archived December 25 1996)