Quakecon 2009
I headed out bright and early Monday morning to volunteer to work setup for the Bring Your Own Computer event at Quakecon. Squall arrived from Arkansas on Tuesday night, and we kept at it all week until early Sunday morning when Squall and I brought our computers back to the house. This year it was being held just across the lake, which made it even easier to contribute.
I was part of the team that set up the network cables, but showing up a day early let me get myself checked in and familiarize myself with the people. Monday was a lot of furniture hauling and waiting. On Tuesday I went from 9AM to just after midnight pulling and securing network cables. The job was complicated when hotel staff ran over network wiring with a motorized pallet jack, damaging several strands. Each strand had to be tested and the bad ones had to be thrown out and run again. I worked a little bit of security duty until we all got organized to repair the cables - and ended up protecting some very valuable stuff.
Squall arrived that night, and he and I went to volunteer on Wednesday morning. Most of our work that day involved untangling old patch cables (that connect a computer to the local network switch) and stringing them to each computer position along the tables. Monday's work was a lot of muscle, Tuesday's was diligence, and Wednesday was frustration. The network was finished, though, and fairly early.
Because we had volunteered, we moved our computers in Wednesday night and went to rest up for the first day.
Just as a reminder, the BYOC event is open 24 hours a day from 9am Thursday morning until noon Sunday. You many not sleep in the BYOC, and will of course need sustenance. This means, in strictest terms, that any time you spend sleeping or eating or doing anything other than using your computer in the BYOC is time you won't be able to use. I'm proud to say that Squall and I made sure to get enough sleep each night - by which I mean a precious few hours. Compared to most people, we were living healthy.
The BYOC experience this year was much, much better than previous years. This was Quakecon's biggest year of attendance, and yet it was also the most comfortable to be at. Why? Our connections worked immediately, people around us were playing games instead of sitting watching their progress bars as they drained the network's bandwidth for swapping files, and the people who spent all their time hollering and periodically annoying the whole of the room were conveniently lax. The result: More gaming, more holding it down on the other guys, and a more relaxed environment.
There really wasn't anything ground-breaking presented in the vendor areas - not surprising for such a challenging economic time - but there were plenty of exhibitors, who form the lifeblood of the event. The major lectures for the event were good and accessible even to people with little understanding of the computing side of games. On the other had, the nVidia presentation that Squall and I attended was quite exciting - they intend to use GPU's (video card processors) to split up the job of physics and rendering calculations for games. This is more efficient because while your main cpu may have as many as four cores that do separate work, the GPU's have an array of smaller cores that can be assigned to one task or another, wasting less computing ability. This is an extension of nVidia's SLI, a way of combining two video cards to make one image.
A party was thrown at the Glass Cactus, a club on the grounds of the Gaylord Texan, and my name was selected from the list of volunteers to go and attend for free. I hadn't really been to a party like this before, and it was a real experience. Some people entered this party after climbing out of Ferraris. There was a live band, free food (critical to poor geeks and people desperate to find food near the BYOC event), and coupons for free drinks. I didn't get to rub elbows with any Id Software brass, though Todd Hollinshead was there, but I did talk with the Quakecon setup leads and contributors quite a bit. The band was quite good, and ended with a great cover of Cobra Starship's Good Girls go Bad. I say this not because I particularly liked the song, but the band managed to get a bunch of insecure, non-dancing gamer-style people to at least watch from out on the dancefloor instead of hiding among the tables. While I didn't have a lot of people I knew to chat with and hearing other people was even harder at the club than the BYOC, this party alone was worth volunteering, especially just to see people loosening up like that. I used my last coupon on a recommendation by the waitress, and can say that a "malibu and pineapple" isn't half bad. I'll have to look up what "malibu" really is later.
Oh, and for a place named the Glass Cactus, they didn't even have a glass cactus. Hm.
Overall, Squall and I meant to attend many events, and managed to make it to some. We attended most of the Quickdraw events. The Quickdraw pulls two names from the list of all attendees and, if those people are present at the stage, pits them against eachother in 1-on1 gaming combat for prizes. Most of the competitors seemed to lack great skill at shooters, which made it even more likely that we could seize a prize if we were called. Overall, I found it painful to use BYOC time for attending events, but the Quickdraw matches were fun to watch. The drawing for prizes for setup volunteers was delayed and delayed, and eventually Squall and I missed it. I was also shockingly unlucky in seeking free items. I didn't even manage to catch a T-shirt.
Most important to me, it was much easier to find game servers on the network this year, and I played many titles and clawed my way to the top of many frays. I'm out of practice at Quake 3, which is back in vogue as Quake Live, a game you play through your web browser. I have to sharpen up, since Quake 3 is essentially the most basic, effective FPS for training out there. I enjoy the Unreal Tournament series more, but Quake has always been a distillation of the genre and the greatest skill-sharpener. I'm trying to convince Squall to join me in a tournament next year, but I'll also have to conquer some of my old hesitation about jumping into online Quake - the deep end of the hardcore shooter gamers.
I thought about staying for takedown, but between fatigue and a rising allergy problem, I would not have been a desirable worker. Squall and I bailed out before the line for checking out became a problem, and after resting up he headed home. I spent much of the afternoon Sunday sleeping, and my sleep schedule is still a little off.
I was part of the team that set up the network cables, but showing up a day early let me get myself checked in and familiarize myself with the people. Monday was a lot of furniture hauling and waiting. On Tuesday I went from 9AM to just after midnight pulling and securing network cables. The job was complicated when hotel staff ran over network wiring with a motorized pallet jack, damaging several strands. Each strand had to be tested and the bad ones had to be thrown out and run again. I worked a little bit of security duty until we all got organized to repair the cables - and ended up protecting some very valuable stuff.
Squall arrived that night, and he and I went to volunteer on Wednesday morning. Most of our work that day involved untangling old patch cables (that connect a computer to the local network switch) and stringing them to each computer position along the tables. Monday's work was a lot of muscle, Tuesday's was diligence, and Wednesday was frustration. The network was finished, though, and fairly early.
Because we had volunteered, we moved our computers in Wednesday night and went to rest up for the first day.
Just as a reminder, the BYOC event is open 24 hours a day from 9am Thursday morning until noon Sunday. You many not sleep in the BYOC, and will of course need sustenance. This means, in strictest terms, that any time you spend sleeping or eating or doing anything other than using your computer in the BYOC is time you won't be able to use. I'm proud to say that Squall and I made sure to get enough sleep each night - by which I mean a precious few hours. Compared to most people, we were living healthy.
The BYOC experience this year was much, much better than previous years. This was Quakecon's biggest year of attendance, and yet it was also the most comfortable to be at. Why? Our connections worked immediately, people around us were playing games instead of sitting watching their progress bars as they drained the network's bandwidth for swapping files, and the people who spent all their time hollering and periodically annoying the whole of the room were conveniently lax. The result: More gaming, more holding it down on the other guys, and a more relaxed environment.
There really wasn't anything ground-breaking presented in the vendor areas - not surprising for such a challenging economic time - but there were plenty of exhibitors, who form the lifeblood of the event. The major lectures for the event were good and accessible even to people with little understanding of the computing side of games. On the other had, the nVidia presentation that Squall and I attended was quite exciting - they intend to use GPU's (video card processors) to split up the job of physics and rendering calculations for games. This is more efficient because while your main cpu may have as many as four cores that do separate work, the GPU's have an array of smaller cores that can be assigned to one task or another, wasting less computing ability. This is an extension of nVidia's SLI, a way of combining two video cards to make one image.
A party was thrown at the Glass Cactus, a club on the grounds of the Gaylord Texan, and my name was selected from the list of volunteers to go and attend for free. I hadn't really been to a party like this before, and it was a real experience. Some people entered this party after climbing out of Ferraris. There was a live band, free food (critical to poor geeks and people desperate to find food near the BYOC event), and coupons for free drinks. I didn't get to rub elbows with any Id Software brass, though Todd Hollinshead was there, but I did talk with the Quakecon setup leads and contributors quite a bit. The band was quite good, and ended with a great cover of Cobra Starship's Good Girls go Bad. I say this not because I particularly liked the song, but the band managed to get a bunch of insecure, non-dancing gamer-style people to at least watch from out on the dancefloor instead of hiding among the tables. While I didn't have a lot of people I knew to chat with and hearing other people was even harder at the club than the BYOC, this party alone was worth volunteering, especially just to see people loosening up like that. I used my last coupon on a recommendation by the waitress, and can say that a "malibu and pineapple" isn't half bad. I'll have to look up what "malibu" really is later.
Oh, and for a place named the Glass Cactus, they didn't even have a glass cactus. Hm.
Overall, Squall and I meant to attend many events, and managed to make it to some. We attended most of the Quickdraw events. The Quickdraw pulls two names from the list of all attendees and, if those people are present at the stage, pits them against eachother in 1-on1 gaming combat for prizes. Most of the competitors seemed to lack great skill at shooters, which made it even more likely that we could seize a prize if we were called. Overall, I found it painful to use BYOC time for attending events, but the Quickdraw matches were fun to watch. The drawing for prizes for setup volunteers was delayed and delayed, and eventually Squall and I missed it. I was also shockingly unlucky in seeking free items. I didn't even manage to catch a T-shirt.
Most important to me, it was much easier to find game servers on the network this year, and I played many titles and clawed my way to the top of many frays. I'm out of practice at Quake 3, which is back in vogue as Quake Live, a game you play through your web browser. I have to sharpen up, since Quake 3 is essentially the most basic, effective FPS for training out there. I enjoy the Unreal Tournament series more, but Quake has always been a distillation of the genre and the greatest skill-sharpener. I'm trying to convince Squall to join me in a tournament next year, but I'll also have to conquer some of my old hesitation about jumping into online Quake - the deep end of the hardcore shooter gamers.
I thought about staying for takedown, but between fatigue and a rising allergy problem, I would not have been a desirable worker. Squall and I bailed out before the line for checking out became a problem, and after resting up he headed home. I spent much of the afternoon Sunday sleeping, and my sleep schedule is still a little off.