QuakeCon 2024 Part 5: QuakeCon Days 3 and 4

Day 3 is when the FOMO starts to set in with some people and I’m no exception. Because of the heavy social emphasis at QuakeCon, the notion of it being over is a lot harder to accept compared to an expo event comprised of just keynotes, panels, and merchandise vendors. People on stage are there in a professional (or mostly professional) capacity so when all of you part ways there’s no real sense of emptiness. Play a few intense rounds of Quake (or your video game of choice) with some people nearby and you’re suddenly old friends. And just like when you used to spend an afternoon at your best friend’s house, you don’t want to go home. Parting really is such sweet sorrow (albeit minus the romantic Shakespeare connection in most cases).

Our schedule for Saturday was much more relaxed compared to the previous two days. My wife and I both planned to give blood at the Red Cross station in one of the upstairs meeting rooms and that was just by appointment, so we could plan that around everything else we wanted to do. The rest of the list consisted of a miniature painting workshop for my wife, Werewolf for my daughter, and a Slayers Club presentation and the Megamatch for myself. We got going around 9:30AM, arriving in the BYOC before 10. My wife decided to look into the Red Cross blood donation and after finding out she was a good candidate for Power Reds (double pint donation) they took her right away. I would have joined her were it not for the fact that we didn’t want to leave our daughter by herself in the BYOC, so I stayed behind until my appointment later in the day.

According to my wife the whole process took about twenty five minutes once the screening was complete. Not bad at all. In total I think she was gone about an hour. After that she went to the Minature Painting Workshop in the Tabletop Lounge since she was already upstairs. It never ceases to amaze me how talented she is at this sort of craft.

A little while before my wife returned to the BYOC I ventured next door to the main stage where the final Slayers Club show was happening at 3PM. The previous day they announced the re-release of DOOM and DOOM II, this time they announced and showcased the new modding system for DOOM Eternal. This was really exciting and while I do wish this had been released sooner, I fully realize there was this nasty plague going around, so I have to applaud the id Software devs for continuing to work on this four years after the original game’s release. The reason a small part of me wishes this had been released sooner is that when DOOM 2016 launched it had the Snap-Map system which was tons of fun because everyone got to make their own custom maps and mini-campaigns. The modding systems for DOOM Eternal take this about a dozen levels further by my guess. The Snap-Map system was very modular with some extras like event triggers and custom ambience, and that’s perfectly fine, but Eternal’s new mod packs allow for completely custom maps from the ground up. As of writing this about a week later, there are already a number of community-made releases of E1M1 from the first DOOM. I fully expect complete map packs of the original DOOMs in DOOM Eternal before the end of the year, and THAT I will HAPPILY play!

I thought about taking pictures of the presentation, but honestly it was mostly Marty Stratton, Shale Williams, and Joshua Boyle talking. I also had to duck out early to make my Red Cross appointment since 4PM was the last opening of the day. The full live stream from that day is up on YouTube. It’s been a long time since I’ve done modding with any game, but this definitely has me interested again. Gonna be a while before I can get lost in it though, too many big projects waiting for me back home.

Next for me was my own blood donation and like my wife I was doing the full quart. Since there was only one other person in the room giving blood, things moved pretty quickly for me and I was in and out in about thirty five minutes. I was intrigued by the single-tube setup since part of the process is getting some anti-coagulant pumped into you (see my last photo with the nearly transparent tubing). I’m not trypanophoic (fear of needles) but blood donations use a pretty big one and unlike an IV it stays in you until the end. Not having to go through getting double poked (or more) by those things was completely fine by me. But all went well and I didn’t have any ill effects.

I did have to facepalm at one moment while I was about halfway through. At that moment a woman who looked to be in her sixties entered the room late for her appointment after having trouble finding the room and then was upset about having to potentially pay resort parking fees just to give blood. Now as someone with a rare blood type I have a “sharing is caring” policy but I only do this once per year and at QuakeCon. This woman was acting like she was going to miss out on something huge if she didn’t give blood that afternoon. Maybe someone knows something that I don’t? The only things I’ve gotten from the Red Cross in the past (and that same day) were QuakeCon exclusive swag and the occasional letter saying that my blood had been received. Unless there’s a gift in the form of two tickets to an Alaskan cruise or something, I’m pretty sure the world would have continued spinning just fine without that extra pint in the wild.

I snacked for a bit upon returning to the BYOC since the Red Cross room was out of them, but after an hour or so my stomach decided that still wasn’t enough. So I pinged a few friends to see if anyone was interested in dinner and my friend Meltingwax joined us. We ate at the Texan Station at the Gaylord instead of venturing out this time. We ended up having to wait about twenty five minutes but that wasn’t a big deal for us. We lazily strolled around, chatted, and took some random pics of the surrounding scenery.

Note to self: remember how you said you need to take more pictures in the future? Food porn counts!

After dinner we returned to the BYOC where we continued to play games for hours. Between my wife, daughter, and I there was more Quake Champions, Horizon, Minecraft, Golf with Friends, and I think some Stardew Valley. When 10PM rolled around it was time for the renouned Quake Live Megamatch. As always the object of the game is not to win, but to make the server crash from being maxed out at sixty four players. And how could you win if you even tried? There’s no frag or time limit. The only limit I’ve seen is when the server runs out of processing power. This went on until just after midnight and if memory serves we made the server crash at least three times. Always a hilariously fond memory for me.

In the past the BYOC closed around noon or 1PM, so we would have called it a night so that we could return early for gear checkout. But this year the schedule had the BYOC open until 3PM and our flight wasn’t until the next day, so we chose to stay up late, wake up at a normal time, and then play until they turned the lights back on. My wife and daughter returned to the hotel a little before 1AM, opting to take the free hotel shuttle before it stopped for the night, while I kept going until nearly 4. After the Megamatch was over we all took a stroll around the BYOC one last time and took some pictures and videos. Sadly I still don’t have a CDN for my video files.

A large number of people usually party hard the final night. I don’t blame them, one last hurrah is appealing if you’re a party person. But that isn’t my scene, nor is it for my family, so our last hurrah would be whatever happened in the morning and early afternoon hours.

Speaking of morning … siiiiiiiiiiigh that bittersweet time had finally arrived: the final day of QuakeCon 2024. Literally the only scheduled event was Wake and Quake with Quake Champions at 9AM and I wasn’t about to wake up super early. Aside from that, only the Bethesda Gear Store and the food trucks were listed. We brought the Pelican cases and monitor boxes with us in the hotel shuttle, but we did get a decent amount of gaming in before we decided it was time to pack it all up.

I made sure to swing by a few spots in the BYOC, especially my good friend Sneakr since he wasn’t sitting near us this year, and say my final goodbyes. A lot of people, whether driving or taking some form of public transportation, leave the last day of QuakeCon. Being a Sunday, I completely understand, most of us are employed and that extra day of work can make a difference in the paycheck or the PTO balance. I intentionally prioritize QuakeCon each year so that I can arrive early and stay a day late because, if you can swing it, that extra bit of wiggle room for travel logistics just takes away so much of the travel stress. So because of that, coupled with the later closing time for the BYOC, we got to take our time when it came to packing up and checking out.

At 2PM the lights in the BYOC came on. AAAHHHH IT BURNS! We took that as our cue to tear everything down and get packing. Pelican cases are certainly pricey, but I can’t praise them enough for how easy they make it to pack small form factored machines and related gear. This pic is from the hotel but this is everything minus the monitor:

Once packed we got in line to check out. The process was identical to check-in: gear barcodes are scanned, ID verified, and then you’re done. It went a fair bit faster than check-in but it still took us about an hour to get through the line of around a hundred people in front of us. No compaints here. I have been consistently and thoroughly impressed with the efficiency and expediency of the QuakeCon staff this year. My proverbial hat is tipped to every one of them. While this year was somewhat lackluster with announcements from id Software and Bethesda by extension, QuakeCon 2024 was unquestionably no less enjoyable because QuakeCon is a LAN party first and foremost, not an expo. I would have liked to hear something about Wolfenstein III and maybe something else in the Quake realm, but what we did get will keep me entertained for a very long time. I would also have liked to have seen more sponsor presence and the return of game demos in the expo hall like pre-COVID QuakeCons. Last year AMD had a very strong presence and despite seeing them as a sponsor, I didn’t see anyone from AMD, their 8-foot tall robot, or any giveaways this year. I really hope this improves next year. But again, this is just my constructive feedback and suggestions for the big companies. For the LAN party side of things, I have nothing but top notch feedback for the processes and the people behind them. And, much to our EXTREME displeasure, QuakeCon 2024 was officially complete.

As something of an epilogue after returning to the hotel we got the monitors ready to ship back home and then took an Uber to the nearest UPS store. We cooked dinner in the hotel room and then had a super lazy evening in front of the TV. The next day we fulfilled the one remaining QuakeCon tradition we hadn’t done and that was have breakfast at the Oldwest Cafe.

You get a major case of food coma at this place, but when you’re playing tourist everything is forgiven. I usually get some form of French Toast and this year was no exception. We would have liked to visit the restaurant during QuakeCon but we couldn’t quite manage to get a group together to join us. There’s always next year.

Our flight wasn’t until late in the evening but the hotel was kind enough to hold our luggage and let us hang out in the lobby. I cracked open my laptop and fired up Mr. Robot for my wife and I. Once 4PM rolled around we collected our luggage and request the shuttle for the airport. I was once again super thankful for the free transporation from this hotel. This place has definitely jumped to the top of our list for places to stay off-site in the future. We still a good long wait at the airport, and there were delays again due to Crowdstrike, plus our gate changed twice. But I think we were ultimately delayed around ninety minutes. We were supposed to land around midnight but we got in around 1:15AM. Not the end of the world, my job starts at 9AM and my wife wasn’t scheduled for work the day after our return. A final Uber ride and it was home sweet home. We collapsed in bed and even though I didn’t have a date, I started counting down until QuakeCon 2025.

Interested in coming to QuakeCon? Come find me! But until then, see you around the Interwebz.