QuakeCon 2025 Part 5: QuakeCon Days 3 and 4

Like always, when Saturday hits, so does the mild feelings of dread. The last full day of QuakeCon signifies that the end is near, so live it up while you can. So this time we managed to get up early enough to get breakfast at our hotel rather than relying on our refrigerated and frozen backup options. Arriving at the BYOC a bit before 11AM we filled up on Pecos Pete beverages, mine being a 3:1 mix of Lockhart Lemonade and Hill Country Sweet Tea, and then fired up games and played a nice variety of single and multiplayer games, one of which I remember being Golf with Friends. These days I find myself wondering why I only play this game at QuakeCon, it’s fun with any crowd and any amount of people (at least for me it is), so it’s not like I don’t have a legit reason to play it other times throughout the year. But eventually it was time to get up and move around, so I took another casual stroll through the BYOC. I was first confronted with a yardstick and a pair of women’s underwear … I’m not gonna ask. After that I did find two more interesting LAN rigs. The displays on their AIOs were interesting.

Not much else took place except we grabbed dinner from a food truck. I have no recollection of what we had, but I can say with 100% confidence that I have yet to be the slightest bit disappointed by any of the food truck options at QuakeCon. Ever. With food in hand (and some in my stomach) we returned to the BYOC for more games until it was time for the AMD giveaway and Master Pancake Theater upstairs in the Texas Ballroom.

We didn’t win anything but as you might expect the items given away were primarily computer components, namely CPUs, GPUs, RAM, motherboards, power supplies, and coolers. They did have some cases as well, but I don’t recall whether they gave away any full systems. And of course they tossed out AMD-branded shirts and similar swag. We didn’t have any expectations, but it gave us an excuse to get upstairs twenty minutes early before Master Pancake since event staff has always had to cap the number of people when they performed in a dedicated space. After the giveaway the staff ushered everyone outside, that way everyone had a fair chance at battling to the death for a seat during Master Pancake. Honestly I think this is the best location they’ve hosted MPT to date. Don’t get me wrong, last year’s show in a section of Longhorn where the BYOC is held was extremely convenient because it was just a short walk and they didn’t turn anyone away due to capacity issues (at least not that I heard), but the Texas Ballroom is huge, seating for at least five hundred by my guesstimate with space for more to sit and stand, plus great accoustics.

When the clock hit 8PM the house lights dimmed a touch and John Erler filed on stage followed by Mac Blake and Brian Gaar to entertain us with their antics and colorful humor. They also gave a firm reminder at the beginning that during the intermission skit there was to be no front-flips off of the stage this year(I did find out that the guy who did this last year miraculously had no negative effects from landing hard on his ass). This year’s movie selection was Batman Forever and the drinking phrase trigger was any time a bat showed on screen, which included the bat signal, but the drinking phrase was pre-selected this time in honor of Trey “T-Dawg” Bushart, a true QuakeCon veteran and upstanding community member who sadly passed away a few months ago. Sidenote: times like these make me wish I knew the key figureheads of QuakeCon better personally. I’ve been to eleven of these events, I should be doing better at this point. But the drinking phrase was “For T-Dawg!” and with that the Master Pancake hosts launched into the movie.

The movie itself was very enjoyable since the 80’s and 90’s Batman movies are always classics in my book, and Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, and Tommy Lee Jones all had fantastic performances. Historically MPT always trims their movies a bit to fit their allotted time slots, at least at QuakeCon, I haven’t seen them at their usual venues in Austin, TX, but this time they put in at least one deleted scene I’d never seen before, which included a giant bat (numerous “For T-Dawg!”s were shouted during this scene, LMAO) and an existential crisis for Bruce Wayne. Sometime not too long after that scene the halfway point in the movie was reached, which of course meant it was “time to STOP. THE. MOVIE!” for the intermission skit.

The skit naturally made fun of the deleted scene, but also had John Erler dressed up as Dr. Meridian Chase, Bruce’s love interest, Mac as Comissioner Gordon, Brian as Batman (I could have those last two backwards), and combined the entire existential crisis scene into a battle for either being Batman or getting the girl. Hilarity ensued and psychological mind games were played. It was great.

This is basically a giant photo dump, but this is actually after taking a bunch of photos out of the reel.

So that picture in the middle of the dump with the chest x-ray of the GameBoy, keys, and a few bullets is actually from the skit, though I can’t for the life of me remember what the joke was. If I find out from someone else in the QuakeCon Discord I’ll update this post. I’ve said it before, effectively if not literally, and I’ll say it again: I’ve never been disappointed in Master Pancake’s riffing. They have the both the talent and the proverbial special sauce that makes this form of comedy work so well. Between that and their excellent movie selections (every one of the events I’ve been too has been an iconic classic), these are the reasons that Master Pancake has become a staple for my family and I at QuakeCon.

One of these days I’ll work up the courage to greet them personally and thank them for providing us and so many others with such well-crafted riffs.

Upon our return to the BYOC I discovered the a2m clan’s 64-player Quake Live match was in progress, so as soon as a slot opened up I connected and proceeded to add my contribution to the match’s one and only goal regardless of the game mode: make the server crash. I’ve mentioned it before but that is the tradition and as long as I have an operating PC I shall always participate. Honestly it really is its own game mode. a2m_server_overload. Yeah I can run with that.

After Quake Live I think I got invited to another Golf with Friends match and honestly that’s all I remember, aside from the fact that we stayed at the BYOC until somewhere between 2 and 3AM if my Uber history is anything to go by.

Which brings me to the day that is usually the shortest part for me, but this time I’ll be putting the second half of it in another post. Yep, Sunday, which usually is Funday for some. For us, it’s literally the beginning of the end. OK yes, you at the back, it’s not that kind of end, but it’s still accurate! So no, I won’t stop being so dramatic!

Sunday is always a strong mix of bittersweetness, trepidation, and anywhere between two and twelve kinds of FOMO. Not just for us, but for plenty of others as well. I’m sure there are at least a few people that are itching to get back home, but I can say with 100% certainty that I have yet to be formally introduced to one. But you really do get a pretty big range of emotional states and not just from 3.5 days of dopamine rushes. For us going to QuakeCon is as much meeting up with our friends of old and new as it is about playing the games and while the games will always be there, the physical presence of our friends was ending for this year and this kind of long distance travel isn’t available to everyone. I always have serious respect for those that spend a lot of the year saving up to go to QuakeCon, and it certainly was a blessing that my previous job not only afforded me the opportunity to attend since 2015, but even moreso this year without being employed these past few months. So I’ll add being immensely grateful to my list, because I always am grateful for all of the individual and unique experiences I have every year. The Woodstock of video gaming? You got that right, my friend.

We had some evening plans this time around that were Clementine’s idea, so we got a little extra sleep, opting to chance longer checkout lines in favor of getting sufficient rest for the evening plans. With our Pelican cases and monitor bags in tow, we took our last shuttle ride to the Gaylord Texan for 2025. When we arrived around noon the lights were still off but as is the norm a number of people had already checked out, having to leave early for the return trips home. Such was the case with those that were seated behind us, which gave us some space to stow our transport gear and enjoy some final games before tearing everything down. A little before 1PM we decided to head to Artist Alley for one last walk around and to take our group photo at the couch setup. Another photo dump incoming.

On our way back I stopped by RanChan’s spot in the BYOC. He had already checked out since he had to return home early that day, but he left his box of 3D printed weaponry and I’ll say, he got very close to giving them all away.

We snagged a few of the chainsaws and shotguns on the way out since it didn’t seem like anyone had grabbed any after I took this picture

When we got back to our seats it was about twenty minutes until the lights came on, so my wife opted to get some final pics of the LAN setup.

Finally at 2PM the ceremony that everyone hates came to pass: the turning on of the BYOC lights.

Those were the last pics we took of QuakeCon 2025, but they weren’t the last pics of the day. With the lights on we proceeded to begrudgingly pack up our LAN rigs. That took us about 20-ish minutes and if you’ve seen my 3D printed cable reels from my QuakeCon 2024 post you’ll know how useful those were in keeping things tidy during the lan, and making flat ethernet cables not want to rip your hair out when winding them back up. Seriously it was like $1 or less to make one of these and literally the only way I can think of to improve them is to print black QuakeCon Q logos on them. Hmmmm … ideas for next year perhaps? I definitely have multi-color printing on my mind, but that’s way off-topic this time.

Sneakr and his lady Smalltwngirl had to say their goodbyes at this point since they had a Sunday flight back home. I assume he was too afraid to stay an extra day unlike the rest of us, but at least we got to give them proper “see you next years”. It was Smalltwngirl’s first QuakeCon so hopefully we’ll see her and the rest of the full gang next year. She mentioned having a really good time in Tabletop Village so I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of us ventured up there more often to join in board games and similar modes of fun.

With the rigs packed and our spaces all cleaned up and technically more bare than when we first came in a few days prior (we always keep the seat placards they print out each year), we got in line for checkout. The whole process took around ninety minutes but technically would have gone a bit quicker if the network hosting the checkout scanners hadn’t gone down, and wouldn’t you know it, it broke when it was our turn, lol. To any of my fellow Quakers and Con-goers, I promise I had nothing to do with it! I’m innocent!

The outage lasted a little over twenty minutes if memory serves, but once that was done we called the hotel shuttle one last time and had them ferry us, LAN rigs and all, back to the hotel. Once there I promptly got to work getting shipping labels printed for the monitors because the UPS store was due to close at 5PM … or so I thought. I got everything ready to go and took an Uber ride to the store only to find out the posted hours did NOT in fact match Google and they had already closed at 3. Well … shit. I found there was another drop point at a CVS pharmacy and called ahead to make sure they had the space to receive the monitors because these were definitely not your everyday parcels that someone sends in the mail. After getting an affirmative response I ordered another Uber ride which was … very sketchy to say the least. I won’t get into specifics, but I’m not sure which was going to depart this world first: the car or the driver. But thankfully the pharmacy was only a mile-ish away so a quick five minutes with traffic lights and I was there. With the packages dropped off I decided to grab a drink from the pharmacy, which also afforded me the better chance that my next Uber ride would be a different car and driver. So with that little SNAFU resolved, I was back on my way to the hotel where I had about an hour to relax before our next planned outing: Historic Grapevine.

Details to follow in Part 6. QuakeCon may be over, but I’m glad we got to join Meltingwax, Clementine, and our mutual friend Winny for one last hurrah before we all parted ways until next year. See you in the next one.