DAY 1
Friday was tough. I didn’t get more than three hours of sleep before waking up and scrambling to a 5AM rendezvous with the four other guys in the group. They were: CheapAsianGamerGuy, Swaydude, JayJay and GI Young. I had met CAGG once at Lanfest and again when he dropped by Newegg land but had never met any of the others.
The drive from Baldwin Park to the Bay Area is roughly 400 miles and 6 hours up central California.
Pretty soon, I realized that the guys I was spending the weekend with always spoke their minds. It didn’t matter that I was a stranger who had yet to reveal his own true colors and character. When someone else is willing to be himself rather than circle the wagons, it does wonders for the lonely outsider. Among other things, I learned what it really meant to be in love with a stripper.
One thing you might not realize about California is that Hollywood and the beach don’t represent a whole lot. There are the big cities like L.A. and San Fran, the suburbs rich and poor (such as the OC and Oakland), the ghost towns and the empty, unconquered land in between. Over 300 miles of our drive would be a straightaway ahead and behind on a two lane highway, with cows on one side and Oklahoma on the other. For 300 miles, the earth was flat again.
It started getting both cooler in temp and color as we approached Stockton and then turned west toward Oakland, San Fran and the Bay Area. Thankfully, we didn’t spend too much time on the Oakland freeways. CAGG noticeably sped up as we approached the naval base where all the gamers would be. Probably had something to do with the gigantic NVIDIA banner draped on the outside.
Every BYOC received an NVIDIA gift bag, and inside each gift bag were a free copy of Crysis and Timeshift. After registration, we moved all the towers, monitors and other peripherals to our assigned seating.
Before we were all up and running, lunch was served, courtesy of NVIDIA. Friday’s lunch was the Paul Drake special – greasy hamburger sandwich, French fried potatoes and soda bicarbonate.
The event center was divided into two large rooms; one had the BYOC floor, tournament area and a few vendor/sponsor display stands; the other had the XFX tour bus, Club SLI “lounge” (a taped off area with a few soft seats, small tables and access to Bawls energy drinks) eating area, workshop area (for example, used to hold lessons on overclocking) and the main stage for events and contests.
Swaydude and JayJay got busy on Company of Heroes once they were set up, while GI Young got busy on Meebo. CAGG set me up on the server so I could surf the web while he hopped on Call of Duty 4. Next to me was a stranger playing Crysis, taking out his frustrations on mouse, keyboard and resolution settings. That’s always cool to see.
Dinner was (very bad) fried chicken, some veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls that former Army vets CAGG and GI Young theorized would harden into deadly projectile weapons given a few days’ time.
Pretty soon, we were looking for more than just video games. We checked in at a motel that was, at least, the cheapest in the neighborhood. Come to think of it, the neighborhood might have had something to do with that.
We decided to get a little distance and go exploring. We ended up getting last call at the Hyatt hotel bar, of all places. At $6.00 a glass and having driven all over the crazy, crowded one way streets of dirty San Fran and central Cali, the others agreed it was the best damn Heineken they had ever had.
It was past midnight by the time we returned to the Jack London Inn. Right next door was a tiny little restaurant called the Home of Chicken and Waffles, and we really couldn’t say no after the miserable dinner we had had earlier in the evening. I’ve always been curious about chicken and waffles and what the big deal is; I guess I was expecting more creativity than just the taste of chicken and waffles going reasonably well together. I was a bit disappointed to find out that an order for chicken leg, waffle and grits was literally just a fried chicken leg, waffle and grits.
DAY 2
We got up bright and early for the second day in a row. The NVIDIA breakfast for the day was powdered eggs (scrambled), bacon, sausages, toast and hotcakes, along with a few sweets and our choice of coffee and soda. The guys first noted that no one can mess up breakfast, although comments to the effect that our cooks may have been holdovers from the previous military infrastructure indicated that you can still come pretty close.
I spent a lot more time on Saturday watching the stage events, which were MC-ed by Faruk, the same Master of Ceremonies who took charge at Newegg’s own LanFest 2k7.
Whereas Friday night featured the greatest pick-up lines known to gamers, Saturday brought us a dance competition. Nothing more needs to be said.
The best music I heard all weekend was when a nearby BYOC cranked up his own songs loud enough to block out the Club SLI DJ’s idea of electronica. Too bad it didn’t help me much in Crysis or COD4, where I always ended up with a 1-3 kill:death ratio. Still, Crysis FFA was awfully pretty on the Dell XPS test rigs, although the game play really didn’t have the same visceral feel of CS. I’m not a fan of having to shoot someone in the head more than once before they go down; I can barely hit them in the face once, much less over and over again.
One of the tournaments I looked forward to was Madden ‘08 on the PS3. The last game in the franchise which I had played was Madden ’07 on the PS2, and I was eager to see how good the pros were. The tourney would take place tomorrow, so I got a chance to play around with the controls and have a bit of fun. Unfortunately, with the heavy emphasis on PC games, there weren’t many takers when it came to scrimmaging in a football sim.
One reason for that may have been the poor visual quality of the game. According to one gamer who had the exact same set-up at home, the consoles had been hooked up to their respective widescreen LCDs with PS2 connectors – which are distinctly not recommended.
Lunch was a couple slices of pizza, with a choice of cheese, pepperoni and that really cluttered combination with all the other colors you don’t normally see on pizza. After watching GI Young’s right arm twitch for several minutes, I decided against having another soda or energy drink. I elected for boiling an instant tea packet in a cup of coffee. Okay.
Sometime during the afternoon, JayJay found out that he had actually grown up with a lot of the event staff running the show. For anyone curious, the group in charge of both LanFest and GeForce LAN 4 was E-SPORTS SERVICES. They’re based out of New York and spend a lot of time traveling to conventions and BYOC events.
With very little gaming to do, I was probably one of only a handful of viewers who appreciated the giant projector screen and accompanying speaker system on one wall of the BYOC area. The play-by-play announcer was top notch and really knew the games well. Intelligent, rapid-fire commentary and using one’s voice to keep a crowd interested takes an incredible amount of skill and practice. I spent a significant portion of my time anticipating, listening to and watching the Team Fortress 2 6v6 tournament.
Among other things, a brief dodge ball contest took the gamers outside. I didn't appreciate being asked to be a coat rack for one of the PMS girls as if it were a privilege, nor the subsequent snubbing without further acknowledgement when she found a better candidate, but what can you do.
Before long, it was dinner time once again. On Saturday, the meal was apparently Mexican cuisine. I suppose some of the cooks may have known Spanish, and that’s probably where the similarities ended. By this time, GI Young had downed over 20 Bawls energy drinks over the past two days, and his heart was starting to ache. Thankfully, he knew a girl who lived up here, and she offered to take him on a tour of the city. JayJay went along while CAGG vowed to check out the night life of the LAN. Well, as it turned out, people bring pillows to their seats for a reason after all.
Swaydude left an hour later to pick up GI Young and JayJay from a bar in which they had been stranded, and I went as far as the motel to get some early shut-eye. From what I heard the next morning, the three of them went bar hopping until midnight and returned to the LAN for some drunken COD4.
DAY 3
Our last day began a bit later than the previous two. We checked out of our room and made it back to the Area 51 Event Center in time for another free meal. I was pretty excited when I thought I saw chorizo and eggs, but the specks of color were just the leftovers from last night’s dinner. In true military fashion, they had combined the powdered eggs from yesterday’s breakfast with the grub from the night before.
Sunday morning was also the scheduled time for the Madden tournament and the Team Fortress 2 finals and grand finals. I was disappointed with the Madden matches; several of the nine contenders had either never played it before (either the ’08 edition or on a PS3) or they were simply sub-par.
The Team Fortress games were very good, however, and made for an engrossing spectator sport; as a competitive e-sport, this game can really suck a body in if the camera is skillfully operated and, as mentioned previously, if it has a talented announcer. In fact, the GeForce LAN announcer was one of only two people I asked for a picture.
I had actually met one of the players from the eventual champion team, The Experiment, on Friday night. I couldn’t help him out with figuring the network connections, but he did say they had a good chance at winning the event. He would also place third in the Madden tourney.
The Experiment (or simply ‘ex.’) definitely made it fun watching the TF2 tournament. Their first match that I saw was on Saturday against High Self-Esteem (HSE); game 1 was a lengthy defensive struggle that ended very suddenly as a result of excellent play and coordination on the part of ex. The Experiment would go on to outplay and sweep HSE in three more close matches with a variety of different strategies that are much more intriguing than just watching people mindlessly blow each other up.
On Sunday, the grand finals in the double-elimination tourney pitted ex. against HSE in a rematch. To win the event, HSE needed to win two series in a row, since ex. had yet to lose a match in the entire tournament. They had a pretty good shot, but they ended up going down 4-3 in the opening series, awarding ex. with the crown.
GeForce LAN 4 concluded by raffling off a wide and varied assortment of prizes, something which had been going on all three days. The official damage toll of the weekend was:
Tearing the place down was, not surprisingly, efficient and quick. After all, a gamer has no reason to stay once the network and power are taken away.
Do you know what I regret, though? The second person I asked for a picture was one of the event staff, whom I finally recognized as being the same person running the show at LanFest. I was afraid she would think I was hitting on her but decided that she deserved some recognition for hard work and a good show; unfortunately, it was not until much later that I realized the casual use of profanity in my speech sounds awfully disrespectful when speaking to a perfect stranger, especially one who is granting me a privilege.
The picture was shot poorly anyway, so that is partial come-uppance, at any rate.
I was pretty depressed during the drive home – it’s a terrible feeling to set out with the best of intentions and err due to carelessness.
At least Fatty Pattie cheered me up for a few minutes. Thank you, GI Young.
As far as last thoughts go, I would have to say that any fun I got out the trip was thanks to the company I kept. CAGG, Swaydude, JayJay and GI Young are simply a good group of guys. It hurts writing this short recap; I don’t know the words to do the weekend justice. It was fun, and if nothing else, I’m less afraid now than before.
See you at GeForce LAN 5.