Breakfast with Suga!
The first thing I did was head over to the NOC area to meet everyone at around 9:15am. No one was there from what I could tell in the distance but I noticed Suga walking towards me. She asked if I knew where everyone was but I just got there. We both were hungry so we went to get breakfast at the Bagel Shop. During breakfast we talked a little about gameplay and what it takes to be a better player. Her and I came on some topics about how if you play a lot of various guys constantly, you just end up getting good at games. I totally could connect with her on this since that's how I was, always with game guys who helped me in games like Command & Conquer, Quake 1, and even in Quake 3.

Getting Semi Finals Organized
Once I got back from Breakfast, L4mby and I waited in the NOC area for about an hour until Succubus arrived. Sanctuary had been ready since 9am so the semifinals were about to start. Now that Succubus was ready, they took the girls to the Nvidia booth to begin their match.

The Lovely id Mom (Donna Jackson)
Just as I was getting ready to follow the girls to the Nvidia booth in the BYOC area, I heard a lady say, "Uh, is um is that you CaliGirl?"  Her voice was soft and hesitant but since I didn't see who it was I thought it was a mother of one of the girls in the tournament who wanted to know where her daughter would be playing. I turned to see what she needed and noticed it was id mom!

I am glad she saw me because my head was scattered from trying to figure out what was going on with the Semi-finals being moved to the Nvidia booth. I probably wouldn't have seen her if she didn't notice me right then. I took her on a tour of the tournament room and also the exhibitor area. Donna told me about her history with Doom 1 and back when Romero used to show her some things with the game. I knew she worked for id Software for many years but never realized it was since Doom came out in the early 1990's. I think the highlight of the event was being able to spend time with Miss Donna. :)

id Mom Is Mistreated :(
An unexpected thing happened at the Activision Doom booth on Saturday afternoon. One of the guys I introduced Donna to happened to not understand that she was an actual id Software employee, not just an id fan. So after I introduced her to him, id mom went to go see the inside one of the demo stations when he opened the door to let some people in to play the game. As she went to walk inside to check things out, the guy slammed the door practically on her face and said, "Mam, you CANNOT go in there." Donna blinked a few times when he did that, with the expression of, is it too crowded in there? She replied with, "Why?"  He said, "Only id Software employees can go inside now."  Her face turned so red... she was steaming by then, and just then both of us girls at the booth (the Activision gal and myself) said, "She is an id employee! She's works as the admin there."   Just then he said,  "I am SOOOO sorry, mam," as he opened the door to let her in. Before Donna walked into the demo booth she said, "What is your name young man! Let me see your badge!"  He just kept saying he was sorry and pointed for her to go inside. After she went inside I started giving him a hard time. He just replied with, "Hey, I am doing my job here," as he shrugged. 

That had to be the funniest thing I saw at Quakecon. Although at first it was like wow, I couldn't believe what he was doing to her without asking first who she was first.

Lunch With Marcus Hopkins
After Donna left I took a 45 minute nap, and by 3:20pm I left to search for food. The Food Court had 4 places out of the 9 that were actually open so I decided to get a fresh salad at McDonalds. I waited in a line but by the time I got up there, they said salads aren't sold on the weekends. WHAT THE!? Are you crazy? I was extremely dehydrated so I wanted a fresh cold salad with a large ice tea. I left McDonalds to check out if the hotel's restaurant had one, but on my walk back to the hotel, a guy on on the escalator said, "Hey Jody," in a very calm tone.  This guy was wearing a baseball hat so as soon as he said my name, he put his head down.  I had no clue whatsoever who this person was. So I stopped and waited for him to get off the escalator to see. It was Marcus Hopkins, a good friend of mine who I used to work with at Mplayer.

We talked a little about old times, caught up with the current happenings, then discussed the Qcon event during lunch. He now works for a company called Brotherhood that is working on a Medal of Honor related project. During this time I happened to pimp out the Doom 3 demo and gave him my impressions on what I felt about it. He wasn't too ecstatic to see the game but after he heard my impressions he he said, "Ok, I gotta see this, lets go."

Marcus and I headed to the Activision booth and while he went to go see the Doom 3 demo my eyes wondered to Call of Duty. I saw it last Thursday briefly when I stopped by to see Hellchick, and met up with Doug but still desired to get some hands on gameplay. [Impressions Coming Soon]

MsQcon Semi Finals & Loser's Bracket
Since Succubus conquered Sanctuary earlier that morning, the Semi Finals were postponed until 5:30 pm on Saturday night. The two girls left were Ms.X and Suga. Ms.X did a great job at making sure she had all of her necessary items such as armor and mega health. The scores for first game were 19 to -1 on pro-q3dm6, the last match was 19 to 1 on pro-q3tourney2 with Ms.X never being defeated.

During the Finals, Sanctuary and Suga fought it off in the losers bracket. I was not in the BYOC area since I was at the Nvidia booth during finals so I don't know the scores but do know Sanctuary won third place.  [Pictures]

MsQcon Finals Prep
Before the finals started, Missy jumped on the computer next to Ms.X to practice with her until Succubus arrived. Both Missy and Ms.X are clanmates in the Girlz of Destruction clan.

Succubus arrived with her husband. He was so nice on getting her prepared by setting up her keyboard, mouse, and even some stuff on the computer to get her ready for the tournament.

MsQcon Tournament Finals
During the finals Buggle and Vix kept requesting for everyone to lower their voices during the tournament. Many people were talking or laughing very loud in the exhibit area. By the second match with Ms.X and Succubus, many people left to the Ceremony awards so it wasn't that bad during the second match. Although at one point when Buggles requested for people to lower their voices, a French or Swedish guy was standing in the crowd saying some obnoxious comments back at her. All she was doing was trying to help the girls play their matches with less interference. He had a bottle of liquor in a paper bag in his hands. Succubus was the winner holding the Miss Quakecon title. However, you can read more details in Ms.X Match Report. [Pictures]

Tournament Finals for Q3/RtCW
Once Ms. Quakecon finals were over I met up with Sluggo to the watch the tournament finals. There was a long line with people who desired to have free beer, but if you were inside sitting down, a waiter walked around with free appetizers like mozzarella sticks. The matches for the finals on Return to Castle Wolfenstein were fun to watch. A time that stood out for me was when one of the clans got their team all together and formed a line for the spectator to capture on screen. They stood in this line much like you would in the military. Then the guy in the front walked backwards, as the rest of them all walked together in a format. I wish I was able to take a screenshot of what happened because it was hilarious watching it up on the big screen. [Pictures]

JCal and Duffy
After being in that large tournament area for a while, the air conditioner felt like it was set to mid 50s. I walked outside with Sluggo to thaw out. He already needed to go outside to get better reception on his mobile phone.  Since it is summer out in Dallas, it was like walking into a heated room with a fire place. About 5 minutes later a man walked up to Sluggo and I, then asked if I was CaliGirl, as he stuck out his hand for a handshake. It happened to be JCal who is currently known for his work on HomeLAN. I told him he was the man since I used to enjoy his work at Stomped.com, and he even worked on Voodoo Extreme at one point. I was very happy to meet him in person.

JCal and I were discussing some games when Robert Duffy came up to talk for a bit. I haven't seen him in about a year and a half so. He grew out his hair a lot longer! We all got on the subject of Gamepads vs. Mouse & Keyboards, and noticed that all of us enjoy using the Keyboard/Mouse when it comes to First Person Shooters.

[Back to Quakecon 2003 Journey]