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Quakecon 2004 is in full effect and Bjorn3D is there to cover all the action. Take a look at our daily updates and see what’s happening at the event.
Quakecon Day 3
Rounding third base in the game of QuakeCon 2004 is an event unlike any other. The morning started off with a keynote presentation by five members of the id software team and featured a question and answer session at the end. Right after the keynote was the ever popular ard Workshop featuring a massive hardware give away. The vendor area was still going strong in the BYOC area and after about noon, the BYOC participants crawled back out of their hotel rooms and to their keyboards. Finals for the tournaments sent some unlucky teams home without any glory, while their victorious opponents went on to fight another day.
The id software keynote presentation started off with a raffle of four signed copies of DOOM3. This was a real crowd pleaser. John Carmack was unable to speak live at this years QuakeCon due to the birth of his son, Ryan, who was born on Friday morning. Although this was a letdown for many attendees, there was a very lengthy pre-recorded presentation made in advance by Carmack. This presentation pointed out how the work on DOOM3 started about four years ago and evolved into a monster of a project. Much information was given about the work that goes into creating the awesome shading that DOOM3 offers. The sound engine for DOOM3 was almost completely redone by id and has provided many gamers with a frightening gaming experience.
Many good questions were fielded in the Q&A session and shed some light on many good topics. One of the more important questions asked was about the release of the Software Development Kit, or SDK. Robert Duffy, programmer, stated that the SDK would be released within the next few weeks, along with the first patch for the game. Rumors of a DOOM movie have been floating around the net for a while and this topic was addressed by Todd Hollenshead, the CEO of id. There has been no filming or casting done for the film but the script is almost finalized. Removing some game tweaks like changing the field of view from the console was done to keep the game at as much of a level playing field as possible. Some tweaks that were able to be executed in earlier games such as Quake3 were almost considered to be a legal hack. Apple fans were left waiting as no release date, other than “when it’s done”, the norm for id, was the only time table given. Many characters and levels were left out of the game to avoid a lower than phenomenal gaming experience. All of the official DOOM3 tournament servers were running the Linux version of the dedicated server, which is not yet released. When the option of true wide-screen support was brought up, the id team indicated that this would be worked on, and possibly included in a future patch. Console gamers were also left hoping for a quick release of the XBOX version for id’s poster child. Up to this point, console gamers will have the same gaming level as the PC gamers, with the added support of vast Co-op support. One amazing fact given was that the average character in DOOM3 contains anywhere from 500 thousand to three million polygons. That’s a lot of doritos.
Vendors kept busy once again with many attendees trying their hardest to get ahold of all the free product they could get their hands on. Just about anything from shirts and hats to wristbands were given away in an effort to sway the opinion of many-a gamer.
As I write this, pizza, shirts, Bawls and many other “items” are all being traded and sold by QuakeCon attendees in a chat room. It is quite amazing how creative people will become to pay for these goods. There is even the occasional “free extra food” announcement that rids those that are full of food of their extras. The “QuakeConner” is an interesting species.
That is all from the third day here at QuakeCon 2004. Be sure to check with us again to for a full event wrap-up and more images.
