1. I’m lucky enough to have been to more than one convention or conference in my
lifetime; this includes comic book, anime and engineering conferences. This weekend my good
luck streak continued as I was able to attend Quakecon for the first time and as a member of
press at that. The main benefit to being a member of press is that I was able to skip a majority
of the lines in the event, but the best benefit was the early access look at upcoming games;
including Bombshell, a title that I had completely forgotten about and Brawlhalla, a pc game
that’s very reminiscent of one of my favorite titles. My favorite moments of the convention were
when I was able to play games that I’ve been wanting to play for awhile unbothered; either
because no one wanted to play the game or because it was too early for anyone else to be
there. Finally getting my hands on Mortal Kombat X was particularly satisfying in multiple ways;
I was able to find a character I was comfortable with and was even able to pull off a fatality or
two against AI Kombatants.
I also had never seen the amount of people that turn out for the BYOC portion of
Quakecon. There was never a time for the first two days of the convention when I wasn’t able
to see a long line wrapped around the hallway leading to the BYOC section. It’s particularly
amazing because a majority of the PCs these people are bringing are not small and take a lot of
effort to carry around for any period of time, let alone stand in line with them for hours. Then
there’s the actual PCs themselves; a lot of them are visually stunning and all of them require
more than a fair share of creativity to present in the way I saw over the weekend. I have an old
PC of my own that I was trying to mod a couple of years ago. Seeing such impressive work
makes me want to finish modifying my PC and start using it again.
Tabletop gaming has always been something I’ve been very interested in but never
invested any actual time in unfortunately. I was very surprised to find an entire section of the
convention devoted solely to the subject with some one very enjoyable game found and another
that I’m now very interested in. I was also surprised to see how similar tabletop games are to
strategy rpgs like Shining Force & Final Fantasy Tactics, with the only real difference being
there are no glowing squares in the table top games.
Of course, the best part of attending this year’s Quakecon was being able to see footage
of Fallout 4 and Doom, either in panels or with actual gameplay. This made Doom even more
special since I was able to actually play the Multiplayer portion of the game and actually did a
decent job during the matches I was a part of. I was also able to see some of the singleplayer
gameplay for Doom as well, which is something i’ve been looking forward to for awhile.
Attending the panels for both games was actually really fun too; seeing everyone in attendance
so excited for any & everything the developers had to say put a smile on my face the entire time
during both panels. Another panel that was great was the Retro to Real Time panel, I’ve never
been able to see so many familiar games journalists in real life at the same time before; it was
particularly delightful to see Geoff Keighley, Adam Sessler and Andrew Reiner. I’ve either read
or watched their work for years and to be able to see them in person was a dream I never I
thought I’d see come true.
On a more personally satisfying note, I was also able to see some old coworkers and
friends at Quakecon who are now both employees at Id. It’s great to see old acquaintances

2. doing well for themselves and continuing to pursue their goals. Even though this weekend was
the 20th anniversary of Quakecon, it was the first I’ve ever attended and I’m truly glad that I did.
I plan on attending again in the future too; definitely better prepared and I might even participate
in the BYOC next time too.
- Dj