I Survived QuakeCon Dallas 2012! (well, more or less)

[crcook84]

After attending QuakeCon, I thought I would post my experience.

I think the hardest part was the parking. I drove in there hoping that there would be someplace to park. Eventually, I came up to one of those black, yellow baricades that goes up and down. I was going to pay until I discovered it required a room card. As I was about to back up, I saw a car behind me. I got out and went to tell them that I didn't know what I was doing. They said, "Hey, I don't either." That's when I guessed he was also there for QuakeCon. Fortunately, I explained it to him and he offered to back up. I then drove down the road and discovered a Denny's I could park at.

With this being my first Con, I had no idea what I was doing. I did manage to be in the right place at the right time to grab a QuakeCon shirt as it was being thrown. I'm just lucky that it just fits. I wandered around a little looking at some upcoming games that I thought looked interesting:
Dishonored
Loadout*
Rage
Rise of the Triad
There was some DOOM stuff there. But, having looked at some of the footage of 3 and discovering how satanic the game looked, unless someone knows of a mod that removes all that trash, I'd advise avoiding it. Instead, they had QuakeLive as part of some contests (I haven't played Quake, but it seems tame in comparison, even if it does use an older engine).

I attended two of the panels: game making and multiplayer. Both panels were interesting, especially for job seekers. There was talk about games being enabled for LAN parties and something called DLP, DRP, DNR, or something like that and whether or not they'd continue to do that. I just hope that game makers continue to allow their games to do private LAN parties, personally owned servers, and server renting. Personally, I think there are still markets for all three.

I didn't see the entire thing because I started getting a headache from the noise (I think they thought their speakers weren't loud enough) and the panel room was freezing. I would have left before 4 except that I was interested in the drawing for the car. Unfortunately, when I asked a volunteer about it, they told me "you have to enter a raffle to enter that raffle". So, I'm thinking I may just opt out of Saturday. I did get a look at the schedule and some representatives from valve were there. As such, does anyone know if the... question was asked? (Hint: HL3)


*-It appears to contain cartoon blood and disembodiment.

 

[Tek7]

It's a going joke among gamers that Valve can't count to 3: Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2. Don't expect Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 any time soon. At this point, it may never happen. Or, in a Duke Nukem Forever twist, it may happen but then most people wish it hadn't.

As for Doom 3: I played about 20 minutes of the game, up until your character looks into a mirror and sees a flash of a corpse or something equally B-movie-like. The game was disturbing enough for me to quit 20 minutes in and never return--which is a shame, because I spent countless hours playing Doom and Doom II, many of them in multiplayer co-op games with Elihu (my best friend of over 20 years and Tribe of Judah's Staff Manager) using a null modem cable.

Regarding Quake Live: I highly recommend checking it out. To my knowledge, id removed all pentagrams from the game (which I appreciate as a Christian who otherwise enjoyed Quake 3 multiplayer), which struck me as odd given id's penchant for satanic symbols in previous titles. I never expected id to do anything that could possibly be construed as respectful to Christians, but I've yet to see a pentagram in any QL level so far. So respect where respect is due.

On QuakeCon in general: I'd love to go some time and it takes some effort to not be jealous of someone who did get to go.

EDIT: I watched the trailer for the new Rise of the Triad and...I'll be skipping it. Entirely. Like Duke Nukem, the game was better suited to an era with less realistic graphics and less demand for raunchy humor.

 

[[toj.cc]phantom]

It's a going joke among gamers that Valve can't count to 3: Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2. Don't expect Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 any time soon. At this point, it may never happen. Or, in a Duke Nukem Forever twist, it may happen but then most people wish it hadn't.

As for Doom 3: I played about 20 minutes of the game, up until your character looks into a mirror and sees a flash of a corpse or something equally B-movie-like. The game was disturbing enough for me to quit 20 minutes in and never return--which is a shame, because I spent countless hours playing Doom and Doom II, many of them in multiplayer co-op games with Elihu (my best friend of over 20 years and Tribe of Judah's Staff Manager) using a null modem cable.

Regarding Quake Live: I highly recommend checking it out. To my knowledge, id removed all pentagrams from the game (which I appreciate as a Christian who otherwise enjoyed Quake 3 multiplayer), which struck me as odd given id's penchant for satanic symbols in previous titles. I never expected id to do anything that could possibly be construed as respectful to Christians, but I've yet to see a pentagram in any QL level so far. So respect where respect is due.

On QuakeCon in general: I'd love to go some time and it takes some effort to not be jealous of someone who did get to go.

EDIT: I watched the trailer for the new Rise of the Triad and...I'll be skipping it. Entirely. Like Duke Nukem, the game was better suited to an era with less realistic graphics and less demand for raunchy humor.

Ever played Duke Nukem 3D? Tons of raunchy humor...

Never understood the problem people have with Doom. I mean if you were helping Satan/demons then I could understand but the whole point is to defeat them and send them back to Hell.

 

[crcook84]

It's a going joke among gamers that Valve can't count to 3.

You wouldn't believe how much of a laugh I got from that one.

I watched the trailer for the new Rise of the Triad and...I'll be skipping it. Entirely. Like Duke Nukem, the game was better suited to an era with less realistic graphics and less demand for raunchy humor.

Just saw the trailer myself. Didn't realize that that was in it. Both gore and language. I just saw someone using what looked like a bazooka with a TV attachment that meant they could launch a bazooka and see where it was going. Too bad. Cool weapon, bad game.

Never understood the problem people have with Doom. I mean if you were helping Satan/demons then I could understand but the whole point is to defeat them and send them back to Hell.

I never thought of it like that. I think my main thing was seeing so many satanic symbols at once sort of spooked me.

 

[crcook84]

Once rather amusing in-joke was made during the game makers panel. They talked about how the game makers with work so diligently on a certain aspect of a game to the point where it's their "baby". But, when it gets time to tighten up the game, they end up having to remove certain aspects, or "kill". In essence, the game makers are "baby killers". (On a side note to that, the host of the panel took notice of the fact that, every time they brought up the subject of "baby killers", there was a guy up front taking notes.)


Another thought that was brought up was how the game makers felt about their games. At least one of them, a representative from the makers of Skyrim, said they were envious of players who were playing the game for the first time. He said that he had "never played Skyrim". What he was saying was that he is unable to step back and enjoy the game because he's too busy noticing all the glitches that the average player would never notice.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Ever played Duke Nukem 3D? Tons of raunchy humor...

Yup. Let's be honest sex is sex it doesn't matter if it's 8 bit or realistic the idea and lust is real and that is what we are supposed to avoid. Just as today I am sure plenty of pubescent boys looked at the Duke Nukem of that era and were tempted to buy it just to see any hint of boobs (which I am also sure never crossed the minds of the people selling it... not).

Never understood the problem people have with Doom. I mean if you were helping Satan/demons then I could understand but the whole point is to defeat them and send them back to Hell.

Because you can't defeat real demons with just a shotgun and it shouldn't be reinforced that you can.

Ask yourself why does media often have no problem portraying demons but rarely portrays angels/God both are religion after all. Part of it is media makers still think "hey some of the Jesus Freaks won't buy it if we debase God/Christ". Though the larger part simply wants humanity to be God and subject to no one. Ask why use demons over monsters then? Because the idea of demons still taps into the idea of ultimate evil. Ergo defeating God's enemy in His absence elevates the protagonist to God. It's the atheistic Buffy the vampire slayer ideology where the protagonist never needs God to win. Even if media shows God/angels it will often require human power to be the cause of the demons defeat. Worse yet sometimes God will flatly be shown as limited, uncaring, arrogant or to rephrase full of human flaws and no better than us.

You also see demons portrayed as coming from another dimension or something. While it could be done out of respect for those who believe in them I think more often it's a case of conflicted atheists. They still want to call them demons to have the ultimate evil or have the mystique of the supernatural. While at the same time they must have control (power) so things like demons/magic become a science humans can understand. Sometimes if they just changed the word "demon" to "monster" it would be acceptable but they aren't going to do that. Once again marginalizing demons as something humans can handle alone is a bad thing.

On a related note I'd like to portray a "magic" like power, with a neutral source, in some of my video game ideas. Thing is it's hard to get away from the vocabulary and is one of the things I struggle with. You can swap the words "demons" and "monsters" clearly changing the meaning but what do you swap with magic to emphasize it is a power not from Satan? I think C.S. Lewis called it deep magic in Narnia but then that was supposed to be of God. Regardless the term "magic" has been used so much it has become much more distanced from it's original meaning than "demon".

Finally there is also a point were the portrayal of evil can become admiration and worship if one is not cautious. Remember when vampires didn't sparkle and have people wanting to be one?

 

[Curmudgeon]

I've thought for a long time a game could be made about David's life or one of the Judges. If they did it right, yes it probably would be rated M for blood and gore, but it would be a very exciting and cool game. The tutorial would be tending sheep and defeating lions and bears, then you could go to Goliath, then you have all the many battles of David and his Mighty Men and running from Saul. Even after all that you would have just a ton of battles and all sorts missions. Even some kill ten rats missions, kill x amount of Philistines and collect their WHAT! to marry Michel. I think some awesome games could be made from the Bible. Game producers don't seem to have a problem making games from Greek, Roman, Norse, or many other religions out there. I think what Gerbil said is the key to that, which is too bad.

 

[Patriot]

I've thought for a long time a game could be made about David's life or one of the Judges. If they did it right, yes it probably would be rated M for blood and gore, but it would be a very exciting and cool game. The tutorial would be tending sheep and defeating lions and bears, then you could go to Goliath, then you have all the many battles of David and his Mighty Men and running from Saul. Even after all that you would have just a ton of battles and all sorts missions. Even some kill ten rats missions, kill x amount of Philistines and collect their WHAT! to marry Michel. I think some awesome games could be made from the Bible. Game producers don't seem to have a problem making games from Greek, Roman, Norse, or many other religions out there. I think what Gerbil said is the key to that, which is too bad.

You forgot the guitar hero type level where you play your harp for Saul before having to dodge spears being thrown at you.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

You forgot the guitar hero type level where you play your harp for Saul before having to dodge spears being thrown at you.

So if it's like Guitar Hero I am guessing the top difficulty in this game wouldn't be expert but mishegas and probably feature a level with this song?

 

[Tek7]

Ever played Duke Nukem 3D? Tons of raunchy humor...

Yes, but DN3D paled in comparison to the filth of the Duke Nukem Forever trailer. Yeesh.