The whole Virtual Conventions affair was poorly organized, but it was fun anyway. Roughly 32 people signed up for the contest. Anyway, on with the screenshots. For Round 1, all the matches were played on E1M2: Castle of the Damned. First person to 20 kills ended the match. Top two scores advanced. I was assigned as the host listen server for the contestants. After roughly 4 minutes of play, the scores were thus in my bracket:




As expected, without a lot of big names and big clans attending, the first match's outcome was fairly predictable. Turns out that Reptile won his bracket and reached 20 frags in less than 3 minutes.

For Round 2, the rules were changed slightly. Matches were 10 minute affairs on DM3: The Abandoned Base. I hosted the server for 4 players and I set up a 10 minute clanring server:




Again, top two finishers advanced to the next heat.

By the third round, competition became considerably stiffer. Matches were again 10 minutes in length and Primemover was the host on DM3:




Primemover is an excellent player despite what the scores reflect. Honestly I did not expect to advance past this phase. With seconds to go left in Round 3, Jarlaxle was in the lead by several kills. Only by the fortuitous appearance of some rockets and the Quad was I able to tie his score when I stumbled upon Jarlaxle rocket dueling with Primemover in the circular floor (pictured above).

For the final round, the organizers wanted us to play on Castle of the Damned again. But after talking it over with the other finalists, we basically ignored them and agreed to play on DM2: Claustrophobopolis without using the Quad. After all, what were they going to do, disqualify all of the finalists for breaking the rules? I once against hosted a 10 minute ClanRing server:



Despite what the scores may indicated, the battle was much tighter and tense. For roughly the first half of the match, I was in fourth place with a score of -3. With Reptile controlling the "Quad" half of the map and Jarlaxle entrenched in the other, it took quite a bit of work to dislodge one of them to gain some breathing room. Without downplaying Jarlaxle's skills, he was definately the easier link to break and with a lot of patience and opportunity, I managed to kill him and gain an edge. IceWolf also made a very strong showing for himself, in earlier free-for-alls easily holding one of the top spots. But the stars were not quite in alignment for this Ten Quake player and his score doesn't do justice to his aggressive and skillful playing.

Later that night, along with Primemover, I had the honor of playing for Clan Postal in a clan style 4 on 4 match which we won. I don't have a screenshot, but suffice to say that I scored the least for Postal's side with 12 and Icewolf I believe had 16 frags for the losing team.

All in all the LAN party was entertaining, and I would very much like to repeat the experience. Reptile, BTW, walked away with a CH products joystick for his 1st place victory. I had to settle for Redneck Rampage which I later traded for Chronomaster. Not that I think Chronomaster is a better game than RR, but something compelled me to make the trade. I'm not sure what. :)

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