Our Gallery section continues to grow. Two more QuakeCon 2001 pictorials have been submitted and are now linked for your perusal. Also FoTo's Official Gallery has been further expanded and captioned in recent weeks and demands another visit.

Now, if you attended either QuakeCon's 2000 or 2001, you got got a taste of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, from the masters of carnage at id Software, Grey Matter Studios, and Nerve Software. But now you can get the full course meal by purchasing the game from your favorite software vendor! Return to Castle Wolfenstein is in stores now, and providing a slew of fun for gamers everywhere. Run out and buy a few copies today!

(This would have been posted sooner, but... uh... I was too busy playing Wolfenstein.)

RenderBoy from discreet has passed along a list of winners from The gmax "It's Your Game" Sweepstakes at QuakeCon 2001. It is being publicized for legal purposes, and is available here in .pdf format.

And speaking of our sponsors, be sure to check out NVIDIA's recently announced new line of GeForce Titanium GPU's. The new technology will enhance future products in NVIDIA's already powerful GeForce2 and GeForce3 lines of 2D/3D graphics cards. You can read all the details here in NVIDIA's press release.

Thank you and good night.

We would like to call your attention to coverage QuakeCon 2001 has been receiving from print magazines on newsstands now (or soon). Both Computer Gaming World and Computer Games magazines feature 2-page spreads about this year's festivities in their November issues. "Quake Fire and Doom-Nation" (page 34) and "Fragfest Inc." (page 22), respectively. We would like to thank both publications for their kind words, and we encourage you to pick up a copy or three. If anyone knows of other gaming mags with articles about QuakeCon, let me know!

UPDATE: PC Gamer has also printed an article called "You Had To Be at QuakeCon 2001" QC2k1 on page 52 (Thanks RenderBoy and Habib)

BEST QUOTE SO FAR: "Just like an untreated tumor, QuakeCon gets bigger every year." - Computer Games

Also of interest, our sponsor discreet has recently released gmax, their newest application for the gaming mod-making community. It's purpose is to create a flexible and powerful tool to streamline the process of adding content for games such as the Quake series, and many others. gmax was demonstrated at QuakeCon 2001 and was greeted with great enthusiasm. Be sure to read all about it on discreet's gmax page.

And speaking of discreet... we have been sent a new gallery of pictures from QC2k1 taken by the discreet team. You can view them here. They are also now linked on our Gallery page, along with several other picture archives sent in recently.

A few people on our Forums have taken the silence around here recently as some sort of sign. They think that since QuakeCon is over, this site will fade into the ether and/or stagnate. Well, that's not exactly right. The real issue is that all of us QuakeCon staff members have had to return to our real lives (which many of us put on hold to run the Convention). I, for one, have been playing catch-up on various web-projects since my return from Texas. But fear not, we intend to keep these pages available all year long, if possible. And if there is any QuakeCon-related news, we'll post it.

Right now, however, we would like to put out a call to anyone who has video footage from QuakeCon 2001. We are in the early stages of creating ..........(drum roll).......... QuakeCon: The Movie! We accept any and all digital formats. So if you have any footage you would like us to use in this docu-dramatic, videographic, extravaganzic chronicle, send it to EvilJohn -- our Executive Director in charge of censorship.

Lastly, there will be many new additons to our Gallery section later tonight or tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has been sending in links to their picture archives. It's been a blast to go through them all and relive QuakeCon 2001.

That's all for now, but once again I'd like to take the time to thank everyone involved for making this year's Convention the great fun it was. You all showed why we call ourselves The World's Premier Gaming Event!

Another year has gone by, and another QuakeCon has drawn to a close. And despite our initial tribulations, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We invite you to read coverage and browse photo archives found around the 'Net in our Gallery section.

The NVIDIA Quake III Arena Championship at QuakeCon has just concluded and we are proud to announce that ZeRo4 is the winner, defeating Fatal1ty and walking away with a cool $30,000 cash prize. We would like to congratulate him, Fatal1ty, stx-revenant, socrates, czm, and all the rest of the participants on a fantastic competition. You can check out all the stats and download demos at the ZoneStats QuakeCon page (or right here if you are at the ‘Con).

Right now there is a huge id-sponsored party being held in honor of all its fans (well at least the ones that can tear themselves away from their computers), and much fun is being had by all.

Today was a blast with the BYOC in full swing and some great roundtables and conferences held. Now would be a great time to specifically thank some of our sponsors (in no particular order) for making this all possible. There’s NVIDIA who put up the prize money and supplied innumerable GeForce 3’s for use in the tourney machines, and others. There’s AMD, manufacturers of the best chipsets in the world who brought countless machines for use in the Tournament and to run all out servers on. And of course the network just won’t work if it’s not connected, so we must sincerely thank Linksys for supplying all the switches and routing equipment which makes the BYOC possible. Then there’s discreet who not only consistently provides the best graphical applications out there, but also goes out of their way to help the community with the hands on support it deserves. And of course (and most importantly) all our volunteers who works tirelessly for many hours to make sure all wires were connected, all doors monitored, all attendees checked in, all configs check, etc, etc, etc. Thanks guys, we could not have done it without you!

The big news for today is, of course, the announcement that Raven Software will be developing Quake IV, and that additional footage from the new Doom game was shown. I will leave it to the various news sites to post all the details from the presentation, since that's what they do best. But all I will say is that we are simply not worthy of all the great games coming out.

And on the topic of Quake IV, now would be a good time to mention that the topic of Raven's two roundtable discussions scheduled for tomorrow can be announced. They will both essentially be an opportunity for fans of the Quake series to talk about what they want to see in the new game. Want the Stroggs invade Earth? Want a double-barreled railgun? Want a Shambler zoo? Then don't miss the roundtables!

Next is an announcement of a cool new addition for Team Arena. The "Titans Team" is a project which was started several months ago by a team of modelers and skinners along with Paul Jaquays of id Software to implement the addition of new teams for Quake III: Team Arena. And it inspired a new document by Paul on how to actually construct a whole new team. You can follow their example to create your own. Check out the document either here in html or in .rtf formats. Look at this as a learning example of how to put a new team into Team Arena… something that was never possible before now.

The team, ‘Titans’ is based on an “Action Hero” theme, replete with heroic gestures and jump-packs. Here is an example:

Finally, due to popular demand, we have once again made available the Official QuakeCon map. It is based on the Hampton Hotel and Convention center. Besides just being fun to play in the BYOC, it's a great way to get a feel for what you're missing if you couldn't attend this year. Get it local or get it online.

Paul Jaquays of id Software just gave us a quick map he put together to show off all the entries for the The QuakeCon 2001 Map Object Model Contest. You can walk around a small museum-type area and check out all the entries. The winners will be announced soon. For the time being, Paul has asked that the map only be released to those actually attending QuakeCon. So you can grab it right here on our local file server. Just drop it in your /quake3/baseq3 directory, start up Q3 and type "/map gallery2_qc2k1". (Oh, and unlike last year's version, Paul has put some weapons in... so make his day and get some frags in on it in the BYOC).

Also, I just got word that the ZoneStats tourney schedule page had a typo on it. Matches currently listed for Saturday are actually supposed to take place Friday... A.K.A. TODAY! So if you think you are scheduled to play tomorrow, you may wish to head over to the Tournament area and check.

This will go down in history as the QuakeCon that almost wasn’t. We had major power supply issues today. Our first generator (which by all accounts should have been more than sufficient) overheated and left us in the dark. But our power vendor was on the ball and had a new generator with twice as much power on hand within half an hour. Unfortunately it had a mechanical issue and power was lost a second time.

But that is when the gloves came off. Calls were made, strings were pulled, and before long we had a GIGANTIC power truck with dual 500-kilowatt generators (which we will have pictures of soon ==Update: Pictures are now below==). This is in addition to the first two generators (now relegated to backup). So we now have well over a megawatt of power pumping into the convention center. To put this in perspective, this is enough electricity to power a city of about forty to fifty thousand people. Yes, id Software takes care of their fans. With id’s typical sense of overkill, they wanted to ensure there would be no further power consumption issues for the remainder of the event. To quote a certain nameless space marine, "Never use the machine gun when you can use the BFG".

The Machine Gun:

The BFG:

The hampster died.

We sent someone to the pet store and a new one is now in the wheel. We are back in action.

The BYOC is now about 75% full and there is still a long line of people waiting to bring their computers in. There are rockets and gibs flying, screams of both anguish and victory, and much fun is being had by all.

We will be bringing the local version of this site online very soon. You can access it at http://www.at.quakecon.org. If you are in the BYOC, you should definately use this link to save some bandwidth.

And if you couldn't make it to QuakeCon this year, don't forget we will be broadcasting all of the excitement on our sister site, QuakeCon Radio. The broadcast will begin in about half an hour.

More to come... stay tuned!

Wow. What a day, what a day, what a day.

Today was spent building the very guts of QuakeCon 2001. Miles of cable were laid in the BYOC, Tournament and Sponsor areas. Booths were constructed and banners were hung. And the undeniably pretty iMacs were all lined up in a row awaiting registration to begin.

Finally all the hard work has begun to pay off. Pre-registration started a few hours ago, and ever since there has been a constant stream of gamers entering the BYOC and configuring their machines. Everyone is getting ready for the show to start in earnest tomorrow morning.

A couple of site updates tonight before bedtime. You'll notice some new links over on the left. We have provided some handy resources for attendees and non-attendees alike. Several of them have two different versions: one to be used here in the BYOC (@QuakeCon), and one which can be used by anyone (not@QuakeCon). If you are here at BYOC and want to load the pages faster, be sure to use the local link.

First are links to pages which will provide full Tournament statistics and match schedules. This page will start auto-updating as soon as the tourney starts tomorrow, and will continue until the final match is played. There is a convenient link to QuakeCon Radio which will also go live tomorrow. And finally there are some handy excerpts from the QuakeCon Insider's Guide created by our pal LeftE from Ritualistic.com. It provides (among other things) some useful information about the area including food and radio stations. This will be invaluable to attendees from out of town who wish to venture into the realm of the Day Star. (We are aware that not all features work on the local version, but I just wanted to get it online ASAP so people could take advantage of the info).

Lastly for tonight, we will be posting a few pictures from today's setup over in the Gallery section. Check them out!

It's been a very long day and it's time to rest up for tomorrow. Stay tuned for all the excitement!!!

I bumped into RenderBoy from discreet in the hotel today and he alerted me to the following post he made to our Forums. It details the breakdown of over $67,000 in prize merchandise to be given away. Here's the whole thing:

I just got done compiling the prizes Discreet is giving away this week and it is by far the best and juciest raffle I've ever seen us do in nearly 11 years at this job! Serious stuff... check it out. The Total Mimimum Prize Purse Retail Value Will Exceed $67,000! Sunday's Grand Prize is worth $13,580! It is... An AMD PC with Dual 1.2 Ghz Athlon MP CPUs (Tyan K7 Thunder Motherboard with dual 3Com 3C920 LAN Controllers, 5 PCI slots, 1 AGP slot, dual Ultra 160 SCSI ports, up to 4 GB RAM, USB, parallel and serial ports) 512MB DDR RAM 41GB IDE Hard Drive DVD/CD ROM Drive Creative Labs Soundblaster 5.1 Card NVIDIA Quadro DCC GPU 3ds max v4.2 character studio v3 reactor combustion lightscape v3.2 On Saturday, 1st Place ($6,489 Value) NVIDIA GeForce3 GPU 3ds max v4.2 character studio v3 reactor On Friday, 1st Place ($5,990 Value) 3ds max v4.2 character studio v3 reactor On Thursday, 1st Place ($5,990 Value) 3ds max v4.2 character studio v3 reactor And the above is not even half of it all! I'm signing off now and jumping on a plane for Dallas at 5am. See you in Mesquite! __________________ RenderBoy

Sounds great! I can't wait to see what people come up with.

Due to popular demand, LucasArts and Activision will present a special showing of the E3 demo of Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast from Raven Software. Four showings only: Thursday at 3:30 and 4, and Saturday at 3 and 3:30. Open to the public, but seating is limited. The showings will be in the Ballroom area.

Also tonight, we are happy to bring QuakeConRadio.com online. We won't be actually broadcasting until Thursday, but you can check out the site now!

Finally we have a not-so-small correction. Although Nash may be married to the greatest wife in the world... he isn't exactly the greatest husband. Nash and Cindy have, in fact, been married for eight years... not seven. Be sure to point at Nash and snicker if you see him at QuakeCon.

I would like to take a moment out of our busy schedule for an important announcement. Today is the seventh anniversary of our own Nash, and his beautiful wife Cindy. But of course Nash is here at QuakeCon while Cindy is at home minding the store. This only goes to show that Nash is married to the most kind, most understanding, most generous woman in the world. Our hats off to the both of them.

Nash himself says that he loves her very much and that he looks forward to another blissful seven years, and another, and another, and another...

It's a warm Monday night down here in Mesquite, and about 20 staff members and early-arrivals are on hand for some hotel room LAN'ing. But starting tomorrow we get down to business and start laying cable, configuring servers, carting large boxes around, and other labor intensive activities. For right now, we are all feeling some serious gratitude to Nash for bringing all the homemade Jambalaya and other Cajun delicacies. (Here's a pic Anthrax took of Tapper getting all "down-home" on us, he liked it so much).

Unfortunately, my own digicam's LCD display managed to get crushed on the flight here. So my original plans for delivering pics of QuakeCon will have to be altered. But fear not, there will be plenty of pixilated goodness for everyone to enjoy. However I can't promise that there will be as many pictures of setup as I had hoped.

But if there's one thing I have learned about QuakeCon, it's that with so many truly talented computer experts on hand, almost anything is possible. Any and all obstacles will be overcome!

You asked for it, you pleaded for it... and when that didn't work you begged for it. And at last, we are here to give you what you want: the Official QuakeCon 2001 Wallpaper!!! Available in three trendy sizes. 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024. Made especially for you by our own art-god Rao.

Next, on the subject of QC art, I might as well mention we now have this cute little button available for other websites to use when linking to us here:

Nate just sent in this update about how QuakeCon Radio is shaping up to provide some top-notch coverage:

Good afternoon everyone, this is a rather beefy update, so here it is: After our announcement last week that QuakeCon Radio would be broadcasting LIVE throughout the duration of the event, we have been able to narrow down some of the awesome features that will be available. Using many volunteers with high speed connections as relays, QuakeCon Radio will be able to host well over 1000 listeners. Why would anyone care about QuakeCon Radio? I’ll tell you why. Remember that press release from id Software announcing that new games would be released at QuakeCon? Well, QuakeCon Radio is doing one better than anyone else and is providing LIVE online broadcasting of both the id Press Conference and John Carmack’s speech. Listeners will enjoy crystal clear quality sound while hearing about the newest hit game(s) from id. Along with this major event, there’s a long list of others that have been confirmed, these include: Live shoutcasts of select early NVIDIA QUAKE III ARENA CHAMPIONSHIP matches Live shoutcast and recordings of all final NVIDIA QUAKE III ARENA CHAMPIONSHIPS tournament rounds Roundtable discussion with mappers and coders from various well-known and popular game modifications Interview with Shortbus mod team Interview with Discreet team Interviews with players and spectators of the NVIDIA QUAKE III ARENA CHAMPIONSHIPS tourney Interviews with your favorite professional players Interactive IRC chats that let you ask the questions Interviews with QuakeCon staff and volunteers Now, this is only the list that has been confirmed as of 8/4/01; while this is usually where you’d enter the disclaimer saying that anything could be cut without notice, I’m adding something even better: there’s MORE to come! Interviews with some VERY Important People who will be at QuakeCon, coverage of some very secretive announcements, and much more are yet to come. You’ll all receive another email when the time comes for these, so be ready! The website for information (dates, times, etc) is www.quakeconradio.com; the site will be up and functional soon. Thanks for your time, and talk to YOU later :-) --Nate Borland QuakeCon Radio nateborland@mac.com

Sounds great, thanks Nate!

We just received the following press release which we would like to share. It informs attendees what they can look forward to at the Machinima roundtable titled "Machinima: It's Past, Present & Future". For those not in the know, Machinima is computer generated movies made from graphical engines, as opposed to conventional CGI. Games engines such as those of the Quake series have been pioneering the art of Machinima for several years. Here's the info:

Paul Marino, Emmy-Award winning Director of The ILL Clan, to host "Machinima: It's Past, Present & Future" - a roundtable discussion - at QuakeCon, Saturday, August 11th at 12pm. With advanced game engines & traditional computer animation headed on a collision course, Machinima creators have started paving the road towards their eventual convergence. Such machinima productions as Fountainhead's The Sidrial, Strange Company's The Matrix series & The ILL Clan's award-winning Hardly Workin', have made mainstream media sit up & take notice of this new use of game technology. To drive the point further, Steven Spielberg recently used Unreal Tournament to previsualize effects shots for his latest film, A.I. The real-world use of machinima is becoming more & more common. Paul Marino (ILL Robinson), the Emmy award-winning director/Design Director of The ILL Clan, and Frank Dellario (ILL Bixby), Director of Photography & Production Manager of The ILL Clan, will be hosting: "Machinima: It's Past, Present & Future" - a roundtable discussion to be held at this year's QuakeCon, Saturday, August 11th at 12pm in the Latigo room. The roundtable will include clips from various machinima productions & in-game cinematics, including scenes from Hardly Workin', marking its return to QuakeCon since taking top honors at Showtime Network's Alternative Media Festival. Please join us as we explore this new medium in how it began within the "vanity reels" of Quake clans, how it has grown, and where it may take gaming & entertainment as we know it. If you would like to attend, please RSVP as seating is limited. Best, Paul

Sounds interesting. Check out all our roundtables, seminars, conferences, etc. over on the Schedule page.

A quick follow-up to tonight's announcement of QuakeCon Radio. We are currently looking for people willing to host highspeed relays of our broadcast. If you are in a position to help, please send a note to Nate of OGL fame. And feel free to stop by #quakeconradio on irc.enterthegame.com and let us know what you'd like to hear.

Since we're on the subject of aural goodness, now would be a good time to mention SKWEEG! SKWEEG is the band set to perform at the big id party to be held Saturday night, immediately following the Tournament Finals. You can check out their sounds right here, or you can experience the insanity that is http://www.skweeg.com.

And finally, in case you aren't planning to scroll down past this news post... you should know that tonight we posted the full Schedule for QuakeCon 2001. We wouldn't want you to miss out!

In about one week from right now, setup of the BYOC should be concluding. Early arrivals will be setting up their computers, and launching the first few rockets. In the next room, exhibitors will be putting the final polish on their displays. And thus, QuakeCon 2001 will begin.

And to help you plan how you'll enjoy the madness, tonight we announce our full Schedule for your perusal. It lists registration times, tournament play hours, all conferences and presentations, and more!

Also tonight, the Staff and Volunteers of QuakeCon 2001 are excited to announce LIVE on-location Internet shoutcasting! QuakeCon Radio will be broadcasting LIVE throughout the event, starting early and running late! For anyone who wanted to get down to Mesquite but couldn't, this is your chance to be a part of the action. All shoutcasts will be accompanied by interactive IRC chats and discussions, as well as roundtable interviews with some very important people from QuakeCon 2001.

You'll have the opportunity to listen in on interviews with members of the gaming community, players, QuakeCon staff, spectators, and even some of the QuakeCon sponsors. QuakeCon Radio promises to be exciting with the latest in broadcasting technology. Using some of the best equipment and technology available, you'll be able to listen to OUR shoutcasters broadcasting live from the tournament floor, round table discussions with your favorite mod makers and other members of the gaming community, and even interviews with those playing for the big money in the NVIDIA QUAKE III ARENA CHAMPIONSHIPS at QuakeCon.

QuakeCon Radio will feature the id press conference, along with John Carmack's speech, LIVE over the Internet - as it happens! If you can't make it down to Texas for the real thing, do the next best thing and listen in to QuakeCon Radio - coming soon!

After much gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet, we are at last posting our Tournament details. This year we wanted to wait until all the details were locked down so no one would be caught unawares. Obviously, we reserve the right to make last-minute changes, but we don't foresee it being necessary.

If you are participating in the NVIDIA QUAKE III ARENA CHAMPIONSHIP AT QUAKECON, or are just curious... check it out!

RenderBoy from Discreet just dropped by our Forums tonight to spill the beans on their plans, including a huge new contest with over $20,000 in prizes. Namely, The gmax Speed Mod Sweepstakes at QuakeCon! I'll let him do the talking.

RenderBoy Junior Member Registered: Mar 2001 Location: CA Posts: 1 07-26-2001 11:35 PM The gmax Speed Mod Sweepstakes at QuakeCon Just wanted to drop in and say that we've been putting in some heavy hours at Discreet lately with the single goal of making QuakeCon 2001 the best ever for the mods community. And it's coming together nicely! Two things you will enjoy knowing wheather you make mods or not; a) the tee shirt order is in! Get in early Thursday to claim yours before we run out because I am fairly sure there will not be enough for everyone, and b) along with our friends at AMD and NVIDIA we've put together quite a large pile of prize mechandise and it's all gonna get given out to some very lucky QuakeCon attendees. It is close to $20,000 worth as far as I can figure so far with the grand prize worth over $10,000 itself. Cool. We're calling it "The gmax Speed Mod Sweepstakes" and to the winners go the spoils. There are 4 ways to enter this thing and there will be drawings every day, so you can increase your chances dramatically by taking advantage of each one as early in the week as possible... 1) Stop by Discreet during QuakeCon - all attendees may enter once just for stopping by and filling out an official entry form. 2) Complete any of the more than 30 "hades hands-on" learning sessions offered at QuakeCon, and you'll earn another entry. 3) For each of the 3 Discreet Workshops you attend during QuakeCon, you'll earn another entry! 4) For every finished Quake III mod (object, map or character) in .gmax format that you build from scratch and submit by the Sunday, Aug 12 Noon deadline and is deemed acceptable by our judging team, you will earn another entry into the sweepstakes! You may create as many entries as you have time for before the Sunday Noon deadline. See you in Mesquite! RenderBoy gmax

Sounds great! I can't wait to see what people come up with. Maybe someone will attempt to make a model of EvilJohn.

For more information and pictures of gmax in action, I've dug up this interview from back in April on Stomped with gmax project manager, Paul Perreault.

With little time left to go, the excitement is building. I just thought I'd point out a few QuakeCon-related happenings from around the 'Net:

In a .plan update, Paul Jaquays sends a reminder that the deadline for entries in the QuakeCon 2001 Map Object Model Contest is August 3rd. He also announces who the judges will be and other details.

Another .plan update from Kenn Hoekstra announces that the gang at Raven will be on-hand at QuakeCon to show off the latest build of Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, their upcoming game of realistic mercenary combat. He also states there is a chance they will be allowed to display their progress on Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, the greatly anticipated follow-up to the seminal Star Wars FPS series. Yes, you may be able to do some Lightsaber swinging of your own at this year's QuakeCon. (Although I never understood why it is called a Lightsaber. First of all, it's spelled 'sabre', not 'saber'. Second, it's not like a sabre at all! It should be a Lightfoil, or possibly a Lightepeé =Þ ).

Next, it was officially announced that the 3D tool wizards over at Discreet will be unveiling new product at QuakeCon. The affordable GMAX will offer accessible modeling capabilities to the community. This is very good news to all the modelers out there.

Things are really starting to come together. Check back frequently, as we hope to have our final Schedule and Tournament rules posted soon. We have also added several items to our FAQ you may wish to check out. And finally, as we get close to Q-day, activity on our Forums has really kicked up. We now have almost 497 registered users. Head over there and try to be lucky number 500!