EPTLast night I went to the gym at night then stayed up to pack while playing Scrabulous on Facebook at the same time. I slept late at around 4-5am and woke up at 6:45am. My flight was at 9am and I slept right through the two hour flight. I met up with JP, Sue and Rod at the airport at 11:30-12pm and headed for the Silver Cloud Stadium Hotel. We dropped off our bags and picked up our new Gameriot business cards. Unfortunately, Sue didn't get one even though it was very important for her since she was our Korean contact. We resolved this later by stopping by Kinkos so she could get some made for her. We were all hungry and hadn't eaten so by 1:30pm, we ate lunch at Jimmy's right next to the hotel. We met up with Brian there after we finished our very filling cheeseburger meals. We then headed across the street to the Qwest Field which was so conveniently located for us. It's too bad that the players were staying at the Double Tree hotel an hour away so it's harder to visit them and harder for them to get to Qwest Field.
Draco
The first thing we did when we got there was get our press badges. I called Derek, our press contact, and he led me to the location where we could grab our badges. First thing Sue and I did was separate from the group in search for the StarCraft area. Along the way, I saw Draco hanging out around the Halo area. He told me that he got 3-0 in his group and I congratulated him. It was no surprise to me that he qualified from the group rounds as he has time and time again proven that he is a great player. I got his number so we could contact him for an interview later on. Since we just got to the location we weren't ready for interviews just yet. I tried to get his number on my phone but I couldn't figure out how to put international numbers in my phone. Fortunately, Sue's phone could handle international numbers so we added that in hers. He told me that the StarCraft matches were being played upstairs. The games were separated out into different sections which was helpful I think so that the loud Counter Strike players wouldn't be disturbing the StarCraft players who need to focus on their games without distraction.
Tournament Area
I saw Napoleon (since he looks like Napoleon Dynamite) aka. GG Artanis aka. Lex from Gosugamers who stood out because of his hair. He directed me to the StarCraft area since I had just walked past it not knowing that it was beside the WarCraft area. The first person I saw in the StarCraft area was Peter aka. HnR)Insane who is the star player in my regular 3v3 bgh games with him and Qyx. I heard that only Gotfrag people could go into the players area but I asked if there was a way we could get in. They said we could just go in anyway so Sue and I walked into the area. We took our positions behind Incontrol and Nyoken and I whipped out my laptop to start typing out battle reports. I also wanted to take a picture while Sue wanted to get video with the palm video camera Gameriot provided us but we found out that the camera was out of battery.
After I took a picture, some guy told me we couldn't be so close to the players so we walked a bit further away and I started asking about brackets. I was directed to Armin, the head referee for StarCraft, who I had contact with before through Teamliquid. I typed out all the results from all the groups that played that day, groups A through D. At that point I found out that Androide from Russia was already guaranteed a spot in the single elimination rounds. I also found that Steelheart qualified along with Draco in Group A. Nyoken and JohnRambo from Malaysia were playing for the second spot from group.
I saw several familiar faces around me. I knew the other referees - Starz and Frank/Erkenbrand from WGTour. I also saw Jonas/The.Crow from MYM and took a picture of him and he retaliated by taking a picture of me. Then he took a picture of the group. Tasteless saw us and said hi to me and Sue. I saw Androide there and he was complaining about not having his group letter and number to put on his shirt just as the other players did. I congratulated him and got his email since he didn't have cellphone contact. I also saw Midian there and greeted him as cute/adorable zerg as he is known in Teamliquid.
I found out later that JohnRambo won his match against Nyoken. I knew that JohnRambo was a strong player among the South East Asians but I was surprised and disappointed that Nyoken lost to him. I was rooting for team USA but I am also glad to see someone from South East Asia doing so well. JohnRambo was so ecstatic from his win that he was all smiles and he did a backflip in the middle of the player area. He was breathing hard as if coming out of a tough battle in such joy and relief.
Rock Band
After all the games were over we walked downstairs and saw Tasteless and Colbi trying out Rock Band. Tasteless was on the mic, Colbi was on guitar and some guy was on the other guitar and some girl was on the drums. They were rocking it out to Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead Or Alive. Unfortunately, they failed so they couldn't finish the entire song. The game seemed interesting. It mixed Karaoke Revolution, Guitar Hero and DrumMania into one. I am looking forward to getting my hands on that guitar to compare it to Guitar Hero and getting Sue on the mic.
Press Center
We headed over to the Press Center so I can charge my laptop. I wrote up the results of the games and got some help from Artanis to verify that I had the right results. The guy beside me, Alex, manager of Canada Counter Strike team EG, would casually talk to me and Sue. Artanis pointed out Mondragon in the press area. Sue and I approached him and talked to him for a bit, telling him of our intent to interview him later on. He had no way for us to contact him so I just told him we'd find him. He's frickin' tall so he would be easy to spot. While in the press area, Sue was trying to contact the Korean manager of Savior's team CG but she couldn't get through. The opening ceremony started at 5:30pm so I packed up my laptop and we headed out towards the stage.
Opening Ceremony
The entertainment was sub par only because it was too long and drawn out. They had a group called Hype which featured a beatboxer and a group of dancer. The beatboxer started off as pretty standard and not very good but he upped his performance a bit towards the end. The problem with the beatboxing was that it was amusing for a small while but it was dragged on way too long. The dancers were okay. The dancing looked messy and chaotic with too many bodies moving out of sync and not really pulling off any entertaining dance moves for a good 30% of the time. When they did hip hop choreography, the moves weren't smooth, energetic or in sync. I don't claim to be better than these dancers nor do I claim that my dance group is but I have seen enough professional dance performances to compare and be disappointed. When they did crumping, the energy was there sometimes but the moves weren't particularly impressive. Some of the guys could do breaking but a good bulk of them can only do basic bboy moves. Overall, it would have been a much better performance if they kept it to a three minute act with their best moves into it.
Halo 3
We left towards the middle or end of the performance and played Halo 3 for a bit. I enjoy playing Halo 1 and Halo 3 wasn't too far off from it. The controls are slightly different and takes time to get used to. Sue and I joined a game that this guy beside us created. The lobby screens were confusing so although Sue and I were supposed to be in the same team, we might have been on different teams because whenever I saw her on the map, I saw a red blip on my radar and proceeded to shoot and grenade her. From what I hear, Halo 3 also has additional weapons or items to pick up. It would be interesting to see how things like healing wands and such would affect the game. I am looking forward to playing more of this. There were other games there such as PGR but I wasn't as interested in that.
Flag Ceremony
Sue and I went back to the stage when they were doing flag ceremonies. I took pictures when Korea, Philippines and USA came out. The flag ceremony was pretty cool except that there was hardly anyone to cheer for the different countries. I do wonder how they pick who gets to hold the flags. The press went crazy over coverage of this ceremony as a huge group of us were crowded like a mosh pit around the front of the stage. They did push us back towards the end though. I was able to get all my shots in though and that's what mattered most to me.
Korean Managers
Later, I was hanging out with Incontrol and Nyoken by the Team USA area. I told them I would be interviewing them at some time. I headed back to the press area closer to the stage and the Gameriot team was about to interview a player. Sue and I went outside and ran into the Korean managers for CG and Soul. I could not communicate at all with these people but I'm glad that Sue was able to. The CG manager said that we could interview the Koreans tomorrow and we might even be able to hang out with them depending on how they feel. I felt flattered that the CG manager said he recognized me from the <a href="http://www.mymym.com/en/article/468.html" target="_blank">MYM interview</a>. He also looked at me and said in Korean, "You must be so confused." =P
Incontrol and Nyoken Interview
After heading back to the press area, we were tasked with finding Incontrol and Nyoken to interview. I called Nyoken's cellphone and got his mom. She said Nyoken was using her cellphone at WCG Finals and she gave me Nyoken's actual cellphone number (which has his sister's voice mail on it just because he never changed it). I got in touch with Nyoken right as he was about to leave the building. He came back in and we headed towards the press area once again. We ran into Incontrol on the way back so I got Incontrol to join us as well. He was with his mom and he asked if he could do the interview and she was fine with it. Brian got the camera to take the video and we looked for a good place to film it. We saw a couch area that looked like a great place for interviews in the Samsung area that was cordoned off. Sue worked her charm and got the Samsung guys to allow us to film there. We got the players to sit down on the couch and Sue and I proceeded to ask them questions.
I felt a lot more comfortable having Sue there to ask questions along with me. It reminded me of how Blizzard chooses two shoutcasters who could work together well and bounce conversation off of each other. Between Sue and I, we could come up with a somewhat continuous flow of conversation between Gameriot and the players. Sue could ask the more general questions that viewers are interested in while I could ask more personal questions based on what I know about the players. In between questions, I had time to come up with what else to ask. Sue told me that I seemed to become less nervous Geoff made me feel more comfortable interviewing when he would make me laugh. When I forget about the camera and I talk to the players just as I do off camera, as regular friends, the interview goes more smoothly.
Mondragon Interview
After this interview, I saw Mondragon in the press area and I asked if we wanted to interview him next. I went to go talk to Mondragon for a little bit and I must say that he is a lot friendlier than I first thought when I met him at Blizzcon 2005. I talked to him about the StarCraft sites he visits. He was looking at GosuGamers and Broodwar.de. He was very familiar with Teamliquid but didn't know Gameriot. He did visit the website when he found that I was writing for them. I talked to him about playing in the European server and about his clan ToT. Two other clanmates are in WCG - Midian and iNcontroL. Testie was formerly ToT and now MYM. We talked about how lazy he felt and how he didn't want to get up from his chair to do the interview but we managed to convince him to get up anyway. Sue had set up three bean bags under a WCG sign where Mondragon could sit comfortably while we asked him a bunch of questions. The interview went pretty well and Mondragon showed his relaxed, chill side. His approach to the whole WCG event seems to help him overcome any nerves that might have otherwise came up since he is okay with whether he advances or his friend Testie does if it came down to either one of them.
Touring Seattle
We wrapped everything up and headed out after the interview with Mondragon. Sue and I went back to the hotel room at around 9pm and tried to figure out what to do. At around 10pm, Sue and I ended up hanging out with her old high school friend who showed us around Seattle. We stopped to look at and take pictures at a bunch of sites - Seattle Art Museum, Pike Place with the Farmer's Market, the original Starbucks, Seattle Center with the Seattle Space Needle and the Seattle Skyline. After that, we stopped by the University of Washington to pick up Peter/Insane. We went to get drinks at this tea/boba place where I got some mango/tea smoothie and we snacked on some pastries. Then we went to this pita place to eat our dinner since Sue and I hadn't eaten. After we ate, we were full. We dropped Peter back off at the University then headed back to the hotel. We got back at 12:30am and we started writing up our blogs. Sue was done with her blog a little over an hour ago. It's 4:17am currently and I'm finally done writing about my day. It's 4:35am and there seems to be a problem submitting a blog entry to Gameriot blog so I'm just going to put it up on Teamliquid.
Gallery: http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/gallery/3593169
