EPTI just returned from WCG last night. It's been a very weird past 48 hours
I left here on Wed. at 11 a.m. and flew to San Francisco. First there was a whirlwhind visit to Blizzard North where I saw the facility talked to the guys for 30-45 minutes then was gone again. From there it was straight to the hotel in San Francisco and onto to the WCG. The opening ceremony was a bit strange. They had quite a nice stage right in front of City Hall with singers, dancers, bands and some guest speakers. One was Gavin Newsome the major, the other was some American Football player. I have no clue who he was since I don't follow that sport but he just talked about how cool he was mostly ("oh I remember a great game I had" ).
To get to our seats they had these models / escorts they'd hired that walk you the whole 50 meters from the check in booth to the seats. I didn't quite get the point of that, or the point of there being a half dozen of those girls there but I wasn't complaining. After the ceremony I finally recognized someone I knew and saw Entropy from SG who was with TreK and uhh... someone who I met twice and was a cool guy but has fallen victim to my utter inability to remember names. I had a whole 60 seconds to talk to them before I had to go to a dinner thing.
The dinner was really fancy and I didn't feel at all at home. It was one of those 5-course meals with champagne and caviar. Everyone you meet is a president or boss of something so you have to be polite and can't say things like "sup" and pick your nose while you talk to them. I came out with a pile of business cards, zero names I remembered, but content with a good meal. There was some interesting entertainment too such as a FIFA exhibition match (some Italian and some German player I believe), and singers from Phantom of the Opera. It was a "quaint evening" in the sense you'd say that with a British accent while sipping tea in some formal dining room. You'd make me happier with a beer and a burger but still it was nicely arranged I guess.
We didn't get back to the hotel until midnight and had to be up early as hell yesterday to have some meetings. The morning consisted mostly of walking around the tents and booths and the said meetings. Around 11 in the morning the other person I was travelling with left for the airport so I finally had some time to myself.
The first thing I learned is that they, very cleverly, hired security guards who have never heard of computer games. While it was amusing the first time myself and a higher-up in the WCG organizing comittee both got told we couldn't enter the lower area of the auditiorium, I think I got kicked out three other times. Usually they'd boot me, I'd walk out, and right back in another door. Security at its finest.
Speaking of security. That afternoon I was looking through my bag and found this enormous cigar cutter which I have clue where the hell it came from. It had a really big metal blade on it. Those same bastards at the airport that make me take off my shoes to walk through the metal detector missed me having that in the xray machine twice. If it makes them feel any better I forgot I had it in my bag too. I've come to the conclusion you can bring what you damn well want on board in the US as long as you don't hide it in your shoe, aren't a 3 year old kid making pretend gun shapes with your fingers while near security personell, or aren't some 75 year old black lady making jokes about being Osama Bin Ladin with a sex change operation near a security person.
The games seemed quite organized peripherally. They had some really neat displays and show events. I kept consistently hearing from players though that WCG kept them in the dark and that on the practical side of things the tournament was not that organized. The marketing firm they hired did an awesome job on painting buses, getting all the speakers and shows lined up but apparently found it too challenging to convince more than 5 non-gamers or press to show up. I only saw a few people on the street during lunch hour mostly and no one that seemed general public-like in appearance inside.
I did meet an elderly gentleman from Texas with a cowboy hat on the street who asked me "are y'all one of them compuuuuuuturrr game players?" I just nodded and started inching away carefully and slowly hoping he wouldn't shoot me or something.
Not even a minute after improving my understanding of George Bush's cognitive and critical thinking processes I suddenly had a big huge TV camera sitting on the shoulders of a little Korean reporter sticking in my face. His friend had a microphone in front of me. I thought I'd been "volunteered" to interview, and was waiting for him to ask me something but he just kept nodding at me for about 10 seconds. Then they just said... "talk". I have no clue what I said but I just remember it being utterly meaningless and incoherent. Something bla bla .. we're proud to be part of blabla bla in San Francisco bla bla.. WCG is good, yes? bla bla bla" and on and on for about 30 seconds. Then they nodded vigorously at me and were gone just as quick as they ambushed me.
Finally I had time to meet some of the gamers. I made my way over to the War 3 area and met some guys who didn't speak English and whose names I forgot. If that was you... pleasure to meet you! If none of the said people read this forum... I didn't particularly care for my adventures on "that" side of the WCG hall. I was a little surprised to meet Xellos though. Pro-gamers look a lot bigger on TV!
The StarCraft players were a lively bunch though. I've forgotten everyone's real name already but I recognized 90% of the game handles, so it was nice to chat between rounds of security coming by and making me walk out one door and in another right behind them. After a few hours of hanging out and watching a couple of games (Grrr-Leg, Artosis-austrian guy, and a few other games) I had to get back to the airport.
This is when the day started to get weird. I arrived back here at 9:30 p.m. last night and still had "an hour's worth" of work I had to finish up. At 5a.m. I was finally finished and half delirious so I went to my car to try and go home but could barely stand. So I put down the carseat and went to sleep in the middle of our parking lot here. As of 3:00 a.m. there were still a lot of people working (2/3 full parking lot!) so at least I wasn't alone in my torments.
WCG was fun.
!
