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PAX and Seattle Barcraft 2011 Recap (Pic heavy)

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iiTiamatii United States73 Posts August 30 2011 08:02 GMT #1 What a crazy end to the week. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of PAX, mostly just Barcraft. Day 1, Friday: Stayed up really late Thursday making sure the Torchlight 2 PAX demo was perfect, so when I woke up at 8:30ish to make it before the crowds using my exhibitor badge, I just went back to sleep for another hour and a half instead. Helped out at the booth from 4-7, with nothing crazy happening (that's a good thing). I do regret not getting a picture with the Caitlyn and Katarina LoL cosplayers who were chilling on our couch, but I was working pretty much nonstop. Made it up to Chao Bistro for Barcraft after the little exhibitor mixer and caught the last few pool matches, as well as snagging the following pictures: This is the bistro half, with more people on the other side of the wall DJWheat! Later on, I headed to an Alienware VIP party. Got there before all my coworkers and friends, so I had 3 drinks, then met them outside as they were trying to get in. Unfortunately they had some weird invitation mixup/confusion and were pretty strict, so I gave my wristband to my coworkers fiance and went to home to sleep. Day 2, Saturday: Got up early, decided to swing around my exhibitor wait by being first in line for League of Legends: Dominion to play. Here's a bit of advice: Don't pick a hero you've never used before when your screen is being replayed on the big screen. I had seen Caitlyn played before, so I thought it would be fine (lots of DotA experience, a little bit of LoL). Who knew that her spells worked differently, and instant cast? This led to quite a few early game errors of shooting the long shot in random directions, and more importantly shooting a net away from the enemies and catapulting myself into them. Pretty soon we were down at about 100-200 in Nexus Health. To put that in perspective, Dominion is the new mode for LoL where you start with 1500-1500, deaths count as -2 health, and it drains when you have less of the 5 control points than the other team. The announcer at that point was saying how the game was pretty much over, and that blue just needed to wrap things up. This is where I realized how badly we were doing, since I hadn't been sure before if it was our game being announced or the other set of people. Hitting the 6 life point to around 100+ mark, I'm pretty sure the announcer was already talking about general LoL stuff. A few minutes(?) later, the score is still at 6. I'm furiously trying to stay alive, doing some awesome net+flash escapes while killing some enemy heroes. I assume my teammates are all in the "holy crap stay the hell alive at all costs mode". More time passes, and it's 3 to like 50. The announcer has noticed and is impressed that we managed to stay alive so long. Somehow, we've managed to stay ahead in towers this whole time. We push their base and somehow are keeping them in, with some of my teammates capture the node just north of their base, bringing it 4-1 in tower control. This sets off the announcer, as he starts shouting to the crowd at how this could be an epic come back! At 3-25, he's shouting "RED TEAM COULD MAKE AN EPIC COME BACK! ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS STAY ALIVE FOR 15 MORE SECONDS!" Everyone is scrambling, all the enemies are just trying to focus down any of us who come near. "10! ... 9!.... 8!.." We're taking just the right risks, I'm staying the hell away while pouring on the damage. "...4! ... 3! ... 2!... THEY DID IT! RED TEAM HAS WON!!!" My row stands up, everyone's pumping their fists, and there is a crapton of adrenaline shooting through my system. Turns out I'm sold on their new gametype. I make my way over to the Runic booth and take the next 15 minutes to let all the adrenaline seep out of my system. Eventually I manage to get up and wander around for a bit, before coming back to work at 12. Right around then, a TL-Pro blogger appears! Hi Riku! I say hi and chat for a minute and grab a picture before I have to get to work. It's a ton of fun getting to share the fruits of your labor with people, so despite forgetting to grab breakfast, 3 hours passes pretty quickly. Next year, I'm hoping we can get that soft, lush carpet some of the big booths have. Between that and the couch, we'll have the best booth possible. I went up dinner with some old WoW ex-guildmates of mine, which was fun times. You hit that awkward situation of "How do I meet up with bunch of people I'm not going to recognize?" I go over to the restaurant (they were supposedly checking the line on the other next door), see a bunch of guys, standing outside, and I wonder if it's them. Probably not, they should be checking the other place. So I pass by and do a double-take as I hear them talking. Turns out voices are a really good way of figuring out if you know a person! Dinner is great, but since it was PAX we waited for almost 2 hours, and then service was slow by the time I got to Barcraft it was past 11. A lot of the regulars were still around; apparently just before I arrived they were teaching one of the bartenders how to play. Apparently I also missed out on some other gaming celebrities; Some NASL guys, TwitchTV guys, and Ash from Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? came through. Never watched that, but they assured me of their fandom. Hung out until we got kicked out a little after 2am. Crawled back into bed around 3:30. Life was good. Day 3, Sunday: Wake up in the morning feeling like P... an old man. Spend my exhibitor early access on snagging a Kirby Mass Attack T-shirt. Finally, a T-shirt with pink on it that I can proudly wear! Grab an extra badge from the company to bring in a fellow barcrafter to the show, and we wander around (Three of us total). Checking out the Path of Exile booth (hardcore action RPG), the guy asks the third friend which media outlet he's from, since he managed to snag a media pass from his friend. "Oh uh... Seattle Barcraft..." he awkwardly mutters. I'm laughing off to the side. Barcraft pride! Work from 12-3, not even getting breakfast this time. I went to grab food, but the line was way too long, so I grabbed an excellent chocolate chip cookie from the GoG booth, who had hired old ladies to bake cookies! What an great idea, and how nice that they were right next to us. My guildmates from the day before came by to hear my Torchlight spiel. Apparently I sound quite the different person when I do my excited/passionate voice with a preplanned pitch. Come 3:15 I decide to leave the booth, and I manage to head over to Barcraft at 4, wanting nothing more than to rest my weary back with a drink and some finals action. I arrive to standing room only: A bunch of the regulars The bar side Ahhh, my heart is stirred by such a sight as this. After the bar erupts in cheers after Coca does some nasty damage to Bomber, I realize I should get a video. Here's the best one I had: Barcraft MLG finals cheering Here's a short video just to show you what it was like at the bar in general: Chao Bistro The stream goes down for a bit, and we placate the angry crowd with TwitchTV mousepads signed by DJWheat. Thanks to TwitchTV for the swag! The finals finish, the crowd is cheering, and people start dispersing a bit. It settles in to more drinking and chatting between fellow Starcrafters, and happiness takes hold. What a pleasure it is to indulge in Starcraft nerdiness at a bar! One of our regular barcrafters is here temporarily from Denmark, and his birthday just took place! We try to leave him sober enough to enjoy the night. Luckily, he manages to survive to get a picture with the man: Thomas and DJWheat Unfortunately a newfound regular next to him is barely holding up after a proud, but ultimately ill-founded boasting of regular drunkenness. Amusement abounds. I notice on the next table where DJWheat is chilling, there sits an familiar looking Asian man. Is that the Gunrun? :O I point him out, and the other people I'm with don't know, and then I hear his voice. Yup. Voice recognition is a powerful tool Night falls. Only the strong survive. Someone mentions that there are laptops around. Do you know what happens when you say you have laptops in a bar full of Starcraft nerds? The following are shaky cam'd, over the shoulder, and quite impromptu, be forewarned. Unfortunately my camera filled up at that point and was running out of batteries. DJWheat getting serious Hyung, the bar owner, taking a shot with the NASL guys DJWheat playing against August August: "Wheat! I can't believe you baneling all-in'd me!!!" Too bad the Macbook pro caused quite a heavy disadvantage for whoever was playing on that. After the loss to Ben, DJWheat switches for the next game against Ben and takes the revenge win, followed by a promise to play the tiebreaker on some real machines. Regardless, having DJWheat playing games up in our barcraft was quite the treat! Also hearing him evangelize the blue e-cig, talk about how he got his name, and all his little esports insights was a blast. Oh and I got my PAX badge signed. After DJWheat and the most of the rest of the out-of-towners left, we stuck around with a few more drinks, totally just celebrating how awesome barcraft was that day. Finally left around 12ish, since I did need to recover from the weekend and lots of other people had work the next day. A fun little encounter ensued as one guy who was also leaving at the same time just happened to be a huge fan of Torchlight. Cue full body bear hug from this super happy and friendly, tiny Canadian. More than happy to spend time with a fan, we (around 4 of us) chatted for a while before finally catching the bus around 12:30, ending the PAX/MLG super combo experience. As a footnote, I slept thirteen and a half hours today. Hopefully this gives you guys a taste of how awesome everything was and maybe some motivation for you all to start some barcraft of your own!

Primadog United States4411 Posts August 30 2011 08:06 GMT #2 Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. Thank you for documenting your travels.

nanoscorp United States1237 Posts August 30 2011 10:46 GMT #3 Yeah, thanks for this blog Your Dominion story brings back memories of Arathi Basin (*EX*-WoWer) and epic holds / comebacks. "GET THEM OFF THAT FLAG!" haha. I'm really looking forward to playing Dominion when it launches. Missed PAX this year but I usually make it up. Always a good time.

ComaDose Canada10349 Posts August 30 2011 12:49 GMT #4 Sounds like pretty much exactly what I want to do. Always.

McKTenor13 United States1383 Posts August 30 2011 15:31 GMT #5 This all looks and sounds incredible! I hope a barcraft starts up in the south east michigan area soon. Great blog, glad you had a good time!

Linwelin Ireland7554 Posts August 30 2011 15:37 GMT #6 This looks amazing Thank you for sharing

TwitchTV 59 Posts August 30 2011 16:50 GMT #7 Glad to spend some time at Chao Bistro this weekend. They framed a TwitchTV mousepad w/ djWHEAT's signature by the MLG Finals. Thanks for the drinks and fun times, everyone!

FishStix United States425 Posts August 30 2011 18:03 GMT #8 Ben from TwitchTV = me :D

iiTiamatii United States73 Posts August 30 2011 19:36 GMT #9 Primadog: And thank you for your tireless Barcraft pushing! FishStix: Glad you could make it out. Have you guys played your tiebreaker yet? =P

deathly rat United Kingdom911 Posts August 30 2011 19:41 GMT #10 Looks so fun, I wish I was there!

iiTiamatii United States73 Posts August 31 2011 03:00 GMT #11 Day[9] gives Seattle Barcraft a shoutout at the beginning of the Rain vs Coca games ~11 food! Took me a while to find, since I missed it the first time around. http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/videos/75403-pool-a-fanticrain-vs-slayerscoca-game-1

Succubusfever United States10 Posts August 31 2011 06:52 GMT #12 Barcraft was so awesome! I was there for days 2 and 3 after PAX. so much fun ♥

iiTiamatii United States73 Posts August 31 2011 17:25 GMT #13 Just around for PAX? Or coming back? =P

Zona 40426 Posts September 01 2011 04:12 GMT #14 Sounds like you had a great time. Did Runic send a lot of people? It seems like you didn't actually have to spend that much time at the booth. Nice pic with Riku. =P

iiTiamatii United States73 Posts September 01 2011 17:46 GMT #15 We actually are based out of downtown Seattle, so there are just 3 shifts each day and everyone signs up for however much. I stuck around for a little more than 3 shifts. It's just a lot of fun to hang out at the booth (and probably some sense of responsibility anchors me there)

Noak3 United States236 Posts September 10 2011 00:39 GMT #16 Are there going to be more Seattle barcrafts anytime soon? I live on Bainbridge Island and I'd love to go to one, although I'm 17 so I'm not sure whether age would be an issue :D. Definitely looking to get involved in any Seattle TL/sc2 events :>

Primadog United States4411 Posts September 10 2011 02:48 GMT #17 Seattle should be meeting sunday starting at 6 to watch the GSL finals and all-stars game.

iiTiamatii United States73 Posts September 12 2011 08:15 GMT #18 If you missed it Noak, the next one is on Wednesday starting 6pm to watch the NASL Season 2 opening games. You can keep an eye on reddit.com/r/barcraft for times and verifying that it's going on that day.

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