Check out some brief notes from our weekend in muggy San Diego at MLG.
Last weekend Shishka and I took an easy sub-three hour flight from the rainy Northwest (begrudgingly missing the best weekend of golf in the Seattle area since early May) to head to San Diego for MLG’s second tournament of the season. For a wrap-up of who won what and how everything looked, MLG’s official site is probably your best bet – this is just a brief series of notes on what Shishka and I checked out.
This being his first MLG event, Shishka hadn’t been exposed to the complicated and elaborate series of technical hurdles that MLG overcomes in order to stream events live – rightfully, he was impressed with the number of folks hard at work preparing for Saturday and Sunday’s live streams. The “Yankee Stadium” – as we’ve previously discussed – blew his goatee back. Three monitors broadcasting gameplay, transitioning between players, showing their faces, reactions and their nightmarish skills that haunt my dreams.
In the time it took Shishka and I to go on our tour, four middle school-to-early highschool Bungie.net users had fashioned a sign with a slipshod sketch of Mister Chief asking for Recon. Fruitlessly, they cobbled the drawing together like MacGuyver using a Q-tip and Silly Putty to blow his way out of a foreign prison, the hilarity with these fans was only just beginning. At different times throughout our Friday evening at the venue, we’d look behind us to see the four of them standing there with a camcorder stalking us and filming our mundane existences.
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“Shishka is about to take a drink of Dr. Pepper, I wonder if he’d drink that if Gamefuel was available.”
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“Luke seems to be paying close attention to this Halo 3 match, I wonder if he’s thinking ‘Man, I’m better than these kids.’”
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“Luke and Shishka look thirsty; I wonder if they will go back into the Pro Lounge for free drinks or use the drinking fountains like commoners.”
We met another group of guys at the venue – the Three M’s – three Bungie fans and talked with them numerous times on Friday and Saturday. Saturday as you’re well aware by now, is the reason we were at this particular MLG event.
Paired with Team Classic’s “Legend,” and Shishka teamed up with Carbon’s “Karma” – we revealed Cold Storage, a remake of Halo: Combat Evolve classic Chill Out. Via means treacherous and nefarious, Shishka and Karma ousted Legend and I – I played pretty awful once Legend and I lost Rocket room – I blame myself and Stosh for the loss.
And no, we haven’t forgotten you, sweet, sweet Bungie.net users, we’ll have more on Cold Storage this week, I promise.
In the interest of rare full disclosure, the plan to show Cold Storage came together pretty quickly and so we didn’t spin up art assets for screenshots. We’ll definitely have treats for Bungie.net users this week, though. Friday sounds like a safe bet. For now, Bungie.net user CrypticGuardian put up a
great thread with a bunch of cellphone pictures from the exhibition. Drink it up!
Shishka passed this note over to me during study hall with some of his favorite moments from the weekend. Enjoy them.
MLG’s set up for managing their live stream is simply incredible. They’ve cobbled together some amazing talent to make the stream exactly like what you’d expect to see for any professional sport. Even as a designer, I find it hard to comprehend that a video game has buried itself so deep into culture that a group such as MLG can create such a high caliber broadcast. We’ve come a long way.
The exhibition match was awesome, even if I threw some of the worst grenades of my Halo playing career. At first I was a little too aware of the crowd of people watching us, and I gotta admit, was a bit freaked out. Eventually I was able to focus on my screen and the feedback Karma was giving me and in the end I had a lot of fun. I walked away from the match craving more, but unfortunately there were things that needed to be done and I didn’t get the opportunity. And yes, kids, I know my BR was out of ammo. I have a habit of swapping to it even when it’s low or out of ammo. I was okay. Really. Not like it particularly mattered. Karma and I won because A) Karma is awesome and B) I managed to suck only slightly less than Luke.
After the exhibition, I went back out into the floor and had the opportunity to talk with a bunch of fans. Luke, on the other hand, pulled a perfect impression of Rush’s Neil Peart, jumping off the stage and disappearing before the fans could even get near. He reemerged not much later – wearing a completely different set of clothes – and met up with me in the venue. As we were talking, some fans approached and asked me (draped in my Bungie-branded apparel) for an autograph. After I signed their 360 controllers, they turned around and walked away—they hadn’t even noticed Luke was there. I turned and looked at Luke for a moment, and then I lol’d. Oh, how I LOL’d.
Despite my tenure with Bungie [Editor’s Note: three months this time around - LS]
, this was actually the first MLG event I’ve ever attended, so it was pretty cool to see a mix of people I had never met before as well as some familiar faces. The PMS clan had a ton of representation, and there were even a couple Bungie.Net regulars around to check things out, so the venue had this familial undertone while at the same time being a completely new experience for me. I had a lot of fun, and hopefully San Diego won’t be my last MLG event.
[Editor’s Note: The above story may have been edited from its original state by me - LS]
[Editor’s Note 3: When you inevitably complain about the length of this week’s Weekly Update, add this story’s length to it, jerks :) – LS]