rAge Expo: Blogged and Pinned

Sup sup yo yo ho ho ho everyone! My name is Flipi ‘Alcardu’ Portman, and, apart from being really awesome and happy today, I am a proud rAge 09 survivor!

In return for various favours of undisclosed natures, I have agreed to bring back all my memories from the weekend and giving you guys a look into a Capetonian view of the rAge Weekend. So with no further ado or frolicking, let me tell you my story.

Into the wild yonder
Thursday
1 October 2009

Being that I live in Stellenbosch, transport to rAge is the number 1 issue. This year I flew up in the fun company of none other than Tristan ‘Clitsybananas’ Bridger. Thursday we bubble-wrapped our computer cases, packed in our spandex and rolled over to the airport, where we arrived about 2 hours early for our flight +_+ Waiting at the airport going TO somewhere is the most boring time you can spend there.
Finally it was time for our flight, but yet again things were delayed and we ended up lying around on the carpet in the ‘temp’ terminal area another 20 minutes or so.

The flight up was very… plane-y. Surprising no? We got a few looks from other passengers concerning our bubble-wrapped luggage, and one woman, who was traveling to rAge with her whole family, found us out rather fast with a ‘You’re going to rAge aren’t you’. Sneak old bat I tell you.

Upon arriving at the O R Thamb0something airport in Johannesburg, we grabbed our luggage and headed outside to be picked up by Mr friendly cab driver, Roger. After various phone calls and direction recitals we finally found our way to Faerie Glen, Pretoria; where a straight out of the shower, hair still dripping wet, hey look at me I’m cute and Asian, Sandy ‘Eleyna’ Tsou was waiting for us on her doorstep.

The night was spent finding me a screen (ended up with a 15″ CRT gotten from Zark that needed to be beating every few minutes otherwise the display went whonky), absorbing some delicious pizza and generally talking crap online.

Riding the Queue
Friday
2 October 2009

Friday morning saw us speeding off towards Johannesburg around 9 am in something I can only describe as the child of a hummer and a truck load of cash. The traffic was horrendous, but upon discovering a Britney Speares CD in the car time just flew by. Sandy had recently replaced her power supply with something a bit stronger, and now realised that the power cord was too big and she could not use the ever important red plugged cords that we all needed for rAge. So after dropping us off, she went to Frontosa to wave her finger at some people.

Meanwhile Tristan and I made our way to the back of the legendary rAge entrance queue. Let me tell you, nothing makes you looks poorer than arriving at rAge in your shorts, barefoot and trucking a 15″ CRT around. Luckily I wasn’t the only one, with a CRT I mean. I left Tristan in the queue and after drawing a shocking amount of money, swapped that for a rAge ticket I had organised with some CS:Source players from online. Devious bastards +_+

And so, finally, after long waits, and one mother in the queue saying ‘Ai maar daai kind is ma dof’ about her own son (lal ^^), we were inside the Coca-Cola Dome. Home to the annual rAge Expo and NAG LAN!

We headed to the back of the open LAN area at the bottom, since we had instruction to keep around 12-14 seats for everyone who was coming later. I also took about 30 minutes to find the Media Desk to pick up the pass I had waiting for me (It came with a bag of goodies, including some nice hair gel and mouth wash samples.. but I have to ask, Why Hair gel at rAge?!).

Friday I specifically stayed away from the Expo, as I wanted to do it in full the following day. So we spend the day playing Dota game after Dota game, with me constantly telling Tristan ‘Don’t lose! There is no comp so we can only ‘win’ if we get people to start kicking us because we are too good!’ Needless to say my fervor died down as GAME AFTER GAME WAS RE’D! That’s right, rAge Dota sucks donkey! There were no teams, so players had no ties to their teammates and would ‘lag out’ or simply quit whenever they felt like it. However the FPS servers and games were a lot more fun, since quiting does not really affect these.

Friday we met quite a few people, Sandy finally showed up with her monster case, Alex ‘Dr3xus’ also joined us a bit later. Amongst others we were also joined by Rincewind, Legionnaire, Cobra, Strider, Mortal, Apyreal, Blou-Aap, and so on and so forth. You know who you all are, I don’t ><

Friday night ended with the Tristan, Sandy and I dragging ourselves to the car, and dozing off all the way to Pretoria. Utterly exhausted we decided to wake up late the following morning.

rAge 2009: Go Time!
Saturday
3 October 2009

And so Saturday arrived, the main day of rAge, when the exhibitors’ pockets are still bulging with free goodies, the rAge girls are still looking fresh and excited, and no one is overly depressed by re’d Dota matches yet!

Saturday saw various things taking place -

Hussein ‘Phant1m’ from eGamer arrived and we started discussing what what and where where. He also got a short interview with Michael James, editor of NAG Magazine and general organiser of the rAge experience. This year unfortunately though it seemed that rAge had outsourced about 90% of the expo, and had no real central information desk for inquiries and troubleshooting.

The Do Gaming competitions were taking place down stairs in their VIP section, and turned out rather well I think. Fifa 10 also got launched in the downstairs area, although I missed this unfortunately. However I did get my chance to OOOH and AAAH and 2 break dancers and 2 football tricksters! They got some show time upstairs on the expo floor next to the Do Gaming stand just before the prize drawing took place for the Wii and Wii Fit. Do Gaming once more had it’s walk-through stand, with game stations constantly filled by avid fans of the Call of Duty series.
Downstairs you could feel the difference almost immediately when you entered the competitive area. Here teams were discussing strategies, players were honing their skills and the CS:Source players were shouting a lot +_+ Amongst others I spotted Rob ‘Gridlock’ and as well Ben ‘Equinox’ Greenwood in the competitive area. Both were attending on a more formal basis than me, reporting on and running the events downstairs respectively.

So I strolled into the Expo, my mind set on taking part in as many random activities as possible and experiencing as many things as I can. (My attitude slightly deflated after I saw a grown man and a 12 year old having a dance off on stage for a hardware prize +_+) The rAge expo this year left me with mixed feelings. This was only my second rAge trip, having gone for the first time in 2008 to compete and win the Do Gaming Dota competition. The expo, while being exciting and full of potential, was a little bit of a disappointment when I started comparing it to my previous experience. Too many of the stands seemed to have been copy pasted from last year, with no real improvement in the gimmicks they sold. However, even when not living up to my larger than life expectations, the expo was still a blast.

There was the Main Stage, or main stages actually, where on the one side the Quake 3 competition was being run by Arena 77, with in between breaks where some prizes were given away for various things, from break dancing, to single questions, to who can stick 18 stickers on themselves fastest. On the other side the attention was drawn by some very good presentations of various up coming titles, such as Avatar, Borderlands and more. The repeated Avatar presentation specifically drew a crowd, when one of the leading design team got on stage and charmed half the dome with his witty banter as he ran us through the game.

The World Cyber Games qualifications for Logitech’s Guitar Hero took place on the opposite side of the expo floor as well. Where, somehow, every time I passed by, 2 bald men would be rocking it out to some rather feminine sounding songs.

Right behind the Do Gaming stand was the Anime section. The anime section had seen some nice improvements since last year; not only were you able to browse and buy from shelves pack to the edge with titles, but there were also 2 consoles setup in the corner with titles like Naruto: Ultimate fighter and Soul Caliber playable. Furthermore, as part of this area of the expo, there was a Magic: The Gathering area, where tables were set out and a new Card issue was released. The organisers of this area also ran a Magic tournament over the weekend, which drew quite a few players to spending many hours bent over their tables. Lastly, and this is why I loved the anime section this year, they had 2 new innovations. The cafeteria was opened against the wall, and suitably named ‘Maid Cafe’. Inside were various girls dressed up in French maid outfits taking orders and assisting customers. There was a pc setup with some new and old Music Videos playing and a nice corner used as a mini cinema, where a constant array of anime was screened all weekend long. Secondly they had added an artist idea right outside the cafe. Take one large square table, one even larger square piece of paper, various pencils and erasers, and hand this setup to the hordes of anime fans that attended the event. Some of the best drawings I have seen in a long time took place right before my eyes. I certainly hope that some of those artists make it into game design and anime sketching, because those talents need to be exploited by some sexist bosses right away!

The rest of the stands were of less importance in my eyes. You had the usual Guitar hero / band hero / world tour what what setup at various locations. Which I think should be given a bit of a rest already. These games are fun, but they are no longer cutting edge. The novelty has worn off for me, I was hoping for some different interactive stands. Megarom Games had some nice play stands as well. I did however take the time to humiliate myself in Band hero along with some 13 year olds. NAG had their stand, MXIT was there as always and so were various hardware retailers and software developers.
The ‘booth babes’ and ‘promotional walkies’ were present in numbers. And so also the cosplay attendees. We had 95% of the Naruto cast scattered across the expo. There was specifically one Asian girl who was doing promotion work for Asus and their competition where you could win a motherboard and CPU. This girl was smiling 24/7, was always accompanied by at least 1 guy, and followed by another 2. I swear she deserves a medal, because she brought the numbers in like crazy. (Needless to say I won nothing +_+)

There was announced that =Bot=Angel and Noobieless would be running both a Dota 5v5 competition and a Dota 1v1 competition. Unfortunately when it became apparent that their timing was off the 1v1 competition was cancelled. However the Dota 5v5 took place well into the early hours of the morning. I entered with team Juice-Layer (1 guess who came up with that name) which consisted of Clitsybananas, Cobra/Eleyna, Dr3xus, Shambles and then myself. We also made a running bet with ever opposing team, that the losers must scream something aloud where they are sitting. This resulted in many good laughs, as we started every match with a ‘GO TIME!’ from our side of the dome ^^
The tournament, while being fun, did not offer the best challenge. Unfortunately since rAge 2009 did not have an official Dota competition there were only a few online players present. Team HaXx was our only strong competition, they narrowly lost to us in the winner bracket final. But we pushed them down to the loser bracket, where they proceeded to wreck havoc and return once more to the final later.

Before this tight match there was a cry for food, and so an epic journey was undertaken in Sandy’s hummer car, a journey undertaken by the KFC fellowship, consisting of Eleyna, Alcardu, Clitsybanans, Dr3xus, Shambles, Mace and Cobra.
At the KFC Shambles got his chest painted with nail polish, Clitsybananas was paper bagged and raped by Dr3xus against the window, and Mace was also picked up and raped by Dr3xus on one of the tables.. Asian fever 0_o is a scary thing.
After our match against Team HaXx we called it a night. This time Alex joined us in the car, and the sound of him mumbling Asian words, which I can only assume were ritualistic, put Tristan and me to sleep almost instantly.

Rise and Shine
Sunday
4 October 2009

People say that horror films are mostly fiction, but let me tell you there is no fiction in being woken up by a serious faced Dr3xus +_+ And even more so if it happens at 6 AM!

Team HaXx had been playing all night to finish their games and were finally ready to face us in the final. However they wished to do so before they went to bed, not after. And so we were being asked to wake up after 3 hours of sleep and drive to the expo to play them in the finals. Tristan said ‘I don’t care’ and rolled over. I on the other hand said ‘We do care’ and started looking for my cell phone. However Alex phoned them again and they decided they were not in the mood to play us in an hour when we arrived and were instead going to go home. They were leaving and so they forfeited.
Not the best end to a competition, I’ve experienced many with more exciting ends, but unfortunately informal competitions are not always 100% on the details.

So Sunday saw us returning once more to the Expo, where we picked up our winnings for the final we didn’t get to play.
This being the last day of the expo, we kicked our DC++ downloads into a higher gear and started feverishly gathering videos for ourselves to watch during the next 365 days, till the next rAge came along to warm our hearts.

The Quake 3 competitions had its finals as well. The 2 international players, sponsored by MSI, took first and second place, while our own Stephen ‘Ph4ntom’ Cloete and Travis ‘Shase’ Weedon took 3rd and 4th place respectively. At the prize giving the crowed turned green, seeing as Arena 77 kept thing tight and indeed ended up distributing prizes all the way to 15th place. Len Nery, although not part of Arena 77 anymore, was present as the Sapphire Rep and was also smiling from ear to ear all weekend long.
Cloete, being the top ranked SA player in the competition, also won himself a sponsored trip to attend Dreamhack in Sweden, where he will represent himself and SA in the international Quake competition there!
Also of interest, the only player to take a map from one of the international players was Shase. Do Gaming had a brief interview with him afterwards about this, so go check that out on their site as well.

Running downstairs to make it in time I got to catch the finals for the Cod4 competition as well. Brazen defeated Lard in an incredibly exciting final 13-11. It came down to one final Deagle kill that rocked the crowed behind Brazen as they continued their 100% win streak and ended up as Do Gaming CoD4 Champions.

In the CS:Source section things were far less tense, although much louder. Causation Persuasion breezed through the competition with ease and walked away with first place and the title of Do Gaming CS:Source Champions. (Hannie is such a cocky kid ^^ hahahaha)

Finally there came a time when the dent in LAN attendees could not be ignored no more, and the DC++ server shut down for the last time. Mace, Shambles, Dr3xus, Clitsy, Eleyna and myself formed what I can only call a street gang and proceeded to ambled around, harassing every exhibitor for any left over ‘free stuff and prizes’.
It even came to one point when Clitsy became tired of not winning anything, and simply took someone else’s winnings. We were in the anime section, where a free goody throwing was taking place. A box was hurled in our direction, bouncing off outreached hands and claws, it came to a stop in the small hands of an Asian boy next to us. In a flash Clitsy bumped into him, started shouting “MINE ITS MINE!”, turned tail and did the funniest run I have ever seen! ^^ The small figure high-tailed it out of the anime section with a dvd held in front of him and ran into the general expo area, leaving the rest of us clutching our sides, screaming with laughter, and the small boy in total shock. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in weeks. After a few minutes Clitsy however did return and give back the DVD, which turned out to be something really lame.

And so rAge 2009 ended. We packed up our cases, loaded them into the car, said our goodbyes to various new friends we had made and drove off into the sunset. Where we had a nice Nando’s meal.

Sunday night was looked depressing. We could barely keep ourselves awake, and it was only 7 pm. Also the harsh realities of life (and returning to it) was looming. Sandy and myself started watching Vampire Diaries, which makes me think I might be gay, while Tristan tried to get Starcraft working and watched a few Dota videos. Eventually we packed up and got in bed, knowing in 5 hours we would be getting up to go to the airport.

We had done it, survived a weekend of no sleep, high expectations, thrilling experiences, boring patches and a whole lot of Asian uhm, yeah, displayed. rAge 2009 taught me the value of keeping an eye out for paper bags and the occasional booth babe. Expect to see me there next year with a proper computer, competing in one of the bigger competitions.

- Flipi

Images from clitybananaS (choppy cellphone cam…. Sandy’s backyard, etc.) & Logitech (Guitar Hero, etc)

*Note the last photo is just something a little special from Clitsy…