Quakecon Community Competitions
The Texan Gamer has our area setup to the left when you first walk into the byoc. Be sure to visit us to find out more about BYOC Tournaments!

- Posted by Nacho on 08.12.2010 at 11:06 AM

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Xfire sold
Viacom-owned game chat and discovery service service Xfire has been sold to an undisclosed company.

Late Monday, Xfire General Manager Chris Kirmse left a note on the front page of the site titled "team leaving" saying that "most of the team that has brought you Xfire for the last six years is leaving, including me." Kirmse did not go into any additional detail on who the buyers were, nor has an official announcement been made on the company's blog or about page.

Xfire and former parent company Viacom did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

Xfire was originally sold to Viacom back in 2006 for $102 million. The site has since gone on to register more than 16.7 million users and put out 127 software releases. In early 2005, it was sued for patent infringement by Yahoo over the company's use of instant messaging technology. The dispute was settled a year later.

Xfire co-founders Dennis Fong and Mike Cassidy parted ways with the company shortly after its acquisition. Fong went on to found Raptr--a similarly featured social games network, and Cassidy went on to work for Benchmark Capital and, ultimately Ruba, which was sold to Google earlier this year.

- Posted by Jeff on 08.02.2010 at 11:13 PM

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BYOC Tournaments to return at QuakeCon 2010
One of the most longstanding QuakeCon traditions is that of the BYOC tournament. Leveraging the awesome size of the BYOC LAN, informal organized play can be the best gameplay experience that QuakeCon has to offer. This year, we're happy to announce that BYOC tournaments will once again be making an appearance with official infrastructure.

Last year proved to be a tremendous learning experience for providing this service, and QuakeCon is once again proud to be partnering with The Texan Gamer to provide the best possible experience to all of our attendees. Expect all of the same great services that were present last year, along with some welcomed improvements.

New this year, BYOC Tournaments will be moving from the umbrella of "BYOC" to "Tournaments". This new alignment will allow us to leverage the knowledge and experience of those who have been running the official tournaments for years. Staff will continue to coordinate with NOC services to provide core driven dedicated servers, although we will be improving the processes for obtaining these servers to ensure that only quality tournaments are communicated to interested parties, and to make sure that those tournaments happen.

With the new alignment also brings additional staff support. BYOC Tournaments will be very closely integrated with the support services of the QuakeCon Tournaments and should provide a more clear and direct channel for communication. Should an issue arise with a particular tournament and the flow of said event, QuakeCon Staff will be in a much better position to step in and ensure that everyone trying to get their game on we be able to prove their skills.

Some important guidelines for BYOC tournaments:

• You may not secure any outside sponsorship for your BYOC tournaments. Sponsors should contact sponsors@quakecon.org for more information on being involved with QuakeCon.


• Sportsmanlike, community oriented conduct is expected from all attendees, especially those that are organizing play.


• The Tournament Staff will select as many informal tournaments to sponsor and support as possible, but resources are always limited.


• Need resources? Contact the Tournament staff early to plan for success!
  

TXG LAN - July 24th
Registration is up!

Looking forward to another great lan!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

- Posted by Nacho on 07.20.2010 at 12:34 AM

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Getting Ready for QuakeCon 2010
QuakeCon 2010 is just under a month away. As always, the event is free and open to the public and we’re putting together our best-ever lineup of events and activities. From watching industry-leading guest speakers and world-class competitive gaming, to browsing the latest games or playing in the largest BYOC LAN party in North America, there is never a dull moment at QuakeCon.

For anyone getting ready to pack up that gaming rig and join in the BYOC fun, we’ve got as many seats as ever and we fully expect to be able to accommodate everyone that wants to attend; but we’re also pleased to announce that any attendee who is a registered guest at the hotel under the QuakeCon 2010 room block for the 3 nights of the event (Thursday - Saturday nights) is guaranteed a spot in the BYOC. We don’t want anyone to worry about getting a seat in the BYOC, but we are also happy to be able to offer that extra insurance for those that may be traveling and support the event by booking a room at our host hotel. If you’re sharing a room (up to quad occupancy), just make sure that all of the guests are registered with the hotel.

If you haven’t done so already, you can reserve a room at the at the Hilton Anatole using the group rate for “QuakeCon 2010.”

- Posted by Daame on 07.15.2010 at 09:36 PM

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Marty Stratton on On-Site Registration
Earlier today we released new information about the registration process for QuakeCon 2010. Whether you’re a regular to QC or a first-time attendee, you probably have questions about getting set up. To help, Marty Stratton, Executor of All Things Awesome at QuakeCon, to explain this year’s registration process.

Take it away, Marty!

QuakeCon is fast approaching, and we couldn’t be more excited. Things have been quietly progressing behind the scenes as we plan this year’s event, but today’s announcement really marks the beginning of our run-up to QuakeCon 2010 in Dallas on August 12-15. We have a ton of exciting news and information to share over the next few weeks, but I wanted to offer a little bit of insight into the changes to our registration process – particularly for those that have attended in the past – as it is one of the more significant changes we’re making to the operation of the event this year.

First, if you’ve never been to QuakeCon, joining us this year couldn’t be easier – all you have to do is show up. Bring your gaming rig if you’d like to hook up and play with the nearly 3,000 other gamers in the LAN party, or just spend your days taking in the sights and sounds of the pro tournaments, exhibit hall, special events, speakers and entertainment. There is literally something for everyone that enjoys video games and it’s all free thanks to id, Bethesda, our volunteers and sponsors.

If you’ve been to a previous QuakeCon, you might remember that we’ve traditionally had an online pre-registration. While this was an exciting online event itself, we’ve learned over the last couple of years that it really did very little to help us better serve attendees during the onsite registration process and was even a bit of a detriment to those that ended up on the BYOC “waiting list” or what we’ve called the “first come, first served” line onsite. The truth of the matter is that we’ve always had room for everyone that brought their computer to the event, but we’ve had to hold large groups of attendees in line simply because someone (many of whom don’t even plan on attending) got a “guaranteed” BYOC spot during online pre-registration. Some might say that we’ve turned the entire process into “first come, first served,” and that is actually the point. We want to able to process all attendees as they arrive on site, in the order in which they arrive, and just like every year, we fully expect to have space for everyone who wants to be in the BYOC. Ultimately, registering everyone on-site allows us to focus all of our efforts on better serving those that do attend.

To accomplish this, we will be utilizing a combination of new registration software, hardware and processes based on years of experience. With that, we will be able register attendees and their equipment more quickly and efficiently than ever before – lessening the time spent in lines, lessening the time moving cumbersome equipment through various registration check-points, and generally streamline the process for every attendee, whether bringing a computer or not.

We’re looking forward to another fantastic QuakeCon and hope to see all of our old friends as well as meet some new ones.

Posted by gstaff on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 2:46 pm.

- Posted by Daame on 07.01.2010 at 07:43 PM

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Lan lan lan! July 24th!
Following the past few months of quietness in the world of lans.

I am happy to announce that the next The Texan Gamer lan will on July 24th, 2010 at the EZNet Cafe in Arlington! We are happy with the decision to move the lans to a larger (and cleaner) venue! You will have access to the same rock solid network and servers you have come to enjoy.

More details will be announced in the next few days, but for now mark your calenders and get ready to lan!

- Posted by Nacho on 06.30.2010 at 10:10 PM

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