<b>DAY 3 (D-Day)</b>

Now the finals were supposed to take place around 12:00pm today. That’s funny, because it’s now 10:30pm and we still have 8 people waiting to start the double-elimination part of the tournament. About 5:00pm rolls around and ZeRo4 is now playing daler on dm6. The score is tied 10-10 with 7 minutes left to play when all of a sudden the server dies. OH GOD we’re thinking, how could this happen, it was such a crucial point of the game. The network comes back on after they are done fixing the shit they should have fixed a week ago and the match resumes. That match is finished.

Now it’s time for ZeRo4 vs. elpajou, the match is underway, t4 is the map, its 8-8 when the network dies, AGAIN. Syn goes and figures out what’s wrong, it’s no big problem, and I mean they only permanently shut down the network because the event was officially over, nothing major though. I mean, why would they give a fuck about the gamers when they have their sponsors feeding them cash? Why would they actually pay the gamers anything? You think they care about us? LOL! Joe hill cares about his media coverage and making his corporate executive sponsors happy. Shit, I bet if he didn’t lie through his teeth to them about how well the tournament was going he would have lost them faster then Cooller would have to ZeRo4 if the finals got played.

We brainstorm a way to get these final 3 matches played and we conclude that we’re going to use rigor’s crossover cable that he packs for rainy days and connect elpajou’s computer to ZeRo4’s computer directly, hah, this is so ghetto, but now it’s about pride, fuck the money, we don’t care about that anymore. Play is about to resume when the announcement is made that all power in the tournament room and BYOC is going down, they’re basically completely shutting it down, I mean the event is over, if you consider canceling 3 tournaments and not completing a fourth as being “over”.

All the Quake 3 players go have a meeting in the corner of the now 90% vacant area that used to be home to where we played our tournament. They are packing up the computers, we are all feeling this strange surreal feeling. We just basically got removed from an event we paid for without even finishing it. There are 3 players left that all have an equal opportunity at the prizes, but now we get nothing, at least directly. We are trying to brainstorm a way to play the finals, LAN center maybe? Hotel room? Fatal1ty lending us 3 computers to use. None of those worked. This tournament was over. What I say next is only my view of this tournament and I don’t necessarily officially represent the views of the gamers that participated in the event, although im sure they agree with me.