The Chicago Tribune and Wired (Story from How other players react with multiboxers thread) Long
I was in Chicago as a friend of mine (involved with the Renaissance Society (art part of it, not the re-enactments and role-play parts - not that there's anything wrong with that, just didn't want you to get the wrong idea of the subject matter)) invited me out to play Quake III against a visiting artist that was putting on an art show at the Chicago University campus. The artist was claiming to be good and my friend wanted me to kick his tail. The artist was a proclaimed "Digital Artist" and part of his art was digital art (he made his own skin for the game - hell, thousands of kids made their own skins from Cartman to Bananas in Pajamas). This artist's skin was an Oriental man with no shirt on, jeans and holding a camera (the artist was Chinese and he said it was kind of a joke on the stereotype for his people modelled after himself).
My friend sometimes has alterior motives in his invites, and he paid my way out to Chicago, so I soon found out why.
Reporters were coming wanting to talk about violence in video games, and "how the Columbine shooters were affected by this violence into shooting their classmates" was the only theme they wanted to talk about. Of course, the artist wanted to have the attention paid to his art, not talk all about "violent videogames as de-moralizing the nation's youth." So, my friend introduced me to the guy who showed up in khakis and a Chicago Tribune polo and said he wanted to talk about video games, that I was the "expert."
To keep a boring baited conversation short, where the Trib guy kept asking me different angles of his theme - I told him that these kids already had problems, and angled back to the parents. I remember reading that the father of one of the boys had known his child was involved in the shooting (and not shot) when police came to his door. Videogames, music and gory movies are easy scapegoats for problems that start at home, and we don't have hundreds of thousands of people shooting up schools after playing videogames was my angle as the answer to his questions.
I didn't know a guy who approached during and was listening into a conversation between me and the guy from the Trib was from Wired - he looked like a college student from there on the Chicago U campus wearing regular street clothes and a sweatshirt pullover. Of course, after introductions, the Trib guy was growingly offended that I was more interested in talking to the guy from Wired. Of course, who do you think I am and why I'm here? I love videogames, and a guy from Wired coming to talk videogames is more interesting to me than a guy writing a column for the masses about "Videogames as the Devil."
We had a great conversation about how cool games are getting, and how I don't play Quake III much, but I love to LAN Party, etc.
On the competition with the artist:
Oh, almost forgot… I wore a shirt with a cool chromed Superman logo on the front. I had picked it specifically for the event, because what internet geek wouldn't want a cool superhero shirt? I told my friend that if the artist won the competition between me and him, I'd give him the shirt off my back. Kind of cliché, but it's also a trophy as a reminder of beating me.
I made this bet even though I hadn't really gotten into the Quake III. I owned it, played it some, but it felt too arcade-y for me. ID nerfed some of my favorite weapons (railgun especially) and changed things around that increased surviability in the base game, which made bad players better. It kind of desecrated something dear to me, so I didn't play it much.
We were also playing in his world. Three 20 foot screens fed floor to ceiling by projectors. VERY COOL. The controls were Belkin Nostromos (the first ones I think) and a Belkin N30 mouse with some weird thumb lever on it - I was used to playing on keyboard and mouse. I had expected to get a lot of practice time, but the place was filled with college students all day. They didn't look particularly adept, and the screens were kind of washed out by light in the room for most of the day.
I was finally getting some practice time, when they dimmed the lights and the artist's entourage came in (him and a lot of the Chigago art society - very uppity, dressed in furs and minks). Kind of surprised me - didn't expect the lights to be dimmed as some sort of cage-match and I wasn't really hadn't figured out the Belkins. My heart started to race.
I completely smoked him, he was not very good. At one point I jumped on top of his head while he was scanning the room on the level we were on. He obviously knew I was there of the sound of me jumping while strafe-running was echoing. I pulled out the chain-fist as my friend yelled laughing, "HE'S ON TOP OF HIS HEAD!!!" The model angled upwards and I know he saw me. I chain fisted him, which as you Quake-er's know that will gib anybody. As his body disintegrated into chunks of goo, there was an "Eww" that eminated from the crowd.
The "Party"
My friend took me to a "party" afterwards - which I'm betting your and my mental picture of a "party" is pretty much the same. I found myself in a $20M apartment in the Four Seasons, admiring the wall-to-wall art filled apartment with my friend and the Art Society. My friend said the artists themselves come in and paint the art directly on the wall. If the owner moves, they roll paint over it and the artist goes to their new place and paints it again. I can only imagine how expensive that is.
Everybody but me had suits on, I still wore my sweaty Superman shirt. The biggest surprise to me was that everybody was very nice to me, from the servants to the hostess. They were all interested in the gaming I do and why I was in Chicago. I didn't get the feeling they were talking behind my back, and it was a very interesting experience. As you can see, it's one I'll NEVER forget!
My superman shirt still hangs in my closet at home as a reminder of my adventure.
