At the end of the day, fans got their Quake. It was hectic. It was stressful. We had to scrap a lot of our plans for fuller, supplemental coverage in order to make it all happen, but every single QLTV staff member finished the experience with a smile on their faces and had an eagerness for next year.

I’ve read ESR and heard LiveOnThree have its hilarious finger-pointing party. At the end of the day, id Software, Bethesda and even QLTV will take the punches. But keep in mind that all of the insanity was born out of external forces. If the rumors are true, the finals should have been in a larger room on a larger stage, negating the whole ordeal of getting a feed piped across the hotel. QuakeCon simply got the rug pulled out from under it. I’m also still stunned that the volunteers and staff were able to scrounge up all of the switches necessary to make QuakeCon happen after learning just weeks before the event that the equipment they were counting on would not be there. I suppose next year they will also have to find a way to guard against a vendor with BYOC access tampering with the switches to prevent the loop that FUBAR’d DNS resolution on Day 2. As for our end of things, we rolled with the punches as best we could. We learned a ton that will prepare us well for next year.

And again, at the end of the day, the people got their Quake... and it was incredible Quake. As even Slasher conceded, this year’s matches may have been the best he’s ever seen. Coming from the walking Quake encyclopedia that he is, I’ll take that as a huge compliment. QuakeCon literally wouldn’t have happened without the volunteers, staff and coverage crew’s flexibility to handle enormous, last-minute event-threatening setbacks. The flamers will have their tirades, but that simple truth will remain long after their shrills of “OMG!” have faded into the din of the Internet.

Put simply, despite the issues, QLTV loved every minute of QuakeCon, and we know with more time and planning, we'll be able to provide the kind of coverage we initially hoped and planned to stream. We fully recognize our coverage was far from perfect and we have begun the postmortem process to identify ways in which we can improve. In fact, we've already begun preliminary plans for 2011.