I fired off a Skype to James "2GD" Harding who I had fortunately become friends with over some web development and broadcasting discussions in previous months. I knew he was coming to QuakeCon and would at least be there for the later days. There was even some chatter about Jay teaming up with his usual partner in crime, Joe Miller, to handle the main stage finals. Now, though, I needed him to be there. I also needed to know exactly what he was planning to do. Ash's email verified the dynamic shoutcasting duo was involved, but that was all it mentioned.

"When are you available to 'cast? Are you there the whole event?", I asked. "Yeah, I'll be there Tuesday." James replied. A wave of relief hit me. The last time we had talked, 2GD wasn't sure if he'd be able to get off work for the full event as he had just begun his job as the new eSports Manager for Bloodline Champions. Our conversation dove into the details as I needed to be armed with as much info for the QLTV staff as possible. I learned QLTV would need to provide the tech setup for 2GD and Joe. While I was saddened that fuller coverage of the event had to be scrapped because there wouldn't be enough equipment for 3 broadcasting teams (originally Lo3/QuadV Masters/CTF, QLTV Open Duel/CTF, QLTV BYOC) like we had planned, it was an easy decision to make. With Lo3/QuadV out of the picture and us supplying the main broadcasting setup, there would only be enough equipment to cover the tournament stage and the BYOC.

I am pretty sure anyone else would have turned this opportunity down given the short time frame to re-plan and the severe turn-around of roles and equipment. Maintaining a live stream would be a very different affair from handing off prerecorded content. I also had concerns about our hardware. QLTV, being mostly a team of college students with only two of us having “real jobs,” our access to high quality equipment was limited. We’d unfortunately have to use S-Video to get the game feed to the streaming box even though we’d abandoned that practice quite some time ago for our online coverage. This meant we were also stuck with a 4:3 stream ratio. I sighed aloud in disappointment, but there was no better way without completely different equipment. Or, if there was a better way, we didn’t have time to find it. “Eleven days...”, I repeated in my head.

The pressure of everything being last-minute weighed heavily, but I didn't care. I love this game. I love everything Quake. I always have, and nothing would get in my way of making sure that Quake fans would at least have a chance to see some amazing matches. It didn't matter that the primary broadcaster had just pulled the plug days from the event. It didn't matter that our team’s lengthy planning just got turned on its head. We were going to try like hell to bring the fans their Quake.

Read Part 2 - Gathering The Troops