This year's coverage wasn't perfect, and I don't mean to give an impression that implies our shit doesn't stink. However, compared to last year, I'd say the difference was night and day.

We do have a number of things we hope to implement next year that we think will improve coverage:

1) We'll be working more closely with the tournament admins so that we can space out matches to ensure viewers get to see more games. I think everyone was so used to things getting completely off-schedule and worried that we'd be rushing to complete the day's matches that the allotment for time/breaks in between games was a bit too long. Again, given the delays of previous years, this cautiousness made perfect sense. However, now that we know we can run a tight ship, thanks to the excellent stewardship of tournament admins Chris Moncivalles and Neil "ceppy" DBenedetto, we should be able to plan to get more games on the stream.

That said, I really enjoyed staying up until 3:00AM and broadcasting demos that were captured earlier in the day. I want to make this a cornerstone of future QuakeCon coverage and hope other coverage crews start doing this. The only thing I'd change is to perhaps have a rotating schedule so I don't have to broadcast for 13 hours with nearly no breaks... as I was a zombie the next day. Still, it allowed us to stream several more games, including all of the 3-mappers of the Group Stage.

2) I personally loved the Invite format for the Duel. However, I also think QuakeCon needs to have a solid Open championship with some prizes and money behind it, so I'll be pushing for that... though that really isn't up to us as "coverage crew." Still, I'll be doing what I can to make sure a QL Open exists.

3) It takes time to learn how to work with other broadcasters. While Jehar and I have been covering stuff together for some time, we had to get used to the rhythm and flow of 2GD. I think by the final day we had our roles nailed down nicely, with us focusing on pure play-by-play and excitement-building while letting Mr. Harding do what he does best with analysis. We'll keep that flow for next year.

4) While we wanted to get the pros up on stage to co-host throughout the event, this was a lot more challenging to organize on the fly. One of the things I plan to do before next year's QuakeCon is to contact pros I know are comfortable on the mic and see if we can more or less plan to have them take part in the coverage at certain points in the tournament.

5) This year, we ran one stream that offered high quality and normal quality bitrates. We were working within a certain bandwidth total for the entire event because id Software/Bethesda/Zenimax was freaking awesome and made sure no one had to watch an ad throughout the whole week.

Next year, I'm going to be pushing for perhaps "some" ads (hopefully QuakeCon-related... the kick-ass sponsors that make QuakeCon possible deserve some love) if it means we can ignore that bandwidth cap and run 2 streams throughout the entire event: 1 stream will be roughly the quality we ran this year and then 1 stream will be something like a 5 Mbps, 60 FPS (or of a quality that is an order of magnitude higher).

6) I want to find ways to get more of the media team's content on the stream. Their stuff rocks and it should be featured.

Further, while we have been able to get some of the panels and presentations onto the YouTube channel, like the "20 Years of id Software," I want to strive to get more online and perhaps even streamed live after the tournament ends for the day.

Hopefully these things will help improve and expand on the success of this past year. That said, we're always open to feedback, so let us know if there's something you'd specifically like to see from the event, and we'll consider it.

QLTV and Future Endeavors