Peace, Love and Rockets

The BYOC is worth braving though, even if it's only to catch sight of the amazing case modifications. The most impressive of these is an Optimus Prime model that stands nearly seven feet tall. "I actually built a smaller one," creator John Magnus - whose middle name is presumably 'Ultra' - tells us on the first morning, "but I was taller than him, so I thought I'd better start again." The result is brilliant - it's even got the openable chest compartment that's meant to house the matrix of leadership. Instead there's a dancing ball of neon atop racked PC components. Another QuakeCon attendee glides past, pockets full of free BAWLS soft drinks. "Does it transform into a laptop?"

BlizzCon, taking place on the other side of the country, has cos-players, which QuakeCon admittedly lacks. Although we do have a ninja who does backflips. (What's your name? "Ninja." Where are you from? A pause. "Japan".) But BlizzCon probably doesn't have BAWLS-chugging, which I don't even know how to describe. There are probably videos on YouTube. And BlizzCon may have tournaments, but believe me, the kids who practise tournament-level Quake were terrifying back before the Asian kids doing 300 clicks-per-minute in StarCraft even knew what a Zerg rush was. If Splash Damage needed an advert for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (due out at the end of September), the sight of top clans competing on three new maps for a share of USD 50,000 will have done it. "People bitch about the asymmetry on forums, but if we like it at clan level they'll probably get used to it once they figure out how to rebind 'lols roflcopter'," one of them shouts at us over the din. Meanwhile Johan 'toxjq' Quick takes USD 20,000 in the Quake Quad-Damage Tournament - a not unexpected result, although it would be unfair to say he walked it.

If watching a tournament game isn't to your liking though, a more general time-waster is to trawl the vendor area next to the BYOC. Full to the brim with hardware and software developers, it's partly there so that the people who sponsor QuakeCon (the lifeblood of the 'Con, as Todd Hollenshead will call them on Friday) can speak directly to consumers with surveys tacked onto huge prize giveaways, and demonstrate their products (the Valve boys, as you already know, found it invaluable for Left 4 Dead). But it's also a way to keep attendees happy. Key to that is free stuff. There are blow-up banging sticks and of course endless pens, but the main event is the two-dozen or more t-shirts, supplies of which are restocked every morning. I wasn't even after any, but I seem to be wearing an XPS effort, and my laptop came home wrapped in Left 4 Dead. "It only cost a couple of thousand for our booth," says John Alden, biz-dev manager of GameRail, a service that aims to improve latency for online gamers, "and the exposure we get is unbelievable. These are our guys."

Even the guys behind the guys are our guys, and none of it costs to attend. "This is the world's largest free LAN party," says Willits when we bump into him for a reflective chat on the final day. "It's volunteered. We love the volunteers. I always try to thank the volunteers when I see them because there would be no QuakeCon without the volunteers." It may not be entirely down to them, but there's also absolutely no trouble that I can spot. The whole time I'm there, I don't think I hear a single word spoken in anger. "I've been here a couple of times," says one of the very few cops strolling around the event. "You get what you'd expect from a massive coming together of people, but you don't get as much of it as I expected. These guys are shooting each other on a computer and then hugging each other." Does it make you want to play games? "Tell you the truth, I've been sneaking onto the Pac-Man in the hall."

The enthusiasm, as I've said elsewhere, is infectious. And it helps that it's such a haven for Quake fans. The id guys are all wandering around, happy to chat, full of anecdotes. Brandon James, president of Nerve Software (currently working on Enemy Territory for 360), tells people the story of how he invented The Longest Yard. Robert Duffy's just sat at the bar, shooting the breeze. Todd Hollenshead strolls around doing likewise. id makes its announcements here. On a calendar that's given the studio GDC, Apple's WWDC, E3 (where they sat in a room with people for 45 minutes a pop preferring to keep quiet about Rage, Quake Zero, et al) and Leipzig later on, not to mention E for All in Q4, the company chose a hotel conference room in Dallas packed with its biggest fans instead. "John loves this," id's Steve Nix says of Carmack's relationship with QuakeCon. "He really loves it. He's always excited about QuakeCon. I'm not sure, because I had to go grab dinner finally, but I imagine he was there at least an hour after answering questions." He was.

In the end my quest morphs into one for what's missing. I never do quite put my finger on it. But on the last day, I'm told that Wendy Zaas, one of id's helpful PR associates, has figured it out. "Wendy's goal," says Willits, "is to get someone married at QuakeCon." "Are you seeing anyone?" she asks me. Sorry, no. "I'd love an id guy!" she declares, sitting down opposite Tim, who plays along and looks over his shoulder for the invisible person behind him. Oh well, there's always next year, 31st July to 3rd August 2008. "Are you ready to book your flights?" Hollenshead yells, to rapturous reception at the Friday press conference. I do.