MLG Dallas Part 1

This post is long in itself and will be one of two, maybe three posts about the event. I rant about things(That's just what I do), but in the end we had a great time and would suggest if you get the chance, you should attend an MLG event too.

On August 29, Dark and I had the opportunity to attend the second day of the Major League Gaming Dallas event. MLG Dallas was the third of five events on the MLG's 2009 Pro Circuit. The event consists of multiple tournaments for video games including, Halo 3, Gears of War 2, and of course WoW 3v3 Arena. Does anyone want to guess what we were there to see?

Our morning started early. After fighting with a Saturday morning alarm clock, making sure we had everything we wanted to take (which still wasn't everything), and starting our drive, we finally arrived at the Hotel Anatole just outside of downtown Dallas. The only parking we found was paid, which was a bit ridiculous for a hotel in my opinion, but we parked the car and forgot all about it. As we headed for the door the geeky excitement started to kick in and only grew as we made our way towards the hall the event was being held in. We bought our passes and then made our way through the door and into the hall. Passing through the door was more like passing through a portal that lead to geek nirvana.

No matter which way you turned there was some sort of video game being played. Xbox 360s and flat panel monitors as far as the eye could see. Huge screens with all the action projected onto them and the impressive main stage which I found out, much to my disappointment, would only be filled with Halo 3 fans. As we made our way to the back of the hall we found what we were here to see, the WoW tournament setup.

It wasn't at all what I expected. Instead of the main stage I mentioned earlier, there were four long tables in sets of two. On each set of tables, were six monitors, three on one side and three on the other facing opposite each other. Under the tables, each monitor was connected to an HP Blackbird tower. This is where the gladiators would do battle. As for the spectators area, there wasn't one. Not a single screen showing the action, no chairs to sit and watch, it was as if they didn't expect anyone. After fighting with a security guard we were allowed to enter the tournament area and stand watching the first teams prepare for their games. In the beginning this was actually pretty cool. We were able to watch the different ways that each player used their keyboard and mouse to control their characters. It was all up close and personal but soon standing and trying to see the action became the challenge as more people showed up to watch.

After a few matches Dark was tired of standing and starting to get thirsty so I grabbed her one of the very few chairs that was not being used by players, or staff giving her a chance to sit as I went to get us both something to drink. When I returned I was informed that the staff and the security team had confined the spectators to a small area in front of the tournament area to watch from a distance. I was not happy and in what was probably not my finest moment I made it known. Dark looked at me during this time like she didn't even know who I was as the, WoW fan boy in me took over and I gave anyone who would listen, or who was within earshot a piece of my mind. The details of that piece of my mind will not be repeated here in its entirety, because there may be ladies and children present. To sum it up I told them it was outrageous that we, along with the other spectators had paid our money and should be treated no different those people who were watching the other tournaments in the main hall. I also mentioned that we didn't pay to stand at a distance and watch players pound the buttons on their keyboards. We came to see the matches and the fact that there wasn't at least one screen showing the action was appalling. The worst part about it was that there was a monitor not in use just on the other side of the room. My rant caught the attention of someone who happened to organize this portion of the event ( I am sorry that his name has slipped my mind because he was, for lack of a better term Awesome. So grey MLG hoodie guy, thanks for everything) and he said it would be ok if we watched the action from behind the players as long as we weren't leaning over their shoulders. I thanked him, apologized for my outburst and he was understanding. A few minutes later he came back to Dark and I and informed us that they were setting up the unused monitor we had seen earlier so that it would play the live stream that was being shown on the internet. I once again thanked him and then things were looking up. For the moment anyway.

As we STOOD watching the monitor, which didn't have any sound, I heard a voice to my right and looked over to see and overhear a staff member saying some things I didn't find flattering about WoW arena PVP. Already in one of those moods my mouth opened and my opinion came out and he and I were engaged in what turned out to be a good conversation. We talked about the tournament, the setup and what I believed was wrong about the experience we had so far. Once again the full details I don't have room for here but I found out the man's name was Lee and that he did seem to care about what was going on, but was under some constraints that I could understand. Lee did get the ball rolling and shortly after our talk, the sound was added to our screen and the chairs for the WoW spectators began to show up and so did more spectators. From this point on we had a great time cheering for our favorites in each match, meeting new people, and just enjoying the atmosphere. We stayed for every single match and at the end of the night, my ranting was rewarded with thanks from another one of the staff, Devon, who was appreciative that now they had a spectator area they didn't have before. For this Dark and I were treated to some time on the tournament realms using the same computers that the players had used that day. It was a great ending to a overall great day. Thanks again guys for all your hard work.