OcR ROWEBLAST
06-09-2010, 02:28 PM
Yes, its about that time. For those of you who may not have heard, we had this little get together in Columbus, Ohio last week... ring any bells? I present to you, the members and community as a whole, a recap of the 2010 OcR gathering!
The Outcast Reborn 2010 LAN took place in the beautiful town of Columbus, Ohio. The gathering was centered around the MLG event that was being held at the convention center downtown. Although the turnout was not quite what we expected, we all had a blast! In total we had five representatives from OcR, Patriot, J2 the Ripper, Walk is Rippin, Dr Holliday, and myself. In addition we had two members from H3WM, now called Halo Wheelmen, Luv Gunn and Chicken w a BR stay at our hotel and join in on our LAN fun!
Aside from Dr Holliday who lives in the city, all the OcR guys drove into Columbus the Thursday evening before the MLG event's doors opened Friday. Our place of residence was a Double Tree hotel, approximately fifteen blocks from the convention center. The first few hours consisted mostly of making trips to and from the parking garage and setting up the xboxes and monitors. We were all getting confused by the convoluted setup of the Double Tree's elevator system. The lobby was on the seventh floor and required two sets of elevators to get where you wanted to go, one for the parking garage, one for the hotel. You would leave your car, hit the third floor button, and end up back in the parking garage!
To our dismay, we quickly found out this was a wireless only hotel! No hard lines, no ethernet ports. We knew getting on XboxLive would be difficult, to say the least. To further complicate our lives the desk no longer gave out bridging devices to connect to their network. The woman at the desk claimed that they had so many people fail to return the devices that they simply did not give them out anymore. The negligence of other customers was keeping us from a good time! Our only internet connection came through our laptops. No Live? We couldn't let the lack of XboxLive kill the fun. Customs hooooo!! (say it in the Thundercats voice, you know you want to...)
With Patriot (the Don), J2, Walk and myself finished moving in, we pondered what we were going to do next. We hear a knock at the door. Who is it? None other than the one and only Dr Holliday! Meet and greets were made, it was time to get some food. Doc gave us a nice tour of the city while we looked for a place to eat. It was an interesting experience to be jammed in the back of a car with two guys you just met an hour ago, to say the least... We drove past countless numbers of drunken OSU students who had stayed around for the summer. I addition we saw the massive, completely ridiculous, three story, Buffalo Wild Wings! We ended up eating a awesome place called Raising Canes. They had the best chicken I had ever eaten in my life (move over Colonel Sanders and Chic-fil-a)! Post dinner we headed back to the hotel and popped in the halo disks.
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic771_1275870549.jpg
Good games were had, and eventually we called it a night at around three in the morning. Doc, say goodbye and headed home. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of his control, this would be the only time we would see him this trip. So thanks to Dr Holliday for coming and spending the evening with us! By the way, your driving was entertaining to say the least! The backseat was an interesting ride, though I think Walk was about to ralph all over...
Friday morning Walk and J2 headed over to the event to score some free gear and signatures. Doors for the event didn't open until 1:30, so Patriot and I took our sweet time getting ready. We meandered down to the convention center just before noon to pick up our weekend entrance passes. It was about this time that we met up with one of our H3WM companions, Luv Gunn. We found an awesome little tavern with great lunch specials two blocks north of the event. Luv Gunn caught us as the very end of lunch and after introductions and handshakes we headed over to check out the event!
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/logo.gif
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic778_1275871415.jpg
The whole setup for the event took up the better portion of one of the huge rooms in the Columbus convention center. They had more monitors than you could count and a number of merchandise stands (including Astros, Doritos, Hot Pockets and Dr. Pepper) and a small gift shop for MLG gear. The busiest place at the whole event surprisingly was not the main stage (which you can see in the photo above) but was the gift shop. It had a line with over an hour wait, just to get inside the shop on the first day! They had a number of elevated platforms for four on four MLG action as well as a roped off main stage, complete with stadium seating. Most the halo action happened in an area that was not accessible to the public, except for the outermost row of monitors that you could see.
The first day of competition consisted of mostly amateur play, which was still entertaining to watch. Throughout the day a few professional teams played some non-competition matches for our viewing pleasure. Patriot, Gunn, and myself stayed together for most the day, while Walk and J2 went off on their own quest. In the words of "the Don" Patriot, "those guys are attached like Siamese twins". By the end of the day the had everything they could get their hands on signed by the pros. Multiple controllers, photos, and an xbox got signed by the likes of Str8 Ripping, Triggers Down, and a number of other teams.
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/31106_392913538869_6278093869_43918.jpg
You would not believe the amount of free stuff that was handed out at this event! Free pull-string bags/backpacks, all the Dr. Pepper you can drink, unlimited free Dorito's of all flavors, free Hot Pocket samples, and thats just the start of it! If you we're alright eating nothing but junk food, there was no reason that you would have to pay for a meal all weekend! Oh and we cant forget about the girls! The brilliant marketing minds of Dr. Pepper and all the other food vendors had the great idea of hiring a bunch of beautiful women to walk around in tight shirt and short skirts handing out free merchandise. Patriot, being the player he is, took it upon himself to work his magic on every one of the girls there...
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic774_1275870549.jpg
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic775_1275870549.jpg
Patriot, Rowe, and the beautiful Dr. Pepper girls...
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic772_1275870549.jpg
About an hour before we headed back we met up with another wheelman friend, Chicken w a BR and his buddy from home, Colton. Cool guys for sure! We stayed at the event for an hour longer then headed back to the room. It was time to game! We got some FFA games rolling as well as some three on three MLG customs. For some reason it seemed like either J2 or Walk won the FFA games... I still can't figure out why that happened :P
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic773_1275870549.jpg
Shenanigans and good times were had as we played into the wee hours of the morning. The highlight from the night's gameplay came from Chicken and Colton. Being minors, they were staying with Chicken's dad at the hotel. They snuck out of their room to come game with us at around 1:00AM. Round about 2:00, mid game they get a call from his father asking where the heck they went. Without missing a beat he replies, "oh, we just went down to the lobby to get some bottle of water". They finished the game we were playing and literally ran back to their room a fast as they could! We hard a good hard laugh about that...
Day three! Lots of time spent at the event on this day. We moved from stage to stage, watching all the competition we could! The main stage was a great place to watch, though sitting on the metal bleachers took a toll after a while. The MLG staff had a great setup for making sure everyone got a chance to view the main stage. Following the end of every match, the staff would empty the bleachers to allow more people to come sit and watch. If you were quick you would be able to get back in line for the next match before the closed off the main stage. Not a whole lot of LAN action on day three. A few shenanigans games were played, but there were only four of us playing.
We were able to meet up with another community friend today. We met up with Antipro from Arm the Flag at the event. What a nice guy! He talked our heads off for the better part of 45 minutes. Anitpro was only up visiting the event for the day. He mentioned he was heading up to the Ironworks Gaming communities LAN, about 10 miles north of the convention center. Unfortunately, we did were not able to make it up to their event this time around. Perhaps next time guys!
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic770_1275870206.jpg
From left to right: Colton, J2, Patriot, Rowe, Walk, Chicken, Luv Gunn
Notable occurrence of the day: a spazz-out by none other than Snipedown from Str8 Rippin. Following their loss to a not so well known team Snipedown went a little mental. Walk and J2 saw it happen live. Supposedly the guy sulked, head in his hands, stood up, shoved a chair (which hit a little kid apparently), grabbed his bag sending another chair flying and stormed out of the MLG room...
**************************
Due to size restrictions see the first reply for the rest of the story!
The Outcast Reborn 2010 LAN took place in the beautiful town of Columbus, Ohio. The gathering was centered around the MLG event that was being held at the convention center downtown. Although the turnout was not quite what we expected, we all had a blast! In total we had five representatives from OcR, Patriot, J2 the Ripper, Walk is Rippin, Dr Holliday, and myself. In addition we had two members from H3WM, now called Halo Wheelmen, Luv Gunn and Chicken w a BR stay at our hotel and join in on our LAN fun!
Aside from Dr Holliday who lives in the city, all the OcR guys drove into Columbus the Thursday evening before the MLG event's doors opened Friday. Our place of residence was a Double Tree hotel, approximately fifteen blocks from the convention center. The first few hours consisted mostly of making trips to and from the parking garage and setting up the xboxes and monitors. We were all getting confused by the convoluted setup of the Double Tree's elevator system. The lobby was on the seventh floor and required two sets of elevators to get where you wanted to go, one for the parking garage, one for the hotel. You would leave your car, hit the third floor button, and end up back in the parking garage!
To our dismay, we quickly found out this was a wireless only hotel! No hard lines, no ethernet ports. We knew getting on XboxLive would be difficult, to say the least. To further complicate our lives the desk no longer gave out bridging devices to connect to their network. The woman at the desk claimed that they had so many people fail to return the devices that they simply did not give them out anymore. The negligence of other customers was keeping us from a good time! Our only internet connection came through our laptops. No Live? We couldn't let the lack of XboxLive kill the fun. Customs hooooo!! (say it in the Thundercats voice, you know you want to...)
With Patriot (the Don), J2, Walk and myself finished moving in, we pondered what we were going to do next. We hear a knock at the door. Who is it? None other than the one and only Dr Holliday! Meet and greets were made, it was time to get some food. Doc gave us a nice tour of the city while we looked for a place to eat. It was an interesting experience to be jammed in the back of a car with two guys you just met an hour ago, to say the least... We drove past countless numbers of drunken OSU students who had stayed around for the summer. I addition we saw the massive, completely ridiculous, three story, Buffalo Wild Wings! We ended up eating a awesome place called Raising Canes. They had the best chicken I had ever eaten in my life (move over Colonel Sanders and Chic-fil-a)! Post dinner we headed back to the hotel and popped in the halo disks.
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic771_1275870549.jpg
Good games were had, and eventually we called it a night at around three in the morning. Doc, say goodbye and headed home. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of his control, this would be the only time we would see him this trip. So thanks to Dr Holliday for coming and spending the evening with us! By the way, your driving was entertaining to say the least! The backseat was an interesting ride, though I think Walk was about to ralph all over...
Friday morning Walk and J2 headed over to the event to score some free gear and signatures. Doors for the event didn't open until 1:30, so Patriot and I took our sweet time getting ready. We meandered down to the convention center just before noon to pick up our weekend entrance passes. It was about this time that we met up with one of our H3WM companions, Luv Gunn. We found an awesome little tavern with great lunch specials two blocks north of the event. Luv Gunn caught us as the very end of lunch and after introductions and handshakes we headed over to check out the event!
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/logo.gif
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic778_1275871415.jpg
The whole setup for the event took up the better portion of one of the huge rooms in the Columbus convention center. They had more monitors than you could count and a number of merchandise stands (including Astros, Doritos, Hot Pockets and Dr. Pepper) and a small gift shop for MLG gear. The busiest place at the whole event surprisingly was not the main stage (which you can see in the photo above) but was the gift shop. It had a line with over an hour wait, just to get inside the shop on the first day! They had a number of elevated platforms for four on four MLG action as well as a roped off main stage, complete with stadium seating. Most the halo action happened in an area that was not accessible to the public, except for the outermost row of monitors that you could see.
The first day of competition consisted of mostly amateur play, which was still entertaining to watch. Throughout the day a few professional teams played some non-competition matches for our viewing pleasure. Patriot, Gunn, and myself stayed together for most the day, while Walk and J2 went off on their own quest. In the words of "the Don" Patriot, "those guys are attached like Siamese twins". By the end of the day the had everything they could get their hands on signed by the pros. Multiple controllers, photos, and an xbox got signed by the likes of Str8 Ripping, Triggers Down, and a number of other teams.
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/31106_392913538869_6278093869_43918.jpg
You would not believe the amount of free stuff that was handed out at this event! Free pull-string bags/backpacks, all the Dr. Pepper you can drink, unlimited free Dorito's of all flavors, free Hot Pocket samples, and thats just the start of it! If you we're alright eating nothing but junk food, there was no reason that you would have to pay for a meal all weekend! Oh and we cant forget about the girls! The brilliant marketing minds of Dr. Pepper and all the other food vendors had the great idea of hiring a bunch of beautiful women to walk around in tight shirt and short skirts handing out free merchandise. Patriot, being the player he is, took it upon himself to work his magic on every one of the girls there...
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic774_1275870549.jpg
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic775_1275870549.jpg
Patriot, Rowe, and the beautiful Dr. Pepper girls...
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic772_1275870549.jpg
About an hour before we headed back we met up with another wheelman friend, Chicken w a BR and his buddy from home, Colton. Cool guys for sure! We stayed at the event for an hour longer then headed back to the room. It was time to game! We got some FFA games rolling as well as some three on three MLG customs. For some reason it seemed like either J2 or Walk won the FFA games... I still can't figure out why that happened :P
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic773_1275870549.jpg
Shenanigans and good times were had as we played into the wee hours of the morning. The highlight from the night's gameplay came from Chicken and Colton. Being minors, they were staying with Chicken's dad at the hotel. They snuck out of their room to come game with us at around 1:00AM. Round about 2:00, mid game they get a call from his father asking where the heck they went. Without missing a beat he replies, "oh, we just went down to the lobby to get some bottle of water". They finished the game we were playing and literally ran back to their room a fast as they could! We hard a good hard laugh about that...
Day three! Lots of time spent at the event on this day. We moved from stage to stage, watching all the competition we could! The main stage was a great place to watch, though sitting on the metal bleachers took a toll after a while. The MLG staff had a great setup for making sure everyone got a chance to view the main stage. Following the end of every match, the staff would empty the bleachers to allow more people to come sit and watch. If you were quick you would be able to get back in line for the next match before the closed off the main stage. Not a whole lot of LAN action on day three. A few shenanigans games were played, but there were only four of us playing.
We were able to meet up with another community friend today. We met up with Antipro from Arm the Flag at the event. What a nice guy! He talked our heads off for the better part of 45 minutes. Anitpro was only up visiting the event for the day. He mentioned he was heading up to the Ironworks Gaming communities LAN, about 10 miles north of the convention center. Unfortunately, we did were not able to make it up to their event this time around. Perhaps next time guys!
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/ROWEBLAST/user2075_pic770_1275870206.jpg
From left to right: Colton, J2, Patriot, Rowe, Walk, Chicken, Luv Gunn
Notable occurrence of the day: a spazz-out by none other than Snipedown from Str8 Rippin. Following their loss to a not so well known team Snipedown went a little mental. Walk and J2 saw it happen live. Supposedly the guy sulked, head in his hands, stood up, shoved a chair (which hit a little kid apparently), grabbed his bag sending another chair flying and stormed out of the MLG room...
**************************
Due to size restrictions see the first reply for the rest of the story!