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Omegathon - Anyone want to Summarize?
Squashua
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I figured a round-by-round, blow-by-blow would have been posted SOMEWHERE by now.
Squashua on
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1) Jenga
Probably one of the scariest games I've played yet in the two years, simply because it was the first round and no one ever wants to go out in the first round, and there are no mistakes in Jenga; if you fuck up, that's it, you're done. What made it really nerve-wracking was the fact that it took so long between turns. I don't blame anyone for taking their time, but I can definitely say that I much prefer the faster paced rounds. During the Jenga round I had way too much time to sit there and think and be nervous.
I don't really know why the first tower fell because I was playing during that round, but at our table (and I think I heard it was the same at the last table) basically the girl lost because there just wasn't really anything left that was going to move. She took a really long time and did her best to find a piece but in the end she was basically just screwed. I felt pretty bad because I know that if that's how I went out I would have been pretty disappointed, but obviously I was happy because I was next to go...
2) Calling All Cars
This round was kind of hit or miss; some of the games were pretty close with lots of crazy action, and some were basically dominated by one player. The round I was in was pretty frantic (from my perspective anyway but I'm probably biased) and the bottom two in the round tied so they had to go through a head-to-head tie-breaker. I think that round was the most intense out of all of them; they were trading back and forth until the very last second. There was another round, I can't remember who was in it, that was really good with a lot of craziness. All in all I think this was probably one of the most fun rounds to watch for the crowd because it's non-stop action pretty much the whole time.
3) Quake III
The lady-killer round rears its ugly head again this year, taking out all 3 remaining girls. I'm not really a Quake guy so I can't say how good it was from that point of view but for me this round was probably the most fun I had in any of the rounds(well, except for Rock Band). Tony_B and The Reverend and I were all sitting near each other and they were talking smack and laughing and having a good time the whole way through. I was really nervous before this round started but once we got going I had a total blast. Jdarksun definitely kicked some serious butt in this round and overall I think it was probably pretty fun to watch.
4) Rock Band
Hands down one of the coolest experiences I've ever had, and I lost in this round. Sure, it's tough to go out when you're not in total control over your own destiny, but the guys in my band were great and I had a total blast. I know we all did the best that anyone could have asked and I respect all of those guys for having the balls to get up there and do it, especially Mike for stepping up and being the singer and totally going for it. It's pretty funny because we got one practice round before they let the crowd in, and we actually won that round, albeit by a very slim margin. The other band worked out the kinks though and they kicked some serious ass during the actual competition, almost doubling their score. I don't remember the individual scores or percentages or anything but I heard that Ryan hit 100% on the bass, so that's just awesome. All-in-all, this was a once in a lifetime experience and I enjoyed every minute of it (even though my eyes were riveted to the damn drums...)
5) Puzzle Quest
Honestly, if I didn't go out in Rock Band, safe bet I go out here. I definitely wasn't looking forward to playing this game. For one, I still have flashbacks about Tetris...and for two, I honestly don't really like the game that much. I respect the game for it's uniqueness, but I just feel like there's too much luck involved in the rounds. This was kind of evident in the Bryan - Ben round, where Ben took the first round fairly easily, but then got stomped the second round. I don't really feel like either guy made many mistakes, but then again I'm no expert when it comes to this game either. Anyway, the third round was even for a bit but Ben started to take the lead and Bryan just couldn't get the mana he needed as a Druid to heal back up. The killer was that at the end Bryan made an illegal move that cost him 5 hp, then his timer ran out and he lost another 5 hp. I should probably know this for sure, but I think in the DS version, if you make an illegal move you lost 5hp and your turn ends immediately. Maybe this isn't the case in the timed rounds, I'm not sure. In any event, he was finished with a fireball from Ben. I can't really say how the round between Ryan and Tony went because I didn't watch it (had to catch some of the last PA panel, sorry boys!).
I guess that's pretty much it, everyone knows how the last round went. I'd definitely be interested in hearing from Ben and Ryan how they felt about it.
Pairing up competitors into teams and then eliminating a whole team is pretty rough. Really makes it possible for one bad person to completely destroy the chances of success for other people.
I'm sure that ramps up the drama, but for fairness sake that's a really bad idea.
Agreed on Puzzle Quest, even though I like the game quite a bit. Play with higher level characters might have been more interesting, with class and spell selection left to the players. But maybe that would require too much knowledge specifically of puzzle quest.
It's very luck-based, though. (Then again, so is a lot of the Omegathon!)
Basically they brought us all into the main theater where they had a row of chairs set up in the back and a bunch of people scrambling around on stage and they sat us all down. Then Mike and Jerry stroll up and they just start pointing at people, school-yard kickball style. We knew exactly what was going on at that point.
And Fall, I agree, it's a bit harsh to put people in to teams, but I totally understand why they did it. I think it made a great show for the crowd and I'm not entirely sure how they would have done it otherwise. I did notice while I was playing the game in the exhibition hall that everyone in the band is rated on performance according to what percentage of the notes they hit, so I thought they might make us play a song and eliminate the bottom two people in the band, but I can see how that kind of puts people within the band at odds because if you're putting me in that position, I'm going to want to play either guitar or bass. You'd kind of pit everyone in the band against each other which probably wouldn't work very well and kills the drama of the whole thing. All-in-all I can't say I can think of a better way to do it than what happened up there.
That way, the best drummer from either band moves on, best guitarist, bassist, singer all advance.
I'm not sure if scoring or multipliers apply to the whole team (so one good player could boost the points earned for everyone) or if it's just for yourself, but at least then you could have a sort of "Battle of the bands" feel without making it so one bad person on drums or guitar would screw over three other people who did a great job.
I don't want to take anything away from the guys who won the Puzzle Quest rounds; no matter how much luck there is involved, they wouldn't have won purely based on luck alone, and from watching Ben play he was definitely very good at the game. However, I just think back to all the time I spent practicing and how frustrated I would get when the computer would clear 3 lousy mana and then get like a bunch of skulls in a row or a random 4 of a kind off of what dropped in after. You could definitely argue that that kind of stuff should happen the same amount for both players so it shouldn't make that much of a difference, but it just doesn't seem to ever turn out that way.
Yeah, that's true, but then you kind of lose the "band" in "rock band". I do believe that you have an overall team multiplier that is based on how everyone is doing, so that if one person screws up that multiplier gets reset. Did anyone see what the final percentages were for the teams or have any insight into what made the difference? I was too focused on doing what I was doing to be able to pay attention to anything else.
So, who won? Did anything take down that known Phallusite, Jdarksun? :winky:
Ryan won the whole she-bang. Jdarksun was our brave lead singer for the Rock Band round. It takes some serious balls to get up there and rock out like he did on the mic; I have tons of respect for him for doing that.
the Reverend here: yeah, props to Ben, he knew his stuff on Puzzle quest. That being said, I think he'll be the first to tell you how frustrating the randomness of PQ was, especially on that second game for him.
I've got to say, one of my favorite things of the weekend was practicing Rock Band with Dave and his and my +1's in the exhibition hall. I was disappointed when we didn't get in the same band for the real deal, but that's the randomness of the Omegathon.
I'll say this: Accalon, TonyB, MNCDover and I all pretty much thought we were going home after the practice round. We're still trying to figure out how we improved our score by 170k. My thought is this...Ben (MNCDover) didn't use the freestyle sections the first time through (understandable, as he was trying to get used to the drums), and neither did the guitarists (they weren't sure when they even had star power). We talked back stage while everyone was filing in, and decided that the guys would just raise their guitars every now and then, and Ben would hit the freestyles. Couple that with the fact that Ryan got a perfect the second time through on the bass, as well as Ben and I picking it up on our respective parts, and I think that can account for our improvement since the game gives massive multipliers if the whole band nails certain unison phrases. Honestly though, we came off stage and were saying, "Did we really just get 518,000?"
Overall, I have to agree with Dave that Round 4 was a stand out round, and super fun.
I've got some video tape of the other rounds, I'll try to get it edited and up on youtube by the end of the week. More and more stuff will be coming out--I've already seen some really awesome pics up on flickr. I think right now most of us are just recouping from an awesome weekend.
*Proud member of the Photoshop Heroes*
Anyway, I definitely had a blast with everyone and I'd definitely like to share gamer tags and stuff for those people that have them so we can stay in touch.
Now Rock Band was a whole different creature. I had only practiced Karaoke Revolution up to that point. When we got divided up, BTW I was chosen last like the fat kid in dodge ball, I was hella nervous. Worse, I knew that my teammates knew that I was nervous. Not nervous about losing, no, I was nervous about being the reason they wouldn't go on to the next round. I did not want to let myself and them down. It was funny, they kept coming over to me and asking if I was loose and feeling all right. Gabe had told us that the drums were going to be set on easy and that it was almost impossible to mess it up. So, drums it was for me.
I didn't do so hot in the trial run, but hit everything, including my star power parts in the actual go of it. Until the end that is, that beat changed up on me and I must have missed like 10 in a row. Not to worry, because Ryan played perfect or damn near perfect to keep us at a 6x multiplier throughout the song. I didn't catch Tony's performance, but knew that we did well. Finally, Brian (Reverend) did a excellent job on the lead guitar. Brian and Ryan were both Guitar Hero wizzes, so that made me breathe a little easier. In the end, we nailed a strong score and we were able to advance.
The last 8 Omeganauts really had a good time and got to know each other really well. You'd be surprised just how much hell Davertron was STILL getting over Tetris. Now, I'm going to be catching the same hell for Halo 3. Ah well, screw it, I'm in next year and I'm going all the way. w00t!
-Ben
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Dude, you put up a helluva fight in Halo 3 so if anyone gives you shit I'd be surprised. I mean, there was competition there. Can't really say that about my Tetris round.
The crew I was with was personally rooting for Jdarksun, and seeing him lose in the 4th round was a bummer, but watching the Omegathon in general was an amazing experience. Personally, I thought the Halo 3 round was awesome, and you both did great. And at LEAST you didn't kill yourself with the flamethrower, heh heh.
No kidding?! Did Ryan really kill himself with the flamethrower? I remember jumping off the stage on accident though...
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
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The final round video was up on google video within a few hours, although I haven't seen any suitably high-quality versions yet.
As for puzzle quest - I only stayed until Accalon's round, and although I can't remember specifics, there were some intense moments - at one point, Ryan took damage from an illegal move (bringing his health from four to two, I think) just so that he could defeat Tony by getting the play in which he'd be able to do damage with the skulls. At the end of the second round, Tony and Ryan stood up when it became clear the next move would seal Ryan's victory, turned toward the crowd, and holding the controller above their heads pressed the A button together.
Entire game list (more than likely to be out of date)
--Doppelgamer
I do believe he did, I think after the first time he killed you with it, he attempted to .. well, cremate your body and instead caught himself on fire and died. Much laughter was had. It should be on any of the videos circulating the interwebs .. I certainly hope I didn't imagine it, at any rate. It was a mistake he didn't repeat, at any rate. Though he did slightly damage himself with a fire grenade later on.
Oh really? A corpse hump huh? Serves him right I suppose. Did anyone notice that I humped my own corpse in the first game? :P
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Round One - Jenga...FROM HELL
This was without any doubt the most stressful, anxious round of the entire competition. I have never, nor ever again will witness as terrifying a game of Jenga as the one I played that day. I honestly don't think I'll be able to pick up that game again, because any game I'd play from now on would be empty and meaningless compared to the stress, relief, stress again, and prize and pride riding on that game. My particular round continued for an excruciating 90 minutes and there were several times where I had no fucking clue how I was going to make a move. Miraculously I managed to pull a piece and then it would come around again... and again ... AND AGAIN! I think our tower was 30 storied before it finally toppled over. I dubbed it the Russian Roulette of the first round.
I actually think this was a better first round than Diceland simply because of the suspense, however I hear they're going to be initiating a shot clock next year for Jenga.
Round Two - Calling all Cars
Luckily I have a friend who has a PS3 and was fortunate enough to have ample time to get comfortable with this fast paced insane game. I was surprised to hear that nearly half the other players had next to no practice on this game despite the fact that very few people own a PS3. Before the round I had spent the previous night and next morning doing a bit of practice in Console Freeplay and only saw 3 other Omeganauts practicing, LordThanda, Revered, and Cyndercyn, all who made it through that round. I felt pretty confident with myself here, however I was paired with a great group and had a blast battling back and forth over that damned criminal and came in second with Davertron's great Pattywagon cap right at the end. I think my favorite moment was my first cap where I dangled on the 3 point ledge for a few seconds before getting enough traction to get up and in for the delivery.
Round Three - Quake 3
Interestingly enough, despite my solid performance, this was the round I was most worried about. I didn't practice Quake as much as I should have before PAX and have never been the greatest at twitch shooters. I had a chance to get a quick practice round in with LordThanda before the match and did fairly well, but still was worried. In the warm-up I couldnt' get out of 8th place and in the first pre-round (before the technical issues) I was only doing mediocre. However, out of some deep crevice in my gaming instincts I lead the actual round almost entirely to the end! It did help that I was familiar with the level and weapons placement and the little bit of practicing before hand sealed that. Overall I had a blast with this round, but I was sad that once again the Lady Killer reared it's ugly head.
Round Four - Rock Band
Oh....My...God.... Epic beyond belief... The feeling of being on stage in front of tousands of cheering onlookers was beyond words. I couldn't help but feed off the positive energy of the crowd as everyone started cheering "Photoshop! Photoshop!" We were walked into the theater about an hour before the competition and were immediately sat down. Over walked Gabe and Tycho and they just started pointing at us "you... you..." and we all knew what was happening. From the time we first got into our groups and started picking instruments I knew we had a solid band. Two guitar wizzes, a singer and Dover the amazing drum prodigy. Dover told us he'd only practiced Karaoke Revolution and had never picked up Guitar Hero before and with Gabes reassurance he became our drummer. I have to be honest, I was worried that Dover wouldn't be able to pick it up, and after the practice round when we lost by 30,000 points my nerves started going. But boy did he prove me wrong! All of us picked up our performances in the final play through, but I have to say Dover's amazing performance is probably what pushed us over the edge. I'm not solid on how the multiplier works in Rock Band, but I think when everyone has a multiplier going the entire band gets one as well, and that in conjunction with the use of Drum Solo's the second time through and our solid performance we miraculously managed to increase our score by nearly 200,000! I am still in shock at how much we improved in just 2 plays through.
All in all this was my favorite round, and I really liked getting to know all 8 of us who made it that far. We really bonded this round, no question and had a blast with all of it. It was so sad to have to see the Dangling Participles go because they ROCKED!!
Round Five - Puzzle Quest
This was another round I felt confident with, as I am a Puzzle Quest addict. I took the chance to play through a couple rounds on the display at the THQ booth before hand and with the major visual change between DS and XBOX I can safely say that helped me a lot. Tony and I had a blast playing and jeering each other the entire time and despite what was on the line I think we were both pretty relaxed at this point and just played to the best we could with what we were given. Really neither of us made and huge mistakes besides a couple Timer penalties the first round on both our parts. How about that first Round? I laughed so hard when we both didn't want to make the only move left on the board that would set up a skull and after he let the timer run out, I turned around and played an illegal move so he had no choice but to play it. I know Tony was a great player and was honored to have challenged him that round.
Round Six - Halo 3
I swear I've played Halo before... no ... really guys... ok, yeah I sucked. To answer all the questions, I haven't played Halo 2 but once in about a year and a half. I was rusty to be sure. Halo 1 was my game back in the day but without picking up a controller for so long all that "skill" had gone out the window. I had a slight edge simply because I'd played before, but I was so happy to see we were very close in skill and put on such an entertaining match for the final round. At this point I wasn't nervous in the slightest and was just up there to have a great time, and yes, I tried to play up to the crowd a little. Who wouldn't when there were thousands of people cheering and laughing as I torched myself with the flamethrower, or nodded when I picked up that one big fucking gun. Dover was an excellent match and I don't think it could have gone any better or been any more epic.
Keep questions and comments coming!! I'm still in shock about the whole thing and need a little help along. Sorry I'm slow to respond didn't leave till this afternoon and had a long drive home.
*Proud member of the Photoshop Heroes*
I was using my Goltana Knight powers to cover Jdarksun during his Jenga round. He didn't need the help though, because he had a super secret technique, captured on film for the first time:
GLOWING JENGA BLOWJOBS
*Proud member of the Photoshop Heroes*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GpTLo7BdUA
So perfect.