Event:Monsterfrag 3- LAN Party Event Date: 2/28/04 Written By: Warhawk Date Written:

I must admit, I had very high expectations going into Monsterfrag 3, but at the same time I was a bit apprehensive as to whether these high expectations would be fulfilled. I knew it would be fun, but I expected the usual problems. Just as MF 2 was great but it did have its share of network outages, powers problems and other issues.

I am happy to report that MF 3 had NONE of these problems and went off without a hitch. The power never went down (with the exception of one table that accidentally plugged in everything to one outlet instead of distributing among the two outlets assigned to that table). The network ran great, and the tournaments were extremely organized and there were no disputes as in last time. There was even more stuff to raffle off so a lot of people walked away with goodies. I have uber respect and admiration for the entire monster crew. There were only three of them, but somehow they managed to make sure everything ran smoothly the whole time. Morfeus did a great job at being the MC and coordinating the events and doing the raffles and generally making sure the party moved along and nobody got bored. Wireballz and Layer_III did an amazing job at keeping the servers up and running and quickly solving all network and administrative problems. And let’s not forget about Morfeus’ wife at the check in counter who handled the payments, party favors and handouts. A great team, running a great LAN.

Everyone at the party had a great time and it was good to see a lot of smiling faces and people just generally having a blast. There were some new faces there this time around, and I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of them. My favorite part of Monsterfrag is definitely the tournaments. They add a sense of competition that you just can’t get online, or from just hanging out in the free play LAN servers. This time I am proud to report that TMC’s performance was more than impressive, taking home the gold for the DC tournament, the silver for CoD and Gold and Silver in Quake 3. We will definitely be back for more at the next MF!

Here’s a short little rundown of what happened with each of the tourneys:

The DC tourney was especially intense for me. Our team (me, GNR, Activemonkey, Mameman, and Kraz) had the team communication and coordination down completely. We knew what was happening in the match at all times, and it really worked to our advantage. Everyone was just on fire and at their peak performance.
Going in I was of course concerned about going up against the seemingly unstoppable Bufu team, and the Palma LAN team seemed to be pretty confident and prepared as well.

BuFu went up against TMC2 right away. While TMC2 fought admirably and the match ended up being very close, TMC2 ended up falling to the BuFu fighting machine, and it seemed that BuFu would once again push forward and defeat all once again.
BUT, the prophets of old have predicted the fall of Bufu for quite some time, but no one knew that their fall would come so soon. For it was this day that would spell the end to the BuFu reign of terror. Never before had I witnessed the Bufu team getting flustered or disorganized, but as they began to lose I could see their resolve beginning to breakdown. The Palma team ended up handing BuFu the very first defeat I have ever seen then take, and left Bufu in a state of shock and disarray. Meanwhile, TMC1 was busy fighting off the EOS team. While they put up a good fight, EOS was defeated by TMC in two rounds. Next, it was time for TMC1 to go up against Palma in the finals. Before the match, Phil of BuFu was nice enough to give us a few tips to aid us in our fight, and so we could avenge BuFu’s defeat. The match started and TMC1 was definitely in the zone. Team communication was again at its peak and everyone did their assigned tasks superbly. TMC1 handily defeated Plant in the first round, and now only needed one more win to secure their place as DC champions. The next round was projected on the big screen, and drew a small audience. Once again TMC1 was on fire and was able to put Plant away in the final round, securing a TMC gold!

The CoD tourney was up next. We had a little trouble deciding on the teams as the majority of the players we had available we had not practiced with at all. After many changes we finally decided on a poorly planned and hastily thrown together team lineup.

First off, the TMC2 team went up against one of Palmas two teams and was mercilessly slaughtered. TMC1 fared much better, consisting of Active Monkey, Beebo, Demise and two temporary players aFTERMATH and Metalslug. TMC1 showed good team communication and organization, which helped them to advance to the finals where they faced Palmas other team. The first round of the finals was pretty close, but Palma ended up taking the win. It wasn’t over yet, and as the second round was ready to get underway, Activemonkey decided it would be an excellent time to change out his hard drive cooling fan. Needless to say, this threw a “monkey” wrench into things as the fan didn’t fit correctly and he was forced to play with his rig on top of his monitor (see pic). This in itself wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but it appeared that the team concentration, communication and coordination wasn’t quite there this time, and TMC1 ended up losing the finals. Even so, TMC1 did a superb job in getting the silver, especially considering they had never practiced together with that particular team lineup. Now that we know what to expect, we will be prepared for the next time!

Last of the tournaments was a one on one Quake 3 tournament. We were pretty much expecting our Master Q3 player Demise to have it in the bag with little or no challenge at all. As it turns out there were a few exceptional Quake 3 players in attendance. One round I observed, Demise was down by 5 points and I remember thinking “wow, I guess Demise might not win this after all” but Demise ended up pulling through with 8 kills in a row to secure the victory. It was very impressive to say the least. Before long Demise began attracting an audience. One of the semi final rounds was also particularly intense when Demise went up against an eos clan member called Kaxos. Demise was at the pinnacle of concentration and focus, and didn’t even notice till the round was that he was surrounded by an audience of several people. Meanwhile, Mameman was working his way up the other end of the latter, defeating all opponents, and even overcoming seemingly unfair circumstances. In the end, it came down to two TMC members when Demise and Mameman faced off in the finals. Demise, being a more experienced player ended up dominating the match, but gave Mameman a few free kills as he went after him with the gauntlet. The final score was close, but Demise came out with the gold, and Mameman the silver, securing the first and second place prizes in Q3 in the name of TMC!

It was a glorious day for TMC and I felt that everyone did an excellent job at representing TMC. Not only did everyone represent in the tournaments, but everyone also represented in very other aspect, by acting mature, helping people out when needed and just generally being cool.