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Day 4: Saturday October 2nd 2004 (The Blitz)
Midnight Saturday morning, late Friday night; under normal circumstances most people would be sleeping, however.not at Magfest. As Triforce got about 3 to 4 hours of rest, then woke up in the middle of the early morning around 2am to rush downstairs to get the Tetris tournament started. Triforce gathered all the players that were interested in the tournament and started the tournament running it off of both the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Game Boy version; players were given and option to play the version in which they felt they were more comfortable with. As the Champion of last years tournament in Tetris, Triforce knew that he was in a fight to defend his championship as 2 nd place winner Phil who only lost by time had a even better chance to compete this year, as the time rule was taken out. Players could now play three (3) full games until game over and choose from the three their highest score to be their best. At the end of the tournament Triforce was able to defend his championship convincingly. Throughout Saturday morning, most of the members in the Empire blacked out for the night as all of their energy were spent. The only member to remain awake was Sepia Soule, who played Star Ocean 3 throughout the early morning.
Later as the group woke up around 1:30pm after a much rested time, it was back to work and to compete. They miss much that night, from games such as Halo, to Custom Robo, to Virtua Fighter 4, with events and movies such as Virtual Fools, Band-O-Rama, Game music with Virt, Pac-man episodes 1 through 5, Double Dragon, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog episodes 6 through 9. Even with that, the Empire was only thirty (30) minutes away from starting it Fashion Concept Expo that was slated for 2pm. The purpose of the panel was to show concepts in fashion for gamers, other than just videogame t-shirts. As Videogame companies start to understand the marketing aspect of game wear and now push their products through vices such as Hot topics, Empire Arcadia wishes for the gamers themselves, to come up with ideal's and submit them so that they can get the design recognition as Empire Arcadia would then produce the fashion product and possibly push them to market. If you are interested send your concepts with art pieces, name, address, email, telephone number to: gameletters@empirearcadia.com . The show went on pretty well as game logo's from many name brand companies from Atari to Xbox. Triforce introduced most of the models to fashion the clothes to the public and he felt that it was important to use actual gamers and not models. Using Xecutioner, Frye Lotus, Wyldflower, Marvelous, Orin, and Kylian of the Empire to model the clothes, Triforce went even further to enlisted two (2) female gamer volunteers from Magfest to model some of the clothes. In the end Triforce spoke to some of the gamers at the end of the show to get their opinions on the concepts, and while some were receptive of the show, their were those that were not.
Later that night the blitz of Magfest came as the events clashed more than ever. This time, the Main Events room won them all. Closing out the night for the most part, even though the concerts started late, gamers were more interested in the concerts than the gaming and tournaments; which is actually a good thing. It shows the depth in social interaction with gamers is more than just playing a game or being involved in a tournament. Concerts showing Wave Theory, Jenova Project, Smash Bros. TSS, and the Minibosses rocked the convention as over 80% of the population attended the events. Most of the tournaments all had to be postponed until a later undetermined time. Triforce and Marvelous then said that they would use that time to get some rest after seeing some of the concerts and run everything Sunday morning around 1am. During that time off for social interaction with others in the convention, it was misbehaving time. Everything, from lingerie model ( R ) rated pictures, to . (Due to children viewing this site this statement will be curved) . to natural interactions with males and females with various sound effects that echoed in the hallway from various room(s)...yes people plural, of the third floor. (Rooms noted, 300, 362, and 360).
Day 5: Sunday October 3rd 2004 (Aftermath)
Shortly after midnight of Saturday, a long morning was in store for the Empire as they had a lot of postponed and lost tournaments to make up for. Running lost tournaments from Pokemon Puzzle to Guilty Gear XX from 1am until 7am in the morning the group got burned out and woke up too late to catch the Super Smash Brothers singles tournament. Waking up around noon of Sunday the Empire all gathered in the game room to compete in final the tournaments of the convention, Puyo Puyo, Team Smash Brothers Melee and Soul Calibur 2. The convention did not get to close well as extra time was allotted so the tournaments would finish, and the auction would finish as well. During that time, the Empire started to sell polo game shirts of all kinds of videogames companies on them, from Nintendo to Sega Dreamcast. Empire Arcadia, also sold videogame hats, wristbands, sneakers and t-shirts to the closing crowd of Magfest.
After the final tournament which was Soul Calibur 2, M points were rewarded to all winners of the convention where it was used to purchase videogames, and videogame accessories like game cash. From Playstation one games to Dance Dance Revolution pads were distributed to players who had high enough points to purchase them. Marvelous choose not to spend his points so that other winners would be able to get the prizes that they wanted. After Triforce handed out the prizes to the respective winners, Empire members all headed back to their rooms, where they decided to lay back and enjoy the night as they would make their leave later tomorrow morning. A short documentary covering all the issues in which happened over the weekend for the Empire took place, as there were many problems among the members throughout the convention. Triforce felt that it would be healthy that all the member said their view of their time at Magfest, and while most enjoyed the event, and others were neutral about it, there were some of the Empire that did not get to enjoy themselves, and much was made out of it. Many things from members not sticking together and sharing, to principles about the organization and members not following through. It even came to a point where Marvelous showed that he was "upset" (a very rare sight) and one other member wanted to leave the Empire right there and then. However Triforce explained to that member that if they all couldn't maturely gather among each other and voiced their indifference's to help solve personal spats within the Empire then how could the Empire grow? His point was well received and understood. In the end, the group all came to an understanding and enjoyed the rest of the night playing videogames and talking about their return to the Empire State.
The following day, the group all got up and checked out heading back to the bus station. Triforce, Wyldflower, and Ether nearly missed the departing bus as they were the last to leave the hotel. Fortunately, they met a cowboy hat wearing Hispanic elderly gentlemen who decided to give them a hand to the bus station in his SUV pick up. "Whipping" his ride through traffic playing Biggie Smalls "Hypnotized", made Triforce turn around from the shotgun seat and looked at Ether and Wyldflower saying, "This world is so diverse; I love it." As the three caught the departing bus they made their 9 hour trip back to the Empire state in which they all gathered and gave their custom hand pounds and departed back to their homes.
As Triforce returned home he got an email from staff members at Magfest thanking Empire Arcadia for their support and help. "Tournaments....what a disaster that turned out to be. I didn't work out who would run tournaments ahead of time, assuming there would be time to find people during the con who could run all of the tournaments we planned. We didn't even have many of the games we promised. Tournaments were usually delayed by a few hours, sometimes by more than a day. I ended up asking Empire Arcadia to run most of our tournaments, which they graciously did."
"EMPIRE ARCADIA RULES. Seriously, I owe a LOT to you guys. You ran almost all of my tournaments, which was completely beyond the abilities of me and my overtaxed staff. You also took care of the room on two occasions when I left for a long time. I'd in particular like to thank TFGM, Ether, Marvelous and Otis for running tournaments and the room."
~Patrick Bannister
MAGFest 3 Video Game Room Chair
Empire Arcadia looks forward to returning to Magfest 4 and lend the same support and effort that it does for any gaming community, we will see you then.
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