Rage showcase? Check. Non-alcoholic drinking contest? Confirmed. Bethesda crashing the party? Uh-huh. This site finally showing up at a QuakeCon? Yep. It's all set for later this week.
The official QuakeCon schedule is now available for public perusal and my personal calendar has been updated.
The event happens at the Gaylord Texan just next to the Dallas Fort Worth airport in Texas, from Thursday, August 13 - Saturday, August 15. Most people will attend to have LAN parties and shoot each other, virtually, to bits.
While part of the gaming world gets hyped for Madden during those days and some Kotaku colleagues will begin to calculate how many pairs of socks they'll need to pack for their trip to Germany next week, I'll be in Dallas. With thousands of gamers. And a batch of top developers who limit their names to three syllables.
Highlights for this QuakeCon include id co-founder John Carmack's keynote to the Doom/Quake/Rage faithful on Thursday.
3:30pm – Main Stage
id Software Press Conference
id Software welcomes thousands of attendees to QuakeCon 2009 and offers exclusive insight into the studio's latest development projects and exciting announcements.4:00pm – Main Stage
John Carmack Keynote
John Carmack, technical director of id Software, offers his annual keynote address and audience Q&A, with topics ranging from the state of graphics hardware and the development of idTech5, to his ventures into rocket science.
Expect id's EA-published open-world shooter Rage to be a big part of the show. I expect to be checking it out.
And then on Friday, Splash Damage's Paul Wedgwood shows up to do a public demo of the Bethesda-published Brink, followed by Bethesda lead designer Todd Howard speaking for an hour about who-knows-what.
There's plenty more in the official schedule and some stuff marked on my calendar that I can't publicize yet (work-related, I promise).
Local Dallas developers, I/Kotaku will have a couple of hours of free time on Wednesday.
Sadly, I'll be en route to the airport on Friday late afternoon, when this happens:
4:00pm – 5:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
BAWLS Chugging Competition
If you think you have what it takes, be sure to join in on a QuakeCon tradition where daring attendees attempt to chug a can of Bawls as fast as possible. It's all about bragging rights and winning one of those coveted Ultimate Power Up tickets.