ESA 2017 journey

ESA essay time

tl;dr ESA was amazing

ESA was amazing.
This year was different, since instead of taking the plane, we went with the car. I had the pleasure of sharing the car with Dutchj, Division X, Xarathoss and Frank. Happy that we used Frank's car rather than mine. The ride was pretty alright. We used 2 ferries, which both resulted in the fastest way, and have some necessary resting points. Basically an auto-scroller. I drove through Denmark and that's all I can say about the trip. After 12 hours, we arrived and my butt was ouchy.

We checked into the hotel, where Rowan was awaiting our arrivel, since he was my roommate together with Dutch. After checking in and dumping our stuff, we went to the venue and were greeted by a lot of friends who've I met last year, and throughout the previous year, and instantly felt like home again. Afterwards, we went to the best burger joint, Max.

ESA itself was pretty swell. The stream didn't had the number of issues we had last year. Knowing how it happens with BSG, ESA was well within acceptable ranges when it comes to the errors that we've had. There was a giant projector so that we could see it from wherever we were in the hall, which was really nice.
Second stream was managed by someone else on a non-ESA twitch channel. It was really good, and Liva is an amazing caster. But I do agree, that it takes away from the main stream.

There was less space and less TV setups, but I didn't feel like there wasn't enough. If you wanted to practice, there would always be a TV somewhere available. The only shout outs I want to give to this is to the Kingdom Hearts boys, who used the HDTV's while playing on SD consoles. Hecc those guys :^).
The B Hall had a better use of space. There was a Smash tourney at first, but the other half was for us to use.
The food options at the venue itself was pretty alright. Bit more expensive and the first 2 days they didn't cool the drinks, but later on it was alright. I had 1 evening meal there, meat pie & salad, and that was definitely a good deal.

My run at ESA was pretty alright. It was mostly according to schedule, and was right after the SMS boys whom had a pretty exciting race. I've invited Downiebrownee and Tyzerra (Ape 2 demi-god and Ape 3 runner who knows the game) to couch for me, and they dropped the hot knowledge bombs so I could focus on the game mostly. They did a really good job. The first part of my run had some sub-par gameplay. I'm not that mad about Blue monkey, but the fact I couldn't do Vita-Z Skip or a single correct hit on Yellow... dios mios. The second half went way better. The final time was a 58:xx, but that was because of a mess-up on techs part. Realtime was not sub-1, which was my initial goal. I don't mind though, I've had fun and so did the others!

While I wasn't initially planning too, I was asked to do Tech and I agreed to help out since they needed techies. Last minute someone dropped out and I got another tech shift, resulting in 4, from which 2 were dead-at-night shifts. Not what I initially wanted to do, but doing them it wasn't that bad.
The tech itself was different from last year. I actually did something ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Handling the video part was easier than expected/BSG, and pretty fully automated aswell. The audio was a bit harder. I know my way around a basic mixer, but this one had multiple layers and 5 outputs (4 headsets + main), so I outsourced that mostly to Milk/senior tech since I wish I had a better understanding of it. If I had some time to fiddle around with it it would have probably worked out, but that's not something I wanted to do.
My first shift was 0000-0400, and happy I did. One of my buds drank a bit too much and was unable to do anything anymore, so I could drive him to the hotel. Other shifts were pretty fun, and would like to thank Milk for being lazy during down-times (we just lied down during long games), and John, first year senior tech and friend of mine, for being there and being an amazing guy.

This year we opted to go to a different hotel, since Scandic wanted to kick us out last year because parties. The current hotel had some plusses and minuses from Scandic aswell. The breakfast was a bit more varied, but the scrambled eggs looked horrible and the bacon was too salty most of the days (how?).
The room was an upgrade to last year. There were 2 actual beds and a sleeping couch, on which I was stationed. They had cold water we all could get, a shower from where the shower-head was broken af (taking a shower would make a big mess in the whole shower room).
We also only got 2 room keys, which is fine when going on vacation with your wife and kids, but for a gaming event where you all go your own way, not ideal.
They had a pool, jacuzzi and sauna and we did use these... somewhat regularly. I've been down there like 6 times and it's just enjoyable there.
All in all, okay hotel.

The people who've I've met this year were people I already knew and already met, people I've met online but for the first time IRL, and people who've I've never even heard off, and that was amazing. I've mostly hung around with the same people, but just spending some time with a few others was enough to be amazing. I'm not going to list names, as that would go on forever, but to everyone who was there, thanks for making ESA 17 amazing.
Also, all the after-dark parties were fun, and the barbeque... it was something. €2 barbeque's from Mediamarkt are ass.

Final random thoughts:
Food poisinong pizza, now dubbed poisonous pizza place, actually are pretty alright and loved eating there. The man is super nice and deserves customers. Too bad he got hit by memes (name).
Max is still a solid food chain
70 star mario was fun, but painful to see some other players.
I probably missed a lot, but I'm also just human.
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