[Ash]

Hey forum friends,

You guys have been real troopers with the elongated wait for registration information. While we're still not as close to the event as we've been in previous years, I know we're breaking the most recent pattern. In a gesture of friendship, I thought I would supply some facts to go with the registration "leaks" that we've had from a registration vendor.

1) QuakeCon 2010 is still, unquestionably, going to be a free-to-attend event. This includes our world-class BYOC, still available to fans of QuakeCon and id and Bethesda games at no charge.

2) To properly characterize the email that's been buzzing around the forums, we're going to have a premium registration option for the BYOC. At this time it's limited to a portion of the available seats, so it's impossible that the new option will "crowd out" the free seats. I've got to wait for a press release to be finalized before I can share more details, but I promise that I will as soon as I can and it's going to be pretty cool.

3) We're instituting some rather big changes in the registration process, as a result, if everything goes according to plan we're going to be able to maintain security while adding some great conveniences to the BYOC. Some goals on my agenda, thanks to these changes:

* Attendees will be able to enter and exit the BYOC with their laptop as often as they would like — with a security check at every ingress and egress.

* Attendees that are gaming on laptops will be able to bring a monitor in addition to their laptop to enhance their gaming experience. (There will be no additional space allocated for these attendees, the goal is not to support dual-headed gaming, but more of a docking-station-like setup.)

4) Our new registration system means that we'll be able to abolish the FCFS line entirely and run the lines at full speed at all times. I'll be able to give more details soon, but I'm really, really excited about how much this will improve "the line" at QuakeCon.

Anyway, this is all more-or-less "sneak peak" information about the registration process for this year, and nothing yet is finalized (or you'd already have your registration press release!), but it's depressing to listen to speculation that starts with "has QuakeCon stopped being a free, community event" and there's no positive conversation or rumors.

We're really doing our best to make this the greatest QuakeCon ever, and any/all effects that Zenimax has had on the event planning process have been entirely positive. This is looking to be a fantastic year!

Hopefully we'll be chatting about details very soon,

-- Ash