The morning mist had not yet fully lifted from Los Angeles.
Figueroa Street, outside the E3 Convention Center, was already choked with traffic.
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According to IDSA regulations, the second day of the expo was still reserved for media and industry professionals.
Ordinary gamers would have to wait until the third day to enter with their tickets.
The rules were absolute.
The short messages that had gone viral overnight on Silicon Valley Online and various BBS forums had already whetted the appetites of hardcore gamers across California and the surrounding areas.
A new console for $199, a four-disc Square masterpiece, and free Battle.net online play.
This news had fermented all night on dial-up networks, spawning a crowd of impatient fanatics.
At the Convention Center's South Wing Entrance 2, two security guards were sweating profusely as they checked the badges of the attendees.
Static crackled incessantly from their walkie-talkies.
A young man in an oversized denim jacket was stopped at the turnstile.
The media pass he presented showed obvious signs of alteration around the edges of the photo.
"This pass isn't yours, kid." The security guard pushed the badge back. "It says you're the Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly. You don't even look old enough to drink."
The young man pulled two hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, slid them under the badge, and offered it again. "Come on, man. I drove all night from San Diego. Just let me in to see this Battle.net thing, and the two hundred is yours."
The guard pushed the money away and pointed toward a nearby security booth.
The young man grumbled, snatched back his cash, and turned to a group of peers nearby. They began discussing the feasibility of sneaking in through the loading dock.
David and Paul presented their authentic press passes and sailed through the turnstiles.
"Money doesn't buy you everything here," Paul said, watching the young man's retreating figure as he re-hung his badge around his neck. "But it does prove that the webpage we launched last night worked. The information spread faster than anyone expected."
David yawned, his eyes heavy from a sleepless night of rushing a deadline. "The advantage of print media is depth. Today, reporters from every magazine will be like bloodhounds, digging for exclusive details. A few hundred words of a news flash aren't enough for the kind of people who'd drive all night just to bribe a security guard."
The air inside the venue was thick and stale.
Crowds of people, their chests adorned with badges of every color, had already swarmed the exhibitors' booths.
David flipped open the schedule in his hand.
9:00 AM, Central Hall Main Stage.
That was today's first major event.
The two of them hurried through the congested aisles. By the time they reached the main stage, the front row was already packed with cameras. David found a spot off to the side and pulled out his voice recorder.
The lights dimmed. There was no long-winded host to introduce the segment, no suit-and-tie executives delivering speeches.
A man with shoulder-length hair, wearing a black T-shirt and ripped jeans, strode onto the stage. He carried no notes and didn't even glance at the teleprompter.
John Romero.
The co-founder of id Software, the gaming industry's most wild and untamed design genius.
A wave of whistles and applause erupted from the audience.
Romero walked to the center of the stage and grabbed the microphone. "I hate bullshit. You didn't come here to hear me talk about the future of the industry."
He turned and pointed to the massive projection screen behind him.
"Quake. Releasing in June. Look at the screen."
Short and sweet.
The screen lit up.
There was none of the industry-standard, expensive-yet-empty pre-rendered CG openings.
The game launched straight into the start screen. A few lines of brief text scrolled across a dark red background, establishing the backstory: the protagonist stepping through a portal to fight alien monstrosities.
Then, the loading bar flashed by. The actual gameplay footage leaped directly into everyone's view.
David raised his camera, aiming the lens at the screen.
This was a fully 3D world, constructed entirely of polygons.
Unlike the previous title, Doom, which used 2D textures to fake a 3D effect, every monster, building, and weapon in Quake was a genuine 3D model.
Romero stood at the side of the stage, operating the demo himself with a custom mouse and keyboard.
The perspective on the screen shifted rapidly.
The protagonist darted through a dark, Gothic castle, the rocket launcher's exhaust trail casting dynamic light and shadow against the walls.
Romero's play was a spectacle. He used the blast from an explosion to perform a high-difficulty jump, spinning in mid-air to blast a lunging monster into pieces with a shotgun.
Flesh and bone flew.
Pure violence, aestheticized.
Gasps erupted from the crowd.
For an audience accustomed to the choppy frame rates of early 3D games, this level of visual fidelity—combined with controls so smooth they felt completely seamless—was an immediate, visceral shock.
"The engine's core code was written by John Carmack," Romero explained into the microphone, his hands still operating the controls. "He's a madman. He squeezed every last drop of efficiency out of the rendering pipeline. The visuals you're seeing right now can run at a rock-solid 30 frames per second on a mainstream Pentium processor."
Romero tapped the Tab key, bringing up a list.
"The single-player campaign is just one part of it," he said, stepping away from the keyboard. "The true heart of this game is the multiplayer mode."
The screen split into four distinct viewpoints.
"We've rewritten the network synchronization algorithm," Romero's voice boomed through the venue. "It supports up to sixteen players battling on a single server. Whether you're on a LAN or dialing in via modem, as long as your latency is kept within an acceptable range, you can play together without a hitch."
Paul scribbled furiously in his notebook.
Blizzard had announced Battle.net yesterday, and today id Software unveiled low-latency wide-area network multiplayer.
PC game developers were collectively racing into the internet age.
The demonstration continued.
Romero showcased the game's various weapons and level designs. The intricate corridors, hidden mechanisms, and oppressive monster placements all highlighted his genius for level design.
Carmack's underlying technology combined with Romero's content design—this golden duo remained the most knowledgeable experts on first-person shooters on the planet.
The demo drew to a close.
Romero stopped playing and walked back to the center of the stage.
"One last thing," Romero said, looking at the reporters and industry peers in the audience. "We know many players love to take our games apart. Back in the Doom era, you created a lot of fascinating custom maps."
A few programmers in thick-rimmed glasses chuckled knowingly.
"This time, we've decided to go all out," Romero raised his voice. "When Quake launches, we will simultaneously release our internal level editor and a complete set of scripting language tools."
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