Dreamhack was an absolute blast. I am writing this as of 11:00am after waking up from a sleep-deprived coma, talking to vendors and many long nights of gaming sessions.
I wanted this to be a rolling blog with the happenings each day, but that just wasn’t possible. There was so much to do. On one stage there were DJs playing and the other side were professional Starcraft players winning roughly $38,000 cash prizes! There were several hard-core bands: From pounding hardstyle (Headhunterz) to gajin core (j-core, Helblinde) to a fully fledged metal band (Avatar).
There were also tons of giveaways and raffles, and not to mention a classic PONG competition played on a classic Atari 2600. I tell you it was quite fun to see the younger players struggling with the seemingly simple controls.
There really was something to do around the clock for the entire duration of Dreamhack.
I’m not really into e-sports so I can’t really tell you much if anything about it, but I do know that before the LAN there were a lot of open matches and a really nice ladder came out for a lot of games. The finals where played in a big ice hokey stadium next to the Elmia halls (DH Building): again with full sound system, lights, the works!
There were lots of happy gamers that where rocking 250.000 SEK (Swedish Krona that’s about $37.5k USD and just shy of 29k euro)
There was also an expo where the various sponsors and vendors strut their stuff, and give away free stuff even organize raffles and prizes like keyboards, gaming headsets, RAM, SSD drives, and even complete gaming systems. They were packed like any retail store and had great prices, too.
In short they had enough gear to build super high-end gaming PCs (including peripherals) from scratch if the only thing you brought with you was money. I even scored a new webcam for just 15 Euros (cheap, the way a Dutchy likes it).
The Expo didn’t just house gaming gear but also had a few other booths. Yes, Sweden actually cares! Sweden is a little more progressive than many other countries, and they had a public health booth informing everyone about safe sex. They gave away free condoms and even demonstrated their proper use (on many of the phallic devices they had on display). We can’t show the photos to the American audience, as OCmodshop is a family-friendly site ;)
They even had a workers union to make the younger people aware of their rights. The posters in the back say “My first time was Great, was Hell, was Invigorating”. Just to make sure they start their first summer job with knowledge.
The Universities were also present and where luring in people with liquid nitrogen and cool little tricks with floating magnets.
Qpad had a stand where you could try your luck against a pro CS:GO player. It was quite fun to watch some people try and actually get pretty far, but most of them went down rather quickly.
Also watching the Pros micromanaging units in Starcraft was pretty interesting to say the least.
But not everything was gaming related. You could also enjoy a lot of deejays and bands and I’ll tell you they have one HELL of a sound system there it would embarrass quite a few dance parties!
It’s a mystery to me how the people who sat near the main stage are even able to game. I’m quite sure it would take some reeeealy extreme hearing protection to muffle it all out, but that wouldn’t cancel out the massive vibrations. Yes, the bass was that low and hard, and they cranked it up to the maximum when Headhunterz was playing.
Props go to the DH crew on site. With all the musical events, people crowd up and it gets hot very fast. The staff kept a close eye on the crowd picking out individuals who might suffer heatstroke, and they made sure to squirt some water on the people in front.
The sleeping area was also improved. No more jerks inflating their beds in the sleeping hall… Noooo, everyone had to inflate their mattresses down the stairs to avoid noise, and there were enough power outlets for pumps.
Once inside, the total amount was checked off to keep it safe and you where directed to a designated area to make sure there was walking space to safely exit in an emergency.
They had everything really organized this time, which is a good thing because 5 years back you just had idiots screaming “ALLOOOOOOOO” in there, not good if you want to get some shuteye.
Food was also taken care of. Dreamhack’s gaming halls hosted quite a few kebab shops and they had GREAT Döner kebab there for good prices. Hotdogs (Swedish national staple it seems) were all around, and cheap (but tasty). There were lot of other snack foods, but I would have liked to see a more varied menu in the restaurant: hamburgers, pasta, pizza and kebab gets old after a few days…
We still managed but I wouldn’t mind a proper schnitzel and vegetables. Perhaps some fruit smoothies (for the vitamins). There was no shortage of soda and energy drinks :P, which sort of fits the occasion but I’m not 18 anymore… (o god incoming midlife crisis).
Throughout the event no alcohol was served (and also prohibited). This might seem strange, but think of the amount of people at Dreamhack and consider that most of them are underage (that’s 18 here in the Netherlands). Five years back I saw a bunch of 8 year olds in pajamas walking around and even this time in the row in front of us where little boys no older than 12 years old.
…Not that it stopped us from spiking our drinks. I’m pretty sure the DH crew noticed a bottle or two but ignored it since we weren’t total assholes… yet.
Then there was the internet. I managed to totally forget to make screenshots of the awesome dashboard, but I can tell you that we had a 40gbit internet pipe on DH and roughly 14k to 15k unique devices, and if I stand correct about 400TB downloaded and 380TB uploaded through that pipe
I do have to tell you that 15 people 1 webcam and chat roulette gets pretty loud ;)
Only downside to DH is the lack of space. The “tables” (if you can call them) that are small and not deep (80cm deep 1meter wide). There really wasn’t a lot of space for any equipment or bags, so travel light!
Now that I look back at the photos I noticed I took way too little to show everything. As I mentioned before there is always something going on somewhere at Dreamhack. I only snagged about 8 to 10 hours sleep in a solid 5-day session, so I might have forgotten certain things.
I may not be young anymore, but Dreamhack 2012 was an absolute blast!