Charles Dickens wrote as an opening line in "A tale of two cities" that "..it was the best of times and the worst of times". In its fifth year, this Reloaded event had more than its fair share of highs and lows, events both ordinary and extraordinary.Whether it be theft, blackouts or even unholee winning a prize, the unexpected became the norm.
Doors opened for setup at 7am on what was a very cold morning in July. The admin team were faced with the prospect of laying out 250 trestles, 600 chairs and kilometres of power and network cables before the doors opened at 6pm.
For the first time, we deployed an arena, a special 10 seat area with large screens viewable by the audience. This was used for Quakelive and the CSS final.
More than 800 people cleared the main entrance over the course of the event making this by far Australia's largest BYO lan party for the 5th year running, and they came from all over the country. More than 50 attendees making their way over from Melbourne alone. More than a dozen incoming from sydney. They were of all genders, more than 70 attendees were female. They were of all ages, there were at least half a dozen people there aged over 50, and there were 3 or 4 small children accompanied by parents. There were xbox and playstation fanatics, there were people who came purely for sporting competitions.
Kudos to Gamestahs sole representative, Kitfox who battled on all day.
Reloaded also gave away hundreds of Call of Duty Mugs, Xbox headsets, Western Digital key rings, PSP covers, PS2 controllers and lollipops (thanks to iseek) to any and all who came to the event. Door prizes were supplied courtesy of Western Digital, and Fractal Design.
Record turnouts for COD4, TF2, Quakelive and even Smash bros tournaments show the gaming scene to be alive and well, although some of this can be attributedto the quality of prizes and cash being given away.
CSS - 16 teams (80 players)
COD4 - 14 teams (70 players)
TF2 - 13 teams (65 players)
Basketball - 18 teams (54 players)
Smash (40 players)
halo 3 - 6 teams (24 players)
Dota - 4 teams (20 players)
Friday featured a variety of console competitions and Left4dead 2, as well as dodgeball, including admin v lanner dodgeball.
Console winners for the friday night 
Once again dogged by network issues which no one seems to be able to explain, the friday ASUS CSS competition was held over until Saturday, and to their everlasting credit.the 16 teams that signed up on the Friday, returned for the Saturday night competition. Group stages were dumped in favour of double elimination. Further network issues resulted in a delay, and the final not being played until 5am when it was taken out by the favorites, Sublime. Winners recieved $600 cash from Reloaded and ASUS 5770 graphics cards from ASUS. Runners up recieved Challenger Pro Keyboards from Tt eSports.
Reloaded management has resolved that future Reloaded will not feature group stages for CSS, and will return to the all day CSS comp format. More information on this when we announce the next event.
Also held on the Saturday, Team Fortress 2. Some controversy erupted when the random draw pitted the two top ranked teams against each other in the first round, and it was determined that the competition should be made double elim. With 13 teams in the competition, TF2 would take 7 hours to complete. Winners recieved monitors thanks to ASUS, and hdd caddies from Allneeds Computers.
With Tf2 running, COD4 started, and controversy again arose over the "single elimination" format being used. Reloaded management were again called in, but there simply wasnt the time required to run another massive double elim competition with CSS due to start in a matter of hours.COD4 finished later than planned, delaying the CSS competition somewhat. Reloaded management will be taking some steps to ensure a more rigid adherence to rules and competition preferences will be enforced at future events. Winners of this competition recieved 5770 graphics cards thanks to ASUS, runners up recieved Steelseries 9HD mousemats thanks to Steelseries.
Quakelive was run at Reloaded for the first time, on the brand new Steelseries arena. More than 30 particpants - a Reloaded record for a duel comp - from all over the country, the tournament was split into Pro and Amateur divisions. Reloaded management thanks Steelseries and the people who loaned us their gear for this event. More information on Quakelive tournaments can be found at
http://www.4seasonsgaming.com. Reloaded thanks Mick05 for his tireless efforts in promoting and organising these tournaments. The Amateur winners recieved Steelseries gear, the Pro tournament winner recieving $600 cash and an EAH5850 graphics card thanks to ASUS.
Smash Bros. Brawl also had its highest turnout at a Reloaded event, and the competition was reportedly fierce. More information and details on the smash tournament can be found at the Smashworld forums.
The Wildwire Ladies competitions also had extensive particpation, particularly in wii tennis and daytona. Winners recieved Iron Lady headsets from Steelseries, vouchers from Wildwire, and makeup from COTY
Wii tennis
Q3
Daytona
Other competition winners at this years Reloaded
ASUS Mini Paper Plane competition
FPS Championship
RTS Championship
Driving Championship
Flatout 2
Trackmania
DOTA
Halo 3
Reloaded would like to thank all of our attendees, admins and sponsors. Including ASUS, Tt eSports. Fractal Design, Plantronics, Wild Wire, Steelseries and Western Digital.Reloaded would also like to express our appreciation of SGL for the loan of their network gear, and to Respawn for bringing so many people over to the event.
Reloaded would like to thank all who attended, and hopes that you all had a great time and that you all come back for Reloaded VII in july, 2011.
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