1997: Manhattan Memorial Marathon Photos, by David crt Wright — crt’s M3 Pictures

“M3: Manhattan Memorial (day) Marathon. m3 was a quake LAN party in NYC, May 23-May 26, 1997. m3 was free, and was held at Pseudo Online (home of quakecast). although m3 was byoc, many quakers graciously left their computers on, explicitly allowing those without computers to play quake. m3 was sponsored by the cyberweb cafe, pseudo online, and planetquake.”

“Oops! I goofed! There person you see labled as THE_Cookusbot (now of clan FLAG!) is really ErmacFLAG! Sorry!” -David “crt” Wright

**“One of my friends that I car-pooled up with. The computer in pieces next to his is mine – After the motherboard got burned out. All of my cards are sitting on his box.”**

**“Lovely back-of-the-head shot of Drastic_Man.”**

**“The loonymeister himself. If you look closely under his chin, you can see the infamous trackman mable.”**

**“Clan THE is THE 4 people in the right-hand corner. Cal and Dwe are probably talking about how we can continue without melting the place down.”**

“MSNBC arrived, I believe they are interviewing KillCreek. Stormalong (of Film-at-11) is showing us all an awesome level called ‘Gibs Galore’ Phoebus watches on in the blue shirt. Phoenix is hiding in the background in the white shirt.”

**“On the last day, the few who are left sit around and reflect on the weekend. Kolinahr is in the blue shirt, and Wanker is in the brown jacket next to Blue.”**

“Turmoil won the Sunny Doodles in the final game. Not being a fan of those cream filled bits of heavan, Drastic_Man quickly takes them off his hands. Meanwhile, Radpipe labors in the background coiling network cable.”

-Excerpt and images courtesy of the Internet Archive, Keygrip hosted by Planetquake.com, “crt’s M3 Pictures,” by David Wright, May 1997

Wired Magazine — Quake Clans Vie for M3 Domination, by Janelle Brown, May 23, 1997

“‘REMEMBER THOSE SLEEP-DEPRIVATION experiments?’ asks Josh Harris of Pseudo Online Network. ‘Well, this is going to be a truly modern cyber-nightmare version.’

Beginning Friday night in the heart of Silicon Alley, Harris will be transforming his 20,000-square-foot new media development offices into a battlefield for the Manhattan Memorial Marathon, or M3: a free, three-day Quakefest expected to draw gamers from New York to Australia. ‘We’re going to be blackening up all the windows,’ Harris says. ‘We want people to lose track of time.’

Ordinarily, these kind of informal weekend competitions over a local area network draw a only few dozen Quakers. So far, 150 players have registered for M3, which could prove to be the biggest LAN party yet, thanks to Pseudo’s 100 available workstations. With a local cybercafe serving up food and drinks, and Planetquake, a popular Quake Web site, providing the hype, all players have to worry about is hustling some time at the PC’s. Although registered players will get top priority, the event is open to anyone who can make it to the city over the holiday.

This is not the first time Pseudo has thrown a record-breaking Quake bash. The company co-hosted id’s launch party for Quake’s release last November. Subsequently, Pseudo began airing a weekly NetRadio show called Quakecast, which has since become the most popular of its 31 programs. Quakecast will be broadcasting live throughout the weekend.

The name M3 is a tongue-in-cheek reference to next month’s E3 convention in Atlanta, where the champ of a Quake tourney will win one of id software’s cofounder’s Ferraris. Judge Cal, a clanner and co-host of Quakecast, hopes M3 provides an antidote to commercial events like the Ferrari tourney. ‘[The E3 contest] has become a corporate advertisement, instead of fun community thing,’ he says. ‘We didn’t want that to happen to this.’

Will Bryant, cofounder of ClanRing, the online Quake league that is facilitating the E3 tourney, says it doesn’t matter whether someone’s playing for a sports car or just for the fun of it. ‘The best thing about any LAN party is meeting other players face to face,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to rely on having big prizes to make that happen.’

Nevertheless, clanners attending M3 don’t expect to waste much time with small talk. ‘I’m sure we’ll immediately sit in front of the computers and kill each other,’ admits Mr. Coffee of the clan Brothers Gib. ‘We’re getting together to not hang out,’ he says.”

“Then there’s the Manhattan Memorial Marathon, a festival that drew more than 300 people to New York. The free, three-day party turned a 20,000-square-foot warehouse into a new-media slaughterhouse.”

Donde Quake 2?

1997: Manhattan Memorial Marathon Photos, by David crt Wright — crt’s M3 Pictures

-Excerpt and images courtesy of the Internet Archive, Keygrip hosted by Planetquake.com, “crt’s M3 Pictures,” by David Wright, May 1997

Wired Magazine — Quake Clans Vie for M3 Domination, by Janelle Brown, May 23, 1997

“Then there’s the Manhattan Memorial Marathon, a festival that drew more than 300 people to New York. The free, three-day party turned a 20,000-square-foot warehouse into a new-media slaughterhouse.”

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