PLANO, TX - The tables are strewn with empty soda cans and beer bottles and crumpled up bits of paper. The ballroom of the Holiday Inn Plano smells of stale adolescent sweat, of too many people having spent too many hours sitting in front of their computers.

　　It's 1:45am Saturday (Sunday morning, really) and, yes, a few people are packing away their computers and heading out. Activision has already shut down and packed up its two "Arcade PC" demo models (showing off the company's method of enabling PC games to be played in an arcade environment) as well as the two projector machines used for showcasing celebrity deathmatches, product demos, and the like.

　　It's been a full, hard day of Quake-ing. The deathmatch tournament that was supposed to have ended Saturday didn't. Now, in these darkened hours, the three players in contention for the top spot have decided to call it a night - they'll resume their shoot-out Sunday at high noon. Then will come the celebrity team deathmatches, postponed because of the ongoing, lingering tournament.

　　The tournament players may have decided to catch some sleep, but not many other people have. Everybody seems tired (you can see it in the eyes) but nobody seems interested in going anywhere. Not yet.

　　That's because as the time nears 2:00am, there's a raffle about to get under way - and Arcade Boy is just as likely to walk away with a stash of goodies – 3-D goggles and stereo headphones and Quake II baseball caps and Ritual Entertainment T-shirts and SpaceOrbs - as is Leprechaun. On and off the Quake playing field, it seems, competition is intense.

　　The raffle, however, isn't generating quite the level of excitement that the blonde in black leather did earlier this afternoon ("Guess her cup size and win a T-shirt," one of the pitches went).

　　One would be hard-pressed to find anything in this mostly male, post-adolescent crowd that would generate more excitement than a woman slipping up from behind to throw a blindfold over your eyes so she can slip off the T-shirt you're wearing and - whilst whispering something like "I want to get you naked" - garb you in a T-shirt sporting the name Sin. You can say this for Ritual (formerly Hipnotic) Entertainment - it knows how to impress its target audience.

　　Ritual came to QuakeCon Friday afternoon to demo the three months of work it has put into its 3-D action game Sin. So, sure, the blonde was exciting and perhaps worth a return visit, but when the game was being demoed the questions and comments were all of the highly technical, highly knowledgeable variety ("Can you tell it's a LevelLord map?" was one overheard comment) you would expect from a crowd that lives and breathes Quake. And is ready to eat up any lesser claimant to Quake's throne.

　　The day was slightly burdened by its share of small disappointments. id Software, it was hoped (even by id Software), would be showing demos of Quake II and Hexen II. But it looked like those demos were still a week or so from completion, despite the rumor of a demonstration of Quake II gameplay that tore through the hall around 3:00am Friday.

　　And the Johns - Romero and Carmack - had both made appearances earlier, but nobody was holding his breath for either of them to return. As id's Barrett Alexander said of Carmack: "He pretty much comes in here and does his thing and then takes off again. It gets too crazy for him otherwise."

　　Everyone else in the Quake pantheon was here though, it seemed. Dave "Zoid" Kirsch, who designed the Capture the Flag mod was talking to Ron "RonSolo" Crisco of the Stomped web site. id programmer John Cash brought his son Johnny along today, and the six-year-old proceeded to whomp the stuffing out of more than a few challengers. "That is one kid I want to humiliate," said a player who goes by the handle One Thumb.

　　And there was an appearance by the elusive Thresh.

　　Twenty-year-old Dennis "Thresh" Fong had been over at John Romero's house Thursday night, had hung out with some of the ION Storm and id Software crew. By now, everybody knew that Thresh had beaten Romero 20-7 in a one-on-one deathmatch, but nobody had seen Thresh on Friday.

　　Alexander wanted to give him a tour of id Software in nearby Mesquite. "After all he has done for the game, the least we could do is show him our offices," he said. Of course, in a sense, id had already done more for Thresh than that - after Thresh had defeated Entropy in the world's biggest Quake tournament at Atlanta's E3 a month ago, id bestowed John Carmack's 328 GTS Ferrari upon him.

　　Entropy wasn't at QuakeCon. And in fact, Thresh wasn't competing in the tournament at all. Thresh's trip to QuakeCon was paid for by H3D, a company that had a booth set up in the far side of the ballroom, showing off its 3-D goggles and system.

　　"Originally going to ban me from competing," Thresh said. "But they asked me not to enter, and I thought, 'Well, I've already won two computers. Maybe somebody else deserves a chance to win. Not to say that I automatically would have won the tournament, but..."

　　His thought is interrupted by someone thrusting a business card at him. "My number's on that card. Whenever you decide you want to sell that car, call me. I'm serious."

　　Thresh just smiled. It didn't look like he intended to sell that car anytime soon.