The Night Before The Morning After

As I write this I can almost hear the crickets outside the studio window, at least I would be able to if the studio was elsewhere but in Iceland. But that's what working late does for you. It plays tricks on the mind.

With less than 24 hours to go until EVE TV goes live for the first time this year, I can safely say that we're on track for what should be a great few days of spaceship pew pew. The set is almost built; we're just waiting for a few stickers to help brighten things up a bit. The lights are almost in place, we almost have enough cables and the streaming pretty much works. It has not been an easy few days, even though we are close to the CCP offices it has been difficult getting all the materials and facilities we've needed. Whereas on previous occasions we've been able to run along the corridor to ask for something, this time we've had to trudge through wind and rain. Not being at CCP means that the internet connection, installed just yesterday, has been less than reliable - although thankfully it has stabilized over the last 12 hours. I'm amazed we've got so much done, especially in just four days.

The bad news is that one of our experts, Nubiam, had problems making it and it was too late to arrange a replacement. Also, Mike, who is the floor manager for the weekly show, arrived in Iceland ill, meaning we are very short of able bodies for this first weekend. On the plus side of things a lot of us have done this before, so with the old hands guiding the newcomers, I'm hoping it will all come together.

The reason for the late night is to make sure the streaming is working. We're going for a wmv stream, with the quality aiming to be the same as for the second tournament (512k); we hope we can also get a lower (250k) stream. But if things get choppy we'll have to drop that option. Those with poor connections shouldn't have to suffer for too long though, as we plan to start putting matches onto the EVE TV website, so you can all catch up on the matches you miss.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the show. All of us here have put in a lot of hours preparing things, from the technicians and GMs at CCP to the regulars among the EVE TV crew. There are a lot more people behind the scenes, answering phones and working on things like the new intro and so on, it has been a massive team effort. I only hope our efforts are equal to the in-game action we'll see. I want to take this opportunity to wish the best of luck to all the teams taking part in this tournament.

Time for bed... soon.