A few weeks before the launch of the 2011 edition of QuakeCon, the organizers of the free LAN event have admitted that its official forums were the subject of a hacker attack. The official QuakeCon web site states, "In recent days, a hacker carried out an unlawful intrusion of the old forums.quakecon.org site, compromising usernames and passwords. While we have taken appropriate steps to protect the new forums from attack, we recommend anyone using their old credentials on another site to change their passwords immediately."
The note also said that the organizers of QuakeCon "regret any inconvenience this may have caused, and suggest you migrate to the new forums — which will be live shortly — to discuss QuakeCon 2011."
The annual free event, sponsored by first person shooter game developer id Software and its owner/publisher Bethesda Softworks, is still planning to take place on August 4-7 in Dallas, Texas at the Hilton Anatole Hotel. The event contains the largest LAN in North America with thousands of people expected to bring their gaming PCs to the show's BYOC area. QuakeCon will also hold professional game tournaments (Quake Live and Brink will be the official tournament games for QuakeCon 2011) along with other panels, presentations, exhibits and other events.
Bethesda Softworks has already said it will show off live demos of two upcoming games, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, and Prey 2, at QuakeCon. Today another game developer, Hi-Rez Studios, announced that it will debut the first public showing of Tribes Ascend at QuakeCon. This is the upcoming free-to-play shooter that will also revive the classic Tribes game franchise.