How was it?

[Excessive]

How was LPNW 400 man LAN?

[Warder]

Well...

The power went out for half of the people for about 2 hours...

The CSS tourney was delayed 6.5 hours because Steam was the fail...

Took 40th in the Texas Hold-em tourney...

But drank lots of Bawls, enjoyed file sharing to its maximum, and had a good time checking out some of the Frag Dolls, didn't get to show them my stamp collection...but someday...

Overall, I would rate it a 4/10, mostly cause the games I wanted to play weren't really happening, and tons of problems kept occuring that took away from the overall experience.

[DiscoDave]

Wasn't bad. Parking was still a bit of a hassle, which I thought was annoying. For some reason I thought they had parking in the facility...turns out that wasn't the case, so I had to lug my rig a few blocks. Somewhere between my car and my spot, I also lost my usb to audio adaptor, which makes me very sad and want to cry.

There were significant power issues...I think the power was probably out for at least an hour, maybe more. Fortunately, the row we were on was unaffected, but the router was knocked off plus there obviously wasn't a whole lot of people to play with anyway.

The network was also pretty shaky at the beginning of the lan. Seemed to clear up after the power outage, though. Had quite a bit of packet loss in UT, and there was TONS of problems with Steam that were not all due to LPNW.

As a result of that stuff, the tournaments went way late. I left at around 2:00am partly because I was tired of UT, partly because I was tired, and partly because my computer was not happy. Seems to have cleared itself up now, but I'm forced to wonder if it's another symptom of my hard drive preparing to die. :scrunch:

I'm confident that LPNW couldn't have done much to make things go better. When you get to lan parties that size, your involvement with power is reduced. Network issues get very unpredictable as well, with that many systems. And tournaments...well...yea. They're always a bitch...even at BLE, with 30 systems we have tournament issues.

All that said, there wasn't a whole lot of gaming other than CS (UT would usually have a reasonable server up, but there's only so much Deathmatch a guy can take), the lack of Internet makes idle time when you don't feel like playing painful, and wtf...no Mario Tennis?

It was obviously a "premium" price tag, and I'm not convinced I got "premium" experience out of it. A certain amount of that is my fault, as I haven't really been playing many multiplayer games aside from UT, so when I get tired of UT, it's my own damn fault.

[edit: BTW, they did give us a $5.00 credit at a hot dog stand, for our price, which was nice. Service was a bit slow (damn you, Ghrog, time is money!) and I bought two hot pockets that were still frozen in the center after they nuked 'em, so suffice to say I would have rather just had the $5. Nevertheless, it was at least helpful.

And I might feel more like I got my money's worth if I hung around until the end hopefully winning some prize or another.]

[Expunge]

lol, owned :<

[DiscoDave]

No. The owned part comes in when I realized, about 2 minutes ago, that I scratched the front bezel of my lcd monitor. :mad:

[Excessive]

But they were braging so much about their "3 phase power". Someone should have told them any building that size has 3 phase power coming into it. but you only need 1 phase to plug in a computer, and if you don't have a way to distribute it correctly you will still trip breakers.

Sorry to hear it wasn't the greatest LAN you ever had. Hopefuly PDX, and PAX will be better in the summer.


And I might feel more like I got my money's worth if I hung around until the end hopefully winning some prize or another

Yes, prizes aren't everything, but if given out I still think it should be done while the most people are still there.

[DiscoDave]

Yes, prizes aren't everything, but if given out I still think it should be done while the most people are still there.
I agree. I consider it unethical to use it as a way of coercing someone to stay longer than they ordinarily would. It may be effective in making people stay later, but it is not effective in making people enjoy themselves more, which is the real measurement of a LAN.

[/personal philosophy]

[Reinforcements]

Ender: Did you get me Eekers phone number?
I am still wrecked that I couldn't go.
Hey, you should invite the Frag Dolls to the Feb Lan. And me. To the lan.
In Febuary. :tup:

[Ender]

Sorry reinforcements, after the several make out sessions with eekers I had, I kept forgetting to get her phone number for you.

After staying for the whole thing I'm more convinced that the giving out prizes at the end is a bad idea, as there was only about 100 people left to accept those prizes, and most were not interested anyways. It didn't make people stay - when they wanted to leave they left because they came to LAN, not to get 16x DVD rw's and cheap speakers.

I was pretty unhappy with the whole thing, but since I was able to leech so much off the network (thank goodness for sharescan) I figure I got more than $35 worth. ;)

[Dr. Deezee]

Another dumb thing that hasn't been mentioned was the fact that half the LAN was on one subnet mask and the other half was on another, which meant that you couldn't see half the games from your LAN server browser in your games. This translated directly into me not being able to play DoW with the 6 or 7 guys across the hall... wtf?

[hockeysnipermlg]

yeah, Disco, your name got called, and so did Warder and Ender i think. not sure what you guys would have won though. i got a 5 port gigabit switch :tup:

[ghrogels]

I wasn't happy playing a tourney game at frick'n 4 in the morro, damn it. I was just about to sleep. And to that guy Chaos even...
oh the hell wells.

not good times at all. No Quake, no DoW (sorry DZ for never playing, but I hate 1v1, although I'm now appreachiating 1v1 Ut2k4), no surfing the interweb to tell you guys how much it sucked, etc.

Yes, way to much flipp'n UT2k4, and damn if there wasn't a group from BLE there, I would have left way early...or more likely known it wasn't going to be fun at all and not even gone.

Too many issues, no organized game play except for the tourneys, and there was no damn deathball or ddom.

[DiscoDave]

Was there ever even any CTF?

[Ender]

negative. Just deathmatch. :( Course...since we ran a server and everything it's sorta our fault for not forcing that. ;)

[DiscoDave]

*shrug*

We shouldn't have to force, with voting in place. I can't believe we had to force TDM. WTF, man? Gay!

[ghrogels]

I'm wondering what the hell was going on when Fallout showed up and was like: "Do you guys have a server we could use?"
Seriously, GG @ being prepared.

[DiscoDave]

Fortunately, BLE comes prepared. ;)

[SuperDude]

So I gather that LPNW was like being on the recieving end of buttsecks with a metal barbed condom?

[DiscoDave]

Oh, it wasn't that bad. It was a lan party, there were 350 people. :shrug:

[DiscoDave]

Overall, I would rate it a 4/10...
Out of curiosity, for a reference point, how would you rate BLE (on average)?

And please be honest. I'm not looking for ego-stroking.

[Excessive]

I guess I am glad I didn't let anyone talk me into going. Especialy since I can only play about a half hour of UT before I'm bored out of my mind.

Out of curiosity, for a reference point, how would you rate BLE (on average)?

And please be honest. I'm not looking for ego-stroking.

Maybe you should start a poll?

[Expunge]

Out of curiosity, for a reference point, how would you rate BLE (on average)?

And please be honest. I'm not looking for ego-stroking.
I give BLE 8/10

Only because it's in steep comparison to GD Fest, the best lan party I've ever been to.

What made it so great? UT2k3 competition. 400 people. Huge sponsors (10 9700 Pro videocards!) Huge venue... Perfect network, several GD Fest run dedicated servers (By people who knew what they were doing) Flawless operation (No power issues, etc.)

What BLE is missing imo:

-Competition
-Good prizes

But I dont mark it down that much, considering the size of the lans.

<3 BLE.

[SuperDude]

-Competition
-Good prizes

<3 BLE.



I think it's been made obvious that if prizes were given away based on skill competitions then the same 4 or 5 people would always be winning stuff.

BLE could give out awesome prizes but to compensate the attendance price would have to be increased. that = </3


I think BLE is awesome because Nate and Dave have gone out of their way and sometimes paid out of their own pockets to bring us awesome lans.

[Expunge]

But I dont mark it down that much, considering the size of the lans.
.

[Ender]

I appreciate the comments FeaR. But if I may, I would like to comment on your post a bit.

I would suggest that GDFest didn't have that good of UT2k3 competition. I would suggest that you'd find more at our LANs. Case in point, you won a 9700Pro in that tourny. Not saying you're a bad player, but you're now about 100x the player that you were at that time, and if you won a prize that awesome - that says something about the competition.

In comparison to other LANs the size of us, I bet you couldn't find one with as much raw talent for games...at least not in Washington. Not because I've been to so many other LANs and can speak from experience as I've only ever been to LPNW's. But take a LPNW gLAN vs our monthly party, and I'd be surprised if there was a game they could beat us in. Esp UT - there is an uncanny amount of UT talent at our LANs, on a monthly basis, plus the ones that attend every now and again (maddeh, zachw, cyex, inhuman). Yeah you make like some of them, but you can't deny they're all good. Plus we got Pine on a regular basis, DD, ghrog, myself, Kashll. We've got a lot of talent at our parties.

I think we have awesome competition at our LANs, way more proportionately than most LANs our size.

Prizes have been discussed much. We could go for better prizes, cooler sponsors, but it's not worth the damage it seems to cause imo. Besides, LANs are about gaming, not prizes. ;)

Thanks for the 8/10 and for the positive comments. Don't think I'm just trying to prove you wrong on your opinions. Those are yours, and I'm just offereing mine. And I'm aware that you don't mark it down that much, considering the size of the LANs. ;)

<3 FeaR activate.go + ... ;)

[Expunge]

I appreciate the comments FeaR. But if I may, I would like to comment on your post a bit.

I would suggest that GDFest didn't have that good of UT2k3 competition. I would suggest that you'd find more at our LANs. Case in point, you won a 9700Pro in that tourny. Not saying you're a bad player, but you're now about 100x the player that you were at that time, and if you won a prize that awesome - that says something about the competition.

In comparison to other LANs the size of us, I bet you couldn't find one with as much raw talent for games...at least not in Washington. Not because I've been to so many other LANs and can speak from experience as I've only ever been to LPNW's. But take a LPNW gLAN vs our monthly party, and I'd be surprised if there was a game they could beat us in. Esp UT - there is an uncanny amount of UT talent at our LANs, on a monthly basis, plus the ones that attend every now and again (maddeh, zachw, cyex, inhuman). Yeah you make like some of them, but you can't deny they're all good. Plus we got Pine on a regular basis, DD, ghrog, myself, Kashll. We've got a lot of talent at our parties.

I think we have awesome competition at our LANs, way more proportionately than most LANs our size.

Prizes have been discussed much. We could go for better prizes, cooler sponsors, but it's not worth the damage it seems to cause imo. Besides, LANs are about gaming, not prizes. ;)

Thanks for the 8/10 and for the positive comments. Don't think I'm just trying to prove you wrong on your opinions. Those are yours, and I'm just offereing mine. And I'm aware that you don't mark it down that much, considering the size of the LANs. ;)

<3 FeaR activate.go + ... ;)
lol.. no no

I won the 9700 Pro as a door prize. I didn't even get into the quarterfinals of the UT tourney, and the guy in my heat won 75-3 (4 player FFA DM) and then he blew out every single player there. There was alot of competition there, alot more than I've seen at a lan ever before.

I suppose that's why we should go to more big lans, so we can win all the tourneys and get all the prizes (lol speakers) without getting upset at each other over a casefan at BLE :p

BLE to go pro UT?

:>

[DiscoDave]

Maybe you should start a poll?
While comments are always welcome, such a poll would prove to be ineffective, I suspect. Obviously pretty much everyone here likes BLE events...otherwise you wouldn't be reading these forums.

Basically, I'm looking for constructive criticism. Things that you guys think we should do better. Should we bring back Console specific gaming? Should we be more regular? How much time should we spend on tournaments? How should we go about getting people playing the same games?

There's a few things in my head I think BLE should work on, and there's a few things we should probably do that neither Ender or I have thought of. We aren't perfect...but we want to be. So what reasonable steps can we take towards perfection? ;)

We haven't ironed out plans for the next lan (which should be on the last week of Feb, but waiting to be sure the office will be available), but I think we're going to not get so many prizes and spend that budget on extra snacks. Also, we'll probably only get a few prizes, but they'll be things we hope people will genuinely want. There's only so many case fans we can give away before nobody gives a crap anymore. :x

And rumor has it that an old BLE favorite will be returning for this next event...but I've already said too much about that. 8)

[Expunge]

DISCO DAVE'S TOP SECRET PRIZE OMG?

Fav'd

[Reinforcements]

I'd just like to say that I love the lans, but we almost need a bigger variety of mass played games. Different genres? Splinter Cell? More Raven Shield? (RB6:Lockdown in march) AGE OF EMPIRES? Other games similar to Tetrinet? DDR? (I KILL DDR PEOPLE!! because I suck at it) Something besides UT? Maybe more NON-ARENA TYPE levels? I love the not too large, not too small group. Knowing most people there is cool.

Somebody find the old game Interstate '76? That'd be fuggin awsome!!
MORE WORMS!!! I will ninja rope the shit out of you. Being one of the worst players is cool, but it gets old. EG: QUIT PLAYING GAMES ONLY YOU ARE GOOD AT LIKE UNREAL SO MUCH!!!!

[Expunge]

MORE WORMS!!!
Agree't

[Dr. Deezee]

Something besides UT?
That is, personally, my biggest gripe with BLE at the moment. Ender talks about how he hates other LANs because they play only CS, but I see BLE as quickly becoming a UT only LAN. :O

I just like to play a lot of games. Heheh.

[DiscoDave]

That is, personally, my biggest gripe with BLE at the moment. Ender talks about how he hates other LANs because they play only CS, but I see BLE as quickly becoming a UT only LAN. :O
A valid concern. Unfortunately the saw Ender or I hold over that is minimal. We've tried to pimp out Tribes, but that didn't really fare too well with ya'll. =/

We'll be doing the Game of the Hour to help get different games played at BLE Feb...that's a start, at least.

[Dr. Deezee]

A valid concern. Unfortunately the saw Ender or I hold over that is minimal. We've tried to pimp out Tribes, but that didn't really fare too well with ya'll. =/

We'll be doing the Game of the Hour to help get different games played at BLE Feb...that's a start, at least.
I hart tribes

[LaughinJack]

For me the 400 ML was pretty lame. The only games being played were CSS and World of Warcraft (wtf?), except for BLE's UT server and UT bores me.Only 4 people were playing DC, maybe 3 people in CoD and no one was was playing anything else, except for the extremely fat dude playing the windows pinball game in the corner. No game of the hour at all, just CS all night long...losers.
The FragDolls were gay, just some stupid broads that pranced around the lan so all the uber geeks can brag that they talked to a girl and that makes them cool, please...
The prize system was a joke. They had to call around 5 names for each prize before they found someone that was still there. Oh btw Fear won a prize lol. I left before anyone elses name was called.
The only plus sides to the lan were you guys coming down, the iso files, the free music files and all that wonderful pron!!!!!