AI-Con Lans

Archive for the ‘Writeups’ Category

Hey guys, sorry no photos.

• Event details

LAN 15 proved to be a solid and yet relaxed LAN. Attendance hovered at about 18 boxes and quite a few more general attendees, some for the DigiVisiPop meeting & still others for the TUU Anime Society screening, which was held in the LAN hall, as the rest of the Showground’s Admin Building was playing host to another event.

Definitely a very chill event with the schedule being mostly ignored. Friendly banter and spontaneous events characterised most of the day. Some didn’t love the movie play-list and by the power of majority vote some were even cut short.  

Network & power was rock solid throughout the event. Server hummed along very nicely, however we have noticed that when 5+ people are grabbing the same game, download speeds can crawl down to 2.5mb/s – fear not, a solution is in being worked out.

Evening’s movies were Idiocracy, Tokyo Gore Police & Crank. Other fan favorites were Fat Pizza & Cat Shit One. An eclectic group if there ever was one.

Lunch run came togetherperfectly & Dinner run with Domino’s also went well.   

• Game wrap-up

Quake 3 (1PM – 2PM): By and large ignored for other pursuits.  

Blur (2PM – 3.30PM): Arguably one of the more fun arcade racers we’ve played, however many attendees were otherwise occupied & some connectivity issues made life difficult for certain players. Actual game play was fast and furious.

KillingFloor (3.30PM – 5.30PM): So much win. When the players figure out a strategy they are invincible. Those who fail to organise… get raped. Massively popular. 2 servers at any one time, some player balancing required but great fun none the less.

CoD 4 (5.30PM – 7.30PM): By and large ignored for other pursuits. FK & WC3 filled most of this time slot.

WarCraft 3 (7.30PM – 9.30PM): Once again WarCraft3 just absorbed the entire hall with DoTA & CastleFight matches. No version or acquisition problems, so game play flow was aided.

TeamFortress 2 (10PM – 12PM): Never happened. All sorts of random games were played in its stead.

• Thoughts for next time

Turnout was much better than expected and the chilled out atmosphere was wonderful for the admin & attendees alike. However it must be said that attendee fatigue appears to have begun to skew attendee turnout & enthusiasm. This is a natural occurrence for an event that has effectively run non-stop every fortnight since the beginning of the year.

Regardless of how often we tweak the gameplay list & juggle strategys there is always a time and place for rest. This time has come.

Its important to stress that we are NOT disbanding, simply going on break for the next 1 or 2 cycles. We’ll likely return sometime in late September of this year.

We continue to encourage people to invite friends & family to the LAN’s to help us grow and continue to offer one of the friendliest LAN’s in Tasmania. Please remember to sign up to either our mailing list on the right, or our Facebook Group. It’s an outstanding way to keep in contact with people and inform them of new events.

Late evening, LAN 15

Write up & promo are pretty late this time around, sorry about that – Being sick is no fun. New write-up format to condense information. 

• Event details

After LAN 14 we were worried about turn out, however attendance gave a swift up-kick and we were back to 18 boxes and about 22 attendees & 7+tb on the DC++ hub share. Plenty of lulz were had all around, especially with Chance & Ducky supplying most of the evenings laughs with sexual innuendo abounding. 

Network & power was rock solid throughout the event. Server coughed up some interesting errors, but nothing fatal. 

Screening room was practically deserted for the entirety of the day however until we can properly alert members of the now defunct TUU Anime Society. Projector was returned to the LAN hall for a screening of Team America, Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog & Fight Club. Apparently this choice went down quite well. 

Lunch run came together okay, minus the 20+ minute cook time. Dinner run with Domino’s went well also. 

• Game wrap-up

CounterStrike: Source (1PM – 2PM): Game saw lukewarm adoption from the room, as many people were still setting up or were put off by the CS:S fame. 2 modes played; normal & knife bot armada. 

StarCraft 1 (2PM – 3.30PM): Most of the room got in on this one, with Dhark once again dominating any match he participated in. Other notables were Snark & Bobsyagod. 2 modes played; FFA & Top vs Down. 

CoD 4 (3.30PM – 5.30PM): Didn’t happen. Sporadic matches of WarCraft3 & KillingFloor erased CoD4 from the lineup. 

KillingFloor (5.30PM – 7.30PM): 2 – 3 servers were brought online, with no reported crashes. Cries of rage & frustration were heard throughout most of the play through. Most of the room was playing at one point or another. Maximum of 6 players is somewhat annoying. Still it was thoroughly enjoyed. 

WarCraft 3 (7.30PM – 9.30PM): This gaming juggernaut managed to absorb the entire room for hours on end. There were some sporadic version problems, however most people sat down and enjoyed DoTA & Castle Fight. Particularly spammy CF matches managed to draw crowds as onlookers gaped at the unit on unit carnage. 

TeamFortress 2 (10PM – 12PM): There appeared to be some disinterest in TF2, however most of the room did join with the game topping 15 players at its high point. Fast paced game play, but team balance issues appeared to frustrate players at certain points. Still W+1 & heavy spam was fun to watch. 

• Console games write-up

This lan saw a bit of new life for the consoles, with people playing Tekken 5, Street Fighter 3rd strike and Super Street Fighter 4, Blazblue and Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Even a brief round of Street Fighter Alpha 2 happened. Brawl was present too, although with less interest than usual, even though it’s been the main crowd drawer previously.

In other news we also had a few Melty Blood players here and there, which while a PC game I’m going to lump in with these fighters. Hopefully we’ll see more players develop from that.

Right now I’m looking for a lot of feedback on what people would like to see or how they would like the consoles organized as while a crowd is emerging as is I think there is a lot of room for improvement on that front.

As usual, tell your friends, if they won’t come, remember HADOUKEN!

- write up courtesy of Link6616

LAN #15 – Later evening

• Thoughts for next time

Improved turnout was GREAT, as was the atmosphere. Projector needs to come in sooner, sun permitting. People seem to really like the Pasito and Kirks Lemonade, so we’ll get more of that. Mi-goreng wasn’t available, but fear not it’ll be back  

We’ll keep on tweaking the playlist to make sure people have a good time. Also huge thankyou to everyone who stayed to make sure the venue got cleaned up. Every hand helps. 

We continue to encourage people to invite friends & family to the LAN’s to help us grow and continue to offer one of the friendliest LAN’s in Tasmania. Please remember to sign up to either our mailing list on the right, or our Facebook Group. It’s an outstanding way to keep in contact with people and inform them of new events.

LAN #14 - Early evening

Sorry for the late write up – its been a trying week.

After the success of LAN #13, we were unsure if #14 could meet up to such high expectations. Sadly enough we were running week on from a TUCS lan & head to head with the WarHammer convention in the CBD. This cut our numbers significantly, down to about 14 boxes, with about 20 attendees in total. Read the rest of this entry »

LAN 13 - Midway

LAN #13 was a big concern for us as were debuting a new venue and we were running end on from Dark-Media. However those concerns were misplaced as we had our biggest LAN yet, with 25 boxes on-site and just a touch over 30 attendees between the consoles and tabletop gamers.

Massive props to everyone who stood up and helped run the different events, it made things alot smoother in general and it was great to see the community help each other. Read the rest of this entry »

LAN #12 early on

LAN #12 was likely our most successful LAN to date with over 24 boxes on site all participating in some pretty fun LANing this Saturday past. Whilst some early on difficulties were had, we managed to have a great time. The (d)admin was suffering the flu which hurt organisation but otherwise it was a blast.

Whilst attendance was up, an early bug with the v1.5 patch for Battlefield 2 threatened to ruin things for the entire room. Luckily the patching process was stopped before too many installations was corrupted. The exact cause is still being investigated but there’s a lot of confidence that the culprit will be found so that v1.5 can be played at the next LAN.

Beyond the BF2 errors, network and power were fault free and drink sales were brisk.

The schedule once again creatively interpreted with CnC Generals being dumped from the play list due to time constraints. The console game turnout was also pretty small with Uriumaru saving the day once again with SF4 on the big screen. There should be a bigger showing next LAN I’m told. Read the rest of this entry »

LAN #11 was an extemely solid event being held in our usual location of Law131. Attendance shrunk with 19 people showing up however a great time was had by all. Organisation suffered with yours truly failing to adhere to the timetable but the gaming was incredibly solid.

Network and power were running fault free and we continued to have a strong sale of Rockstar (500ml) and 300ml cans of soft-drink.

As mentioned previously the schedule wasn’t really adhered too, mostly because of complications stemming from problems with unvalidated games. All in all everyone had a really good time so that’s what mattered most. Read the rest of this entry »