Frag Infinity Tournament, Inc. - FITES LAN Party - www.fites.net
LAN Party Forums => General Discussion => Started by: Czar on February 13, 2006, 04:38:59 PM
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First, I, like many others had a blast and cant wait to sign up for the next one. Like any event, lan or not, I feel they can all benefit from attendant suggestions. Perhaps this topic can serve as a place to post those ideas.
1) Louder PA system. I was in the back corner and could barely hear it.
2) Perhaps an IRC server of some kind. Nothing too fancy but I found it frustrating trying to find someone at the lan that I had never met and didnt know what they looked like. I hadda cell phone number but im sure it was hard to hear it in the room, thus it wasnt answered. Just a simple chat room where I can go "Yo, Foo, Where ya sitting?" type thing.
3) No internet at all. I think we all would have functioned with steam a lot better if the internet wasnt active. Just the LAN. Other patches would be okay due to the patch server (great idea) . The only issue would be if someone needed to reinstall steam or bunged it up prior to arriving. Perhaps it could be ran to them on a case by case basis.. Or something. A signed out communal wireless adapter (they did have wireless) for specific needs.
Keep em coming!
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These are my 2 cents as an admin on the problems you had mentioned
1: PA sucked in general (that was my fault, I forgot a mixer) and should be better next time.
2: The DC Hub had a chat room, and ALP had a shoutbox type thing.
3: The internet is a much heated debate, and we knew NOTHING about it before we got to the hotel. Part of it was the router wasn't intended to handle what we threw at it. The rest was it was an 800k sync pipe.
The router should have been blocking everything but steam, but it didn't (it worked at my house.)
For the next time we've been offered a huge pipe. So we'll see how it plays, but part of the issue was that steam realeased a patch during the lan, so when peoples steam clients phoned home it tried to dl it. I'm still of the opion steam sucks almost as bad as quake 4, but thats just me.
Thanks for the input though, we love hearing it!!
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I'll take the IRC idea a bit further and suggest some sort of "topper" to place on top of monitors with the players name. Something that would have a temporary use adhesive so it wouldn't leave any type of mark on the players rig.
These are available in many varities and are fairly inexpensive.
Heck you could even get a thin piece of metal, piece of tape, 8 x 11 piece of paper, print the players name on it and then stick the paper to the metal and then tape the metal to the monitor.
There's many different ways to do this, but basicly you could see from standing up where someone is as opposed to looking at every person to read their name tag.
These and the name tag would be a great combination.
:feedback:
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Overall the Lan was fun.
As was already mentioned, the tournaments were a little drawn out. Considering first time with this size turnout, it was handled as best possible. The staff did a great job keeping everything rolling throughout the LAN.
TronNet was great being onsite. Thanks.
Probably my biggest grip would be the case mod and read this knowing I had the lego case so my thoughts are 100 percent bias. From now on the judges should take more notice of which cases are favorites of the gamers. Their favorite was evident when the 1st place winner was announced and a significant group of gamers thought it was a joke or a mistake. Then booing after confirming the award seemed to really put a exclamation point on it. Like I said, this is 100 percent bias, but a large contingency of the LAN would openly admit first was not representative of the correct final decision.
Other than that, kickin LAN. Lets do more next year.
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a significant group of gamers thought it was a joke or a mistake.
Makes sense...considering a significant group of gamers never even saw it.
The winning case was in the far right corner hidden behind an LCD...the lego case was sitting on top of a desk right next to the aisle.
I liked the LAN, the Red Bull sponsorship rocked and def. kept me awake...also the location and venue were great too I went to Applebees lol
Like everyone said...the PA system needs more cowbell...or volume at least...and the CS:S tournament took...what...5 hours? Started at 1AM I thought it finished around 6 or something.
Other than that I really don't have any complaints...facilities rocked, gaming rocked, networking/technical reliability rocked, people rocked too (Fites staff was really helpful, and everyone else was courteous).
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Probably my biggest grip would be the case mod and read this knowing I had the lego case so my thoughts are 100 percent bias. From now on the judges should take more notice of which cases are favorites of the gamers. Their favorite was evident when the 1st place winner was announced and a significant group of gamers thought it was a joke or a mistake. Then booing after confirming the award seemed to really put a exclamation point on it. Like I said, this is 100 percent bias, but a large contingency of the LAN would openly admit first was not representative of the correct final decision.
shadow, if you heard the explination of why you didnt win, it would make more sense to you. your case got very high marks in 2 of the 3 sections. useability and somthing else i dont remember what it was.... but you lacked HIGHLY in lighting. yes i know you had LED case fans... so did most other people. that gave you an automatic 1/10. everyone else that had LED casefans w/o anything extra got a 1. when i looked at your case for lighting, i looked for ways that you could have built around the lighting. which i didnt see anything in the reguard. so you recieved a 1/10 over all from me. which happend to sink you to 4th place.
my grading basicly came down to this.
LED FANS
-LED Fans = 1
-LED Fans when used very well = 3 (only one that got that was the acrylic)
Cold Caths
-Visible from window?
---yes 3 (i personally dont like looking at a bright ass cold cath.
---no 5 (the guy who won first place placed his so nomatter where i stood i couldn't see them)
UV Lighting
got a DFI Lanparty mobo? extra points when uv reacted.
got uv reactive wire management? extra points when they react.
got any other uv? extra points as long as you didnt go overboard.
these were what i BASICLY looked at, and i thought of last 100MLs winners. here is a pic of one of them.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/billabond1/comp1/comp1.jpg)
That is billabond1's old computer. his new one has uv reactive wirewraps, uv lights, good placed cold cathodes. the works. that kid knows how to rock his case.
dont get me wrong bro, your case looked amazing. but it lacked lighting and useability IMO.
where as the first place winner, had a hand painted case (candy apple red) hand cut window (i think), great wire management, Cold cath placed so i couldnt see it, but it complimented his case. Painted Cold cathode. so it wasnt pink (he added a layer of candy apple red to the cathode)
better luck next time.
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also, the lego case was sitting on the table where everyone could see it, but no one elses were, they were all sitting on the floor, where no one could see them...
just thought i'd throw that out there
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Things to make 100ml events better/ smoother.
1. dont allow teams to drop players at event. it Fudges the people that get booted over. (i got booted from my CS 6vs6 team a few hours before the tourny. i didnt get told till 30 mins prior to the cs tourny. Fudge you louber.
2. tournaments. to end ties, use odd numbered rounds.
3. tournaments. BF2 was too late in the event. people left so teams had to forfit.
4. I felt that game play was not as organized as the last 100ml event. i found it hard to find any real big games (last event there were 30vs30 BF games goin inbetween tournaments.
5. No more little kids. like no one under the age of like 13, please. i dont need to explain this.
6. more announcements next time.
Things i did like.
1. Great work from the staff.
2. Redbull
3. DDR people had alot of fun with that
4. snow. next time we need to have a snowball fight.
5. being with people that are cool, just hangin out. thats what makes fites really fun.
6. event location (2 miles from my house :-D) not to mention right off the highway for all you out of towners
7. closeness to food establishments.
I guess thats about it.
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so screw creativity. I'd rather not bother next time.
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all i can say is let's get it on :boxer:
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Food for thought on the case mods:
Go arround with a camera, snap 1/2 pics of each case, post them on ALP (it has built in poll features) open the poll for 1 hour (give people gaming time to get in) and let the majority win, no bias, just the people choosing.
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regarding the whole LAN, as I said, good stuff. Greatly appreciatted that even though COD2 was not a tourament, a server was dedicted. It turned out to have some good sized games. Maybe a COD2 tourney would be good next time. Of course by next large LAN other games may be out.
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Things to make 100ml events better/ smoother.
5. No more little kids. like no one under the age of like 13, please. i dont need to explain this.
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Honestly though, these are next generation gamers. Denying them the experience would be just plain sad. I thought it was extremely cool that there were kids there that were so young. Truth be told, sometimes they can be a little... immature.. but heh.. they're kids. I'd like to remind some of you that you're not very far off the puberty ladder yourselves.
In addition I find it more immature that people sitting in roughly the same vicinity as the childred would continue to drop the f-bomb like it was snow on christmas. ;)
I do agree that parents are a necessity and in no way am I suggesting that Fites is a babysitter service. I'm sure the Lan left them with memories that they'll remember for a long long time.
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As for the teams, yeah.. I think teams should be registered at the door and if it's 6v6, then you should have to have 6 on a team to play.... not a full team.. then no enrollment for you. I'd rather get spanked hard by a full team then have a cake walk over a team with a man down.
(Geek) No*Mercy
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I loved how you guys handled the 1vs1 tournaments. They were the most successful tournaments in terms of people playing. Keep the 1vs1 tournaments at the same general times as you guys did at this lan and you guys will be golden. :10:
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Sorry von about the CS tourney, i made a mistake. Tourney roster flexibility is needed for emergency ringers/team adjustments. Instead of a winners bracket/losers bracket, perhaps would a NCAA style bracket work better for streamlining the matches and making things less confusing?
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Good:
Amount of people was awsome
Network was tight
People were awsome
Prizes were off the hook _)
CAR ON FIRE
Seeing pride in a Burger King uniform at 4am
Bad:
Alp... last time when your opened your browser it just came up... do that agian
As VD said player droping was bad...
Time of BF2 torney... i think that my team would have actually had a full team if the one guy wasnt asleep and the other 2 didnt leave
RED BULL... i was hyped for red bull on tap... F*** THEY COUCH
Attitude could have been more lax... More trash talk is needed/ more yelling
every time i walked into the bathroom it smelled like poo... change that
I had great time especially at the end... but in my honest opinion kenneys auction was cooler... there was more room and comfy places to nap...
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I had great time especially at the end... but in my honest opinion kenneys auction was cooler... there was more room and comfy places to nap...
Kenny's auction had INSANE space compared to Holiday Inn...
but Holiday Inn has the PIMP ASS bathrooms.
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ok my turn now,
I thought the LAN was kick-ass. great network, great seating, good tournements. The guy from tron.net was cool and he ran really good deals on some of the stuff.
suggestions:
nxt time lets think about maybe doing a 2 day event that will give everyone a chance to take a few hours and nap. I was so exhausted by 4am i didnt even want to play in a tournement. maybe cause im old.
I know we're considering doing the next lan downstairs which is awesome and it's a lot bigger. maybe we can get 200 signed on and i think for a 2 day event more people would be willing to get rooms.
I was hoping to play a huge bf2 game but none were being played. we played a little but it was like 8 on 8 at the largest.
the people id like to commend that i saw doing a lot of work:
TeckieB
Xankris
bilabond
Pride
Sully
and everybody else who worked in the background to get things rolling.
A big thanks to Pride for allowing me to bring my server for open play between and around the tourneys.
A big thanks to techie for hooking it up and giving me tech support prior to the LAN.
See ya all next time!
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my take on the case mod contest. I think the way the cases were judged needs to be rethought. I not saying that it was completely wrong but here you have a guy who spent a month and a half building a totally original case that I have never seen. something that can't be bought or easily imitated by any means. he did the whole design himself to how it was constructed to how the cards psu and mobo were mounted. And he was beaten by someone who bought his case, parts and everything and just assembled them together. Im not trying to downplay the others as they obviously spent time with their cable management and light placement and i give props to the paintjob as well. but clearly these are differnt leagues of cases and to have the Lego case not even place 2nd or third seemd to be unjust. Whats done is done and theres no going back i just think maybe for next year a better rating system can be put in place.
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my take on the case mod contest. I think the way the cases were judged needs to be rethought. I not saying that it was completely wrong but here you have a guy who spent a month and a half building a totally original case that I have never seen. something that can't be bought or easily imitated by any means. he did the whole design himself to how it was constructed to how the cards psu and mobo were mounted. And he was beaten by someone who bought his case, parts and everything and just assembled them together. Im not trying to downplay the others as they obviously spent time with their cable management and light placement and i give props to the paintjob as well. but clearly these are differnt leagues of cases and to have the Lego case not even place 2nd or third seemd to be unjust. Whats done is done and theres no going back i just think maybe for next year a better rating system can be put in place.
he was beat be someone who also hand modded their case, hand painted it, someone who spent almost as much time on it.
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Event Length - I like the idea of a two full day event with a planned break overnight. Maybe not shutting down the event completely, but not having any planned tournaments just open play during that time. Eight of us went out for dinner saturday night and the social aspect was a nice break. It would be nice to go with an even bigger group next time.
Case Mod - I suggest putting a table in the room with power and have anyone who wants to be judged put their machine on the table - as they come into the event. Have them power it up (for lights and such) and snap 2 or 3 pictures of it. Then post them on ALP (as someone else suggested) for voting by the group. Granted it is more work, but if the pictures are done during the setup and first free play phase it doesnt disrupt any other events and other people dont have to move or make way so someone can come look at the case next to them.
Prizes - I liked that the biggest prize was a door prize giving everyone an equal chance to win. As far as the suggestion of leaving some of the better prizes for the second day, the prizes were random draws so regardless of when the tournament was held, the same odds were in place for each prize. I do think we should seperate the tournament prizes from the door prizes (different tables maybe) next time just to make things a bit clearer. The issue with prizes is you never know what sponsors will respond or what they will offer as prizes so it is hard to plan in advance.
Tournaments - I thought they were generally well done once the bugs were worked out. It would be nice to get a clearer idea of who is interested in each tournament type further in advance. If the tournament "choices" were listed when people signed up, they could indicate their interest and the staff could get a better handle on what tournaments people want to play and perhaps schedule accordingly.
Venue - I didn't have major problems with space allocated, but it would be nice to have a bit more for drinks and such. If you brought a cooler it was hard to find a place out of the way for it. The hotel was nice enough and if you split a room it wasn't to costly. The location is easy to find and there are a lot of options for meals in the area. If we could get a bigger room and fill it, we may be able to draw more sponsors or receive bigger prizes from those we do have.
TronNet - The game prices were great and I took advantage of them. Luckily I didnt have any major hardware issues this year, but it was nice to know they were onsite in case I did.
Network - I had no lag issues during the games and that was great. The staff was willing to put up free play server when asked (if possible) and were pleasant to deal with. On internet I had mixed feelings. It was nice to be able to check my messages during the times I was not in a tournament but if it were not available at all, I wouldn't have any major issue with it either.
That's it for now. I may think of more later.
(Geek) Taint
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Well, I thought everything ran great except for the dropping of teams for the tournaments. I was thoroughly disappointed to find out two teams I was signed on to play with (one in BF2 and one in UT2K4 CTF) both left during the few hours during the night I was gone (between 12-4:30). I didn't even know they weren't there until the start of each tournament and was lucky to sign up with Fabio's team to at least play in the BF2 tournament.
I honestly don't have any suggestions to solve this problem but that's what I look forward to the most at the LAN events since having to win makes for a much more fun play experience. Hopefully, it won't be such a disappointment next time.
I missed the case mod contest so I don't know what went on there, so no comment.
I did miss the door prize drawings as I thought they were going to be done after the BF2 tournament for some reason. I'm probably wrong though.
All in all, great job guys! I didn't lag all night and aside from the power failure during a BF42 match (fault being my own and others in the area with too many plugged into the same outlet) it went great!
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My short, ub3r short review: The event Rocked except for Steam pwning us CS:S playerz. All the staff kicked @$$ and all the people were very kewl without craziness that can sometimes come along with larger crowds. It would've been nice to have a little more room for pow3r naps or coolers for drinks but that's trivial stuff.
As far as the case mod competition, I'm 100% for a voting on the contestants!
btw, yes I did place 3rd for one of mine and I honestly didn't think it would as it's just a clear blinged up bright case and I know others have put more custom work into thiers, but thank you.
(http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f4/0wn3r/bling.jpg)
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Instead of a winners bracket/losers bracket, perhaps would a NCAA style bracket work better for streamlining the matches and making things less confusing?
If you do a double-elim tournament, you have to have a winners/losers bracket.
In BF42 my team hit up the eventual champion (Geek) in the 2nd rond I think and lost, but we battled through the loser's bracket and made it to the finals. So instead of being a 2nd round ejection, we can claim a 2nd place finish.
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but clearly these are differnt leagues of cases and to have the Lego case not even place 2nd or third seemd to be unjust. Whats done is done and theres no going back i just think maybe for next year a better rating system can be put in place.
I'm in total agreement with this.. That lego case was more unique and well done than anycases done. Sure, u can buy some parts of thinkgeek, slap em in and call it a mod...buts its not a true case mod. The lego case was unique and required some real work and thought to make it work. The case mod contest was a joke...PERIOD!
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quite frankly... i am glad he didnt win with that case now. because the poor sportsmen ship brought about after the contest from him and everyone else is DISGUSITING. it is really pathetic.
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quite frankly... i am glad he didnt win with that case now. because the poor sportsmen ship brought about after the contest from him and everyone else is DISGUSITING. it is really pathetic.
Hey,
When you have 10-15 boo'ing because they feel the best actual case mod got screwed over it should make you think a little bit. Obviously there where 10-15 people who conpletely disagreed with the judging. It should of been a top 3 at least. U call it poor sportmanship, I call it bad judging...Either way, a good group of people didn't agree with it
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I didn't realize that this was such a big deal... If handing the person a $2 plastic trophy, and giving him a $3 light-up fan is such a big deal, we all need bigger things to worry about.
It wasn't as if the winner of the case mod contest won a new car or anything! It was supposed to be fun. Some of you take this stuff WAAAY too seriously. It was meant to be 100% fun.
I think we should all drop it and just relax.
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k, will do
but I think the reconition and such were the true meaning on why so many people got upset. The trophy and fan wasn't the reasoning, the ability to say that you were 1st in a case mod contest was the real reasoning behind this argument...
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Well, it has gotten more publicity then any of the other cases.
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wow douche thats taking it very personal! I didn't comment this thread to flame you. thats not very professional of you as a fites representative to make comments like that.
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Thread Closed.