Ninth Annual Week(end)-Long LAN Party

pubdate:2007-05-02

Prepare yourselves for the Ninth Annual Week(end)-Long LAN Party!

It will be July 6-8th.

Instructions

The head-count is nine people in total, which may drop to six or seven after Friday. Friday night will be classic UT night since a few people are coming out specifically for that. The rest of the party will be unstructured.

We will be starting early and ending early for a change; we’ll probably go from pre-noon until two in the morning (or so). For those of you not spending the night, get the fuck up to my place in the A.M.! We’ll have enough food for lunch.

Food

Complementary catering will be provided by Casa de los Casa. We’ll have barbecued chicken, potato salad, cold sandwiches, peanut butter, and frozen burritos. Bring a few bucks for pizza on Friday night, and maybe one other occasion (Saturday night?). Also, if you’re so inclined, bring your own beer (and maybe one for a friend).

Sleeping Arrangements

Bring a blankey (and a pillow, change of clothes, toothbrush, etc.). We’ll provide towels, and hidden cams for showering.

Equipment & Gaming Space

I will provide internet, extension cables and ethernet cables, as usual. Also, I have plenty of table space so just bring your shit and a comfy chair. I have a bunch of chairs, but they’re all of the metal-and-folding variety.

I have one television, if there’s to be dual-consoling of any sort, I’ll need someone to bring another.

Archived Comments

Joe

This is all well and good, but i just read an article about a guy named Gary Feltch. Check it out on page B8 of Thursday’s Tribune!

Captain Fish Clits

If you play WoW, I’m sure the illustrious Luke will not be able to join in, since you’ll all be doing level 70 stuff. Jerks.

But maybe he won’t be in town, anyway.

whiteinge

Gatt, Beatty and I haven’t done any post-60 stuff. Maybe something like a mass lowbie push would be fun. Like two three-or-four-man groups comprised entirely of Draenei Pallys (or something similar).

whiteinge

There’s gotta be a non-WoW game out there that’s worth playing, but it seems that every single one of us is either out of the loop, or playing WoW. Quick! Everyone ask their nephews what all the cool kids are playing these days.

MILKM3PLZ

So, I think that focusing on WoW isn’t going to work super well. We probably aren’t going to have a five people willing/able to do a 5 man group, esp. considering Gatt and Beatty don’t play. I think we should kick it old school. Get some lava giant, get some facing worlds, get some Q3 DM, warcraft III (not that we’ve ever actually played it), DotA, look for some cools mods to the aformentioned games, smash bros, guitar hero, maybe something for the Wii, dawn of war (?), command and conquer 3 (?), rise of nations (?), moonbase commander (?), diablo II (sullivan/jason, im looking at you), tribes?I’m sure we won’t all want to or be able to play the same stuff at the same time, so I think we shouldn’t even worry about trying. We spend too much time trying to get everyone on the same page playing the same thing?with only a weekend, I say “fuck it.” Let’s just have a fun time hanging out and tandem gaming. I see nothing wrong with four people hitting Gnomregan while we have a person playing amplitude, a person watching amplitude, a couple of people pwning in DotA, and a couple people sparring in WCIII.

That being said, I’d still like to - if possible - play CTF or DM with most/all of the participants at least once or twice. I just don’t think making a huge effort to get everyone on the same thing is going to work or will be fun.

whiteinge

I think James’ suggestion is great. Also, the majority of us have chicks atm, so bring ‘em if you got ‘em (chicks dig consoles)! The more the merrier. (Previous statement updated for slightly less sexism.)

Joe

Facing worlds is awesome. Do they have modern flush-toilets up there in Ogden? If they do we should try to fill the bowl up with piss.

Gatt

Beatty is definately on the right track with the piss idea. In fact, let’s forget the games and just drink coke and coffee for three days and see if we can fill the bathtub instead. Additionally I don’t really like the idea of us all jacking off doing our own thing, it sort of takes away from the idea of the LAN party. I do see James’s point and if we do tandem gamin I’ll try not to be a little girl about it, I would just like to think of a way to get as many people on the same page as we can. Hopefully that will be taken care of because we will find a new game that is so awesome nobody wants to even think about anything else. I remembered that I have a friend at work who games a ton with his brothers over LAN and Jon also seems to keep up pretty well on this stuff, so I will check with both of them.

Jason

I too do not play WoW. But, I will try to make an apearance this year. No school or work makes it easier.

Brandon

I’d like to play: 1. Either starcraft or dawn of war. I’ve had an itch for some old school starcraft ever since Jason asked for my cd key, and I don’t think we ever gave dawn of war a fair go. I think that if we play an RTS, it should be one of these two.

1. Tribes or one of the UTs. I thought tribes was awesome, but botless. If we are willing to take our sorry asses online, we should give it a go. If we don’t want to humiliate ourselves against strangers, we should make ourselves feel good by beating a team of UT bots.
2. DotA. The all tiny match we did was cool, even though this game sucks.
3. Console stuff. I’ll make sure that guitar hero is there, and I’d like to try out something for the wii.
4. Not WoW, at least if we can help it. I really don’t want to start another alt, and we play it all the time anyway. If we really want to do an MMO, it might be fun to hop onto a trial of middle earth online (assuming they offer a trial, most MMOs do). That stint we did with the D&D MMO was a good time.

MILKM3PLZ

I agree with most of the comments so far. I hope Gatt finds a game that’s so fun everyone just wants to play it and nothing else because that’s what makes LAN parties super stellar. Such a game is not always availible, however, as we’ve found in the past. If we want to all play the same thing, which I will agree is ideal but based on past experiences doesn’t always happen, we need to set up a schedule for playing certain games at certain times or unanimously agree to make the LAN party about one game. People have found the idea of scheduling restrictive in the past, but LAN parties work better if everyone isn’t a chaotic mob. I would agree that being a chaotic mob is fun if we all hop from game to game together spontaneously, but that hasn’t really happened for years and I think we should not gamble on that. I don’t feel that much, if anything, is taken away from the LAN party experience by organizing things.

I’d like for console gaming to happen. GFs like it, and guitar hero and amplitude are popular. Since consoles are 1-4 players we may have to CONSOLE gatton, but I think the LAN party would be poorer without them.

I really WANT to like dawn of war. I’d like to try that again, esp. if we can steal some expansions. Multiplayer starcraft is inferior to warcraft III, but I know that you pussies can’t manage heroes effectively so I will happily zerg your faces. Also, my GF may play.

I like UT! It’s still fun, and I don’t know why we ever put it down at LANs. LAVA GIANT FTW!

I can make another DotA questionnaire, and we can play a limited number of matches with fun rules (all pudge, all tiny, all rikimaru, -ardmscnpmmduid, etc). I think that will satisfy the people who want to play DotA “for real” and the people who secretly like it but can’t stand that they suck at it.

Starting an MMO a la D&D online might be fun, but perhaps ONLY if it’s D&D online. We already know how the game works, the rules, the strats, etc to some extent, and my concern is that if we play an another MMO we’ll spend 12 hours running around trying to figure out how to find our way out of town or open the quest log or equip our pants. I also enjoyed the way D&D online was presented and how the game worked. I think it would be a fun experience to play through that game for 8-16 hours with a static and balanced group. The disadvantage is that doing that would only be for a certain number of people and adding more later would probably be hard (quest pre-reqs, level reqs, etc). Also, we’ve already played through it for awhile before so it would take some of our very limited time to actually access new content. We could theoretically start single player accounts a week before (the trial is 10 days?) and get to level 4 or something, so we can start right off - maybe also read some strat guide so we aren’t wasting time running around lost after we’re done with the content we remember.

WoW can suck it for the duration of this party.

MILKM3PLZ

With apologies to Seth, here’s another thing I want to mention as early as possible: most of us don’t live in Ogden. In the absence of the traditional house, I want to try to find a place in SLC at which we can do this since most people live here. I know some people in my IT dept. do LANing, so I can ask them if we can use their space or if they have an unused building somewhere. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to hold this party so far away from most of the participants unless we have to.

whiteinge

With apologies to James, fuck your apology: none of you live in Ogden.

Since we’re gaming over a weekend instead of the traditional week, I felt a sleepover might be a good way to maximize time. If the sleepover is a no-go then driving to-and-from Ogden every day is silly. So what say you (all) to the sleepover?

MILKM3PLZ

Myself, I don’t want to sleep over. I don’t tolerate alterations to my sleep patterns well and I think it would be a logistical ass-fest to manage contact lens, showering, toothbrushing, bedding, food, and People Awake Gaming vs. People Asleep. Jenn has a lot of friends at Xmission, maybe they can hook us up.

Matt

Dang! I just missed the cutoff for the sleepover. Craptacular!

On a serious note, has anyone played any XMP lately? I understand there is a mod for UT2k4 that does XMP, but I haven’t followed its progress for ages. There should at least be some traditional LAN fragfest –all the better with vehicles of various kinds.

MILKM3PLZ

What’s XMP?

whiteinge

Unreal II: Expanded Multiplayer http://www.free-monkey.com/main/utxmp.php

MILKM3PLZ

I’m not sure if anyone besides Seth and I read this, anymore?

Thais

Hello - For the ones who would stay and not cry at night, I’ll make sure you are all well fed. We’ll even toss some steak on the menu. I am accepting suggestions for the menu by the way. For the ones who would cry at night and need to sleep on their nice and soft bed, the ride to Ogden from downtown Salt Lake is just fine, it takes me 10 from downtown to the I-89 exit and 15 minutes from I-89 to our house. Since you guys are doing this on a weekend, there is no traffic. Please come, we are excited to have you guys over.

Joe

Who the hell is Matt?

whiteinge

Matt is an uber-cool friend, and once (and hopefully future) co- worker that I met while working with Carson’s older brother (also uber- cool).

Incidentally, I’m not one to respect laws that I personally find undesirable; if Nat and Matt were to show up for the LAN, I would not turn them in to the age-police?

whiteinge

I don’t know how much i like the “lets design this around GFs” idea. (Thais can come since its her house) They might like consoles, but its more of a “whee, that was a fun ten minutes” kind of like, then they will be hanging around and distracting from UT and we won’t actually get any gaming accomplished. And the queef stench will be unbearable.

whiteinge

Perhaps they can pepper their gaming spurts with excursions to the local discount shoe-shop, as well as chat amongst themselves in that high-pitched, super-velocity chick language while they make us sandwiches

Brandon

Ok, to sum things up:

This will be 7/06(friday) through 7/08(sunday). I’ll likely be setting my stuff up on thursday, and I’d suggest that others do the same. Whoever shows up late friday, only to find out that they need to do major patching/harware fixing, owes $100 to each LANer that set up early.

We’ll be doing this at Seth’s house in Ogden. Travel times will be a hassle, but not as bad as some have made it out to be. The main advantage is that Seth has total control of the building, and we can keep whatever hours we want. Sleepover sounds good to me, but if people don’t want to do that, a half-hour drive each way isn’t anything to worry about. Oh, and we get Thais catering service.

For games, it seems like there is a good amount of interest in Dawn of War. If anybody wants to play online before the LAN party, that’d rock. I own the game, and the latest patch eliminates the CD check, so I can hook you up. FPS-wise, I think original UT is the way to go. Everybody’s computer can handle it, and it was featured at our alltime best LAN parties.

Gatt

Well it appears things are shaping up just as i had planned. James and Seth plan the LAN party with occasional input from Brandon and Beatty covers the jokes. Why did you need me to post?

whiteinge

How the hell else would we know everything’s on track if you didn’t let us know, Gatt? Geez!

Actually, we need you to handle the meat.

I’d like to do a Brazilian barbecue once or maybe twice over the weekend. Maybe an expensive one that everyone chips in for (like last year) on Saturday, and a cheaper one on Sunday (ribs, or something).

Think you can hook us up with some choice cuts of horse meat, Gatt?

MILKM3PLZ

Hey, I can finally access this page. Joy. Maybe I can take that Friday off, too, and set up Thursday like my bestest friend in the whole world Brandon.

I guess I’ll stop trying to find a place to do this closer to SLC, since I seem to be largely reviled for trying to save time and cut down on logistical cocksmackery. How dare I.

What’s wrong with having consoles, again? I don’t think any of our GF’s like FPS’s, but I think it will be fun to have them there.

Yay Dawn of War. Please install it and patch it. If you all wait until the day of the LAN to install and patch with only Brandon’s (and maybe Jason’s) CD, we will never play games together because it takes awhile.

BEFORE THE WEEK OF THE LAN, if you want to play WCIII, Dawn of War, Unreal Tournament (the first one), Diablo, Rise of Nations, Quake III, Starcraft, etc:

1. If you have the disk, please FIND the thing before you are about to leave for Ogden.
2. Please have the game installed.
3. Join an internet game, again and again, until you’re done patching.
4. Test the game to make sure it runs with your video card, sound card, network card, playing card, yellow card, green card, nutsack card, etc. so we don’t have to deal with that bullshit on LAN time. Actually play a game vs. the computer or something, don’t just see if you can start a game.
5. Expect that relying on burned disks and boot disks may be chancey, and it may not work. —>If you lack disks and don’t know people who have them, call around or post here so we can get you hooked up.

MILKM3PLZ

Well, that’s a solid brick of text. Too bad the spaces I put in there didn’t work, and I can’t edit my post. Suck it.

whiteinge

I got your back with the formatting, yo. (The afore-mentioned reviling notwithstanding.) Not that anyone will follow your instructions, anyway. (Erik! That’s you!)

MILKM3PLZ

Yes, I’m sure Erik won’t, because he is a pile of lame. So, Sullivan and I would really like to play WCIII (in addition to DotA) with other people at the party. Are any of you brave enough to learn how to play appreciate the game?

whiteingeh

Why play WCIII when we could instead play an actual Blizzard RTS?

j/k. I’m up for whatever. (And by “whatever” I’m referring to whatever genre WCIII is in.)

whiteinge

RPG R T S

MILKM3PLZ

If you (or anyone else) want to improve your WCIII skills and learn why you can’t play it like StarCraft, I can help you with some easy ways to play better and get into the right mind frame. We can play a 1v1 or two against each other online, then 2v2 vs. comps, etc. I’m happy to provide that service. Same goes for Dawn of War, excluding Eldar and Orks.

Joe

I want to play WCIII. can we play the “footies” map that pops up on the battlenet server listings?

Jose

Todo me suena muy bien todav?a. Puedo coger la carne. Tuvimos backribs en la barbacoa de buen viaje y estaban muy ricos. ?Que mas carne quiere? ?Ribeye otra vez? O si prefieres, Seth, puedo matar un caballo de mis cumpa?eros de trabajo y traer esa carne. Thais, debes decir a tu perezoso esposo que ?l tenga que aprender portugues entonces el puede leer los mensajes de Jos? y tengo por lo menos alg?n idea lo que diga yo, sin pedir la ayuda tuya. Ademas joda WCIII en su culo.

whiteinge

Google’s highly accurate translation of the above comment:

All it very well still sounds to me. I can take the meat. We had backribs in the barbecue of have a good travel and were very rich. That but meat it wants? Ribeye again? Or if you prefer, Seth, I can kill a horse of my cumpa?eros of work and bring that meat. Thais, you must say to your sluggish husband who he must learn then Portuguese can read the messages of Jose and I have some idea at least which says I, without requesting the aid yours. In addition joda WCIII in its ass.

MILKM3PLZ

Footies is a map that is, I believe, designed to help people learn how to micro.

Joe

what about the jurassic park map?

Jose

To be honest, I?m impressed at how well that translation turned out. It was wrong a lot, but that was based on context and the back asswards spanish syntax, which made the whole thing sound pretty fucking funny. Also that tengo at the end should have been tener, my bad. Anyway, they gist was that I?ll bring meat, I just wondered what kind specifically you wanted, and suggested that “in the barbecue of have a good travel” we had some tasty backribs which we could get again. Dawn of War sounds more appealing to me than Warcraft III, because I already know that the AI sucks in WCIII and I hate playing against human opponents because it feels like such a monumental waste of time when I inevitably lose because I never play, as you can see it is a vicious cycle. But maybe I could have a good time in an 5v5 game just building as many moonwells in hard to reach places as I can. Also if we wanted to have a 5 of us v 5 b-net nubs, that would be cool.

whiteinge

Lets collect money for an expensive cut of meat–ala last year’s bbq. We’ll also pick up some cheap $20 pork ribs because we’ll get a bit of mileage out of ‘em.

So, everyone pony up $10 or so for a slab of fantastic beef of Gatt’s choosing.

MILKM3PLZ

Every one is going to be on the same level for WCIII except Sullivan, myself, and Jason (level of proficiency listed in order). You shouldn’t worry about sucking.

Joeh

What if Rex comes? Isn’t he good too? Although i doubt the transponder Kristen put on him extends all the way to Ogden?

MILKM3PLZ

Rex is virtually semi-professional. He is the best of us, hands down. But he has no time and will not be coming, I’m guessing. If you want to know how to play the Orcs, Rex will give you more advice than you know what to do with.

+1 Luke of POWER!

Yo!

I’m back from Europe! (Almost!)

I’m planning to be at this thing, and Lindsay wants to come and play Smash Brothers and Mario Kart (and then probably distract me). Dawn of War sounds cool, I suck at Warcraft III, D&D Online sounds cool, Diablo II sounds cool, I want to try some Wii games, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t play at least one rollicking dota match, I’ll chip in for food, and I’ll plan on making the commute between Ogden and SLC.

Kisses to to you all.

MILKM3PLZ

Dawn of War Platinum is out. You can get both xpax and the game for $40, or 1 xpac and the game for $20 (gold edition).

whiteinge

What’s an xpax?

MILKM3PLZ

xpax = expansion packs

whiteinge

Oh.

You kids and your interweb slang!

Matt

Hehehehh?.he said interweb.

MILKM3PLZ

So, Seth, now that this is imminent, I have a bunch of logistical questions. I can help you figure things out if you want to call me or something.

How many people are going? And how crowded will your house be, and will it ventilation/temperature be a problem? Will it be too hot to sleep? Do we all need to bring chairs? Do we need to bring tables? Are your tables and chairs conducive to video gaming or are the tables really small or the chairs really angled back (etc)? Do those who are going to sleep over have space appropriate to their needs? Do you have enough food or a plan for how food will be handled, and if so, what is it exactly? Do we need to bring TVs for consoles or do we have enough (maybe we should figure out what “enough” is, too)? Is there space to comfortably play on consoles and computers while allowing walkways and space for people to scoot chairs back if they need to? Do we have enough outlets and cables for everyone, and do the cords stretch as far as they will need to?

If I think of more potential issues we can nip in the bud, I’ll post them.

whiteinge

Thanks, James. I’ve updated the post to reflect this info.

MILKM3PLZ

Lol, “boxen.”

4ngryk0ng

i can bring my tv if needed. it’s an LCD screen, so it’s light and movable, and will give us another tv to rot our brains with.

Jose Publico

Hey guys, drop everything! I have found the answer to our LAN dilema. We will all play abbatia, at www.abbatia.net it?s a game in which you build a medieval monestary and tend to your monks, their animals and you try to copy and translate various religious texts. ?Que te aproveche! Co?os.

MILKM3PLZ

Now’s the time to get WCIII and Dawn of War installed.

Thais

I recommend all to bring a comfortable chair. We’ve got plenty, but after a few hours it might hurt?unless if your butts are made of what Seth’s butt is, (he can handle it –programmer’s butt).

Thais

Opss? didn’t check the Equipment part? and Jose, voce deve dizer ao seu amigo Seth que ele tem que aprender portugues para que ele entenda o que estou dizendo quando estou falando mal da irma chata delej

whiteinge

Thanks for offering the TV, Jason! I think that will really make the consoling.

MILKM3PLZ

I’m thinking of fun party ideas, like little contests to determine who gets to choose the next “all hero X” dota game. Hopefully I’ll come up with something fun. I plan on typing up another survey for the Dota On-going Nub Gauging System (DONGS), as well.