Well, we're back after a *long* weekend of gaming, drinking and socialising. And was it fun? Was it ever! :D
The weekend kicked of on Friday as the first of the LANers arrived at the hotel just after lunch. By 4pm we had consumed several small barrels of laughing juice and decided that it was a suitably giddy moment to set up the computers. LANers went out to the car park and returned laden with electronic computational devices and other gadgetry. Winner of the 'Biggest Load in Transit' award goes to Ninja with his aging but humongous Ilyama 21" monitor. His prize? Piles ;)
Prize for "I had the Most Entertaining Morning" goes to Smilodon who had his suitcase (with clothes etc) nicked from the back of his car whilst he was in a Little Chef on the A1. I heard from Smilodon again this evening - apparently his suitcase was found with contents intact by the Police this afternoon. You see, Stryker was right, there *is* a reason not to wash your kegs :lmfao:
The LAN was set up and working moderately well in fairly short order. Biggest problem (again) was tripping the fuses on the circuit box. After about 8 sudden trips into darkness, we finally managed to get the power load balanced across the different circuits and no more power outages occured during the LAN. Some gaming started almost immediately, stopping only for a short time to allow yet more software installations to occur.
Big thanks to FatBob (sparky) for sorting the power cables out and pumping gorgeous Claire for the amazingly low LAN prices.
Big thanks to Benny and tugs, without whose 3 x 24 port Cisco switches we would have had to send our packets to each other via Royal Mail instead :blink:
Big thanks to Oldbloke for building and setting up the server. The dude couldn't even attend the LAN, but still put the work in for us. Way to go OB-wan :worship:
The pace picked up in the early part of Friday evening as we gathered in the bar, forcing some locals to stand out on the street as we had pretty much taken over all of the standing room in the bar! The drinks flowed almost as fast as the banter, in particular when we realised that we could get 2 days interest free credit by charging our drinks to our hotel room. For some reason there were a lot of LANers in the bar called Secret Squirrel, but hey, coincidence happens, right? :)
Friday night's meal was participation in the Hotel's now infamous 'Steak Night'. They had done us proud by producing a special menu for us entitled 'Dead Men Walking Steak Night' covering a range of all things bleeding. Orders were taken piecemeal as the folks out that way can't cope with cooking for more than 4 at a time, so the LANers were fed sometime between 7.35pm (first table) and 8.50pm (last table). A special 'dMw Ham of the Night' award goes to the hotel waiter who we reckon was actually an actor training for his newly cast role of Mr Humpries in the BBC remake of "Are You Being Served". Calls of "I'm free" were allegedly heard eminating from the kitchen, although this could not be confirmed by official sources.
Post meal entertainment was back on the LAN with servers for CS, Halo, BF1942, Live for Speed and UT2003 Deathball all running. Gaming stopped at about 3.30am.
Saturday morning kicked off with a full-on cholesterol attack for breakfast. Gaming started at 8.30am and by 10.00am everyone was back at their keyboards, fingering furiously (that must have something to do with Benny I'm guessing?).
The CS competition kicked off in the afternoon with a league of 5 teams, with 6 players in each. MR12, normal match rules with the matches played over 2 days.
At 8.00pm we all marched (no pun intended) off to the local chinese and took it over. I reckon it was the flash bangs that made them surrender :D They fed us up a darn good meal and nobody left the place still feeling hungry. I just hope that they realise next time that a booking for over 30 people requires them to have more than 10 bottles of Tsing Tao beer in their bleeding fridge :( Ah well, at least we have the memories of Albert's impressive speech as a consolation :P
After the chinky it was off to the LAN again to game into the small hours. Spirits were lifted by the Blue Label Vodka and Jack Daniels that Albert donated to the LAN. The games rolled on until 4.00am :D
A special thanks to our LAN Night Watchmen, Smite and Ninja for making sure everything was properly locked up at the end of each night/morning's gaming.
Sunday was a slightly slower affair, with gaming started at 8.35am ;) Some of us (not mentioning Albert or anyone else by name) were a little slower off the mark than others, but we all got their in the end :) To say that Albert's talents are wasted is probably an understatement. He drank so much on Saturday night that he will be 'wasted' for at least the next three days :blink: He was lucky not to pickle himself :lol: At least we were able to talk to his wife-to-be on Saturday evening and put her mind at rest about her betrothed :rolleyes: Anyhows, good luck witht he wedding next week mate from all of us!
The CS competition was eventually won in a deciding match between 'Eggsy's Ovoids' and ' Fatal's Elixir'. The winner was eventually decided in the last few rounds, so our congratulations go out to the team led by MisterEggs. Eggsy and his team each won a dMw LAN IV medal and the honour of being called 'lucky gits' by the rest of us ;)
A special award should also be given to DarkAngel for the most reinstalled computer of the weekend. We were going to give that award to Sheepy, but then as he has won it at *every* LAN until now we thought we would break the habit. Anyway, Sheepy's computer is *always* broken :P
MisterEggs also won a second award as he collected the prize for being the only person to turn up for the LAN without a computer. Yep, you heard it here first! But it was a close call, cos the idea of Smilodon wearing the same kegs for 3 days solid was a pretty close second, but the 'no computer' approach to LANing eventually won the judges over! :P
The Live for Speed competition was eventually won by the duo of JonnyAppleSeed and TeaLeaf. We won't say it was easy, but we'd like to thank Smite for running wide at the end of the straight - without which we would never have won!
The LAN eventually started to wind up at about 3.00pm, despite the intentions of others to game until about 5.00pm or later. But then some people had a plane to catch, didn't they Sadako
Game of the weekend was Halo. Simply awesome in multiplayer mode :thumbsup:
Anyway, that's more than enough for the post-LAN report. Thanks for reading peeps! It's all over bar the shouting, until dMw LAN V that is, which is scheduled to be held around Easter 2004.
TL.
A big thanks goes out to ALL the people that put soooo much hard work in behind the scenes to make Lan lV go so well ......
:thumbsup: :cheers: :thumbsup:
another resounding success methinks
well done all it was a fun weekend
only another six months for squirrell to wait before he can sit in front of his pc again !!!!!!!!!!!!
8)
Great LAN lads. I was home at 22.00 last night (your time). Lot's of turbulence and a crazy taxi driver, but I made it.
I am still a bit worried about that restaurant (?) me, Albert and Doorman went to after the LAN. I swear I could hear banjos ...
my vision hasnt corrected its self, ithink i may have drunk 2 much gin, and now my eyes are wonkey
hehehe, normal then eh sheepy :)
Great LAN, I must say, the best yet. And HALO really is the game of the moment.
:cheers:
Yeah, a complete pleasure, great weekend guys, especially the CS tourney :narnar: . The underdogs had their day, I don't think any of Eggsy's team have ever won a tourney match or LAN tourney match until this weekend (well perhaps JB has). Halo was superb as well and BF1942 was also great.
(http://www.deadmen.co.uk/pictures/cswinners.jpg)
The winning CS team.
Albert - Doorman - JB - MisterEggs - Squonk - Lionheart
Great Lan guys thanks for all the hard work that was put in by the organisers. It was a pleasure to meet you all again and I will be looking forward to the next one. Not directly Lan connected but all good wishes for Alberts wedding this coming weekend. My quote of the weekend from the aforementioned "Mr Humphries" was when Zok asked for a "veggie supper" was "Sorry we haven't got any vegetables" I forgot for a few seconds we were in March centre of vegetable wonderland. :D
What a great weekend. Throughly enjoyed it. Just hope next time i can miss out getting lost both on the way there and way back. I ended up driving 40miles the wrong direction! ended up on the M1 instead of the M11!!! :angry: :angry:
lol
LAN? :unsure:
LAN? :unsure:
what LAN?
have i missed something :blink: hic
mucho thanxo guys
yup great weekend :)
:cheers: Heres to the next one...
thanks to all those who made it possible :worship:
Thoroughly enjoyable and a great pleasure to make acquaintences with you all.
BIG thx to SMITEY for the shuttle and FATBOB , TL , BENNY and OB for the accessories.
I bet there are many thx from the rest of you for Benny's 74GIG of secretions?
Good luck Albert for the coming wedlock and i wager a bet that he babies her within a year!!!!!
SS pleassure to share the boudwar with ya
Main things to remember for me is
YOU ALL HACK F**Kin CHEATS [/SIZE]-------am i the only one that plays fair!!!!
QuoteOriginally posted by Rad_Man@Oct 27 2003, 04:12 PM
YOU ALL HACK F**Kin CHEATS [/SIZE]-------am i the only one that plays fair!!!!
Yes 8)
Quote
brass
My quote of the weekend from the aforementioned "Mr Humphries" was when Zok asked for a "veggie supper" was "Sorry we haven't got any vegetables" I forgot for a few seconds we were in March centre of vegetable wonderland.
Someother quotes were can i have some onion rings with that no not in the mood shes in. LOL :lmfao:
It looks like you guys had fun! Beer, computers and so! Hmmmzzzzz, sounds nice! Nice quotes BTW!
In the cold light of day and receding hangovers, a big hand for all those involved in setting up the networking so that everyone could pretty much just plug & play. That was this biggest difference (for me) from the previous LANs and it made the whole weekend the success everyone agrees it was.
3 day LANs are the way to go - no question.
DM
Yup what they all said. A quality weekend very well organised and much fun. Heres to the next one!! Three days are definately the way to go. Big thanks go to all who put in the hard work organising and setting up.
Good luck Albert hope we sent you off in style!!
Definately the best one so far.
Many thanks to FB,Oldie,TL and everyone else who contributed to putting the Lan together.
And a big thanks to Radman for a wonderful night of sex.
twas a pleasure , after GFK P O R N show ----- just had to try some of that stuff
u think GFK was good i was sitting next to benny!
cheers to all those who organised the LAN! Had i great time and it was good to put faces to names :). Have fun on your wedding day Albert!
0ni0n
Oh cheers for all that wine Doorman.
Yup it was like all them others said. Good fun.
Halo, brilliant game. :dribble:
Next time my team'll win :lmfao: honest. :blink: