Post mortem

[OldBloke]

Excellent job with the LAN ppl. My sincere thanks for the considerable effort you put in. GJ.  :thumbsup:

Now then ... with LAN IV fresh in your minds and six months to go before LAN V now is a good time to hold a review and decide what, if anything, we can improve upon.

Thoughts?

[smilodon]

okey dokey

Well we never touched Chrome or Chaser so I imagine we can forget about them.

Halo went down a storm. Some of the slayer maps were a bit "no brain" but the team maps with the vehicles were a blast. Voice comms would have helped but shouting across the room seemed to work   I'm not sure if the game could develop into one worthy of serious competition, but as a log in and have fun game it was unsurpassed.

BF1942 was also a blast, although I'm not sure how much of that was down to novelty value. There wasn't a great deal of co-op play apart from sharing helecopters etc. but a full on 10 to 15 a side game could have been fun. And someone really needs to learn how to fly the choppers  

UT2003 was fun for a quick shoot up and the deathball footie was played by some for a while.

Live for Speed was played a lot. It's tough but easy enough to get up and running fairly quickly. I loath racing games but it was a laugh for those that played it.

CS was CS  


Several people mentioned that they would have liked to have been able to download everything at home (or get discs from fellow attendees) so that they could set up beforehand. Installing on Friday was a bit stressful for some who couldn't get sound working or the controls set up etc. especially after a long drive. This included non dMw members, who don't have access to the leech. Personally I installed everything before I attended and it was a lot easier setting up and I had time to chat and meet folks etc etc on Friday. Also preloading games would help with driver problems and game compatiability issues.

A couple of three basic rigs for anyone who has real issues with their PC. These emergency spare PC's could help prevent a disaster for someone who develops terminal PC problems at the LAN.

[Dr Sadako]

Halo was a blast and without a doubt the game of the LAN. Personally I enjoyed the cooperative maps the most. Capture the flag was good fun but my personal favourite was king of the hill. Halo is easy to set up (although it needs the latest Nvidia drivers to work properly) and easy to get into. Voice comms would give this give further edge. A definite multiplayer game.

BF1942&DC was new to me but I enjoyed it a lot. The "hidden city lost lake" map was my absolute favourite as it was close to CS and with the hold the flags feature it added new dimensions to the game and tactics. Voice comms would help immensly in this game. If valve goes fubar this is an interesting alternative to CS. I must say I had trouble flying the vehicles.  :unsure:

Live for speed was easy enough for anyone to play but practice is of essence.

CS was CS but I think it was not played enough. Halo stole lot of thunder I must say.

Smilos idea with backup PCs is a good idea.

Regarding the games I think we can have it the way we had it actually. It is hard to predict what games will be played. Halo was the success of the LAN and I don't feel bad at all for not playing Chaser or Chrome. There will always be "problems" with distribution of games outside of dMw. Still I think if people have trouble with the games they should have approached the LAN admins. I had only a few questions regarding installation issues (all but one from a dMw members).

It was great that we had all the game servers running. It was easy to just check if anyone was playing and everyone new where to go.

[TeaLeaf]

Agree with most of the above.

The installation side, well I'm sorry, but most people had it sorted.  I even handed out a sheet of A4 telling them how to do it and who to speak to if they had problems.  I don't think we should get involved in the distribution pre-LAN of cracked games.

The experience would be improved if we ran a series of TeamSpeak servers to add voice com to the games that did not have it.  Halo & BF1942 *need* voice coms for each team and it would be an absolute blast if it was added.  *Why* did they not think of that pre-release?  :unsure:

The server being set up before hand was a real boon and nice and easy to run.  We had minor trouble adjusting player numbers to more than 16 for Halo, but otherwise most things went real well.

Next time I would like to run an OHP (or similar) projection on the wall of all of the servers running and the ports.  This would be particularly important if we had a number of different TeamSpeak servers running (one for each side for each game).  That way people would know at any one time what was up and running and what was not.

The feedback I was given at the LAN ont he competitions was that we go it just about right.  Not too much structure, but not too little either.  The CS comp went down real well and was *very* close.  The LFS comp was optional and provided some great light entertainment, even for the spectators.  I would say roughly the same next time for comps (cheers to Sadako for the extra prizes as well ).

My spare machine was used by Eggsy.....

TL.

[smilodon]

Originally posted by TeaLeaf@Oct 27 2003, 02:02 PM
The installation side, well I'm sorry, but most people had it sorted.  I even handed out a sheet of A4 telling them how to do it and who to speak to if they had problems.  I don't think we should get involved in the distribution pre-LAN of cracked games.
 

The few problems I was aware of were mainly driver problems, specifically Audigy sound issues with games and of course DA's troubles.

On reflection distributing cracked games doesn't sound such a bright idea ! And asking attendees to sort out their own copies (Kazaa E-Mule etc) would cause more problems that they'd solve, with different versions, cracks etc. So on reflection scrub the suggestion