i7 Quality Issues

[Deathjester]

[Apologies for incomplete post with same subject- my shelving collapsed onto the keyboard and sent the fikker prematurely lol]

Fellow i7'ers,

Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed myself and found the attendies of i7 to be a (largely) intelligent and honourable buch o' peeps with an *excellent* sense of humour, I thought the standard of the service was utterly dire.

Unfortunately my name is somewhat black among the admin staff no doubt, having caused my fair share of chaos in the [rife with cheating] CS tourney, also and when the driver of my group got thrown out in the wee hours of Sunday Morning for Porn resulting in myself and others also having to leave (I'll get annoyed if I even think about that so I won't raise that in this post), however, I'll attempt to make the MPUK staff aware of a few things:

Firstly, you over-estimate the technical knowledge of the attendies which results in many pepole unable to get the most from the event (I speak as a 3rd Computer Scientist UG). Most of the people on my row (CO-R) had never even heard of IRC never mind had running clients. I totalled up a good hour simply doing the admins job there.
I suppose it's fair of you to say that people should read the posts and educate themselves in the neccesary areas, but pls tell me you're not so nieve as to believe that will actaully happen- you should be there, on hand, and willing to help ASAP not, [ish]quote, "I'll just finish me fag mate"- can u imagine that happening at a £50 stay hotel??? My general impression of the staff was that they moslty wanted to disappear up stairs and shoot people- we paid you to facilitate OUR desire to do that, not yours.

Secondly, the commmunication between the members of staff was a joke- everyone passed the buck, including Wizzo who I (possibly wrongly) believe to be the Director of MP :/
There were many occasions where myself or a m8 was inquiring about one thing or another (eg CS tourney server IPs), and i got shipped around so much that i felt rather insulted by the 'you're just a kid' attitude i (perhaps wrongly) felt i was being treated with.

Assuming I'm not banned from i8, I would like to see more emphisis on customer-service next time. We pay your wages- you return on our investment pls, just like any other business. In fact, you strike me as a large enough company for basic business strategy to dictate that you should implement a dedicated Quality Assurance department.
Your current QA policy seems to stop at some 'make complaints on the forum' ********. I wasn't there at the end, but, i bet you didn't hand out any post-service questionnaires did you??

There are plenty of people who agree with me MPUK, i had about 5 people backing me up in IRC when I had trouble with Wizzo (who left the room btw), and many others i talked to around the venue were also unimpressed with your 'bugger-off-in-the-face-of-trouble' attitude.

Finally (mainly because this post is already massive, but rest assured i have a least another 10 specific issues to raise if MP decide to take QA seriously and get back to me), the issue of cheating:

Everyone there saw many instances of cheating I'm sure. 'Scorpion' was visably running a wallhack and aimbot (that's the guy who had the 20-1 kill ratios on Public 1, Friday), plenty of peeps were bunny hoping all over, 'Spandex-Boy' didnt kill except with headshots, the list goes on... and that's just CS for Christ's sake!

LOL- Bugs dude, you weren't very thorough in the [H-K] vs [CSC7] cs_office match were you? CSC7 were AT LEAST using an anti-recoil cheat or aimbot, and running a very impressive damage hack. Script based hacks are very simple to implement believe me, I have written my own since to demonstrate to my clan members:

//*DEATHJESTER'S SILENT (NO CONSOLE ENTRIES) SHOOT-STRAIGHTER SCRIPT 03:47 03/04/2000
//*Paste in cstrike folder as shtstr.cfg
//*Bind a key to the following in config.cfg (activates script): "exec shtstr.cfg"
//*Default deactivation key is KP_ENTER, but you can edit this below...

//SETUP ALIASES
cl_pitchspeed 4 //counter-recoil force
bind mouse1 "+shootstr" //assumes mouse1 is your attack key
bind KP_ENTER "off" //deactivation key

//DEACTIVATION ALIAS
alias off "bind mouse1 +attack" //returns attack key to normal attack function

//SHOOT-STRAIGHTER ALIASES
alias +shootstr "+attack; +lookdown"
alias -shootstr "-attack; -lookdown"

This script is very similar to the one CSC7 were using, it maintains accuracy for another 10 rounds or so with SMGs and rifles- virtually half a mag for the M1A1!

Also, some very clever packet-hacking was going on, I ran Ethereal (a packet sniffer) to monitor the gaming data during our (Clan [H-K])CS matches, and the damage codes comming in had values way in excess of the actual value for an M1A1 round: $17 (ish) vs $32 (ish)

As for the other major games- some1 who i couldn't pin down was using a maphack in Starcraft (one of seven others in a game), plenty of people in Quake3 had guideable rockets, and you really should look at the planetarion logs...

Feel free to quiz me on these assertions- I am currently being offered several £m investment from VC's for the anti-cheat & I'NET anti-LPB networking tech I am developing for my 3rd year project.

Just a final dig- your porn policy (i knew I couldnt resist it) is an absolute joke- you really think the fikkin admin staff themselves hadn't been swapping it??? Besides, its far less criminal than the VAST level of software piracy that took place. Grow up Admin, if you're investors are nieve enough to invest thinking that you are either able to stop porn-swapping or that it simply won't happen, then you had better find more intelligent ones before they screw you're company up.

Customers currently make the ix experience- supported by the fact even I managed to enjoy myslef. Listen to them, and ACT on what they say. You admin guys did little more than provide a few switches and cabling. There's definitley a load of enthusiasm among you though- lets see you channel it productively for i8.

Yours sincerely, and constructively,
Andy B.

PS- This post does not wave fingers at Bugalugs & Wraith, they acted as professionally as I'd expect, and I'm sure other admins were equally professional too, but generally...

[Phiebs]

Originally posted by Deathjester

also and when the driver of my group got thrown out in the wee hours of Sunday Morning for Porn resulting in myself and others also having to leave (I'll get annoyed if I even think about that so I won't raise that in this post),



OK - did you or did you not sign a form STATING that you wouldn't look at, share or transfer warez (illegal) and porn (illegal for some people in the room)? This then binds you to whatever is on the notice - which basically says that MPUK reserver the right to chuck people out if they think you are transferring, viewing or sharing porn/warez. There is nothing you can do on this on - but it sure makes people think twice, doesnt it...


Originally posted by Deathjester


Firstly, you over-estimate the technical knowledge of the attendies which results in many pepole unable to get the most from the event (I speak as a 3rd Computer Scientist UG). Most of the people on my row (CO-R) had never even heard of IRC never mind had running clients. I totalled up a good hour simply doing the admins job there.
I suppose it's fair of you to say that people should read the posts and educate themselves in the neccesary areas, but pls tell me you're not so nieve as to believe that will actaully happen- you should be there, on hand, and willing to help ASAP not, [ish]quote, "I'll just finish me fag mate"-



OK I'll go along with that... but not this...


Originally posted by Deathjester

can u imagine that happening at a £50 stay hotel??? My general impression of the staff was that they moslty wanted to disappear up stairs and shoot people- we paid you to facilitate OUR desire to do that, not yours.




OK - first off the staff DO NOT GET PAID. But the thing is, if you were in a £20/night hotel (thats being generous) (£50 / 3 days) then would you really expect people to respond to your every beckon call. Its the people who ask PERSISTANTLY to get something working. If you see he is 'having a fag' then try going out there with him, talking to him then he will be more than happy to do it AFTER he has spent 2 mins having a fag (bearing in mind most of the admin's had been awake since thursday or even wednesday).


Originally posted by Deathjester

Secondly, the commmunication between the members of staff was a joke- everyone passed the buck, including Wizzo who I (possibly wrongly) believe to be the Director of MP :/
There were many occasions where myself or a m8 was inquiring about one thing or another (eg CS tourney server IPs), and i got shipped around so much that i felt rather insulted by the 'you're just a kid' attitude i (perhaps wrongly) felt i was being treated with.




OK - if you wanted server IP's - had you read the page on http://www.i7 and it will tell you all you need to know.


Originally posted by Deathjester

Assuming I'm not banned from i8, I would like to see more emphisis on customer-service next time. We pay your wages- you return on our investment pls, just like any other business. In fact, you strike me as a large enough company for basic business strategy to dictate that you should implement a dedicated Quality Assurance department.
Your current QA policy seems to stop at some 'make complaints on the forum' ********. I wasn't there at the end, but, i bet you didn't hand out any post-service questionnaires did you??



OK - well seeing as you feel this way so strongly I am not sure if there is anything they can do? Im sure Wizzo or another MPUK admin will post replys to this, but I still feel that you are going way over the top.


Originally posted by Deathjester

Everyone there saw many instances of cheating I'm sure. 'Scorpion' was visably running a wallhack and aimbot (that's the guy who had the 20-1 kill ratios on Public 1, Friday), plenty of peeps were bunny hoping all over, 'Spandex-Boy' didnt kill except with headshots, the list goes on... and that's just CS for Christ's sake!

LOL- Bugs dude, you weren't very thorough in the [H-K] vs [CSC7] cs_office match were you? CSC7 were AT LEAST using an anti-recoil cheat or aimbot, and running a very impressive damage hack. Script based hacks are very simple to implement believe me, I have written my own since to demonstrate to my clan members:

//*DEATHJESTER'S SILENT (NO CONSOLE ENTRIES) SHOOT-STRAIGHTER SCRIPT 03:47 03/04/2000
//*Paste in cstrike folder as shtstr.cfg
//*Bind a key to the following in config.cfg (activates script): "exec shtstr.cfg"
//*Default deactivation key is KP_ENTER, but you can edit this below...

//SETUP ALIASES
cl_pitchspeed 4 //counter-recoil force
bind mouse1 "+shootstr" //assumes mouse1 is your attack key
bind KP_ENTER "off" //deactivation key

//DEACTIVATION ALIAS
alias off "bind mouse1 +attack" //returns attack key to normal attack function

//SHOOT-STRAIGHTER ALIASES
alias +shootstr "+attack; +lookdown"
alias -shootstr "-attack; -lookdown"

This script is very similar to the one CSC7 were using, it maintains accuracy for another 10 rounds or so with SMGs and rifles- virtually half a mag for the M1A1!

Also, some very clever packet-hacking was going on, I ran Ethereal (a packet sniffer) to monitor the gaming data during our (Clan [H-K])CS matches, and the damage codes comming in had values way in excess of the actual value for an M1A1 round: $17 (ish) vs $32 (ish)

As for the other major games- some1 who i couldn't pin down was using a maphack in Starcraft (one of seven others in a game), plenty of people in Quake3 had guideable rockets, and you really should look at the planetarion logs...



Well there isnt much I feel MPUK can do here - apart from speak to the clans involved. I have been playing CS since beta 1 and I feel that this problem of cheating has become more and more since about beta 7. Mayby run PB on the MPUK servers?


Originally posted by Deathjester

Feel free to quiz me on these assertions- I am currently being offered several £m investment from VC's for the anti-cheat & I'NET anti-LPB networking tech I am developing for my 3rd year project.

Just a final dig- your porn policy (i knew I couldnt resist it) is an absolute joke- you really think the fikkin admin staff themselves hadn't been swapping it??? Besides, its far less criminal than the VAST level of software piracy that took place. Grow up Admin, if you're investors are nieve enough to invest thinking that you are either able to stop porn-swapping or that it simply won't happen, then you had better find more intelligent ones before they screw you're company up.




OK - as I said before there is a sheet which each participant and spectator MUST sign and also more in the smallprint of the MPUK pack you got when you arrived in the event. There is no where you can go with this one m8. You sign it, then you are liable to be kicked out for anything to do with porn/warez..


Originally posted by Deathjester

Customers currently make the ix experience- supported by the fact even I managed to enjoy myslef. Listen to them, and ACT on what they say. You admin guys did little more than provide a few switches and cabling. There's definitley a load of enthusiasm among you though- lets see you channel it productively for i8.



OK well because I run and help run LAN's I know that just providing swiches and cableing is the LEAST of your worries. Do you know the funds involved in getting 850 odd people to one place? You have the venue to think about, power is also a biggie. Servers (LOTS of £££) and plust the network. Now trying to get all of this to work is one of the biggest troubles. Also the cleaning up process is absoblutely huge. I know because I have stayed late after a few of the early i-series and it does take forever and you are already knackered from 3 nights of hardly any sleep.

This is only my own rant and if I am wrong anywhere the please let me know, but for now,

see you later

[BugAlugs]

That was an interesting match that, I remember it well as I was waiting a while for HK to gimmie a ready signal and CSC7 where going bonkers as I kept restarting the round.

During that game, due to your cries of cheating I went to watch the CS club 7 players during the match, I was watching them for about 5 games of that round, and I have to say I was satisfied with CS club 7 players that at that point I could see no cheating.

Whilst I was watching he contuned to play very well.

Think I did as much as possible there, short of asking for a listing of his config file and a dump of his HL directory.


Other items not cs.

Event question sheets have been used before, but not enough of the cutsomers completed them.

pr0n and warez, can we stop it.. probably not but we have to be seen to make an effort. Its done for our protection and our sponsors and the venue etc etc. We are certainly not a warez and pron swap shop, if we find out that is your purpose your out and banned. You , us and them know there are limits to what we can do.

As for a 'little cables and switches', it simply is not easy or straight forward, I am still waiting to attend someone elses large lan so I can chill at the bar :-)

The support staff are not payed, other than granted free entry to the event.

Passing the buck... each member of the crew only has a small circle of influence, so it is likly that you will be passed to the person that knows. Perhapes a list of "whos Who and Where are they" would help. Stick it on the wall up and down stairs so both the new staff and the punters can see where to go ?

Who was the Starcraft players hacking ? certainly the latest FSGS server prevents most i was accused of hacking at scraft it appears that many punters where not prepared for experienced mass drone/scv/probes that enable you to get larger amounts of mins first time around.

Another thought is to get a Tourney/game desk down by the reception, so you chaps have a place to goto when looking for information and the people there will be serving that info only, ie not trying to admin/resolve network issues.

I doubt you will be banned, first time I had a finger waved at me mind, as its for somthing I checked over I am happy with that. If I did any buck passing during the weekend I do apologise, but it should have been only "you need a yellow shirt" "speak to DarkStorm (The lead CS admin)"

You will find we always act on feedback, and normally its always on the forums, and I am always available for feedback at the event.

You can hopefully tell we are always improving, as i7 was the best event so far (even though I ended up runing about 11hours of CS games :@) )

And of course thanks for your feedback, it all gets read I assure you.

[Strych]

I must say that I'm really disappointed to hear that someone didn't enjoy the i-series. I have read your post thouroghly, and would like to reply in a way that is as constructive as possible.

I am going through replying to your issues in the order you raised them, so please bear with me if it doesn't seem to make as much sense as it should. ;)

As for porn - I'm sorry that your drivers disregard for the rules ruined your and your mates weekend, but we can't really be held responsible for his decision to break the i-series policy. As for piracy being more criminal, it certainly is, which is why both porn AND WAREZ are banned, and people are made to sign a declaration on entry, as well as there being serveral posters around the venue. Sadly, even tattooing it on people's foreheads would not get it through, as we have learned in the past, and people are still silly enough to ruin thier and thier mates fun. :( Surely everyone can go a couple days without porn? Or is that some male thing?

As for the lack of yellow shirts - we took the decision to have all the staff centralised in a staff room so that we were easy to find. Our policy has always been that if you need ANY help, just shout and we will facilitate. We aren't psychic, and just don't have the staff to make sure everyone has a one-to-one setup on entry, but if you ask you will recieve. Even at 2am in the morning, as some people on a row with a dodgy switch found out. As for the service at a £50 a weekend hotel (considering a travel Inn (ick) is £49.95 per night), I think you'd probably get a lot less service then an i-series. Although with the welcome addition of an actual bed. :D

I certainly hope that you did not recieve any "just a kid" attitudes, especially as about 90% of our satff, including Wizzo himself are early 20s or younger, our youngest being little Reborn Phoenix, our teenage yellow shirt. Despite the fact I have at least 3 years on him afaik, I still bow to his vastly superior technical skillz.

Before I tackle the last, and most common misconception about Multiplay, I would just like to say that an after-event questionnaire is a very constructive criticism, and something we might well do at the next LAN.

This last thing is what most people think about MPUK, and I would really like to set the record straight.
We pay your wages
No. You don't. Because we don't GET wages. We get free entry to the LAN, on condition we work our asses off. Why do we do it? Because we love it, and we love multiplayer gaming. We aren't a big corporate company with unlimited funds and over-payed staff. The staff you see frantically running about at LANs ARE Multiplay. We are the admins, the techies, the QA, the webteam. We use our holiday from work and our weekends to put on these events. Its not always fun, and its sometimes quite stressful, but we enjoy it.

What makes it all worth it is seeing people go home, knowing they have had a good time. And if someone hasn't we really DO care, because we have worked so hard towards making the event perfect. Seen as we don't actaully employ anyone, our only comeback on QA is though email, forums, and IRC and we rely on our atendees to give us feedback to make the next LAN even better. I think anyone who was i6 will say that i7 was definately a cut above it, and hopefully i8 will improve a step further on this.

This is the first time I have been on the staff team, despite being at every LAN since i4. I was shocked as to how much hard work it really is. Red shirts especially do not "run off and play games" becuase we don't have to time to. I think myself and the CS team only got in a couple games at 3am. The rest was solid work, and a couple hours sleep. If we were lucky. I know Darkstorm spent all his time on the CS tourney, and played nothing all weekend. You have to worry about this lad's sanity. But we still all loved it, and we are all ready and raring to go for i8 :D

I do hope that this has been helpful, and that I haven't gone off on one of my tangents.

What I will add is this - if you have any ideas for helping stop cheating at future tournaments send it to darkstorm@multiplay.co.uk (head of CS) If you have any other feedback, on questionnaires or yellow shirt organisation or a good way to implimant the anti-warez and porn policy, please please mail it to any of us, and we WILL take note :D

~~ Strychykins ~~

[Deathjester]

OK roger that, Thanks for reading the (MASSIVE (sorry)) post.

I appreciate you're in a fix regarding the porn thing, but please don't hide behind the thing we signed- for starters, take a look at my sheet, and ask yourself whether my name is really Mickey Mouse- I'm reasonably used to LAN's ;)

As for chucking Gaz (half of clan [H-K]'s transport) out, look at it from my point of veiw- I had to leave early through no fault of my own, couldn't really ask my m8 for compensation, and at the same time, couldn't really ask you- hence my frustration. I'd like to snoop round the Admin's harddisks to see what I could find.... ;) Would it not have been enough to log his IP then monitor the transactions on his machine after warning him? He would definitley have stopped at that point and you could have gone the whole hog and kicked him out if he started to be naughty again, and even I would have agreed with you.

Regarding CSC7, you may remember that (aside the usual banter- which I definitle creamed the whole of CSC7 at), I took my hat off to them and appluaded their skill, because if they weren't cheating then they were simply some of the best CS players I have ever seen- they made [H-K] look like a bunch of newbies, and all who encountered us know full well we are a respectable clan ourselves. However, not being used to getting such a total battering, I decided to look at the game logs at a packet level when I got home (I can enter this analysis as part of my degree lol). CSC7 need slapping, if they come to i8 be sure to check every nook and cranny of the half-life dir and all the processes running on their machines. Better still, (seeing as cheating involved about 25% of the i7 attendance by my count), employ me as a fair-play admininstrator :) I reckon I can drop that figure to maybe 1% (across most, 'oft-played games) with a server and a couple 'o' boys to get busy on people's PC's. :))

If you're thinking about running serious tournaments in the future, you're going to have to tackle the issue of cheating, and that means a lot more than standing over someones shoulder (especially as most hacks can be turned off at the touch of a key). PB will go a long way for sure, but mostly your admins just gotta get acustomed to the current hacks and learn to spot 'em- the Barrysworld boyz are pretty good at this.

Most Starcarft hacks get stoppped by FSGS, yeah, but me and some peeps played on IPX across the net themselves. 'Xein or' something was the guy who I'd bet hacked. He saw too many drops comming b4 he had any right too, although it coulda been any of his allies i s'pose (Mr blah, Doofus & LeadFreak).
lol Bugs- there were some goddamn awful Starcraft players there- I know what u mean when u say people complained that you were 'building too fast' or some sh!t. They definitely didnt like my 12minute muta-rush ;) Never got to play you though, fancy a match online sometime??

Sorry Phiebs, but stating that your staff don't get paid is not an argument- I might be able to find a hairdresser that will work for free haircuts, but do I really think they will provide the service that the customer expects?

As for server IP's, ok next time ill go look at http://www.i7, but who or what told me to go there at i7? Maybe more than just adverts should be included in your welcome pack...
The tourney desk is a good idea- one which we use in my LAN parties ;p

Yep, just so you know, I run a series of LAN's sponsored by the British Computer Society called 'FragFest'. We only support about 50 players (much much much less than you obviously) but its enough to get an incling of the issues you have to deal with eg. the power thing- God yeah that screwed us up legally one time (current leakage & safety regs) that threatened to end the whole thing lol. Oops prolly shouldn't metion that...

Ok guys, you've convinced me that you want to step-up the service- get to it, ill be there at i8 (I think, I may have an exam problem) and I'll expect to A) see improvement in the ix service B) physically kick the living sh!t outta those s club wan|<ers c) have a beer with you boyz on me (cos I have, and always will be prone to making life a misery to a greater or lesser extent, and the victims deserve a break)

Andy.

[afty]

Can I please correct some mistakes in your post, and point out some considerations that may not have struck you?

Originally posted by Deathjester
the driver of my group got thrown out in the wee hours of Sunday Morning for Porn resulting in myself and others also having to leave (I'll get annoyed if I even think about that so I won't raise that in this post)


Perhaps you should be annoyed at the driver rather than at MPUK?
Participants are told that if they share warez or pornography they will be ejected from the event.
Participants signed a form to say they would accept this policy and abide by this rule.
This particular participant broke the rules.
He was ejected from the event.
As far as I'm aware, he knew the consequences, and broke the rules, because of his stupidity you had to leave earlier - so where on earth is your problem with MPUK? Perhaps it's easier to attack a company than someone who did you a favour?


Originally posted by Deathjester
Most of the people on my row (CO-R) had never even heard of IRC never mind had running clients. I totalled up a good hour simply doing the admins job there.


I agree that IRC is not ideal for comms, and something else should be used. However you totalled up a 'good hour'. Great - at the first event of this kind I attended I totalled up all day Friday and then about 4 hours on the Saturday setting up peoples network cards / settings / games etc.
Incidentally, just like you, I paid to get into that event but I was happy to help people out.


Originally posted by Deathjester
"I'll just finish me fag mate"- can u imagine that happening at a £50 stay hotel??? My general impression of the staff was that they moslty wanted to disappear up stairs and shoot people- we paid you to facilitate OUR desire to do that, not yours.


Well, first off the yellow shirt support staff you spoke to are *not* paid any cash. They merely get free entry to the event, and if they help during setup days they get a free pizza / burger king. SI TEH BIG MONIES!!!111
Second of all the event is not a £50 hotel. In a £50 hotel you get somewhere to sleep and perhaps a cheap fry up in the morning for 3 nights. Quite cheap really.
At this event you get floorspace to sleep (it's not easy to find venues that will do this), desk + chair, electricity, cabling, switches and servers preconfigured tournaments to compete in, free entry to the raffle, and free technical support for configuring your PC.
I think £50 is is an exceedingly low figure to be paying for this - perhaps we should think about paying the support staff a good hourly rate. I would expect somewhere in the region of £15-£20 an hour for that kind of work, in extended shifts during out of hours work.
Considering I did 9am - 9pm on Friday with just a coupla hours breaks and then about another 6 hours on Saturday I'd say that's somewhere in the region of £300 for myself. Multiply this by 25 to get the number of yellow shirts and we're talking an extra £7500 on top of the cost of the event.
This adds an extra £10 per person to your £60 not including VAT and transaction charges, this also does not pay the blue shirts or red shirts (web/server team and tournaments team) who would also have to be paid if we started paying other voluntary staff. So let's call it an extra £20 per head - all of a sudden it's not so cheap to get professional services in on that kind of basis.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Secondly, the commmunication between the members of staff was a joke- everyone passed the buck, including Wizzo who I (possibly wrongly) believe to be the Director of MP :/


Yes, the comms between staff was not great, however each member of staff is responsible for his/her area and we are not jacks-of-all-trades. Wizzo is 'the main man' in MPUK yes, but again he has his own areas to cover, and is not responsible for fixing every problem - he delegates this to other people. This is how every efficient organisation in the world works.

Originally posted by Deathjester
There were many occasions where myself or a m8 was inquiring about one thing or another (eg CS tourney server IPs), and i got shipped around so much that i felt rather insulted by the 'you're just a kid' attitude i (perhaps wrongly) felt i was being treated with.


I don't know about the attitude, but as for being shipped around - did you try asking Darkstorm, the guy in charge of CS tourneys? I know most people who came to me with a question during the weekend had the attitude:
"OI You! What's the answer to xxxxxxx. Well, why don't you know?"
Not the one that would have got them sorted the quickest:
"Excuse me, who do I ask about xxxxxx and where can I find him?"

Originally posted by Deathjester
Assuming I'm not banned from i8, I would like to see more emphasis on customer-service next time. We pay your wages- you return on our investment pls, just like any other business.


I covered this earlier...

Originally posted by Deathjester
In fact, you strike me as a large enough company for basic business strategy to dictate that you should implement a dedicated Quality Assurance department.


That's the most hilarious thing I've heard this week. Do you know how many full time employees MPUK has? None. (well, now Wizzo has completed his degree (congrats) he has more time to spend, so maybe he is classed as full time now?).
Perhaps we should re-allocate some of the staff from the 'we eat cakes' department, which is clearly overstaffed to quality assurance?


Originally posted by Deathjester
Your current QA policy seems to stop at some 'make complaints on the forum' ********. I wasn't there at the end, but, i bet you didn't hand out any post-service questionnaires did you??


These quetionnaires have been done in the past, but response is poor. Besides that, whom is going to give up their weekend to write them and pass them out, then give up many nights of work to collate the data and turn it into a readable form, and write a report on it? You? I don;t know, you tell me - are you willing to get involved with MPUK and help out?

Originally posted by Deathjester
Finally (mainly because this post is already massive, but rest assured i have a least another 10 specific issues to raise if MP decide to take QA seriously and get back to me), the issue of cheating:


Please post those issues, we *do* try to improve every event, and in most areas we do.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Everyone there saw many instances of cheating I'm sure.
BIG RANT ABOUT CHEATING...


Well, to be quite frank we don't write the games do we? Cheating is impossible to stop at the moment due to the way most games trust the client for information. If you have a problem with cheating, take it up with Valve or Blizzard, I'm sure they'll be happy to lower the quality of play in their games in order to implement better encryption. I'm sure they'll be willing to emply another department full of people to write anti-cheating functionality and software suites in return for no extra revenue.
That is one reason why the tournaments are not run for large prizes - because people cheat.


Originally posted by Deathjester
Feel free to quiz me on these assertions- I am currently being offered several £m investment from VC's for the anti-cheat & I'NET anti-LPB networking tech I am developing for my 3rd year project.


Nice plug ;). Tell you what, when you're rich from these millions will you license the software for free/extreme low cost to gaming organisations, or will you try to make every buck you can from it? And incidentally, what is an anti-LPB tech? I pay out good money for a quality internet connection and I don't fancy having that quality degraded in any way to accomodate Danny, 15, from Portsmouth whose pocket money won't stretch to both ISDN and zit cream.


Originally posted by Deathjester
Just a final dig- your porn policy (i knew I couldnt resist it) is an absolute joke- you really think the fikkin admin staff themselves hadn't been swapping it??? Besides, its far less criminal than the VAST level of software piracy that took place. Grow up Admin, if you're investors are nieve enough to invest thinking that you are either able to stop porn-swapping or that it simply won't happen, then you had better find more intelligent ones before they screw you're company up.


JESUS
WEPT

Off duty policemen don't speed... no sir. Off duty policemen who are caught stealing don't go to the admin office, and have the ticket conveniently lost? No sir.
HERE, HAVE A CLUE.

As for investors, as far as I'm aware it's the family Fletcher (Wizzos family) fronting the cash for the operation which is largely self funding. And as for stopping porn swapping - we are aware it will never stop, and that warez will continue (until MS implement their securePC anyway). Howevere there is a policy in place. It protects MPUK from legal recourse by the authorities should warez, pron etc. be found on the network in the event of an investigation.
These rules are in place for a reason and if you break them, and get caught you're out. Simple. Even for a student.

Originally posted by Deathjester
You admin guys did little more than provide a few switches and cabling.


GET CLUE.
Once you're in the real world, and have worked for a few different companies, then come back and say the same thing. I used to be pissed off all the time with people thinking that students didn't have much of a clue as to how real companies are run, but now I look back and see how true it is for 99% of them. You sound very much like you are in that 99%. You obviously have no idea of the logistics behind such an event.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Yours sincerely, and constructively,
Andy B.


Thanks for the comments, but many were factually incorrect, or just plain wrong showing naievety. We appreciate you trying to be constructive though, and would appreciate the other 10 grievances you mentioned.


Now for my wee rant: (and I will point out now that I do not specifically mean yourself, as I didn't deal with you, I'm talking generalizations...)

Never in the history of my attending gaming events have I come across a group of such unfriendly, demanding, ungrateful, unco-operative people as I did at i7. It used to be a pleasure for me to turn up and help people out, whether I got in free or not. Those helping out got compensated for their time, efforts and expertise usually by a smile and sincere thank you, often by a drink or a meal (after all, £2 is alot less than you would pay an engineer at PC World or your local computer store to install hardware) and you would often chat for a while, probably join in a game of something once their PC was working, and from that point on make a point of acknowledging them when you saw them.

At i7 there were a few people who were friendly, jovial and genuinely appreciative of the work that was done for them, but the vast majority acted like ungrateful brats after receiving help. Thanks to those who were mannerly and pleasent to deal with, you guys kept me sane during the weekend, but as for the rest, you've lost the benefit of my help in the future.

I attended i7 as a member of staff. I helped out in the tech support team because I haven't really done enough to help the company on the web front (my area of expertise) recently and it would be somewhat unfair of me to get a place for doing so little. During the event, I:

Installed and/or configured somewhere in the region of 15 networking cards, about 5 of which were troublesome and very time consuming.
Helped about 20 people with software related problems, IRC problems, configuration problems.
Diagnosed a dead CPU, dead PSU and gave someone a network card from my own spares box which I never received back.
Got requests from many, many dozens of people for information on tournaments / game servers. Dealt with some myself and passed on those I couldn't.
Escorted into the event about 40 or 50 people, made sure they knew what they were doing, helped out a few who needed help setting up etc.

Now about 3 or 4 people showed genuine gratitude and said thanks with a smile, offered me a drink etc. (none of which ever materialised, but it *is* the though that counts, I'm not being sarcastic).
Of the rest, maybe half even bothered to thank me before they or I left, with a sneer, usually without even looking at me. The other half said nothing, 'expected' everything to be solved within a few minutes and were exceptionally ungrateful. Some even went as far as to have a go at the venue, the competition organisation, swearing (though not directly at me) and almost spitting blood.

Because of this distinctly frustrating and unrewarding atmosphere, I've decided not to attend an event again as a Yellow Shirt for the foreseeable future. If I get plenty of work done for MPUK outside the events, I'll attend in the blue shirt capacity, and help out there. Otherwise if I haven't had time to get enough done to justify a place, I'll pay my money and turn up as a customer. I'll probably still help people out with problems who are sat near me but at least I'll be able to tell some of them where to shove their tower cases when they start acting like pretentious tossers.

[zhardoum]

I Had hoped to let Wizzo know privately and respond before announcing this, but this as good a time as any.

I feel the same way as afty, and considering the amount I pay to attend as Staff I feel as though I must be mad continuing doing so considering the amount of agression and frustration we are faced with doing this job for free.


Now about 3 or 4 people showed genuine gratitude and said thanks with a smile, offered me a drink etc. (none of which ever materialised, but it *is* the though that counts, I'm not being sarcastic).
Of the rest, maybe half even bothered to thank me before they or I left, with a sneer, usually without even looking at me. The other half said nothing, 'expected' everything to be solved within a few minutes and were exceptionally ungrateful. Some even went as far as to have a go at the venue, the competition organisation, swearing (though not directly at me) and almost spitting blood.

Because of this distinctly frustrating and unrewarding atmosphere, I've decided not to attend an event again as a Yellow Shirt for the foreseeable future. If I get plenty of work done for MPUK outside the events, I'll attend in the blue shirt capacity, and help out there. Otherwise if I haven't had time to get enough done to justify a place, I'll pay my money and turn up as a customer. I'll probably still help people out with problems who are sat near me but at least I'll be able to tell some of them where to shove their tower cases when they start acting like pretentious tossers.


I see nothing in the above quote that i can disagree with, and I think it is time enough for me to put my feet up a little. It saddens me a little but the effort I make to do what I do for MPUK just isn't even slightly noticed by the players, and as such, I believe thatI would be a fool to myself to continue doing so.

This isn't a fault with MPUK at all, just merely an observation on the clients we have attending and their attitude towards what we do for them.

Afty meet me at the bar at I8, we can both buy each other a drink !!

[Edited by zhardoum on 4th April 2001 at 12:41]

[[KEA]Chairman]

Afty and zhardoum,

You should come sit in the UT section. Not only are we near the bar but we are exremely civilised and polite to each other. Plus we can commiserate over exactly how much it cost us to attend over the weekend:(

Chairman

[zhardoum]

Thanks m8, I will be sitting I hope with two marvelous chaps, smartmonkey and Zeb, who have been very helpful and have given their own time up to help others, including me in times of need.


You sound like one of my kind of people, come and say hello and ill gladly share a few beers whilst having a chat, good on you for offering!.


I won't go on, but thanks for offering, good on you m8.

[afty]

Originally posted by zhardoum

Afty meet me at the bar at I8, we can both buy each other a drink !!


Considering we don't have to stay sober enough to deal with dodgy network cards / switches I propose we make that "buy each other a drink or five".

[Deathjester]

Afty,

How ironic that u should treat me with that 'just a student' attitude i mentioned earlier. Cheers mate- I need all the allies I can get, and it's all the sweeter if they're from where you'd least expect it.

!!!

Also, pls read my second post again in case u missed it, your post seems to relect this assumption.

As for the content of your post itself- you'll notice that mine did not insult any individual or party, simply pointed out dissatisfaction with their ACTIONS. You have stooped to insulting me, which demonstrates A) your lack of mental maturity B) your ineptitude with interpersonal relations and personnel management and C)that you should never be employed in a management capacity.

[Deathjester]

BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER HIT THE SUBMIT SWITCH OOPS




Afty,

How ironic that u should treat me with that 'just a student' attitude i mentioned earlier. Cheers mate- I need all the allies I can get, and it's all the sweeter if they're from where you'd least expect it.

!!!

Also, pls read my second post, as it mentions some things that might make you wish to retract some of your assertions- your post implies you missed it.

As for the content of your post itself- you'll notice that mine did not insult any individual or party, simply pointed out dissatisfaction with their ACTIONS. You have stooped to insulting me, which demonstrates A) your lack of mental maturity B) your ineptitude with interpersonal relations and personnel management and C)that you should never be employed in a management capacity.

Roger that regarding the wages issue. If its true that Multiplay are non-profit making, then yes, I conceed that the i series is in fact VERY good value for money, and I applaud your collective efforts. Well done.

The cheating issues are still valid though, as is the holier-than-thou attitude exhibited by some of the staff (naming no names here afty...). It's true, most people are fairly ungrateful and impolite, I've had plenty of work/leisure experience to demonstrate this to me, and when helped I like to think of myself as the guy who says thankyou etc, but I'm also a fairly firm chap and I (being under the impression I was paying wages etc) felt that I had to adopt a certain business-like attitude to get a response from the admin I was dealing with. I hope Bugs remebers that I was fairly polite when I popped up to see him about Starcraft and CS ditto Wraith regarding Freespace 2 and the yellas who I quizzed quickly form time to time re. Allegiance/nearest loo/tannoy reqqies etc.

Regarding my hotel comparison- bad choice of words- i should have used something that didnt entail sleeping quarters etc. but anyway £50 no wages = fair dos np.

A for the porn, yeah I'm mad at Gaz, but I honestly think you could have refrained from chucking him out- you scared the poor guy so much I doubt he'll ever look at the stuff again lol! (big softy you see). The only poeple who know about the porn are the people doing it, ergo they are no the ones likey to do anything silly with it and jepordise ix.

FYI LPB = 'Low Ping Basta*d' BTW ;) And if you rate your skills with a ping thats a third of us (apparently spotty, although im sure ive met you face to face and I know who has the better looking GF) students, then u are a very sad player. Do you play football vs paraplegics?

10 Misc issues/suggestions:

1) Allow punters to put forward tannoy requests to find people and the more obscure games.

2) Welcome pack should have IRC help details for those who dont know the ropes, ditto IP's for servers, weekend itinery, staff list, venue details etc. NOT a bunch of adverts :/ There's a hell of a lot you can do with those packs- maximise the potential of them.

3) Survival guide posted on website- torch seemed to come in handy, ditto loo paper etc.

4) Tourney desk (as mentioned since first post)

5) Intranet needs an overhaul.......

6) Roger Wilco support (this may have been implemented but i didnt get around to trying as we were all sat together)

7) Beermats lol

8) Bins- small thing but Christ will it make a difference.

9) Retail stalls? Dunno if this is feasible, but I'm sure some hardware vendors would jump at the chance to rant at a captive market of videogamers ;) You could demand 10% !! (maybe fronted as a 'rent' for the venue cost which you're incurring)

10) Back orifice ICE on the servers, esp the FTP and HTTP. No-one tried it, but people have done so at Frag Fest and myself and another entertained ourselves playing our own version of 'Netrunner' by smacking the bejesus outta each others PC's with it (I won) We coulda really smashed the servers up, um, assuming they were NT that is. Were you running Linux?

Lastly, while you seem to be very quick to defend the i7 situation, you're not so quick to suggest improvements, unlike Bugs who is being constructive about this. Maybe that's why he's one of the guys in charge?

Andy.

[Strych]

I have to say that I have heard from the yellow team that the people at i7 were, on genreal, less friendly than at previous events. I have to wonder whether this is because people do think we are a big company, and not that we are volunteers, and do it because we want to, not because we have to / need the money.

At i4, it really felt like there was little division from the staff and the customers, and this has deteriorated as the LAN has got bigger, and people have started seeing MPUK more as a company and less as a bunch of people who organise LANs.

On a good note, there were no really unpleasant people that I came into contact with, and the in-need CSers were most cordial, despite being ran round after by a clearly unbalanced, sleep-starved blonde in the middle of Friday evening. Fluffles to you all lads. :D

~~ Strych ~~

PS - DeathJester, have you not noticed the "edit" button? :p
PPS - Just read that post through, and yes Bugs does 0wnz0r us all *sigh*

[Edited by Strych on 4th April 2001 at 13:57]

[Deathjester]

Um

ok ok time out- what with the edit button thing???

[Strych]

You see the puuuuuurdy little buttons under your post? The one with the pencil and the piece of paper is "edit" :D

See how you can change what you typed even after it has posted! Ah, the miracles of modern science

Fluffles

~~ Strychykins ~~

v Right about there

[Deathjester]

DOH

Now if you'd have put that in the welcome pack i wouldn't have had a problem hahahahahah

Just kinding folks seriously

No, serioulsy! :p

I've just been checking the other thread i started with a copy of the first post- its made me fairly interested in helping out at a future i series event. If you need a resonably keyed up net-tech or game server admin or yella whatever, drop me a line at iddqd_idkfa@hotmail.com

As for discussion along these threads, would it be worth setting up an IRC channel for an hour to converse a bit more easily?

Dunno, maybe overkill.

Um strych, are you the bird who really realy didn't like the joke I made during the sign-in??? Sorry about that..... erm.... been in a car for 5hrs, kinda got a bit excitable.... ya know how it is being squashed up against a 21inch lead-lined monitor (For Gaz's porn machine lol)

Have a good day all i think 6hrs running through my 'local' forums and email is quite enough for one day. Ooops.

[Phiebs]

OK - I can see where you are coming from m8..

1) Allow punters to put forward tannoy requests to find people and the more obscure games.

- Sure if you asked they would...but imagine 850 ppl doing it...yet feesable i s'pose

2) Welcome pack should have IRC help details for those who dont know the ropes, ditto IP's for servers, weekend itinery, staff list, venue details etc. NOT a bunch of adverts :/ There's a hell of a lot you can do with those packs- maximise the potential of them.

- I agree completely there, but the details on network setup were on the i-series site m8....

3) Survival guide posted on website- torch seemed to come in handy, ditto loo paper etc.

- Again i feel this is a point MPUK should look at, although there is a small checklist on the site...

4) Tourney desk (as mentioned since first post)

- Yup...

5) Intranet needs an overhaul.......

- Why? And in which aspects - worked fine for me?

6) Roger Wilco support (this may have been implemented but i didnt get around to trying as we were all sat together)

- Have you used RW - it is a private thing - not a central server as that really would get FULL of people saying 'SCHLAAAAAAAGGGGGGGSSSS' wouldn't it...

7) Beermats lol

- Who can disagree :p

8) Bins- small thing but Christ will it make a difference.

- Now that is one thing I found myself looking for all weekend...

9) Retail stalls? Dunno if this is feasible, but I'm sure some hardware vendors would jump at the chance to rant at a captive market of videogamers You could demand 10% !! (maybe fronted as a 'rent' for the venue cost which you're incurring)

- Think MPUK have already looked into this (???)

10) Back orifice ICE on the servers, esp the FTP and HTTP. No-one tried it, but people have done so at Frag Fest and myself and another entertained ourselves playing our own version of 'Netrunner' by smacking the bejesus outta each others PC's with it (I won) We coulda really smashed the servers up, um, assuming they were NT that is. Were you running Linux?

- Havn't ever had this problem as I believe BO needs a client AND SERVER???


Thats all for now!

[Grom]

If I can just stick my nose in...

Deathjester, perhaps this bit of Afty's post escaped you:

Now for my wee rant: (and I will point out now that I do not specifically mean yourself, as I didn't deal with you, I'm talking generalizations...)


I can't see any 'insults' in the post before that, except perhaps a couple of exhortations to 'get a clue', which I think you will accept were mostly justified.

You, by comparison, have taken Afty to task on his attitude, his personal skills, his position in MPUK, and even his appearance and that of his girlfriend!

I think you should take a lot of time out to work on YOUR arrogant attitude, and to discover the difference between 'firmness' as you so quaintly describe it, and downright rudeness.

I applaud your decision to volunteer as an i-series admin, but I think you should bear in mind that being part of the MPUK team is about what sort of person you are, rather than how much you know about r33t packet sniffers.

Grom

PS - I find your assertion that 25% of i7 attendees cheated to be absolutely extraordinary. I saw some people cheating on public servers, but it was obvious they were, it was late at night, and it was quite funny. Nobody used any visible cheats in the tourney, although I saw some excellent players. I think you are trying to blame your slight disorganization and failure in the CS tourney on outside factors rather than yourself/selves.

[afty]

Originally posted by Deathjester
Afty,
How ironic that u should treat me with that 'just a student' attitude i mentioned earlier.


You didn't mention a 'just a student' attitude anywhere earlier. Look carefully :
Originally posted by Deathjester
i felt rather insulted by the 'you're just a kid' attitude

I did however notice that you are a student, and your over-optimistic assertions about what the admins do at the event are way way off the mark, consistent with those who deal with theoretical as opposed to the real.
I was a student until just 12 months ago, and what I've learned since then is shocking. I see flaws and a general lack of business acumen in myself (and almost all of those I was studying with) back then that I had no comprehension of. I've had enough experiences with various companies in the last 12 months to teach me a lot of lessons, but I'm sure I will continue to learn as time goes by.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Also, pls read my second post, as it mentions some things that might make you wish to retract some of your assertions- your post implies you missed it.

Not really - you mentioned that you organise 50 player LANs? Trust me, been there, done that and it's absolutely *nothing* compared to one ten times (or 15 times) that size. The logistics involved are worlds apart. I'm not decrying organising one as being trivial (as you seem to feel setting up an 800 player LAN is) but it is orders of magnitude easier than a LAN such as i7.

Originally posted by Deathjester
As for the content of your post itself- you'll notice that mine did not insult any individual or party, simply pointed out dissatisfaction with their ACTIONS. You have stooped to insulting me, which demonstrates A) your lack of mental maturity B) your ineptitude with interpersonal relations and personnel management and C)that you should never be employed in a management capacity.

I suppose my post did insult you a little towards the end, and if it upset you I am sorry - you did infuriate me with your naivety and assumptions about the people who tried their best to help you all weekend. As for:
A) It varies wildly with my mood but I'm glad to say I can be immature on regular occasions, and mature when appropriate.
B) I don't feel I have a problem with either of those, and I'm sure if I called upon them my friends would testify to the same (although admittedly, they would call me a lazy twat :) )
C) We shall just have to see, shan't we? My current employment now sees me as team leader (of four) for the New Media department - 3 months after joining the company - a role I was never originally envisaged for. The managament of a 23 year old company which makes profit year after year would appear to disagree with your statement.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Roger that regarding the wages issue. If its true that Multiplay are non-profit making, then yes, I conceed that the i series is in fact VERY good value for money, and I applaud your collective efforts. Well done.


Thanks for the acknowledgement, and taking the time to voice it

Originally posted by Deathjester
The cheating issues are still valid though, as is the holier-than-thou attitude exhibited by some of the staff (naming no names here afty...).

I don't see how the cheating "issue" is valid. What can MPUK do other than watch occasional players, and if they are playing well, look further into it. Can you imagine the uproar if a legitimate player was kicked from a final for suspected cheating?
I firmly believe in innocent until proven guilty, and that has to apply here, even though we are not dealing with 'laws' as such.
As for holier than thou let's get something straight. I do not feel that I am holier than thou more that I am annoyed by thou lack of consideration and aforethought.

Originally posted by Deathjester
I hope Bugs remebers that I was fairly polite when I popped up to see him about Starcraft and CS ditto Wraith regarding Freespace 2 and the yellas who I quizzed quickly form time to time re. Allegiance/nearest loo/tannoy reqqies etc.

It's good to hear that, and I appreciate your concerns about information distribution. I feel it is one of our weak points, and when I get around to writing a wee report on how I feel we can improve the experience for customers at future events I'll be sure to include a few suggestions about dissemination of information, and organisation of non-standard games. Incidentally, it is myself and/or Fearhawk to find if you wish to find out about Allegiance.

Originally posted by Deathjester
A for the porn, yeah I'm mad at Gaz, but I honestly think you could have refrained from chucking him out- you scared the poor guy so much I doubt he'll ever look at the stuff again lol! (big softy you see). The only poeple who know about the porn are the people doing it, ergo they are no the ones likey to do anything silly with it and jepordise ix.

I'm afraid it's not as simple as *doing something silly with it*. If it was, we would have hung Wizzo years ago (at ScotLAN, in fact) :) - but more that as soon as the porn/warez appears the i series is jeopardised. If one attendee is not such, and is instead investigating on behalf of FAST they won't need many instances of illegal data to close down MPUK LANs. Because MPUK organise closed events we cannot claim 'common carrier status' - meaning we are liable for the content on our network. It's rather complex legal gubbins which I only partially understand (IANAL) but what we do is necessary.


Originally posted by Deathjester
FYI LPB = 'Low Ping Basta*d' BTW ;) And if you rate your skills with a ping thats a third of us (apparently spotty, although im sure ive met you face to face and I know who has the better looking GF) students, then u are a very sad player. Do you play football vs paraplegics?


Ummm - this is *stops self from insulsting again* a bad analogy. No I don't player football against paraplegics. Looking past the childish remarks about your ugly minging bitch ho' (alright, I've never actually seen her... because I left the lights off :p ) can I try an analogy on you?
If my team of footballers (no paraplegics) play against yours, are you going to make my team wear 60lb backpacks because they bought Adidas Predators, whereas your team are only wearing hand-me-down running shoes from their big brother? No, it's a stupid idea.
Incidentally, I have a really low spec PC as I haven't been able to upgrade for ages (too much zit cream to buy) which often drops to 5fps during combat in CS. Do you think you might cripple other peoples machines I play against because they paid out more money for their gaming rig so as to have an advantage? No, it's a stupid idea.
Incidentally, you should also be aware of the lag induced in human neuron transmittal (far, far slower than speed of light). I am six foot four tall, and the latency between my brain passing an instruction and my fingers acting upon that instruction is in the region of 20ms slower than a person who is five foot tall. So is your software going to detect peoples height and give me a ping advantage (around 1.5ms per inch) if they are not as tall as me? No, it's a stupid idea.
Furthermore, physical fitness levels have a significant effect on the reactions of a human being - are you going to use a microphone on their PC to measure their heart rate at rest, a webcam to measure their approximate weight to find out their body mass index, then use this data to inhibit their ability to play? Of course not, it's a stupid idea.
In addition, you might like to know that age significantly affects your peak reaction times, so perhaps we should consider someones age if the previous test signifies they are likely to be at peak reaction level - it starts dropping off soon after 13 years old (or thereabouts) so let's penalise everyone older than that shall we? Of course not, it's a stupid idea.
Finally, you are able to train your reactions through repeatedly carrying out exercises that use them - so we should have our software monitor and track how often and how much people play each individual game and then increase their latency accordingly. ummm - no???

So, to recap - if we are going to be completely fair then the next time I play against against a fat, unhealthy, 43 year old guy from israel when he's on a P166 with a 33600 modem and hasn't played so far this month, your system should cripple my ping down to a minimum of 1458ms with 60% pl - 'because it's not fair otherwise'.

Now, just a little reminder about life:
1] It's not always fair.

Originally posted by Deathjester
10 Misc issues/suggestions:
1) Allow punters to put forward tannoy requests to find people and the more obscure games.

While a good idea, it is open to abuse (BING-BONG...The Rocket Arena 3 guys are still waiting on Phil McCravity and Seymour Butt.) and will need review.

Originally posted by Deathjester
2) Welcome pack should have IRC help details for those who dont know the ropes, ditto IP's for servers, weekend itinery, staff list, venue details etc. NOT a bunch of adverts :/ There's a hell of a lot you can do with those packs- maximise the potential of them.

Agreed, the welcome packs could be much better.

Originally posted by Deathjester
3) Survival guide posted on website- torch seemed to come in handy, ditto loo paper etc.

Exactly what were you using a torch and loo paper for? :) I can see how they would be handy, but I've never needed either at a LAN where they weren't provided for me.

Originally posted by Deathjester
4) Tourney desk (as mentioned since first post)

This is something under consideration

Originally posted by Deathjester
5) Intranet needs an overhaul.......

The intranet was pretty new, and is under continual development. I would ask you to provide us with more specific suggestions, so we can implement them.

Originally posted by Deathjester
6) Roger Wilco support (this may have been implemented but i didnt get around to trying as we were all sat together)

'support' - The network we are on runs TCP/IP as does Roger Wilco - you are quite welcome to use it if you bring headsets and have a decent microphone.

Originally posted by Deathjester
7) Beermats lol

Now that is a good idea :)

Originally posted by Deathjester
8) Bins- small thing but Christ will it make a difference.

Yes, the main rooms had bins, but not enough, and the newer smaller rooms didn't I think.... Something for the venue to sort out.

Originally posted by Deathjester
9) Retail stalls? Dunno if this is feasible, but I'm sure some hardware vendors would jump at the chance to rant at a captive market of videogamers ;) You could demand 10% !!
Marketing and promotions are a large part of MPUKs history and model, many invites are made but in the current recession which is hitting tech companies very hard, there is little support for things like that. Trust me, many have been invited.

Originally posted by Deathjester
10) Back orifice ICE on the servers, esp the FTP and HTTP. No-one tried it, but people have done so at Frag Fest and myself and another entertained ourselves playing our own version of 'Netrunner' by smacking the bejesus outta each others PC's with it (I won) We coulda really smashed the servers up, um, assuming they were NT that is. Were you running Linux?

The web and FTP were running M$ OS's - AFAIK they were patched and properly configured so that the only way to down them would be a concerted DDOS attack (relatively simple on a 100MB LAN) but then as your traffic is monitored comprehensively by the central switch (Extremeware is supposedly really good) it's not hard to trace certain traffic / activity down to a certain seat - as I'm sure you're all too well aware by now.

Originally posted by Deathjester
Lastly, while you seem to be very quick to defend the i7 situation, you're not so quick to suggest improvements, unlike Bugs who is being constructive about this. Maybe that's why he's one of the guys in charge?

Andy.
Yes, Bugs is a star and he is in charge because he strokes everyone regularly, maybe he also wants to be one of the guys in charge (crazy man) - something I certainly don't. :) - I'm happy to be constructive and my list of ideas and suggestions will wing it's way to MPUK management once it's complete - unfortunately some of us have jobs, and must now put in a lot of hours to make up for last weeks time off, which means I can't write it for a while.

I'm happy to listen to your views, and am glad you submit them to us, I merely take exception at factually incorrect statements and naivety.

[Culture]

With regards points 2 and 5

2) - install guide together with two ini files which move/copy the old ones to allow you to "point a click" to get on IRC.

5) - i assume you mean the content here - the entire thing was half way through a massive overhaul when it was used.
Things are a changing.

[[KEA]Chairman]

Er Admin type people is it possible to merge these 2 QA threads into 1? I think that this kind of thing is really useful but don't want to have to post to both.

Chairman

[Strych]

Originally posted by Deathjester
Um strych, are you the bird who really realy didn't like the joke I made during the sign-in??? Sorry about that..... erm.... been in a car for 5hrs, kinda got a bit excitable.... ya know how it is being squashed up against a 21inch lead-lined monitor (For Gaz's porn machine lol)


Erm, dunno. 72 hours with no sleep does strange things to the memory.
If the "bird" you insulted was a tallish, red-shirted blonde, wandering round aimlessly in her socks, then yes, it was indeed me. Feel free to share said joke with me in order to aid my memory retrieval.
If, however, it was not, then, congratulations, you have just insulted one of the other female MPUK staff (put of a total of 3, I believe) Expect to be on the receiving end of the duct-tape at i8


*fluffles*

~~ Strych ~~

[Joey[kins]]

Well, I think that it's my turn to voice my opinions on this post... most of it has been covered so far, but I do like the bottom section...
Originally posted by Deathjester
Customers currently make the ix experience- supported by the fact even I managed to enjoy myslef. Listen to them, and ACT on what they say.
We do. In fact one of the reasons I was bought onto the tech team for i7 was because I gave Wizzo a lot of positive feedback and constructive criticism over i6... however I did first make sure by reading up on the subject in hand that all of my "narks" were well founded. And yes, the customers do make the i-series events, it'd be fairly pointless doing everything that we do if the 800+ of you didn't turn up...
You admin guys did little more than provide a few switches and cabling.
a few switches and cabling? please... if you can organise 30 people to put up 850 chairs, 425 tables, 1000 varying length cat5 patch cables across 4 floors and configure about 35 switches in 12 hours, i'll be very impressed. but that's not the end of what we do is it? I personally did a sweep of floors 2 and 3 attempting to track down the rogue DHCP server which was causing so many people problems, in addition to fixing the problems that it caused, installing the network cards for people, fixing non-network related problems with some pc's (which we're not supposed to do, but we do anyway) and generally running around the whole venue every time 1 of the 850+ machines developed a fault which could have put the owner's weekend in jeopardy. i gave 1 person who's cpu burnt out on the friday my own athlon 850 to test whether their board was still working. as it happened it wasn't, but i was prepared to lend him my chip and buy the 1ghz chip from the bloke sitting in front of him because he couldn't afford a new cpu. as it happened the board was also fried but that's not the point. i volunteered as a yellowshirt because i thought that where i helped people at i6, that was all the work they did too. having been staff at i7, i totally understand why they don't pay to get in - in fact i'm having difficulty believing that we don't get something, cos feelings of well being and satisfaction vanish when we read this drivel. i played about 6 games all weekend, 3 games of allegiance, and 3 games of CS with a bit of planetarion as well. i got about 7 hours sleep between wednesday night and sunday evening, and because i'm not yet entitled to holiday pay actually lost about £150 from attending i7 as staff.
There's definitley a load of enthusiasm among you though- lets see you channel it productively for i8.
there was a lot of enthusiasm about me until i read this and some other posts... i'm having second thoughts about whether i do anything "productive" for i8, but if you know a way of making unpaid volunteers more "productive" or as someone else put it "kisk some yellowshirt ass" then feel free, i'm sure you'll find the response from 25 sleep-depraived, tired, undervalued 16-40 year-olds quite "invigourating"

[Edited by FearHawk on 4th April 2001 at 20:10]

[BugAlugs]

You will find I already have stepped out of the 'red shirts' lead for the next lans, for the same reasons mentioned by Afty and Zhar...

being a fool I will probably return in a different role, who knows, I will certainly still be the StratLAN venue wh0re! After next meeting with Wizzy and the team we shall see.

All of our new team will be most upset by these posts, and I ask you all not to take it to heart, the STAFFlan should providie more than enough fun and frolics to reward you for your efforts (but you need to do another i-series event first thx)

Time for more Black and White, which really does have me

[WhiteKnight]

Fear hawk...

but I do like the bottom section...

Hmm.. I have heard that.. :D

DeathJester

Rant... Blarb... Rant.. Flibble.. Rant..

Erm, get a clue.. wake up and smell the silicon, there is a real world out there and you obvoisly arent paying much attention to it.

This sort of event is by no mean "Just supplying switches and cables". In fact if you were to try and get a company to supply you a 900 port fully switched 10/100 lan + power for 900 odd PCs (i`m including servers and staff) installed and working in under 24hrs, they would ..

A) think you were completely insane !
and
B) charge you an absolute fortune ( probably well in excess of £500,000, but thats just a guess ) to do it.

Afty & Zhar..
Round of applause.. i completely agree. May i buy you both many pints at i8 :D.

Although i`m not a Yellow shirt, my mate is, and he was constantly being bugged by people who were about as courtious as, as, well a very un-courtious person :D
Even when he was taking a break.. I mean.. You cant or shouldnt expect ANYONE to work constantly for 24hrs straight, let alone 48 or 72 !!!

I dont think i would do that job if you paid me ! So i think to all that did "Well Done!"




[Edited by WhiteKnight on 4th April 2001 at 18:56]

[<WDB>Shadow]

bloody essays

[WhiteKnight]

Yeah i know.. it took me a good hour to read through all that and reply !!

[DCHlilo]

The ammount of work goes into the network is amazing, I don't think anyone should criticise that. The way it is done in my opinion is excellent, there are ways which would improve the network but they would cost a lot more money and really wouldnt be worth it (is a ping of 30 really to high for you people)

Perhaps if they banned tribes they could get rid of the vlans ;o) (bloody noisy tribes players)

I dont think you'd be looking at £500,000 (just think how much money that is =)) for the network setup, most of the work would be done prep in the offices and then they would send contractors out to install it to their plans, probably 10k max ignoreing hardware cost.

[Deathjester]

Well chaps, if we are to conclude anything from these threads, then its that the level of service should be clearly stated on both the website and hard material, and that the staff are volunteers.

If this had been so- then many of the issues that lead to me and others feeling 'hard done by' (for want of a better expression) would not have been raised so vehemently, and a more accurate persepctive of the event would have been held by all.

I urge Multiplay to point out to it's punters that it is a volunteer-powered event and that as such, no expectations on the level of service should be made.

I also urge Mutliplay to pay for afty to come get in the ring with me; how's his Boxing/Taekwando/Ju-Jitsu?

Oooo thats a bit immature...

Nah, ill leave it in all the same ;)

[Deathjester]

Agreed- the network itself was fine, and I havent ever said anythin derogatory about it, nor intend to. Dont ask me how that issue came about, all I said (albeit rather flippantly) was that the staff seemed to have done little more than set it up.

[Strych]

I think that this has been a bit of a sensitive thread, as the punters feel they didn't always get what they expected, and the staff hold thier efforts very dear. I think, now that both sides have stopped flaming, we should simply draw on the construcive issues form this thread and leave it be. Indeed there are some things the staff can learn, and hopefully the atendees have likewise learnt that running in guns blazing isnt the best way to do things either.

~~ Strychykins ~~

[Deathjester]

agreed- pls see my latest post on the other side of the thread......

[WhiteKnight]

DCHillo:

Yeah i agree the price may be a little high :), but YOU should re-think the amount of effort required.

But first you have got just the actual hardware..

40 x 24 port switches ( -1 port for uplink) @ £650 each.
40 x Uplink cables @ approx £35 each (to allow for varying lenghts)
2 x Extreme Core Switches to connect it all @ £8000 each
900 x short Uplink cables @ approx £7 each (to allow for varying lenghts)
30+ x Servers @ £2000 each (approx)

You are looking around £100,000 just for the BASIC hardware.

Then you have the power hardware, the power installation.
The Tables, that chairs, the promo material, the software...

Then you have the wages for the network techs to:
A) Setup the switches.
B) Setup The wireing
C) Setup The servers
D) Layout the tables (with patch leads)

And all at overtime rates 'cause we are talking a 24Hr last minute installation.

Now we are arent talking pocket change ?! :D

I mean £500,000 may be an over estimate, but not that far if you add it all up in the real world. ( bear in mind that the cheapest company we could find to do JUST A BIOS UPGRADE on our core switch and garantee its sucess was over £1000 !!)
And thats just to setup the lan, let alone support it :eek:

Now after reading all that you should realise exactly WHY this is the LARGEST event of its kind in this country. Simply because of the insane logistics involved.

</rant>

Sorry if i got a bit tetchy, but these excessivly long posts wind me up :D

Wubs and fluffles to all concerned :D

[Edited by WhiteKnight on 4th April 2001 at 21:42]

[afty]

Originally posted by Deathjester
I urge Multiplay to point out to it's punters that it is a volunteer-powered event and that as such, no expectations on the level of service should be made.


Good idea, there's actually a whole load of good points and ideas come out of this thread.

Originally posted by Deathjester
I also urge Mutliplay to pay for afty to come get in the ring with me; how's his Boxing/Taekwando/Ju-Jitsu?

Oooo thats a bit immature...

Nah, ill leave it in all the same ;)


Glad you did, and yes it is a bit immature. You know, you're the second person on these boards who's flamed me and then mentioned physical violence ;)

Incidentally my boxing/Tae-Kwondo/Ju-Jitsu isn't up to scratch - I gave up boxing years ago and I don't go in for any poncy martial arts. I've yet to meet a person highly trained in martial arts who can win a fight against a fit, experienced bar brawler with a pint glass in his hand.

I know you're only jesting, but some people might want to watch their words. Bravado goes a long way until people are face to face. :)

[Groodles]

Originally posted by afty
Originally posted by Deathjester
I also urge Mutliplay to pay for afty to come get in the ring with me; how's his Boxing/Taekwando/Ju-Jitsu?

Oooo thats a bit immature...

Nah, ill leave it in all the same ;)


Glad you did, and yes it is a bit immature. You know, you're the second person on these boards who's flamed me and then mentioned physical violence ;)

Incidentally my boxing/Tae-Kwondo/Ju-Jitsu isn't up to scratch - I gave up boxing years ago and I don't go in for any poncy martial arts. I've yet to meet a person highly trained in martial arts who can win a fight against a fit, experienced bar brawler with a pint glass in his hand.

I know you're only jesting, but some people might want to watch their words. Bravado goes a long way until people are face to face. :)


4 words:

"Boot to the Head" ;)

[afty]

Originally posted by Groodles
4 words:

"Boot to the Head" ;) [/B]

I am relying upon the fabled boot to the head to come to my aid. :)

[DCHlilo]

you want to talk expensive try getting cisco to rush out an emergeny IOS flash card when yours is wiped =) thats fecking $$$$$, (or a few pints in the pub if you know the right bloke)

Mike

[Deathjester]

Yeah ok i should have decide against the 'fightin' talk', it was a cheap shot.

Although I'll just point out I have won several junior and University TK compos- FULL contact ITF tourneys i might add...

Bravado? I believe 'confidence based on previous experience' is a more apt phrase >;)

As is OWNAGE.

[Sandy]

That was so funny
I thought you were going to bitch as us/me for swearing at people across the room, or the fact that my FTP server comes on every time i reboot (not hosting anything illegal btw)

...why watch/share porn films in the middle of an event you have just paid £50 to get into and you signed an agreement not to or get kicked out.

[Big Giant Head]

It would be hard for us to bitch at people for swearing if they'd ever been anywhere near the staff room ;)

[WhiteKnight]

Thats preciesly why we ask for parental consent for under 16s.

[Groodles]

Originally posted by Deathjester
Yeah ok i should have decide against the 'fightin' talk', it was a cheap shot.

Although I'll just point out I have won several junior and University TK compos- FULL contact ITF tourneys i might add...



There you go again, with the fighting talk and the boasting. Please grow up and get some arguement skills without resorting to childish bragging.

Besides, no amount of martial arts experience would prepare you for the onslaught of 10+ Multiplay staff armed with 3 rolls of Duct Tape and a gimp mask........ ;)

[MONK]

And the whip!

[DCHlilo]

what is chaffing? i mean people have threatened to "chaff" DCH but like i really do not know what it is, but if it involves a post and 4 people then I guess it hurts...

Im considering coming under an assumed name now, im getting scared all this talk of violence =),

[Cabe]

Think of it as "Extream Chaifing" (Spell?) of many a sensitive region. :)

As in Wizzo:- Chief Chaffer

[DCHlilo]

I thought it was were legs are grabbed and person is ran into a pole with legs open, thats what used to go on at my school,

[Cabe]

Nooooo, 'course not. Your thinking of the "Grab-Them-By-The-Legs-And-Run-Thier-Nuts-Into-An-Uncaring-Post" game, this is the "Grab-Them-And-Hold-Them-Down-While-An-Uncaring-Post-Is-Inserted-Via-The-Rectum-Several-Times" Game.

[Ataraxia]

damn, afty et al, you're gonna be pissed at i8! lol

I'll but you a pint too!

there's a lot of negative vibes going on in this thread, which is a massive shame, but i suppose it can only be constructive in the long run.

I REALLY ReALLY enjoyed myself at i7, the 3 times i did ask for help, the yellow/red shirts were very helpful. the 3 problems i had were:

internet connection sharing was buggering up my network config... the guy i asked helped me get it sorted in about 1 minute flat.

I had a d3d problem which i just COULDN'T figure out. Another yellowshirt came out to help me staright away, who I now know to be Reborn Phoenix. we couldn't get it sorted, but I thanked him anyway.
I've now found out what it was - Matrox g400 doesn't support hardware acceleration in 24 bit colour, but it DOES in 16 or 32 bit.... DOH

and the 3rd problem was with the gamespy master.. it wasnt responding, so i went to the staff room, told a guy there. (a redshirt) - he said there was no problem with it, so i said, 'you sure?', he checked, lo and behold - problem. it was fixed by the time I got back to my PC.

overall, a BIG FAT HAND to all the MPUK staff, who are all stars (even when they scare me by coming and 0wnz0ring Overide)

Atar

[TheGuyver]

Just a few pennies worth.

Just got off the phone with a "forum watcher" and i said, "well on the whole no real problems...."

Then i had to calm him down from laughing too hard.

Sigh.

I think a lot of things that needed to be said have been said, but maybe by the wrong people, and certainly in the wrong context or tone of conversation.

Is there any need to recap? Well maybe a few things. Me being in charge of the yellow shirts means i treat this very much like a job. Whilst i was sat on my arse most of the event, that was to ensure things kept running smoothly and concisely.

I only witnessed One such occourance where a Yellow shirt simply told the customer "Sorry im not on duty at the moment" At which point looked as if he was about to leave the poor customer to get on and find someone else! I stepped in and told the yellow shirt in no uncertain terms he would serve this customer there and then.

While i take this job very seriously and goto the ends of the earth to make sure things are running ok, i find myself against the odds in finding others who have the same feelings. Not saying this is a problem BTW.

The yellow shirts are asked to work a number of hours, with a number of hours entitled for breaks and for Gaming. (yes we like to play the odd one too!) Now Some undoubtably do a lot more than is asked of them, however some do not. (or have not in the past) Perhaps this has never really been explained to the general public and i agree in part that it should be posted.

Or we take it back a one step further. We could REQUIRE the customer to have a network card installed pre the event, and also the PC to work Pre the event, else we give no support. I sympathise with your unfortunate dealings during i7, but to do something really effective we need Hard evidence (like these irc logs for example) or a name or a Description. It would make our lives so much easier and not go down a road of hardship if persay there were simply just a couple of yellow shirts that were letting the side down.

All in all most of the feedback about the event has been positive, and at the very least constuctive. And its these sorts of comments that we will act on. Everyone has a different story, and each story has 2 sides. I think thats just the way it is.

Now not to take away anyone elses thunder, or belittle other staff, i think it would be much more appropiate to direct any problems you had with the yellow shirts to me, the Yellow Shirt Leader so at least i can do something about it.

Also i feel that sometimes you are very correct about the level of communication, not at the event so much but now.
Ive been on irc almost everynight this week, and although i didnt have the time to go thru the message boards, i would have at least thought that someone would have said to me "Hey Ross best come look at this" Since it is questioning (to an extent) my capabilities as a Manager of the yellow shirts.

To sum up.

I feel that some valid points have been made generally, but now its time to focus them and put them into prespective and assatain whether we really do have a serious Attitude/aptitude problem on the yellow shirt team.

Please dont post back to this thread as it is getting tedious. In fact, email me your phone numbers (those who have posted greivences here) and ill be more than happy to have a proper chat.

tguyver@multiplay.co.uk

P.s. No im not paid either, and while i accept that flak IS part of the job, paid or not paid, that is a decission i have made and i do not expect others to follow suit.

We have lost a couple of Good yellow shirts who have quit over this whole thing. Which is where the sadness lays.

Anyways im off home now after a hard days work. Gnite all!

[Zeb]

While we're at it, we should make sure that none of the yellow shirts get drunk....as they're trying to be professional and all!!

j/k :-)


- Zeb

[DCHlilo]

I thought it was well known that i-series staff get blotto simply by using alchohol based aftershaves :o)

[Joey[kins]]

only phoenix is that much of a lightweight

[Wizzo]

Ok thanks to all the customers who provided some good feedback on where i7 could have been better. I've printed out a copy of this thread (and the other one) and will be looking at ways of improving things in time for i8.

I'm sure you can understand that with an event of 840 machines (and over 1000 gamers in total), it is far from perfect and we are bound to have a few things go wrong. For this we can only apologise and vow to make the next one even better. It's a continual learning experience, but every i-series event has improved upon the last, and the overwhelming concensus is that i7 was by far the best yet.

You can rest assured that i8 will be even better. If you haven't posted all your thoughts on this board already then please email me at wizzo@multiplay.co.uk or to the general address feedback@multiplay.co.uk (and not any of the other staff that have kindly offered).

Thanks and hope to see you all at a LAN in the near future... hoping to announce a few more this side of i8 :)