Summer SLAN 2011 Feedback

[ShedBOy]

Ok peeps, after a rather epic weekend it's time for some feedback!

The usual GOOD, the BAD, the Ugly!

Did you enjoy the LAN?
Do you enjoy Red vs Blue?
Is there anything you would change? (other than the result :P )


Here's mine:

The Good
- Seeing everyone as usual!
- Soooo many games
- Red vs Blue
- Masses of SC2
- The Buttery Biscuit Base
- Blurrr!
- The Foo's Gig
- Werewolves (except the "white wolf", what the hell was that?!)
- BBQ was winning

The Bad
- Foo's gig killed me, was so tired
- Losing RvB
- The LAN ending

The Ugly
- That 80% pineapple spirit crap on Friday night. Oh sweet jesus.
- My drunken state on Friday, due to the aforementioned pineapple crap. My apologies lol ;E


On the whole, awesome awesome LAN, can't wait for next SLAN!

[Dutch Chuck]

I only have one thing to say...

THE BAD

me not being there :3

[padkipz]

The Good

• The people, new people I'd never met, people I hadn't seen in a long long time and all the people who I hadn't seen since last stratlan
• Blurrrrrrrrrr and other games... which actually weren't that many!
• Werewolves... oh my god so many games of werewolves, but they were all so awesome.. especially FINALLY playing the village!
• Other board games, they were great fun!
• Race for life + sun + beer.. it may or may not have been perv central
• Red vs Blue
• Awesome BBQ of awesome

The Bad

• Maybe a slight lack of playing PC games.. but that was my own fault

The Ugly

• My voice after hours of modding werewolves

All in all, this LAN was fantastic, one of the best I have ever been too! Thank you to everyone involved for making this an excellent event.

P.S. The white wolf is a thing.

[Nanaki]

The Most Excellent:

• THE RED TEAM!!!!!!

The Good:

• Seeing everyone as always.
• Projector Games.
• Winning Trackmania!
• BLUR!!!!!!!!
• Playing Warewolves for the first time.
• BBQ.
• The Alcove of Win!
• The Friday night interncontinental mental strength shot sampling.

The Bad:

• My Hangover on Saturday after the Friday nights shots... urgh.
• Losing RvB.
• Sheds aim in Blur! lol
• The LAN ending.
• The annoying window pane in the snorers room shaking every time someone downstairs closed a door that I happened to be sleeping under.

The Ugly:

• My singing and air guitar antics to Bohemian Rhapsody...
• Random case of heartburn on Sunday. Never had anything like it.
• English Sunshine!!!! (Although I think I might be outvoted on that one!)
• Having no air con in my car for the 8 hour drive home. That was just evil.

The Downright Repulsive:

• The Blue Team! (Or was it Pink or Purple?)

[Towneh]

The Good

* Red Vs Blue - finally a lot more competitive than last year, good choice of games, and closely matched.
* Friday night party - lots of mead, barbed wire wrapped spirits and brennivin. good music selection.
* BBQ - great selection of food, went back for fifths
* BLUE TEAM FTW!
* Awesome weather - got a little red, all was well the following morning.
* People - seeing all the cool dudes and dudettes that attend stratlans

The Bad:

* Lan End - no RvB winning ceremony or closure to the event.
* Dancing - me as usual...
* Showers - 50p showers were cold, had to man up!
* Airbeds - realised why the tesco value double bed was £10, fml.

The Ugly:

* none

[Steadders]

The Good:
* Steam sale on the same weekend as the LAN, bought more games this weekend than in the last 5 years combined
* American Football on the grass, always good to get some exercise at a LAN!

The Bad:
* Mediocre organisation of RvB, was only enough to get through it. The only information we had was a vague timetable on the projector. Where were the forum posts, web updates, clan forge usage or any other of a million ways to tell people "this is the stuff that's happening at this time". There was no transparency in how the scores were taken and calculated, there were no individual stats, there was no post informing us of what the rules were for each game. For example, in the TF2 we didn't know when we were live, in hedge wars we didn't know how many games to play and in L4D2 we didn't know what maps we were allowed to use.

Don't get me wrong here, I had a fantastic time in RvB (getting a podium finish on Blur for the Blues was quite a highlight) but if RvB is going to be done, it should be done properly. I'm talking daily updates, pre decided rules for games, google doc spreadsheets showing information about games, outcomes and scores. We're all geeks here, anyone is capable of doing this stuff with little effort.

The Ugly
* The post-LAN cold I can feel coming on

[D0c]

Awesome LAN, always the long ones that are the best ones

The Good
Blue team WINNING
Intense UT Final. I think my eyes were bleeding by the end.
Playing lots of games
Getting enough people playing some FOOOTBAAALLLL to have a proper couple of scrimmages going
Friday Night Rave (especially her0n going from 0 to wasted in record time <3) + Team Sunrise
Coookie Cooookie Coookie COOOKIE COOKIE COOKIE COOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOAHAHAAAHAhAHA

The Bad
Missing out of the Trackmania on the Saturday and almost the Blur as well - As Steadders said a bit more information was needed about when Red v Blue games were about to begin - saying that though the whole thing was very much improved on the 09 edition so good job on that
Again no winners ceremony. The point of winning is so we can rub the losers' faces in it!
No RoN - Probably missed because of AoE2 being played for RvB

The Ugly
Dirty Gin Face

[Neon]

Good

• Going to a lan again after such a long time!
• Being the top red player in the Average Team TF2 match!
• Enjoyed the RvB games, TF2, Blur and L4D2 highlights
• Catching up with people
• Playing Magicka multiplayer with Beanz, my first proper MP Magicka, thanks guys

Bad

• Not really knowing where to pitch the tent and having to move it mid land
• Having to go home on Sunday
• Picking RvB games that I don't own :*(
• I didn't socialise as much as I should, so apologies!
• Not taking up Ryvita's offer of some Magic
• Some more game shouts would have been good, I missed playing BF:BC2

Ugly

• Again vom in the toilets, showers, floor, urinals, etc
• Total and epic Steam failure on all counts everywhere
• Lack of hot water in the showers in the stand
• Spending 6 hours trying to install TF2 backup

[her0n]

Originally Posted by ShedBOy

The Ugly
- That 80% pineapple spirit crap on Friday night. Oh sweet jesus.
- My drunken state on Friday, due to the aforementioned pineapple crap. My apologies lol ;E

Cry more pussy, you didn't even down it in one! You dropped it in your drink, took a sip and then grimaced. I had to show you how it's done ;p

THAT SAID

Good
Long lan is long. I enjoyed the length of this one
Seeing friends after so long
Warm showers, even on Sunday when I had to queue jump "TEN THOUSAND LADIES" /elye who were queueing for the toilets.
Finding the ice stash early on
Fuji
Balderdash
iSketch skills
Mouse looking after me when I was a mess on Friday night.

Bad
Lucky dip :/
Forgot my eye mask >_<
Failed to make it to team sunrise. I WILL DO THIS... next year I guess now :/
My computer once again failing to run Magicka... and also running other games at a crap res. NEED A NEW PC.
Being too hungover to play Trackmania.
RvB games - were we forewarned about which games were DEFINITELY going to be used? I don't recall it. A pre-lan final announcement of games would have been good so we could dl/patch up. There is a 'we might use these games' thread but nothing official.
No RvB Armagetron


Ugly
Shots and the resulting state I was in on Friday night. Enough said.

[Steadders]

Was good to see you Neon, make sure you join in the rave next time yeah?

Originally Posted by her0n

Cry more pussy, you didn't even down it in one! You dropped it in your drink, took a sip and then grimaced. I had to show you how it's done ;p

[Ruth]

I left thinking "everything was just excellent, I had an amazing time" but for clarity sake:

Good

• My first lan this year, totally worth the wait, and it'll last me til 2012!
• Playing *ACTUAL* games, such as Magika & Sol Survivor
• Mouse talking good care of poorly her0n ticked all of my "aww, what a good boyfriend" girly boxes
• I liked the Multiplay signs being dotted around for noobs, nice touch!
• The lovely CyberDrac saving my life by fixing my Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 CD! Hero!

Bad

• Having to move the tent as silly 'o' clock on Saturday - SURELY there was some forewarning of this?!
• Having to go home on Sunday
• People telling me off for being a bit quiet during Friday night rave - We all have off days!
• People coming to chat to me but completely ignoring Neon beside me. He doesn't bite!
• Little Mike not being 18 yet... Soon...soon....
• Random people "racing for their lives" on Sunday in the toilets, and in the social area. "Is the bar open!?" "Erm, no - We're here for a private event." "So we can't get a drink? Do you know anywhere serving drinks?"

Ugly

• My laptop ate my Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 CD - My weekend was almost RUIEEEENED.
• Me failing at being able to play TD - Totally jels!
  

I just had a Really Good Time™.

[Idylla]

Good
Everything

Bad
Not much!

Ugly
Not really!

---

Some memorable good stuff:

Airport Cafe. I don't think anyone else can make breakfast in the entire UK.
Destroying team Blu at Blur, we need more racing games.
Destroying team Blu at L4D2 (in our game at least)
Many werewolves. WHY AM I A GODDAMN VILLAGER ALL THE EFFING TIME!
Meeting even more numerous amounts of new people - and Joss getting me killed multiple times.
Actual organisation!
BBQ of nomnomnom - I only had a burger+sausage each day but it was lovely!
The drive home! For the first time in a long time I had an awesome drive home!
It was forewarned regarding the race for life people.
Also stop complaining about the showers in the stand, you were able to get FREE TOKENS from staff that let you use the lovely warm showers next door!

If I had one complaint, it would be lack of Recycling at this event - I really hate seeing all that easily recyclable material going to waste - Bottles and Cans (and boy were there lots of them!) - Please please please bring back recycling!

PS: If Badger has a house, burn it.
PPS: If Badger doesn't have a house, wait for him to get a house then burn it.

[Toaster]

Good:

Signs! Lots of them, the ones on the back of the staff's chairs were a nice touch. Keep these, they're great!
Info and other interesting stuff cycling through up on the projector. Would like to see this become a permanent feature, unless there's something better to put up there (something new from Projector Games?, Tactics Forever has gotten a little stale... Sorry.)
The best time I've ever had playing UT2k4, defending the left side of the blue flag room for ultimate victory!
A great deal of iSketch (ravage!)
Well-run BBQ, lotsa stuff, properly cooked, tasted good, 10/10.
Slight lack of XW compensated for by other sorts.
Some fun games played in the social area.
Good game choices for RvB.
Nice shirt (though the sizes were a bit on the large side) design, good work on the desktops too.
Good folks, good times.

Bad:

RvB organisation - feel kinda the same way as Steadders. If the times were meant to be vague they should have said that in the first place. Games were added in/swapped around at the last second, for no reason... Should have been nailed down before the event, or right at the start. Forum *should* have been used to stick up stats and announcements before and after each match. No winners' celebration or pics taken at all. The way the teams were split meant that few of the games were really competitive. Most of the blues had hardly played Blur and vice versa for Starcraft 2, for example...
Could you just have one guy whose primary responsibility is the RvB next time?

My inability to enjoy getting properly drunk ever preventing me having much fun on the Friday night.
Monday fizzled out a bit early.
Not being told about the Race for Life thing until the last possible second (while semi-conscious) - though this was better than never, thanks Badger and Joss.
The void left by the death of DotA still hasn't been properly filled, not that this is anyone's fault.

Ugly:

Steam failure again. Heard some chat that there may be ways to avoid this happening - are there? I hope so, because it's slowly killing the gaming element of the LAN.

[ShedBOy]

In terms of RvB, yes there are aspects that we can improve upon for next time, especially giving notice of the games and scheduling. I don't think that using Clanforge is something that's worth doing, and it's just too much hassle. Slanty did a great job of keeping all the scores sorted, and Badger kept the screen updated perfectly, so that worked better than people checking CF would I think.

There's always room for improvement though, and the fact that it came down to the last game was just awesomes.

I didn't see any vom this weekend at all? and Dentist did do a big shout on the Friday (before everyone got hammered) about the Race for Life, but obviously it missed some people.

Keep the feedback coming!

[Harribo]

Good
Alcove of Win, love all you guys, everyone makes it an awesome weekend.
The Games selected for RvB, Good Variety and mix all round.
Updating of the Projector with times and scores.
BBQ Awesome as usual.
Craigs Beer run to the brewery
Werewolves WTF is a White Wolf???
If i must say my own cheesecake and PhatAss's JD Pie!!!!!
Mr Chans!

Bad
To be honest i felt a bit disappointed with the RvB organisation on Saturday, in the alcove it seemed like we didn't know when stuff was happening, for Instance i didn't know Hedgewar's had been played, Armagetron was not played and im sure there was another game on Saturday that we didn't know about.
I mainly think this was due to projector games taking over with Fortress Forever was annoying in my own opinion as i have no interest in that game what so ever and was looking forward to the RvB games which i didn't get to play. I do want to say the rest of the time i think RvB was done perfectly.

Ugly
Me and Kharn on Saturday morning ergh i had one hell of a hang over!!!!

[Harribo]

Originally Posted by ShedBOy

I didn't see any vom this weekend at all?

You didn't see Kharn on Saturday morning LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lucky placed empty crisp packet need i say any more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[her0n]

I have a suggestion for the RvB t shirts - If you're going to ask people what their shirt size is on the online booking, then the team captains should label them up with a name to ensure each person gets the size they requested. Then anyone else who joins in late, gets what is left over.

Poor Mouse who is clearly a Small, got lumbered with a Large shirt. Elbonio (also a skinny beanpole) got an XL... neither are Biffas!

Jussayin'

Originally Posted by Toaster

Good:
The void left by the death of DotA still hasn't been properly filled, not that this is anyone's fault.

I agree. I have fond memories of playing Dota for hours on end. Managed to grab a game of HoN but feel quite out of the loop. Same goes for LoL. Dota 2 this year though.. hmm. I guess it's just one of those things, times change, etc etc...

P.S RAVAGE!

[TobyW]

Good
Small community knowing everyone around you
Theres always 1 chilled out night were you talk for hours of banterous things such as run in with cops for speeding and army stories from around the world.
Realising the usual staff are top blokes
Tons of Tournament players
NFL on the field and pushing my mate over real hard when it was only tagNFL haha
UT2K4 over demand deathmatch cull of 7 players before the CTF against blue
The drive up wasn't to bad, very relaxed
Avoiding all card/board games as im... Into PC gaming

Bad
Possibly not enough LAN games being called out, its not easy to stand up and call a game u wanna play when ur the only 1 wanting to play it, its not a confidence issue its a 'Dead silence reaction' lol
My obsession with eating everything there and then, killed me and my mates system that my mate had 6 dumps monday morning haha
I know the Internet is about 8mb and based around LAN games but fek cant we get something a little better

Hilarious
The massive dump in the Disabled access toilet which looked as if an African dung beatle couldn't roll one that big, and trying to balance on one of those disabled toilets so high up had me so occupied i could barely concentrate on relaxing my anus. BTW that was not mine in there just for the record

[Crea]

If only there was some sort of awesome RvB spreadsheet of win... Oh well.

[Tsung]

Good

• RVB - TF2 game, was great.
• Dungeons & Dragons Sunday night.

Bad

• Coming down with a horrendous cold Sunday Night. Sorry I might of brought it (from flying in from Spain on Wednesday night, think I might of caught it on the plane). Sorry if anyone else catches it
• Leaving early monday due to cold
• Steam being steam, sales are great, but the never ending stream of game updates was a total nightmare.
• Having 1 or 2 more players than slots in the majority of games meaning people having to miss out.

Ugly

• Toilets running out of toilet paper by Saturday night.
• People turning on lights in the sleeping area and blowing up thier airbeds at **** am in the morning.

Thoughts

RvB was fun, started well but seemed to die out quite quickly. It seems that planning afternoon games is a better option than evening ones. We were all patched up and ready for UT on the first evening only to be told it wouldn't happen because many people had gone to play werewolves. Maybe keep the bigger team games scheduled for the afternoons? and the smaller 1v1,2v2 games for the evening?

Maybe two projectors one for Projector games, one for RvB and other annoucements?

Steam updates... Maybe have 1 location for people to grab steam updates from?. From what I can work out regarding Steam there are two ways to get a steam game from one computer to another. One is using the backup option within steam itself. This sorta of worked, except, steam does not allow you to restore a game if it is already installed or it has started to download the game (or patch). The backup also causes issue becuase it will not restore if it cannot authenticate the user during the restore process. We had no end of problems using this method over the weekend.

The 2nd method, involved a straight copy of the games NCF files and Folder. This was much more successful for us. To restore the users still had to remove the old copy (and ensure it wasn't patching/download), copy the files in the right locations on their hard drives, then launch steam and click on the game. It will start to download the game, realise all the files are there, and install properly. I really wish steam would have a content server program.

I had a good time overall, I think falling ill put a big downer on the weekend for me

[Slanty]

Originally Posted by Idylla

If I had one complaint, it would be lack of Recycling at this event - I really hate seeing all that easily recyclable material going to waste - Bottles and Cans (and boy were there lots of them!) - Please please please bring back recycling!

This is something we'll definitely organise again for next time. There was a massive pile of bottles left in the social area as well as on desks at the end of the lan. They all went to Tesco to be recycled

[Toaster]

I forgot:

Awesome:

No instances of people having an audible conversation in the sleeping area for the first time I can remember. Can never fathom how inconsiderate you have to be to do this at 3/4/7/8 am but people *always* do. Except this time. Yay!

[Neon]

Now I know it's annoying, but Intranet? Or Twitter account maybe? With the updates, shouts etc. Apologies for sounding like a Grump-a-saurus Rex but I did miss the shouts about Race for Life. Camping map on the website?

I know I have more Bad and Ugly than good, but I did enjoy the event a great deal, and it's made me realise why I enjoyed lanning So big wubs to the event team, you did good yah!

[ShedBOy]

I don't think we actually got told until the lads arrived onsite? Might be wrong...

[Towneh]

Should add, I've tried to keep my feedback related mostly to the organisation of the LAN, of course the american football, random card games, fuji and airport cafe were completely awesome

I would seriously recommend to anyone to buy disposable foam earplugs and eye mask for sleeping with, it makes a massive difference.

[Slanty]

Originally Posted by ShedBOy

I don't think we actually got told until the lads arrived onsite? Might be wrong...

Correct

[dukes]

Good:
Pretty much everything, especially the number of board games played! Especially enjoyed the Arkham Horror game, even if I did end up trapped / in jail for half of it.

Bad:
Aftertaste of Brennivin.
Not participating in Werewolves once all LAN.

Ugly:
Friday night drinking - some of that stuff was horrendous. Also some of the pictures Jay got were amazing.


RvB had slight announcement issues, as before, but if you were paying attention to the projector to see what time events were on, it was fine. Could probably have done with a forum post too outlining the schedule and pointing to the right people to get things from on DC.

I enjoyed the RvB a lot, although it was a shame that L4D2 didn't end up with a decent team match up (too many blue by far) and that Trackmania was missing a lot of Blue players due to lack of them knowing it was going on.

[Dux0r]

Its all about the base...

[Rob]

Good

Curtain alcove - full of awesome people
Blue team in UT2k4 - I've lost count how many hours of UT I've played but that game was by far the most fun, awesome performance by all!



Bad

The number of time dave moved his tent and the way slanty asked him - not cool dude!
Brennivin (damn you craig!)

Ugly

So. Much. Drink

[Kharne]

THE GOOD
- Loved the RvB games! Admittedly was hard to balance for some games, but the way the room was set out led to much easier team play if you played with your row - no blues hearing your special tektiks!
- Much SC2!! <3
- UT2004 showing its beautiful face again at a LAN. Deservedly
- Werewolves (or wereWOLFs? :P ) was very entertaining and made me stay up for that 'one more game'
- Harribo's Baileys Cheesecake!
- Meeting some cool new people, even if they did try and kill me with random spirits of DOOM
- Age of Empires II - Surprisingly fun stuff!
- The Bass.
- The Showers were fantastic. The weather was awesome. The company was IMMENSE!

THE BAD
- Losing the UT! SO MANY FLIES (enemies)!!!
- Getting creamed in the L4D2 - well played guys you were clearly better at infected.
- The heat in the upstairs sleeping area was unbearable - surely some way of stopping the sunlight slow-roasting poor dehydrated LAN attendees?
- The LAN ended.

THE UGLY
- My Saturday morning (Nothing was harmed in the making of my sickness - everything went perfectly into the toilet and 1 strategic large crisp packet! So any mess was 100% not me!)
- The Internet. Yes it was UGLY! :P

One of the better events - itching to attend again to be honest!