IMPORTANT - GUNS Meeting Points

[Bluepixie]

Yes, I'm not joking! We had a proper meeting on Sunday including DAve, Yegadoyai, Sideshow, Rude and myself. Hell there was note taking, schematic drawing and even coffee!

Bonus.

Anyway, main points.

- There shall be an extra day booked for setting up. Friday evening is to be set aside hence making more time for actual playing on the Saturday. A repeat of the last lan is NOT an option.

- All the money people have kindly put into the society is now coming back in the shape of more equipment. New switches and hubs are to be bought as well as some other bits and pieces. To be finalised.

- The GAME TIMETABLE is now to become a regular part of the LAN. As I said before this is not set in stone, and can be altered. A thread shall be make to deal with this in due course

- And last but not least, Internet access. Investigations into proper Interweb support at lans is taking place. As the last lan demonstrated, Steam is a cock and demands access if you've updated or not. Damn it to an eternal suffering of watching The Nightmare on Elm Street Series on repeat.


That's kind of about it. If I've missed something, please tell me.

Cheers

[Sid]

I was going to post this in my i-series thread, but since this thread is about the same thing...

Firstly, the internet connection. As I've said before - it is a must. At the i-series there is a fast internet connection for downloads, updates, browsing, msn etc. However, online game ports were all blocked which meant that the connection couldn't be used for internet gaming and thus meaning that LAN gaming was increased ie. better atmosphere. File sharing was also disabled. There were several network admins on the ground floor that would come to your seat and give you into trouble if they saw you had folders shared.

There was also a LAN website at the address: http://www which detailed any kind of information needed. Tournament signup and match info was all outlined there. There was also every kind of download and update you would require categorised under the appropriate game.

In addition to this there was an IRC server set up at the address "irc" which would be used for general chit-chat, tournament organisation etc.

As for the general network setup. When I arrived, I went to the reception with my name and was given my desk number (although, I already knew where I was sitting as had chosen to be sat next to my clan).

Upon arriving at my desk there was an industrial style power extension with 2-sockets to be shared between 2 desks ie. everyone was allocated one power socket. People were then expected to plug their multi-block into that socket. Everyone was also allocated a fixed network cable which was sitting on my desk when I arrived. It was as simple as plugging it in and being on the network with internet access, access to the LAN website and LAN IRC server.

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I'd be interested into what network equipment you're looking at purchasing. First and foremost is a lot of long network cables, but what switches are you looking at?

[DAve]

Yes, I'm not joking! We had a proper meeting on Sunday including DAve, Yegadoyai, Sideshow, Rude and myself. Hell there was note taking, schematic drawing and even coffee!
Yep, I can confirm it was held, AND productive. We even killed a few zombies.

Yes, the organisation part of the LANs haven't been prefect so far. We're working on it, to make your lan and ours better.

Friday evening set up is a great idea, it'll take the pressure off Saturday set-up and mean we can avoid the whole table nightmare.

Money: we're considering what we actually need in the way of hubs and switches for the LAN. I think some people have still to pay for the last lan, and I have to forward £25 for paypal reciepts to Chris (our treasurer) as well as a cheque for £5 from Andrew Osborne.

Layout: we were discussing in terms of tables to make the lan as friendly as possible. Still to be decided, I think.

GAME TIMETABLE - How sweet would it be to turn up with all the games pre-loaded & pre-patched so you were just ready to play. It /will/ happen some time.

Net access: It'll be great if we can get it. Fingers crossed!

[DAve]

The first thing you have to remember is that we are a small lan. We can't get away with things like 3 phase supplies etc.

To be frank, I don't think we need an internet connection. If you want to browse the net, you can do that from home. Steam is a bitch, though, and this would be a major plus from that point of view to get that to authenticate. It would be a very nice thing to have though.

An IRC server can be put onto the linux server. Again, what's to stop you from getting up and talking to someone. It is only one small room, and it would be much friendlier.

Website and updates:
Yes, the intranet website would be nice. So would the downloads. I'm a final year student though, and I'm getting less and less time to devote to trawling the web for updates. If you could collate all the updates and give me a cd / dvd the week before the LAN, I would be happy to upload them to the server.

desks: we had chatted about this at the meeting, and it would be a good idea to pay on the door, to be shown to your seat, given your powerpoints and cat5 and be able to game. It's what we're working towards.

As far as the network cables go, I've got a drum of 100m cat5 that's waiting to be processed into smaller chunks. Crimp-tastic.

[Sid]

What you said about it being a small LAN - I think this is a problem that'll hold GUNS back. With 20 people there's always limits. Everyone has to play the current game to make the event productive. What are the chances of merging together with Strathclyde to form a 70+ person LAN?

[DAve]

What you said about it being a small LAN - I think this is a problem that'll hold GUNS back. With 20 people there's always limits.
Yes, that is true. With only 50 people on the forums, I don't think it will be a problem this year anyway. Once the word gets out, perhaps the next years committee will have to look at larger options.

Yes, everyone has to play games to make the most of the lan. On the other hand, I don't want to play CS all the time, so I like the varied nature of the lans. What to other folk think?

What are the chances of merging together with Strathclyde to form a 70+ person LAN?
High. I've not had any contact with the other two Glasgow lan clubs. I think it would do us good to forge links though. One or two lans a year with all the Glasgow players would be hard work, but a lot of fun, I think.

[Strings]

I think the Internet is important at the LAN as far as patching goes.

Half way the last one Yega's, Pixies and my steam went fuckwise for no good reason and we had to use the internet to quickly get it working.

So obviously we dont need to invest any major time or money into it. Just have it easily accessible and non-abusible.

[Phizz]

On the idea of merging LAN societies my flatmate's little bro is actually one of the founding members of the LAN society at Strathclyde so I could perhaps find a way of getting 'negotitions' if you'd like.

[DAve]

Sure, give him my phone no / email.
I meant to get along to Strathclydes last LAN to scope things out, I think they only do a 6 hour event though.

It would be good to forge links anyway. Not sure about 'merging' :)

[Strings]

6 hours?

/me makes a pfft sound

[Bluepixie]

6 hours?

/me makes a pfft sound

Damn straight! 6hrs aint enough time for gaming! Were's the crazy 4:00 in the morning lets see who can pop the most pro+, and not die?

[Exuus]

I prefer 4am heart failure from playing The Hidden for too long. :twisted:

[Phizz]

I'll see if I can sort it. And do you have any idea why I'm not getting messages saying I have a reply?