LlamaLAN

So, another event over. From an event admin point of view we feel that it was, in the words of GlaDOS, a "Huge Success", but what do you think?

What went well, what didn't go well, what did you think you'd like to see for next time, what did you miss from previous events?

If you have any negative observations about the event, feel free to express them, but we'd appreciate having suggestions for fixing them from you at the same time.

OK, lets go!

is 1 or 10 best rating ?

please help

thanks
dezz

I think we'll go with the traditional 10 out of 10 being the best for the purposes of this vote

Hiyas , thanks for the quick answer ..

OK here I go with comments.
btw I scored ya 10 as it was better than last time and one of the more enjoyable lan i have ever attended and at my old age that is quite a few lans in a couple countries.

I do have the following criticisms though:

Please can we start the competions on Friday next time ?
It was pretty rushed on Sunday with Ripper and Onionstar having to forfeit the last game of cnc3 in the finals as i needed to head home (btw the score was 1-1 in the finals with a game to go , just for the tournament records)

If the game admins can be a bit more vocal in getting us to actually play the games , that would be great. I know it puts you in a like big mommy or daddy role , but its all good. Last time cyberdracs big booming voice got us all going.

+side i thought you guys were proffesional and the web management of the games results was a very nice touch.
hardware side things were very smooth ie networks
i thought your handling of the minidisk incident was compassionate and handled well. kudus to lil gem and cyberdrac for caring for the dude , and condolences to the unlucky person who had to clean it up.

its now at least a few hours after the lan and i havent found the photos yet

in my opinion the best use of the projector would be to put schedules up on a big screen and even the results and possible live games.

i like to practice maps , as especially in ut the map is key to the duel so a weeks notice to get good at the maps would be nice

where would i find somewhere to download the game demos as i would like to show some potential new llama the standard of play , specifically the UT duel and cnc3(if some one has these) replays.

Finally , THANKS for making my second visit to medway towns a very fun and friendly time.

OK lets start of with some background about myself to put my feedback into perspective. I am a Volunteer for 2 LANS 1 is the UK's biggest the second is the second biggest. I attend lots of smaller LANS around the country I could name 5 off the top of my head right now. So its safe to say I have seen a lot of bad, good and fun events in my time.

How did I think this event went, Well first off, I arrived not knowing anyone other than CD and LG first thing I noticed was it was easy to just go up to people and chat. Projector games and Rock Band set a nice Friday social night for meeting and greeting people and everyone was welcoming and didn't tell me to shut up when singing.

The team idea for the weekend is good would of been even better if there were a few more games related to the teams for earning more points. I would be happy to replace tournaments with those team games.

UT2K4 was a fun tournament I sucked at it and didn't help that I got a call half way through 1 of my matches. I think the skill level was a bit too high for me as even in the losers bracket I could only run away screaming from my opponent. When we played the invasion and the capture points game as a team this is when I had the most fun.

The venue was awesome even if the whole location was trying to kill my car with all the hills. co op just down the hill nice to get to including all the lovely take away's you have as well. Good find on that front.

The only 2 bad points were, No Internet. I know a lot of people would be deterred from coming to the event because of that. I also know that not having the internet means the crowd that come to an event work together more on getting games going ect. But I came back to having 60 emails and a lot of messages so it would be good to get some small connection that is limited to only msn irc steam and ra3 beta (I really wanted to play this over the weekend with CD and couldnt)

The second point is not enough of them, As I have said to a lot of people I loved the event but hearing that there wont be another one till next year makes me sad.

So just on a final note I would like to thank all the Llamalan staff and all the participants too, as you are all what makes a great LAN. This is why I give it 10/10

And hope to see you all at the next event.

Yeah, I think timing was the only issue I had.
I'll kick my team in the arse a little more to get them going, too... x.x

But, other than that, fantastic timeeee. (:
Looking forward to seeing everybody again!
And next time, yellow team WILL do better than last.
We will!
D':

again @ work so will make short and sweet

all good pretty much

i think things you should be looking at improving is maybe size. you could add more spaces to the LAN

interent even it is a small connection for websites and msn - xfire....... not for online gaming

more non game social events... stuff that they do @ i-series.. pub quiz.... boat race... hog roast (lama roast)

other then that... i agree with dezz with the tounrys other then that thanks for hosting a great event.

Dezz wrote:I do have the following criticisms though:

Bracing for impact!

Dezz wrote:Please can we start the competions on Friday next time ?
It was pretty rushed on Sunday with Ripper and Onionstar having to forfeit the last game of cnc3 in the finals as i needed to head home (btw the score was 1-1 in the finals with a game to go , just for the tournament records)

The tournaments were open from the the moment the event started, despite what was said anywhere on the site, I think that in the future we'll emphasise this more.

Dezz wrote:If the game admins can be a bit more vocal in getting us to actually play the games , that would be great. I know it puts you in a like big mommy or daddy role , but its all good. Last time cyberdracs big booming voice got us all going.

Tied into what I've said above, I think that we'll try and get people started (where possible) as early as possible (if people want to). I think that 'Shouty Person' CyberDrac will be more obvious at next event, I'll leave the Red team captaincy in the capable hands of LittleGem and concentrate more on keep the LAN tournaments moving (I did this a little bit with the UT2004 1v1, but much less so for the CnC3).

Dezz wrote:+side i thought you guys were proffesional and the web management of the games results was a very nice touch.
hardware side things were very smooth ie networks

Thank You, Kanonfodda put a huge amount of effort into that and it will only get better in the future as the configs are perfected, comms servers are added, and a wider option of games are added.

Dezz wrote:i thought your handling of the minidisk incident was compassionate and handled well. kudus to lil gem and cyberdrac for caring for the dude , and condolences to the unlucky person who had to clean it up.

Kanonfodda again had the unwelcome duty of tidying up that situation, I can only emphasise that anyone will get one chance in a scenario like that, and that MiniDisk will be spending a 'dry' alcohol free event if he chooses to attend any future LlamaLANs.

Dezz wrote:its now at least a few hours after the lan and i havent found the photos yet

They'll be up soon I imagine, they need to be approved and vetted before they appear

Dezz wrote:in my opinion the best use of the projector would be to put schedules up on a big screen and even the results and possible live games.

We have the software for that very purpose, and any time we have two projectors we like to be able to do that, and in the future we will endeavour to beg, borrow or steal a second projector which can cope with the bright lights in the hall

Dezz wrote:i like to practice maps , as especially in ut the map is key to the duel so a weeks notice to get good at the maps would be nice

Of course and we'll get the maps published MUCH earlier next time to give people a chance to practice in the future, although this might just open up the divide between the casual players and those whop take it that little bit more seriously, and LlamaLAN is all about the casual, social, side of LANning

Dezz wrote:where would i find somewhere to download the game demos as i would like to show some potential new llama the standard of play , specifically the UT duel and cnc3(if some one has these) replays.

Unless you recorded them yourself, then they don't exist, in the future we'll look at recording server side, or reminding people to do it themselves, CnC3 has a 'Save replay' option at the end, TF2 has 'demo <demoname>' and UT2004 has 'demorec <demoname>' (I think)

Dezz wrote:Finally , THANKS for making my second visit to medway towns a very fun and friendly time.

You are, of course, always welcome and thanks for the feedback.

Inferno wrote:How did I think this event went, Well first off, I arrived not knowing anyone other than CD and LG first thing I noticed was it was easy to just go up to people and chat. Projector games and Rock Band set a nice Friday social night for meeting and greeting people and everyone was welcoming and didn't tell me to shut up when singing.

We have always been very lucky with the people who attend, as a rule they have been very sociable and the Friday night activities always help with that

Inferno wrote:The team idea for the weekend is good would of been even better if there were a few more games related to the teams for earning more points. I would be happy to replace tournaments with those team games.

That is much closer to how things have been approached in the past, this event was the first to stray from that formula, largely due to the interest in tournaments and time constraints, we'll see if we can achieve a finer balance between the two for next event

Inferno wrote:UT2K4 was a fun tournament I sucked at it and didn't help that I got a call half way through 1 of my matches. I think the skill level was a bit too high for me as even in the losers bracket I could only run away screaming from my opponent.

I know, I have exactly the same reaction, but at least we both got two matches out of it, and what I did play I enjoyed, even if I got completely pwned

Inferno wrote:When we played the invasion and the capture points game as a team this is when I had the most fun.

Again, huge fun, I enjoyed it immensely, but I missed out on the Invasion server

Inferno wrote:The venue was awesome even if the whole location was trying to kill my car with all the hills. co op just down the hill nice to get to including all the lovely take away's you have as well. Good find on that front.

Typical Llama Luck that the only venue we could find turned out to be the best we could hope for

Inferno wrote:The only 2 bad points were, No Internet. I know a lot of people would be deterred from coming to the event because of that. I also know that not having the internet means the crowd that come to an event work together more on getting games going ect. But I came back to having 60 emails and a lot of messages so it would be good to get some small connection that is limited to only msn irc steam and ra3 beta (I really wanted to play this over the weekend with CD and couldnt)

Now we have tested the theory and established the strength of the signal we'll see how future events can take advantage of a controlled and limited connection, I think that mail, IRC, Steam Authing only and MSN might be a possibility, but I suspect that gaming would be very hard to achieve and if it were opened it would be for limited windows of time by pre-arrangement

Inferno wrote:The second point is not enough of them, As I have said to a lot of people I loved the event but hearing that there wont be another one till next year makes me sad.

Two a year is a manageable number for us and it means that we are now, with the number of regular and enthusiastic community members, likely to fill every event, as as you know with small capacity LANs it is always better to have a couple of full events than more half empty ones

Inferno wrote:So just on a final note I would like to thank all the Llamalan staff and all the participants too, as you are all what makes a great LAN. This is why I give it 10/10

And hope to see you all at the next event.

You are welcome, we're glad you enjoyed your first event with us

Had a really good time, again as has been said I think the event missed cyberdracs shouty shouty get ur asses into gear.

My high point was our team of TF2 noobs holding our own against more experienced players.

Just a shame I had to abandon cnc and UT 1v1 a match with joose would have been cool as I think we were reasonably well matched, I could have hung in an hour or so more but defo not another day, wife at home with teething baby would have almost certainly castrated and then killed me.

Zodiack wrote:Yeah, I think timing was the only issue I had.
I'll kick my team in the arse a little more to get them going, too... x.x

But, other than that, fantastic timeeee. (:
Looking forward to seeing everybody again!
And next time, yellow team WILL do better than last.
We will!
D':

Thanks for your help over the weekend, now that you've done the job a couple of time I hope you have the confidence to kick some serious yellow llama ass ... or you could set the snail on them as a last resort.

Glad you enjoyed yourself again, you at LlamaLAN 11, don't forget your shirt!

D3TH wrote:all good pretty much

A good start

D3TH wrote:i think things you should be looking at improving is maybe size. you could add more spaces to the LAN

We've looked at this in the past, physically we could probably add two more seats to each table, but we feel that the electrics cannot take it, we run the entire LAN off less than a dozen sockets, 10 in fact, and as far as we can tell 8 out of 10 of those are on the same ring main, without more sockets and having the power draw split over more ring mains we are stuck at the capacity we have at the moment

D3TH wrote:interent even it is a small connection for websites and msn - xfire....... not for online gaming

As per my previous answer to Inferno, we'll look at what we can do

D3TH wrote:more non game social events... stuff that they do @ i-series.. pub quiz.... boat race... hog roast (lama roast)

Friday night events could be extended to include some of these, pub quiz, possibly, but not sure if it would work with the numbers that we have, but we'll consider it if community members express an interest and there are decent numbers involved. 'Boat Race', possibly, but we wouldn't want the event to get too 'messy' either from the boat race itself or the aftermath, if we can find a safe and responsible way of achieving it it may, with community support, become an option. Hog Roast, something we've considered in the past, or indeed a BBQ of some form, but there is a lot of organising for that, and additional cost, and a responsibility for Health and Safety which might be an issue, we'll enquire and see if there is a local firm who would consider taking on a 'catering for 40 people' arrangement, even if it is something like a huge pot of Chilli or something like that, or maybe just keep a good BBQ burning and people cook their own food.

D3TH wrote:other then that... i agree with dezz with the tounrys other then that thanks for hosting a great event.

Look forward to seeing you next year, thanks for coming

Yazor made several demos during the UT2004 1v1s. He may be able to provide some of the goods. I tried to install and run fraps to record the final, but while I do have a registration key, my attempt to use the register link on my new fraps installation required an internet line. The Dezz v Ripper duel had already begun at this point, so I just watched.

evilgangsta wrote:Had a really good time, again as has been said I think the event missed cyberdracs shouty shouty get ur asses into gear.

I'll be back to full volume by next event

evilgangsta wrote:My high point was our team of TF2 noobs holding our own against more experienced players.

Having the extra team also made it much better for the rest of those in the league as well, they were all fun games

evilgangsta wrote:Just a shame I had to abandon cnc and UT 1v1 a match with joose would have been cool as I think we were reasonably well matched, I could have hung in an hour or so more but defo not another day, wife at home with teething baby would have almost certainly castrated and then killed me.

We'll try and keep things moving along a little more briskly at the next event, we try and keep every major tournament within the main Saturday, but as you can see it's a little like herding cats, we'll try and get everything squeezed into the one day next time

Thank you for the time that you managed to spend with us, it was great to have you on board

WRT the more social event things - maybe something like The Big Game run, where they do a whole LAN pizza run on the Saturday night (having forwarned the local Domino's ) and then have a quiz and people get their pizza in the order they win the quiz. It's a really good incentive to get everyone involved, as without something like that you'll just find half the lan'll want to continue playing games rather than get involved. Though as you said, most of the LL attendees are great people who *do* get involved in the more social side of things, so, maybe it would work at a LL without that added incentive!

And, on the LAN, it was good. The only thing I'd add is a couple of things that've already been mentioned - be more vocal about games, and run more team based games! I know it's difficult running that many tourneys with most people playing in a couple of them, but perhaps a stricter tourney schedule would work, whereby you designate, say, 2 hours for TF2 to take place, with half hour given to each match or something, and if one team isn't ready by that time then they go with who they've got or forfeit. At one point our team was hanging around on the TF2 server for about 25 mins having been told the other team was ready to start, as a couple of their players were playing CnC or something, then after that they headed out for a smoke before finally joining us! It's things like that which mean tourneys take such a long time, especially with a small lan where everyone pretty much plays everything! I really think timetabling it would help, as then you eliminate the whole having to wait for everyone to finish other tourney matches. Aside from that though, it was a great lan, and I'm glad everyone enjoyed the Friday night fun!