v16 Comments etc, yepyepyep! Options

[Tank]

SO yep!

What did you like? What didn't you like?! What made the event awesome for you? What would be awesome if we did next time?

we appreciate both positive and negative, as both will get us to make better events in future

-Tank

[Zantikk]

This is just a general discussion point and not directly related to v16 but more to Respawn itself.

It frustrates me that Respawn has turned into a massive Leech fest where it seems only 40% or so come to play games. In my previous threads I've been told Respawn isn't going to be "competition focused" and that people come for the "LANning atmosphere/party", in other words, leech a shitload and maybe catchup with a few onlines mates.

In posting this, I know I will get flamed by the Respawn veterans that come to respawn just to leech. But I'd really like to see Respawn become more gaming focused because it has so much potential.

[wolfmother]

This is just a general discussion point and not directly related to v16 but more to Respawn itself.

It frustrates me that Respawn has turned into a massive Leech fest where it seems only 40% or so come to play games. In my previous threads I've been told Respawn isn't going to be "competition focused" and that people come for the "LANning atmosphere/party", in other words, leech a shitload and maybe catchup with a few onlines mates.

In posting this, I know I will get flamed by the Respawn veterans that come to respawn just to leech. But I'd really like to see Respawn become more gaming focused because it has so much potential.

This is a really difficult topic to deal with and my experience with lanning has mostly told me that there's nothing that any individual person or group can really do about it. In the time I've been attending, the admin team have tried just about everything to get people to play more games at various times (reminding them over the PA to play something, starting specific games and asking people to join, holding more competitions, holding competitions with bigger prizes/cash prizes, etc) and to be honest I don't think there is any correlation whatsoever between these activities and the number of people who enter into the comps.

The most ridiculous moment of the LAN was when TF2 was about to start with a $300 prize and only a single team had entered. People were so averse to playing a reasonably popular and well-liked game (that has previously had a substantial number of serious teams entering) that they were essentially giving up a significant amount of free money. Then there are other games at other LANs which were barely promoted and had almost no prize and got a dozen teams or players entering - but the events before and after that got nothing.

I think the whole thing has more to do with the zeitgeist than the actions of the admins or individual players: a LAN is a social event and interest in the activities that go on within it naturally waxes and wanes over time. The reason Respawn isn't a competition focussed LAN is because most of the players don't seem to really want that, and the admins trying to go against that isn't going to help anyone.

Extreme LAN is an interesting example because they put a lot of work into actively pursuing people running filesharing and shutting down hubs etc. The practical upshot of this was that not only did the quality of the LAN suffer but there was still just as many people filesharing, and even those that did give up on it still didn't play games. That's just one of the things people are interested in, and IMO telling them to be interested in something else is futile and unproductive. Sucks, but that's life.