Last time I was at a Respawn (perhaps v15), I left very early on after someone had tipped a can of lemonade down my computer damaging the Motherboard and Video Card (To cut a long story short, I only realised why my PC was crashing at Respawn when I got home and pulled apart the computer only to find a sugary sticky residue on both the video card, motherboard and fan vent... soon to be confirmed by another person at the LAN who did actually see it happen...). But that aside, it was much more pleasant this time around - perhaps due to what seemed like less people and less complete "idiots".
Pros...- Network was fantastic compared to my last experience, kudos to the team for setting up a decent, proper network with average speeds between 60-100Mbps.
- Much less use of the microphone (although, I did hear one of the admins on coolaid make 2 absurd announcements "This is an announcement" followed by "This is another announcement"). All in all, it was much better than the screaming down the microphone (pay for your f***ing pizza or else...).
- Car parking arrangements have definitely improved substantially - to those revving their car's in the car park in their family-sedan XR6's and the like, you have no idea how much of an idiot you guys look. I get you're excited, but revving your cars? Just silly >.<
- Gaming! There was actual gaming! Admittedly I did prepare a TF2 ctf server that I believe got used... annoyed I couldn't connect to Steam in the end - so I played some other games like AoE 2, Flatout 2 etc...
- FTP with game backups was quite fast. I guess no one really reads instructions on the net. Suggestion: Perhaps as part of the entry it'd be a good idea to have an A5 printout with some instructions on it for where to find things? I know there's a projector, but it'd be good to get an idea of where things are. I'm sure it'd relieve a few "silly" questions.
- The lack of random "dicks" and "vagina" screamed out every three seconds was a welcome addition
![smile.gif](style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Sure, there was heaps of noise from the guys in the Annex and some of the competition gamers behind us, but at least it was contained to a small period.
- Admins appeared to be working on the steam issue. Was good to see someone actively working on it, and in the end managed to get most people on steam to do the competitions.
- Fans early on... the place didn't smell like a boys sports locker room. Extra bonus points for my nose not wanting to depart within 5 minutes of arriving. I guess the various public service announcements for copious amounts of deoderant has paid off.
- Queue - 10 minutes to get everyone processed and through the door was great! Beats the used-to-be 30 minutes!
Cons...- Last LAN's I have been to, we used to always set up in the annex away from the speakers. This LAN, unfortunately it was entirely reserved (and a speaker shoved in there anyway!!!). I get that "some" people think it's a ghost town without the music, but the problem with background music that a large portion of people hate - you can't get away from it!!! Drove me nuts by about 5PM.
- The abuse in the chat to the dude trying to sell his OCZ 50GB Revodrive was completely uncool. I can't vouch for it's authenticity, but no need to openly abuse the guy!
- Seating Layout - I'm of average build / weight and even I still found it extremely difficult to walk up the aisles. The sheer rudeness of some individuals (you know who you are!) who have the audacity to whinge and moan about having to pull their chair in was utterly appalling.