Respawn Lan 10 Feedback Options

[TMM]

OK, so i've been to Respawn v1, v2, v3, and now v10. I have been to lans for many years and i can honestly say i've only been to one (>100 player) lan that sucked more then respawn v10 did for me.

Games:
-Played CS Source, TF2, Flatout, and Trackmania which all seemed to have a decent amount of people playing at any one time.

Network/Power/EMS:
-Power was up throughout the time i was there, network seemed fast (although 3-4 of the ports on the switch at my table didn't work, until zardoz did something to the switch iirc?)

Comps:
-I entered the Flatout and Trackmania comps. The flatout comp was run very well imo.

-Trackmania was a shambles - no one even finished the track after a whole hour because the person who ran the comp (lord phobos) seemed more interested in 'showing off' his self made track then running a decent competition. Immediately as the server went up, literally everyone in the server expressed how much of a retarded choice the track was for a comp. Sort of like running a Counter-Strike competition on fy_iceworld. Well done, thanks for wasting an hour of our time.

Other:
-Some of the admins weren't approachable at all and didn't want anything to do with you when you had a problem/query.

-The person sitting in the admin area to Miniwalks' left went off at me for 'interrupting Miniwalks game' when i asked Miniwalks where i could find Deadman. I'm sorry but saying 'over there' and pointing is hardly an interruption. I have no idea if this guy is actually an admin or a 'friend of the admins' who thinks hes a fucking champ because he gets to sit in the admin area, but he was sitting in the admin area infront of a computer, that's good enough for me.

For the record, what this person said was "piss off can't you see he's playing a game" or something a long those lines. I am shocked that an admin would say such a thing to a player.
I pay $25 and drive 40 minutes to go to a lan and be helped by the LAN staff, not to be told to fuck off because you're too busy enjoying yourself.

-Tables were packed in too tightly, only made worse by idiot players who thought they could block a whole aisle for 4 hours while they had a chat.

Overall, i think respawn falls down in many aspects, and some of the staff have a lot to learn about 'customer service' from higher quality lans like 3xtremeLAN. They need to learn that they are running a lan, not a show-off power-tripping popularity competition. Yes admins, this means taht you may have to do hard work, play less games and help people out, omg no wai!

Personally i don't think i can be bothered to go to another Respawn ever again. It's too far away for me, the service sucks, the venue isn't anything special and for 150TB+ on the DC hub, there wasn't much quality content to be had, mostly junk. Also don't even get me started on how allowing NON-HASHED clients is ridiculous in this day and age.

edit:
To quote someone who may or may not have been involved with respawn lan in the past:

yeah.. it weirds me out that admins think they are allowed to play games... thats how shafted got shafted

theyve been to a lan.. helped run a lan but have no concept of business, customers, customer service etc... all the important stuff.. they are just really lucky that half the gamers dont care

[dead_man]

Dot points seem the easiest way to do this:

-Did the tf2 comp end up being ran? I left around midday on Sunday and there was no mention of it by then which is a pitty.
-As someone else suggested, some delayed spec cam, which stv supports, or a demo of the of the finals on the projector would have been really nice. Apart from the winners standing on the stage I really didn't know when x comp had finished or if was even a close game
-Not really worth its own point but congrats to Zardos for winning the fail award on flatout 2 (i think >.>). Always good to see someone so happy about sucking
-DC ran like a sack of spuds for the majority of the time but I'm fairly sure that it was on my end. The network seemed fine otherwise.
-Power was fine. Was the kettle reclaimed or was it tossed later on?
-Seating was fine, it might have been a bit crowded if you were stuck in the middle of a row or on the wall.
-Temperature at the venue was fine, maybe a bit cold just before dawn but nothing a jumper couldn't fix.
-No idea on the food, learned my lesson after some bad shafted snags. Ditto with coffee and cold drinks minus the lesson.

Overall it was an slightly above average lan. I've been to better and probably to worse but I will make the trip again. Cheers.

TF2 didnt end up running unfortunatly due to reason outside of my control, i spoke to several players at the LAN some of who could and some couldnt run TF2 for some reason. apparantly an update of some sort (though this isnt mentioned on steam)

i had this issue of tf2 wanting to update even though it said it was updated 100% and copying over other people GCFs didnt help either.

[SirSquidness]

TF2 didnt end up running unfortunatly due to reason outside of my control, i spoke to several players at the LAN some of who could and some couldnt run TF2 for some reason. apparantly an update of some sort (though this isnt mentioned on steam)

i had this issue of tf2 wanting to update even though it said it was updated 100% and copying over other people GCFs didnt help either.

[offtopic]
for future reference if that happens... Grab the updated GCF files from someone. Get UCL. Set up UCL to run under your Steam username and to use your steam apps folder. Right click game, "Install Minimum files". That will extract the updated files out of the updated GCF files and place them in the game's folder. You could also do it the other way around.

I didn't see any TF2 update though. There was one on Tuesday though.
[/offtopic]

A few more small things I've thought of. Constructive criticisms. This post is bound to sound negative, but as per my previous post, it was an aboslutely epicly awesome LAN. But not perfect - there's no such thing as a perfect LAN (maybe when full VR comes along... )
-Carpet squares across cables really need to have a little bit of tape on them. Almost all of them were completley off the cables they were covering by the end of the LAN. It's a bastard of a job to do when you're flat out and exhausted (been there, done that, drawn substantial blood from trying to do it too quickly), but it is a rather important one, especially when you're running fibre cables around which may get damaged by a high heel/wheelie chair, along with huge bunches of mains cables. Duct tape is cheap and effective.
-Perhaps have the projector cycling through various information when it's not being used for other stuff, such as upcoming comps, server info (what servers are running. If you can manage it, whcih ones are populated), any other major information (food at xPM, etc). I do really like the idea that was mentioned of spectating a competition. I think I saw Source: TV running on the CS: S server already? Not hard to set up for source servers, anyway. Then when nothing's happening, switch it to Tank's folder of 4000 funny images which he will bring next time
-Don't have a CS: S competition scheduled over 5 hours for just the qualifying rounds (a quick comp is a good comp. Perhaps a time limit of no more than an hour for any single competition, unless otherwise posted)
-Announcers should have an energy drink 15 minutes prior to announcing and/or presenting prizes. I do realise you've been working your arses off for the previous 30+ hours, but a few times people on staged looked/sound like they were about to fall asleep

If it's possible, some form of coloured lights around would be good. I think someone mentioned it in the IRC channel the night before the LAN. The hall already has stage lighting hung. That probably means there's spare lights around you could hang without screwing up their default lighting layout, and then add coloured gels in. I don't think it's worth paying for though., so only if you can get them off the hall for free already If you got some funky party lights, such as a colour changer / wave effect light / what not, it'd be even better.

Other good things I didn't mention last time.
-Awesome decorations. I loved the clear tarps hanging down from the mezanine. Very well done to whoever made them.
-Custard chugging and hard drive throwing were fantastic. It's always great to see half the hall participate in something, or at least go out and watch. I found it to be a great way to talk to randoms I'd never seen before, not to mention getting the vital vitamin D for which we're often starved It's a pity not as much enthusiasm was shown for the other AFK comps (I keep going to call them smacktard events like we call them up here... >.> )
-Flatout 2 comp was awesome. Again, I'd love to see more participation like that. Need to find a game that supports an epic amount of people in one server, then try and get as many people as possible in the game. Quake III was cool too. The second time ever I'd played the game, and I won. Perhaps a game mode that requires skill next time
-Complements to the check in chicks (and any guys that were doing it. There weren't any when I checked in though). I was expecting a few minute wait, minimum, when checking in. Instead, it was pretty much "Hi. I'm SirSquidness. 'sup?", handed them money, got the envelope, then done!


Perhaps next time along with the dog tags, a small badge or something to stick on the front of your PC/monitor. I, for one, am shit at remembering names, so I met a few people then forgot who they were while talking to them at their PC. I hung up the envelope that the dog tags came in on the front of my PC, and a few people said hi. One guy in particular initated a conversation with me on IRC becuase he was in the next row across and recognised the name from said envelope on my PC. It's just another small way to encourage people to mingle etc, which I reckon is the best part of LANing - meeting fellow nerds.

That's all from me for now.
Love,
-Sirsquidness

[Tank]

<snip>
A few more small things I've thought of. Constructive criticisms. This post is bound to sound negative, but as per my previous post, it was an aboslutely epicly awesome LAN. But not perfect - there's no such thing as a perfect LAN (maybe when full VR comes along... )
-Carpet squares across cables really need to have a little bit of tape on them. Almost all of them were completley off the cables they were covering by the end of the LAN. It's a bastard of a job to do when you're flat out and exhausted (been there, done that, drawn substantial blood from trying to do it too quickly), but it is a rather important one, especially when you're running fibre cables around which may get damaged by a high heel/wheelie chair, along with huge bunches of mains cables. Duct tape is cheap and effective.

it's a lot of tape maybe somthing that will get added to the list of things ot think about

-Perhaps have the projector cycling through various information when it's not being used for other stuff, such as upcoming comps, server info (what servers are running. If you can manage it, whcih ones are populated), any other major information (food at xPM, etc). I do really like the idea that was mentioned of spectating a competition. I think I saw Source: TV running on the CS: S server already? Not hard to set up for source servers, anyway. Then when nothing's happening, switch it to Tank's folder of 4000 funny images which he will bring next time

i r a she ^_-

also yea, its another thing we need to get more organised on, haha

If it's possible, some form of coloured lights around would be good. I think someone mentioned it in the IRC channel the night before the LAN. The hall already has stage lighting hung. That probably means there's spare lights around you could hang without screwing up their default lighting layout, and then add coloured gels in. I don't think it's worth paying for though., so only if you can get them off the hall for free already If you got some funky party lights, such as a colour changer / wave effect light / what not, it'd be even better.

i can't explain how much i (perhaps zardoz) would lvoe to do this, however theres quite a few parcans (the ones tha tlook like tin cans) and we simply need the power for pc's. especially when we are trying to cram 350ppl+ in

<snip>
That's all from me for now.
Love,
-Sirsquidness

hugs!