Hey guys! well V12 is now over!

Since one of the main goals of the Respawn team is to continue to run fantastic events, feel free to post any comments, issues, critism, etc in this thread!

What would be awesome if you could firstly say which area you are adressing (power, network, food, comps, theming, other (or whatever), as that will make it easier for the respective admin's etc reply and also help us when we meet up to discuss things!

Please keep this thread orderly, no silly spam posts (which will be removed).

Thanks!

-Tank

hall management and food.

I've said it in the irc channel. I'll repeat it here.

That you mini(?) for only turning on the fans and not the heating as the air quality was the best so far this lan and i did not leave it feeling like i was getting a cold! and pancakes rawk as a food thanks for that one tank!

i just want moar bacon pancakes

saying that, ill have ALOT more servers ready for the next event, i was completely flooded once i saw COD4 teams registered. and CS:S is going to get redone aswell

use cevo rules for tf2
otherwise was fun for me

pretty fun event

only issue was the prize money was fairly low for the $13,500 from entry fee's, out of that you offered only $1,000 back into prize money. Should be alot higher unless hiring that hall costs 5K or somthing which i doubt it does. And with CoD4 having 18 teams with a 1st prize of only $250 is extremtly low if it was an individual event for cod4 only 1st prize would have exceeded $1000 easily none the less i enjoyed the event hopefully there are some better prizes! ;D and also check out the prizes from this event which has less people then repsawn

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/forums/thread...036;90k-prizes/

Power: Didn't notice any hiccups around my area, nor did i hear of any major issues
Network: fantastic as always
Food: I didnt hang around for BBQ's, but i heard they were awesome - also, drinks on sale were awesome as always
Comps: Awesome, except my pc crashed on the FO2 Comp The HAWX Comp could have been organised better though. Fun comps were great.
Cooling: Vortex may not have noticed because the admin area didnt have the cooling directly above it, but my mates out in the general player areas were wrapped up like eskimo's because they were sitting right underneith a cooling vent, and were freezing! Not sure about the controls, but i know evap cant have temps set, but perhaps put the fans down lower?

All in all, it was a good lan, despite my random raid failures - sorry to the respawners that had to put up with the beeping from my pc when i was asleep as it failed

A note on deoderent: I always bring some, but perhaps if admins could get a hold of those small vending machine deoderent cans to sell up front, for those who forget? Some people seriously stank!

yeah same thing imo
bigger prizes = bigger attraction, if you get big enough prizes, teams will travel interstate to come

pretty much the more you output, the more you get in

also if you want more in, advert the lan within the compeditive communities, gotgames/ozfortress(tf2)/cybergamer so on

lan was great mic was put to better use and projector was not showing fail youtube clips

oh yeah and food was good as ;-)

Great LAN. Admins were very friendly And the drinks/snacks were cheap + thanks for the midnight BBQ.

Only problem was lack/low prizes for comps (mainly Call of Duty 4). There was 18 teams and $250 was a very low first prize.

Also expect a bigger turn out for Call of Duty 4 at the next Respawn, as this LAN has been getting a lot of attention over at the CyberGamer forums. Hopefully 4-5 DECENT teams will show up bringing it to around 20+ COD teams.

over 20 teams!! fuck me dead.

im gonna start preparing for that now

Haha well there was 18 at V12. Assuming it gains in popularity, 20+ would be my guess. We'll just have to wait and see though

there will be a few more decent teams there next time guarantee'd deadman so those prizes better be higher ;p

18 cod4 teams, 3 of them were actually decent. i was dissapointed in 2nd place prize.. a bottle of red eye after 8 hours of serious mode gaming

Cooling: Have to agree with neon here - Vortex must have been sitting in a very different part of the hall to where I was if he's thanking you for not turning on the heating, because me and everyone sitting around me were pretty much freezing. I for one was certainly ready to sacrifice a significant degree of air quality for some heating in the morning.

Comps: My concern is that Respawn seems to be somewhat torn between running the TF2 comp as an event for casual players and a tournament with a serious ruleset like the other main comps, even though doing the latter doesn't really do anything to harm casual players' interests. This is somewhat frustrating because as far as I could tell CS:S and CoD4 enjoyed the same ruleset used in their respective competitive leagues, while looser class restrictions had us playing quite a radically different game from typical competitive TF2 with no real benefit apparant for it. Did casual teams feel like the game was significantly better because they were allowed to run two medics instead of one?

There were also some strange discrepencies and confusion in the scoring system, especially in the finals match. 5-CP push maps are generally played 30 minutes or first to 5 points, and finals matches are often played as a set of best of three games on different maps. Our first round involved that correct scoring system but playing the same map twice, and the finals were just played as one game with best of three points? lol

All I'm suggesting is that making that last step to fully match the ozfortress ruleset would make only positive impact to the gameplay and in return would open up the potential to bring in more decent teams. This is, in my opinion, a really important step for improving TF2 @ Respawn.

Aside from that, as the CoD4 players have mentioned for their own community, bigger prize money is always the big attraction for expansion. If the prizes are good, good players will want to come.

I don't want this post to be all suggestions/criticsm, because I had a really fun time at Respawn. I enjoyed all the comps I entered, and having those frequent fun comps was very cool. All the staff I talked to were friendly and clearly committed to running the best event they can, which is awesome. Thanks for your hard work guys.

I don't know the least about budgeting or such, but ill input what i think about where the lan should head

right now respawn is probably the biggest Melbourne lan that actually happens, not only that it has the only appeal to the competitive community atm as a lan (at least for tf2).
respawn could grow VERY easily as there is no big Melbourne lan atm, double or triple the prize money for the comps, and you'll see a HUGE boost in number coming from the competitive community, but this is only if the word spreads.

i heard about respawn through someone else, and dispite being a usual on quite a few pc gaming forums, i see no word of it. if respawn would simply put itself out there, a simple post of a few major communities advertising itself as the only melbourne lan that actually matters, youll see a massive boost in numbers coming from the respective communities.

reloaded in SA advertises itself as a major lan, one a year with a crapload of sponsors and competitions, along with prize money. but then i see their numbers, "over 500 attendees".
respawn almost reaches that number too as a bi-monthly event. you guys could easily beat that through getting some more sponsors (shouldn't be too hard as the only melb lan that matters) and bumping up the prize money.

the prize money is something i dont know about personally since i dont know what sort of budgeting you guys get up to, but you guys pulled in over 12k (400x30=12k) and i dont see why you couldn't spare about 1k to boost the cod/tf2/css appeal.

reloaded has the exact same pricing (30$ a head) and same time length (10am sat to afternoon sunday) and it advertises itself as a major lan. pulling only slightly more than respawn. if respawn held a once a year major along with its normal bi-monthlies throughout the year. it could become not only the melbourne major, but an Australian major, pulling teams from every state including WA. easily jumping the numbers to maybe even 1k

i know the current venue is at its limit at about 500 players, so i cant really comment on that, exhibition center has been mentioned but i know that it is A LOT more costly than the union hall, you could get more numbers, but there's the issue of pulling those numbers first.

i believe respawn could easily pull those numbers though, as i said before i dont see respawn advertised anywhere. you could easily appeal to the big Australian pc/gaming communities. OCAU, GotGames, CyberGamer are a few i know of, and i bet there's plenty more i haven't heard of before

i want to see respawn grow, im more than willing to help with my ideas, but as ive hinted before in this post, i haven't ran a lan before, so i can't exactly comment. but from what i see, with a few small changes and a bit of talking to communities and sponsors could lead this lan to become huge


but if the people who run this lan don't want it to become a serious business hardcore gaming lan, but instead leave it as a more of a social fun fest, keep going the way you are, because i had a HUGE amount of fun at this lan, and im pretty sure every person i was with did too

to all you people complaining about prize money:

I'm sure you all noticed the cost of the LAN went up to $30 this time, and if you read about it when they announced it, they said it was because of rising costs. A lot of you don't realize just how expensive it is to organize this lan, it's not just hiring and dumping people in it, things like power, tables and chairs, network maintenance, upgrades to the network and the free bar be ques cost money.

It would be nice if the games had some better prizes, but perhaps sponsorship is the way to go. I liked how, for example, the HAWX comp rewarded joysticks. It would be cool if the TF2 comp, as well as the prize money, offered say a new logitech G9 mouse.

As a TF2 team that is somewhat in the middle of casual and professional (we stomped some teams, but then in term got stomped by other teams), after playing in the comp, i would agree that the somewhat strange rule set doesn't really do anything, and we should be running the official rules.

I was a bit bummed about TF2 and RA3 running at the same time, my two favorite games

Lastly, the serious business comps aren't EVERYTHING about respawn. I've read your post, Redact, and if it meant we had to give up a lot of things that made respawn fun (the hourly funcomps, the crazy leeching, the AFK comps, the LOG servers, the games of obscure games that people have barley heard of, and moments like, someone THINKING they are getting Transformers 2 and ending up with Scat Porn), i say no deal, those are the best things about respawn, the serious business comps are just a small part of it

Thats pretty much it. If respawn chase up major sponsors they would have to change the way that the lan is run... Less random fun things and more competition oriented. Also i think it would make it less fun for everyone who runs this (who are all volunteers btw)

Plus if respawn have crazy cash prizes, a lot of people would only come to the lan for the money and IMO, it would really detract from the atmosphere.

Hi,

On the topic of prize money, we can't throw it all away to you guys! We need money to grow our event. We've had to purchase gear, hire tables, pay for the venue and other incidentals. No admin pockets a single cent from these events and we pour our heart and soul into these events as we have a passion for the events and the community. Yes, we do come out marginally ahead but this money goes straight back into the event and to bigger and better things.

Due to the outstanding support of our community and the turn-out from last event, we are now drawing interest from potential sponsors and other projects which will ultimately benefit you, the gamer. We now have the numbers to say "here you go!". Mind you, Respawn is mostly word-of-mouth - while we do try to push the event, we haven't been doing that lately - so we have no doubt and full confidence that we can achieve a 1000 player event on a regular basis, for example. But we really like it if everyone else takes it upon themselves to get the word out. We're all in this together!

Redact - I've worked with Jeff's shed before and have found it unsuitable for such an event. While the venue and power are good, getting 24hr access, parking, security and regulatory concerns are an issue.

Personally I'd happily pay $30 - even more - to attend a Respawn and not have to run it for once

with the responses im seeing, thats exactly why i had this at the end, the way respawn grows and changes is up to the people who run it out of their own free time

Respawn is for the fun it has never been a massive comp its always just for fun i mean my taem pulled out off cod just coz we had enough fun and wanted to play the next comp it was not for the OMG i won factor.... wow i beat 450 people....... to tell you the truth thats not not many to beat.... plus half the teams would not even have a copy of Cod to play our first match could be played coz the other team didn even have it insalled! As for the sponsors side of things do you know how hard it is to get sponsors in the middle of a recession? they are lucky to get anything at all. All i have to say is that it is really good fun and probably the most fun games are the every hour fun comps