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Posted by: priorax Sep 25 2011, 11:02 AM

So it's Sunday morning and people are probably starting to leave the LAN.
To see the LAN improve we do appreciate your feedback!
Is there anything about this event you found particually good or bad?
Anything you think could do with improvement?
And so on...

Posted by: SaddaM Sep 25 2011, 06:44 PM

Horrible.

Starting from Beginning to Ending.

Entry:
The opening time of the LAN was terrible. I can assume that the delayed (10-20min) opening was important, but it's inexcusable considering you're running a business of sorts, you should have some sort of management in place to make sure your customers are happy - I came late, and it was still sad to see.

Once again, The prepaid line was extending out the building, while noticing the confirmed players had NO LINE. Fundamentally, We're the people that are your safeguard in money terms anyway. The sad thing is that this happened last LAN. Each line consisted of 2 validating team members, the same same as last LAN. Wouldn't you of learnt from the mistake last LAN - Which I made a clear note of last time I put my two cents in. I prepay for the extra benefits that entitles a greater assist over non prepaying members. I expect these benefits (I assume a faster validation is one of them.)

Turn-Up
The turn up was pathetic. That isn't your the Admin Teams fault however. It's like this was the Christmas holiday's event. It's just sad. I'm actually glad the Christmas Holidays Respawn was cancelled (Postponed Idk) Because it would of been a worse turn up of people.

Music
The music has been a growing improvement. It offered a variety - which is good. I'd like to say some were just terrible - But that's personal opinion, So I won't.

The Vibe
The vibe of a feel-good respawn wasn't there, well I personally didn't feel it. Most likely due to lack of people. At some points I was bored despite the fact I was at a computer with multiple games, chatting in an IRC etc. Possibly just me, but man I was just naturally disappointed.

BBQ
A bit late, 2 hours, didn't really bother me, wasn't hungry, but just goes back to managing effectively.

Hoodies
I enjoyed them, they actually gave incentive to come. They were something different, and something relatively new. Even though you offer T-Shirts every LAN - Which is still good, but a hoodie offers additional warmth - So good job.

Poker
Poker was reasonable. The only thing besides the prize money (As that relies on players - understandable) is the first round blinds. Although it's only minor, it effected everything. Ultimately the $10 chip was useless. You couldn't play it unless you exchanged for a $25, even then, the next round blinds couldn't do anything with them - unless you'd manage to get 5. To summarize it, Should of just included the 5-10 dollar blinds from last LAN.

Thats as much as I can remember, might extend on it in time.

Posted by: tricky Sep 25 2011, 07:36 PM

Queenie and myself do the pre-paid check-ins, the line is caused by ones that just stand there or the slackers that are too lazy to even bother writing down the bar code or printing it which results in us having them log into respawn site (it's only the way we can verify they are who they say they are). Sure a 3rd hand might help speed up the process slightly, but again if people fail to write/print bar code then existing problem will just continue.

EDIT: redacted (bad suggestion on my be half) If you do have any suggestions post here, otherwise feel free to pm me.

Posted by: SaddaM Sep 25 2011, 07:55 PM

Exactly. And with that, I assume that's what happened last time, correct? Ultimately you can't change everyone. Personally I usually print mine, but my printer has decided to malfunction - not the point. What you could do is improvise.

I.E - An extra hand in validating.
- One less hand in the confirmed line so it at least looks even.
- Perhaps even someone going around confirming prepaid players before the doors open, that would take the shrink the massive line.

Ultimately the only thing punishing people would do is take away potential profit, losing the LAN money, etc.
OR
Punishing everyone would change the balance of the lines.

Posted by: oodLes Sep 25 2011, 08:29 PM

Well in contrast to the above, it took myself and my mates about 5 minutes to get through the line and into the lan and setting up, this was just simply due to the amount of people checking in, and when I actually checked in, by having my ticket number ready it was less then a minute.

As for the lan itself it was great, couldn't complain, and the liquid nitrogen cooled Overclockng was sweet, but if we had some kind of live stream of the progress or something it would have been better for everyone. Thanks to Warcom for my newly won mouse as well, great showing and sponsorship from them.

As for the music, I have no idea why its there. Im trying to listen to my game/newly acquired video and all I can hear is background music. I have to say though, the music was really really good selection wise.

We could use some more information about winners of comps and how they're going but aside from that, all good here. Stayed from opening to 2:30am. Oh, and the UT2004 comp, we installed to play that but becuase we didn't have the "collectors edition" it would have taken hours to download the textures and other data through UT itself, so we couldn't play. :<

Posted by: tricky Sep 25 2011, 08:55 PM

Indeed. Generally speaking first 6 characters should be enough, but as to weather that's a wise idea of accepting pre-paid's is another thing.

Posted by: SirSquidness Sep 25 2011, 08:58 PM

Not that it helps you now, the extra content is a free pack containing two or three extra maps. It's not a "collectors edition" of the game as such - it's just a patch. I didn't think it mattered whether the bonus map pack was installed on the server or not, as long as you had your gamepatched to the latest verison - 3389.

Posted by: Dey See Meh Trollin Sep 25 2011, 09:08 PM

This was my first Respawn, and almost all I can say, is, amazing.

Sure, timings and set program guides may have been altered, but nothing and no one is perfect, and I liked it like that, having to be up front and having time to actually talk to other people, in flesh, meeting the admins, that sort of personal factor is the best part about LANs, not just playing games and crap.

So my opinion, is that there may be a few things that need adjusting, but nothing to any major extent.

Posted by: Worthless Sep 25 2011, 09:42 PM

Righto.

Seating
A power distribution box was slapped right in the middle of a line of booked seats, breaking the whole line forcing our group to split up. Why can't this be mapped or why can't the distro boxes be put in such a way where they don't affect seating? The seat booking system to actually book your seats is, as before, a complete disaster. A forum thread is not an appropriate way to do it.

Music
So, so good. Do not change.

Steam
What is the deal with it being some people on Respawn have zero problems connecting while others can't even login? Happens everytime and it's random.

FlatOut 2
Fun competition. Except for one of the organisers starting a game without everyone ready, ignoring us, then lying about telling us to get ready (still got screenshots of it). Unprofessional. We wouldn't have had to of started the entire thing again if you had of actually sorted it then and there...

Noise
Players weren't yelling as much as usual especially during the CoD comps etc, which is great. Nothing annoys me more than "pros" ruining the event for everyone else.

It was overall good and I've noticed the attitude of the Admins had improved since last LAN, which is a very good thing. I think it's underestimated how much that improves the atmosphere.

Posted by: dead_man Sep 25 2011, 09:48 PM

Please send the Screenshots to either R4N or Sirsquidness so they can follow this up.

and in regards to COD im not suprised. there was a fairly large tournament interrstate most of the Pro's went to

Posted by: Jeffy Sep 25 2011, 11:15 PM

I have seen that, most of the people who tend to have problems is usually related to out of date steam clients. I had a few auth problems myself but I used my 3G Tether to do the auth and then swapped back to the LAN connection to play. Every event I've attended, Valve tends to release updates on the day. The admin team have worked hard (see the LAN FTP with backups of the latest steam games so that if you own it legit in steam it will allow you to insta-update.

Hope this helps, but steam will always be a problem if Valve continues to roll out updates on their Friday which happens to be Respawn Saturday (needs less timezones to avoid)

Posted by: oohms Sep 25 2011, 11:41 PM

If you keep steam up to date and you don't save your steam password, you can usually get into offline mode quickly by unplugging your network cable before opening steam, then plugging it in after it has loaded up in offline mode

Posted by: SandyRivers Sep 26 2011, 09:46 AM

I had fun, looking forward to the next LAN, I'll also bring a gaming PC to it.

Posted by: St0rmynit3z Sep 26 2011, 10:02 AM

Friendly people! Access wasnt too bad, Thanks to all the people who opened the door for me so i could go out for a smoke, i really appreciated it.

Im the guy on the crutches.

Posted by: TechL Sep 26 2011, 11:44 AM

Pretty good LAN, the music was actually good this time. Just sucks we'll have to wait until next year for the next one.

Posted by: oodLes Sep 26 2011, 03:28 PM

Yeah we had the 3389 patch, still had to download textures at 0.1% a second lol.

Posted by: SirSquidness Sep 26 2011, 03:55 PM

Damn, man. Sorry about that!

Posted by: tazzyface Sep 26 2011, 06:27 PM

I quite enjoyed this one. Music was good, I had no trouble hearing announcements, etc. I just wish the chick's comp was a bit more organised - I had no idea what the games were and it started late, but then I guess it is a fun comp. There probably would have been more entrants if they knew what the games were. I think it clashed with the bbq, but this wasn't really an issue for me. I arrived at around 10:20am and had no troubles getting in by then. I think this may actually have been my fav Respawn yet.

More girls need to enter comps though. Seriously, you don't need to come just to spy on your boyfriend or leech the latest season of Gossip Girl (seen both of these happen).

Posted by: TechL Sep 26 2011, 08:24 PM

Anyone know how many people were at this Respawn?

Posted by: Jeffy Sep 26 2011, 09:52 PM

From what I saw around 320~ from the looks of it. (rough estimate from a wander around)

Posted by: silent_rock_faery Sep 26 2011, 10:20 PM

Much better music. I am very pleased with this.

Posted by: Prim Sep 27 2011, 03:07 PM

Alright my take on it:

Music:
In all the lans so far I have not yet heard any music. Good headphones ftw. Probably should stop playing it if you are though as what one person likes, another will hate and is so different to each one.

Competitions:
Though I spent most of my lan setting up my friends computers and not actually playing games, I was waiting for announcements and checking forums for funcomps. Again as per all previous lans, the announcements are usually too late (it will start in 5 minutes - good luck downloading the game, getting settings right, and just being in the room when it happens). Definately needs to be organized a LOT better. I know you have the respawn notifier - personally i have not found it useful even once. I'm not sure if my suggestions have been taken up for this lan. On your comps list you should be able to tell WHEN certain funcomps are running, especially ones like armagetron, soldat (obviously not happening anymore), baboviolent etc. Should get the amount of people playing way up and a lot more fun. At the very least let us know an hour before it is happening so we can prepare/practice.

Also, at one stage you mentioned you were handing out door prizes, though no names were called at all?

Internet:
Very good job this time around. I could do almost anything on the internet - i assume it was for the SC2 players. If it can stay like this every time, people should not have problems with steam or minecraft or whatever anymore

Events:
I quite liked the various events you had going, SC2 players, nitrogen cooling thingy, warcom stall etc. Keep it up.

Posted by: PaintTheStreetsInWhite Sep 28 2011, 10:50 AM

They did door prizes twice... once on Saturday night and I was told they did one on Sunday afternoon too....


Loved this LAN, great work guys. Although none of us had any clue that the Gungame comp was live in server #2... maybe we're all just retarded, haha. Music was good, I really have no cons at all!

Posted by: OM NOM NOM Sep 28 2011, 10:55 AM

I found this one really disappointing. agree with everything that SaddaM said.

15-20 opening delay.

Poor organising for pre-paid.

Nerfers are getting worse. I almost got shot in the eye twice.

Comps are badly organised. ( The notifier has never been useful ) and as Prim said at least an hour notification before the tournie (practice, make sure everyone is prepared) Never heard a thing about the Girls Comp on the PA. If that happened, there would of been a much higher chance of the event even happening :'(

Lack of sausage in my mouth. D:<
What happened to the Sausages at like 9-10 in the morning? and the couple of hour delay for the midnight sausage fest, was incredibly annoying.
Respawn is famous for the mass sausage, yet you guys can't even get it right anymore.? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Things i did like was the Warcom stand, nitrogen cooling, and the Gigabyte SC2 tournament (although they were delayed) kudos to them for good organization after what happened (mugging incident) and the event was amazing. I was barely on my PC, because of the lack of activity.

Totally not worth $35

Posted by: Worthless Sep 28 2011, 11:54 AM

Every single event everyone complains about the utter uselessness of the seat booking system yet it never changes =D

Posted by: Jeffy Sep 28 2011, 12:07 PM

I don't think they've done a breakfast sitting for a while. Alot of people tend to leave overnight I saw at v22, so I'd suspect the difficulty in catering for "unknown" numbers would lead to over supply and wasting unnecessarily.

Posted by: priorax Sep 28 2011, 12:19 PM

The notifier is as useful as those who update it. I know that given the feedback here, from now on I'm going to try to pay close attention to the CoD4 and CS comps to make sure stuff goes out on the notifier for them (even if its just a link to a forum post with details), however I get the feeling that this will stop around the time that TF2 gets started.

As for the chick comp, because I didn't attend, I can't 100% confirm what happened with that, but I shall talk to Vot to see if we can improve it.


Firstly, I have a great level of respect for you, I know I would have just said "setup your own computer" after a while and sat down and gamed.
While in the past we have published a funcomp timetable, when it comes down to it, they are fun comps that are intended to be run hourly, and I'm not sure about last event, but in the past, when the winner has been given the prize, the next game has been mentioned, which gives you between 30 and 55 mins depending on what the game was to get it all setup. Also because they are fun comps, and not comp comps, they, in my oppinion, shouldn't be given a time table as it makes it seem a bit more rigid. None the less, I shall bring this up with Orbit (last time I checked he was still doing fun comps).


Thank's for the great feedback so far everyone!

Posted by: Xenosis Sep 28 2011, 01:05 PM

My only complaint is, Went outside for a smoke at about midnight, The guy was on the BBQ cooking the snags, i asked him if there ready or how long till there ready? He said no there not ready, Get inside sit down infront of my pc and an announcement gets made over the PA how the sausages are ready.
Pretty immature if you ask me

other then that it was my favorite respawn ever

Posted by: Votucu Sep 28 2011, 07:23 PM

Ok, doing a mass quote-reply job here.

Door prizes are usually run twice - one on Saturday night, one Sunday afternoon (usually a couple hours before pack-up). I'm not sure why you missed the actual prize-giving, but it might be a good idea to keep an eye out for 100-odd players mingling at the front of the hall.

We're open to suggestions on anything better, but unless we ask someone to devote countless hours to writing and maintaining an automated system (think Cinema seat bookings) this is the way it will have to be.

As with every event, all we can say to this is to get an idea of who shot the dart / where it came from and report them to the Admin area. We'll do our best to curb silly Nerfers, but we don't have eyes on all the hall at once. Also, I've had other reports that the Nerf issue is getting better (obviously the people saying this weren't unfortunate enough to cop stray bullets this event) so keeping us informed is even more important, because it's hard to tell if we're on top of it or not.

I'm bummed you didn't hear this, I even got Squid to do one of his loud and exciting announcements I'll make sure we do two next time ^^

I'm sorry the chick comp was a bit of a let-down. We haven't run one for a few events and people were saying they wanted to ramp it up a bit more, so I changed the structure allowing for FPSing and supplied computers... but they were subject to a whole bunch of things that didn't go according to plan (I still don't know why Steam was saying we needed to purchase CS:S; we bought and installed 8 copies purely for the chick comp!) and so I know it wasn't all it could have been. I will continue to put more effort into this comp, and actually find the time to check everything is installed and working before next event >.>;

I also apologise for the delay - my role at Respawn calls for several things during the event and I'm afraid the chick comp was delayed by me frantically driving to several Coles to get BBQ supplies that had somehow been forgotten on the Friday. Again, this comes down to me knowing better next time.

And I agree - more girls need to game! Sitting around watching is no fun at all. We will continue to try to supply the ready-to-play PCs for the girls who've always used not having gaes or their computers not being up to speed as an excuse (), and for anyone for that matter.

Posted by: Sharks Sep 28 2011, 09:12 PM

The midnight one was delayed due to the big BBQ that respawn usually use was not to be found this event and the gophers were stuck to cooking many sasuages on a small, 2 plated BBQ.

Event was good, people were more respectful this time around and I had a nice bunch of people around me.

Also, to the people who gladly stop/smile or use manners when talking to Jutzy or I on saturday morning during Traffic. Thank you. It makes the job a whole lot better when you can have a joke / remember old faces.

Posted by: Worthless Sep 29 2011, 05:26 AM

I volunteered multiple times to help you guys out with one. I've already got an automated system setup for another smaller LAN and it'd take a small amount of adjustments to upscale it.

Posted by: Tibor Sep 29 2011, 05:54 AM

You know guys you can play games without it been in a comp. Get some friends together, give out a shout on forums or to admin. No real reason to sit and wait for comps to start. Also as per delays and things not running as smoothly as you want remember the admin team dont get paid, they host this stuff for fun. If delays is such an issue to you maybe you can volunteer to help out.

As for the female comp, can you guys provide 300 or so comps so we can have a guys comp?

Also

Thats great but there were still plenty of people not logging into steam because others where using the bandwidth.

Posted by: R4N Sep 29 2011, 10:05 PM

Thanks for your comments guys/girls.

In terms of funcomps, i have taken the advice on board and we will endevour to add more funcomps to the static timetable.

As Tibor said, there is absolutely nothing stopping you guys approaching an admin or gopher and asking if we can organise a game session/funcomp for you. Keep in mind however that we do not play every game under the sun, and may ask you to do the organising yourself

As for the announcement issue, I ask a question. How would you guys like to hear/be notified about competitions/food/other? The notifier is available on the EMS for anyone who needs it. We attempt to make regular updates/announcements about competitions over the PA. should we set up a VLC stream perhaps so you can hear announcements over headphones?

I understand that we do not advertise everything over the respawn notifier. We will endevour to rectify this next LAN (I intend to announce ALL funcomps over the notifier as well as over the PA)

Posted by: silent_rock_faery Sep 29 2011, 10:48 PM

I think knowing what games are being played a while beforehand. I was too embarrassed to play because I suck at nearly every game!




I like the notifier, but I also think maybe the projector could have a running thing of notifications

Posted by: jutzy Sep 29 2011, 10:53 PM

Prehaps an updated slideshow?

Posted by: soulink Oct 14 2011, 08:55 AM

Well thanks to zardoz at the start helping me get an old keyboard PS/2 adapter very gratefull or my PC would nopt have been playing games that day:)

Posted by: Jeffy Oct 14 2011, 04:30 PM

I was just about to say, the feed from the projector with sound also pumped into a VLC Multicast stream that people can tune into would also help improve it. That way they can leave it running in the background.

Posted by: wolfmother Oct 22 2011, 12:31 PM

This is technically not too hard, and may warrant experimentation.

Posted by: mast3r_illu5iv Oct 23 2011, 01:34 PM

No major complaints here. Once again it was a well run event, most of the comments im about to make a pretty trivial anyway.

Seat bookings are still hard to get around. I had to look through a few pages to see if I had my preferred seat booked, although I do appreciate how hard it would be to organise.

Music was fine, If an average song came on, headphones went on.

I was sitting closer to the door this time and kept getting plumes of cigarette smoke blowing in, can the smokers either close the door of move away a bit?

Nerf gunner on the other hand I find hilarious, I have been hit a few times, but its all in good fun and ads to the atmosphere. I was keeled over on laughter at times!

The guy wrapped up in the WARCOM tape = funny as hell!

I still haven't managed to get in a photo either, do a bit more of a walk around and take some happy snaps.


How about a Poker table for beginners?? I have never played it and would love to learn!!
Or a Nerf target contest? ( I dont have a Nerf gun but it would keep the gunners amused for a bit)




Other than that, well done on another event!!

Posted by: soulink Oct 30 2011, 09:01 AM

HMMM, i think it is time to design a seat booking template that you can actually click and confirm yourself without needing an admin to edit the map.. HMM CODING TIME

Posted by: Archie1Bk Oct 30 2011, 02:56 PM

Noise
Players weren't yelling as much as usual especially during the CoD comps etc, which is great. Nothing annoys me more than "pros" ruining the event for everyone else.
[/quote]

HAHAHA It's cos I wasnt there =P And I'm not even pro it's just funny tbh haha.