Multi-Million Dollar LAN Event In Germany 99
lmake writes: "I'm sure a few Slashdot readers have been to a few LAN events. Packed up their computer, hauled it down to the event, almost breaking their back carrying their 19" monitor just so they can play quake against 200 other people for the day. Well, those days may be over. Electronic Arts Germany is sponsoring a LAN event in Germany with a budget of 4 million DM (AUD $ 5,200,000). You won't need to bring your computer to this event, they will be provided.
View the original article (in German) here
Or Cyberforces Gaming Nation has a translation here." The translated page is also abbreviated quite a bit; the original version raises the interesting question of just who is going to pay for the 3,000 (!) PCs needed for the event. (Do you really need a PC for each player?)
Re:Dang foreign money! (Score:1)
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
Also I think that to become a good gymnast takes a lot more dedication than to become good at quake. to become a gymnast you have to start at an early age, spend all of your time training, eat special food etc. etc. To become good at quake you need to play quake for what ? 2-3 years ? Bottom line is that it's harder to be a gymnast than to be a gamer.
Re:why? (Score:1)
warez,
stolen IP.
(imagine the lawsuit if a big commercial operation doesn't make at least some effort to prevent their gaming event from turning into a den of thieves)
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:1)
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
why? (Score:2)
Use a currency converter (Score:2)
How are we supposed to relate DM 4 million or AUD 5.2 million to real money?
Use a currency coverter, for example, this one [xe.net].
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:2)
EA management (Score:3)
http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=5239
4 million DM (Score:5)
Re:Hrm.. (Score:2)
Which is great being at my level - it doesn't matter what setup you put in front of me...I can adapt to it instantly and continue playing at the same skill level I can on my home machine.
I suck at Quake, so it doesn't matter what you put in front of me - I'll still suck.
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:1)
First, let me mention that networking is NOT the mainproblem at bit events. Ever carried 400 tables and seats over 200m and two floors? Food for 400 people? Trash? Power? But for now, I will only look into networking:
We use an semimodular Switch from Allnet, 96x100MBit Ports, backplane 16GBit. Guests are connected through a 100MBit uplink at Hubs or Switches (actually it doesnt matter much, because both habe only 100MBit uplink), with a maximum of 12 users per uplink. Given that fact we could manage 1000 computers in our network, which has been simulated and worked acceptable (wouldnt stress it too hard).
All our gameservers (20 Systems) are connected through one 100MBit-Line, which is mostly idle. Lets do some math: 400 gamers, each producing 15k/s downlinktraffic, 6MB/s. But this is a worst case, which never happens. We never had more than 2MB/s traffic on the gameserverline.
FYI, all gameservers are connected to a fast 100MBit-switch, one Server is our NFS-only-Server and distributes all games into the net. The gameservers could even boot without a harddisk, but we prefer to have suse6.3 (well, old but fireproofed
Well, Duh... (Score:2)
Not just to get into the technical logistics of playing Quake on a shared system, but this machine's MINE! And I don't wanna share!
Hrm.. (Score:5)
I wouldn't want to play on a setup other that my own if it was going to count for anything. I've played at LAN parties on other peoples' computers and it definately takes a hit on your frag count. Don't get me wrong though, a huge LAN party would definately be fun
don't be so danged negative (Score:5)
Getting together with other geeks to play and geek out is an essential part of our community. I don't care if you need to haul yer machine or not....brave that bright "Sun" thing, locomote yerself to yer nearest gathering o' geeks and make some friends.
Seriously. A friend probably introduced you to Open Source....gaming too. Might as well see if you can hook up with the fantastic 4 or the superfriends to make things better instead of scratching your head, looking at make errors and wondering where the other geeks are.
I can't make it to Deutschland, but if you wanna hang in the sf east bay....maybe we can coordinate something cooler, bigger and lovelier.
tack
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:5)
In any case, it's all just amusement. I'm just glad that we have a physically non-violent way of thinking about how to get things done; and this helps
Re:What about file transfer? (Score:1)
Hardly the biggest (Score:3)
This easter we had a great time at The Gathering in The viking ship on Hamar, Norway as usual. 4500 (!) attendees brought their own computers, and once again it became the biggest temporary lan ever made.
100Mbit ethernet provided by Nortel, it worked mostly flawless, with exception of the normal power outages and bad switches.
I can truly say that Gathering is one of the most fun ways to spend easter, i got whupped in the quake3 tournament, but atleast i brought home 85GB of 'stuff'
Check out http://www.gathering.org [gathering.org]for the lan site, and ftp://ftp.gathering.org [gathering.org] has all the great compo-winners and demos.
It doesn't sound that great to me. (Score:5)
EA is providing the machines, what do you think the chances are of their being installed games they don't publish? Do you want to play Tribes2 at the next big lan event you goto? I know I do.
Providing machines for the tournament activities is a good thing, we do that at QuakeCon to prevent cheating, and to provide a level playing field. Input configs are allowed to be transfered to the machines, but most display setting changes are not. This tends to rub the players the wrong way, but after seeing what most pros set their config to, I think its understandable. Its a Quake3 Tournament, not a washed out water-color painting Quake1 tournament.
The money EA is spending, I think $2 million US, seems like a lot, but I can easily understand how it such a bill could occur. These events aren't cheap, but they are a hell of a lot of fun.
Without our volunteers we wouldn't be able to have QuakeCon, and I'm grateful, and proud to see how each of them do both during and after the event. Some of the key volunteers use QuakeCon as a resume item. They are very proud of the work they do. As they should. Last year we built a network for 1300 people on Wednesday. Hungover. By wednesday night, we were all gaming. Of course by Thursday we were all hungover again, but at least we didn't have build another LAN.
Building a large LAN party takes a great deal of resources, but if a publisher like EA controlled the event I don't think QuakeCon would be the same. QuakeCon is the Woodstock of Gaming, yes we get corporate support, but it has been, and will always be for the people. If they want to trade files in the BYOC, thats their business. Tired of fragging? Fire up your copy of Age of Empires. You can even play EA games if you want.
Two million US. Sigh, that would have been enough for EA to finish UO2.
Peace.
John "EvilJohn" Carney
Executive Director of QuakeCon 2001
eviljohn@quakecon.org
Sucking (Score:1)
Re:This really makes me mad at EA (Score:1)
Re:thats nothing (Score:2)
Re:What about file transfer? (Score:2)
File transfer tends to suck the bandwidth dry at LAN parties. Most people I know still use hubs at LAN parties, sometimes even 10 MB. Copying files at the same time as 3 seperate concurrent Q3 DM games on the same LAN tends to kill the LAN.
Even getting a cheap 8 port switch and organizing your hubs through the switch can help a lot though.
I very much like the idea of copying files at LANs, and I admit I do it myself, although I do try not to copy too much. If the networks were a lot more efficient (e.g. lots more switches instead of hubs) it would be great.
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Re:Your own settings? (Score:2)
I played in a local Quake3 competition last year. Each player could submit their q3config.cfg file, and these files were made available on the network. The computers were supplied, but you were allowed to bring your own keyboard and your own mouse. I also brought some utils in (e.g. ps2rate) on a floppy. They had 32 computers, and you were assigned to a specific computer only shortly before playing.
Overall, it worked well. People installed custom mouse drivers etc for their boomslangs .. didn't seem to cause any problems.
Having all the computers the same also ensures that someone doesn't have an advantage over someone else simply because they have the latest GeForce, 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM etc.
There were no problems with file copying simply because players could not spend any additional time sitting around at the PCs. It was a standalone LAN, no additional PCs could be plugged in. Also the games were one after each other the whole time - so by and large, people were very focussed only on the games. Of course, this was a competition, not really a "LAN party".
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I have to wonder... (Score:5)
I could see a 32 or 64 person lan, but 3000 is just crazy. Also, with that many machines, I'm assuming each section would have a local game server. Otherwise, wouldn't the 100Mb links throughout the facility get saturated pretty quickly?
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:2)
without exception, the rule has been to use headphones.
Headphones:
- Don't annoy distract other gamers
- Don't allow other gamers to 'listen in' eg: "nuclear missile launched". or water
- Still allow you to hear other people/things
- Don't create an unfriendly environment (I recently went into a lan gaming place which had subwoofers and speakers on all coimputers... it created a horrible environment)
oh, and on the network bandwidth thing, you'd need a local server because the server would get overloaded, not the uplink. Playing games on a lan doesn't overly utilise the network, but can hammer even a well specced server--------
Difficulty of gathering 3000 people (Score:1)
I'm even going to sit here and say I'm probably wrong in what I'm about to say, but I think it's a possibility that they're supplying all the computers because, among the other many good reasons (to prevent cheating, etc.), it's difficult to get 3000 people to bring their computers. I mean, they're probably not going to have just people from Germany... so... for those who come long distances.. who really wants to bring their computer with them, if you're going as one of 3000 people to one big place to set up your equipment? Think about how hard that'd be! I could go on and on.. but I'm just guessing that, if they actually have the resources to get 3000 good computers (since they seem determined to set the world record for LAN parties), it's better that they are supplying the machines, not the actual participants...
But yes, I also agree with the people who say that a LAN party is much more fun when it's smaller, because you get to bring your own setup, yak with everybody, and generally have a good, homey feeling to the whole affair.
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:4)
While I agree wholeheartedly with this AC [slashdot.org] that the level of dedication required for traditional sports far surpasses what's required for current electronic games, I also think that electronic games can already be considered sports, in the same way that chess and card games are sports.
And the whole issue of useless skills is purely subjective. Come wartime, I'd hope that the diplomats trying to negotiate peace had good poker faces, the generals running my country's army had the skills of a good chess player, while the soldiers in the trenches had the hand-eye coordination and ability to deal with high-pressure physical situations of a quarterback. Of course, I'd be worried if press releases came from Washington that the President was worried about a possible Zergling rush of the White House.
< tofuhead >
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Re:Hrm.. (Score:5)
It can go the other way, too.
Assuming the machines are identical, this is a good way to make sure the prize money doesn't go to the one with the most money to burn in the first place (read: the one with all the disposable income and free time required to purchase and maintain a hot gaming rig).
Compare in terms of competitive spirit:
(1) "Yay, I won because I'm good."
(2) "Yay, I'm glad I upgraded my sound card driver last night -- 0.5% less CPU util., f00! The GeForce 3 didn't hurt either."
< tofuhead >
--
I agree (Score:1)
©o,,o©©o,,o©©©o,
Re:thats nothing (Score:2)
Re:thats nothing (Score:2)
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Re:thats nothing (Score:2)
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in US Dollars (Score:2)
Re:in US Dollars (Score:2)
Re:State your CC# to enlarge your monitor for FREE (Score:2)
Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
Re:thats nothing (Score:3)
so or there was a some manager who thought he should have the best stuff with no clue what he was doing OR someone ordered those with the intent of gaming
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Re:I have to wonder... (Score:1)
The Aussie Dollar ( AUD) (Score:1)
hasn't dropped that far !
Monday, April 30, 2001
4,000,000 German Mark = 3,578,842 Australian Dollar(s)
4,000,000 Australian Dollar (AUD) = 4,470,720 German Mark (DEM)
Thanks http://www.oanda.com
Euros ?
Still with that amount of money it's going to be an interesting event, Hope they SETI the boxes while Quake etc isn't running.
MRo
Re:thats nothing (Score:1)
Check it:
http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/01/03/29/1718204.s html [slashdot.org]
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:2)
Re:Well, Duh... (Score:2)
Re:Your own settings? (Score:1)
think of feelings.
Ever seen a Quake3 LAN ?
each player has his own mouse, some
play with 4 buttons ones, some overclock
the PS2 port, not to mention the mouse pad.
Many pro quakers can't play without their
solid 150 Fps, logitech mouse, keytronic keyboard,
IIyama 19" and everglide mouse pad.
Will this be a LAN for newbies ?
No more Quake, yea! (Score:2)
With the CPL stating that it would rather get more maney than promote a professional cyber-athlete sport. Let's all play campershite instead! Whee...
-cough-
I for one love what Quake has done to my coordination and deathmatch skills, and if I stopped, I'd prob. deteriorate, so I'll continue to play regardless.
:)
lailoken.
Give 'em away and Sell 'em away. (Score:1)
Re:Hardly the biggest (Score:1)
Should have been at DreamHack '00, The whole arena (including the shopping mall) was blacked out for a good while because some security bozo decided to turn on the lights...
/Mikael Jacobson
"But surely we won't be still stuck with Linux in 25 years!?"
this sounds a little pointless to me (Score:1)
Everyone's at the same disadvantage (Score:2)
Unless someone is lucky enough to have exactly the same setup as they provide you with, everyone ought to be at equal disadvantage for not being used to the mouse/keyboard/monitor/whatever.
I'm sure it would create a lot of administrative hastle, and wouldn't fix everything, but perhaps a selection of mice and keyboards could be made available? Not at the door, but if people were given some options at registration time, it might be feasible, and might reduce the difficulty in adapting. (Unless you prefer some offbeat mouse that's not on the list.)
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:4)
Well, Given that they're all networked, an obvious option would be to have a machine monitor the executable file filesizes (across the network) to make sure that nothing changes.
If they're really concerned, they could run CRC checks on the game files, but that would take an awful lot of effort, time, and processing power, not to mention network bandwidth.
A simple, non technological measure, would be to have people switch computers every few hours. (They're all the same anyway, right?) Simply don't announce it ahead of time, and if the person who gets a machine next does better than they have all day, look at the files over the network.
Honestly, I can't see how someone could alter the game if your suggestion of disallowing internet access and restricting disk usage was followed. (By not having floppy/cd drives in the machines, for example.)
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:5)
This is an interesting proposal, but I'll tell you this, and I'm not alone: I will not play on any computer but my own, ever, especially not at a LAN party. Moving to a new computer means moving to new input devices; I find it takes days at the very least to get used to new input devices. This would also be strongly discriminating against people with unusual control devices (joysticks, trackballs, DVORAK keyboards--yes, they are out there) and, much worse, people with unusual control configurations (I'm left-handed, and couldn't possibly play with any config vaguely resembling default. Including my scripts, my configuration is massive (I compile them with a preprocessor), and couldn't possibly be reconstructed by hand). If people were to move between computers, their configuration files, their input devices, and the drivers for those input devices would have to move with them--and since device drivers are arbitrarily powerful executables, that puts you right back at the start.
Another problem is that there actually isn't any working definition of what a cheat is. There are some things which are unambiguously considered cheats (distorting timedeltas to move at unnatural speeds, modifying video drivers to see the entire PVS), but other things aren't so easy to decide. One example is gamma-related video settings. Back in Counter-Strike 6.x, a video setting called lambert was discovered which could be used to cause other players to appear to glow. Opponents of it said that this was cheating, because it effectively gets night-vision goggles for free; I said that it was only evening an unfair advantage, because night-vision goggles didn't work on most hardware. Then, there's scripts, one of the most-misunderstood elements of the game. Nearly every advanced player plays with some sort of scripting in their controls, but some people consider scripts to be cheating, and some scripts are widely considered to be cheating. As a mod programmer, my opinion is that anything exposed by scripting functionality was deliberately enabled, and therefore is not a cheat.
------------------
A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.
Re:What about file transfer? (Score:1)
yeah porn!
Sorry, had to put that out there.
To sponsor an event like this... (Score:2)
Better Prizes? (Score:3)
I mean, it's not like it's a huge hassle for people to bring their pc's in. I've never had any problems getting mine to an event and set up correctly, and it seems that the only people who do are those with faulty hardware (quickly remedied).
This would mean that there could be a greater number of really competitive players, each battling for the multitude of prizes, with glory being the optional extra.
OR, better than all that, they could just get people to bring their own machines whilst curbing the excessive (AU$195 = US$100!) entrance fee.
Dang foreign money! (Score:3)
See, much more understandable!
Your own settings? (Score:4)
Well, okay, one of the main reasons that
people bring their own machines is that for a
game of Quake, UT, or whatever, you have your
own settings.
At one side it is good that every gamer at the
event has his own machine, since it is a huge
pain to reconfigure the game or to configure it.
Also a good thing of that the machines are
already there, that you have the same version
(same patches) of the game on all of the
computers.
Another thing what they might want to prevent
is a little side thing at LAN parties: sharing
files and exchanging games, mp3s, tools etc?
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
And Then...
Re:This really makes me mad at EA (Score:1)
Re:4 million DM (Score:1)
The 4 MegaDM budget obviously doesn't include the computers. They are looking for a sponsor to provide them. BTW: Huge prizes take away from the fun for many and give it to few.
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:2)
Cheating is not black and white. Some even call a rocket jump script (or duck jump script if you prefer CounterStrike) cheating. Some think replacing models and tuning the graphics for maximum visibility is fine. It's a LAN, you can watch them as they play. It's probably harder to cheat undetected than to win without cheating.
not to buy (Score:1)
Mind you, thats a lot of hardware to tie up at the same time.
I like the prize-money option :)
What about file transfer? (Score:5)
I know... LAN parties should be about playing games primarily.
But when I was on my last LAN party (also my first one), I downloaded several GBs of stuff (No, I won't tell you what I got there... :).
So while the people at that EA Lan will be happy to play some of the games they like most (NBA, NHL & FIFA, how cool... *yawn*) there will be no file transfer.
Thinking about the stuff that you can get at a LAN party... maybe this is even what EA wants it to be? A LAN party with gaming but no "file transfer"? ;)
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:1)
Id rather have my own machine at a LAN party... (Score:1)
Re:Dang foreign money! (Score:1)
DEM except for CHF.
Since the US Bank refused to unlimitedly exchange
USD to gold and backwards for foreign banks,
the dollar went down more and more. This was in
1975 FYI.
And the DM of course had 200% of inflation in 51
years, but it even has performed way better than
the $.
Just my 0.02 €
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Re:State your CC# to enlarge your monitor for FREE (Score:1)
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Re:This really makes me mad at EA (Score:1)
Re:This really makes me mad at EA (Score:1)
UO has a subscriber base of approx 250k users?
Multiply that by 10 bucks a month
So we're talking 2.5 million a month in recurring revenue.
Name one other EA product that makes that much money. EA has done nothing but made crap for the last few years. NFL2001 is the same as NFL200o only better graphics. NFL2000 is the same as NFL'99 only better graphics. As a consumer Im much happier knowing that a company is going to be innovative and come out with something cool than one that's just interested in the bottom line.
My cat just meowed at me...
The current state of EA reminds me very much of M$. Flood the market with crappy johnny come latelies products add with that with spending all kinds of dough on marketing and lawers instead of good coders you end up with a faceless megacorp that nobody gives a shit about.
I'm ranting...
I hope you get my point. Your answer could be akin to saying "Its M$'s product let them spend money where they want" Just because its their game it doesnt mean I want to be fed the same ol shit on shingles that i've been fed for the last 3 years.
I dunno, im not looking for flamebait, im just trying to get some good discussion goin.
O
o
.______________
This really makes me mad at EA (Score:2)
I'm a ultima online player, in fact me, my dad and brother all share accounts. We're seperated by at least about 30 to 100 miles and we meet online and hang out.
This outrages me cause its 4 million dollars. 4 million dollars they could have spent fixing UO Third dawn. This new client is a complete piece of shit, constantly crashes, has a really bad memory leak that can use up a gig of swap in less than 30 minutes.
They could have used that 4 million dollars to pay the salaries of the OSI people they shitcanned too! Why the hell did they fire Richard Garriot a.k.a. Lord British? I guess when your wasting 4 million on something stupid like a lan event its easy.
This is why the dot-coms failed. Being a sysadmin in about 8 companies in the last 5 years as a contractor or perm, you get access to it all, one company I worked at when I started getting suspicious about where the money was going I opened up their quickbooks and saw money going into all kinds of stupid shit, mainly the CEO's pocket. This wasn't income money either, this was private investor money that was meant to take the company public, which it never did.
I'm gonna stop before I get too emotional and start a 3 page rant. Bottom line is EA is really showing their true colors by spending money in this fashion. 4 million i'm sure would have covered the salaries for all the OSI people they just fired. We know now it wasn't a money issue, but instead it was some sort of personality conflict issue or maybe an ego issue between the Execs at EA and Lord British.
Fuck you EA if any of you are reading this. I plan to make this news on every UO board I can find. Any company that has management that puts personal issues ahead of what the company goals are is doomed for failure. Whats that? You shitcanned all those people so your boss wouldnt shitcan you in order to buy your kid that GI Joe with the kung fu grip? I've been with you since the 8-bit days, stuff like pinball construction set, movie maker, reals of impossibility, ect, but I don't think I will ever support another EA product again, anyone wanna buy a account with a house on Moonglow tram?
O
o
.__________Toq
Re:Your own settings? (Score:1)
If you are THAT time critical, bring a floppy from home with all your
Re:Dang foreign money! (Score:1)
4,000,000.00 DM = 1,825,312.02 $US
not bad
Re:thats nothing (Score:5)
Re:why? (Score:1)
Maybe they could let you personalize it a little by giving options before hand as to which mouse, keyboard, and maybe monitor size (though they'd probably put a cap on the size at 17" or 19" or something).
thats nothing (Score:5)
Re: Are we missing something? (Score:1)
With the possible exception of own_screen i hardly think that money will affect the outcome to badly, and that way gamers keep the feel of their own rig without any risks of cracks etc.
- Just my 1.4pence - Dom Howells
Configurations (Score:1)
If they play any games such as Team Fortress Classic, I know some people have really big configurations that they feel are necessary to play at their normal level or close to it.
I'd like to see how they'll handle people perhaps bringing in their own configurations on floppy disks.
What a waste (Score:3)
I guess that you can... (Score:1)
why not? the pcs are there to keep everything equal, and to make life easyer for the players.
I believe the balance would be shifted more if they would NOT allow people to bring their own input devices, as there would be some lucky ones who just happen to be used to the ones provided.
how about just checking the winners pcs? eom (Score:2)
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:3)
PunkBuster was a valiant effort made by people who sadly have very little idea what they are really up against. Apparently...they still don't... Ditto. Anyone that would be able to compete at this level is going to be in a similar boat. Ok, this is pushing it, I think... A preprocessor?!?! What game are these configs for again? There is a fair amount of power in most FPS scripting engines...but not that much. I'd be very interested in what you found you needed to pass off to a preprocessor.
IMHO, it would be fine for most people to simply bring their configs on a floopy/CDR and loaded by an "official" of the event. Automated text scanners could detect most/all of the config cheats and such (lambert, gl_zmax, fast walk, etc). I'd say let them bring their own input devices. Drivers shouldn't be an issue, simply download them at the event from the company website. -Unless someone thinks that a gamer will have a friend at Logitech who will be able to get hacked drivers put up on the company web site for a day. Anyone with "off-brand" input devices could simply apply for approval before the event.
In the world of online gaming, there are tons of exploits at every level. Even simply tweaking the gamma level of the monitor in the basic Windows control panel can yeld HUGE advantages in tactical games such as Counter-Strike, as it effectively removes all dark hiding places. Monitors would have to have their configs locked down, including the external adjustments.
Re:They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:1)
Modify nothing,
or else.
Sounds eerily similar to the situation at my high school. We have a great LAN and many computers, but it is all wasted because there will always be policy preventing us from bringing a burn of counterstrike to school.
I'd also like to add that photo student IDs are really pointless. After all, how are we protected if non-students are in the building, the students that are supposed to be there are what really worry me.
I'd like to know, who else has parties like this? (Score:1)
First of all, our LAN parties (we call them parties) are an overnight affair, but we bring no sleeping bags, pillows, or change of clothes. We bring caffine. Many of our parties begin around 6pm and only end around 5pm the next day. Once I added it all up and figured that I had been awake for 38 hours. We become extremely giddy when we go without sleep for this long. How long they will play in this German competition? If they stay awake playing computer games for as long as we do, the conditioning nessessary may qualify it as a real sport. How long do you stay awake for your events?
We don't take ourselves seriously, especially after we begin to become giddy with tiredness. For example, in Counter-strike whenever a flashbang is thrown a recorded voice says, "fire in the hole." One night, after playing Counter-strike for many hours, one of our companions tried to go to sleep. Crept up beside him, gave my best impression of the recorded "fire..." and deployed my flash camera. As his hands groped violently in the room lit only by computer monitors, I was in hysterics. I wonder, do good-natured pranks continue into adulthood?
We drink many bottles of pop, and Oreos and french loaves of bread are popular snacks. There are usually between 7 to 12 in attendance, and we usually play about 2 times a month.
Also, does anyone have any tips for making this a better experience?
All said and done (Score:1)
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
It would appear that gaming is at such a stage, where some basic ground rules probably need to be layed down so a consensus exists between major international tournaments.
From my experience and reading the posts in this thread, my reccomendations would be:
1. Tournament provides standard box/monitor
2. You provide mouse/kb
3. You bring disk/cd with drivers and cfg file, with the organisers reserving the right to check disk contents where foul play suspected etc.
4. Rotating computers is probably too much hassle, but providing some back up machines would be advisable.
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
State your CC# to enlarge your monitor for FREE!!! (Score:2)
21", thank you.
Ah, monitor envy... isn't it great!
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
Ouch. You really don't like gymnasts, do you?
It sounds like you are saying that because you specialize in something "useful", you make the world a better place, but gymnasts, and in general, people that specialize in sports, do not, and that they should be ashamed for their lack of usefulness.
But perhaps gymnasts do perform a useful function. I think it has to do with the brief period of happiness brought to the people that watch them flip about. At least that seems to make my mom very happy. I don't think gymnasts make me as happy as my mother, but as a scientist, I'm generaly curious about limits of human potenial. And gymnasts provide an interesting look at the fundamental abilities of the human body.
I understand your reaction, however. I think that many people over-value professional sports. And, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your response is to under-value them. But be careful. I don't believe that over-compensating is the best way to point out someone's error since you're trying to point out an error with an error.
Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:2)
How long has Gymnastics been around? Relatively speaking, the video gamming era has just begun. What you consider "good" at Quake today, will likely be below average tomorrow. It's not harder to be a gymnast than a gamer. It's just harder to reach what the world generally considers to be a "good" gymnast than it is to be a "good" gamer. But what we consider "good" will change over time, and we will raise our standards as gamers get better and better.
Imagine someone that trains their whole life to play Quake (or some other video game). They work out their fingers (or whatever does the controlling) doing special exercises each morning. They cross-train and practice their response times and general hand-eye coordination playing other games. They eat a special diet which helps them focus mentally for long periods of time.
The interesting thing to see will be if professional video gamers will specialize in just one game. I don't think so since video gamming is so closely tied to technology. Baseball will likely not change that much over the couse of a person's life. But video games will always be changing.
Waste of money? (Score:1)
Re:19 inch? try this one hotshot (Score:1)
3K PC's for a LAN party?! (Score:1)
"Hey, check this out, I got the same crappy machine as the guys to the right, left, front, and back of me!"
Not very enjoyable.
Even with that possibility gone, who would ditch their own computer to use someone else's for a LAN party? I mean besides the people (like me, ironically), that have glued together towers of Jolt cans around the PC to make it look cooler or something. If I didn't have this situation, I sure as hell wouldn't go to one of those LAN parties just to use a configuration that someone else dictated was "standard" and "fair" for me. What if the computers they use have substandard graphics hardware and my computer doesn't? Not to brag, but if everyone is limited to thirty frames per second at 640x480 16-bit color, that isn't going to be really enjoyable for many people. Hell, I know of a couple people that can kick major amounts of ass at fifteen frames per second on a dialup, yet they can't hit the broad side of a barn at 80 frames per second at 1024x768x32.
This sort of situation is essentially requiring people to conform to a set of standards that most will find inconvenient or simply unthinkable, others may not have a problem with them. Personally, I won't touch any mouse that isn't optical if I have to play games on it, but that's just me. When I play a game on an optical mouse, my sensitivity (in Quake engine games) HAS to be 10.5. The color depth HAS to be 32-bit, mostly to prevent me from standing up and announcing "dude, this color banding SUCKS!" every five minutes. I tried playing Quake on a standard keyboard, but found that I had much better control on a wavy keyboard.
I suppose the point of my rant is this: The majority of gamers are used to using a certain custom configuration, usually their own, for gaming. Yes, some of these people include "OpenGL invisible wall hacks" or "autoaim proxies" into their configs. I think that's obvious. Forcing people to conform to a set of standards to reduce the chances of cheating is lame.
They would have to provide pc's, no? (Score:5)
For a prize this big, the operators would have to try their best to ensure that there was no cheating taking place. Since some of the gaming exploits are passive (can't be detected) it could give an unfair advantage to anyone who brought in their own box (and with it, their own exploits).
I would assume they would also have to ensure that no players brought disks/cd's/etc to the computers. Maybe make it so there is no internet access from the LAN gaming computers -- to ensure no other software could be loaded on.
Anyone think of other things that could help with that sort of thing?
Re:19 inch? try this one hotshot (Score:1)
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19 inch? (Score:3)
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An Excellent Idea (Score:2)
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Re:Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:1)
As a designer, my skills are in demand by all variety of corporations, who want to present a professional image for their products and services, so that they can make money and establish a brand name so that their future success is continued. These companies' customers thus indirectly make use of my skills, as well. But a professional gymnast's existence is simple: make money by charging others to watch you jump on ropes and bars. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you accept that you're just a breast-less Bobo the Clown.
As long as you understand that all professional sports are three-ring circuses -- making money by showcasing the genetically influenced physical skills of social outcasts -- you'll be fine.
Kathleen
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Graphic designer and Mac lover.
Has gaming become a "real" sport? (Score:5)
Kathleen
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Graphic designer and Mac lover.
Re:thats nothing (Score:5)
Kathleen
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Graphic designer and Mac lover.
Seems a little too much... (Score:3)
Re:Hardly the biggest (Score:1)