Central Coast Gamers LAN

[TuRRiCaN]

Hey Everyone,

Update time and yes, long overdue............

Firstly and most importantly a huge massive "thanks" to all you guys for your support and help over the last few lans / months. After the kitchen fiasco things were looking a bit grim but we have noticed the effort you have all put in and thankfully so has the racecourse. Many thanks and keep up the good work.

Secondly a huge thanks to all our Admins who give up their time to assist in providing a good time for all. Most admins put in a fair amount of time before we ever get to the racecourse let alone the time they spend when there.

Thirdly a big thanks to those non admins who continually help out before, during and after LANS. We take a huge amount of gear over there and it takes a good 10 hours to set up and almost the same to clean up afterwards. These people are willing to help out with little or no recognition for their efforts but are an intergral part of every lan we have run. You are well appreciated.

Fourthly a big thanks to our "work experience dudes" who help out and support not only the lans but Dartanion Interactive as well.
Last month Dartanion Interactive ( the factory if you already didn’t know :) received the
"Information Technology Employer Of The Year" trophy at the
“Central Coast Vocational Education & Training Awards “ night held at the Mingara Convention Centre, Berkley Vale. Our Rocky got all dressed up, made a speech and accepted the award as representive for Dartanion Interactive and yes we will post the pics as soon as we get them.

Okies .. on to lan stuff.

We are spending the next 4 weeks working on the LAN full time. Then probably the next 4 weeks after that. We are still committed to running CCGL every month but basically we are at the point of “so what now”?
We have run 18 Lans in 18 months and put on a pretty good show but still we are in “amateur LAN land”. We are looking into every aspect of the LAN (areas such as sponsorship, competitions, preparation, admin roles, attendance growth, Community recognition etc.) and formulating a new mission objective. This process requires input from all you lanners. We are looking at providing a better service to the current lanners at CCGL rather than trying to increase attendance, but should numbers increase then that will be a bonus.

Admin meeting number 2 is due for this month so please put up your 2 cents worth to be included in the meeting agenda. We will be conducting regular 2 monthly meeting or earlier should the need arise. Our first meeting was very successful with lots of great ideas and banter but we had a few changes afterwards and little got done 
We are also formulating a more structured Admin Responsibility Outline for both Admins and Lanners with the aim of providing better support and services.

Web site is back up with new host and better support. It will visually change soon but not until it is 100% finished with all the new bits implemented and fully functional with a larger team looking after the development, updating and upgrading. Ongoing to is the development of the CCGL Intranet to operate in conjunction with the website and provide a lot more services at the LAN.

CCGL Forums are running smoothly and if you haven’t noticed now have info on forum / Mirc /Complaint outlines. We have added sponsor sections and now provide individual forums for CCGL Clans.
We are also offering webspace for people wanting their CLAN websites hosted at CCGL.

CCGL Membership, currently stands at 42 members, many thanks to those supporters. More rewards will be announced soon and with a bit of luck the database registering system will be ready and operating in the near future   .

Ultimate Gamers Competition. Yes we are still going to run it lol. This is a biggy with winnings confirmed at
First prize $1000.00
Second prize $ 400.00
Third Prize $ 100.00
The start date is yet to be announced as there are quite a few obstacles in the way, but were working on them. With all going well we are looking at January 2004 for the start. All players interested MUST register for this event, more details in above post.

Fees for LANS are comfirmed fixed at $20.00 per lan till June 2004. This does not mean that they will go up then just that we confirm that they will stay the same and be reviewed again as they have been since we started CCGL.
Loaner pc's however will go from $10.00 to $15.00 starting CCGL #19. Still not the $20.00 we origionally budgeted for so we are glad we can still keep the price down. On a positive note tho the Loaners are starting to be upgraded with new cpu's, more ram and better video cards. This will be ongoing so some will benifit sooner than others.

We are also in the process of upgrading to new improved servers in racks over the next few lans. Woooo !

We will be introducing our ANTI VIRUS server at the next lan so people will be able to scan their machines for virus's.


Enough for now
post your comments below
Catch you all soon
TuRRiCaN

[Raynar]

I'm sure I'm not the only lanner who's noticed the small improvements adding up over the past few weeks. I was pleased to see rules and guidelines go up on the forums for IRC, forums, and admins.

Although I always look forward to your post and update Turri because they talk about great and exciting things, they usually never happen or take a long time coming. (Paintball, Ultimate Gamers Comp, memberships, Gamer/Clan network, movie server, server upgrades, webcam, net cafe, insulation, advertising, well run comps, to name the ones that come to mind

Anyway as usual I have too much to say so I'll summarise it into point form and mix the good with the bad.

* Jan 2004 is LONG overdue for Ultimate Gamers Comp.

* UGC will have prizes totalling over $1500. I expect more extreme measures and a bigger effort to be put in to run this comp then the normal monthly LANs, but if sponsorship remains constant as it has been, I think the prizes for the comps leading up till January should be distributed amongst comp winners, and not 30+ lucky door winners. Comps are just becoming a sad state of affairs lately. If you have cheating in these comps you'll have it in the UGC anyway. I still fail to see the logic behind eliminating prizes in the comps due to cheating. It's been about 6 months or more since the prizes were taken out, and comp management has improved only slightly, at the cost of player enthusiasm and participation.

* Never pick RiverDale Room again unless its just not an opportunity (like with the mess kids caused). I know lately thats the reason we've got Riverdale, but I also hear that often its picked if CCGL has a large turnout. I've never seen Members Stand over-packed, and its had equal number of lanners then Riverdale Room's biggest attendance, less maybe 10 people. RR may technical seat a few more people then MS, but it does so a lot less comfortably. Enough polls prove the vast majority of lanners prefer Members Stand anyway.

* Clan hosting.... two thumbs up! Hopefully its a step towards the whole 'gamers network' (a la CCLN, which is happy to step aside if CCGL can fill those holes)

* Forum Administration still needs a lot of work IMHO. Doubt I'm the only one with this opinion. I've always preferred (and found it more effective) to have a friendly relationship with people in authority and I (and vast majority of humans) react better to this kind of treatment rather then just being forced into things, or not told whats going on and constantely given ultimatums leading me out of the door if I protest. This one time don't be ignorant and accept the truth of my words, admins know its true.

* $20 is still a great price. I'm glad it's not going up. I think a price increase might actually deter a few people from going anymore, or skipping one every 2 months. Not everyone goes for 3 days.

* I know it's not just my imagination, but attendence has been slipping. Now it could be due to holiday seasons, HSC, work, etc but a year and a half after your first LAN and numbers havent changed much. Can CCGL PLEASE advertise. I've said it a dozen times. Word of mouth seems to work mostly for the school kids, so by failing to advertise, most of the new recruits CCGL gets is school kids. Now I can get along with them as easily as older folks, I just think CCGL needs a more mature age diversity. Older ppl can help out with CCGL, run independant comps, keep the youngin's in line from pranking each other and being abnoxious, yadda yadda.

* Congratulations Turri and anyone else helping out with the work experience kids. I think that award is definetly something to be proud of. I've seen some of the work experience kids around the factory and setting up at the Racecourse and I've seen some great work from them, so well done to them as well.

* What happened to the admin shirts? They were cool :(

* Aside from a few laxes in judgment, ads0r seems to be doing a great job. I don't really know who else has been doing much work. Rocky always seems to be around the factory or doing one thing or another so I think he deserves extra credit as well. Anyway I think its great admins seem to be acting more independantly now, and I think now they can use their own initiative it makes them more productive.

* Admin Meeting 2 (sounds a bit overdue coz I can barely remember whenever the last one was). I'll try and summarise a few things in the other thread. Dunno if someone remembered my query about minutes for the meeting so the 'lanners could actuallly know what the admins are addressing and whats being done about the issues", but congrats anyway, look forward to reading it.

* A new theme for the site? The standard ones the only one that looks decent and doesnt clash with images and text colour, etc... but its feeling a bit old and plain.

* Are the offers for Members going to be revised? I'm still not quite sure what the benefits of being a member are. Take out lan discount (which I think is now 1 half price lan) and you're paying $15 to get access to member door prizes? I know it might sound a bit cruel and businesslike, but increase advertising, CCGL numbers will swell, grant members preference to seat bookings, you'll get a lot more members (increase revenue) and more members, and a constant number (maxed out) of lanners (also more revenue, and money = better prizes, better servers, admin pay, better CCGL).

Well that'll do for now, mesa suffering sun stroke and feeling all tired and dried out. I'm feeling big changes coming for CCGL. I just don't want to trust to deeply on those feelings because 10 months ago I had the same feeling. But from everything I've seen (mostly over the last 3 months) things seem to be shaping up, so from lanner to admins I say nice work.

[TuRRiCaN]

Thanks Raynar.. again. LOL. No, its good stuff and I appreciate your time. It gives me the opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions and answer a few queries which im sure are held by many of the Lanners.

I should point out that this is a long post but for anyone really interested in what we have done / what we are doing then this and the other threads i have started in this "LAN Forum" is kinda a rap up of the last 18 months.......

Firstly im going on the defensive as I refer to your first post.

I’m sure on the surface it might appear that we do little but I would like to point out the following issues.
We have run 18 LANS in 18 months which i firmly believe is a great achievement. Thats a LAN every 4 weeks. Seeing as 1 week is getting the actual LAN weekend ready it only gives us 3 weeks to do any real development. Running the shop and also weekend lans at the factory it doesnt give me much time and requires a lot of help from Admins, helpers who also assist with W/E Lans and the assistance form our work experience dudes. A lot of stuff gets done that only people who are associated with behind the scenes truly understand and appreciate. Every LAN we have hosted we have worked as hard as we can to make sure we can put on the best event based on the short amount of time we have to prepare / develope and funding restraints. We have put nearly 6 figures into the "Whole Venture" CCGL /shop/lan Factory with all revenues, LANS /Shop being pumped straight back into the organisation. No money has gone elsewhere or into my pocket.
This dedication will continue indefinately.

Ok onwards....
An organised Paintball event is a Myth lol. We have been pushing it for how many months? At least six. To go paint balling with 40 people we need a deposit of $880.00 1 month before the actual day. CCGL certainly doesn’t have that cash laying around.
So players have to front up the cash which is fair enough. So far out of the 50 odd people that have shown interest, 8 including myself have actually come up with the money. Now where talking $20 odd dollars per person for a full day including lunch and paintballs, bloody good deal. I can’t force people to pay so here we sit. CCGL has already invested $100.00 into the paintball event so its pretty obvious we are very interested in doing it, but atm were not getting much support elsewhere. If it doesn’t happen we loose the $100.00 and some poor dood on a loaner pc misses out on an extra 256 Meg of ram to play BF with. :(

Ultimate Gamers Comp, I agree totally that it’s well overdue but that’s pretty well discussed in the Ultimate Gamers Thread and im sure most would agree that running such a large and bold comp should be well developed set up and not discriminate against certain groups of lanners.

Memberships started 4 lans ago and currently we have 42 members signed up. The Members have received pretty good prizes each LAN. Yes the database needs to be finished and the final cards need to be printed but once again a money issue. Just to cover the cost of hiring a proper card printer including the special ink and cards will cost about 68 member fees.

Clan network yep but a low priority compared to other things happening plus CCGL appears to be full of CLAN hors LOL, Yep a long term goal that one:)

Movie server nope, as CCGL is a gaming LAN and not into other things, so of course that has been canned.

Server upgrades have included chips ram hardrives as well as additional servers obtained with another upgrade immanent. We also about to unveil our new anti virus server at CCGL 19. All done within the realms of cash flow. Remember we have increase our loaner pc's to a total of 15 as well and they certainly are not p3's with TNT 2 video cards.

Webcam when it’s needed

Net cafe / Lan shop has been running for ages in a weekend lan mode and is open 7 weekends out of 8 with 20 odd NLL's, 1 x NLL Lan, about 3 K.A.M.P lans, 4 Private functions, 3 parties, and since we got the 1.5 meg Net connection a lot of CS 1.6 nights. The cables have all been hardwired including conduit. We are currently working on the Lan Factory website and hope to be open basically 80% of the time a coupla weeks leading up to the School holidays offering Lanning / web access and online gaming.

Insulation / air conditioner is purely a money thing as it will cost about $6000 to do it and id rather spend that money on the LAN so its on the "do it on the cheap" list. Hopefully we will. If not bye bye cash lol.
On a positive not the landlord has finally agree to install some more vents and ill pay for an extra few so it will be cooler.

Advertising is an ongoing concern but the wheels are in motion atm. Not a huge campaign but within our small budget and fairly effective. Certainly any help from you guys will be greatly appreciated.

Comps not perfect granted but they have certainly improved, admins have been trailing new software combinations and comps are taking less time. Last LAN we introduced War Craft 3 and ran not one but 2 comps for this game (Ta Specty ). Battlefield has improved with players being a bit more helpful which we appreciate and steps have been put into place to improve what we are doing, ive covered that issue in the Admin Meeting #2 post.

Prizes don’t think well ever have enough prizes lol.
But as discussed in Admins Meeting Thread tis all being worked on. I’ve put a poll up re your comment with who should get the prizes to see what the general consensus is. I have had different response from the general community and thought we were pleasing the majority. However yes comps will get prizes as well, soon. But I will point out how more relaxed have the comps been esp. cs since we took the prizes away? remember all the BS from the lans leading up to CCGL 9 due to accusations of cheating and people perceived attempts to do anything to win the cash ? I do cause I had to deal with it all. How calmer, friendlier more relaxed the last 9 lans have been.
We have more people now in comps than we have before. Last lan 8 x cs clans, 3 x Bf clans, 5 x DoD clans, informal 20 player Quake 3 comp and about 12 players in the WC3 comp.

Rooms well yeah if we get the opportunity members all the way. Not keen on the set up and those stairs but would never go River unless I had too.
The only trouble with the Members is we have maxed out the power in that room. We need 18 separate circuits to run a 130 player lan (120 ports /players, 10 admins ) this is the max number of ports CCGL Offers atm. Also the room is a not shaped well for more players. Riverdale is and will fit 160 people, has plenty of power circuits to suit and has more room for sleeping. I’ve done the measurements many times and worked it all out. Now we have indulged players with not enforcing 24 people per table and allocating individuals a lot more table room to lan in compared with most other major lans. Each table gets maxed out at about 18 or less.
When we get larger it may get a bit tighter which is where the Riverdale helps, in that void of 140 to 160 players, although that is purely a winter option only and will continue to run 140 max players in the members stand during summer regardless of the player demand. Yes before you ask we have been investigating other larger 200 + player venues.

Ill continue on next post

[TuRRiCaN]

Post continued..

Forums have had a lot of work done, guidelines procedures and protocol implemented, all that’s left is to Run them :)

Yep I agree money is an issue for a lot of our lanners, hence why we have tried to keep charges to a minimum. , I get quite a few emails / ICQ’s each LAN from players saying they would like to come but can’t afford it. We are looking into LAN packs / prize packs which offer discounts for individual lanners.

LAN Numbers. LAN numbers have actually increased and are fairly consistent, CCGL #18 stats

120 registered players
when registration closed on the Thursday evening before the LAN.
28 emails re people that couldn’t register at Ausgamers or missed the cut off time.
15 people let me know that they wanted to come but couldn’t for various reasons, I don’t know why they do that but it helps to get numbers of how many people are interested

163 people showed interest in coming to the LAN (not including the 3 messages that told me to go jump, or words to that effect which is about 2 less than usual :) This 163 also includes Admins btw.

At the door

133 Lanners came through the door over the weekend, this includes Admins and
28 Members.

Certainly up there with the most interest and 10 lanners less than our biggest turn out.

Lanners will come and go as the mood takes them. We just make sure that we run enough LANs to keep both the HardCore regula's happy and provide enough opportunities for the other who have regular commitments. At the same time we have had lots of people who tried lanning and didn’t like it, had some that were regulars and "got over it".
We have had a lot of people through the doors.

Yes I agree advertising is a must and is certainly in the works.
Advertising thread need :)

lol wORK EXPERIENCE dUDES rOXOR :)

The original admin shirts were LAME :) but they did the job for a LAN or 2
We are working with Belkin to have them supply admin clothing that we will have professional screen printed so shirts will return:)

All the Admins do a great job :). When I see a Lanner go up to an admin (who I know has had 4 hrs sleep in 3 days cause they been preparing the lan since early Tuesday morning) and say he cant get his network card to work or the cables buggered and the admin cracks a big smile and goes "sure mate" and disappears for 30 mins and fixes it I know they working hard to make sure the lans runs a well as possible. I’ve seen that many time from all the Admins.
Web Site - Admin meeting

Members - way off base there but that’s ok - current offers apply 1 half price lan, RFID Photo tags, Hot members Prizes, shop discounts, Factory lan discounts, 3 months to redeem prizes. I’m sure Todd, Hatter, Tempus and Dino are pretty happy. Few other things in pipeline - Admin meeting


okies that’s about it
Thanks Raynar for the post. It kinda groups up the most queries that vie been asked and replied to at times on older forums and at lans etc. I can also refer people to it should these issues arise again.
It really winds up our first 18 months nicely and leads to the new road ahead.
Last note..... there are prolly 5 things we haven’t mentioned that will be great for the LAN. Can’t have everything all at once :lol:

[MR2]

Wowah, I think You've just about covered everything there, I believe we're going to be discussing the general direction of our network shortly, which will include all sorts of fancy stuff to stop cheating..(in relation to Raynar's saying we're not getting far with stopping cheating)..it's a big problem that could have been stopped by a better engine..but still maybe HL2 will fix that (yeah right)..

I'll post more as I think of appropriate stuff :D

[Raynar]

Those two posts were a bit too lengthy for me so I just skipped them and thought I'd repeat my questions.. lol j/k :lol:

Nice reply. As I said before, I'd like to see more posts from you, and more often, but when you do post about CCGL they're always good posts

PLEASE.. not just Turri, but every Admin, can you PLEASE PLEASE completely wipe CS from your mindset when you think of CCGL comps. Especially with the prizes. As much as I hate CS, everyone still wants to play in the comp and the lack of prizes hasn't seem to had a very significant impact on the number of people who compete (though I contribute a few of those to admin & peer pressure and other smaller factors). So (as I've said for the last half dozen LANs) can the other comps have prizes, and not CS. CS needs little more incentive, but I think the other comps do. We all know Desert Combat is popular because the vast majority all say it and its in every poll and related thread on the forums, but get to the LAN and theres usually not enough clans or people playing the game throughtout the weekend. CCGL (IMHO) plays a big role in influencing ppl to play CS (with all the attention you give it and recruiting and pressuring admins do) so I don't see whats wrong with influencing ppl to play BF1942 or DOD by bringing in prizes. Aside from that, I feel that for the majority of lanners who probably only go to CCGL, they've never had a chance to win a prize in BF1942. Yes thats right, it took like 4-6 months before BF1942 was made a comp, and it was the LAN the introduced no more comp prizes! Yay! CS has been going for years, with comp prizes at almost any LAN for it. Give other games a go. You're just harboring all these players who play the same old boring game and make for a boring lan for the rest of lanners. How many ppl play CS and only CS? Now how many ppl who don't play CS only play ONE game? CS are 1-game-whores! A non-CS player is usually seen playing a half dozen other games, which to me, makes for a more enjoyable LAN if you stop and think seriously about it.

In short, bring back comp prizes. CS prizes is optional

CCGL18 numbers (as previous LAN attendance proves) was a one off rarity, which I'm guessing may be attributal to it being held during school holidays. I got there Saturday morning and did a head count of 70 people (minus admins).

If I may, I'd like to make a survey for the lanners asking their opinions on all CCGL-related matters. I can't do it on these forums coz it would mean making a half dozen different polls, and I think it should be anonymous too.

In regards to admins and workload, I think theres really a core group of admins who do most of the work, and still the others (who dont). I think Turri you might exaggerate claims of the hours they put in a bit. I've heard it enough in the past from 'ppl in the CCGL team' about the lack of work ethic, competence, initiative, and reliability of the admins. Going around to the factory to hang out and managing to squeeze half an hour of solid work into the LAN is what you should be counting off. I know I get a lot of slack for accusing the admins of sloth but you have to disagree in public and everyone knows that. Rocky and Ads0r do the most work from what I know so I never refer to them.
Now before I go sounding all ungrateful I agree whole-heartedly how nice it is to see admins get up and help out lanners and waste time (they could be gaming and having fun with) helping out some really nooby gamer. I also know it takes ages to set up the lan and blah blah blah. I've heard it all before as everyone knows, and I've seen enough, and I'm not blind enough to not know anyway. Theres some admins who help out a lot, some freeloaders, and some that work at the LAN, and others that work behind the scenes. Anyway the admins who have my respect for the stuff they do should know who they are anyway. I still miss the old days with Spaz and Zues and that other tall dude who was the cop (forget his alias. lol). There were model admins :)

Not really sure if people view me as impatient, but we had different views on time and acceptable periods between an idea and implementation. long as it is. Anyway, same goes with sooo many things with CCGL. They 'might' finally get done, but they take forever. Its only recently that I feel I should commend CCGL on the changes they've made and the new additions here and there, despite them being ideas that over 6 or 12 months old.

P.S: Belkin sound pretty cool with the sponsorship they've been giving, and turning up to events and such. On behalf of one lanner (me) I'd like to say thanks to them. lol. Now, if they just made devices I could use :roll:

Turri can you please give a full explanation as to what happened with the old site? I was told the server 'died' and the old site was lost. Then I was told they couldnt transfer it to the new host. Now the old site is back up. The old forums (and site) just vanished one day. Did the hosting company go bankrupt and close down? Was all the data physicall lost (eg: server HDD got corrupted)? I said a long time ago when DBM priorities changed that CCGL probably would be better starting a whole new site, but if I could in any way be prevented, I think the old site and forums should have stayed till a new one was ready to be fully implemented.
If you have the old site back up, am I wrong to assume you have the forums too? The forums were as much the gamers as they are yours. That may sound a little strange, but lanners put in more time in those forums then any of you admins. As with most of the disagreements I have with CCGL, once again no-one was given an notice or warning, or any consideration. And since then, its become and all too well recognised pattern with the whole forum management. A simple (but detailed) explanation of what happened to the other site/forums would be nice.

[MR2]

I feel the lack of "mature" admins for an event like this is that it's not near any big city centre, which is where all the "mature" 20-30" ur old admins could be picked from.

and then there is the lack of gratefullness that they seem to feel..not all have this feeling however I feel it was present in your "old days" especially considering the dummy spit that the current gracious ppl have hurried to pickup the bones from.

At the end of the day I think it will be hard to run our event with the Smoothness of SGL on the same amount of Admins as sgl, my reasoning for this is without worrying about no's of ppl attending, we have 3 whole days that need to be looked into, rather than simply 12hours of SGL..which means the 10 hours of setup is not going to leave someone feeling ready to deal with the next 48 or so hours of "admining" let alone another 10 hours to packup.

which basically leaves us running the event as we currently are, with a startup crew, a Event Admin Crew, and a packup Crew(unfortunaly for him, Turri is usually part of all crews, but that's couse he's a god)however your currnet "concerns" seem to be more with how the actuall event ends up running, to this point about why we have not had comps etc and this is mostly becouse (and I know it's hard to believe) of lack of interest, and the lack of an admin willing to run the contest considering very few of us "admins" actually knows what their doing with 1942 nor have we found a propper way to host games.
and then there is the problem of hardware for 1942..those with good hardware are WAY WAY over advantaged over those with base systems, leading to the game being extreemly unfair unlike CS which runs well on just about anything.

[Raynar]

bah humbug. People with worse systems then me run BF1942 smoother then my runs (I have no bloody reason why coz it pisses me off). I run BF at worst texture and settings anyway to get a fairly smooth play, but its still a lot less smooth then ppl running at high textures and res. And I never come last :roll:

I agree with what you said about sydney - central coast. Sydney has got a larger base of mature and skilled IT people to recruit their admins from. Which does make it even tougher as you said when you take into account CCGL goes for 3 days.

I think the biggest ask of admins is setting up and packing. At the LAN is there really a lot that needs to be done? Food runs, which Turri does majority of the time, and comps. BF1942 has usually been done by Villan or SID or Turri. I reckon people would help out if they got paid maybe? Less admins, more attendace, two ways to cover cost to pay some people to help set up and pack up. *shrugs*. Just an idea anyway.

Prior to CCGL6 I considered myself very new to LANs and stayed back in the crowd. I don't even think I visited the site and forums till about CCGL5. It's a shame the old admins go, coz I think they were appreciated.

Umm.. dats about it.. all this babbling is tiring for me :(

[BR3TT]

My 5 cents:

Member prize should only be allowed to be one once.
It gives us people who don't win it more of a chance to get it.

I hope we can book the Members Stand alot more often.

Anyway, thanks for providing us with a LAN to go to. Big shouts to TuRRi and the admins.
Without you guys, there wouldn't be any LANning.

Keep up the good work guys.

BTW Price.

I'm also happy it isn't going up.

If it went up (and this has been said before) I'm sure a few people wouldn't come to CCGL.

[PHOENIX_12]

yea depending on how much it went up i prob wouldn't come caus for people like me who can't afford a good computer who got to hire one i got to pay the $20 or what ever it is and the extra $10 or somthin like that for the computer so depeding on how much it went up as i sayd u would never see me again

[Sk@r3Kr0w]

yea, prizes...should go to people who earn them, not who are lucky enough to have there names called out last.

wd on the rest u r0x tuzza :)

[Chrono]

thats all good and well for you to say, youve won something before, ive been to 12 ccgl's and i havnt won ONE door prize......

[Kaygo]

Chrono, have you had a good time though?

You're not paying to come to ccgl to win a prize.. that would sortta defeat the whole idea of a prize. You pay to come see your friends, to play games, and to have a good time.

If you're only coming in case you win a prize, you're wasting your money :)

I agree with sk@r3Kr0w, i think the prizes should be won through comps etc. Maybe split it... Seeing as we have about what 10 - 15 people win each lan in the door prize draw, maybe make it more like half go to winners of the comps, the other half goto random people (of course if you won a prize in one group, you couldnt win it from the other etc)

oh and yeah, tuzza r0x0rs :D

[Raynar]

Door prizes should be nifty little gifts, not speakers or monitors or CPU's. Member Prize pool is a little different. I still don't think it should stay like that, but for first 2 or 3 LANs fair enough if you want to entice more people to sign up.
People playing comps DO sometimes turn up to win the prizes. It was certainly the case with CS in the beginning. If you give the comps lousy prizes though its more of an insult then an incentive. I mean who wants to play 2 hours of Desert Combat or CS if the prize is a USB fan. lol (Yes I seem to have misplaced the one I won :oops:).
Good prizes = comp winners
Average prizes = few door prizes.

[Chrono]

Chrono, have you had a good time though?

You're not paying to come to ccgl to win a prize.. that would sortta defeat the whole idea of a prize. You pay to come see your friends, to play games, and to have a good time.

If you're only coming in case you win a prize, you're wasting your money :)


your right in some sence...but when everyone runs up to see whos one door prizes, guess who allways misses out :x

[Hal]

You're not paying to come to ccgl to win a prize.. that would sortta defeat the whole idea of a prize. You pay to come see your friends, to play games, and to have a good time.


kaygo: just make the door entry fee around $170, and everyone can win a logitech MX700 mouse or something, and in 1 year, everyone would have won enuf to make a new pc! and eveyrones PC will be the same...WOW!
/me is reminded or the riots in "bruce almighty" caused when eveyone won the lottery.
so kaygo, there is your solution. :D

[Kaygo]

LOL that could work :)

Raynar, that is kind of what I was saying. Door prizes should be more for the comps, less for just turning up... how ever as turri has said, the lack of prizes in the comps hasn’t made the comps any less fun, or any less popular. Every lan we have people asking "When is this comp on" etc.

I agree though that comp numbers would improve and lan participation would increase if prizes were given out to the winners.

Chrono, I haven’t been to 12 CCGL's like yourself, but I’ve been to a few (first was ccgl 12) and I haven’t won anything either :)

[Raynar]

And all I've ever won in about 14 LANs is a friggen $6 USB fan :roll:
Tis all good, I got a buyer lined up :lol:
So does this mean I can retire and let everyone else pressure Turri to bring back Comp Prizes?

[Sk@r3Kr0w]

people are still very interested in playing in the comps, but people are not trying, if they had prizes to play for they would try harder, plus more better teams would bother coming from syd, newcastle etc, which will bring more people and make it well worth thier while. Mabey half prizes go to comp winners, eg led fans, T-Shirts and the bigger things go to the door prizes and member prizes.

[Hal]

nah, i say let big prizes and trophies go to winning teams, and let donated shirts and fans and stuff go as door prizes. othewise you find yourself driving all the way up from sydney, paying $20 for entry, $30 for fuel and another $50 for food and drink, and you win the comp and walk away with an led fan, and some kid who cant even reach the keyboard turns up for one day, and walks away with a $150 game pad. that makes you mad.

the above HAS happend, which is why i bring it up.

also, door prizes should only be availible to be won by members in the database. And there should be a limit to say that if you win a door prize, you shouldnt be able to win another for 3 lans or something, stop ppl from winning twice in a row or something.
As for competition prizes, anyone can win them lan after lan, no restrictions EXCEPT that if a clan enters 2 comps, and wins them both. then in the first comp they won [say BF comp] then they take away the prize for 1st place, as they should. If they then enter and win the CS comp say, then they dont walk away with 1st place prize, they get third place prize and those in 2nd get the first place prize and those in third get the 2nd place prize. That will stop good clans from coming and walking away with all the good prizes, and leaving the local boys with none.

thats what i think should be done anyway. it sounds fair.

[Spugster]

I haven't read it all, but all I want to know is...Who gets to decide what games are worth comp. prizes? Because everyone likes differen't games and has differen't skills. I mean, even if you go to every lan, you could miss out on playing the one game you are good at and then therefore miss out on a prize. At least door prizes let everyone have a chance of winning.

Also, most of the comps are clan based meaning you have to split the prize among a group. It's not like 5 parts of a monitor/chip/whatever are going to do you any good...?

Sure it would be nice to have prizes for winning a comp. but what about those other people who dislike the current comp (most likely always will be CS even though it sucks [just my thoughts on the game]) and because of that they don't get a chance of winning a prize. Shouldn't everyone have an equal chance of winning a prize?


I'm only saying this because if comp. prizes were brought in, I'd be always goin' home with a prize :twisted: :P

[Hal]

deciding what comps get prizes should be entirly dependent on the amount of clans IN the comp. You wouldnt give out a CPU as a comp prize, youd give say a window mod kits or Jackets from NVIDIA or something. What you have to remember is wining players usually have the best or good equipment, and arnt in need of much comp stuff. vouchers would be good. best bet would be to actually have a "bin" of 1st place prizes, a "bin" of second place prizes etc, and one for door prizes as well. wining clan gets to pick their prize. that keeps eveyrone happy.

Comps are fairly regular, and prizes are expensive. so Big comp prizes may be given out every 3rd lan or something, leaving the other lans with small comp prizes. Make a big deal about the big comps, and drag more players than normal. make them like in the holidays or something, and you'd pull 200 ppl i recon.
All comps could involve trophies or whatever happens atm, but every so often have a BIG comp lan, and schedule it early so you can advertise.

[Sk@r3Kr0w]

yea nice idea hal, im with you, larger prices should be thier for people who earn them through skill, and the smaller prizes there for people who earn them through luck.

[effect]

in regards to comps. CS in particular:

1. Many sydney clans have heard about CCGL and the cs comp.

2. Most of these clans lack motivation to attend as they believe it isnt worth it coz of no prizes.

3. CS comp is getting better....smoother etc. i would REALLY like to see some clans stay together...not 7 slut teams per ccgl. trust me...if u wanna develop ur CS skillz u need a stable to u can rely on...its a teambased game...u need strats. work on some and have fun doin it with ur friends :P

4. its rad to see that more comps are being played...wc3 , q3 etc...its good to get some variety goin instead of DOD n CS.

[ads0r]

Adding to what effect said...

Sydney clans don't come up because SGL falls on the same day most of the time.

[PogaXu]

why is ccgl on at the same time as SGL? doesnt make much sense if you ask me...so ask me and ill tell you it doesnt make much sense.

[Hal]

yea nice idea hal, im with you, larger prices should be thier for people who earn them through skill, and the smaller prizes there for people who earn them through luck.

you know what else is a good idea? implimenting it....

[MR2]

why is ccgl on at the same time as SGL? doesnt make much sense if you ask me...so ask me and ill tell you it doesnt make much sense.

CCGL's are not simply a case of "pick a weekend" type of planning schedule, we have problems where the HSC(a recient example) may mean we're stuck being on a particular weekend, and then we have many CCGL Regulars who wish for the CCGL to be a bit before the holidays due to family arrangements etc.

this is something that basically forces CCGL and SGL to be on very similar weekends mostly becouse the cater for the same bracket of attendee's (that being school/students)

[MaJ]

I am not reading that!

Turri you put together a great LAN, thanx.

Raynar you write too much bro, I hate reading off a computer screen :D :P

Im sure it was all good what you guys wrote tho.

[TuRRiCaN]

hahahah Maj, thanks anyway.

Okies for starters, per attendee we still give out nearly the most prizes as far as other lans go.

Our poll re prizes ...
29% voted on team games getting prizes
70% Voted on general door prizes ... Therefore we are currently keeping the majority happy and meeting their needs.

Next is to work on making the minority smile like bitches.......

Okies so team prizes ........ what prizes should go to the team comps ?
Single player is easy, 1 winner = 1 prize
team events x 3 = a minimum of 18 prizes (based on 5 player teams for cs dod and 8 players for bf)
Should we just give prizes to one comp each LAN or to all the players in team competitions ?
Should all the prizes be the same prize or same value ?
What value per individual winner ?

What do YOU think ????

[Raynar]

The vote was rigged and you know it! :x

As for the other tid bits, what I'd like to see is everyone get a prize in the comps, each team member gets equal prizes, and each prize is worth $100+ :oops:

Realistically, I'd expect at least one comp to have prizes every LAN. It can be rotated from comp to comp each LAN, or just based on popularity. CCGL is now running 3-4 comps a LAN, and I think thats a bit too many comps to organise and distribute prizes for. Just have prizes for 1 or 2 comps each month is ok. Trying to get equal prizes for a clan of 5+ won't be easy I imagine. Just do your best and teams can work out who gets what based on who played the best maybe.

Prize value per clan player ~$50 (CD spindles, game addons - eg Rise of Rome, clothing, mice, keyboards, mousepads, vouchers for h/w and games, etc)

Per individual winner (eg deathmatch) ~$100 - ~$150 (joysticks, keyboards, mice, soundcards, controllers, vouchers, clothes, free lans, cases, mod equipment, etc)

Umm, that'll do from me today

[Hal]

Im with raynar, particularly with the 2 comp prizes per lan. GIve prizes to a deathmatch comp, and a Clan based comp. If its not the CS comps turn for prizes, since its a big comp, just give the winning clan discounted entry to the next lan or something, or pizza or something like that.

That way, its only around 20 prizes per lan, [1st, 2nd, 3rd for clans of 5, and 1st 2nd 3rd for deathmatch]. If it where battlefield clans of 10, you may only give out 1st and 2nd, or give cheaper prizes for 2nd and 3rd [mousepads etc].

ALL COMPS SHOULD BE HELD IN THE AFTERNOON.

Allot of people have expressed their grievances that there are never enough people in a server for a game etc. One night lans are asked for by people, because in their opinion, it would creat an influx of people to the lan, and hence full servers. i stated that a 12 hour lan for 200 people is rather inefficient [based on setup/packup times]. However, to resolve this problem, i figured a good approach would be to dedicate particuar nights to particuar games. ie, friday night is CS night, and saturday night is BF night. That way, the 30 odd people who play all types of games, who arnt in clans etc, would join a BF server and it would be significantly more full [even if there are only enough people to fill one server, then those who play on that server are satisfied, as they would be getting a full game]. If someone only wanted to come for one night, or had to play sport or work in the day, they could attend the comp as it would be in the afternoon, and choose the night by what it would say on the web.
"ah, its saturday, ill come that evening and therell be ppl playing BF".

well thats my opinion for today, hope its clear as mud.
Hal

[Raynar]

Im with raynar

okay, but I don't want people thinking we're robosexuals :roll:

Having particular times for certain games is pretty much for the CCGL Game Schedule was made for (on the whiteboard). No-one's organised enough though to make it happen (admins and players both). Gamer's need a bit of prodding from time to time. PA announcements, or notices on the big screen would be help get gamers into servers. Even James slut'ing around again would be nice :wink:

But what HAL said is all too true. If you only want to come and LAN and play one or two favourite games, you might get there on Saturday to find everyone spent all night playing your game and no longer wants to play it for the rest of the weekend.

[Hal]

Im with raynar
okay, but I don't want people thinking we're robosexuals :roll:


You wish dude, you wish! besides, im not a beaver-leaver.

[RavenKittie]

Sifn't Kittie for Antivirus Admin!!!


:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Raynar]

< You have had more viruses then a south african pigme on your PC >

Be a good boy Raynar - ads0r

[Hal]

rofl.

dont knock kittah tho, shes a chicka and she lans, give her some credit. :)

[RavenKittie]

< You have had more viruses then a south african pigme on your PC >*

Be a good boy Raynar - ads0r

Yeah Raynar, funny that I haven't had a virus in over 3 months because I educated myself on what patches I need and what ports to block

I always help other people at lans with viruses so screw you

</rant>

[BR3TT]

Kittah helped me with a few questions.

I see her as virus-free. So i ask her :wink:

Thanks again Kittie!

[PogaXu]

kittie took a picture of Fungry so therefore she is a champion so leave her alone!! oh and i reckon kitteh would make a good anti-virus admin person coz she hates em so she will kill em all for her sick pleasure or some such thing...i dont know....kids these days....

[Jimmison]

Originally posted by BR3TT@Oct 18 2003, 04:45 PM
My 5 cents:
Member prize should only be allowed to be one once.
It gives us people who don't win it more of a chance to get it.
I hope we can book the Members Stand alot more often.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with a LAN to go to. Big shouts to TuRRi* and* the admins.
Without you guys, there wouldn't be any LANning.
Keep up the good work guys.
BTW Price.
I'm also happy it isn't going up.
If it went up (and this has been said before) I'm sure a few people wouldn't come to CCGL.
4996

u mean my 2 cents :P

[*Jolt*]

Originally posted by Jimmison@Jun 4 2006, 08:41 PM
u mean my 2 cents* :P
99246



dude its almost been 3 years..

[Jimmeh]

do you noobs (not you jolt) even LOOK for dates on posts before you post in them..... ffs