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Anreill
812,800,000nm Satisfies Me!
Joined: 19 Mar 2003
Posts: 1376
Location: OKC
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As posted by Bladerunner:
Not gonna sugar coat it, the reasons we've lost motivation to come are the following:
1) having to bring a chair. Driving from Norman, it is even more of a time/gas investment than shepherd mall was, and having to pack chairs is a huge nuisance. If we want to bring 3 people we need two vehicles and gas ain't cheap.
2) No tournies, no organized X vs Y matches and sometimes not even a "OK let's all play THIS now". This is a big one for me, I loved the pickup q3 instactf tournaments at OLP. Stand in the hallway, 3-4 team captains pick players then go at it. I'm not blaming anyone for not doing this, just saying it's the atmosphere in general that it doesn't happen.
3) Not enough variety. I understand some people just LOVE a single game but it's nice to have variety. In my okgg experience if I want to play something different I'm lucky to get 2-3 others to participate. I'll admit I never take part in the Flatout / destruction derby games so that's my loss. I admit, this is probably more because of lack of numbers rather than the LAN itself. However, in the same vein, if we're going to play a single game all day, let's get a new map or new mode or something every hour or two to change things up. At the Blackops release LAN I was called a whiner for asking periodically hey can we change the game mode? If we had a pickup tourney this would probably be a non-issue.
4) No LAN play. Several recent games that tend to be popular at okgg don't have offline LAN. One of the main features of a LAN party was the stupid low latency everyone had.
5) Cost. I know the money goes to the LAN but if I'm to accept that the above things will not change, I would need a lower cost to try and justify. I would gladly pay $10/mo for the LAN that OLP used to be.
I don't want to come off as completely negative so I will add this: The guys I'd be bringing from Norman and myself are all older with more responsibilities then back in the day of attending LANs constantly, so sometimes things just come up or interest isn't there. However, I can say for myself in particular, if A) the LAN was a lot closer and B) there were pickup tournies / organized matches I would attend every event without a doubt. I won't lie, there is definitely still a huge fun factor in being in the same room with guys playing your favorite game, but that ALONE isn't enough for me to not just play basically the same game at home.
Hopefully this doesn't rub anyone too much the wrong way, I'm not trying to be a hater. I miss the old days and understand it's just the nature of things that LAN parties have declined significantly over time. Just expressing my thoughts on the matter
Last edited by Anreill on Fri May 13, 2011 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Fri May 13, 2011 12:42 pm
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Anreill
812,800,000nm Satisfies Me!
Joined: 19 Mar 2003
Posts: 1376
Location: OKC
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As posted by Goahed Makemyda:
I appreciate a candid response and I will respond to each item below as best as I can.
Driving from Norman, it is even more of a time/gas investment than shepherd mall was, and having to pack chairs is a huge nuisance. If we want to bring 3 people we need two vehicles and gas ain't cheap
Response:
Moving from Shepherd Mall was not our choice, the venue became unavailable. Finding another one that let us have free parking, $100/mo rent max. space for 20-50 gamers and their computers, electricity, heating and cooling, access from 9am to past midnight, a place to store tables and chairs, and internet access is a real challenge, and one I welcome anyone to take on in their spare time. We are always looking for a better venue. However people used to drive from Bartlesville to attend the OLP LANS at Shepherd Mall. The location will NEVER be convenient for everyone. We even did it in Norman for a few months and that was a huge problem for me hauling all that gear down there and back.
Having to bring a chair
Response:
Then don't bring one....right now a few are available to borrow. If you can't haul one, come anyway. The last two places we were at have had chairs available. The Yukon Round Up Club had tables, chairs and everything we needed except internet. People bitched about that place being lame. I thought it was great! But our numbers fell to 10 or 12 per month and we were actually losing money to host there when we went below 10 per month. Duncan Equipment had tables, chairs internet, etc and FREE RENT!!! but it was dependent on one gamer being there and he quit working there . Our current venue has everything including a few loaner chairs, but we still have to have at least half of the gamers bring a chair so better to ask all of you.
2) No tournies, no organized X vs Y matches and sometimes not even a "OK let's all play THIS now". This is a big one for me, I loved the pickup q3 instactf tournaments at OLP. Stand in the hallway, 3-4 team captains pick players then go at it. I'm not blaming anyone for not doing this, just saying it's the atmosphere in general that it doesn't happen.
Response:
We do have occasional tournies but most players that come regularly are not interested in them and those who complain about it never come, sooooo. We also tried prizes for tournies to incite more attendance but to no avail. All it did was cost more money, and the LAN is NON-PROFIT! The only reason it still exists is because some of us love to meet and have fun in a LAN environment. If someone wants to step in a a staffer who organizes tournies, I'm all for it, any takers?
3) Not enough variety. I understand some people just LOVE a single game but it's nice to have variety. In my okgg experience if I want to play something different I'm lucky to get 2-3 others to participate. I'll admit I never take part in the Flatout / destruction derby games so that's my loss. I admit, this is probably more because of lack of numbers rather than the LAN itself. However, in the same vein, if we're going to play a single game all day, let's get a new map or new mode or something every hour or two to change things up. At the Blackops release LAN I was called a whiner for asking periodically hey can we change the game mode? If we had a pickup tourney this would probably be a non-issue.
Response:
Games come and games go, and what people actually play at the LAN is a decision made at the LAN by a majority. Believe me I hate some of the games, but I just play something else while they play the ones I don't like. We usually play 3-5 games at every LAN so I don't know what more variety people need, again it's everyone's choice what is played. I still enjoy my time at the LAN regardless.
4) No LAN play. Several recent games that tend to be popular at okgg don't have offline LAN. One of the main features of a LAN party was the stupid low latency everyone had.
Response:
We don't really have latency issues at the current location. ASk anyone. Offline is great but we have no issue playing online.
5) Cost. I know the money goes to the LAN but if I'm to accept that the above things will not change, I would need a lower cost to try and justify. I would gladly pay $10/mo for the LAN that OLP used to be.
Response:
$10 is nothing. Sorry, but if you can't afford $10 you won't find much to do away from home for 12+ hours.
I don't want to come off as completely negative so I will add this: The guys I'd be bringing from Norman and myself are all older with more responsibilities then back in the day of attending LANs constantly, so sometimes things just come up or interest isn't there. However, I can say for myself in particular, if A) the LAN was a lot closer and B) there were pickup tournies / organized matches I would attend every event without a doubt. I won't lie, there is definitely still a huge fun factor in being in the same room with guys playing your favorite game, but that ALONE isn't enough for me to not just play basically the same game at home.
Response:
I will be at the LAN until we can't pay for the LAN anymore, but I enjoy it. JMHO
Hopefully this doesn't rub anyone too much the wrong way, I'm not trying to be a hater. I miss the old days and understand it's just the nature of things that LAN parties have declined significantly over time. Just expressing my thoughts on the matter
Response:
Decline comes from people not taking the time to show up...period. It's still fun and I will be there until the end.
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Fri May 13, 2011 12:44 pm
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Anreill
812,800,000nm Satisfies Me!
Joined: 19 Mar 2003
Posts: 1376
Location: OKC
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This is my initial response:
1. Bringing a chair has always been a thing. Only the YRC and Duncan had chairs, though they were metal folders at YRC. I still brought my chair there. Meridian has plenty of chairs that we use pretty often without it being a problem, but it's never definite that there will be enough.
2. Tournies are difficult to have with the size we have these days. You can't really have a tourney when two teams of four players is the entire LAN party. Personally, I would love to see some 4v4 in Brink or even an all LAN 8v8 or 16v16 in one of the Battlefield games. BF with the entire team working together was an awesome experience.
3. I actually agree on this. Which is one reason why I tend to play SupCom2 or Starcraft sometimes even though I'm not particularly good at either of them. As for the BO release day, I did change the game mode to domination, we just ended up sticking with domination for a long while after that. We actually played some CTF and the one where you have to bomb two points a bit too.
4. Unfortunately, this is a result of developers as much as it is our fault. BFBC2, CoD, Homefront, etc are all a bit screwy about LAN play. The problem is that LAN play isn't truly supported (several CoDs) or LAN play doesn't provide ranking up, which is in and of itself rather stupid. The problem with no ranking is that some of the players would never level up if we played offline all the time, as there are several at the LAN that only really game during the LAN party.
5. The charge is something of a necessity and doesn't even go to the LAN usually, since YRC it's been a fee to cover the actual location/electricity/etc. If ten people show up to the LAN, all the money we bring in goes to paying our host.
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Fri May 13, 2011 12:45 pm
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Anreill
812,800,000nm Satisfies Me!
Joined: 19 Mar 2003
Posts: 1376
Location: OKC
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In addition:
If a chair isn't simple for you to bring, don't. If there's not one available at Meridian let me know and I'll run home and grab one of my folding chairs for you, I don't mind in the least.
If tournaments are something that people want to do, let me know, I'll grab a whiteboard and I'll organize something. Again, I don't mind doing this and it'd be awesome if everybody is up for it.
I'd actually love to go back to the way things used to play, a 4v4 tourney in Brink I think would be awesome, even more awesome would be having 16v16 Battlefield games that are entirely composed of people at the LAN. Hell, even 8v8 would be fun if we could get the people. I'd rather play with only LAN people, but that hasn't really been feasible recently due to the mix of the way games handle LAN these days and our lack of players.
As to the cost, there's not much we can do about that. But please take into account that anything you go out and do for 12+ hours is going to cost more. You can't go to a 1.5 hour movie for that amount of money, much less 12 hours worth of movies.
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Fri May 13, 2011 12:50 pm
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BladeRunner
n00b
Joined: 28 Mar 2010
Posts: 56
Location: Norman
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Reading you guys' responses pretty much confirms that it's not a difference in opinion, I basically agree with everything you said and it seems you would definitely like to see some of the same changes I would. So I want to reiterate that my list was not complaints about what okgg does wrong in the slightest, and in fact I do appreciate the amount of effort that goes into these things! Really I just wanted it to be known why we hadn't been motivated to come recently just so you guys didn't think we didn't have fun or whatever else.
Not having to bring a chair may be enough to convince a few guys to come up with me, which helps mitigate the gas cost. And yeah I know it's not too far for a good time, I went to Bartlesville for some LANs myself back in the day and it was totally worth it, I guess I'm just venting some frustration that LANing these days isn't the same (at the fault of no one really).
Also re: latency problems, oh yeah I've never had a latency problem at okgg at all, in fact I think that's pretty impressive that we can all play online without at least being concurrent connection banned or something. Really I was just trying to say that in the past, one of the benefits of going to a LAN was not just to have low latency, but to have almost zero. Nowadays I never play in a server with more than 50 ping, and I'm a player who can tell a difference between 50 and 15 ping, so that is a big thing I appreciate about LAN play. Again, this is the fault of the developers (except for Brink, huge props for free dedicated+ranked servers even offline), so it's just a complaint about the current nature of things.
About tournies, it seems you guys are agreeing here too that it would be a level of fun you just can't have alone or even online with voice so I would hope that could be something people would be willing to do. I also appreciate the offer to bring a whiteboard and attempt it! You're right about not really having enough to consistently do 3-4 teams, that's true, and unfortunately I don't have a good proposal for how to do team games in a fun, exciting, yet competitive way. Maybe some other players have more interesting ideas for how we could have fun in an organized way not just running map after map.
Also re: location/cost, I'm not trying to argue with you guys on this, seriously from the bottom of my heart I respect that you've kept this thing going and have way more knowledge on what's the best balance in these areas than I do. Just simply again expressing some of the factors that we in Norman weigh when deciding whether to come up or not. It sounds like if it was down here maybe some people would add but some would probably drop as well, again it seems it's just the nature of PC gaming around here nowadays.
Sorry for wall(s) of text, I didn't mean to rant at you guys when I do really appreciate what you're doing
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Fri May 13, 2011 1:55 pm
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