NeXus LAN - March 27th, 2010

The date of the next NeXus LAN party will be March 27th, 2010

Pre-Pay Cost: $10.00
Cost At The Door: $15.00
More information: www.nexuslan.org
Driving Directions: www.nexuslan.org/directions.php
Forums: www.nexuslan.org/forums

EARLY REGISTRATION DRAWING: We will be holding another pre-registration contest. In order to qualify for the drawing, you must be pre-registered by March 20th. However, the earlier you pre-register, the more chances you have to win. Just like last time, you will receive one entry into the drawing for each week before the LAN that you are pre-registered. You do not have to pre-pay to be eligible for the drawing, but you must be present to win.

Click here to register: www.nexuslan.org/registration.php

We're in the process of voting on tournaments and will be annouced shortly. If there's something you'd like to see at the next lan, be sure to speak up in the forums.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again!

Take care,
Rod

THis was a pretty good LAN. If i didn't anticipate being home with the new baby, i might head down. Lots of prizes, good location, and nice people to game with!

Since the baby came early, i got the approval to go to Nexus. It's a good time, the staff is great and the gaming is pretty good! I encourage anyone who doesn't have plans next weekend to head down to Dayton for some fun! Plus you could win a new Intel chip as they gave away 2 last time i was there!

They're mine BTW.

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you that came out for NeXus LAN. I hope you all had a great time!

Tell the Intel rep thanks, for upgrading our PCs. My computer at the last LAN with a QX9650 and my son's at this one with a Q6600. No more low end E21XX CPUs for us anymore. If my other son would have came, we would have gotten the ram too. JJ checked in right after us and won it.

I am going to pay you guys to buy me a lottery ticket. Thanks again, and congrats on all your winnings. By the way, the photos are posted on the website.

I'm not sure if this is a 'positive comment only' section, but I'll just throught this out there. I've talked with several of my friends and we all agreed that this lan was not fun. Some of us drove 3 hours to get there and paid 20 dollars...

Raffles, they gave away 2 nice things for the raffles out of 60+ people this is just weak. They somehow got in with the intel guy, which produces a few nice things, but unfortunatley unless you can figure out a way to get some alone time with him, you wont get anything. Wouldn't care if it wasn't 20$ and marketed as having a good raffle like other lan parties, very deceiving. However, if you like bumper stickers, comic books and mints that make you throw up on the way home, it's great.

Now lan parties are about just getting together and playing some games, but they made no real attempt to get bad company 2 working. We played a couple games of hon in which the lag was literally 5 seconds out. Randomly disconnecting us from the internet, and having a download speed average of 15kbs.

Yeah i think ill save 50 bucks in gas, 20 bucks in ticket price, 10 for pizza, 2 for monster, and the rage of watching all their friends get free intel stuff.

Pass on this one.

Now you did it. The nexuxlan site isn't coming up. Just the Go Daddy parking page.

I noticed that.

looks like somebody forgot to pay the bill

Site should be backup shortly. The domain expired even though on auto-renewal but I think might had my old CC#. Of course my bad for not paying attention.

Daveyo, sorry you did not enjoy the LAN. I have to admit that is the first full complaint I ever saw, but can't please everyone. But yes LANs are not just for raffles though I can't see how you can complain except that you did not win, when we gave away 5 processors including a very nice one and motherboard for the raffle. But that was not all, many heatsinks, ram, gaming router, etc. It is very difficult to get sponsors to send large prizes to smaller sized LANS. I think Crashgirl does an excellent job getting the ones we have.

But I gotta be honest here, it seems your main complaint is that you drove a long way and did not win a large prize. Thats a bit silly don't you think. I mean the last LANOC LAN I went to, I did not win anything and I drove a long way. And I am going to this one and if I do not win, I am not going to complain negative towards the LAN.

As for Bad Company 2. I tried for quite a long time to get it working. We had a 10MBIT connection so not sure why you saw internet lag, but this is a LAN and unfortunately Bad Company 2 is not a LAN game (at least not yet). If Wes can get Bad Company 2 working at LANOC I will be pleasantly surprised and I will definitely get with him on what ports he opened, because I opened everyone that I found. I have a feeling you are going to find out when people on the same LAN join your game, people will get kicked off the server and have to reconnect quickly. Though they might have this bug fixed by then.

Btw, where did you get $20? It is 15 at the door. Unless your adding in the 50/50. Thats was purely optional and the proceeds all go back to Mound St. Academies.

If I could speak a little on my experiences, we've gone to some LANs out of state (won't mention names), in which we left at 5AM, arrived at 10AM, gamed until midnight, and drove home. In this particular LAN, the largest prize was a set of RAM. The rest, literally, were 'mystery boxes' that contained candy. Candy.

The raffle wasn't even what ruined it. It's not, by any means, the reason we go to any LANs, but it was advertised as a big deal and obviously wasn't, so I can understand where you're coming from. But it sounds like NeXus had quite a nice line-up. Its a lot easier to appreciate prizes when you've experienced how much effort it takes to get them. Talking companies into freebies isn't exactly easy, especially in these times.

Daveyo,

I can not see any of your points at all here. 1 you say 20.00 to get in, the door prices are 10.00 in advance and 15.00 at the door not 20.00. You also say you paid 10.00 for pizza when they are 5.00 each. You are making people think prices are not what they are.

As for the raffles I have been to 500+ man lans walked away nothing at all, been to 30 man lans paid more and got nothing at all as well.

The prizes that they put together are damn nice. This time I saw 4 people get upgraded processors by intel, a grand raffle of a processor/motherboard, ram, nice high end heat syncs, gaming router, 360 wireless unit, console items as well like rock band accessory kits and more. To expect to come to a 50+ person lan and think that every person will walk away with some high end prize is well plain naive.

You also go as far to hint that something was not right on the Intel prizes with your statement and I quote

"They somehow got in with the intel guy, which produces a few nice things, but unfortunatley unless you can figure out a way to get some alone time with him, you wont get anything."

This is an outright lie. The processor upgrades were done to the 4 people on the list that signed up with the lowest processors, there was no picking it was the 4 lowest I know this for a fact, and the Intel rep went around and verified what those people put on the list. The raffle proc/mb ticket was pulled out randomly by and attendee and I watched him do it, that attendee was Ronster.

So honestly I do not see your points at all and comments not very valid.

Your opnions are yours and yours alone but I do not agree with them at all.

Daveyo wrote:

Yeah i think ill save 50 bucks in gas, 20 bucks in ticket price, 10 for pizza, 2 for monster, and the rage of watching all their friends get free intel stuff.

Pass on this one.

The cost of admission is $10 pre-paid, and $15 at the door. Pizzas were $5 each and optional. Also, everyone was notified in advance that bringing your own food and drink to save on costs is permitted, but we take the order for pizza and sell snacks/drinks as a convenience.

As far as our friends winning everything, I want to make sure you know this is not the case as I can see how that would not be cool. The staff pays to get in the door and does not even put their name in the raffle until the largest prize (cpu and motherboard) is given away. However, since we did have four other processors to give away in the upgrade contest, we did allow staff to participate in the upgrade contest, and only one staff member won. By the way, this staff member has worked almost every LAN, paid admission to get in, and never entered any of the raffles for the processors. He also drove all the way from New York to attend the LAN, so if distance should qualify for the prize, he has everyone beat.

I also seem to recall a few LAN OC people winning some decent prizes both at this LAN and in the past. I was happy to see them win! See this thread:
www.lanoc.org/forum/25-for-sale-/168-fs-intel-e2140

I understand how frustrating it is to not win the big prize... trust me, I know as we laugh because my name is ALWAYS the last name (or close to it) at every LAN. But, as someone said, we go to LANs for more than just the prizes. I also understand the frustration with BC2 because the game is awesome but it sucks about LAN play. I am not sure how you can blame the LAN for that though. Not every LAN is going to please every person and we understand that, but I guess we are having a hard time relating to the reasons you gave... unless we are misunderstanding your reasons. We're always open to suggestions and feedback, but I just want to make sure your reasoning wasn't based on assumptions or misinformation.

Sorry, I must have been typing at the same time as Renegade, didn't mean to repeat the same thing about costs.

Just not really sure what to say here, so, I will say nothing and move on.

While i had a good time at the LAN (mostly playing HON over the interenet with some lag) i do know of one situation with the processors that were given away that didn't seem right. One of the winners supposidly had a very old (single core) Chip in a newer motherboard and won a new chip because it was on the list and was one of the worst. The person in questions proceeded to re-build his PC at the LAN after winning the Chip only to find out that the new chip wasn't supported by his motherboard. So after talking with the intel rep, he recieved a brand new motherboard also. Now if i knew i could've "won" a new chip and maybe a motherboard, i would've brought my worst PC in the house and rolled the dice.
The thing that made me thing twice about the situation is he was the only want to install the chip the second he got it. Everyone else (from what i saw) was planning on playing with the PC they brought, and clearly this person was hopeing to win the worst PC award and upgrade his system because there is no way someone would've came with that bad of a PC to LAN due to it not running anything. If they were giving out new motherboards and chips to the worst overall PC, i know my brother-in-law had an old AMD chip system he brought, but because it didn't take a intel chip, he wasn't able to upgrade, but the kid who got it ended up upgrading his whole system by playing the game.
Now i know this wasn't Nexus's fault becuase they didn't come up with the system to give out the chips, i just thought that maybe he should've been told, sorry your motherboard is soo bad, i guess your PC can't handle this chip, it should go to the next person on the list who can actually use it, since those were the rules. Or if there was a motherboard available, then it should've been an overall worse PC contest.

My only other gripe was the COD 4 tourney 1st round lasted FOREVER... I just think at some point a coin should've been flipped and we should've moved on with the tourney. The tie breaker should've been one game, not whoever can get to 6 first. Plus when i go to a LAN, i wanna play the games. One of the game modes was arena and once you die, your dead until everyone else dies. That might be a mode to remove from the rotation as it's not very fun to those who happen to die quickly from lack of playing the game or randomness in the game due to the Hardcore game mode.

I can't speak about the PC that the processor would not work on the board but from what I remember I was told that the new processor had to work on your current board and they wanted you to install at the lan.

That contest was not advertised on the forums etc that I know of it was the Intel rep's idea and I think it was a cool one. Hell I was tied for 4th on the processor upgrades they flipped a coin and I lost. Course I ended up winning the raffle later which was better but I would of been excluded from that if I had gotten a processor earlier in the day.

The 1st round did last a long time I was in that round. It was mainly because the 2 teams were so balanced that they really fought back and forth for the win. As for playing rounds that you die your our those usually only take 3-5 min a round so they dont bother me and those rounds have low round timers as well for that reason but yeah that kinda round could be pulled. The 3 round format I think is one of the best formats for an fps game I have seen at a lan.

Twodavez wrote:

The thing that made me thing twice about the situation is he was the only want to install the chip the second he got it. Everyone else (from what i saw) was planning on playing with the PC they brought, and clearly this person was hopeing to win the worst PC award and upgrade his system because there is no way someone would've came with that bad of a PC to LAN due to it not running anything. If they were giving out new motherboards and chips to the worst overall PC, i know my brother-in-law had an old AMD chip system he brought, but because it didn't take a intel chip, he wasn't able to upgrade, but the kid who got it ended up upgrading his whole system by playing the game.
Now i know this wasn't Nexus's fault becuase they didn't come up with the system to give out the chips, i just thought that maybe he should've been told, sorry your motherboard is soo bad, i guess your PC can't handle this chip, it should go to the next person on the list who can actually use it, since those were the rules. Or if there was a motherboard available, then it should've been an overall worse PC contest.

Actually that is completely incorrect. The person you are referring to did not win a CPU. He was having trouble with his current setup and asked the Intel rep if he knew of any problems with his current CPU/MB combo is all. His friend did win a CPU though so you might of mixed them together as the same person which is not correct.

As for the COD4 tourney, they always last long which honestly I think is kinda neat. And no longer than at other LANs. Actually I have seen way longer, especially when you have double elimination. This is why it is always the main tournament. But I agree on the tie breaker map... I will not use that in a future tourney.

Sounds good guys, i know setting up a LAN is a sometimes Thankless task and there is much more that goes on behind the scenes. I just wanted to express how i was feeling just to clear the air. No you can't make everyone happy and i appreciate you taking the time to setting the record strait.

One more suggestion, i know you draw a good younger crowed that can handle staying up all night, but have you considered starting the lan earlier and doing a 2 day thing? I know around 3 AM, i start dragging butt and doing energy drinks isn't the answer for me. If the LAN started at 10 am and went until 10 am the next day, i know i'd have more gaming time, but i'm not sure the building constraints. Just my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks again for hosting, the venue was good and the people were fun as always!

renegade wrote:

I remember I was told that the new processor had to work on your current board and they wanted you to install at the lan.

Not trying to start anything here but,

If I have some old azz piece of poop CPU and I win a 980X. I am pretty sure that my board is not going to work.

Just seems kinda silly to give away a CPU only to those people that can use it right then. Hell, if you had an AMD and won an Intel it's not going to work.

I should come and bring a P3 with me. On of the old slot CPU's, Oh wait, it won't fit, sorry, you have to give that back.

I guess what i'm saying is, who cares if it doesn't work on their current setup, a CPU upgrade is one of the biggest you can make, other than GPU.

Well I could be wrong but I thought the spirit of that upgrade contest what ever it was called was to upgrade people on the spot and they would start gaming right then with a faster cpu. I could be wrong I am not staff just and attendee.

Action wrote:

Actually that is completely incorrect. The person you are referring to did not win a CPU. He was having trouble with his current setup and asked the Intel rep if he knew of any problems with his current CPU/MB combo is all. His friend did win a CPU though so you might of mixed them together as the same person which is not correct.

Yes, this is correct. The person that got just the Motherboard did not win a cpu at NeXus LAN. He was just talking to Jeff about why his computer was freezing with his current configuration and Jeff determined it was the mb. That mb was not even a prize that was designated for NeXus LAN, it was just something Jeff did because he is an awesome guy! By the way, the mb did fix his problem and a good thing too because then he was able to game the rest of the night without his computer locking up.

The processors...

Everyone had the same shot at the nice processor mb combo that was given away as the raffle prize (except staff does not participate in this).

As far as how the other processors were given out for the upgrade contest, I think it is a neat idea to give it out to someone that will use it. As Renegade said, the winners were able to upgrade on the spot and use the new processors that very same night.... how cool! I was happy to see those people get upgrades and I personally only knew one of the people that won the upgrades. It's just cool that Jeff does this, and it's neat to watch the winner's excitement. Jeff does not do this at every LAN, so this was not announced ahead of time, but we are grateful that he gave four more attendees an upgrade. Next time, he may do something different... you just never know. Hopefully, he knows that most people are appreciative of this opportunity and he continues to do so at other LANs. I wouldn't want someone to miss out on this opportunity.

Twodavez wrote:

Sounds good guys, i know setting up a LAN is a sometimes Thankless task and there is much more that goes on behind the scenes. I just wanted to express how i was feeling just to clear the air. No you can't make everyone happy and i appreciate you taking the time to setting the record strait.

One more suggestion, i know you draw a good younger crowed that can handle staying up all night, but have you considered starting the lan earlier and doing a 2 day thing? I know around 3 AM, i start dragging butt and doing energy drinks isn't the answer for me. If the LAN started at 10 am and went until 10 am the next day, i know i'd have more gaming time, but i'm not sure the building constraints. Just my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks again for hosting, the venue was good and the people were fun as always!

Thank you... we really do appreciate constructive feedback. We actually talked about changing some of the tournament rules and even starting some tournaments a little earlier. I know some of the faithful L4D guys had to leave before that tournament started. So, those are all things we will look at the next time around. There's always room for improvement, but like I said earlier, I didnt' want there to be hard feelings about things that were misunderstood or assumptions that were wrong.

I think maybe is was to ensure that they were actually going to be used and not ebay'd. What's someone with an i7 or AMD processor going to do with a "last gen" cpu? Chances are good that it's going to be sold. Whereas someone like me and my kids that had budget/overclocked cpus are now putting them to good use.

I understand now thta the story i was told was incorrect and now i'm ok with the situation. I agree that it's awesome to be able to upgrade the PC's of people who regularly attend LANs and will use the updated technology for the powers of good
I myself through the luck of the LAN was able to cut several hundred dollars off recent builds through winning random things through LANs i've attended.
I'm ready to drop the CPU Chip subject as i've been made whole in my thoughts concering the situation and i think everyone chiming in is just prolonging the negative vibes towards Nexus who wasn't at fault for this.
thanks everyone

I haven't won anything that I kept from LAN events. I built my Rig with my own cash that I worked hard for. Getting free stuff always rocks but the stuff that I would need to win to actually upgrade would have to be huge.

The point of all of this is this


"Just be happy that LAN's give away free stuff" you could of got nothing at all. A chance is better than no chance at all!

Free stuff is always good. No matter what it is.

STOP COMPLAINING!!!