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FFO 06 IN REVIEW


Fatty

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As always, the weekend isn't finished until we take some time to consider ways to improve the event. During the staff meeting that followed cleanup, we discussed the event, considering how things went and what we could do differently to increase the overall quality of FragFestOhio.

 

Some of the things that we're going to address don't concern the public or are still being discussed, but here are some topics that we covered. Please feel free to share your thoughts. While we value all constructive criticism, please include anything that you felt was a positive aspect as well so that we can be sure to remain consistant in the areas that made for a good event.

 

There were MANY MANY great things that worked well. My post below is going to concentrate on the targeted improvements to be made.

 

-Renegade will come onto the staff as our sound tech. He'll set up multiple wireless mics, as well as a sound system that can play music during various times at the event.

 

-Food: The entry fee is spent on the rental of the hotel and tshirts...and that just about puts us even with the number of gamers that we have in attendance. With that said, we are going to improve the organization of opportunities to order food together, and find more deals/discounts that you can take advantage of. While unloading the trailer and discussing this, Clueless volunteered to handle this next year. He'll not only look for ways that we can save money, but will also organize food trips that are scheduled in advance so that everyone knows when they'll have opportunities to get an order in.

The snacks were a big hit...Duke set us up with lots of Kelloggs stuff, and m0m arranged for sugar rushes compliments of SweetStreet. Those were nice arrangements.

 

-Internet / Network: We found out that something had changed from our event last year: the port we were going through was capped. This meant that validating through steam or browsing the internet was about as fun as hot sauce in the eye. m0m was able to fix this while we did doorprizes...but consequently this change stopped us from being able to set up pickup servers on our own machines (i.e. you couldn't see me starting Server4, or the halflife server, etc, on my own machine) I don't know exactly why, but hopefully this won't happen next year.

 

-Misc. Servers. Once again we need to have more servers available to jump in. We need a scopeless server running, we need servers that are available while the tourney is going on...and I understand there was issues with the BF server(s) that made it troublesome to find/join. This is going to be a high priority for us next year, to have all of this done and working by Thursday night, including the above network issues.

 

-Introduction / Opening Ceremony: On Friday evening next year, we're going to have a welcoming cermony...that will be mostly informational. Here we'll cover how-to's, etc.

 

-Informational handout: At your seats next year, in addition to the various swag, etc, you'll find an informational sheet with the rules of the lan and information and FAQs (who do I ask about this or that, etc).

 

-Virus Scanning: This is really an unnecessary area that consumes a TON of staff time. Many people arrived at the lan as they should have: with an updated virus scan loaded on their computer and fresh scan report. Bam, plug right in. Thank you to those that had this done. Next year, we are going to have a virus scanning station, and we're going to charge you $ to load up / scan your PC. To be fair, we're going to emphasize this even more than we did last year prior to the event.

 

-Electricity: 2 weeks prior to the event I called the hotel and had them verify that all the 220 outlets worked. Guess what? The same one that was faulty last year still didn't function. Now, while this caused some issues, we also saw some power drops due to mismanagement by our gamers. There were empty outlets laying around from our breaker boxes, but in several occassions, people were daisy chaining off a single strip, and the strips were tripping. At any rate, if you are a veteran FragFester, you know that the few incidents that we had were very minor and mangable compared to the past. Solution: Each seat will have a specific place to plug in. There will be no guessing game....maybe we'll even have things labeled and prepared under the table for you just to make it very easy.

 

-Specific closing schedule / shift managers: Next year we'll tell you up front exactly when the ballroom will close for the evening. We're also going to schedule shift managers so that I won't personally have to stay up to close things. I want to thank Fish for staying up an hour later to close shop on Friday for me, and KWill for handling it on Saturday (dunno what time things closed on Saturday).

 

Ok, your turn. Tell us what worked and what we can improve. If I've covered the things you had in mind, just say so...but there's no need to be overly repetitive.

 

Thanks in advance, and thanks for making it a great event!!

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It was a pretty good ff for my first one. As far as changes go I would like to see a mandatory trip up to the crazy horse on the schedule.

 

I would also like to see a final event on sunday before the break down, like going out to eat or having a tp's event or something.

Edited by Mossad
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First, I was very impressed with everything as well, especiallly the people factor.

 

Second, like Moss said, I would enjoy a social event off site. I saw the swimming field trip posted but don't know if that ever went off. Something that there isn't a keyboard in front of me so that we can chat and eat at tequila panchos or the mongolian bbq would be cool.

 

Third, I hope that Escape is encouraged to come back. Once you swapped me PCs everything was awesome. It was nice to show up, plug in my headphones, mic, and mouse and play with everything already to go. Even virus scan lol.

 

THANKS AGAIN, EVERYBODY. :luxhello:

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Having escapeplay there was totally awsome. I arrived, plugged in

my mouse & headphones and did'nt stop gaming until I went to bed

Saturday night. They did a fantastic job! I would also like to say I

was really impressed with the random draw CSS tourny. Teams were

very even and all the matches were nailbiters. (2 OT's I believe?)

All in all I have no negatives at all. FF just keeps getting better. Way to go!!!

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i had a great time, here's some suggestions for the future:

 

1. install mani so's we can play custom maps?

2. one day for open gaming and one day for round robin tourney with a playoff for champs

3. make availible a download for a virus program so that we can scan before we get there on our own time and show a screenshot of no virus certification or something of the like

4. introductions at opening ceremony?

5. 1 stock server, a scopeless, an all custom map stock, all aim map server; 4 total servers until tourney

6. ballot award for mvp of tourney

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i had a great time, here's some suggestions for the future:

 

1. install mani so's we can play custom maps?

2. one day for open gaming and one day for round robin tourney with a playoff for champs

3. make availible a download for a virus program so that we can scan before we get there on our own time and show a screenshot of no virus certification or something of the like

4. introductions at opening ceremony?

5. 1 stock server, a scopeless, an all custom map stock, all aim map server; 4 total servers until tourney

6. ballot award for mvp of tourney

Nick I can answer #3 for you.

 

Everyone can download AVGFree. I've used this antivirus for years now and it works exceptionally well. Have yet to have a problem.

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That's what we had to do this year, once we got the couple of cd's burned things went well. Lunk maybe you could help out with this, i was trying to update avg with a their latest definitions through a .bin file right off thier site, but for some reason avg update manager wasn't finding the file. This would have allowed people to get a full up-to-date virus scan without having to connect to the network. Maybe have someone talk to norton, mcfee, avg, etc about sponsoring the lan or using there product at a discounted rate. As fat posted above this could be the additional charge.

 

Fat, if you need next year, i could probably be a shift manager.. I have no problem with staying up late..

 

I know i was guilty of this but I wasn't as bad as others. I would like to see some of the GC standards incorporated into the lan, the cursing, tking, racial comment this year it was getting out of line. We need to have a MOTD for the lan. I can understand the occational cursing in conversations, but yelling explicitive across the room was a big turn off for me. About the racial comment said, it may have been in good fun, but i would like to see next year an immediate removal of said person. This is a private event we make our own rules, i don't think this rule is too hard to abide by.

 

Poker was a good fun, but we need to have some people take a breathalizor and/or a beginners class. Also maybe for next year, we could price out a couple of automatic shufflers.

 

Next year make sure the tourney director shows up!! (looks at mustard) If not, we need apt one right away, Fat was bounced around enough this weekend, someone else should worry this.

 

If i think of more i'll post up

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That's a good point about the shift managers. At my military school, we had rotating shifts throughout the night. They called it "firewatch" but it was really just a way to make sure someone was around to minimize late-night tomfoolery.

 

If everyone that was signed up and 21 took a 2 hour shift, then that person could walk around and socialize and field problems for the most part. At worst, it would end up being triage for the problems that actually needed to be escalated up the chain of command. 2 hours per person seems fair and would take a lot of stress off the staff.

 

And the waiver could release civil/criminal liability for any injury that might actually come from accidentally hospitalizing a racist while removing them from the room.

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Hey Fat -

In regards to the virus scanning - how about if we settle on which scanning program we use before hand

and have burned copies ready to go when everyone shows up? If $$$ are a factor, we could charge for

the media and burning. Either that, or shoot everyone that signs up an email indicating what is expected

(anti-virus and equipment wise) before they show up. I don't know if anyone read any of the posts that

were made in regards to the must bring list, but it might help.

 

If we use a Cisco switch next year we might be able to have users connect to a private vlan until their virus scan has been verified. Once they are signed off, we can move them to gaming vlan (just a thought anyway). I think the bottom line is that whatever siolution is used should be the easiest to manage and implement. Thoughts, comments?

 

Also, I could work with mom and get one of my boxes setup as an additional server.

And as Mag said, I could be a shift manager as well.

 

BTW - we need kwill back. He was a great guy and alot of fun.

 

Again, many thanks to the board and staff. For a FF noob, I had a great time.

Looking forward to next year (how many days is it?).

Edited by Dingy
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Well, the virus scanning is going to be an official staff position next year. This person will arrive with what they need to get the scanning done.

 

That said, with the threat of a monitary punishment, I hope people will just be ready to plug in when they arrive. This is really the best solution: come prepared to show that you have been protecting yourself from viruses all along.

 

Poker: If you want larger games you lower the buyins...and you have to accept the results of that. The $30 game was a different atmosphere (well, it was also at noon on Saturday).

 

Shift Managers: I like Chief's line of thought: get of-age FF Veterans to simply sign up and monitor for a couple hours at a time, asking if there are any needs, etc. This would also assist me because the SM would then be the go-to person, instead of everyone searching for me.

 

The 18 and over part is being discussed. What will probably end up happening is the requirement that you either be 18 or actually have a parent gaming in the room.

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Ya as long as Mav's son doesn't get much better by next year, I'd like to see him come back. Josh was a great guy, well mannered, and well spoken...and good at killing every DOH he came across :( So the gaming parent seems a reasonable req.

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Hello Everyone,

 

I'd like to give the entire staff a big THANK YOU, for having me out this year. It was my first LAN party ever, and what a great way to start it off. I was very impressed with the over-all professionalism of the event, and the team work that prevailed when running into issues. These things showed me that you all are truly a great organization that is only going to grow. It was wonderful meeting every one, and I thought considering the huge mix of people there it was a lot of good fun.

 

Every event can always use a little polish here or there. As some of you know I have a background in networks, and I would like to volunteer in away I can. I can help with anything you need from "Firewatch" to Setting a Virus Scanning Station, etc. Just let me know and I’d be more than happy to help out.

 

Thanks again,

modlCitizn

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The young guys really didn't bother me to much, mavs son was a complete gentleman.

I agree. I did tell Mav he was dangerous though :D

Anyone have any idea how many times he has killed Mav?

 

Couple of extra things though -

How about more garbage cans (and a bit more timely trash removal)? If it came to that, just show me

where the dumpster is and I'll play cleanup crew (even before they went trash diving the hospitality room

was getting to be a mess).

 

As to the 18 end of things - how do other groups do this at their LAN parties (or don't they)?

Any thought on allowing under 18 folks for a specific period of time (like a curfew of 11PM or 12AM)?

 

Whatever happens, it should be stressed that everyone is a guest at FF; since they are guests,

they should remember to act the part and abide by any rules that may be in place...

 

My $1.50 (inflation)

Edited by Dingy
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That's what we had to do this year, once we got the couple of cd's burned things went well. Lunk maybe you could help out with this, i was trying to update avg with a their latest definitions through a .bin file right off thier site, but for some reason avg update manager wasn't finding the file. This would have allowed people to get a full up-to-date virus scan without having to connect to the network. Maybe have someone talk to norton, mcfee, avg, etc about sponsoring the lan or using there product at a discounted rate. As fat posted above this could be the additional charge.

 

Fat, if you need next year, i could probably be a shift manager.. I have no problem with staying up late..

 

I know i was guilty of this but I wasn't as bad as others. I would like to see some of the GC standards incorporated into the lan, the cursing, tking, racial comment this year it was getting out of line. We need to have a MOTD for the lan. I can understand the occational cursing in conversations, but yelling explicitive across the room was a big turn off for me. About the racial comment said, it may have been in good fun, but i would like to see next year an immediate removal of said person. This is a private event we make our own rules, i don't think this rule is too hard to abide by.

 

Poker was a good fun, but we need to have some people take a breathalizor and/or a beginners class. Also maybe for next year, we could price out a couple of automatic shufflers.

 

Next year make sure the tourney director shows up!! (looks at mustard) If not, we need apt one right away, Fat was bounced around enough this weekend, someone else should worry this.

 

If i think of more i'll post up

 

I agree with you Mags... a certain person who will remain unamed would continue to say stuff like f..., bs, etc.

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Well, about trash cans.......

 

Technically no drinks or food are supposed to be brought out of the hospitality room if it's not provided by the hotel. If that were the case, all the trash cans we needed were in the right places. However, I would agree that they needed emptied, but if they were emptied, Nick may have sustained more injuries than a sore back. I agree with you tho, but again, (and this is my fault for not emphasizing....) our stuff shouldn't have even been around the computers. It's a tough one for me to enforce, but I take on the risk of someone from HI walking in and telling me I'm violating the contract....which means I can't really ask for trash cans to be placed in the ballroom where we can dispose of our contraband.

 

mdlcitizen....YOU ARE ON. I would welcome you onto the staff to be part of the network / virus scan team. Be warned, though, the yellow name tags are a bit heavier.

 

Again, a lot of the aformentioned topics will be addressed in the rules/informational sheet that we'll have for everyone to read at their seat next year.

 

Keep it coming, all great comments and feedback.

 

The curfew idea is a curious one. It was also mentioned to me in a PM.

 

ps. mdlcitizen, keep your forum info up-to-date so I can contact you when we regroup for FF07. Hopefully you'll just be around and active from now on! :D

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Fat -

I wan't thinking of garbage cans in the ballroom. I was thinking of a couple more in the hospitality room.

It would have been nice to have empties around when what we had got to full/overflowing. Just a trash

fetish I guess.

 

Could we get paper products (paper towels, napkins) for next year? I know the men's room

was right across the hall, but... Some plactic ware too by chance? That stuff isn't too hard to come

by, so it might even be able to be rolled in to the cost of the event (and it is pretty cheap at Costco

or a foodservice distributor). Oh yeah - and a bigger table for the coffee and other drinks?

 

As to the curfew - just a thought since 18 is legal and all the insanity seems to happen around midnight

or so. BTW - I am only talking about those without supervision. With the drinking, it might be good idea and

may need more talk. I had no idea that anyone PM'ed you on that either. Just a random thought on my end.

 

I don't know who brought it up, but whoever got on the pizza guy for not delivering the pizza to his

seat was lame. I think that if you order it, you should watch for it. And if it isn't claimed, I'll pay the guy

(tip included ) and eat it.

 

Since we're talking pizza - any possible discount cupons for pizza next year (although the HI did make a

great steak).

 

Any thought as to no food (well, not snacks anyway) in the gaming area? The HI isn't home, and after all

we don't have that much room....

 

Thanks.

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Yeah, I agee - expecting the pizza guy to hunt down your chair in the dark was tacky and lazy on the part of whoever did it. He was going back and forth all night delivering pizzas, least we could do is get up and meet him at the door.

 

As for the swearing - there's no way to completely cut it out, it's going to happen and I don't think that it should be banned but just limited. Every other word shouldn't be a cuss word, but to cut it out is ridiculous. I, for one, can't help it in certain situations during CS...it just comes out in high-tense situations and what not, etc...but, overall, I think it was kept in-check given everyone was drinking.

 

Overall, I think the only negative was some of the punk kids that Fatty mentioned. Other than that, every other problem was minimal and I think it went great.

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I was in the bar for a pizza delivery the first night and they were upset that someone order pizza in the bar. They were going around to all the tables asking who ordered it. When they came back up to the bar I asked who it was for and they were like, "Lane or Lan. L - A - N." I sent them back but they'd been there for like half an hour already lol

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Well, about trash cans.......

 

Technically no drinks or food are supposed to be brought out of the hospitality room if it's not provided by the hotel. If that were the case, all the trash cans we needed were in the right places. However, I would agree that they needed emptied, but if they were emptied, Nick may have sustained more injuries than a sore back. I agree with you tho, but again, (and this is my fault for not emphasizing....) our stuff shouldn't have even been around the computers. It's a tough one for me to enforce, but I take on the risk of someone from HI walking in and telling me I'm violating the contract....which means I can't really ask for trash cans to be placed in the ballroom where we can dispose of our contraband.

 

mdlcitizen....YOU ARE ON. I would welcome you onto the staff to be part of the network / virus scan team. Be warned, though, the yellow name tags are a bit heavier.

 

Again, a lot of the aformentioned topics will be addressed in the rules/informational sheet that we'll have for everyone to read at their seat next year.

 

Keep it coming, all great comments and feedback.

 

The curfew idea is a curious one. It was also mentioned to me in a PM.

 

ps. mdlcitizen, keep your forum info up-to-date so I can contact you when we regroup for FF07. Hopefully you'll just be around and active from now on! :D

Fatty... what ever you all need, my shoulders are broad and I enjoy helping out, especially if it means the founders can get a little more game time in. Staying in touch is no problem, I'm already hooked on these forums. Besides I can always go upstairs and bug m0m anytime (I'm good at that!).

Edited by modlCitizn
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