Tourney Suggestion

[Jpwinkis]

Run multiple servers so no team is waiting to play. Get tourneys finished quicker, more time to do other events or free play.

[Action]

Unfortuantly running multiple servers for a tourney requires a dedicated person to monitor the servers meaning I or other members of staff would not be able to play in the tournament.  But, yes we are now a fairly large LAN and I can see how multiple servers are kinda needed.  But again it would be a full time job for a staff member.  I try to make sure staff at least has some fun like the rest of the LAN attendees.

Also, one thing I found at some other larger LANS that do use multiple servers for a tournament was getting everyone in the correct server at times which cased delays on starting. 

[twodavez]

I understand the person requirements for the servers, but a 1.5 hour round of COD4 is a little much to have for 1 round. I'm sure if you named the servers and maybe had the teams lined up, there should be a simply way to get a few going at the same time.
The freeze tag was interesting. Kinda boring at time especially if your frozen the whole map. I actually had dreams last night (actually 9am - 3pm when i slept) that was in a red block of ice. It was pretty scary!
Besides that the other tourneys were cool. Wish there was some RTS tourney, but i understand those can take even longer than the COD did. Maybe have a all out 8 person rumble in something and the winner is the winner.

[Action]

I think next time what I will do is make sure there is a practice server running while the tournament is running.  That way other teams can still play and practice instead of waiting for their next time up on the tournament server.  I had L4D running but didn't have a COD4 practice running.  I still think at this point it is still better to have one tournament server at a time though at least until we have more than 4 teams.  I'll definitely have a practice server running at all times during the next LAN though.  Even though are current game server is powerful and can run multiple games at a time, I do plan to purchase and bring in at least one more game server to our next LAN.  We actually have a couple smaller servers that just need built as it is.  One we are planning to look into running a internet game server for NeXus LAN.

[Cra2hgirl]

I actually had dreams last night (actually 9am - 3pm when i slept) that was in a red block of ice. It was pretty scary!

LOL!  Good to know, though.  I used to get teased because I would have dreams about games.  Remember Warcraft II?  I woke up one night from nightmares as I thought orcs were envading the house!  

[JeLLITYMe]

Since most of the time the rest of the staff are playing, I was pretty much just walking around. Next Time Maybe I could help with a second multiplayer sever (I could monitor it I mean).

[Cra2hgirl]

Since most of the time the rest of the staff are playing, I was pretty much just walking around. Next Time Maybe I could help with a second multiplayer sever (I could monitor it I mean).

Good to have you back in town Jelly!

[Dreyvas]

Would it be feasible to have short preliminary rounds to have a bit of a skill indicator rather than just having people write it down? It's hard to be objective with your own skill level sometimes. I realize this might be hard to implement, but at the lan I wasn't having a problem coming in first during most of the practice rounds, but I didn't even win a single round of any tournament game I played in because the teams were unbalanced. Frustrating.

Maybe there would be an easier/better way to do it than my idea, just trying to be constructive. I know TF2 especially ended up pretty stacked. It's a tricky problem, and I'm sure you guys have thrown a lot of ideas around in the past.

[Cra2hgirl]

Would it be feasible to have short preliminary rounds to have a bit of a skill indicator rather than just having people write it down? It's hard to be objective with your own skill level sometimes. I realize this might be hard to implement, but at the lan I wasn't having a problem coming in first during most of the practice rounds, but I didn't even win a single round of any tournament game I played in because the teams were unbalanced. Frustrating.

Maybe there would be an easier/better way to do it than my idea, just trying to be constructive. I know TF2 especially ended up pretty stacked. It's a tricky problem, and I'm sure you guys have thrown a lot of ideas around in the past.

This was the first LAN, out of all the previous LANs, that the teams were unbalanced like that.  I think the problem is that we had a lot of really good people, and just putting that one extra awesome person on the other team made it unbalanced.  Your idea is a good one though.   The only problem is that time is limited, especially if we do three tournaments.  We usually try to accomodate the late comers and start the tournaments later, but we may have to have at least one tournament earlier in the day and then we'd have time to do something like this.  Another option might be to meet with the team captains ahead of time that know the players better.

[Dreyvas]

Yeah, I kind of figured time constraints would definitely be the biggest issue with having prelims. With JJ floating around, it's tough to have a balanced TF2 game.

[Action]

Yeah it is hard to get it perfect, but at least teams are split up like this.  Otherwise ever COD tourney for example would be won by the same clan everytime.  But we do try to take as much into account as possible to make it even.  Which is why before I started the tourney and after teams were split I asked if everyone was happy with the teams.  I still wanted to make sure it was as split up an even as possible.  Which with all things considered it was.  I actually did better than I have in the past... must of been because of all the Bad Company 2 practice I have been having.

I like the idea Dee Dee came up with about asking the captains to help split the teams.  They might know more than we do on how good everyone is, etc.

[Dreyvas]

Yeah, it's the same deal at LanOC, more or less. It'd be nice if we could get a BC2 tourney going next time, if we can figure out some way to get around the lack of LAN play and not being able to join any internet servers.

[Action]

Yeah, it's the same deal at LanOC, more or less. It'd be nice if we could get a BC2 tourney going next time, if we can figure out some way to get around the lack of LAN play and not being able to join any internet servers.

Same... that would be way cool.  Although I really like their game, Dice is a hypocrit, they were critical to Modern Ware 2 about not offering dedicated servers.  Yes, they have dedicated servers but they still screwed the LAN community.  But, I do expect LAN play in the future, the code is there, they just need to allow it.

[Dreyvas]

I really hope they do, that would make an already amazing game that much better.

[Cyphis]

Yeah, it is really difficult to get teams set up perfectly.  For example, one guy may be friggin awesome to others at the LAN, but only average with the guys he or she normally plays with, so they may put average down as their skill level.  Where at the LAN, while that person may feel like they are average because the people they normally play with are Uber Leet.....he or she smokes everyone else.

I felt for the most part that the teams were matched up pretty dam well.  Especially teams 1 and 2.  We were going back and forth for lead position and that is why it took the 1.5 hour for the match to end.  Of course, then that winning team got smoked by the next wining team.  I blame it on anticipation of the raffle...LOL.  Just kidding.