UrbanLAN 14 – Yet another great success.
UrbanLAN 14 has been one of the most successful events we've ever organised. The crew had a very simple set-up with switches that were configured before-hand. We didn't have all that much to cover before the event started, which meant we were ready to jump to action when 1:00pm rolled around on Saturday afternoon. Getting everyone through the door with their attendee packs and gamer lanyard was also done quite quickly, mainly thanks to everyone that helped at the door giving them out and to all those that volunteered to move people's computer gear upstairs. The LAN briefing was also short and sweet, getting to the point on everything that needed to be said, including discussing the new law that will come into effect by September 2011.
The first tournament game was initiated at approximately 3:00pm. This was Trackmania Nations Forever. It was simple to set up and was highly competitive and fun.
First place was awarded to: m4sm4n
Our second tournament game at 4:30pm was Counter-Strike Source. The crew had originally planned to play Counter-Strike: Source with the “GunGame” mod, but unfortunately the mod itself was out of date which caused numerous problems (including taking down Anthrax’s CS:S installation). The game was delayed by approximately 15 minutes, but once the game was up and running there were plenty of people exclaiming the normal “WTF? - How did I die!?!?”…classic counter-strike verbalisations.
First place was awarded to: Gamgee
Then there was the food! - UncleChuck and CupCaek put quite a number of hours into cooking for all 60-odd people that were in attendance at 6:30pm. For the main course they served us an amazing lasagne dish with carrot and broccoli. Oats and Grandpa-Elmer were prime contenders for second and third helpings of the main course. Not long after the majority of people had finished their main course, out came dessert! UncleChuck’s magnificent apple crumble served with custard and ice-cream. (Once again Grandpa-Elmer quickly queued up for seconds).
Not long after dinner (approximately 7:30pm), UrbanLAN’s Social Game kicked off. This time PinguWaaWaa and UncleChuck game up with an “Engineering and design” competition. Everyone was wondering what this could mean. A total of eight teams of three people joined in on the frivolities. The first event: “Build the tallest and strongest structure” out of marshmallow ducks and spaghetti pasta sticks. This game had an eight minute time limit. Once the time ended, structure heights were measured. Some structures wobbled and collapsed and had to be re-measured. Next came the strength test. A half packet of pasta was used to see which structures would stay up. Only three or four structures managed to survive with minimal damage. The second game in this challenge was: “Build a bridge” that spanned the 30cm gap between tables and place a cup in or on the bridge. The cup was to hold an unknown type of weight for the strength test. Each team was given 3 x 50cm pieces of tape, 22 straws and one cup to use. They had a fifteen minute time limit in order to complete the challenge. There were many different methods used in approach to this bridge test. Once the time was up, the weights (network T connectors) were inserted into the cups one by one. Most of the structures failed the test. However, one particular bridge managed to hold up under the strain so well we couldn't place any more connectors in the cup! PinguWaaWaa then decided to have some fun and tested the bridges load capacity with a10kg steel bar. Needless to say, they all failed miserably and PinguWaaWaa was happy.
First place was awarded to: Harabogi, Greaterwolf and Oats
Quake III Arena was the next game up at 9:00pm. This game is always full of excitement and saw many onslaughts from various competitors.
First place was awarded to: cLoWn
Next up at 10:00pm was Team Fortress 2. This game provided many laughs for us all and happened to produce some very good competition. There was also one hilarious moment when GreaterWolf managed to knife three opponents within 10 seconds and none of them could figure out how they died.
First place was awarded to: Gamgee
Last for the Competition games was Starcraft II at 11:30pm. A game that was hosted by one of our attendees (m4sm4n) so others could join. However m4sm4n didn't play this himself. He just patiently waited for the game to finish so he could use his computer again.
First place was awarded to: Shino
Throughout the night the lanners helped themselves to a great selection of fruit prepared in a beautiful platter arrangement by Cupcaek. This was happily demolished by the lanners. Nearer to midnight a number of people joined chairs together and slept for a little bit.
Breakfast was served at 8:15am. This consisted of sausages, peas and cheesy mashed spuds. It seemed that everyone was exhausted with just a handful of people still trying to stay awake on their self-induced sugar rushes.
9:20am: Prize giving. The following gamers were awarded prizes.
1st – Kingston 64gb Solid State Drive, UrbanLAN Trophy, Free entry to UL15 - Cyris
Cyris was asked to choose his prize (other than the NAS box) as he already won the NAS box at UL13. All other winners also chose their own prizes from the pool.
2nd – Netgear NeoTV 350 – Gamgee
3rd – Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra4 Plus – cLoWn
4th – Netgear NeoTV 350 – Pandemix
5th – Allied Telesis Wireless Router – Paycheck
6th – Allied Telesis Wireless Router - Harabogi
7th – Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 RAM – GreaterWolf
8th – Allied Telesis Wireless Router - Shino
UrbanLAN 14 officially drew to a close and we left the premises by 1:30pm.
A mistake was made by PinguWaaWaa and 9th place was not announced. This award was announced after the LAN.
9th – Seagate 1TB External USB Hard Drive - Oats
