By looks of things, LANSyndicate was super fricken awesome and an amazing opportunitity to bring members of this forum together/community together. Unfortunately, there were some of us that couldn't make it over to the US to join in with the fun. I could barely afford a plane ticket, let alone a gaming solution I could take with me/use whle I was over, accomodation, etc. If there's another I'll be damn sure to attend it!
In the later part of last year there was talk of UK based LAN party but that lost momentum and is gathering dust deep in search. Is this something that people still want?
Short of going round a friend's house with a few others I've never been to a full scale LAN party. I imagine it to be awesome. While there are others in the UK I'd rather go to a community driven one, like a Tek Syndicate one :D.
I've been keeping this in the back of my head for a while and considering opportunities, but i lack the time and money to manage the logistics for something worth while.
Nearer the end of the year I'm hoping to go to 33C3 and will see who else wants to go (its in Germany, its literally an hour and a half away)
I am very interested in this. It has crossed my mind a few times.
I'd be willing to contribute networking knowledge and likely hardware. I think I've seen @Eden involved in conversations about this a few times and I seem to remember he had an idea for a good venue?
I'm not sure what the numbers are for TS members located in/near the UK but if that number is too low then why not do a Euro LAN?
I don't think I've ever heard of 33C3, from a quick google search is appears to be more conference based. What else goes on?
Mayhap the compramise would be to have a meet up at an already established LAN event?
There was a vote in the previous about where in the UK people thought it was best to be hosted. Mayhap something similar can be done here, if a Euro lan is a better idea?
Naturally, I'd be willing to help in anyway I could!
I started a thread a while ago about a TS-member presence at Insomnia 58 in Birmingham this summer and didn't get much response. Like you, I have never been to a LAN so I'm not aware of any other major events in the UK.
Just been and skimmed through that whole thread. It looks like it was getting some real momentum back then! I've had some experience organizing events like gigs etc in the past and that was an absolute nightmare.
I was looking at Insomnia (and still am), but it's hard to get people on board with the idea of it. With it being the biggest one though, I thought I'd be bound to run into someone who plays similar games to me.
Yeah I wish I had beee part of the forum back then! Well with enough of us on it I'm sure it would be more bearable xD.
I was really disappointed that this lost momentum and (iirc) dried up before LANSyndicate was even announced. Also gutted that I couldn't get to LS. I'm still game.
We had the potential to do it (with my somewhat old thread) we just needed a venue. And I couldn't do that myself, as I'm sure there's a whole load of insurance crap that I wouldnt be elgiable to sign.
I'd be able to do that sort of stuff. There's also the matter of funding the damn thing. The venue, table/chair hire, Internet connectivity and then fronting the cost of food/drink to be sold at the event. Plus I bet there's some hefty public liability insurance fees to do all of that and still allow under 18s AND sell alcohol.
A venue that already has at least some of these things covered could be a good idea. Say for instance a community centre, social club or even a church building (one of my customers is a church that has just purchased an enormous warehouse/ex Halfords repair centre as their main church building)
Take that church building for instance, they already have insurance covering them to host large groups of people of all ages, they have Internet, tables, chairs... Same things apply to a social club and they even have the alcohol licensing too.
Alcohol licensing would be a big thing I imagine. You would also have to look at council rules on how late you serve, etc. If you're going onto someone else's property to use their Internet then I doubt it's going to be enough to serve x amount of gamers. I doubt you'd be able to get a different ISP in so you may be limited there in terms of bandwidth increase
Regarding internet you don't a crazy connection, as the servers you will be playing on will be in the building with you (hence LAN, local area network), then you just setup a steam cache server (think thags what its called) so if anyone doesn't have one of the games everyone would be playing it pulls it from that instead of the internet.
And as for alchol if you wanted to get around that couldn't you get people to bring their own instead of having it for sale?