Agreed. The food was terrible. R40 for the worst Pizza I've ever eaten. It was also the size of a small at most pizza places and they asked the price of a large. Unacceptable!
Agreed. The food was terrible. R40 for the worst Pizza I've ever eaten. It was also the size of a small at most pizza places and they asked the price of a large. Unacceptable!
“My only original suggestions are 24 hour cleaning crew. By Saturday night the bathrooms were shocking. Toilets blocked, mess on the floor etc... And a chill area, even if it is the other side of the dome, far away from anything. I understand the dome is not a holiday inn, but if it is a 24 hour event special measures need to be done.”
I am aware of this problem. We had the cleaning crew requested early Saturday morning. Since I did not use the bathrooms, I only became aware that they didn’t pitch up late Saturday night. We then had their supervisor escort them to the bathrooms. My apologies for not following up on this issue sooner.
“What they should do is a real network setup for a lan this size, and actually do some traffic priority or an alternative network for sharing.”
We monitored the network traffic and the switches were almost idle. CPU utilization less than 25 % and the ports not being stressed. Thus traffic was not a problem. There were however two problems. Initially there was a duplicate address with our main switch. This did take a while to isolate on Friday morning. The other problem with the “spike” as somebody referred to it on the network, that caused some players to be disconnected from the servers once an hour if the servers were on opposite sides of the main switches, was due to some very strange behaviour of a switch that was on the network, but not really responsible for any major connections. Why this switch was able to affect the rest of the network, is unclear. Since there were no traceable signs indicating this switch as being the culprit, we were somewhat lucky to finally find the bug. Since the whole network was tested before the event, although not with the same volume of traffic, I find it very hard to find a solution that will prevent any similar occurrence. As I said, this hassle left no leads or witnesses.
“What about a forum on the site? It's easy to do with a simple server somewhere.”
The IRC chat server machine died on its way to the Dome. Time restraints did not allow us to replace the server, and the other machines were already being utilized. My apologies on this. I do however think that most people did get chatting on the DC servers, and that is why we didn’t try harder to find a suitable replacement server.
As for the website that did not have all the patches for all the games. Please keep in mind that we do not have unlimited bandwidth, nor do we play all the games. As we stated earlier, if you have a mod or patch that you want uploaded, give it to us at the event and we will add it. We tried to cater for the main games, thus some were left behind. Although this is not really your problem, we did only have a week to setup all the servers, source HDD and memory where needed. This was due to people not delivering, machines that were faulty, not due to lack of planning.
“maybe we need little fluffy wrist straps next year”
The sex expo was also on the same weekend, they might have what you are looking for. :0
“My biggest gripe was the food.”
I really do feel your pain here. Unfortunately this is not really in our control. The caterers have a contract with the Dome, and we need to honour their agreement. The only solution that I have for the high prices or the lack of variety is that you consider utilizing the shopping centre that is within walking distance during the day. This complaint has no easy way to resolve. Each year NAG try and make sure that we prompt the caterer for variety and pricing, but they have no leverage.
In general I just wanted to say the this years gamers were the best ever. We did not have to escort one gamer of the property this year, we had no major differences in opinion, and you guys/gals were most accommodating when we sorted out the network issue. We truly appreciate your understanding and patience.
As a fun fact, we processed a gamer at reception every 12 seconds for the first three hours. By Friday night we had 1436 gamers in. The rest all pitched by Saturday noon. Thus we truly had 1500 gamers at the event.
Regards
The VC Team
Last edited by ShadowOrphan; 02-10-2007 at 09:20 AM. Reason: Added bold
Just an idea around this, since it is a NAG event why not get all the past cover DVD/CD's on the site. NAG I'm sure could provide it to you (if you don't have them yourself). This should provide better coverage of games, drivers etc... than asking you to do it, plus it acts as a bit of advertising for NAG (people can see what they have missed out on the disks each month etc...).Originally Posted by ShadowOrphan
Thats where most of the patches came from, since I have all the NAG issues. Having each disk on the website for a year, will think about the complications, although its a good idea.
This year's rAge was better than last year, last year i got denial of service attacks so bad that i did not finish 1 dota game, although this year i did not play any games, my friends (who were also there last year) had no network problems at all.
The expo was also much better this year, I actually bought something this year. There was more to see, more to do, and best of all alot less noise, until the vuvuzelas.
Vuvezelas - I agree... ban the noise making stuff... it's just irritating.
Swearing kids - Don't you just hate it when some kid comes and disses your mother or GF or just ingeneral becuase you owned him in CS or DotA, because he is such a crap player, and he don't know it?!? Luckily most of us are civilized enough to just sit there and take it, instead of getting up and beating the living daylights out of the little snothead! There's swearing and then there is what the kids did at the lan this w/e (actually they are like this at most lans, that's why some lans have age restrictions.) if i even thought of using words like that I'd have been beaten up so bad it's not even funny... Maybe have an age restriction? I know there is no way that you can monitor how people speak, I'm not saying don't swear, just don't freakin' overdo it. And respect other peoples stuff... I k@ked out some kids that were wearing the empty PLAY cans as "Ice Skating" shoes and made like the dome's tiled floor was the ice (at least they listened, this time).
Food - This is a general one, maybe the more we complain about it the more likely you are to do something about it, maybe you should think of a different venue? Yeah I know, it's not that simple, blah-blah, just think about it, phone some people. I know we gamers eat almost anything, but the quality of food at every rAge event is just plain CRAP. (I did like the ANAT stand though, the only good food at rAge, EVER).
DC++ - What DC++, I did not see any DC++, unofficially, those DC++ servers kicked some serious @ss this w/e, it was good. Now all you guys that are complaining about it. DC++ does not actually grab all the bandwidth, Copying something directly from somebody's pc uses way more bandwidth. (that's what I think about it I might be wrong.) Besides the "MAIN" servers were switched at certain times. (and don't look at my post like that, you know you also got something off of DC++, you "serious" gamer).
Bean Bags - Yeah, have a rule that says the bean bags should stay in the chill area. (I also used one of them at my seat, so yeah I'm guilty too... I had to give it back to the guy that it "belonged" to after a while though). There was no space to move with everybody's boxes and bags and bean bags, and the place just looked untidy in general because of that.
Comp network - I'm not sure how the network worked this year, but maybe next year you should disconnect the competition networks from the open lan network until all comps are done for the day, and then connect them while there's nothing going on. This might help with the network problems in the comps.
Anyway.... that's me RANTING/RAVING about stuff.
Next year, do exactly what you did this year, and then some.
Great LAN, Will definately be there next year.
Firstly congratulations to the event Organizers on pulling off an brilliant event!!! I drove up from Cape Town and it was completely worth the 14 hour drive...
One thing the event organizers could do is clearly indicate which where the BF2/BF2142 sections DOTA/CS source etc. Would have been cool to have a few branded signs etc.
Yeah the food as I can imagine could be tricky. I hope to see more displays next year and I'm sure there will be. Great venue awesome meeting all the folks form the BF2/2142 community.
Prob with that idea, speaking specifically in terms of the DotA comp, it took place via the open LaN so there's no way (I think) that it can be seperated. Also, match times were discussed between the two teams so there wasn't really a general "done for the day" scenario.
How about instead of using those green armbands, give all the gamers those lanyards with the ID-code on them, and make them scan in and out, in the same way that the press had to enter/exit the event
I like the Forum idea, there can be a VC section where you chat with the VC guys about the site and where to find the patches to upload.
My opinion
Okey ppl the LAN was OK it was fun and enjoyable ... BUT im very Disappointed with the EXPO it did not step up to the plate from last year ... I MEAN the expo last year was awsome with lasers and plasma tv's high up so every 1 in the DOME could see them advertising games, the stands were awsome aswell last year and there was much more P.A action telling the mass crowd what and where things were happening which was SWEET.
Aslo there hardley were any give aways what so ever i also agree with the ppl above about the food .. OMW it was very expencive and the pizza and burgers were kinda gay actually in quality. SO hopefully the expo WIll ROCK and make the open lan ticket price worth it.!!!!!
Showers pls, and a bigger guitar hero stand with bigger speakers and more guitars so I can have more fun while im copying crap upstairs. :P
Yeah... I like this idea... just 1 problem with it, those things get lost easily(you know how the ppl get at rAge when they get tired).
WTF... rent a room in a motel or meet some friends that live in the area, or get DEODERANT. rAge can't freakin' supply everything.
ok yeah so there were no lasers and plasma tv's, and not enough announcing ... thank goodness for that, less noise! the lasers and tv's would have been cool though. who cares for the give-aways, I'm glad that Naked IT wasn't there this year, that guy giving away pens to screaming crowds.... not cool.
better presentation and layout
smaller sized lan comps
focus on the games
better security
LOL yeh unfortunately I only realized that when we were leaving JHB on our way back to Mpumalanga, next time i'll go get me sum fluffy cuffs ;)
[B
Just showers for me hey, else it was perfect!
I thought it was ok yes maybe i could have just picked up someones mouse and walked out with it but it was ok and i was eyeing out that d link hub :) just kidding
Bigger expo, smaller LAN.
Rage 2005 was the best
Could we maby have a smaler lan like 160 gamers before rage to get us all warmed up
Isn’t that what Mayhem, MPLD, Liberty and the other LANs are for? Keeps you warm all year round.
Yep yep.
If anything I'd like to have a bigger LAN (not necessarily next year, but eventually).
My biggest issue is with the food. Way overpriced. And Pick 'n Pay isn't open at 03:00 AM on Saturday.
Also, I found the last years expo far more exciting. Then again, I also had more money last year...
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