Things to know for rAge 2010
Hi
If you have any questions about the NAG LAN @ rAge, please check this post first to see if it has been covered.
Here is the overview of the most important aspects that you need to be aware of for rAge 2010. Posts that stray from this topic will be deleted. If you have a question that you are sure has not been covered, please post it.
The two main features:
1) rAge Expo
2) BYOC Open LAN hosted by VC (More commonly known as the NAG LAN)
(I am not in a position to clarify questions regarding AGASA presence at rAge, competitions that they host, fees etc payable to them. So please refrain from posting AGASA questions on the NAG forum as AGASA staff do not monitor this forum in the same capacity as their own forum.)
In the NAG Open LAN area you can play at your leisure, bring your own computer and pretty much do your own thing based on what servers VC and/or the community will have up and running. This is simply a LAN, much like any other except that it is being held at rAge and consists of 2080 players.
What will be played in the NAG Open LAN - basically anything that you want that does not cause a non-willing participant any harm. Any communities that want to organize any formal competitions for a specific game, please feel free to contact me. Do keep in mind though that there will be no trips to Korea, France, America or Disney Land in the NAG Open LAN. No sponsor banners or related advertising will be allowed, not even if they sponsored you to attend from Finland.
Dates: 1 -3 October 2010
Expo Times Friday: 10:00 - 18:00
Expo Times Saturday: 09:00 - 18:00
Expo Times Sunday: 10:00 - 16:00
LAN Times: Friday 10:00 - Sunday 15h00
Entrance tickets to the rAge Expo only (not the LAN).
Day Pass Ticket: R50
Weekend Pass Ticket: R80
Family Pass Ticket : R160
NAG LAN ticket price: R300 (inlcudes free access to the expo all weekend). These tickets are only available to purchase at Computicket from 1 August. They usually sell out within a few days so make sure you get there early.
Please ensure that you collect your ticket from Computicket before the event - no ticket, no entry.
If your girlfriend, boyfriend, friend just wants to see what the weekend is about, they need to buy a day pass or weekend pass for the expo at the expo entrance. Regardless of whether gamers arrive on Friday or Sunday the price will remain the same.
Anyone who arrives with a computer will need to have a valid Computicket ticket that is still 100% intact. No valid ticket, no entry. (Laptops are computers too)
Entrance fee to exhibition is included. Details on what is happening at the exhibition can be found at www.rageexpo.co.za
Seating arrangements: First come, first serve. Thus you will not be able to reserve specific seating. We have not yet allocated specific space for competitions. Should we decide to reserve any seating we will indicate this on the layout map at the entrance. Please note that this will only be done for very large groups of 100 or more. This will be for our discretion.
IP Addresses: Static, sticker on table.
Parking area: Secured Public Parking Area opposite main entrance. Follow road markings.
Off-loading area: Not applicable, since the entrance is separated from the parking area. Thus you park your car and bring your stuff from there. You will need to show a valid computicket ticket to the guards at the parking entrance to gain access – the guard will then write your car registration onto a parking voucher (which the guard will have) and give it to you. This voucher will be valid for that car registration only for the duration of the weekend. The following is very important: Do not leave the guard without getting your ticket back. Do not damage your ticket (remove part of it). Keep your parking pass safe because we will take your computicket upon entry to the LAN. Please note that the parking pass is only valid for the registration written on it. Also keep in mind that since we take your computicket, you will need to park before proceeding to register at the LAN.
Distance to carry pc: 100m to Reception, bit further inside depending on where you intend sitting.
Noise: Yes lots.
Entertainment: Open LAN, exhibition and the rest is up to you!
Is it going to rain?: Not the faintest idea, but do keep this in mind. Bring the odd plastic bag to cover up if needed.
Chill area: Yes, two upstairs.
Sleep area: Nope. No tents etc. I know this seems harsh, but the Dome have rules to comply with. So if you collect your thoughts upstairs in the chill area on the mezzanine level and happen to think better with your eyes closed, I am sure nobody will disturb your deep thoughts.
What to bring: PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse, headphones, power cord to pc & monitor.
Please note that your power cord needs to have a red plug with the flattened earth pin. Without this red plug type you will not be able to plug into the power grid. Each multiplug that we supply is meant to have two PC’s plugged into it. So if you and your buddy only use two plugs because you have a power lead with multiple points, it does not mean you have two additional plugs to use for whatever. The power is calculated according to the PC’s, and deviating from this might cause power failures. Since nobody likes power failures, if you cause one due to ignoring our request and abusing the power, you will leave the event. I take this quite seriously, so please don’t test the waters on this.
What NOT to bring:
No Speakers
No UPS’s
No Multiplugs
No Double Adaptors
No Switches Or Hubs
No Additional Devices Requiring Power for e.g. Fans, Cell Phone Chargers, Etc
Power test station: PC’s will be tested for power at reception. You plug your PC and Monitor into the supplied power cords. You start to boot. If both your monitor and PC start without tripping the power, you can switch them off and carry on through to registration.
Two-pin Adaptors: Please note that due to the fact that we use the red plugs, two pin adaptors won’t work. External drive users take note.
Security: Yes there will be guards. The safety of your equipment is however still your responsibility. So don’t leave your cell phone, mp3 player or camera on the table while you go for lunch. This will lead to unnecessary temptation. Take your mouse, headphones etc with you when you leave. Ask a buddy to keep an eye. No PC’s or monitors will enter or leave after 22h00 at night. Registration opens at 8h00 on Saturday morning. Laptops also count as PC’s.
Will there be viruses: Most certainly, the likelihood is very high. Therefore patch your systems, get firewalls, and get anti-virus software. We will have trial versions available, but that might be too late.
Hacking, Port-scanning: Will not be taken kindly. If you do, you will leave the event. If you need to copy, use DC++. We will have a server up. No additional servers for DC++ will be allowed.
Food and drinks: Food and drinks will be for sale inside the venue. No take-out food may be brought into the venue. If you buy something at the event, get back to the LAN inside the Dome, once you are outside it will be assumed that the food and drinks have been bought elsewhere and you cannot bring it in.
Will there be patch servers?: Patches required will certainly be available. We will however limit the available bandwidth from this machine, so that somebody does not decide to grab 6 Gigs of patches from the machine, compromising the availability to other players.
How do I know what servers are up and running?: Servers hosted by us will be up for the entire duration of the event. Whether people will join them, remains to be seen. Therefore, we will not advertise general servers on the big screen.
Common sense:
- Please ensure that your PC has the latest service packs installed (SP2 for Vista and SP3 for XP)
- Please ensure that the virus pattern file is up to date
- Do not share anything if you do not want it to be copied
- Remember to bring any software, serial numbers that you may require. VC will not install a custom Linux onto your brand new machine that you bought the day before and forgot to bring your drivers along. We do not have drivers available at the event
- Make sure your Shares are Read-only if you need to share
- If you find anything wrong with the event, please let someone from VC know at the event so that we can try and rectify it. If you do not give us the opportunity to rectify the problem, do not complain afterwards
- The Dome is a non-smoking area. No smoking inside the venue will be permitted
- Neither NAG nor VC will make sleeping arrangements for anybody attending rAge. This is your own responsibility
Checklist (This might serve you quite useful at the LAN):
- Drivers for all your hardware
- All the serial numbers that you require in case of re-installing
- Screwdriver
- Eye drops
- Headache pills (Panado seems to be working)
- Something warm to keep the bones comfy
- Charged Cell Phone
- Computicket ticket for Entrance including your parking ticket
- Money for sustenance
- Medical cards etc you may need in case of emergency
- Reservations if you booked a place to stay
- Enough money for petrol back
- Mouse
- Keyboard
- Monitor
- PC
- Headphones
- Power cord from PC and Monitor to supplied Multiplug (Red plug required)
- Contact details of buddies that you are planning on meeting at rAge
- And most importantly a good spirit to come and have fun and enjoy your weekend.
No provision has been made for any consoles. Thus you cannot bring your X-Box and swap it out with your PC if you feel like it.
Most anti-virus and firewall software these days have some form of activity display. It should serve you fine with getting a quick glance on what is open, what is attacking which port on your machine etc. Thus to have a program that scans other PC’s open ports would not be allowed. This activity report is one of the things that can become problematic in software like Norton etc. with an intruder popup. These popups disturb the gamers when playing.
Scanners also cause a lot of traffic on the network that kills the bandwidth. If you are not 100% sure about the software, ask us at the event and we will have a look. People have been asked to leave the event because of scanning and hacking, don’t spoil your weekend, play nice.
Here are some of the more frequent questions that we have receiveds over the years. See if yours is here before posting.
"I just want to know for the LANers that attend we are allowed to pull camp there (not with tent dont worry but bring sleeping bags and find a spot to sleep) or does it last till a certain time and we must leave the venue. I just need to know so i can maybe book acomidation."
rAge does not make provision for any accommodation nor does it allow you to setup a tent for the event. Officially, you are not allowed to sleep at the Dome because of legislation. Should you however wish to rest your eyes from all the strain of playing games, nobody should bother you. Please note that you are not allowed to bring tents, chairs etc. We do not have the space to accommodate all this extra stuff. The fire chief may also stop the event should he feel that exits are blocked by all the stuff that people leave lying around in the isles.
"Hope 2 see more stands this year. More comps and maybe a Warcraft 3 open server like the twilight server."
We are trying to ensure that more formal competitions will be hosted this year. We are looking for a couple of members from the various communities that wish to run comps at the event to contact us so that we can ensure that they are well run and supported.
"What I just hope is if they can get full gigabit network all round, because to copy (No not illeagal files) and play at the same time is :(. "
I am sure that all your legal file copying should be completed during the 53 hours of the event. Since the expo and the LAN is about gaming and because rAge does not support piracy, we see no need for gigabit LAN to every PC. In addition you may wish to consider the backbone requirements if we go Gigabit for all. This is not going to happen anytime soon.
"You say that each plug's power output has been calculated, so my question is: Are there any limits to the size of your PC's power supply. Will my 800W be accepted? "
Yes we do calculate the expected power. Therefore any devices requiring power other than your PC and monitor is not allowed on the power grid. Additionally the plugs are dedicated, flattened earth pin which means that no two point adapters or normal plugs will fit. So strictly speaking we allow a maximum of 750W power supply and 22" monitor. We will however allow larger power supplies under the provision that if you use too much power, we may need to limit your devices in the PC consuming power (eg 10 HDD may be cut down to 2HDD). Please note that up until now this has not been necessary to apply.
"What if a person will be gaming on a laptop? My G73 uses max 150watts when plugged in which is half of what most other pcs use. Would an external hard drive be allowed then? "
We prefer that you use USB powered HDD since normal externals require additional power points and are quite often of the two pin power cords variety. You have two plugs at the event, one for your PC and one for your monitor. If you use a daisy chain power cord to power both your PC and monitor, it does not mean you now have an extra plug to use for whatever. We also do not measure the amount of Watts you consume so that you may use your spare wattage for other devices.
"Are dual/triple monitor set-ups allowed (not that I have either :(, but I am sure I can get another monitor before October) ?"
If you buy two tickets, I imagine you could use your second ticket for the second monitor. If you buy one ticket you will only be allowed one PC and one Monitor. Should you have a laptop, you may power either your built in screen or your external screen, not both.
"They say they are "buying some fancy new kit for lan - think fibre optic" in 06.2010 NAG. Whats that all about? "
The backbone of the switches will be linked up by fiber optic cables. This means that there will be less likelihood of interference as well as expanded bandwidth between the core switches. This does not affect you directly in terms of equipment, it should however have a positive impact on the performance of the network.
"So if I missed this I am sorry for a duplication. Is there any final list of games that will be catered for at RAGE2010, hint MW2, BFBC2, ARMAII, or is it still up for finalisation? "
When we are 100% sure of the internet connection we are working on, we will be able to finalize the games. Keep in mind however that you can play any games you want. With a bit of luck somebody else will also play the game and join you. The normal main stream games that require servers will most likely be catered for. We will finalize this list later, closer to the event.
"Do they rent out matreses at rAge or do we have to bring our own?"
No we do not rent out mattresses nor should you be bringing your own. If you have a sleeping bag you could bring that so long as you leave it in your car and only fetch it when the cold bites, since we do not officially allow you to sleep at the Dome.
"Hi guys just wondering, is it legal to buy an extra rage ticket and give it away as a prize at a lan? "
Yes this will be fine. You may however not resell your ticket (read the back of the ticket for rules from CompuTicket.) Scalping is not acceptable and will not be supported on this site. It will get you banned. The total number of tickets that will be available for sale are 2080, and there is a limit of five per person that can be purchased. Computicket bookings will be open online after 24h00 on Saturday 31 July 2010, so if you have a credit card you can get yours then, but will still need to go to a Computciket at some point before 1 October to pick up your ticket. You may also go to any Computicket branch on Sunday 1 August when they open and buy your ticket in person.
"If possible can one of the staff members verify if they will be selling the flattened power plugs this year."
No we do not sell the plugs. Please ensure that you bring the correct power cord with a dedicated plug to the event.
"sup i know that this way before the 2010 rAge but what is gona happen 2 call of duty MW2 because u need a internet connection 2 play multiplayer "
We are working on an internet connection. The speed, bandwidth and latency of the connection is not yet confirmed and as such we cannot guarantee the availability and performance of the internet connection. This year will be seen as a trial run for future events. This means that if we succeed in securing the connection, it may not perform as hoped and connections may not always be on. Keep in mind though that we do not play to loose and will do our very best to ensure that it works at acceptable levels. We might be very stingy on what can and cannot be done if we secure the connection.
“I need more than two plugs, if I only use one plug can I plug “whatever” into the other plug?”
There may only be two PCs per multiplug. If you only use one plug, the other is not for additional devices. Power has been calculated at two PC’s per multiplug.
“What comps will run.”
Competitions are not run by VC since we cannot allocate the resources to do so properly. In addition we have always felt that by enabling the different communities to host their own competitions you will have enthusiastic, dedicated people that should know the game well and in this we will support the growth of people that are able to handle the pressure and responsibilities that come with the job.
“May I host my own server”
Of course you'll be able to host your own servers. The NAG Open LAN is pretty much like any other LAN, except there will also be dedicated servers for the more popular games, to help speed things up and keep things uniform. But if you want to jam some Freelancer or Diablo 2, that's entirely up to you. It also implies that the server needs to be hosted on the machine that you have a ticket for. Do not bring along additional machines without having tickets for them.
"Can I charge my cellphone and will it be safe."
I prefer that you do not. If you must, and I honestly don’t know why, then use a USB charger. No chargers may be plugged into the power grid that we supply. If you have had luck with leaving your cell phone in the shopping mall in a public place and returning the next day to find it where you left it, you don’t have to watch your cell phone since luck is your partner.
“Can the first guys can 'hold' seats for the rest of the group”
This is not really a problem during the early stages of the event. The problem comes when you are keeping 5 seats on Friday night, and a group of 3-5 buddies arrive. Strictly speaking, there is no reason why they can’t take the seats that you are keeping. This always results in very mature discussions sprinkled with mutual respect and a desire to please others above yourself. Thus in short, keep a space, but remember that if I need to resolve such issues, I will use the “first come first serve with no reservations” logic.
The red plug if you are lost courtesy of one of the forum members.
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1930/plug001hh2.jpg
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3639/plug002fs6.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/5374/plug003mz7.jpg
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7712/plug004bw8.jpg
http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/9339/plug005hv9.jpg
“So since we'll need the special red plug to use the power, my question is: my mouse needs to charge (and it is a required gaming peripheral) and it needs a 2 point plug .... what are my options ?”
The best option would be to borrow a mouse that does not require a charger. There are no adaptors to two pins from the red plug type that I am aware of. We also do not want people to plug in their homemade concoctions or additional multiplugs etc. Thus vague yet clear?
”Hey i just wanted to knw if i can bring along a Ps2 console, so that me and my buddies can jam sum games.and any1 that wants to play along can join in on the fun for an ass whipping..lol “
Unfortunately not. You may only bring a PC.
“Oh, and one question: Why use the special plugs? Just to force people not to plug in other devices? There's nothing special about the special plugs, 'cept for the front tip that's "sawed off".”
From a functional point of view you are correct, is has no super powers. I can assure you that I would not pay three times the amount for the dedicated multi-plugs than I would pay for the normal ones just to complicate my life and get people to chat to me on forums. It has to do with legal requirements.
“What about those of us using Vista? Would it be better to rather have XP on for the event?”
You would need an operating system that you are familiar and comfortable with. We have no preference or requirement. Do however please leave TPC/IP V6 off.
“What kind of exclusive content (ie not straight off of gamespot) can we expect?”
This is up to the exhibitors and we cannot guarantee anything and therefore prefer not to comment. You may get a glimpse if you read NAG.
“In an unrelated question, will there be a DC++ server running? “
Yes.
”I'm left handed, and use my mouse with my left hand. Will the stations for our pcs allow me to do so comfortably?”
Normal trestle table like at the flea markets. Two people per table should allow for enough space.
“i just want to know 1 more thing can i bring along a Oka Pipe (Bong) and blaze inside the dome? no funny stuff juts flava”
I think it is in the first couple of lines of this post, no smoking venue. What you smoke outside I imagine is up to you.
“Will the staff REALLY be able to constantly monitor 1800 pc's for three days to ensure no "illegal" contents is copied?”
There are always ways if the reason justifies it. I think that the 800G of sharing kind of screams against what rAge is trying to accomplish. So be considerate and think about your actions. Although VC or NAG will not be checking anything, we make no guarantees with regard to other legal entities allowed so by law.
“will there be GigaLan specific hubs for those who can support it, or will we be limited to 100mbts?”
rAge is mostly past the hubs stage. The switches will only be 100 since no games require more bandwidth. The uplinks to the backbone are Gigabit.
“will people who have pirated games be allowed to play on the servers? I got a buddy who is going and I know some of his games aren't legal?”
Some servers will have anti cheat software and run as pure servers. We will however not validate copies.
“Do we have to carry our bloody PC's down stairs again (say it ain't so!) this year when we enter? This box of mine is heavy...”
Yes.
”And will the gofers be there again? Will they carry our crap down the stairs (if there are) to the testing station and actually earn the tip someone might be compelled to give them? At rAge last year I did more carrying than the bloody people who were meant to be carrying my machine for me.”
There is a possibility that there will be gofers, although this has not been confirmed yet. They will however not carry anything down the stairs. This is a free service should it be available, and will then only be available on Friday between certain times. Again, none of this has been confirmed though so expect to carry your stuff yourself.
“The day tickets do you buy them at the door and how much would they cost?”
Yes you buy them at the door, expo door that is. See top of post for prices.
"Will a 'visitor' with a standard rAge day pass be able to come up to the BYOC area to look around/meet up with people?"
We do not allow people to come and look around, its a security thing. If they meet up with you however, have a daypass, then you may accompany them inside. Use the main entrance for this, not the link to the expo.
“my headphones uses an external power source, two point plug”
The two pin is a problem, if you can fit it with a dedicated three point plug, there you should not have an issue. Remember that you are only allowed two plugs on the multiplug.
“Oh and whats the policy on usb cell phone chargers?”
What you plug into the orifice of your USB adaptor is not really a concern of mine.
“So how's the weather inside the dome at night?”
Very seldom have I seen the weatherman making predictions correctly, thus I will not try. Fairly sure we will not experience any rain inside. Possibility of slight fog in the early morning. General rule is always come prepared; we might have snow or a heat wave. Generally though the Dome is not cold, maybe a bit chilly in the morning.
“Is the dome a 3G/HSDPA area so we can connect to the internet from our cellphones?”
The Dome is a hotspot and you can read up on their service on their website. This service is however not free and we are not in control of these services, so we cannot guarantee anything.
” Does the smoking area (the place near the LAN entrance) remain open at night or is the whole dome locked up for security?”
PC equipment get locked down, people don’t. Thus you may come and leave as you please, your PC and monitor have curfew times.
“Lots of patches”
Goes without saying. Do keep in mind though that if a patch is required and we don’t have it, share it with us to upload. We assume that most people are fairly up to date and do not hunt down very old patches.
“more or better food for your money or cheaper food”
You should know the answer by now. There is a mall across the road with lots of fast food places. We do not control or allocate the food stands. So either accept the prices or take a short stroll across.
“Switch off the lights at night. I like gaming in the dark”
The top of the LAN is darker (usually). There are a lot of different reasons for the lights as they are. Try and choose a spot that will suite you better during night. Most of the LAN will be darker this year according to current planning.
“one central communication place, so that ppl know what games are being played”
Chat server should be up in one form or another. (Most likely use DC++)
“maybe some more informal comps through out the weekend”
Comps are planned. Do keep in mind though that you need to make the effort. We will have the info on the website, but you need to make sure that you know what, where and when according to the rules of the comps. Because of the fact that the area is so huge, nobody will go looking for the team that needs to play in the finals. Please keep in mind that VC will not run any comps themselves, we only assist the community to get comps up and running as efficiently as possible. Since we don’t manage these comps, you need to resolve rules with whomever is organizing the comp.
“OPEN LAN COMPS : Please give those guys their own marked tables”
Any areas that are reserved will be indicated on the layout drawing at the entrance. We do not mark each table individually. So have a look as you come in, and there should be no hassles. The way that we approach reserved seating is that people try and sit with their friends, and we respect that. First come first serve will however prevail. So if the seats are not reserved on our layout, they are not reserved period.
“Food is always expensive when you are buying it , pitch up with a cooler box with prepared food, hot dogs, 2 minute noodles, anything fast and light in plenty. so its unhealthy? so is sitting on your ass for 14 hours straight...”
Just a comment to avoid confusion, you are not allowed to bring in cooler boxes, drinks and fast food bought outside. If you buy something inside, eat it inside or finish it outside before returning.
“prehaps a place to shower(lol).”
We were planning on putting walk through showers with topless booth babes to assist but my mom complained. It has thus unfortunately been cancelled. I think there is a Virgin Active gym next-door so if you have membership, it may be an option.
“Please can there be a CoD 4 TDM and FFA as well as all the game types”
We try and host most game types and games depending on the servers made available to us by Intel. This is looking good by the way, looking forward to the delivery date.
“why dont you guys get like ea games or something like that to sponser new games or prerealese modles for everyone who attendse rage to try out and give feed back on it”
Cool idea, now if only we could convince them that they would actually get worthwhile feedback and it is not just a trick to score freebies so that we may complain afterwards about buggy code forgetting that it was pre-release.
“How about running a competition in the magazine for people living in other parts of SA ie Cape Town to win tickets to Rage as well as air fair etc... I wana win it, I wana go”
I can see what is in it for you, now you just need to explain how rAge will get back on their investment. rAge is not a charity event, it is a world class expo.
“They should give us more free stuff at the lan's entrance”
They do actually. Just very little is left after the VC team has taken the best stuff. The leftovers are not worth the energy to distribute so we just generally dump it. Who knows whats up for grabs this year. Last year was cool.
“Load Shedding”
Obviously we cannot guarantee anything, and as such we are looking at options to accommodate any lost time gaming should it be an unfortunate reality. We are looking at the Dome generators, but I still have a concern about the regulation abilities of the source to ensure that we do not cause failure with PC’s being quite sensitive to power surges. We are also considering extending Sunday should there be a power failure to try and compensate. Do keep in mind though that we do not consider extending Sunday for any other reason whatsoever.
“I'd like to know if there will be some kind of setup where people SCAN THEIR PC's for viruses..”
There will be free Anti Virus software on the VC website at the event. Although most will be trial it will allow those that do not have to install and clean/protect their PCs. We cannot make scanning compulsory, or there will be no lanning time left. So the advice is protect your own PC and you should be ok.
“Maybe not having to close the doors at some times at night.”
The doors never close. Only PC’s have curfew times. No PCs enter or leave between 22h00 and 8h00. You may however come and go as you please.
“hook up several Playstations”
This will certainly not happen in the LAN area at this time, not sure whether any exhibitor has such plans.
“best Anti virus”
Whatever takes your fancy as long as you have the latest updates. You should have anti virus on your machine currently, and if it served you well up to now, no reason to change.
“If i have a external HDD can i bring it to rage?
why i want to know is the power it needs(2 punt plug)
and if i may whats the limit?(1-2 ?????)”
People do bring external HDD. Personally I would prefer that you not bring them, since you will have difficulty with their power supplies. 2 Point plugs won’t fit in the dedicated power points that we supply. Thus if it does not fit, you won’t be able to use it. Please keep in mind that you only have two plug points that you may use, they are dedicated and you are not allowed to add additional multiplugs or similar adaptors.
"those with the plastic ground thingy and just break off the plastic bit so it would fit"
If you break off the plastic earth pin then the adapter will not open because the mechanism requires the earth pin to be inserted first. Although we still had some of the old adapters 3 years back we finalized replacing all of the adaptors with the required dedicated ones which means that you wont be that lucky this year.
"It took me about 10 min to get my plug in with a lot of force"
The current price for the red dedicated multiplug is R172 excl VAT. Should I find that you purposefully damage any equipment, you will cover the replacement cost or your PC will be used to recover the cost. I am not kidding.
“Will there be a floor plan for the seating arraignments on the website or here? Or do we have to wait for the day we pitch up at the dome to see where we can sit or not?
And will the reserved seating be marked at the table?”
There will be a floor plan at the event. Should we reserve any tables it will be indicated on the drawing, not the individual tables.
“I heard a rumor that rAge is possibly coming to CT. Any truth behind this? “
Not at this point in time.
“How big is rage this year? has it increased at all?”
2080 gamers in the NAG LAN.
“A pipe should be available whereby players can purchase cap to have Internet access for their IP address/and/or UID and pwd.”
Fortunately we are looking at this as an option and it will be free.
“If it's a dumb question, please excuse, but is there an age restriction for the NAG LAN? I'm planning to bring my 7 year old son along, he's quite a gamer!”
Nope. Bring grandma and the kid.
“Would I be shunned, laughed at if I came with a laptop. It's not a fancy gaming laptop, but can play games like cod 4 and tf2, and is better than my pc.”
If you play and are happy, so are we. PC or laptop does not make a difference. No consoles however. Also remember the dedicated plug.
“Can I buy a extra ticket and then take me and my mates server box with us? As then space will not be a problem at all.. Ive wanted to do this before but always when it comes down to it, I think I am going to steal another guys place which would have wanted to go...? Any thoughts on this.. “
If you want to bring a separate server then you will need a separate ticket. As long as you have a ticket for every PC all should be fine.
“Are we going to see a decent network layout like other large lans in JHB, that are already using FIBRE backbone, not to mention gigabit network ports for everyone?”
I am sure we can discuss your informed insight into decent, but lets stick to the easier questions. No game that I am aware of requires more than 1M to be played. 100M in my opinion is thus more than sufficient for any game. Also keep in mind that the backbone requirement for Gigabit links to each table for more than 2000 gamers ensuring lagfree gaming and ample leeching bandwidth, is more than most companies have available for lending to rAge for gaming. In addition, you should notice while copying on your Gigabit connection that you very seldom use more than 20% due to your hardware being the bottleneck. Thus 100M it will remain for now.
"All I need to know is whether or not we'll have to have the games we want to play installed on our PC's beforehand or if we'll be able to play them off the server or copy the files necessary to play the games..."
You’ll need to have your PC 100% ready to go, with all the games loaded and working. If the games require the disc to be in the drive when you play, you’ll need to bring your discs with you. We can’t share the game files at the LAN because that’s piracy.
“How is the upstairs area work?”
First come first serve is always the rule that is applied. We do however reserve some seating in which this rule is not applied (This seating will be upstairs only, but not the entire area upstairs).
We reserve seating for the strategy comp. We are also looking at having a DOTA and COD4 comp. If that pans out, their seating will be reserved as well. So anyplace that is not indicated as reserved on the layout at reception is up for grabs. If we reserve it will be upstairs to the left of the lift only.
"Will I be allowed to bring my palm camcorder to the LAN to take a couple of shots of my buddies and of the LAN / Expo in general? Thanks! "
Sure. Just make sure that it is charged since you cannot charge it at the Dome.
"Is there a particular limit of screen size? will my 26" be allowed? "
We do not really allow screens larger than 22". 24" will be considered by exception. 26" is unfortunately too big.
"How does the whole check in work on the friday, I also remove my HDD, VGA and CPU cooler for transport purpouses, the pc is probably checked for power usage and such, so I guess I'll have to place those components back before the check?"
Yip
I hope this covers most. If not, feel free to ask.
Originally Posted by Neodanzaiver
