LANtastic!

My Travels. The LAN was awesome! Anyone reading this you ARE going next year.

I got there Friday afternoon at about 2:30. First thing I did was head to my room here I met Mike James. Downstairs they were still setting up, running network cables, running power, etc.. I brought both my 360 and PC. I had the first PC there. Once I got everything setup and help run network and power to where I put my stuff sever of the people on my friends list that I play Forza with showed up. Retrogirl, Zorbs, PP2, and Mutus. I played Forza for the rest of the night. First we played some general racing. After some drinks it quickly turned into last man standing. After that was done PP2 and I went across the street to get some supper. When we got back we did a gauntlet race, I won :)

Early on in the evening one guy asked me if he could play WoW on my pc. I didn't plan on playing on my PC unless Shadowrun started so I said sure. i am glad he ran it off of a usb hdd. I think my rig impressed the WoW crowd. He was running it at 60fps with everything turned on and I assume at native resolution of 1680x1050.

Saturday was crazy. I was at the door when the event started (I actually rode the elevator down with DSmooth). I started out playing Forza. Met some 2old2shoot guys. Tman, nogame, unwashedmass, rau, and tmx. In the afternoon, I don't recall what I did. I was all over the place hanging out with people. I think I played Guitar Hero for a bit in there. The raffle took place in the late afternoon too. Thanks Banjo and, and, and, crap, forgot your name, was it EC? Thanks for unlocking more songs on my GH. Towards supper time I noticed some PC guys playing UT2k4. I had to get in on that. That was a blast. I haven't played UT with real people in probably a year. Sorry for totally owning you guys in Mutant. I was getting really lucky with mass killing the bots when they bunched up. Honestly, I couldn't believe it since I haven't really played UT in such a long time. I was just on. Maybe having a new computer that can run it smooth made a difference?

This was an interesting time. While playing UT every once and a while A WoWer would ask what game it was. Heh, you can play more than WoW on a PC :) After playing some UT we grabbed some pizza. I played the Wii for bit, bowling is fun. Then I saw Shadowrun so I had to get my PC in on that. Here's the deal. The xbox tables were all networked together and not hooked up to the internet so the WoWers can do their thing. The UT guys ran on their own switch as not hog up bandwidth from the WoWers. As many of you have seen or will see the PCs were int he center and the xboxes were on the edges of the room. I had two network cables going to my PC. One to the internet for when I let a WoWer play on my PC. I switched that to the UT network when I played that. Then for Shadowrun I had to run a cable from my computer to the xboxes. I am amazed the PC can do system link. I am so use to doing networking with TCP/IP. I want to know how system link works without an IP. Is it a derivative of NetBIOS? Some people were amazed that I was playing with 360s. I know most PC players think it is stupid to be able to do so. But when you see it in person it is a cool idea. I just wish Shadowrun lived up to other FPS standards on the PC. I am sure they could allow mods yet only allow standard maps and such when playing cross platform.

We were done with that at about 10:00pm. With staring at a screen most of the day my eyes were bugging out. I hang out and shot the breeze with people for the rest of the night. If you want to witness something absolutely hilarious sit in when Taxi, Doodi, NoGame, and gang are talking late at night with some drinks.

Drewski, that's why I was in the chat room for awhile, I just needed a break from everything.

I had a blast. I highly suggest everyone go next year if they can. It's not just about the games. The games are why you came to the site. The LAN is to meet the people you play with online. Believe me, it is a million times better to play with the people in person than playing online.

I will try to go next year. However, I think my summer budget is spent on going to Yellowstone with my parents.