Tag Archives: aXon

Dark Media X13 Wrap-Up

Last Friday was the day (and night/morning after) of the Dark Media X13 LAN. I was pretty excited for this particular LAN, as I’d heard it was the largest LAN in Southern Tassie – and with roughly 90-100 attendees, I’m probably right.

Having been to an aXon LAN (the biggest LAN party in the North) a couple of years before, I had high expectations for this particular LAN.

For the most part, it lived up to those expectations, but it was certainly a lot different as well.

Maybe it was the fact that outside of our little threesome (Martin, James and I), we didn’t really know anyone (personally, anyway – I knew of a couple people in attendance, and I was Steam friends with at least 1 other person there), but it seemed as though you were a part of the “scene”, you were an outsider. Held up and compared to the aXon LAN where Rob (our host) knew pretty much everyone, and where we felt like honoured guests rather than just some guys who decided to rock up and play some games, and we felt like we were in our own little bubble.

Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty good – sure, there was no DC++ trivia bot to keep the masses amused, but it was, undeniably, extremely well organised – you ordered your food run over an intranet, which was then put into a DB, checked off, etc – and there was a heck of a lot of that filesharing thing going on, but as for the actual games – well, it kinda lacked.

I mean, sure, we had a couple of decent rounds of Counter-Strike:Source and Killing Floor with other people, but those were pretty much the only games that were actually played with other people. The rest of the time was spent trying to find free slots from people who were sharing terrabytes of stuff over DC, or just amusing ourselves in the DC++ chatroom, or even just going off and playing our own single-player games.

I’m not sure how many other people there were constantly enjoying games in the company of others, but organising games turned out to be hellish – getting people to join (and stay!) for any length of time was nigh-impossible.

Will I go again? Sure, if only to leech more HD content that my home internet couldn’t suck down if it tried, and I’ll probably play a few games of CSS and Killing Floor here and there.

At the end of the day though, going to DM X13 taught me one thing – games are better experienced with other people you actually know. Otherwise, you’re probably better off staying home and playing with randoms over the internets in pub servers.

aXon Ube|2gasm LANs are AWESOME!

Long story short: My week this week consisted of a trip up to Devonport to stay at Rob’s place.

On Saturday, we went to the aXon Ube|2gasm LAN – a LAN party of epic proportions.

Some highlights:

  • Martin W’s computer wouldn’t start. That thing seriously has issues. I managed to get it started by holding down the power button after it crashed, and then starting it normally again. This wasn’t tried before – and none of the other solutions worked. Mind you, this was after we had been at the LAN for 4+ hours – and only about 3 hours before we left. Notable quote: “I’d pay just so I could leech.”
  • Martin P also had computer troubles – his computer managed to BSOD on him not once, twice, but thrice. CS: Source also wouldn’t open in Steam for him – so he managed to get an aXon version which worked perfectly. Notable quote: “I’m giving up.” (After a particularly vicious L4D session).
  • James G will never live down the fact that he had over 300GB of files queued for download in DC++, a file-sharing utility. 300GB! Notable quote: “But it was downloading stuff I didn’t want it to!” – Yeah, right. Anyways, he was the man who forgot any sleeping gear of any kind, as well as bring no monitor. But really – he did try to download 300GB with only 190GB total HDD space…
  • Rob K was kind enough to lend us his computer while he was away, as well as his internet, hot water, toilet, house, cat, vast media collection, etc. He’s a top bloke. He enjoyed playing some particularly quirky games at the LAN – Savage, COD4, as well as CS:S. However, his computer did manage to chuck the BSOD – twice, but not while he was using it. Alas, it was the 300GB James G…
  • Benny L didn’t use the computer he brought up. Instead, he used Klutz’s machine – which was more than capable for CS:S and L4D. Huge thumbs up to Klutz for trusting us with his computer. I also managed to bring down more gear than I brought up – care of a 20″ BenQ monitor I bought in Launceston from a fellow MacTalker. It’s quite awesome. Notable quote: “It’s harder than it looks!” (Epic Lego Star Wars on the 360), and “<3 flashbangs” (while NoSpoon was getting pwned in the CS:S tourney).

It was unfortunate that the NoSpoon clan got pwned in the CS:S tourney at aXon -we got really, really pwned. It was embarrassing.

Anyway, Rob will have photos up soonish – so I’ll just link him here: www.jawapro.com