Alright, now that I have the time to post on here, I figured I would do it as my own post so it doesn't get lost in the endless posts of constructive criticisms and the endless posts of QQs.
First off, if you guys don't know who I am yet, my name is Michele and I'm the only female in the LAN Admins. I ran the last few rounds of the Counterstrike Tournament and most of the Team Fortress 2 tournament, as well as ran all of the little contests throughout the night with my partner in crime, Schreck. I worked at Ninja Monkey Gaming Center for a little over a year and am very familiar with all of the games played at the tournament and the servers.
After reading all of the feedback on the forums, I'm going to try and address all of your concerns in a way that you all understand. I have picked a few people's posts to repost on here because most all of you have repeated the same concerns.
We did have a meeting about two days ago to address all of the issues and what needs to be improved in the future. I understand all of your concerns about the various issues we had at this years LAN, and there are some things I do want to explain to everyone.
One: While we do appreciate your feedback, we would like it to be in a mature manner. Using internet and leet speak will only annoy most of us. While I understand it, most of the other admins do not.
Two: The check-in process. We do sincerely apologize for how long it took to get everyone checked in. We only had one person (and at times myself when I could) helping with registration and check in. As Eddie has stated previously, a lot of the people who said they would volunteer never showed up. We already have a plan for next year's registration to make it go a lot faster and smoother. By the way, if you guys would like to volunteer for next year's LAN event and think that you can attribute positive things to it, please please please let me or another admin know now! I'm trying to build a solid group of people at least six months to a year in advance of the next LAN.
Three: The tournament schedule. We do apologize for how jumbled together the tournaments were, but as Eddie has also stated previously, there were a few weeks before LANfest where were told we were cancelled, then back on. Then they threw the curveball at us with the Minor Policy about a week or two before the event started. That made us have to rearrange some things. While you do think that may be plenty of time for us to come up with a good solid schedule that makes everyone happy you do have to factor in two things: All of the admins work full time and/or go to school full time on top of running this event every year and that no matter what we do, not EVERYONE will be happy, which brings me to my next addressing issue..
Four: The Counterstrike tournament. Oi vay, where do I start. Let me tell you guys first of all that the CS:S tournament has started at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the last THREE LANfests. That wasn't a new thing. That's the only feedback I'm going to single out for this one. I've ran various Counterstrike tournaments and public lans for years, hence why most of the people that know who I am call me Console. The only thing I'm going to say to the rest of you that were either giving us constructive criticism or QQing about it is that I'm done with Counterstrike tournaments at this LANfest. For the five years that I have adminned at this event I have gotten constant streams of complaints about the Counterstrike tournaments no matter what I do. Whether it is running too long or people are cheating or wall hacking or taking smoke breaks in between. Because I can't make anyone happy with this tournament, IT WILL NO LONGER BE A SPONSORED TOURNAMENT WITH PRIZES. I am tired of the constant complaining, the constant stream of immature kids coming to my table and whining that the reason why they lost a round is because someone was wall hacking or cheating in general. I'm tired of it. While I love to play the game, I hate running it for you guys. Next year I will have an open dedicated server for you guys to play on and that's IT. You wanna win prizes? Play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, play Team Fortress 2, play Unreal, but there will be no more Counterstrike. And before you start crying and whining, I want you to look at every other LANfests' tournament schedules. Do you see Counterstrike anywhere else? I didn't think so.
Now that I've gotten my anger out...
Five: The constant war with Deviant. While one or two of your players are quite mature as you've proven during LANfest and on these forums, the rest of you guys need to get over yourselves and over it. We didn't pull you from tournaments because we thought you were going to win everything. Actually as I recall, you guys didn't win any tournament. I'm also sorry that you guys didn't think that the beanies, jackets, hats, and trophy was good enough for you. Next time, you really won't get anything at all and then your complaints about not getting anything will be valid. And Afro Joe, you're a broken record. We get that you're pissed, go have a good cry about it elsewhere.
Six: The swag bags. This is one thing even I was upset about. The sponsors really did screw us, which is why the swag bag was puny. This will not happen again next year! Also if you guys want more prizes on the table, preregister for the event as soon as it becomes available. The higher ups look at those numbers to determine the number of prizes that we get.
Seven: The console area. Oh my god The Cure Gaming you guys NAILED it! I love working with you two and look forward to every future endeavor with you.
Eight: Our staff numbers. We NEED more volunteers! Again, if you would like to volunteer and have specialties in either certain games, server hosting, etc etc, please contact me or another admin as soon as possible! We need DEDICATED, HONEST people that are willing to show up and do what needs to be done! I do assure you running the LAN is a lot of fun and you get some cool stuff out of it.
That's all I can think of for now. If I remember anything I will post again.
-Michele
First off, if you guys don't know who I am yet, my name is Michele and I'm the only female in the LAN Admins. I ran the last few rounds of the Counterstrike Tournament and most of the Team Fortress 2 tournament, as well as ran all of the little contests throughout the night with my partner in crime, Schreck. I worked at Ninja Monkey Gaming Center for a little over a year and am very familiar with all of the games played at the tournament and the servers.
After reading all of the feedback on the forums, I'm going to try and address all of your concerns in a way that you all understand. I have picked a few people's posts to repost on here because most all of you have repeated the same concerns.
We did have a meeting about two days ago to address all of the issues and what needs to be improved in the future. I understand all of your concerns about the various issues we had at this years LAN, and there are some things I do want to explain to everyone.
One: While we do appreciate your feedback, we would like it to be in a mature manner. Using internet and leet speak will only annoy most of us. While I understand it, most of the other admins do not.
Two: The check-in process. We do sincerely apologize for how long it took to get everyone checked in. We only had one person (and at times myself when I could) helping with registration and check in. As Eddie has stated previously, a lot of the people who said they would volunteer never showed up. We already have a plan for next year's registration to make it go a lot faster and smoother. By the way, if you guys would like to volunteer for next year's LAN event and think that you can attribute positive things to it, please please please let me or another admin know now! I'm trying to build a solid group of people at least six months to a year in advance of the next LAN.
Three: The tournament schedule. We do apologize for how jumbled together the tournaments were, but as Eddie has also stated previously, there were a few weeks before LANfest where were told we were cancelled, then back on. Then they threw the curveball at us with the Minor Policy about a week or two before the event started. That made us have to rearrange some things. While you do think that may be plenty of time for us to come up with a good solid schedule that makes everyone happy you do have to factor in two things: All of the admins work full time and/or go to school full time on top of running this event every year and that no matter what we do, not EVERYONE will be happy, which brings me to my next addressing issue..
Four: The Counterstrike tournament. Oi vay, where do I start. Let me tell you guys first of all that the CS:S tournament has started at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the last THREE LANfests. That wasn't a new thing. That's the only feedback I'm going to single out for this one. I've ran various Counterstrike tournaments and public lans for years, hence why most of the people that know who I am call me Console. The only thing I'm going to say to the rest of you that were either giving us constructive criticism or QQing about it is that I'm done with Counterstrike tournaments at this LANfest. For the five years that I have adminned at this event I have gotten constant streams of complaints about the Counterstrike tournaments no matter what I do. Whether it is running too long or people are cheating or wall hacking or taking smoke breaks in between. Because I can't make anyone happy with this tournament, IT WILL NO LONGER BE A SPONSORED TOURNAMENT WITH PRIZES. I am tired of the constant complaining, the constant stream of immature kids coming to my table and whining that the reason why they lost a round is because someone was wall hacking or cheating in general. I'm tired of it. While I love to play the game, I hate running it for you guys. Next year I will have an open dedicated server for you guys to play on and that's IT. You wanna win prizes? Play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, play Team Fortress 2, play Unreal, but there will be no more Counterstrike. And before you start crying and whining, I want you to look at every other LANfests' tournament schedules. Do you see Counterstrike anywhere else? I didn't think so.
Now that I've gotten my anger out...
Five: The constant war with Deviant. While one or two of your players are quite mature as you've proven during LANfest and on these forums, the rest of you guys need to get over yourselves and over it. We didn't pull you from tournaments because we thought you were going to win everything. Actually as I recall, you guys didn't win any tournament. I'm also sorry that you guys didn't think that the beanies, jackets, hats, and trophy was good enough for you. Next time, you really won't get anything at all and then your complaints about not getting anything will be valid. And Afro Joe, you're a broken record. We get that you're pissed, go have a good cry about it elsewhere.
Six: The swag bags. This is one thing even I was upset about. The sponsors really did screw us, which is why the swag bag was puny. This will not happen again next year! Also if you guys want more prizes on the table, preregister for the event as soon as it becomes available. The higher ups look at those numbers to determine the number of prizes that we get.
Seven: The console area. Oh my god The Cure Gaming you guys NAILED it! I love working with you two and look forward to every future endeavor with you.
Eight: Our staff numbers. We NEED more volunteers! Again, if you would like to volunteer and have specialties in either certain games, server hosting, etc etc, please contact me or another admin as soon as possible! We need DEDICATED, HONEST people that are willing to show up and do what needs to be done! I do assure you running the LAN is a lot of fun and you get some cool stuff out of it.
That's all I can think of for now. If I remember anything I will post again.
-Michele