THE IDEA: ORGANIZE AND PLAY A LAN PARTY.

As rYuuJiN mentioned on the Urban Terror Forums Topic we should go one step further with Urban Terror and organize a "global" or at least "european" Lan Party.
I would consider a good Location would be somewhere near Amsterdam in the Netherlands, as most of the German, French and UK Players and many others could get there easily.
I am not able to organize every little bit of this Event, I could help but we all would have to look how we could manage that.

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I would plan it generally as:
- a Party in a medium to big Hall
- a BYOC (Bring your own Computer) Event
- a Event to promote Urban Terror all around the World.
- a Event to play some high-skill Nations Cup Matches or something like that with a Live Commentary


We could also:
- hold "some speech / panel" about Configs, How to solve Problems with Urban Terror and other UrT-related things.
- promote some Players to Clans
- Make some Movies of the Event and promote them around the World
- give courses on the some of the Thematics like "Jumps", "Tactics", "Weapons" and much more.


Like *THC*Vortex said:

It would be cool if a few people with money and/or the right connections could organize a series of lan tournaments leading to one lan tournament in a pre-determined location featuring the top players/teams from around the globe.

World Series of Urban Terror anyone?

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so what we would need:
Some "Lead Planning Team", ( <-- IMPORTANT )
a Place and Time (a Weekend from Friday to Sunday or some time in global Holidays would be good),
many Power-Cables and enough to not make all the computers go off because of more power needed.
many ethernet-cables, switches and more...
a Connection to the Outernet or atleast some Game-, Root- and Voip-Servers at the Place where we would be,
many Tables and Chairs, some Place to sleep over the Night (if someone of you might need sleep)
maybe a stage with some Lights to hold some Speech or sth like that.
a Place to cook for many people, or a Restaurant nearby.
Some WC's to Camp if you drunk too much
Some "Fix your Own Computer"-Place with Supporters.
MORE to ADD! (:

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Would anyone be with me in this Idea?
What about the "Lead UZ Staff" knowing everything and Promoting it to all the Clans and Players?
What about MORE?
Add your Suggestions and I might edit this Post and pack them in here!

We need your Feedback!

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greetings, ~v3nd3tta
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Call me V

This will never work out..
Just my opinion though.
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The S in xandaxs is the S of aweSome

I'm sure it could work, look at the yearly french lan, works like a charm. This is not the first time it has been contemplated, but yes, it is a lot of work to organize.
Nexu and I looked into this before, also collected quite some info regarding locations in The Netherlands. But the fact remains that if you want to make this affordable you need sponsors, and getting sponsors is hard work especially for a 10 year old game. (because there aren't rich people that will pay for others )

I'm willing to assist and see where the boat ends this time (hopefully with a lan).
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Hem the French LANs cost 20€, are located in a cybercoffee in Paris. That means that it is the easier place for the frenchies to reach and often the cheapest. Can you imagine how hard it is to travel to amsterdam with computer and screen ? And how expansive would be the train ticket ? and how expansive would be the hall ?

Anyway Im up if it is after march (majority ) and if you can bring us a good plan.

EDIT:
Opened a topic about it in the french community.
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O.M.G!!! Travel to the LAN with computer and screen....It is stupid stone century! Take a look at EU CS LAN Events - questions about the organization will disappear by themselves. And yes - it costs very expensive, otherwise this idea will costs nothing. And participants must make a buy-in btw.
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Saladdin aka G-staPRO
www.staprofit.com
#3LITRA
#stunningbears @ Quakenet

Our community is not huge as CS or CoD are we can not do the same things. First of all we need dutchs to organize all this stuff (also need lawyer or smth like that i think).
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Hi,

I would love to see this come true in some way but,

Some things you have to think about are:

Servers, Switches, Routers, Internetconnection, Trusts from Quakenet. If this should be such a huge event that ppl from all across Europe may join this Event than the seek of legal advice is needed because this would not to be permissible unless official approval has been obtained, e.g. for hygienic Stuff like toilets and water, Food, Places to sleep, fire prevention, if you want to use a tent - maybe a building licence (ye in Germany you need that :p) and other legal stuff you have to think about. <-- Makes this sentence any sense?

Did I mention Money? Like SoN said, to realize that you have to have Sponsors.
And you need the most important thing: People they want to come to such a Event. Vachette is right, the UrT Community isn't that big like in other games so Marketing is needed.


PS.
Once me an a few friends did a LAN for about 35 - 40 People (good old Days of Q3A), sounds not much he? But is was a Nightmare.

PPS.
When you need assistance in organize this thing feel free to spam me

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ItsMe
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Am the only one who voted "No" so far.
All the "Yes" you have are from people who like the idea, doesnt mean they can participate. I also like the idea, but I probably won't be able to go and be a part of this. Besides, if this is happening, then all the players fromthe country hosting the LAN should help others getting there by for example sharing money to buy Train tickets. The expenses should be shared or it'd not be Fair for everyone involved and you'd end up only having players from 1 country in the LAN.

If this is to be taken forward then you need to decide the location where this event will occur. If there's any establishment nearby that would be willing to give a bed to everyone participating, etc...
If you're looking for sponsors, you should try among Technology Companies such as Logitech, Roccat, Razer or Steelseries. I've equipment from all these 3. So it'd help promoting them aswell as Urban Terror.
Not only the current version, but also makin propaganda for the upcoming HD version of Urban Terror, which comes with lots of cool content that would attract more players and turn this community into something bigger and perhaps better.

I do not think this will one because it is too much for a group of normal people to achieve in this world.
Unless, of course, there's anyone here that knows some of the "Bigs" of today's society and can hook us up with something nice!
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The S in xandaxs is the S of aweSome

lmao sponsor people's "holiday" that's a good one
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It would be a great idea!

mfw if it's in the netherlands and in march!

I'm on board.

I do not see the problem in it making the lan party.

You have 2 setups, either you rent a computer-café which can store up to between 40-120 people (at least in Denmark). Or you rent a big hall (or you have a very large house) and you hold it there.

I personly would prefer the big hall because there would be a chance of renting it for the weekend (friday-sunday) compared to the computer-café were you only rent it for the night.

I think option 2 is more complicated but it would seem like the best idea.

Also drinking should not be alowed in a lan party like this, because if you have 40+ people showing up and 20 people get drunk it will be a nightmare (unless of course its at the computer-café, then who cares! :b).

Either way... its going to cost money! sponsers will help on the cost, but it's still gonna cost in travel and a buy-entre plus food.

Things like selling Cola, chips, sandwichs etc could help in bringing down the cost a little (or possible saving some money for a future lan party), and would be a nice treath for the people attenting the lan party.


I am fairly sure many people feel the same way as i, when i say i would not show up if its a 1 day event, simple because its too exspensive in travel money, compared to the time your spending there. However if its a weekend i am there and willing to pay between 100-200 dollars for entre ticket if required. It really isnt much if you can sleep in the hall and so on. Then you could make a little holiday out of it afterwards if the lan event is held at an europien holiday (i bet there is such a thing... dosnt everyone celebrate easter?)

Anyways, i'd be glad to help - however its really hard to help in when you do not know the country (The Netherlands), meaning i cannot help in finding a location and so on. But i can help in trying to get some scandinavians together and join the lan party!

Nice ideas mimer;)
I will come with u if u drive me xD
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u stoopid !

EDIT:

I just did some quick research.

In Denmark its possible to rent a school (also called "efterskole") for the weenkend.

You get:

- Rooms - bath and toilet (You would be able to get a room for yourself (or possible have to share with another person))
- A hall to eat with room to about 100
- Kitchen with everything
- Few classrooms
- Sports- hall and outdoor, Multifield (football, hockey, basketball) and football field (with balls)
- Meeting room with projector (to show the grand final?? :b)
- Lovely living room with sofas
- Wireless internet
Sounds pretty perfect? You will be able to get a nice holiday out of it and go see the country as well.

The price is following for 60 attending (there are room for more) the lan event (fucking seroius gaming here!):
34.51 EUROS per head then you need to add travel and food.
With bring your own PC (even tho im sure some people can lent out a pc if needed (myself included))

Now if people are too cheap to travel to Denmark, then im sure this offer can be found in the Netherlands as well (The two countrys are very similar)

The practical issues with organizing a BYOC (bring your own computer) LAN setup on our own are these:

General must-have as host of an event for a large group of people (50+):
- Plenty of volunteers that can and will help prepare and setup the hall and breaking up after the event as well the cleaning up of it
- Some volunteers with the physique and the proper mindset that can act as 'security' if there were fights or if someone was attempting to steal or break things purposely. This is to ensure the safety of the visitors and keep things pleasant.
- Fire extinguishers. With so many electrical devices in 1 place. If ever a fire breaks out, we need to be able to put it out quickly to ensure the safety of the visitors as well of the (any rental) equipment. As we'll be the event host, we will be responsible for the safety of the visitors.
- First-Aid kit and someone with first-aid knowledge. Despite it's just a computer gaming event, accidents happens. For example: how to deal with someone that gotten an epileptic seizure? I have seen it happen on LANs; sleep deprivation or people with photosensitive epilepsy. Better safe than sorry!

Connectivity:
- If we were planning to do online coverage of the LAN event. We will need internet connection that has to meet a certain upstream requirements.
- Computer or equipment that can act as a router/gateway.

Equipment:
- Computers that can act as game-, web- and file-servers (local web-server for downloading maps from).
- Depend on the size of the attendance, several (gigabit) ethernet switches to hook everyone up.
- A dozens rolls of cat5 cables (and the necessary tools and RJ connectors) to connect all the switches to cover the hall.
- Power generator rental. Depend on the facility rental contract, they probably do not include the kind of electric draw needed for a 100+ LAN with gaming PC's. As gaming PC configuration can draw more than 500W per system and lets not forget about the 20"+ monitors.
- Dozens of power extension cords.
- Depend on what's included in the facility rental contract: need to additional renting of tables and chairs to provide a seat for everyone.
- If the LAN is also intended to hold a big competitive event: audio-visual system to do local coverage so people can watch and hear the game on a large screen or with a projector.

Additional:
- Catering, a 2- or 3-day LAN without a catering is terrible...

So as 7o9 said, we need sponsors to cover a lot of these costs. Also if there was an big competitive event, we 'll definitely need sponsors that can provide or cover the cost of the 'prices'; usually hardware or some kind of merchandises. Which depend on the generosity of the sponsors.

If we were to take this 'seriously'. We also need to announce the date, time, place well in advance; pref-ably 6+ months. This also to increase the chances that people can attend it. As well setup a bank account for visitors to make deposit to pay in advance to cover part of the initial costs.
So for example: if we were to do this in the summer 2012, we should be starting to organize it now and announce it ASAP. But to do that, we MUST have some sponsors!
But to be realistic, doing this in the summer in NL(especially in Amsterdam) is not pleasant when it get hot (very humid at times). Or generally else where in Western-Europe during summer. The summer heat also brings additional problems to hardware (overheating) and to people being "cramped" into a single space with so many machines producing heat as well.
Not to mention most people probably will have other plans for their summer. Organize a large UrT LAN for in the autumn is much better if you ask me.

When/If we were to do a 2- or 3- day LAN event, it would be interesting to do more than "just fragging". "Workshops" for example: Mapping, jumping, video capturing.
If there were experienced mappers to attend it. It would be interesting if some of them to give a 'workshops' to give people a quick teaching on how to started on mapping or perhaps talk about some advanced mapping techniques (e.g. importing and designing models/maps from 3Dsmax/Blender into UrT). As it's easier to learn things if someone was to do it in front of you and explaining it.
Even more dead obviously is that we should definitely invite UrT developers to attend to give some demonstrations of UrTHD and just to have a general Q&A sessions with them.
Things like that would make the LAN far more interesting for all UrT players and not just only the competitive ones.

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PS = Anyone happens to know someone(parents, family, neighbours, acquaintances) that works for Intel or AMD? That always makes things easier when there is an 'inside' contact. The fact UrbanTerror runs fairly well (without being forced to run at lowest detail level) on their IGP - and AMD A-Series Processor - could be an interesting 'selling point' for them to pay attention to this game and sponsor a large event of it in exchange for marketing opportunity.
I know for one that both company has a budget for sponsoring gaming LAN events.

Doing this right, a sponsor for example like AMD could perhaps even provide some ready made systems (powered by their A-Series) so not everyone has to bring their own system. They can use that as marketing event to promote how 'good' their products are for this game. For those that does not know, AMD A-Series is basically a CPU with a Radeon graphics core in one package. Intel has similar features on some of their i3, i5 and i7 processors with Intel HD graphics.

Good ideas nexu, But In Spring/Summer I think that is the period you can cross the holidays of most europeans.

And I think sponsors can be OK, In CS event or whatever they also give GIFTS to the winners like alienwares etc... We dont ask that, just lenting switches and ethernet cables (btw we need at least GB/s switches for the uplink between switches and servers), It also need to organize all before (if a website is on) etc...
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