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NATLAN 2012

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It was a great time!

It was a cold time!

Fourteen of us huddled together around out PCs in a ~50F garage and rocked out Team Fortress 2 (plenty of anger here), Day of Defeat (friendly fire is on, folks!), Counter-Strike (gets older and older, thank goodness a new one is coming out next year) and Serious Sam: BFE (in which 10 players cannot be stopped.)

 

We raised $77 for Childs Play Charity through the raffle:

Dan with the "empty" bottle of Rum, Sean with the RAM as always, Nat with HS, Drew with Portal 2 and Brian w/both Blizzard Trials, Mitch not pictured won the Golden Ticket

There was an impromptu costume contest, which Brian won by virtue of the face paint:


"Don't Ask"

 Let’s hope there is another NATLAN this fall or next spring 🙂  I am already looking forward to it…

–Nat

Raffle Prizes for NATLAN 2012

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For those of you at the LAN, you’ll have four “buckets” that you can put your tickets into, and they will be for these items:

  1.  A Golden Ticket: Your Free (and a new to NATLAN guest) pass to a NATLAN in the future.
  2. 8GB DDR3 Kit – Kingston 4GBx2 Sticks that looks suspiciously like this one: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0360526
  3. Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Heatsink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
  4. A bottle of Captain Morgan Black Label Rum and a two liter bottle of both regular & diet Coke.  Or you can drink it on the rocks or neat, your call.  Obviously only available to those over 21.
All raffle proceeds to be sent to Childs Play charity, as always.
One ticket is included with your admittance fee, additional tickets are $1.  If you buy 5 additional tickets when you pay for the LAN, a bonus ticket is included (you’ll then have 7 tickets to put into the buckets).   This way, when you pay with a twenty I don’t have to have so many $5 bills on hand and you get an extra shot at some good stuff 🙂
Based on past feedback on the raffles I “cut the crap” and hopefully there is something that will interest everyone on the table.  I love the heatsink, you bet that is where my tickets are going…
–Nat

 

NATLAN 2012 is a go!

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Mark your calendars for March 3rd.

Why the third of March?  First and foremost, that is the latest break I get in teaching this year – it is St. Paul College’s Spring Break.  I think it is best to do this sort of thing when I don’t have to get a class nailed down during the same weekend.  Also, and importantly, most of the longest tenured NATLAN attendees said they could make it on the third.

Current plans for the LAN:

It’s going to be in the garage at my home in Minnesota.  It looks like the “normal” high for early March should be just above freezing – I think that if we put ~2kw worth of “heaters” out there and keep the doors closed it should work.  That said, while planning to do it in the garage the basement has been getting more and more cleaned up and it should be possible to move up to sixteen folks inside should the weather prove to be really foul.

Gamewise I think we are looking at the typical collection (steam games, TF2, CS:S, DOD:S) plus Serious Sam BFE depending on the stability of COOP there.  16 player coop should be a hoot.

New for this LAN, and one of the main reasons I am thinking to do it at my house, is that I am considering providing for remote players.  More to come on this – and as much a possible, I’ll incentive those who can attend to be onsite – so check back for more details.

Finally – I’ll have a nine month old at this point.  What that means is that I am cool with some people being in the house, but it won’t be a crazy sleep over like it is sometimes.  To that end I’ve talked to the Mooney’s who have graciously opened their house so that up to five people can sleep in beds there.  We’ll be covering this in some more detail down the line too…

Exciting times!

–Nat

SC2 NATLAN pics

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September 25th came and went, and StarCraft 2 was played into the ground.

The details of what went down:

Star Craft 2 LAN – Cost will be $15 per cash at the door – this includes pizza (supper/dinner), pop, beer, water, snacks, etc. If you want something really special, please let me know.

There will be Mountain Dew (reg & diet), Coke (reg & diet), etc. and a cooler available if you must bring your own.

Iowa folks, feel free to come up Friday night/Saturday morning and crash where ever there is space for you =) Everyone else – come as early as 1 PM to start setting up if you want. Optimally space for 8-12 – we’ll see how well my home internet connection handles it (hey, it is supposedly a business level service 😉 Planning on having folks sit in two completely separate areas so strategy etc can be discussed openly for the best experience.

Bring your LAN gear – PC, Monitor, keyboard, mouse, ethernet cable, power cables, headphones and optimally a microphone. For the love of all that is holy, if you need a DVI to VGA dongle to make your monitor work, bring it! =D

Have SC2 installed when you come or $60 ready for Blizzard. Either way, have the foresight to setup a battle.net account ahead of time. If you want to get the rust off, there is a fairly regular group that plays from ~9-11 PM Thursday nights, ping me for more detail. For those that are concerned and/or curious , I am hoping to still do a “real” NATLAN this winter featuring games where we shoot each other over and over for hours on end.

That should be enough details, eh?

–Nat

NATLAN2009.5

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It happened, and I thought it was pretty awesome 🙂

Unfortunately, no pictures were taken.  Doh.

Please leave me some comments if you have any feedback.

Looking at the first weekend of April for the full up NATLAN 2010.  We’ll be looking to get a full 24 people for what is likely to be some great Team Fortress 2 action.  What do you all think about that?  T-shirts and the whole bit 🙂

–Nat