CherryPopper

This is the final Part 3 of what goes into running MonsterLAN behind the scenes. I've already covered what happens before the MonsterLAN events in Running the Monster - Part 1 and the running of the event in Running the Monster - Part 2. So following on from that this is the final part 3 of a 3 part walk through of what goes on behind the scenes of MonsterLAN. Part 1 will cover what we do before the doors open, Part 2 will cover the running of the event and the final part 3 will be the aftermath of the event.

After the last gamer leaves

After 2 days of little to no sleep, lots of gaming and other random fun its time to put the MonsterLAN back in its cage until the next event. While all the lucky gamers leave the mess to the admins to packup its also a time for the admin to discuss what went right and what didn't at the event. With everything fresh in our minds its good to go through this straight after the event plus it takes your mind off lugging tables & chairs.

The packup is the worst part of a LAN because your all tired and just want sleep like all the gamers who attended are getting as you start to roll up the cables. Getting as many helpers at this point will lessen the work load, so will being a little smarter about how you packup the gear. Having bundles of network cables helps as you can just unplug them quickly roll them into a bundle and use the velcro tie that is attached to it to keep it tidy for next time. Ensure your bags & boxes are kept tidy during the packup so it doesn't take you 4 times as long to setup when your next event rolls around.

While we're working away the admins discuss the event in detail and work through what was successful and what failed as well as other possible improvements. Everything from the layout of the arena to tournament timing and even possible future admins is discussed. Its the small things that really turn a good event into a great one and with very little sleep some really crazy ideas come out as well... how do you think dodgeball was born!!!

Once everything is packed up and the admins have had some sleep & a shower we post our own admin feedback thread in the forums so we can keep track of everything we talked about after the event as well as discuss the ideas & comments being posted on the gamer feedback thread. It very important to ask for feedback from the gamers as we are providing a service for a fee and if the gamers aren't happy they wont come back. The one big mistake i see in post event feedback threads from other events is some gamer posts that they didn't enjoy the event for some reason and all the admins just flame them for it, why ask for feedback if your not going to listen? Sure some people will bitch at certain things that really aren't under your control or are just unrealistic demands like turning your event into a CSS only event with a $10,000 cash prize. But instead of just flaming them explain why its not possible and that you need to cater for more than just one type of gamer or don't want to attract that type of serious gamer crowd, then flame them for just playing CSS!

The next thing I have to do is send all the sponsors some pictures of us giving away the prizes (yes they want proof) as well as a bit of a wrap up about how the event went. This is VERY important because if you don't do this your sponsors will soon stop sending you goodies to give away. Its a two way street with sponsors, they give you prizes and they expect you to do a little work in return giving them feedback. Keeping a good relationship with sponsors also help with the quality & amount of prizes you'll get for your events so be sure to look after these relationships so you can both benefit from them.

By now the bills will start to flow in from the Arena, Total Events (guys who setup the lights, projector, stage, dodgeball, etc), VicLAN and any other stuff we have hired like arcade machines. Keeping track of the financial side of things is always a pain but everything costs money and to keep the high standard that you've all come to expect means we also have to keep our bills paid on time so they'll help us keep that high standards for the following events.

The only thing left that I always seem to forget about is the Wrap Up. While most other LAN events just post the pictures in a gallery and be done with it, there is always more to an event than just what can be seen in the pictures. So i started to do the wrap up that would fill in the gaps of the event that the pictures couldn't explain. While it is amusing to the people who attended it also gives a glimpse of what to expect for those yet to attend a MonsterLAN event. In some of the earlier events i also did a bit of a video wrap up that was shown at the next event which was great fun but man it was a lot of work to get it to the standard i wanted, the gamers loved it though. Its pretty simple... gamers love to see themselves on the web so just remember to take lots of pictures at your events as you can never have too many pictures.

The last but most important thing to do during the post event is to ensure your admin team are happy. Take it from me without a great admin team your event wont last long so ensuing they are still enjoying running the event is most important. Talk about what you can do to help make everyone's life easier during all stages of the event, make sure things like servers are easy to run, everyone gets time to grab some sleep and even getting food during the event for the admins as if they are like me we forget till we're faint with hunger. Just be sure to talk to your admin team and listen to any issues they have and try to accommodate them as a happy admin means happy gamers.

Running an event like MonsterLAN is a labour of love its a hell of a lot of work and if you don't enjoy it your event isn't going to last long. Sure there are crap times but with a great team of admins and a real community of gamers to attend your events means your always going to get that warm and fuzzy feeling when you get told by a first timer that they've had the best time at your event and can't wait for the next one. Its something i still get a buzz from after running MonsterLAN for the past 6 years.

This is Part 2 of what goes into running MonsterLAN behind the scenes. I've already covered what happens before the MonsterLAN events in Running the Monster - Part 1. So following on from that this is part 2 of a 3 part walk through of what goes on behind the scenes of MonsterLAN. Part 1 will cover what we do before the doors open, part 2 will cover the running of the event and part 3 will be the aftermath of the event.

The Event

Once the admins are happy with the venue setup, we run around and check the venue from a safety point of view making sure cables are covered & taped down, signs are up and all power is connected correctly. The last thing we need is to hurt anyone at an event, the paper work would be a nightmare!!

There is also the fun job of making sure the toilets are open and filled with toilet paper as we have come close to running out before, not being able to relieve yourself after stuffing yourself full of pizza is a sure fire way to annoy your gamers into leaving. Who said gaming LAN's were just about gaming!

The doors are then swung open to the masses of eager gamers awaiting the awesomeness that is MonsterLAN. As they all file into the venue we're starting game servers for public play so the first people in will have something to play from the second they are connected. We also ensure that at least two of our Admins are roaming around making sure everyone is getting on the network okay and to help any first timers that might not know what to do or where to get all the info they need.

The friendly face of a helpful admin is an important part of any event especially a Gaming LAN event where its not always the most structured of events. First time gamers popping their Gaming LAN cherries are always a little lost as to how an event such as MonsterLAN actually works. They need some help so having people roaming around looking for that "I've got no clue" looking face, ready to help is the best way I've found to ensure everyone enjoys themselves. It also helps to have a slideshow on the projector that displays the most important info like website of the Intranet site, tournament times & other info to save you answering the same question hundreds of times.

It also helps with the people having issues like all the power plugs being taken by someone with every electronic device known to man plugged in or a network cable that was taken by someone at the end of the table instead of using the one right in front of them. There are always random odd things that happen when the masses walk in so its best to be close by to help fix them before it becomes a real issue because they have "attempted" to fix it themselves by re-routing all the power via an extension lead from the emergency exit sign or plugging the network for that row into a 10mb hub someone had with them.

One thing I will say is you have to be prepared for anything as they keep inventing a better idiot every LAN event we run. From people bringing toasters to microwave ovens, 2 gamers having the same wireless kb & mouse set to the same channels controlling each others PC without knowing what was happening and even people being total idiots by rocking up drunk. Keep your mind open as the possibilities are endless as to what idiots will do at your event.

Some of the big issues you will have to contend with are normally related to power. Hopefully you will have worked out the power layout before the event so you know how many PC's each circuit can handle. MonsterLAN runs 8 PC's off each power point (14 PC's per circuit). Its also good to have the ability to move a row to another circuit if you do run into issues as we have done in the past because of some gamer with a power hungry rig.

While all this is happening there are the smiling admins at the desk collecting your money and enabling you onto the MonsterLAN network via our custom DHCP server (aka LAN NAZI). This allows us to do a few things as well as restrict the network to only those who have paid. Our LAN NAZI system also lets us know how many people we have at the event, if any of them have a network bound virus like blaster (not so much an issue nowadays) and if they are attempting to disrupt our network. We can also quickly kick these people off the network to ensure the event runs as fault free as possible.

Once everyone is settled its normally time for the first competition and this is where your preparation comes into play. If you have put a lot of time into setting up and testing your game servers then starting them up should be simple and you can concentrate on the painful part of getting gamers into the correct teams, servers and on time to start each round. This is where I wish we could wire up all the seats with some sort of electric shock device as it seems no matter how much yelling over the PA or slapping of gamers heads there will always be some people in the wrong server, wrong team or totally missing because they went to KFC just as the tournament was starting. This is where most of the time will be spent in the tournaments and not having your servers ready to rock at the click of a button just means it will take twice as long to run a tournament.

Its also good to try to limit the amount of time a tournament goes for as people will get bored if they aren't into that game or get knocked out in the first round. If your tournament takes 3-4 hours and your not just a Counter-Strike Source Gaming LAN then you need to find a way to shorten it so other tournaments can be played to keep things fun for everyone, not just the CSS players. Finding the balance is the hard part but talking to your community about these things helps keep everyone happy, ok so almost everyone. Shortening things like round times, score limits & map times helps keep the tournament to a respectable timeframe. At MonsterLAN we aim for around 2hrs for each tournament with the expectation that noobs could blow this out to 3hrs at the most.

While the tournaments are running don't forget that not everyone will be in that tournament or wont be in it till the end so be sure to run some public servers to keep them entertained and to practise during round byes. We have also found that having some consoles hooked up to a big screen helps in this area & gives the gamers a reason to socialise a little away from their PC's. They are also great just for the spectacle part of gaming as having a crowd around you oohh'ing and aarrhhh'ing as you hit the notes in Guitar Hero really gets the fun factor into gaming and helps create a great vibe for the event. At the larger events we have even hired an arcade machine like sega rally to help give gamers something else to do that's a little more social. Remember they can sit at home and play games without all the pain of packing up their PC's so you have to make it worthwhile to rock up to your event for something they can't easily do at home.

By now the event should be kicking along nicely and now its time to organise the pizza run and ensuring everyone has ordered & paid for their dinner. We use a pizza ordering system on the Intranet as in the past we have had gamers forget what they ordered, said they have paid when they haven't or just totally forgot they ordered pizza and got food elsewhere.

Next up is the major prize giveaways and at MonsterLAN this normally means someone is going to look like an idiot and most of the time its me, even when I don't mean it. We have tried lots of different ways to giveaway prizes from gameshows to paper plane making and even piggy back races (which ended in carnage for the admins). Its silly things like this that make an otherwise boring event have a spectacle part to it where everyone stops to watch & win something, or throw ML balls back at me. It might seem lame to some but we have gotten some of our best feedback from the silly non-gaming related things we have done, plus us admins enjoy it most of the time. We have even done things like "Lupin's Loons" movies of funny pics put to music to enjoy over dinner, the ML movies I have done of previous events and just the random youtube videos put on the projector at various times to keep the event fun for everyone.

As the event goes on the other tournaments are run, random "Big Organised Games" are run to fill in the downtime between the tournaments, more prizes are given away in crazy ways the admins just thought of and the gamers start to settle into the event. One thing that can happen if your not on the ball is your event starts to slowly die and doing the random things like prize giveaways or funny videos on the projector help keep the events great vibe going into the weeeee hours.

Its about now that the admins adrenalin is all pumped out and we need to let some grab some sleep as we still have to pack the event up at the end. The graveyard shift is hard to do as your already tired but you don't want the event to die a boring death. So having a few things planned for the early hours always helps as we have even run dodgeball at these times to give everyone a kick to get them through till the morning.

One thing I haven't touched on yet is keeping your admin crew happy throughout the event. If they aren't happy then the events vibe will die quickly as the gamers wont have fun with grumpy admins. Doing things like feeding them & making sure that all of your admins get a chance to game helps keep a big fat smile on their face so that they will be having as much fun running the event as your gamers do attending it.

After the last gamer has fragged his last frag and left its time to packup & some tired admin discussion about the event.

Part 3 will be on the aftermath of the event. Stay tuned.

One of the main assumptions about running a LAN event no matter how small is there really isn't that much to it. While this maybe true for your little house LAN where all you need is room enough for 5-10 people, tables & chairs, a switch & some cables and a few power boards with pizza huts number on speed dial for one awesome weekend its a whole different beast running a MonsterLAN.

I've already covered how I got into running MonsterLAN in a previous post. So following on from that this will be part 1 of a 3 part walk through of what goes on behind the scenes of MonsterLAN. Part 1 will cover what we do before the doors open, part 2 will cover the running of the event and part 3 will be the aftermath of the event.

Before the doors open

There are a lot of things to organise before even one gamer steps into the venue, a lot more than even I first thought of when I ran my first event. I mean who would have thought you would be checking the toilets to make sure they had enough toilet paper when you running a Gaming LAN event?

The first thing that happens is the admins pick a date for the event. While even this may seem easy, finding a date that works for all the admins & making sure the venue isn't booked can be very painful. We try to book 12 months in advance as the venue does get booked quite early sometimes.

Once the date & venue are sorted the admins start chatting about what we would like to do for the next event. This is where some of our more deranged and possibly dangerous crazy ideas have come from. Some of the more memorable ones are the infamous Search for a Smacktard, Lupin's Loons and everyone's favourite Dodgeball where born.

Then comes some of the boring stuff like ensuring VicLAN have enough PLI (Public Liability Insurance) for the number of gamers we are aiming for and the VicLAN equipment is available on the date of our event. We need PLI because if someone trips and hurts themselves and they sue us we don't lose our shirts because of them. We run the events for fun and really don't want us to cost us everything, plus most large venues wont let you run a public event without $1,000,000 in PLI... yes folks 1 million dollars!!!

With the all the major stuff out the way we now start to advertise the event on the website. Now for those who have been with us from the start will know our little website has seen a lot of change since the early days. MonsterLAN.com grew from just a small site where no one posts in the forums but me to the massive 5 posts per day it is now!!! We also made it easier to register for events and put up more information about the events for newbies.

Now it comes time to start to hit up the sponsors for freebies. Which I'm sure you all think is the easy part, just shoot of an email to all the major companies like Nvidia, Intel, AMD and watch the thousands of dollars worth of prizes roll in.... ok so maybe not. Most sponsors are a pain in the ass, they give you fuck all and expect the world in return. We've had a certain sponsor, *cough* katech *cough* wanting to only allow food & drink in the venue if it was sold by them! In return they offered $500 worth of prizes. Needless to say we quickly told them where to put their prizes.

Good sponsors are hard to find but luckily we have a good reputation in the Gaming LAN community and some good sponsors found us when I had given up hope. They only ask for a few basic things like a sponsor banner on the website, banners/posters hung up at the events and pictures taken of both the event & the prizes been given away. In return they give us some pretty awesome swag sometimes. THQ are quite good when they have games coming out and will load us up with lots of goodies including collectors editions of new games and other goodies. Thermaltake are also great in sending us a box full of stuff that cools, glows and purifies the air!! They also love to send us a case for our larger events. Without this type of sponsorship support the prize pool for MonsterLAN wouldn't be as kick ass as it is, big thanks for THQ & Thermaltake.

After the tournament survey has been completed its now time for the most important part of the pre-event setup, servers. Without these puppies running like a well tuned engine your LAN will die quicker than if it had the blaster worm. At MonsterLAN we use an all in one Uber Linux Server that basically controls the LAN event and then 2-6 dedicated Windows game servers. Each one of these game servers can run 1-4 game servers at a time depending on how many players & what game it is. This allows us to run as many servers as there are matches (i.e: 10 teams = 5 matches = 5 servers) so we get the tournament finished in a decent time frame.

There is a lot of testing that goes into the game servers before the event, this is one of the most time consuming things I do before an event. We make things as simple as possible to run on the day so we can get things running quickly. Pre-configuring maps, game settings and round times ensures things run smoothly on the day. Rogue has developed a bunch of scripts that make starting a game server easy so our monkey admins Boxy & Holmsy can even start a server! We also use any tournament mods for the games we run to make running the tournament as easy as possible for us & the gamers. For those that are interested in setting up your own game servers can check out our MonsterLAN Wiki for more info.

The Uber Linux Server was quite a bit of work to get where it is today. Initially it was just a web server for us to use to host game patches but it has since grown into being the most important server at MonsterLAN. It does the following:

• Tunez - MP3 Jukebox
• Squid Proxy Server - Internet Sharing/Limiting
• DNS Server
• LAN Nazi DHCP Server Allows only paid gamers on the network
• MRTG Monitoring of switches, Internet and Servers
• Internet Gateway/Firewall
• Teamspeak Server
• Ventrilo Server

• Web Server ML Intranet site

Which includes:

• Tournaments Administration and Registration
• Patches and other files
• Game Server List
• TeamSpeak Channels
• General Event Details
• and more...

Finally it comes time to actually rock up to the venue and start to setup. The fun part about the venue is they play hide & seek with their tables. We use every table they have for the large events and hunting around the venue finding them is just soooooo much fun, because I really have nothing better to do. Laying carpet, lugging tables and chairs is also not what I started running events for but its a necessary evil that must be done. Once the heavy work is done then its time to lay power & the lifeline of the LAN event... the network. MonsterLAN is setup in a star network topology (every switch has 1 uplink to a backbone). Each uplink to the backbone is 1gbit and the ports gamers plug into are 100mbit. This is more than enough for gaming & the leechers can go leech somewhere else. That being said we haven't yet hit the maximum throughput of the switches or uplinks & I know this due to me setting up monitoring, so don't blame the network

Once its all setup, tested and the event is ready to rock the admins finally have some down time to get ready for the onslaught of gamers that are just waiting to stop playing with themselves and enjoy another MonsterLAN event.

Part 2 will be on running the event and everything that goes with it. Stay tuned.

The ever changing face of gaming & technology has had an impact on gaming LAN's. No longer are they the only way to get your multiplayer frag fix. You can do it online with your PC & broadband connection, you can do it with your console and you can even do it on your portable gaming console or mobile phone if your really desperate. So where does this leave gaming LAN's as we know it? Will the social interaction of gaming LAN's die a slow death or will we see a change in what happens at the event?

Some of the changes will be for the better. As more and more people get into gaming this will help grow the LAN community as more people start to realise the fun of multiplayer games and start to look for ways to get some multiplayer game on. But LAN events will need to cater for the more casual gamers as well as the current "hardcore" gamers. So you will start to see more console's at events or even events dedicated to consoles only.

But how to attract the casual gamers to what has typically been a hardcore gamer event? Do the casual games lend themselves to being played in a LAN or even competitive environment? Does a room full of people jamming to guitar hero, swinging controllers in a game of Wii Tennis or squirming away with a DS in Mario cart DS really sound like a good time?

The more casual gaming events i don't see being all nighter events but more laid back and generally just a lot more fun, i mean how could you possibly take Guitar Hero serious? Sure their will be some competitiveness but you wont see the hardcore gamers doing strats & practicing for hours on end just to get the perfect rift.

There is also the added benefit of increasing the hardcore gamers. With more people getting into gaming via the casual market some of these gamers will seek more enjoyment and move up the gaming food chain and become LAN gamers like you & me.

In the end its going to be some interesting times ahead and should benefit everyone.

I've been attending Gaming LAN's of all sizes from the small garage based Gaming LAN's of a few mates to the large events of 100+ gamers going at it all night ever since I discovered multiplayer PC gaming. Like most guys & gals my age we started with doom and some null modem cables for some fearsome 1 on 1 action. As networking became cheaper & easier to setup more games started to support it. While quake was fun, the game that kicked it all off for me and really got me hooked was Half-Life. Many many many hours of my uni life were spent playing deathmatch on the bounce map, 2Fort in Team Fortress Classic and in the early beta's of a HL mod called Counter-Strike. Of course the net back then in Australia was shit with just having dial up and the lack of local game servers the only way to get your MP fix was at a Gaming LAN of some sort.

I've lugged my gaming rig all over the place; from tin sheds in the middle of a paddock during winter with no heater and in-between CS rounds you would defrost your hands on the top of your CRT to the other side of Melbourne just to attend a new event Gaming LAN called Shafted. It was always about the fun in the competitive gaming that kept me coming back, prizes mean nothing compared to bragging rights amongst your peers. Being able to belittle them face to face and just have a good time, even when you were getting your ass kicked.

So from those humble beginnings you can start to see why I decided to get involved in running Gaming LAN events in Geelong. With a small group of gamers we decided to run our first event "Network Meltdown". We had a website in no time and word got around pretty quickly about the event. Since we were all Deakin Uni students we hit the uni up for a free venue which they gave us in the cafe part of the Waterfront campus. I was the only one with a job so I coughed up the cash needed for a 500m box of cat5e and power boards/leads. The network gear we begged, steeled & borrowed. So within 3 months we had our first event with 120 people and at our second event had close to 200!!!

I have no idea to this day how we pulled it off, we barely had enough knowledge to run a small network let alone one of that size. We were going all night hand crimping the network cables and some how they all worked, though in early ML events when they were used they didn't even come close to working.

After our first 4 successful Network Meltdown events the Ausgamers network was starting to form and we were invited to join. But due to a number of issues including the Network Meltdown admins fighting it fell though and so did the Network Meltdown Gaming LAN. After a year of no big gaming LAN's running in Geelong I decided to give it another go since I had all the gear just sitting there.

So began MonsterLAN. I approached two local smaller LAN's, AlphaLAN & PoVLAN to see if they would be interested in helping me out in running a larger event in Geelong. They agreed and so began MonsterLAN with our first event being held on 1st March 2003. Not many of the original admins remained for many reasons but Luke (Jolt Master) stuck around with me for the long haul. The current crew have made it a lot easier to run MonsterLAN and it would not have become the success it has without their dedication to the gaming scene.

And as they say... the rest is history