Nor`Easter 2007 by the LAN Party Association of New England
Amenities
LPANE learned from the past as they wired the auditorium with networking cable and power. Upon entering the room, the most noticeable item beyond the mass of tables was the mass of power cables heading to each table. With the party being powered by a CAT XQ125 Turbo Diesel Generator (provided by Milton CAT), there was plenty of power to share! This alone was no small task for the Staff (and we can see them hard at work below). Apart from my power going out the night before (while the power team was hard at work), there were few interruptions and the gaming ran rather smoothly.
After power, the next most important aspect of all LAN Parties is the network being powered. As in other years, LPANE was powered by an Enterasys Enterprise class router. This beast was large and, though I did not have a chance to take her apart, she handled the traffic rather well. Once LPANE had a good network topology, it ran perfectly. For a large portion of Friday morning, there was a bit of trouble. None of it, however, was the fault of the equipment.
Red Bull was, and usually is, a great hit for all gamers. Keeping near 500 gamers fueled takes a large effort and, as many of us know, we need our energy drinks. Unfortunately for Red Bull, their team failed to show to the event bringing the needed refreshments to our drink deprived gamers as Red Bull failed to show multiple times. However, with the availability of the Shriner’s refreshment stands, though a bit less cost efficient, the gaming did not stop!
Tournaments As any LAN Party, we had to find out who was the best of the best and tournaments were planned for both Counter-Strike Source and Battlefield 2. Unreal Tournament 2004 was also held completely by gamers attending the event. As with any tournament, there were minor bumps along the way, and there were large turn outs allowing for a very successful event. However, as Tournaments a bit subjective, we'll leave this up to those who attended and participated in the official tournaments to praise or condemn. Overall, the Tournaments were executed fairly well and were filled to the brim, allowing for great competition!
Prizes
For those who are tempted by the lure of expensive computer hardware (don't hide, its not too shameful), many companies provided support and/or prizes for the Nor’easter! Of most importance was Intel's contribution of 10 Intel Core 2 Extreme Processors, totaling up to a rather expensive prize donation. During the entire event, many questions were about where the processors were, and when would they give one to me, or I mean those attending!
Other sponsors included ConnectiCon (an Anime, Gaming, and more Convention passes), CoolerMaster (Cases, Cooling Products, Power Supplies, and Swag), LaserWarez (Custom Laser Etched Dog Tags for all pre-registered attendees), Steel Series (Mouse Pads), Ultra Products (Cases, Power Supplies, and Cooling Products), and Vinter (Case).
With this round up of prizes donations, there was little one could go wrong with while attending the Nor’easter!
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