NOR'EASTER 2006: INSIDER'S REPORT
I'm a little late in telling you about this, since it happened last weekend. Last week was Nor'Easter, a LAN party sponsored by Intel and various other companies.
For the uninitiated, a LAN party is where a bunch of people pack up their computers, bring them to some room large enough to accomodate a few dozen Dell-wielding gamergeeks, network them all together, and play some games. And Nor'easter is not just any LAN party, it's run by the LAN Party Association of New England, or LPANE. It's the biggest lan party in New England, with total space for 250 preregistered gamers. And it lasted a total of 36 glorious hours, from 9 pm Friday to 9am Sunday morning.
Leading up to the party, I was a little concerned that I wouldn't have anything to play. According to LPANE's Polls, the top few games that people wanted to play were those I didn't have. Battlefield 2, for example. After finding it on sale at CompUSA for $10 cheaper than the WalMart near my house, I figured, "Why not?" and tossed it in the cart with the can of compressed air and the Cat6 cable that were the reason I had ventured to the store.
Looking back, I can conclusively say that I spent WAAY too much money in preparation for this one party. About $100 on games: Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, and DEFCON, none of which I ended up playing at the party. $200 on a new flatscreen monitor, since I didn't want to lug around my heavy 19" CRT. When I got there, I found out that someone there had the exact same model that I had just upgraded from. Incidentally, I had met this guy previously, working as a ski instructor at Nashoba Valley in nearby Westford. He got more of my hard-earned cash, as I bought $50 of computer memory from him. The 25-foot Cat6 networking cable was a bit of a waste too; although LPANE had recommended bringing a 25-foot cable, it turned out that I was seated right next to an ethernet switch, thus I wouldn't need a cable longer than 6 feet, something I could have taken from the Linux box in my room.
Oh, and as mentioned in the previous post, I was building a DDRHOMEPAD. Another $100 for supplies. I was naive to think I could possibly finish that thing before the party without using any power tools.
Anyway, The event was being held at the Intel campus in Hudson, Massachusetts. Although I had left at 8 PM and the drive is a half-hour at most, there was still a line as people were waiting to check their computers and start setting up. I hadn't reserved a seat, so as they checked me in, I was randomly assigned one. I headed inside, set up, and did what any gamer would do: compare rigs with the guy next to me. Then, I started showing off my collection of vintage games and interesting mods.
About 90 minutes into the party, I still hadn't played any games. I was perfectly capable of it; my connection was fine, my computer hadn't mysteriously died on the drive over, but...no one was really playing anything interesting.
There was, of course, Counter-Strike Source. An incidental acquisition included when I bought Half-Life 2. CS:S happened to be the second-most-voted game in LPANE's polls, so there should be no problem finding people to play that. My problem was, I had been playing for maybe a month or two. The game had been out for over a year, and it was the logical extension of the original Counter-Strike, which has been out even longer.
Ergo, everyone was better than I was at it.
That is, they knew not to waste time on body shots and go straight for the head. The server we played on would tell you how many shots you had fired had hit your opponents, where, and for how much. While I had hit with 6 bullets, for about 75-90 damage, often they would score over 100 damage with a single shot to the head. It's one thing to be sniped at, but quite another to be emptying an entire clip into a guy, and have 80% of those shots miss, only to have his one bullet go right where he wanted it.
About 15 minutes of that and I was bored again. So I tried some Warcraft III tower defense with the guys next to me. Fun, yes, but with only 3 people, it got boring quickly.
Later I tried SourceForts. Based on Half-Life 2's Deathmatch mod, it was Capture-the-flag with the added twist of having to build structures out of blocks to keep your flag protected and/or make entry into your opponents' base easier. It ept me occupied for a few hours, but again, It slowly fizzled from lack of players. Everyone else was busy playing Battlefield 2, which, after one game, I had decided was not to my liking.
And then I heard the laughter. Across the table, there were four guys laughing their asses off. At what? I watched in anticipation, hoping to find out. They saw I was watching and invited me to play. What was it? A card game, called Apples to Apples. The premise: There's a deck of green cards (descriptors) and a deck of red cards (nouns). On each player's turn, that player turns over the top green card, and each other player has to pick a red card in his hand that best fits the descriptor on the green card. Whoever revealed the green card decides which noun fits best, and the winner keeps the green card. Whoever has the most green cards at the end of the game wins. By itself, not much to speak of. But factor in that these four guys, Vince, Glenn (they started calling me Glenn #2), Ian, and Supreet, had a very sick, sarcastic, and tasteless sense of humor, and sooner or later, I was reeling with laughter, as we described "Ground Zero" as "deep," and "Falling Off A Cliff" as "graceful." Maybe you had to be there to enjoy it, but it was great. I ended up hanging with the 4chan Party Van (as they called themselves) for the rest of the party.
I ended up staying until 7am sunday morning. I was planning to stay the entire time, but by that point, almost everyone was starting to pack up and leave. I hadn't slept all that night, I probably shouldn't have been driving, and I missed work that day, but all I could think on the drive home was: It's worth it. It was worth everything.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
PROJECTS
A few months ago I had the bright idea that I wanted to build something. And being a gamer, It had to have something to do with gaming. I only had two ideas, and I think I went with the worse one.
Which was that? I decided I wanted to go with D. Gee's instructions for building a DDRHOMEPAD. (No, the entire thing is not technically capitalized. Yes, I like it better that way.) The site had detailed instructions, photos, a parts list...a cinch, I thought last Tuesday, as I traveled to Home Depot to buy supplies. Unfortunately, parents were out of the house for the week, which means: no access to power tools. No table saw, no jigsaw, but I could use a hand saw. Cutting five squares of plywood could have taken 5 minutes, but due to my weak gamer arms, it took an hour.
No problems when I tried to cut the sheet metal that would cover the plywood, except that it ended up a little bit curved since it's not easy to cut a 12" piece of metal with inch-and-a-half tinsnips.
Then I tried to make the plates of clear plastic that would top off the buttons. In the interest of full disclosure, funny story. I had gone to the Home Depot in Nashua, NH to buy my materials. The plans called for lucite sheets. I asked the guy where I could find lucite, and he says: "What's a lucite?" In hindsight a perfectly reasonable response. He could have specialized in something else, like...bathroom fixtures. But it was funny at the time.
I went on to explain it was a clear glass substitute, like fiberglass, and he redirected me to Aisle 16. No lucite, but there were sheets of Lexan, the kind of material used in those Nalgene water bottles we see so often nowadays. Works for me.
I had not bothered to ask how the hell I was supposed to cut it. I checked the directions and they suggested repeatedly scoring the sheet of L[uciteexan] and then breaking it over a table. It seemed a bit crude. But, what the hell. I had forgotten, however, to remove the plastic wrap on both sides. <> Dammit.
Then I figured I could saw it if I used a light blade. Dumb move. I had not gotten an inch into the Lexan when it started to crack.
The real problem, I think, was that I was not breaking the Lexan evenly. By placing the Lexan between the table and what was left of my plywood, then applying pressure down with both hands while kneeling on the plywood, I could make a clean break. Unfortunately, by this time, I only had enough to make 4 panels -- this recipe used two per button, so I needed eight. And guess what? Out of all the items I had bought, the 2'x4' Lexan sheet I had bought was the most expensive.
It was at this point I decided to hold off until I could get some professional assistance. Besides, I needed to use Dad's drill press, and I couldn't figure out how to reconfigure that ShopSmith all-in-one thing he uses (it was set up as a table saw at the time).
I haven't even gotten to the interesting part, which involves soldering wires to a disassembled Playstation controller and to pieces of sheet metal which would act as the contacts.
The other project I was planning on building? A MAME cabinet. Get a cheap but relatively powerful computer, install MAME, then build an arcade-style cabinet to house it. Bit of a lofty undertaking, and probably harder than the DDR pad. But it wouldn't involve working with sheet metal or Lexan. Since I recently upgraded to a 19" flatscreen LCD, I now have a CRT lying around. Probably not as big as most arcade screens (27" on most 2-player standard cabinets) but a hell of a lot cheaper ($200 when I bought it, as compared to a Wells-Gardner K7300, which sells for $700--refurbished!-- from happcontrols.com.). Next, buy USB gamepads, take out the circuit board, solder the contacts to some arcade buttons and joysticks, insert the gamepads into the computer inside, and voila! You got yourself an arcade machine.
I thought this would actually be a better project than the DDRHOMEPAD, for various reasons:
* This would apply to many games. There are thousands of ROMS that I know exist, and probably more than that. Probably an infinite number. (It could be modified so the joysticks and various buttons applied to a PS2 or XBox controller instead of USB. Thus, console gaming in an arcade shell.) By contrast, the DDRHOMEPAD would work for but one game: Stepmania. (A game that arguably emulates around 15+ games, but games that are functionally indistinguishable.)
* Again, no sheet metal or Lexan. Maybe a sheet to cover the monitor. And the margins of error in measurement for the arcade cabinet are arguably larger than that for the DDRHOMEPAD.
* Even after I'd finished building the DDRHOMEPAD, I'd still go to the arcade to play DDR, because there is such a thing as being a Score Whore: It gives me pride to know that no one has beaten my only Machine Record #1 on the In The Groove machine at FunWorld in Nashua (Funk Factory, medium difficulty, 97.59%) for at least a few months.
As for the MAME cabinet, there aren't any arcades nearby that have the wide range of games I'd be able to emulate. All the fighters, shooters (with a USB light gun), and, if I decide to implement a racing wheel, drivers, designed between the rise of the age of arcade video games (late 70s, early 80s) and the point where everyone started switching to 3d systems with proprietary hardware (mid-90s or so). Just one example: At the Brunswick Zone in Lowell, there appeared one day a NeoGeo machine with a Double Dragon fighting game. My brother and I each played a few rounds, then we left the arcade. We never saw it or a similar machine again. I downloaded the ROM a while back, and found out just how much of a horrific piece of crap that game really was. But I'd still play it again once in a while. All arcade players have a game like this one. It's not very popular, but for some reason, you played it a lot and still will, for all the memories it brought back. For me, it's that Double Dragon game. And also Zero Point.
Why did I decide to build the DDRHOMEPAD, then? I was thinking that a DDRHOMEPAD might be an easier thing to bring for a LAN party than a MAME cabinet. (I've already begun thinking about some kind of wheel assembly involving a wooden base that can be removed when you need it to move, and put in place when it needs to be stationery, a base that can be folded up and placed in a small cabinet in the side...but I'm getting ahead of myself.) But I think bringing an arcade machine to a LAN party might be more fun. Which brings me to the topic of LAN parties, which I'll cover in my next post, probably later this week.
A few months ago I had the bright idea that I wanted to build something. And being a gamer, It had to have something to do with gaming. I only had two ideas, and I think I went with the worse one.
Which was that? I decided I wanted to go with D. Gee's instructions for building a DDRHOMEPAD. (No, the entire thing is not technically capitalized. Yes, I like it better that way.) The site had detailed instructions, photos, a parts list...a cinch, I thought last Tuesday, as I traveled to Home Depot to buy supplies. Unfortunately, parents were out of the house for the week, which means: no access to power tools. No table saw, no jigsaw, but I could use a hand saw. Cutting five squares of plywood could have taken 5 minutes, but due to my weak gamer arms, it took an hour.
No problems when I tried to cut the sheet metal that would cover the plywood, except that it ended up a little bit curved since it's not easy to cut a 12" piece of metal with inch-and-a-half tinsnips.
Then I tried to make the plates of clear plastic that would top off the buttons. In the interest of full disclosure, funny story. I had gone to the Home Depot in Nashua, NH to buy my materials. The plans called for lucite sheets. I asked the guy where I could find lucite, and he says: "What's a lucite?" In hindsight a perfectly reasonable response. He could have specialized in something else, like...bathroom fixtures. But it was funny at the time.
I went on to explain it was a clear glass substitute, like fiberglass, and he redirected me to Aisle 16. No lucite, but there were sheets of Lexan, the kind of material used in those Nalgene water bottles we see so often nowadays. Works for me.
I had not bothered to ask how the hell I was supposed to cut it. I checked the directions and they suggested repeatedly scoring the sheet of L[uciteexan] and then breaking it over a table. It seemed a bit crude. But, what the hell. I had forgotten, however, to remove the plastic wrap on both sides. <
Then I figured I could saw it if I used a light blade. Dumb move. I had not gotten an inch into the Lexan when it started to crack.
The real problem, I think, was that I was not breaking the Lexan evenly. By placing the Lexan between the table and what was left of my plywood, then applying pressure down with both hands while kneeling on the plywood, I could make a clean break. Unfortunately, by this time, I only had enough to make 4 panels -- this recipe used two per button, so I needed eight. And guess what? Out of all the items I had bought, the 2'x4' Lexan sheet I had bought was the most expensive.
It was at this point I decided to hold off until I could get some professional assistance. Besides, I needed to use Dad's drill press, and I couldn't figure out how to reconfigure that ShopSmith all-in-one thing he uses (it was set up as a table saw at the time).
I haven't even gotten to the interesting part, which involves soldering wires to a disassembled Playstation controller and to pieces of sheet metal which would act as the contacts.
The other project I was planning on building? A MAME cabinet. Get a cheap but relatively powerful computer, install MAME, then build an arcade-style cabinet to house it. Bit of a lofty undertaking, and probably harder than the DDR pad. But it wouldn't involve working with sheet metal or Lexan. Since I recently upgraded to a 19" flatscreen LCD, I now have a CRT lying around. Probably not as big as most arcade screens (27" on most 2-player standard cabinets) but a hell of a lot cheaper ($200 when I bought it, as compared to a Wells-Gardner K7300, which sells for $700--refurbished!-- from happcontrols.com.). Next, buy USB gamepads, take out the circuit board, solder the contacts to some arcade buttons and joysticks, insert the gamepads into the computer inside, and voila! You got yourself an arcade machine.
I thought this would actually be a better project than the DDRHOMEPAD, for various reasons:
* This would apply to many games. There are thousands of ROMS that I know exist, and probably more than that. Probably an infinite number. (It could be modified so the joysticks and various buttons applied to a PS2 or XBox controller instead of USB. Thus, console gaming in an arcade shell.) By contrast, the DDRHOMEPAD would work for but one game: Stepmania. (A game that arguably emulates around 15+ games, but games that are functionally indistinguishable.)
* Again, no sheet metal or Lexan. Maybe a sheet to cover the monitor. And the margins of error in measurement for the arcade cabinet are arguably larger than that for the DDRHOMEPAD.
* Even after I'd finished building the DDRHOMEPAD, I'd still go to the arcade to play DDR, because there is such a thing as being a Score Whore: It gives me pride to know that no one has beaten my only Machine Record #1 on the In The Groove machine at FunWorld in Nashua (Funk Factory, medium difficulty, 97.59%) for at least a few months.
As for the MAME cabinet, there aren't any arcades nearby that have the wide range of games I'd be able to emulate. All the fighters, shooters (with a USB light gun), and, if I decide to implement a racing wheel, drivers, designed between the rise of the age of arcade video games (late 70s, early 80s) and the point where everyone started switching to 3d systems with proprietary hardware (mid-90s or so). Just one example: At the Brunswick Zone in Lowell, there appeared one day a NeoGeo machine with a Double Dragon fighting game. My brother and I each played a few rounds, then we left the arcade. We never saw it or a similar machine again. I downloaded the ROM a while back, and found out just how much of a horrific piece of crap that game really was. But I'd still play it again once in a while. All arcade players have a game like this one. It's not very popular, but for some reason, you played it a lot and still will, for all the memories it brought back. For me, it's that Double Dragon game. And also Zero Point.
Why did I decide to build the DDRHOMEPAD, then? I was thinking that a DDRHOMEPAD might be an easier thing to bring for a LAN party than a MAME cabinet. (I've already begun thinking about some kind of wheel assembly involving a wooden base that can be removed when you need it to move, and put in place when it needs to be stationery, a base that can be folded up and placed in a small cabinet in the side...but I'm getting ahead of myself.) But I think bringing an arcade machine to a LAN party might be more fun. Which brings me to the topic of LAN parties, which I'll cover in my next post, probably later this week.
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