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This post is intended as a short article centred on how we manage the gaming experience for our customers. I’ve focussed on:

• How and why we give priority to gaming traffic on our network.
• How we identify specific games and add new ones to our database.

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Well the LAN Party has been and gone, thanks to all that came in person and those that wanted to be able to make it. The day was a great success and that is down to you for showing your support and making it a really good fun day.

I’d like to extend a big thank you to the S.L.U.G.S, that’s the Sheffield University Lan Gaming Society for their great support on this event. They made up 2 full teams for the tournament and part of a 3rd team so thanks again guys. Hopefully you all enjoyed yourself and will be interested if we do this in future.

I’ll go through the way things shaped up for the day, this includes an early embarrassment for most of the staff players

It was a bit touch and go with the network set-up and there were apparently some ‘minor’ glitches on Friday evening with the VLAN we had set up. This was resolved before Saturday and I’m pleased to say the only people that had issues were 2 members of staff! One of them couldn’t get his PC to recognise the network card and then when we managed to eventually get him online his machine decided it didn’t want to play and kept crashing.

In addition to the LAN Party games we had other entertainment throughout the day. The Xbox 360 and Wii were proving popular and some people went through onto the pool tables in the canteen. Large amounts of coffee were consumed and the coke machine was nearly emptied by the end.

The guests started arriving at 9am and continued right through till Midday. The turnout was good and we ended up with 5 full 6 man teams for the main afternoon competition.
Once everyone had arrived and settled in we had a welcome presentation from Mark Kelly outlining the order of events for the day and the prizes on offer.

Shortly after this the refreshments were ordered, 40 large pizzas from a well known outlet (they had to get help from another one of the local branches to make sure it was all ready).
By the time 2pm came around everyone had plenty of practice time and the tournament was set to start. Due to there being an odd number of teams we only had 1 first round match with the other teams getting a bye straight into the Semis.

The layout of the tournament was 15 minutes on each side with a coin toss for map choice and starting side.

Round 1 Match

Staff Team vs Team 3

Team 3 won the toss and decided on Italy for the map. The staff started off very confident, big mistake as after the first 15 minutes they were 9 - 3 down! The pizza has arrived, everyone runs off to eat which means we have to delay the second half of this opening match. The break doesn’t really help the staff as the second half finishes 10 - 1, meaning the staff team went out 19-4 overall.

Semi Final 1

Team 1 vs Team 2

IIRC this was on Italy too although I can’t remember who won the toss. The first half is very tight, going into the changeover with only 1 round separating the 2 teams, Team 1 are 5 - 4 up. The second half is a bit more one-sided with Team 1 dominating and running away 7 - 2 winners, this meant the overall score was 11 - 7. Team 1 head into the final with Team 2 going into the 3rd/4th place play-off.

Semi Final 2

Team 3 vs Team 4

After beating the highly fancied staff team, Team 3 were full of confidence, oops! I can’t remember which map this was on (I have a feeling it was Office) but TBH it didn’t really matter as Team 4 storm into a 10 - 1 halftime lead. This means Team 3 needs to win the first few in the second half. They didn’t and Team 4 won by a comprehensive 10 - 0, totalling 20 - 1 over the match.

3rd/4th Place Play-Off

Team 2 vs Team 3

Once again memory let’s me down, however I have a suspicion this match was on dust. The first half of this match ended with Team 3 having a mammoth 10 - 0 lead. The second half was much tighter but unfortunately we didn’t get a result as the server went AWOL with a 5 - 4 score on the board. After a discussion with both teams it was decided the deficit was too great and the match awarded to Team 3.

Final

Team 1 vs Team 4

Before I give the results of the final I have to mention that there was actually a member of staff in the final playing for Team 1, ME! I was drafted in before the semi-final as they only had 5 players. Even my 1337 skills couldn’t save Team 1 as we tumble to a 10 - 0 halftime defeat. The second half starts and we get a round on the board, unfortunately we don’t win any more and lost 20 - 1 overall. Even when Team 4 decided they weren’t going to use their guns and just knives we couldn’t defeat them. So congratulations to the worthy winners, Team 4.

We now come to the prize presentations, performed by Neil Armstrong.

3rd Place - Team 3 receive a 1GB USB Flash memory drive per player.

2nd Place - Team 1 each get a 1GB USB Flash memory drive and a £50 PC World voucher

1st Place - Team 4 each get a £50 PC World voucher and a wireless keyboard, mouse, headset and speakerphone set.

We also gave 1 lucky winner a years free BBYW Pro subscription, congratulations Xulfer (see I can spell it right ).

As I was also in the final and therefore won a prize there was an extra lucky dip for my 1GB USB memory stick and £50 voucher, as a member of staff I was ineligible to win So congratulations go to Steve W who got those prizes.

Once again many thanks to everyone involved in making this day a great success and we hope to be able to run another one in the future.

Chris

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Well here we go, we now have a plan for the LAN Party, a date confirmed and a list of prizes. Keep reading for details on how YOU can come join the fun.
If this is the first you have heard of this, where have you been? Have a read through my previous post on the subject.

Fragfest at PlusNet Towers

We are looking for people to come play at a LAN Party on the 20th October, don’t worry if you aren’t a PlusNet customer, you don’t need to be. All you need is a PC and CounterStrike: Source. We will have some other games going on too but this is going to be the main one. The age limit is 16+ but you can invite people that aren’t PlusNet customers if you want. Just let us know their names at the email address below.

It’s looking 99% likely that the actual tournament itself will be based on CounterStrike : Source. Don’t worry if you aren’t a good CS player, it doesn’t matter. We are going to have other games running for fun at the same time. It’s looking likely to be Day of Defeat : Source, Team Fortress 2 (beta) and maybe one or two other games. We’ll confirm these nearer the time.

We are going to be starting around 9am and finishing at around 9pm, with the main tournament taking place in the afternoon 2-7ish.
So how do I enter? - Simple, email me at lanparty@gameservers.plus.com with your name and return email address and I’ll get you added to the list.

What can I win? - We have a selection of prizes for those in the tournament and also a chance of winning something for those that don’t do so well. We’ll post the prize list up shortly.

It’s going to be held here at PlusNet Towers (Tenter Street, Sheffield), so make sure you are available on the 20th October and get your application in before the 12th October otherwise you may miss out on this.

Happy Fraggin’

Chris

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Hi there, I’m sure most of you have seen the recent blog posts on the gaming servers we have been introducing.

Rather than making a new post each time we add a new server, I’ve decided to make things easier and keep a list on here of the IP addresses of the servers and the games running on them.

So far we have the following games:-

Counter Strike : Source
212.159.6.233:27015 - 32 slots
212.159.6.233:27035 - 32 slots

Team Fortress 2
212.159.6.241:27011 - 24 slots
212.159.6.241:27030 - 24 slots

Enemy Territory : Quake Wars
212.159.6.249:27733
212.159.6.249:27735

Insurgency
212.159.6.245:27015

CounterStrike : 1.6
212.159.6.237:27035 - 20 slots
212.159.6.237:27015 - 20 slots

I’ll keep this blog updated with the new games and servers as we add them, so get this bookmarked!

Happy Fraggin’

Chris

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