LAN-o-ween 2016 (img heavy) (Destiny)

by Revenant1988 , How do I forum?, Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 22:00 (2369 days ago)

Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange
Come with us and you will see,
This our place of lan-o-ween

This is lan-o-ween, this is lan-o-ween,
Paddy screams in the dead of night
This is Lan-o-ween, everybody make a scene,
Videogames till the neighbors come and die of fright

Lan-o-ween 2016.

No, that isn’t a typo. Like a zombie rising from the grave on this Hallowed of Eves, so rises the lan write up of yester year.

Groovy.

After my successful first PAX (maybe I’ll get around to writing that up someday ….) I was already coming off a wonderful community sponsored high but after months of hoping and planning, it seemed like the stars were finally aligning for Paddy to host a community party of his own. He confirmed that lan-o-ween was a ‘go’ and it would be here fast- a mere month away.

TWO, B.Org events in one year! Our cups runneth over!

Scare with me here, as it’s been a year since we all joined together for that fright filled weekend and my brain has been half eaten, but I remember most of it and will give you the best Rev-spective I can.

Paddy had been talking about hosting this thing for months, but he lacked the one thing we needed most- a venue. That year it came to us from JDQuackers (RIP, he got dad’ed and took a newborn to the xbox :P) . It turns out JD’s mom had a really nice house and was going to be out of town for a weekend, so he did the responsible thing and asked if he could invite 20 people from the internet over.

With a lan-house secured, Paddy set out to gather his little witches. Organizing a good LAN is no easy task, if you want it to be SPOOKY, that is. Fortunately, Paddy had the benefit of having been to a few B.Org LANS in the last few years and had access to the hosts of those parties to ply with questions, knowing what already works and what doesn’t etc.
Our little sub group of the B.Org has been meeting up yearly for the last 5 years or so, with esteemed hosts such as Bones(RIP), Me (DED), B2theRyanNewman (kek), Bluerunner (run) and a smattering of TSD spinoff episodes. I guess what I’m getting at here is the roster was basically already set, Paddy needed only to light the beacon and we’d be there. And so it was! The required LAN spreadsheet went live, equipment was inventoried, foodstuffs requested and transportation arranged.

Day 1

It was determined that Korny + Sammy (and brother Ivan) would be driving up from Georgia a day early to hang out with Jackie and I, and then Professor Bonkle would join us and we’d head over to PA. We got the car packed and then spent some time lounging around my place, checking out some of my various props and projects, and talking about our shared creative outlets, among other things. Being October, Jackie would not be joining us this year as she had other commitments. Oh well!

The next morning, I had planned to make Breakfast for everyone, but made a mistake by preparing ingredients too early in an attempt to be efficient that ended up being wasteful. I then forgot that I needed to *save* the bacon grease to fry up the potatoes and ruined it anyway. Whale…… it was getting pretty scungry at that point. So after some quick cereal we hit the road for the drive to Pittsburgh Transylvania.

The drive over wasn’t terribly eventful, Korny is a decent freeway driver and apparently has a beef with any pickup truck he has to share the road with. We swapped music, talked games and community until we started getting close to JD’s house where Korny’s driving skills suddenly went out the window

Me: “Korny, you totally blew through that stop sign!”

Korny: “Not true! Name three!”

Thankfully, we made it to JD’s house safely.

Several B.Org folk were already there waiting for us. The party was just getting started.
We all laid claim to our various sleeping locations. I ended up sharing a room with Nart, where we had our own beds complete with OG MightyMorphin Power Ranger sheets. Fuck. Yeah.

Sammy, Jennos and Nart cooked some good grub for us all. Also, spicy food is not spicy enough for Nart. We capped off the evening hanging out, throwing back some beer and just duding out until our voices are tired from laughter and folks started heading to bed.
Gotta save that energy, we’re gonna need it.

Our poor bodies.

Day 2

Our annual LAN\Gatherings usually follow a format-

Day 1 ~ People arrive throughout the day and we all catch up and laugh the night away, inevitably losing our voices in the first few hours.

Day 2 ~ We game, muthafucka. All. Day. All. Night.

Day 3 ~ Laid back. We head out as a group to see the sights, go out to eat etc. Party games spaced out through the day.

Day 4 ~ We say our tearful goodbyes, until the next time

As we all started waking up, Sammy took up cooking detail and started slinging breakfast, and as the day went other meals as well. Pro tip: get the fuck outta sammy’s way when she’s cooking. She may be 3 feet tall but she’ll mow your ass down.

Once breakfast was done we all got our various consoles and displays setup for a day of fragging. This LAN marked our first real foray into a dual console ecosystem between various Xboxes and PS4s. Most of us had split down the middle to XB1 or PS4, which introduces some challenges, however we all still had our 360’s so we spent the day playing the series that brought all to this community in the first place – Halo.

Typically we play each title, working our way up to the most current. As the years progress and more Halo games come out, this naturally gets harder, but it’s only been exacerbated by the XB1\PS4 divide. We couldn’t LAN Halo 5 because it doesn’t support LAN or split screen play, which is a bummer. MCC was also off the table, as it requires everyone to be online for custom games hosted on a server, and logistically we just were not going to be getting that traffic on JD’s mom’s home wifi. It’s unfortunate, because for many of us (and myself in particular) we had hoped that MCC would be the all-in-one, LAN-in-a-box.

Well, that chapter has already been written and it didn’t pan out, what can I say. Recent news from 343 gives hope for the future though. Who knows! :)

This year we skipped CE, played a little Halo 2, a little Halo 3 and Reach. We even managed to squeeze in the annual ODST challenge*.

I gotta say, it’s been really interesting to play Halo in these setups over the years. Time is not kind to our Halo skills, which kinda works out because it evens the playing field considerably. Well, except for Nart. That guy is a beast.

My personal favorites are the Big Team Objective battles (any Halo), and these LANs always have that in spades. There is just something special about CTF with 16 of your friends. Highlights that I can remember are some party games in Halo 3, Bluerunner’s Sanghelie don’t surf in Reach (it’s got a sweet video, if you’ve never seen it you should look it up) , Korny’s brother breaking a game of Pete_the_Duck’s musical chairs because he selected an Elite as his avatar and a bunch of other classics.

While all this is going on, Paddy is taking notes and passing out….. uh…… prizes, for various feats of skill that only he, can determine in a gauntlet known as “The Paddy Cup” .

What…..exactly the Paddy cup is, is hard to explain. Even if I could….. eh. You just have to experience it. No matter who loses, he wins.

Even though they fight on the battlefield, they take it to heart <3

If the list of games sounds a little short, you’d be correct for noticing- for we experienced a power outage mid-LAN. Occasionally this happens -maybe we’ve got too many devices on one circuit, and have to rearrange- usually no big deal.

Well we did that, everything came back online for a few minutes. We started to get back into Halo and then power went out again. Except this time we couldn’t get it to come back on.

Uh oh.

It didn’t take long for JD and crew to determine that it wasn’t just us, the whole neighborhood had lost power. JD confirmed after a call to the local power company, unfortunately they didn’t have an ETA on when things would be back and running but didn’t think it would take long. That did little to calm our group however, as mere minutes into the outage signs of cabin fever began to set in. It was so bad that Nart just got up, and like, went for a bike ride.

Anarchy I tell you.

Kermit decided that would be a good time to go hunt for a PS VR kit and took Stabbim with him, leaving us losers to fend for ourselves.

So we gathered in the main room for warmth as the temperature in the house dropped and we played various card games, such as Joking Hazard and Cards against humanity. Bluerunner took a nap. Eventually power did come back on, I think it was less than 2 hours total. To this day, I don’t think we ever learned if *we* were the cause of the outage in that area or if it was coincidental.

Either way, it’s much too spooky for me.

We got back into the gaming groove and played the ODST challenge. For those of you unfamiliar, we load up Halo 3: ODST, draw cards, and split into teams of 4. Those teams of 4 then compete in a game of firefight. The team with the highest score after 15 minutes wins. I think this is the 4th time we’ve done the challenge, and every time it is a tense competition. The teams get to practice on the map for 5-10 minutes, talking strategy, relearning controls and weapon cache locations.

The game starts, the room gets quiet. Each team starts with their pre-planned strategy, hoping to emerge victorious. Then you get rushed with a group of plasma grenade grunts, realize you don’t remember the controls as well as you thought you did and get blown to smithereens.

You picked a hell of a day to join up, Hell Jumper.

The room gets progressively louder, the voice of the announcer -NO LIVES REMAINING-, the muffled cough of the silenced SMG, the shouts of teammates, the crash of the Chieftain Gravity hammer on your unsuspecting neighbor- it’s chaos and poetry in motion. I forget who was on each team, but I know my team didn’t win this year. Maybe next time. Paddy had some sweet prizes for the first place team, some Bungie swag if memory serves.

The rest of the evening we ate, drank, and Halo’d until we could Halo no more.

Day 3

Ah Sunday. The aftermath. And we’re not even done yet. Typically everyone wakes up a little later and that would hold true this weekend. JDQuackers returned with his wife and quacklings in tow, to witness grown men eat Halloween candy for breakfast. We cleaned up the place a bit, and then retreated to the living room to try out the PlayStation VR kit and play some party games like Jack Box and one that revolved around paring up random phrases and images that were pre-drawn before the game starts. I don’t remember what it was, but the combinations and in-jokes it created were equal parts awesome and terrible. I know this because I won a T-Shirt I can, for better or worse only wear at future BORG LANs, like some kind of cotton spun albatross around my torso.

We then started upon the first LIVE, IN PERSON B.ORG GUILT-O-LANTERN CONTEST. I brought my dremels and some various Halo and Destiny stencils to share. It didn’t take long for us all to set out to work on our carvings. The results were pretty dang good considering we were under a time crunch as a few folks had to head home. All in all, it was an unqualified success. I suggested to Bluerunner that if he ever hosts a southern Lanboree again that we do this, then go pumpkin chuckin. Fingers crossed.

As the afternoon progressed and a few departed, we settled back into the party games and some Destiny. We had a small opportunity to attempt the first live, in person DBO Raid but it didn’t pan out as most were enthralled taking turns on the PS VR.

LAN play for Destiny continues to elude us for now… I think with good broadband connection, that it is feasible to maybe get raid group or two going, but large scale multiple player matches will be out of reach. Hopefully the custom games in D2 (when then release) are an improvement over what we had in D1. Maybe some fireteam tournaments can be arranged. Until then, I hope we can keep testing and see what works and what doesn’t.

Eventually the evening wound down and Paddy took us to one of his favorite establishments for an evening of food and drinks, before retreating to the LAN house for our last evening of casual gaming and drinking.

Day 4

All good things come to an end, including this one. As folks work up and consumed the remaining Halloween candy and food, others began the process of packing up their consoles and TVs. It’s always bittersweet. For some of us, this was the first time our 360s had been booted up in more than a year, and some (like mine) are probably still in their coffins, labeled with a piece of tape and their owners name. Only to be started again for the next LAN.

Wake me, when you need me.

After everything was packed up, we did our best to help JD and Paddy clean up the messes we made, put things back where we found them and hopefully restore the house back to normal (Big shout out to JD’s mom for allowing us to party at her place! We can’t thank you enough).For the ride back to Ohio, Bonkle and I hitched a ride in Bones’ car as he would be passing our way, allowing Korny’s Krew to head straight back to Georgia. We eventually made it back home, having good conversations along the way and making up for lost time, yet it was as if no time had passed at all since we last met. Another successful B.ORG LAN, and hopefully not the last.

And that’s it Boils and Ghouls, as best I can recall it.

Thrilleerrrr

I’ve got a ton more pictures from Korny’s camera that I’m working on getting uploaded, so I’ll update this post when I have them ready.

Hopefully you enjoyed reading about our escapades. My words truly do not convey how awesome these experiences are and how much fun we have. You kinda just have to be there to get it. We’ve got a special community, to be sure.

If you’ve ever been on the fence about attending a BORG meetup, be it at PAX or an individual host, - don’t be. It’s worth everything it takes to make it happen. To the next one!!

Happy Halloween!