October Newsletter

Greetings. Time for a little tidbit on the past and upcoming events. The October LAN introduced the gameserver. I am happy to say that with the exception of the Serious Sam co-op limitation of 8 players, there were no issues with the gameserver. No lockups, no BSOD, and no major lag. The event seem to roll along pretty smoothly. The install script appeared to work better this time as well. The only issue I can see is that we start feeding from such few sources so it takes a bit till everyone gets the files. I will be looking at other methods in addition to the script to speed that up. As you may recall from the August LAN, we had a stat server set up so you could see your frag-abilites. Unfortunately the Free BSD box that it was on decided to head south the night before. BUT, we did log everything, and you can now see them online. Speaking of the website, how many of you really use it? Hastinger puts money out of his pocket for that (as well as his time). Is that something that appeals to everyone? To use it. To host our stats on it? In other words, to help pay for it? LOL. About half of the money for the server parts was made up at the October LAN, due only to a light showing. Hastinger is preparing to upgrade the web package so we can host 'mo better' stuff, like the stats. To upgrade the site it will cost another $60.00 a year.  Not too terrible.  Currently the website and domain cost us $70 a year, which Hastinger absorbs.   Upgrading will allow us to basically do whatever we want on the website, such as polls, forums, stats logging, news feeds, Montana LAN email addresses, etc.  If you guys will use these features, we will implement them. So, our little events have taken a turn for the more complicated. We have a server and a website.  I am anticipating another $50 for server fees. The only thing we really need for the server is an SATA harddrive. So, for now the future costs include paying off the server and upgrading the website. Should we still feel like we have deep pockets, the only step I can see after that is the harddrive. So, there is the state of the union, monetarily speaking. Next topic is when to have the next LAN. Christmas eve and New Years eve fall on Saturdays this year, so I am leaning towards Saturday January 7th for the next one. Give us some feedback on what you think about that. Normally we have that at Hoopers, but this year I think we will have it at Birch Grove Community Center. It allows me to play and not have to worry about the business downstairs. The sooner we decide on a date, the sooner I reserve the Community Center. Upcoming games could include Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2. Happy Holidays Gents.
Sulfurious