LAN News Update

Tuesday the 7th June 2005 - 9:00pm : Time for another update. The 2nd Quamby LAN Junior (held by my younger brother) will be happening this weekend, so most likely i will take part in that or i will be forced to give up my PC to his sweaty friends who come with laptops.

In other news i will be updating this page soon to contain a Calendar that will show upcoming LAN events and any affiliate LANs that are happening in the near future. This should be a neat feature, and i have the choice of a user editable one, or a simple pop-up one. At this stage my chioce wil be determined by Tripod's crappy hosting options.

Also the "Bloodlust" LAN will be held on Saturday the 25th of June for anyone interested - give me an email and i'll tell you the details

The Lost 13th Quamby LAN

Tuesday the 25th May 2005 - 8:44pm : Well its been a Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong long time since i updated this page, so long in fact that i don't think anyone even considers checking it ever. for any reason. I spose for the sake of completeness i should put here that the 13th Quamby LAN was held (with minor sucess) on 2nd October 2004. We had a couple of new faces join us for the first time and a bunch of fun, playing Halo, Warcraft 3 and Battlefield 1942 after we finally got it working.

In the mean time i have sated my lust for LAN by attending 2 more "Gold Class LAN"'s which from now on we shall refer to as the Laverton RAAF LAN. That and by playing my brothers at multiple different games of whatever on weekends when we had nothing to do.

But its about time that i revived a long dead tradition of staying up all night and getting blurry eyes and yelling stupid stuff.

So i'm revamping the website, over the next three weeks or so - to include a more interactive comments and game poll system, as well as making it easier to update this news page by putting it in BLOG form - (not MSN space form which sucks)

Quamby LAN 12 ???

Friday 26^th March 2004 1:35 pm - Many People have asked me "Mark when is the next Quamby LAN", at last count it has been 5 people in the previous 2 weeks. This is generally a sign that people want some more Quamby LAN action. so here's the dealyo - the ONLY time that i have this semester that is appropriate for another LAN will be the week after easter, from Good Friday till the next Monday. I doubt that people will want a mid-week LAN so my proposed date for the LAN is
Saturday the 17th April
this date is far enough in the future to give people warning to cancel work commitments and still be in our mid semester break from Uni. If this date suits people then i think this time, the LAN will run from say 3:00pm Saturday till 12:00 pm Sunday, this gives me enough time in the morning to do the mandatory LAN VAN run into glenferrie to pick up the uni crew.
Misc News Concerning Quamby LAN developments (hardware):
This should probably be in three seperate News segments, but its easier to tack it on this one.
1/. The recent purchase of a 4 port 100 meg switch means that the Quamby LAN can now support (in un-expanded form) 12 computers (6 of them on 100 meg connections) when we hold Quamby LAN's and people bring switches along this is expanded to 32 computers (23 on 100meg) so from now on, we should have enough ports to run everyone at high speed.
2/. The Quamby Fileserver "Chomper" has been retired from active service, as it was total overkill for our LAN needs - AMD 2400+, it has been replaced with an Ex-buisness Server box known as "Dual" it runs dual P2 350Mhz processors and has 3x SCSI 10000 RPM, fast seek drives. The Basic layout is the same, it runs E-Smith server 6.2 and allows Windows filesharing, Apache Webserver, streaming MP3's, DNS resolution etc. The www.Quamby.LAN site has been revamped (your currently viewing www.Quamby.org) with frames, to allow faster access to files via HTML and browser interface (as a alternative to filesharing)
3/. Quamby goes Wireless - The purchase of a Wireless access point and its addition to the Quamby LAN, initially for the support of my brothers Laptop computers, means that the Quamby LAN can now support up to 20 computers over 802.11g wireless networking. while this is fantastic for internet connection sharing and moderate bandwidth gaming, it is not all that great for bandwidth hogging filesharing apps (such as DC++). All users on the Wireless share the same 54Kbps (compare ethernet cable at 100Kbps) bandwidth to access anything on the network, so the more Wireless connections there are, the slower they all are. This means that the Quamby.wlan domain will be useful if we run out of space in the rumpus room, but will never replace the CAT5 cable mess we usually use.

Quamby LAN 11 and Gold Class LAN in review

Friday 26^th March 2004 1:00 pm - Well things just keep getting bigger and bigger. Quamby LAN 11 was quite a smash hit, with 14 participants, a host of newer games and some basking in the glow of a new computer (namely my own). Having built my machine only a few days before i obviously spent ages installing everything that we intended to play. but that didn't stop me from participating in some rousing games of Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat, Warcraft 3 and yes, even Counter strike. We also saw the addition of a Gamecube and an X-Box to the list of participating hardware. Also the advent of the future was heralded by the arrival of our first PC with LCD monitor, a rarity among gamers who prefer 21", heavy as all hell, large and in charge CRT monitors. Greater use of DC++ filesharing meant that times spent installing games and waiting for patches were greatly reduced. Overall a good LAN, that ran out of steam at about 8:30 in the morning sunday.

Next item of news is the luck invite of myself and a few other Quamby gamers to the GoldClass LAN. Held on the RAAF base at Laverton the LAN was the first chance ive had to get my PC out and about. I took Stumpy (my server box) along for the ride and it performed very well as a DC hub and Roger Wilco server. It was a different experience to get some LAN game on with some other folks, and see how they do LAN. The atmosphere was fantastic, with weapon schematics across the walls and camo netting on the roof, and even a mess waiter coming around to serve drinks (beer, bourbon, coke you name it). The greatest difference was in the games we played. We never even TOUCHED half-life, (except to inpect a new Mod called "Sven Co-op" where the bots are stronger than you) and spent a Lot of time in Halo, and surprisingly Medal of Honour - Allied Assault. This game proved to be a winner in both scale and multiplayer enjoyment. The levels were never too big and its deathmatch style was tempered by its rock/paper/scissors style weapons. As in indication of how much we liked it, we spent over 5 hours playing before we decided to change. Variey was maintained with Warcraft 3, Battlefield and Desert combat. Overall a great LAN experience and we can learn from it to make Quamby even better.

Quamby LAN 11 - anyone ?

Wednesday 3^rd September 2003 11:30 pm - Well well, its happened again - 3 people have asked me "when is the next Quamby LAN" in the past week - so that means its a definite - people want Quamby (quotes sid meyers Civilisation 1) "CITIZENS DEMAND QUAMBY LAN ACTION" so yeah the proposed dates are Sunday the 28th of September or Saturday the 4th October (both in my mid semester break) - and gang you better be good for those days - cause the invite list has just topped 40 !! which means a predicted turnout of 15 - 20 regulars!! and thats just damn huge. where oh where am i going to find the tables to squeeze you all in ? now all i have to do is format my current computer and buy my new computer and get my hands on a copy of Homeworld 2 in the next 3-4 weeks - Not impossible, is it ?

Oh yeah - the "games" page is due for an update, bigtime - the quizes are all wrong, and the game reviews are now out of date, however with uni being like it is, i doubt that i will have time to do it before the next LAN, so bear with me.

Quamby LAN ummm i think its 10 ...

Wednesday 25^th June 2003 12:00 am - Hey everyone, as you probably already know the next Quamby LAN - the 10th of such occasions thus far held, will be happening on Saturday the 5th of July. So you better be ready for it !! invites go out asap so warn all those you know to keep the date open !

A Post Exams Quamby LAN ?

Monday 26^th May 2003 1:30 pm - I think that People are hanging out for the next Quamby LAN, and i am happy to say that there is one on the way . The Next LAN will be either in the last week of june or the first week of july. After exams and during our mid year break (*laughs at those who have no break*) The date is still TBA but it will most likely be an all day Saturday LAN with a possible overnight for those who wish it. All regulars are invited, so inform those who you know that the most important event on your callander is about to happen !!

8th and 9th LAN's in review !

Tuesday 1^st April 2003 4:30 pm - Hey - check out the day - its april fools day! And just the day to update the Quamby LAN webpages - because I have a maths test tomorrow and i need to study. Firstly i haven't reviewed the 8^th or 9^th Quamby LAN for those who didn't make it. The 8^th LAN went off without a hitch barring the fact that many regular LAN gamers couldn't make it for that day .. damn ... ahh well .. The 9^th LAN was much more of a success with the regular Quamby Crew welcoming our first female participant - and seveal guests throughout the day. Filesharing ran rampant throughout the evening and a rocking game of starcraft made up for the total lack of strategy games at the 8^th LAN.

This much i will say - EVERYONE is getting sick and tired of counter-strike as a game - and pissed off every time someone suggets another half-life mod to play. SO the solution as i see it is this - I will endevour to update the Games page - and everyone who wants to voice their opion on what game to play, can do so - BY VOTING FOR IT !! - is that plain enough.

I am also assuming that more people have better computers now .. and so if a game can run on my machine i will no longer bag it as being too heavy on hardware requirements - which means that all the reviews on the games page will be updated - old games removed and newly released games added- so get an eyeful - ok !!