Sept 19-21 Showdown Lan San Mateo

[kuyaglen]

Who: Maximum PC & PC Gamer w/ PDXLan Staff
What: Showdown Lan CA (San Mateo)
When: Friday Sept 19 6:00pm - Sunday Sept 21 6:00pm
Where: San Mateo Event Center & Expo 2495 South Delaware Street San Mateo, CA 94403
Why: Because
website: Showdown Lan (http://www.showdownlan.com/CA/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)
Map: link (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2495+S.+Delaware+Street,+san+mateo,+ca&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=51.443116,82.265625&ie=UTF8&t=k&z=17&iwloc=addr)

Cost:$40 before Sept 15th, $60 after Sept 15th
Size: 500 Seat BYOC

Tournaments: COD5, CS:S, TF2, StarCraft:Brood War

There's a good chance I may go to this one.

[Swagger]

Im in.


Perhaps a carpool should be in order.

[Silly]

does amd have anything whatsoever to do with this? if so I think we're gonna be changing our name to 3rd worst lan evar real soon :roll:

[Swagger]

does amd have anything whatsoever to do with this?

Don't think so.

But that loud mouth dude from AMD/ATI is now with Palit....I noticed that BFG is on the sponsor list so he may or may not be their.

[GotNoRice]

I registered but I think I might end up regretting it, again...

The main thing I’m sort of worried about is that this is NOT a 24 hour event. From 2am to 8am or so each night they kick everyone out and close down the entire event. Now I know some people like that and I guess it might even be pretty convenient if you’re one of those that are taking advantage of the “special discount rate” of $115/night at the nearby hotel. But for the rest of us WTF are we going to do for 6 hours each night in the middle of fucking San Mateo? They even said specifically that you can’t sleep in your car in the parking lot either. Thanks showdown for making it easy and cheap!

Beyond that they have some pretty silly items in their FAQ that only lead me to believe that they are out of touch with the reality of LAN event.

Power management for the LAN is planned in advance and strictly enforced. 600W is the maximum power supply allowed.

Hmmm, k. I have a 650 and I’m not even running SLI or Crossfire, what about people with truly beastly rigs? Beyond the fact that the wattage rating of your power supply really does not directly correspond to your computers power consumption, this just seems like something they put in their so they can point fingers when their lack of advanced planning causes power problems at the event. Coming off Nvision, where they really went above and beyond and didn’t seem to care what kind of computer you had or even if you had 2 monitors, etc, this seems pretty half-ass.

You can have 1 monitor per seat.

CRT Monitors may not exceed 21"
LCD Monitors may not exceed 24"

I don’t see what the point of this is; if someone wants to drag in their 30” to the LAN what is the big deal? People were doing it at AGLAN, people were doing it at Nvision, people do it all the time. I guess showdown can’t handle it? I’d bet that power consumption for a 25.5-30” LCD is still lower than many old 21” CRT’s, so what’s the point?

The Showdown network consists of a Gigabit backbone to each table attached to a 24 port 100mb switch delivered to each gamer. 100MB is enough to do that which the LAN is for, gaming.

Cool, another ancient mid-90’s style 100Mbit network. Gigabit has been around for so long now there is really no excuse anymore other than being cheap or lazy.

I certainly hope I’m just being pessimistic.

[Swagger]

I certainly hope I’m just being pessimistic.

If youve been to PDX...I think you have a pretty good idea of what this lan should be like.

[FAngel]

Debating on this one. Last years was so bad that I was Jonsing for another Intel lan.

[kuyaglen]

If youve been to PDX...I think you have a pretty good idea of what this lan should be like.

Well thats only if Vector has control of scheduling...which was one of the reasons Showdown 2 was ill-tasting. As far as closing down the lan, I too am surprised (since I thought this was gonna be a PDX only thing), but I guess having 3 lans to foot the bill for, cutting corners and saving some cash by not paying for overnight security/staff or whatnot was more of a factor than anything.

If your gonna look for a big heavily sponsored lan to go 24/7, dont look to anything PDX or magazine companies. The funding, the manpower and maybe the heart, just isn't there.

[Boss99]

Considering that I had to pick one of the two, I'm glad I selected nVision.

[kuyaglen]

So whats the plan for tomorrow fellas?

[Gremlin]

I will be coming on Sunday and steal someone's system to play games on

[kuyaglen]

http://www.glencastillo.com/tmc/showdownlan2008/

Friday
-rode up with Swagger
-got lost
-got some COD4 gaming in, till 2:00am shutdown

Saturday
-met up with Gremlin
-breakfast at Stacks
-played some TF2
-played some beta Sacred 2
-had dinner with some Nvidia dudes
-played some GRID

Sunday
-Safeway bbq/hot chicken wings
-Scavenger Hunt
-TMC Raffle domination
-Dinner at sushi place
-I suck