So after this latest bout of darma with another poopie LAN, I am wondering, in all my grand diploamcy, Why do other LAN's suck?

Is it due to the tournaments? Tournaments are ass. Nothing sucks the life out of the room faster than a tourney. Sure they sound fun to a few but in general no one wants a time frame to their LANs.

Is it the fact that they take themselves waaaay too seriously? LANs are about fun and *gasp* human interaction. Thinking you are making the next greatest SUPAR DUPAR Sac LAN that is going to go worldwide yada yada is the domaine of the newbie. No one likes an attitude and holier-than-thou mentality thrust at them by organizers (probably why I am never invited to the promotion of a LAN), but it does seem to be common among LANs. Plus that whole know-it-all attitude is not conducive to growing and learning from your mistakes. It is always amusing to see people get all defensive about a mistake. It's nothing personal, if something sucks maybe you should fix it rather than balk and flame soembody.

Over Sponsoring? I was worried about this after Vandy started hitting up sponsors, but he did it perfectly. I ran into this in racing as you see people waaaay to sponsored that they are no longer having fun and those around them don't have fun. Sponship is there to enhance your LAN, not to dominate it. Hang some banners, throw some stickers around, make it fun, not oppressive. Nothing is a fun-vampire more than somebody needing to have the NVIDIA LIAN-LI EIDOS tournament at 4:13 PM that will run exactly 24 minutes before the ATI DORITOS AMD tournament begins.

Rules Nazis? I understand the no porn thing to some extent... at least when you are having an all-ages LAN in this sue-happy world. But I've seen all sorts of "interesting" rules from no cussing, to no yelling, to no outside food. The cussing kinda goes back to all ages, but I'm sorry tough cookies if junior hears the f-bomb. Welcome to real life. Yelling? That one is great... uh yeah nothing whispers fun like a library. If you can't handle a little cussing and yelling, you really shouldn't be holding a LAN.

Show me the money! I know this hits home for a buch of us here at FLG. *spoiler alert* A lot of us were with LANtrocity!!! We have seen the great tide of money making schemes come and go. LANs are not about making money. Be happy to break even. Put them on for fun, but to get rich it won't happen. And before we get some yahoo in here saying he made $2000 bucks on a LAN, might I say wow! So did I this week. The more you try to cut costs and make money, the lamer your LAN is. That does not work in the inverse however. A poorly planned LAN will suck just as much and you will losing money while boring or pissing off a whole buch of people.

All Day/Weekend LANs? These suck. there is no getting by it. This may sound "Awesome!" to kids but after 12-14 hours of palying games and sitting on your but, you really don't want to keep going. It puts a huge amount of pressure on the whole LAN anyway as they have to figure out how to keep the LAN going hour after hour. Here is a hint: you can't. There is olny so much people are willing to play befoerthey get bored. People have lives other than gaming.. .well maybe except for those who will die virgins.

Damn outsiders? I know this is a big one for me. I know FLG and most of these guys are fun people to be around. We have our mixture of dorks, nerds, geeks, etc. but for the most part these guys know how to have fun. They can carry a conversation, teach you a buttload on certain subjects, and have more to their lives than games. It seems that "outsiders" tend to try and be cool are super-geeks, trolls, etc. the's rather come in here and keyboard commando it and flex their finger muscles instead of trying to get to know people. At LANs they troll around and pull the same stuff except that their keyboard machismo is gone as they realize that their asses will be kicked if they pull of the stuff they pull on the boards. Basically it comes down to act like a normal human being. Talk to people, show some respect, and just be normal. We are not cool. We play video games. Accept that. Get past that "Psycho-Killa". I really don't want to know your gaming handle when you introduce me geekboy. I have met "The Iceman". Did I care? No. I have met Keith, Jeff, Todd, Terry, Mikey, etc. and those names I do care about.

Basically this tyraid is here to say, get over yourselves and put on a fun LAN. Accept your criticism and figure out how to improve. Maybe I'm worng, and I am pretty sure this place will be flaming more than Faces on a Saturday night, but the truth always hurts. Now to get my fat ass off this soapbox and get back to our regularly scheduled SPAM-fest.

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