That's a little bit of misappropriation I think. The money shouldn't just disappear into ACM. People that participate in the LANs are often not part of ACM and don't partake in all of the other events. The money should remain used for other LANs. If I'm not mistaken, the money should be used to cover food/drinks/supplies/prizes, all of which the user that pays benefits from. How is the user benefiting from you spending that money elsewhere? They aren't, plain and simple. You should be thankful they pay to participate and reward them, not reward people who didn't pay for the LAN (I realize there are also people that participate in AI and in LANs, but that doesn't include everyone).

You could always re-appropriate funds to lower the entry fee The first WANG I attended was only $5 and covered food for the weekend. Also, if you're concerned about a few players dominating brackets, why not make all prizes door prizes? Tournaments can be on a for fun basis that are organized on the fly by the attendants.


If you don't already have it planned, will you be hosting ALP?
Will there be teamspeak servers set up for people to use?
If so, will there be private channels set up for dota teams to use?
Will there be a server hosted for some sort of coop shooter? It'd be cool to see something like Serious Sam, Doom 2, or Quake 1 coop. Duke 3d anyone?

Could you specify some rules on the tournaments?

For Warsow, what maps will be used for each round? If custom maps are used, can you provide download links? What is the time limit? Will you have special rules for semi finals?

For Dota - Will the rules be different this semester? Will the latest or stable map be used? (we used latest last semester) Will there be any item/hero bans?

For Trackmania, what tracks will be used? Can you provide links to any custom tracks you'll use?

Armagetron - What will be the turn speed and rubber settings? To make it more noob friendly, I'd recommend increasing rubber. Turn speeds need to be as fast as possible to allow for double binds and efficient grinding.

Also, is there anyone else coming from the STL area who'd like to set up a carpool?

Those WANG weekends were also in a room on the compsci building, couldn't support the amount of people that attend now, and were poorly managed compared to how the last few MinerLAN's have been. With great improvement comes increased expense, and I say it's worth it. If you liked the WANG weekends, you will LOVE MinerLAN.

fxblast helped MinerLAN become what it is now - he knows

Jeff was talking about re-appropriation of the donation/sponsorship money - we spend all of the registration money (and then some!) on food/drinks/room reservation/snacks/shirts/nametags/domain registration/poster printing/keeping the ACM server alive/etc. This semester, all that donations are covering (so far!) are prizes. We wouldn't take MinerLAN participants' money and use it elsewhere - that's not the goal of MinerLAN. We just want everyone to have a good time

And on the same token, most ACM members don't show up to MinerLAN. It's not fair for us to spend any of ACM's funds on MinerLAN outside of what we collect at MinerLAN ... but it goes both ways. Unless a certain number of people show up, there is no way for us to cover everything for MinerLAN without dipping into ACM funds... but we're willing to take that risk.

I wanted MinerLAN to cost less this semester - we've cut it from $15 to $10 for the whole weekend. We're making it work.

On a good note, MinerLAN attendance has only gone up since I've been involved with ACM:
Fall 07: 35
Spring 08: 45
Fall 08: 60ish
Spring 09: ??

I'll let Jeff handle the rest, but we have lowered the entry fee this semester . I know in past years that ACM lost a lot of money running WANG and it was only run once per year rather than once per semester. We didn't want to do away with tournament prizes altogether - gotta keep it interesting .

Thanks benm. I think you covered most of the questions.

@fxblast,
*we are running ALP this year. yay!
*As of this very second I had no planned on hosting teamspeak servers, teams that want to use this can easily use xfire or similar program though if we have the capacity this could be added.
*The rules and such have not been set in stone. We are going to do a server test in early april and will make up our minds on maps and stuff
*all necessary downloads (including patches, steam files, mods, levels, etc.) will be hosted locally.


@berto et al
Maybe I misspoke or we got our channels crossed, but benm I think explained what I meant. None of the entry fee money was left over from any of the events, it was all spent on Pizzas. As for number of pizzas, I generally order half as many larges as there are people. That works out to 8 slices of pizza per person for the day, as well as soda.

Closing note, We will never be able to please everyone but we will do our best to address any issues and questions you guys may have. It takes a lot of work to put something like this together and we are also students with other stuff to do, there is only so much time we can put into planning and execution so please be aware of that and I think we will all have a great time.

Instead of nametags that people dont really wear it would be nice to see something on a stand that people could set on their computers. This way you can look across the room and know who you just owned so you can gloat

How can one become involved in running the MinerLan? Do you gotta be an officer? I just became a member of ACM this semester and will I be eligible for a spot? Are there any officer's graduating this spring so more spots will be open?

Have yall gotten any consoles set up yet? I could bring some games/controllers if needed.

Great to hear that someone's interested in helping! I graduated in December, but shoot Jeff (cmptrnrd16) an email or pm. I'm sure he'll need help setting up Friday afternoon and tearing down Sunday evening.


You didn't attend WANG Fall 07 did you? As Ben said, we had 35 people in CS209 with some space for a few more.




I tried hard starting Fall '07 to make the lans more organized. I may not have done a good job, but was better organized than previous groups running WANG.
Return

Yes you have to be an officer.
Yes you are eligible.
Two of us are graduating (of 5 spots).

The only suggestion I have ever had was the inclusion of an official IRC/Teamspeak/Vent/Something server that allows for everybody to communicate. But that is being taken care of.

Oh, and an unlimited amount of Diet Mt. Dew.

Nope, I quit going to WANG in 2006. I didn't go back again until it was MinerLAN, and that was because I had heard it was much improved over what WANG was. They were right, and now I am addicted to it again. Keep up the good work.

I don't really play in the tournaments but its still tons of fun.

ACM member? Awesome! We'll take anyone that wants to help! Shoot me or Jeff an email and we'll work you in - you don't have to be an officer to help out We hold officer elections each end of April/May and they're open to anyone, so if you want to run for an officer position, don't let the fact that 3 out of 5 of them aren't graduating be discouraging I'll be gone (president) and Jeff will be gone (treasurer).

Until then, get in contact with one of us if you want to help, there's a lot of work involved with getting MinerLAN going and we appreciate all help