Subject: LOSCON AAR Well it is with an especially heavy heart that I write this LOSCON AAR while fully enveloped in Monday morning Loscon blues. Having the Makowsky's over for the week was an excellent experience for us. It's nice to see what a great kid Talia is and provide Nat and I with a model or a standard for parenting. Thanks for the experience. Much computer action was to be had during the weekday which was great what with Hexen II being released. It's really a great game for coop and we got all the way through the first hub and partly into the second. Thursday night saw the arrival of Kurt and Mike and their three machines. Everything hooked up pretty quick and we really had a good time. Team fortress went very well with some connect problems that lead to one machine being out a lot. (more on technical aspects later). Despite the unfamiliarity with maps and rules I think everyone had a good time with Team fortress and all the mods as well as the teamwork aspects. This continued to be a heavily played game all weekend. What was it Friday night we broke out those virgin levels and played Deathmatch Extroadinaire. Again, that went very well with some network dumps on the last level. I believe this is when Jim joined us for the first time and we really gave him an excellent introduction to what goes on around here. (Plus he has a computer hint hint). Saturday (as well as the whole weekend) went by way to fast with a few commitments from the Real World (tm) screwing up most of the afternoon (though we had fun with the picture for Rob). Saturday night was when we watched Winter War which I think everyone agrees was a great flick. Then it was back to TF. Apologies for technical problems later in the night. Next time when a machine goes down we will enact and enforced 15 -20 minute time limit for the odd man out and rotate everyone through so we're all getting gaming. Natalie ended up getting the short end of the stick which was entirely my fault. Sunday saw Bob disappear before first light, which was too bad we didn't get to hug Talia goodbye. I guess the major thing that happened Sunday was the downloading of the latest CTFBOT and then TF bot mods. We played TF BOT all afternoon. This was a great tool four humans against 12 TFbots. They're very tough on defense and in actual combat though they still do some stupid stuff. Which is why you need to have at least on human on the bot side to lead them. Tina Rob and Maisy stopped by also, which was cool. We broke through the CD audio track problem and put together and excellent audio cd. So Kurt should be able to burn full cds in the future. Finally we just couldn't let the weekend go and Mike stopped by around 8pm and we did CTFBots for a hour and a half or three. Pack-up went smooth and everyone was on their way by 11pm, leaving an empty and lonely house :( TECHNICAL STUFF: Things that went well: 1. Mike's computer cut the mustard. (took well to netwrok and being prodded) 2. Got his joystick working (sort of) 3. Network went up fast without problems. 4. Worked around/with Talia quite well. 5. Indian takeout. 6. Burned many excellent CDs including first LOSCON SMUT cd (though Nat was pissed she didn't get to add a ladies section) 7. Licked the CD audio problem. 8. Excellent photo manipulation with the Kodak Dc120 and PSP. (More to follow no doubt). Things that went less than well: 1. No Tyler 2. No Glenwood and Andales (something had to give) 3. No Shadowrun (someday) 4. We started getting quirky dumps that were very hard to hammer down cause (Hunk_Alloc errors in Quake) 5. These errors impinged on everyone playing all the time (we will enact the odd man out rotation automatically next time.) 6. Bob's computer power supply crap out!!!! (Plus he got the part delivered to MI by Friday..grrr) 7. Unable to hook up with Coggs except for a little while on Friday..ping to hi. Kurt and I were talking and it may be time to look into two things: Getting a hub that everything would plug into. This should eliminate packet loss. This is new technology for us that will have to FIFO (fuckin' figure it out) Perhaps getting 100mps cards instead of 10 mps cards. (might be expensive. Also all desktops should get upgraded to 3d cards before next Loscon. CONCLUSION: Well we had a great time though Loscon blues seem to be hitting especially hard. Don't forget also had to migrate from the basement for the first time in my life. All these new changes! Anyway, next mini-Loscon is tentatively scheduled for first week of December. Maybe we can shoot to have a hub here for experimentation by then. I hope everyone had a good time. Now that Bob rectified everyone's Quakeworld/Quake Spy problems we should be able to meet online someplace with reasonable ping (mid 200s) including Nat with our additional ISP and have some fun. Will see if we can hook up later this week. And now it's time to have a baby! Los P.S Please ensure those I don't have email addresses for get this (Todd, Jim, Greg, Jonathon, etc). Back To The After Action Index Back To LoneRanger's HomePage