Miserable Time at Whale LAN

[PowerPunch360]

I skipped class to spam F5, so I could score a Whale LAN ticket. Linus and Luke had hyped it up plenty since last year's success. I had never attended a LAN event or LTX before, so I was stoked when I was able to buy my ticket.

 

The expo was a bigger priority for me than the LAN, so there was no way I was skipping that just to play some games. Now, this is a me problem, but I'm quite introverted. I had no clue what was going on except for the tournaments since they were announced. By the time I got out of my shell and figured out how to get into games, it was already midnight. I was able to play some Halo: CE and CoD: MW3 (neither of which I had ever played multiplayer before), but by 3 am it was all crickets. I was under the impression that the previous Whale LAN ran overnight which was the only reason I even bought a ticket. Linus and Luke have repeatedly said to never preorder stuff. Safe to say, buying a ticket without knowing the schedule felt like a preorder.

 

There was also practically no camaraderie that again, I had gotten my hopes falsely up because of listening to the WAN Shows. I had a lot of time to observe others around me and Whale LAN was incredibly fragmented. A great number of people were playing singleplayer games, hoarding their ticket. These tickets, including mine, should have gone to more deserving people which maybe would've made the LAN a better experience.

 

On top of that, the physical stuff like scavenger hunts and IRL Mario Kart were hopeless to get into for me and so were the tournaments. Overall, I had a pretty miserable time counting down the hours for Day Two of the expo to begin watching people hoard the Quest 2's on the stage. My biggest takeaway from the LAN was most humans like to sleep and can't stay up all night, whereas I stayed up 76 hours (sans caffeine) to attend the Expo, which itself was a blast even if the lines were long. I guess LANs are just not for me.

 

 

[iggy12345]

When I was in college I used to enjoy walking back home after pulling an all nighter around 3-4a because all of the bars were closed and everybody was asleep, there were no cars, everything was just dead silent.

 

Staying up for more than 3 days without caffeine is quite an achievement, and dangerous, but still, an achievement. Impressive

 

But yeah, I find unless you really enjoy the serenity, staying up past 3 isn't really worth it.

[Dutch_Master]

I used to work night shifts, my fav. time of day was really early morning: going home while everyone was still asleep, streets practically dead quiet, depending on the time of year it was still dark or already daylight. Great time being alone out and about. It was around 6-7AM, sometimes even earlier. (I worked in public transport then, not anymore though)

[R_M_Renfield]

After midnight you definitely had to make more of your own fun but if you talked to people there was definitely stuff to do. Like the people uses the quests. We had an impromptu tournament aronud 2-3am and just passed it back and forth. We played guitar hero on the main stage screen before that. Others had fun trying to get gold bananas from the claw machine. 

 

So what if people wanted to play a single-player game at times? People do need to take a break from socializing or just came to be part of the atmosphere.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

I wouldn't really want to attend a LAN party where there's also a convention taking place, people won't push through the night because they want to be able to do something the next day. Old LAN parties were fun because you usually started in the late afternoon with some proper shooters, then moved on to RTS or other more relaxing games, and by 4-5 AM in the morning everyone got drowzy and was high on some weird combination of caffeine and alcohol while playing trackmania or another game of that style which kind of requires reaction speeds (that you no longer have) and is overly competitive but not too high intensity.

[alnmike]

As someone who attended the last one, I feel you. I did the exact same thing, my own fault (and yours, sorry).
I did want to go this year and 'do it right' this time. But the tickets were so much more expensive this year with no explanation, it left a taste in my mouth that the point of LTX was to make as much money as they could, rather than pay it back to the community, even in small part.

They're a company, they don't have to give away LAN seats for anything less than they want to. I also don't have to support a decision I don't agree with. Still a little sad that I couldn't have saved a few bucks on LAN tickets (still don't know why they were so much more expensive this year compared to last one), when I was actually looking forward to spending about a grand on merch. The latter part didn't happen, because I didn't go...

[BeefSupreme]

My girlfriend and I didn't attend the LAN, but we had two days tickets and were pretty busy for both days, so I couldn't even imagine having to fit the LAN into that schedule. It might just be better for LTX and the LAN Party to be separate events altogether. I would have loved to attend the LAN (never been to a LAN party before) but yeah it just seemed like way too much to fit into a weekend.

[aselwyn1]

1 hour ago, alnmike said:

As someone who attended the last one, I feel you. I did the exact same thing, my own fault (and yours, sorry).
I did want to go this year and 'do it right' this time. But the tickets were so much more expensive this year with no explanation, it left a taste in my mouth that the point of LTX was to make as much money as they could, rather than pay it back to the community, even in small part.

They're a company, they don't have to give away LAN seats for anything less than they want to. I also don't have to support a decision I don't agree with. Still a little sad that I couldn't have saved a few bucks on LAN tickets (still don't know why they were so much more expensive this year compared to last one), when I was actually looking forward to spending about a grand on merch. The latter part didn't happen, because I didn't go...

i think the issue with ticket pricing is that its frankly at the Vancouver Convention centre and that is not a cheap place to rent out and the lan takes up a lot of space. i'm sure when/if they ever start at Linus's gym thats a cost they won't have to bare and will be much cheaper entrys

[CerealExperimentsLain]

You def gotta get out of your shell in any kind of expo and frankly people are usually just as friendly in return.  Strike up a conversation with your neighbour at the LAN.  If something comes up, comment and conversate while waiting in lines.  Heck I got an invite to The Spaghetti Factory for dinner by some queer Europeans after just starting a chat at the nVidia recharge beanbags and then offering to hot spot one who didn't have a Canadian sim card for internet access.

 

Conventions and Expos are surprisingly easy to make 'new, temporary friends' if you just approach politely.

[dogwitch]

did a local con for 3 days...

friday night i could not get to sleep. for Saturday. i was up for 24 hours in 100 degree weather.

it was brutal.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

11 hours ago, iggy12345 said:

When I was in college I used to enjoy walking back home after pulling an all nighter around 3-4a because all of the bars were closed and everybody was asleep, there were no cars, everything was just dead silent.

 

Staying up for more than 3 days without caffeine is quite an achievement, and dangerous, but still, an achievement. Impressive

 

But yeah, I find unless you really enjoy the serenity, staying up past 3 isn't really worth it.

I guess it depends when you wake up. 3AM is definitely getting towards bed but as someone who works weird hours, you can totally make sleeping from 5AM-2PM work

[iggy12345]

6 hours ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

I guess it depends when you wake up. 3AM is definitely getting towards bed but as someone who works weird hours, you can totally make sleeping from 5AM-2PM work

maybe if you work weird hours, but as someone that works a 8-5, that is definitely not possible, nor would it have been in college

[doorknob60]

I did not attend Whale LAN (but did attend LTX), and watched the video on the previous standalone Whale LAN event. I get the feeling that the LAN at LTX kinda feels like an afterthought with everything else going on, both by LMG staff busy with everything else, and the attendees. I get the impression that the standalone LAN events would be a much different atmosphere, and more appealing to me. Maybe someone that's been to the LTX LAN and the standalone one can comment.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

8 hours ago, iggy12345 said:

maybe if you work weird hours, but as someone that works a 8-5, that is definitely not possible, nor would it have been in college

Yeah for sure, I work evenings so that’s definitely part of it

[ArcticWarfare]

Back in the Day Lans were the best way for you and your mates to just play some cod, tf2, css supcom and mess around. its a experience that is not for every one but  some people just love it. i have been to 5 in my time in Australia, and yeah come 2 am people are exhausted, they either chill on some anime, sleep in their cars or the odd few powering though on their 9th can of Monster. would i do it again, yes could i do a allnighter, probly not

[Chizard]

I have attended LAN parties attached to conventions before (in Winnipeg) and I agree having it attached to the con takes something away from it. 

 

I had a great time at whale LAN but I am also very extroverted, so I admit you face barriers I did not. 

 

For future ones it may make sense to try to reach out on the forum and such beforehand to make some acquaintances and plan some gaming times in advance with them so you get some built in lan buddies. 

 

If I can afford to go again in future I will try to find this post beforehand and hit you up. Hopefully next one is a better experience for you!

[AnomalyDesign]

Overall I thought the Whale Lan pass was incredible value this year. During the hours of the expo it was like a VIP pass, allowing you to enter early and stay late, and giving access to what was effectively a big private lounge. I did most of my booth interactions with practically no crowd, and had low pressure, extended time to talk to LTT personnel thanks to those features. On Saturday in particular, when the show floor was packed, it was great to have such a comparatively relaxed experience. 

 

I think the best part of the LAN itself was between the end of WAN show and 1AM, as most people were there, and there weren't other expo activities to distract attention. The other nice part of that time was they did the random 4 player on stage games, which was one of the few times it really felt like there were good activities that got lots of people involved while entertaining the whole group. The overnight part of a LAN like this tends to be DIY adventures, like the group that set up near the banana machine.

 

The parts of the LAN that I thought were the weakest were most of the tournaments. Many of them were team-based and bracket style, neither of which is very fun for a casual event of random attendees. Team based is a problem, because you can't really let people choose their own teams, as it leaves a lot of people out, and favors groups that have experience all playing together. But choosing random teams like they did this time has problems too. Having to line up in person to give your names, then happening to be close enough to the stage to see when teams were announced and going from there was a mess. For the Halo Infinite tournament it took over an hour between putting my name in and finally getting connected to all my team members and adding in the players from the team we were assigned to play, at which point we only got to play 10 minutes or so before falling out of the tournament and having to wait for the rest to end hours later. It would have been more fun just to play matches online. 

 

I think for an event like this it would be better to focus on large solo games. Fall Guys worked really well, because everyone could jump right into any open lobby, play, and if they lost, jump back into another open game until there were enough winners to fill out a final competition. If things like Blur, Golf With your Friends, Quake 3 solo etc had been made into tournaments the same way, that would have been a lot more fun, especially if the finals were put up on the stage screen and commentated on. If they do offer team events, make it an online sign-up option so people don't just have to crowd around the stage then frantically try and track down team members on their own. Maybe do the sign-ups early on, rather than right before the tournament starts so that team mates can connect and get to know each other before dropping right into a game. 

 

So I have no complaints about the value of the event overall, but I do agree that the gaming aspect could have been made better and more fun and inclusive for the attendees.

[ThousandBlade]

On 8/17/2023 at 5:42 AM, ArcticWarfare said:

9th can of Monster

Those are rookie numbers, I had so much energy drink that when I went to ship off some merch for a friend on Monday morning, my hands were shaking so much that I could not write out the address. Luckily the lady at the post office decided to help out, but I'm pretty sure she was convinced that I was suffering from some sort of disability.  XD
I'd probably say I won't do an allnighter like that again, but I'd probably still try

[ToboRobot]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:50 PM, ThousandBlade said:

Those are rookie numbers,

[ThousandBlade]

On 10/14/2023 at 6:06 AM, ToboRobot said:

Are those the OG nos energy drink bottles??

 

They still sell them somewhere?? I haven't seen em in ages

[ToboRobot]

5 minutes ago, ThousandBlade said:

Are those the OG nos energy drink bottles??

 

They still sell them somewhere?? I haven't seen em in ages

Yeah, this was from 2009ish I think.  Took the bus to QuakeCon and going through customs with that case made people laugh after the suspicion wore off lol.

[ThousandBlade]

2 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Yeah, this was from 2009ish I think.  Took the bus to QuakeCon and going through customs with that case made people laugh after the suspicion wore off lol.

FK.

You were getting my hopes up that they were making a comeback with the old bottle design.

[djksm]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:27 PM, alnmike said:

As someone who attended the last one, I feel you. I did the exact same thing, my own fault (and yours, sorry).
I did want to go this year and 'do it right' this time. But the tickets were so much more expensive this year with no explanation, it left a taste in my mouth that the point of LTX was to make as much money as they could, rather than pay it back to the community, even in small part.

They're a company, they don't have to give away LAN seats for anything less than they want to. I also don't have to support a decision I don't agree with. Still a little sad that I couldn't have saved a few bucks on LAN tickets (still don't know why they were so much more expensive this year compared to last one), when I was actually looking forward to spending about a grand on merch. The latter part didn't happen, because I didn't go...

you know it costs money to run stuff like this ... right?

[saintlouisbagels]

On 10/16/2023 at 1:27 PM, djksm said:

you know it costs money to run stuff like this ... right?

It also is not about "making money" in this situation. Setting the price (high) also limits the amount of people who want to attend. This can be a good thing because it slows down how fast an event will sell out. This is the reasoning behind LTT Tours costing money.