Go, Go, Go!
The Jumbotron above the hockey rink kindly greeted us as we walked in.
The Everett Events Center in downtown Everett, WA played host to the event much as it had in years past. However, as the name suggests, nearly 400 gamers were present, making it one of the northwest's largest LAN gaming extravaganzas. It was certainly the largest event hosted by LPNW. The event became so large that the fine folks at LPNW were even able to kick back $5 of the $35 entry fee because they had recovered their expenses so quickly. This return took the form of a pre-paid vending machine account as a service to all who signed up.
Registration was remarkably quick and painless - which is always good when you're carrying 50 pounds worth of computer equipment.
Although the doors opened at noon, gamers could be found hanging about throughout the venue two hours beforehand. It was a time of many meetings as gamers, who had not seen one another since prior parties, greeted each other with the strange combination of harassment and camaraderie that makes gamer culture what it is. Clans assembled and coordinated plans for the carnage that was to follow over the ensuing hours.
All was good until opening time, which brought with it several logistical slip-ups: power troubles, networking difficulties, confusion about who sat where and the Steam chicanery. Unfortunately, 400ML just happened to fall on the same day as the now-infamous Steam server downtime. This prevented people from logging into Valve's servers, which resulted in them not being able to play Half-Life based games for several hours. On a good day, even the smallest of LAN parties is a headache to maintain, but through a combination of reluctant patience on the part of the attendees and the expertise of the staff these problems were resolved in a fairly painless manner.
Two hours into the event while many were still setting up, the first prize drawing winner was announced. Absolute, a gamer from the SpokLan group from Spokane, was drawn from a pool of the first 100 pre-payers. He walked away as the winner of a brand spanking new eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultras and became the envy of all others present.
Absolute of SpokLan fame with his ill-gotten gains.
Not to fear, this was not the last of the prizes handed out. This year, LPNW managed to round up 30 different sponsors, many of which donated prizes for the giveaways and drawings held every hour on the hour. Notable prizes included the aforementioned 6800, 16x DVD burners and even six months of free game server hosting provided by Wowrack. Announcing winners of these products every hour served two purposes: it was convenient, and it served as a sort of alarm clock to help wake up the gamers who had dozed off in the wee hours of the morning.
