Today me and Sassa started talking about an idea i've had for some time now. Instead of the traditional bring-your-own-computer-LAN we thought about the possibility to rent a Internet Cafe for a weekend along with some sleeping place (a hostel) for the participants to sleep in. The benefits of this would be that there would be no administration concerning the network and stuff. Computers, chairs etc would be top notch while players probably still can bring their own computer peripherals like mouse, keyboard and Quake setup. The whole idea is to make the event more focused on one big 1on1 tournament and really make the organization, both at the venue and coverage etc, around it top notch - it would be a tGI2. Our thought is to make it even bigger than tGI2 though with about ~60 players (64) attending. We're hoping that the arrangement with sleeping place, that people won't need to bring their own computer and that we would be in the middle of Stockholm (=a bit of party perhaps ) would make this appealing to many.

The two problems we have are obviously these two: accomodation for players and a suitable cafe that won't make us go broke.

Accomodation
There are a few hostels in Stockholm and when Sassa phoned two of them up, one of them only had like 24 beds. The other one seemed ok though and offered us 64 beds for roughly 17700SEK - for one night. That's 270SEK/person. This is obviously something we would need to work at. Either get a better offer or find some other place to sleep at. Sure we could just be convenient and say that everyone just have to find their own place to sleep, but that would be even more expensive and would suck for foreigners/non-stockholmers perhaps. The rooms were four beds in each room, 16 rooms in total.

LAN Cafe
There are quite a few internet cafes in Stockholm and some of them have about 100 computers or more. We would need about 60 of those and here we would need the owner to be fair to us and give us a decent deal. Going by their usual hour price obviously won't work. I guess it would be possible to adjust this expense depending on how many computers we want to have available. Someone might say "Hey, not all tournament games needs to be played at once!" but imo you will want to play between the high stake games and just chat it out etc.

Prizes
If all participants tuck in 100SEK then we'd have 6400SEK for a winner if we put it all in the #1 spot. I think something like this is necessary to make it appealing and thrilling. I don't like the idea about player funded prize though and would rather see some kind of sponsor. It's easier said and done though and would require some lobbying.

Loads of bullshit here and what i want to know is basically what you would think is worth to give for a top notch Quakeworld weekend in Stockholm where a place at the cafe is included for the whole weekend and a sleeping place is paid for.

Is 300SEK (~30EURO) too much? (probably not possible)
Is 500SEK (~50EURO) too much? (might be possible)
Is 700SEK (~70EURO) too much? (should be ok depending on the cafe owner)

Can you help out in any way? Maybe you know someone at either a hostel or a cafe that can make it easier for us? Any thoughts are welcome. It may sound like a wild idea that won't happen, but we'll try to do research as time goes on.

I also realize that many might live in Stockholm and have their own bed. Dunno if that helps us though....

And no, this would not replace QHLAN in any way and wouldn't be arranged close to QHLAN and probably not in a very soonish future either as we want to be well prepared. We don't want you to have to choose between the two events.

Internetcafe
What we could do is to just run it 2½ day;
10 hours 16-> 02 on Friday
10 hours 16-> 02 on Saturday
02 hours 12-> 14 on Sunday

That would be a total of 22 hour of QW, you could pay to play more hours, its like 100 sek (10euros) for 10 hours of gaming if you wantto so you can either play more or leave with the rest to some local pub/restaurant and drink with the fellow quakers and see how Swedish girls are when they are drunk <3 at the night clubs

Sleeping
Gaming: 22 hours = 220 sek = 22 euros
Hostel: We can find pretty cheap places to sleep from 160sek/night (16euros) to 270sek/night (27euros)
But from what I thought is that we can play all Friday night to Saturday and the hostel opens up for us at 15:00 on Saturday so we can sleep then

Travel
I heard that Reppie and Spoink had a very cheap flight from Frankfurt(?) and there are always VERY cheap flights going 24/7 from London.
Helsinki got the boat going 24/7 for only 99-199SEK (10-20euros)
Now without your monitor/pc it will be a very pleasant trip!

Just thoughts, but this could happened if we get some handy people with contacts around in Stockholm

Internetcafe
After browsing some sites i've noticed several cafes using 10sek/hour as a common fee for their best member offers. I also realize that we won't need the cafe during the night (sure it can be cosy to dl pr0n on LAN during the night, but you won't have your own comp anyway) and came up with the following shit.

64 Cafe computers rented for QW players:
Fri: 16-02
Sat: 10-02
Sun: 10-14
Sum: 30 hours

Let's use that 10SEK/hour fee and we get 30 hours * 10sek * 64 players = 19200sek.

I'm totally in, I would gladly come

Lets say the date is 14th of mars 2008 -> 16th of mars 2008
I just checked with www.Ryanair.com

From Dublin <-> Stockholm 106.79 EUR
From Paris <-> Stockholm 106.57 EUR
From Hamburg <-> Stockholm 87.34 EUR
From London (STN) <-> Stockholm 90.98 GBP
From Berlin <-> Stockholm 105.55 EUR
Porto (OPO) <-> Stockholm 153.38 EUR

The train is cheaper, but takes perhaps a bit longer, it takes 4-5 hours from Copenhagen/Malmö to Stockholm by train.
If you wanna fly inside of Sweden you can do that for around 800SEK (80 euros) round-tripp.
Remember, the venue is in the central of Stockholm so finding it will be SOOOO fucking easy

One thing thats good here is that u don't have to bring your pc/monitor, and can therefor take the flight and it takes only 2hours maximum from those areas I have pasted!

don't use a hostel..haven't you seen the movies ?

its round 200E for me, both way, with KLM. no cheap airlines from Amsterdam

97E with some Sterling.dk(?)

From my point of view this kind of thing is quite appealing to foreigners. One of the biggest worries I have about LAN event is taking my computer on a plane and it being thrown around by baggage handlers (this is C2D, 8800, 4xHD with nice case etc custom built by me not some cheapass $500 store built comp from 5 years ago). Sure you can remove some components and take in hand luggage but I remember at REC-lan it took us like a day to get Blitz's PC working again.

Also with a netcafe you know you are gonna get an OK sized monitor (17"+) not some tiny one rented/borrowed at normal LAN. BUT, you gotta be careful about what the setup is at the cafe. Do them have TFT/LCD monitors (many players may not like that)? Are you allowed to bring own mouse/keyboard? Are you allowed to install own software (overclocking USB rate, custom quake install, not to mention server files etc)?

I have been to a few events like this in the past (QW LAN @ netcafe) in London but this was many years ago around 1999-2001. One thing I would recommend if possible is to find somewhere that lets you book it exclusively i.e. no other customers around. That way you don't have to worry about disturbing other people also you get the whole net connection to yourself.

Looking at flight prices isn't too bad on Ryan Air. 6th-9th March London<->Stockholm for example costs £0.01 + £0.79 = £0.80 plus £41 tax so around 60 euro total. Cost really shouldn't be much of an issue for me, it's more a question of whether many people would attend and what dates get chosen.

This way is usual way to do LanParty's in Russia/Ukraine.
Main troubles:
1) find cafe with CRT monitors.
2) allow ppl to install drivers for 1000Hz and mouses. (Some ppl need default drivers, some MouseWare, others Intellipoint and so on).

Its not so easy. For example, there are only 2 cafe in moscow with 60+ computers and crt monitors.
For doing lanparty in Tyumen(Russia) and in Harkov(Ukraine) some our friends bought inetcafe.

Ive been playing on 19" crt monitor (154hz) for ages. But with modern 2ms tft, ezquake high-fps etc.. is it really that big of a problem playing on tft? Almost all PC-bangs got tfts nowdays and picking one with good tfts instead of bad crts should do it for a weekend?

Didnt Sujoy open up some place(s?) in UK? I think a trip to UK could be fun and from what i read, this kind of event would fit well into his gaming-centre concept?

I'm not sure how they usually do it at the cafes. I assume that own mouse and keyboard should be ok at any cafe. The software stuff might be more critical though, but i really have no idea. :}


I kind of agree with you on this one. I played on my parents tft during a summer when i lived with them and was pleasantly surprised, even if it wasn't a good tft. I guess other players might be more picky about such things though.


My sources says he dropped that project due to the other people in it not sharing his vision ("creative differences" etc). :}

I had a bit of a hunt for whatever that thing Sujoy may have started was, and the closest I came was iGames UK, which seems to be more of a branding/collaboration type thing with a bunch of net cafes instead of one in particular. (http://www.iguk.org/)

I like the idea of a LAN cafe event though. In the UK would be even better Monitors aren't an issue to me, I now play on a laptop and don't find it too much different to a CRT back home.

from www.sujoy.com :

"Sujoy is working on a new project to build an exciting new gaming entertainment destination in the heart of London. For further details and contact information please email contact@sujoy.com." But guess that is outdated.

Ooh!

http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6493
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:YQQQxku4Xn0J:gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php%3Fitem%3D6681+sujoy+gaming+cafe&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

It's still being built, but i don't think he's in on it anymore. :I

I would still like to know at what time your wallet starts crying for an event like this - how much would be ok for a ticket?

Included:
* Bed for two nights (Sassa proposed only paying for one night, but i'm hesitant to that)
* Computer at cafe for the event
* Might include a 100SEK for a prize pot unless we can get sponsorship.

Both cafe and hostel would preferably be located in the city within a walking distance from eachother.

1000-2000 SEK everything included (computer/sleep/food), depending on how long the event lasts, seems reasonable to me.

so smth like 100-200E then? 100E - 120/130E TOP. remember, that ppl outside still have to pay for travel (70-120E) and for food (50E ?).

but I definitely IN.

as I calculated it, we could get 5sek/h at the cafe, that will be 120sek (12e) in total!
and if we held it during april/maj we could get an ever cheaper hostel for 160 sek/night (16e)

that will be 20e for the tourney

12 + 16 + 20 = 48e in total for the tourney and 1 night sleep.

Prizes of the tourney will look like this: (since we will only have 64 players in the tourney)

#1, 1130 Euros
#2, 100 Euros
#3, 50 Euros

That will put QW on the world-map.

That cheap hostel will only have 26 spots for sleeping, so first ppl to pay upfront will get spots, the rest have-to find place to sleep themselves.

that's a terribly uneven way of splitting the prize money

and @ d2.cpe, my suggestions included food...

guys we play this game for fun.

When you play football or floorball in the local league with your friends you don't get paid. In fact you invest time and money into something you like doing.

Sure there could be a small prize for the winner. But imo it's not needed...

Sure we do play it for fun. This event would however be a top notch competitive Quakeworld event, focused on the tournament and comfort for the players to make sure that as many of the top players as possible will want to attend. A prize pot would add to the competitive feel and prestige of the event and if people feel they could possibly make a dime or two, then it might be more likely that they show up.

A prize pot isn't needed in 99,9% of all Quakeworld tournaments. It's just annoying that for the past six or seven years, noone have tried to arrange a tournament with prize money "just because they aren't needed". John Carmack's ferrari might not have been a necessary prize back in -96 (or whenever) either, but it sure added to the twist and made people remember it.

prize money will make more people sign up and make sponsors more likely to help out, and it will probably earn us more "media coverage". i bet a lot of real newspapers would be interested in writing about this event.

it's a small prize to pay.

I still pay 100sek/tourney to play korpen football (indoors and outdoors)

ok ok

imho, hostel for two nights. better be safe than sorry.

good idea, i would come... and if like 10 stockholmers would come and maybe provide 2-3 beds each there is like room for 20-30 ppl in those beds?, even if u live in a apartment with 1 room still 3 should be possible to squeeze in and that makes 40 ppl with bed for free

also perhaps try get hold of SoD and ask him if nikodemus still has that internet cafe in gamla stan, we played there in sd3 and got a good prize and we could install quake stuff etc

If I felt sure it would be a good event then I'd say up to 1500SEK (~£110) including 2 nights accomodation would probably be OK with me.
However my guess is that once you start charging over 1000SEK people will start to get put off coming. They will think '1000SEK just for entry to a LAN, not including transport/food, that's a lot of money' even though of course it includes accomodation.

With this kind of thing it would help a lot if local residents could take guests for a night or two. As there is no BYOC it means much less worry about leaving event and going out clubbing or whatever cos you know there isn't much of value to leave behind.

Regarding the whole gaming cafe scene in London, there used to be quite a few dedicated gaming netcafes back in late90s early00s. The Playing Fields, Shoot'n'Surf, The Bad Place, Egomaniacs (where I played a few smackdown1/2 games from) etc. Of course they are all closed down now because everyone has broadband and there is much less demand for that kind of thing.