DoD LAN (Part 2)

[squatta_leader]

So, I've had a little bit of email correspondence with representatives from pdxlan, intel, and nvidia. And the prognosis is quite a bit better than what I was expecting.

They seem open to helping out with prizes (in the form of merchandise), as well as potentially donating cash to a prize pool and support in running an event if our number are high enough. They do this kind of sponsorship often, so they have a pretty standard system that they operate on as far as how much assistance they can offer.

Given the nostalgia of this community, and of what an event like this would bring, they also forwarded my correspondence to representatives they know at Valve (I didn't even think of this, I wonder if Valve even know people still pay 1.3). The downside to trying to find sponsors for a community like ours, is that we are so small, and that our game is so old. Pushing the nostalgia factor, and the "one last big tournament" factor, is one way we might be able to overcome this disadvantage.

Basically, we have 2 options. Both of these events would be at least a year out from today.

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Option 1:
We do a smaller LAN, hosted at a lan center (like web2zone, socal lan, etc). For this we are looking at a minimum of 8 full teams (50 players). If we went for something like this, it is possible that we could get some cool prizes donated to the cause (cpu's, graphics cards, swag, etc), but not a whole lot of other support. The other downside to this, is that we have to use the money we raise on registration to rent a lan center for the day (at least $2000), and we have to cram the whole LAN into one day.

This is a viable option if we simply can't get more than 50 people to pre-register (pay), but everyone I've talked to about our situation as a community thinks we ought to shoot for option 2 first, and fall back on this if we deem necessary.

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Option 2:
Sponsors of all sizes are more willing to help out if the event has a bigger audience. If there was any way for us to get 16 teams (100 players), or even 32 teams (200 players) to commit to an event, then we are in a whole different ball game. If we can meet the 100 player mark, then not only are we looking at merchandise sponsorship as an option, but also assistance in prize pool donation, and cost of running an event.

This type of event would be BYOC (with 12 tournament PC's provided by pdxlan/nvidia), and take place at an all-in-one location (hotel + conference center), over the course of an entire weekend Friday Night, Saturday, through Sunday afternoon.

Now, we aren't talking giant CPL here, but in the event that we can get 100+ players, hosting a LAN at a smaller hotel is well within reason given help from sponsors (Think of a Holiday-Inn Express with a small-medium sized event room).

This type of event obviously would require exponentially more planning, and take a great deal of time and effort, and obviously be the largest LAN that the DoD community has ever attempted to host on our own, but all parties that I have talked to have recommended we shoot for the moon.

Registration for such an event would probably be about $75 per player, and there would be discounted group rates on hotel rooms.

I'm willing to put some money into something like this myself if there is demand for it, but I obviously cannot finance the whole thing on my own. (I'm lucky and I make good money, but I'm not the 1%)

This would take a prolonged and dedicated group effort by the community.

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I'm not sure yet whats the best route to go.

I think it would be really awesome if we spent the next year planning a totally ridiculous FINAL DoD 1.3 tournament for all past and present players. But, I also doubt our ability as a community to rally up old players to show up.

This would require geting help from sponsors, which means getting 100+ people, as well as taking on the planning the logistics of a much larger, and self-contained event.

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a hypothetical if you will:

Day of Defeat 1.3 Finale hosted by 1911, tpg, pdxlan, nvidia, intel, others etc.

December 28-30, 2012

Holiday Inn Express
AUSTIN NORTH CENTRAL
8500 IH-35 NORTH AUSTIN, TEXAS

$10,000 Prize Pool - $6,000 1st Place, $3,000 2nd Place, $1,000 3rd Place
Raffle prizes from Intel, Nvidia, etc...

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As unbelievable as this seems, if we can get that 100+ player mark, and a year to plan for this, this is actually quite possible.

Thoughts? Would you come? Know any past players that would?

[kirk]

I think aiming for 100+ players for a BYOC is difficult. It'd be one thing to aim for 100+ if we were using a center's computers. BYOC kind of changes everything.

[Polak]

Maybe you should open up a donation link or whatever the hell they are called.

I would donate 100 bucks to the cause (maybe even more, I really want to see one more lan happen) and maybe if others did, it wouldn't be that difficult to rent out a lan center for 4000 dollars.

Let me know if there's anyway I can help eric.

[Polak]

Polak wrote:HOLY SHIT moosh got married?

YOU DIDN'T INVITE ME???

big surprise bro



My daughter is my avatar, Rob.

Oh my shes adorable!!!! She kinda reminds me of the girl from those awesome windows seven commercials.

[kirk]

BYOLaptop.

Brb buying a laptop for a LAN!

Sears, my main points of concern:

1) BYOC - for people who intended to fly, this makes it really tough.
2) Planning it 12 months from now might make people wary to register. After all, how many people know where they'll be in a year from now?

[Polak]

I don't like the idea of a BYOC and I really really really really don't care about a huge prize pool. That's going to take some fun out of it. Cause then I'm going to threaten jaggon ryan and tox if they dont let me on a team with them. I can be scary.

[squatta_leader]

I think aiming for 100+ players for a BYOC is difficult. It'd be one thing to aim for 100+ if we were using a center's computers. BYOC kind of changes everything.

This is where sponsors come in, if we hit that 100 player mark, it's possible to get 12 tournament computers brought to the LAN from nvidia/pdxlan (they have a team that does this all the time).

I'm not saying this wouldn't be difficult. This would a lot of work over the course of a year to pull off.

The problem I'm running into with LAN centers, is that there aren't many of them left anymore, especially in ideal locations, and they are hurting financially. The cost of renting one out for one day isn't all that much less than option 2.