The [NTHW] Clan Lan Paty - Review
The day was planned with military precision ...
The clanners were prepared and ready for action ...
The venue was ready ...
The day was sunny and bright ...
Nothing could go wrong ...
or could it ..
The day had arrived, eagerly awaited by all the [NTHW] clan. The 20th August 2005 had been marked on the calendar for months, nothing was going to get in the way of this event, weddings, births, funerals and bar mitzvah had all been postponed.
Rough D had provided the venue, his garage in the back garden. Zingle and Stu were the first to arrive, closely followed by Nemesis and Lemony, after some hellos and intoductions work started on building the lan.
Others follwed, Bopdude, Electrolyte, Handyman, Ramrod, Bill C, Caspar, Richard M, KingPhoenix and MGP. With all the kit setup, we were waiting for the server to come online, so in the mean time Bop fired up the BBQ and set about feeding the troops.
Kingphoenix, Nemesis, Richard and MGP continued work on the server(s), and soon MOHAA:Spearhead was available, closely followed by COD:United Offensive. The Teamspeak server was online, and we were away .... for about 10 minutes. KingPhoenix's little fingers worked a little too fast in trying to get the Battlefield 2 server up and running, and deleted the /lib directory on the linux box.
After a severe beating and 20 minutes of downloads, we are running again, and KP's hands are gaffa taped to his chair.
In the mean time Caspar and some of the crew go out and get essential supplies, you know, Beer and snacks. Electrolyte gets his machine checked for power, Lemony gets a new graphics card installed, the workshop is open.
Caspar sets up the webcams, DHCP is running ok, and port forwarding is setup for those thaat cannot attend, so that they can join the server. Gaming begins in earnest. A Medal of Honor 1 Vs 1 tournament is created, followed by a COD:UO 1 Vs 1 tournament.
More general gaming ensues, with the obligatory cursing, single and double finger salutes, slating different team members, etc. Some start setting up Unreal Tournament servers for both 2004 and the original.
More food, and copious amounts of beer, lots of file sharing, talking and general gaming. Punky arrives and immediately has problems with his machine, new hard disk, reinstall, etc, etc. Gareth arrives and immediately sets about killing half the team.
Rough's daughter Kassie and her friend also join in when others are talking, drinking, fighting, etc.
Later Punky and Gareth leave, Richard has a partial hardware failure, but the gaming continues.
About 2 ish in the morning the troops begin to flag, and some crash out in Rough's front room. Others continue and are still around for the third BBQ session at 3 in the morning. The hardcore gamers continue past this and are still hard at it when the troops begin to wake up.
Rough gets the breakfast going, food will revive the flagging spirits, although Bopdude seems determined to go MIA. Another hardware failure, KP's NAS drive decides to give up the ghost, and so gets demolished to recover the drive and data.
Slowly but surely things begin to wind down, games are being played to the bitter end. Finally the cars are loaded and the tired and weary troops make their way back to the real world of wives, girlfriends and excuses, and Rough's wife (Joan) gets rid of the sudden invasion.
The War is over .... for the moment, as the party dies, their are murmurs of another war appearing on the horizon, the troops are keen, but want to recover for a while, but are resolved in the knowledge that they WILL be ready for action again ..... as long as they get permission ....
It was a fantastic weekend, thoroughly enjoyed by all, and we will do it again.
Thanks:
All the clanners that turned up and made the weekend a success.
Rough and family for their hospitality and allowing it to happen.
Zingle for the food.
Bopdude for the cooking.
KingPhoenix for the Lan Switch, Server, cables and cameras.
MGP and Richard for the Teamspeak hardware.
Caspar for his accountancy experience.
Others for their assistance with installs, upgrades and fixes.
Lemony for drinking all the beer
Rammy for the professional assistance.
Commiserations to Gottu, who could't attend in the end as he sustained an injury to his finger.
Heres to the next one ...
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