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Sleightrocity! - HBO LAN
Posted By: Sep7imus [subnova] <rheppner@verizon.net>Date: 12/22/08 9:44 p.m.


Sleightrocity

So, back in October, I got an enigmatic email from our own Miguel Chavez that said simply, "I know it's been a long time... do you read this addy? PING me back! :-)"

Intrigued, I wrote back saying that I still did get email at that address (once I figured out what he meant). Well, it turns out there was an HBO LAN a-brewing at his house for some time in December. I told him that I really wanted to go, and that I would try my very best to make it. (This wasn't' the first HBO LAN I had heard about - I've been here forever - but it was the first one that I actually had a chance to make it to. Boy, do I wish I had been able to make it to the others.) Well, I made it this weekend, and it was awesome!

Now, as you may remember, this past weekend was not really conducive to travel. Nonetheless, I made it down from Boston (with a little help from our own Louis Wu, who picked me up from the train halfway there), and other HBO regulars made it from all over the place, overcoming some pretty incredible travel delays. The longest distance traveled was by Schedonnarus who flew up all the way from Texas, despite flight delays and cancellations and then an Amtrak machine bluescreening on him. Despite that, he was the first one to arrive. But, the most harrowing travel story, at least from what I could tell, had to be the drive from Ohio undertaken by SonofMacphisto and Nomi, who pushed all the way across Pennsylvania in the middle of a crazy snowstorm to arrive on Friday night.

Slowly, we all gathered at Mig's house, some on Friday night, some on Saturday morning. In all, it was quite a collection of HBOers, some old, some new. I finally met the following people in person: Louis Wu, Miguel, KP, nawf, Konrad, Neo, Count Zero, JYNX, Furhman, Nomi, Malagate, SonofMacPhisto, Schedonnardus, Schooly D, and Mig's son DeadlySniper12. Quite a motley wonderful collection of people, from the highly-unskilled-but-big-fans-of-the-game (me, Wu...) to the crazy-skillful-throwing-off-the-balance-on-all-of-the-teams (Jynx, Nomi, Schooly...).

Mig was the consummate host (as were the rest of his family, though his lovely wife had the good sense and grace to leave for the weekend - I got to meet her before she left, and she was great). On Friday night at 1AM he took us to a 24-hour deli nearby where we got to order fatty cheesesteaks and other sandwiches and to hang out waiting for them with a really large crowd of local white kids calling each other "nigga." (Queens, represent!) Those sandwiches were delicious and the next day, we ordered more. But, that didn't stop Mig from loading us all down with food throughout the weekend. He made pancakes on Saturday morning and pasta at some point on Saturday, and I think he even grilled paninis that night. My arteries definitely hardened over the course of the weekend, and the plentiful candy, sodas, and beers probably took a year off of my life.

At one point, using a complex scoring system known only to him, KP handed out a bunch of Bungie swag. (He clearly just had this stuff laying around at work and didn't think all that highly of it (he's spoiled), but we were psyched!) I got a copy of Ghosts of Onyx and a Grunt figure, but some of the more esoteric stuff included wall-hangings and a copy of the halo graphic novel in some Scandinavian language that we couldn't identify!

But, it wasn't all eating and drinking and swagging and making merry. We also played some Halo! We set up three large screens (Mig's big-ass flatscreen, plus two projectors) and four small screens: giving us four players on the large ones and one on each of the small ones. We all crowded into Mig's living room and tried to avoid stepping on each other, knocking over the Christmas tree, being sat upon by Furhman, or stepping on Mig's dog's tails. (Much of the lounging was done on the Sumo beanbags that Wu brought -he swears by them, and they were fairly comfortable (I slept on one on Friday night), but Mig's dogs made pretty clear that they were essentially overpriced dog beds. (I hope someone will post some pics of the living room set-up!)

I haven't played much Halo lately (I haven't played much of anything lately), but these were some of the most fun Halo games I have ever played, hands down. Sixteen people, all in one room, yelling and groaning and gasping at the same time, while gunfire and explosions are heard from I-don't-know-how-many speaker at once, was a hugely fun time. And, we played some great games, too. It started out slowly on Friday evening, playing a few matchmaking games (the gamertag of one of the opponents, "CreamyJefferson" provided us with much laughter and a theme for the rest of the weekend, with Wu or someone else often playing as "Creamy" or "Creamy D."). Once things got rolling, we played a load of custom games. We played Carmageddon, a crazy KOTH variation with lots of vehicles on a highly forged Standoff. So much fun! Check out a vid of a particularly epic launch, and a couple of screenshots , or, if you've got the time, watch the whole game. We played a bunch of crazy/fun HBO-style games: Golden Needler", which is basically one-hit-kill needlers on Guardian, Thunderdome (more needlers, on a forged Foundry map that throws you mercilessly into the a big arena with no cover to beat on each other), Donner Party (infection on a Forged Avalanche, where the humans have to run for a safe house), and others that I'm probably forgetting. We also tried to revive the old HBO standby shotties-no-shields-CTF-on-Battle-Creek; this proved difficult because there is no Battle-Creek in Halo 3, so we tried it on Isolation, Epitaph, Ghost Town, and finally The Pit which seemed to work the best. We decided to dub it "Shotgun Wedding." (On the ride home, Wu pointed out that we should have tried Snowbound as well.)

(Attendees, post links to your fileshares if you have maps, vids, or pics from the games! I don't have nay, because I wasn't using my 360!)

We also played some co-op (two or three different games happened, I believe), which is so much fun on H3, and even better when you're all in the same room! (Some other people played other games, too: Mirror's Edge, Gears of War 2, random, weird, Japanese arcade games that I never even knew existed, and Schooly D even dropped out of the LAN party fragging to play his league game of Grifball.) Oh, and we made a disastrous, brief venture into matchmaking where 14 of us joined a Big Team Battle game and discovered that XBL networking is not smart enough to realize that we are all in the same room together.

All in all, it was one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had. I've been meaning and hoping to get to an HBO LAN for a long time, and I'm really glad I finally made it. And, I'm REALLY glad that everyone else made it (and made it back - we actually had an email exchange to check in and makes sure everyone had arrived home safely).

So, thanks Mig! Thanks everyone!

(Oh, an Jynx wanted me to point out that SonofMacPhisto wears special, fingerless gaming gloves because, well, it's hilarious!)

(And, someone post pictures!)

SG


Message Index



Replies:

Sleightrocity! - HBO LANSep7imus [subnova] 12/22/08 9:44 p.m.
     Yeah, and JYNX was just jealous!SonofMacPhisto 12/22/08 9:57 p.m.
           Re: Yeah, and JYNX was just jealous!elpolloguapo 12/22/08 10:24 p.m.
                 The official reason, now leeme alonez! :DSonofMacPhisto 12/22/08 11:18 p.m.
                       hyperhidrosisMiguel Chavez 12/22/08 11:31 p.m.
                             Re: hyperhidrosisSonofMacPhisto 12/22/08 11:33 p.m.
                                   Re: hyperhidrosisMiguel Chavez 12/22/08 11:37 p.m.
                                         Re: hyperhidrosisNomi 12/23/08 12:19 a.m.
     Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANAvateur 12/22/08 10:42 p.m.
     Thanks Mig, sketch!KP 12/22/08 11:26 p.m.
           Re: Thanks Mig, sketch!SonofMacPhisto 12/23/08 12:02 a.m.
                 Re: Thanks Mig, sketch!Louis Wu 12/23/08 6:45 a.m.
                       Re: Thanks Mig, sketch!Sep7imus [subnova] 12/23/08 6:46 a.m.
     Pictures hereMiguel Chavez 12/23/08 2:20 a.m.
           You got a dog?Jillybean 12/23/08 8:13 a.m.
                 Re: You got a dog?Sep7imus [subnova] 12/23/08 8:22 a.m.
                       Re: You got a dog?Jillybean 12/23/08 8:33 a.m.
                             Re: You got a dog?Bry 12/23/08 9:09 a.m.
                             Re: You got a dog?Ross Mills 12/23/08 2:46 p.m.
                                   Re: You got a dog?Mercury 12/23/08 4:46 p.m.
                                         Re: You got a dog?Jillybean 12/24/08 7:47 a.m.
                 Re: You got a dog?Miguel Chavez 12/23/08 9:32 a.m.
                       Re: You got a dog?Bry 12/23/08 9:52 a.m.
                       Was it once in an envelope? *NM*Jillybean 12/23/08 10:02 a.m.
                             touché *NM*Miguel Chavez 12/23/08 11:06 a.m.
                                   Beardy *NM*Jillybean 12/23/08 11:07 a.m.
                                         Curvy *nm*Miguel Chavez 12/23/08 11:12 a.m.
           Gig'Em!MasterNoob 12/23/08 9:19 p.m.
     Sometimes I just wished I lived up North for these[AMS] GreyThor 12/23/08 2:29 a.m.
           Re: Sometimes I just wished I lived up North for tPenguin Ninjoid 12/23/08 5:58 p.m.
     Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANPenguin Ninjoid 12/23/08 7:42 a.m.
     Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANJeSteR 343 12/23/08 9:06 a.m.
     Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANSchooly D 12/23/08 10:22 a.m.
           Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANMiguel Chavez 12/23/08 12:58 p.m.
     Re: Sleightrocity! - HBO LANCYBRFRK 12/23/08 12:27 p.m.
     MOAR Pictures....56k warningSchedonnardus 12/23/08 2:15 p.m.
           Re: MOAR Pictures....56k warningNomi 12/23/08 3:11 p.m.
           Re: MOAR Pictures....56k warningJohn_117 12/23/08 3:13 p.m.
                 Wow, totally f'ed up my post... LolJohn_117 12/23/08 3:14 p.m.
                       For the next LAN:Penguin Ninjoid 12/23/08 5:08 p.m.
                             Re: For the next LAN:John_117 12/23/08 5:38 p.m.



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