Introduction
The Fragnation folks took the time to put a THG-type spin on the monitor destruction that was only part of the fun at the Winter Fragnation event.
If you are a regular reader of THG Community Forums, you might recognize the name of Darren Polkowski, an active participant in our forums. About six months ago when we opened the new “LAN/ LAN Party Gaming” area on our website, Darren asked me if I would come to a LAN Party that he and some others were planning in the Buffalo, New York vicinity. Since I am an avid gamer and really enjoy these types of events, Darren was hoping that I would be willing to attend.
Fragnation is not just your average LAN event, but a well organized one that features the most military-themed hardware I have ever seen at a LAN event.
When Darren’s request reached me, it explained that he was promoting this as a way for members of the THG Community to get together and share their passion (and obsession) for gaming. I explained to Darren that all of THG’s editors are on very tight schedules and it is sometimes difficult to make ourselves available to attend such events. I did tell him that if I didn’t have any schedule conflicts, I would be happy to come to Buffalo and give a short “Question and Answer” session at the LAN party. Little did I know that I was about to attend a LAN event that should be the foundation upon which all LAN Parties are based.
Have you ever attended a LAN event that had a prize display case like this?
Introduction, Continued
As with any LAN Party, logistics are very important. Darren already had some experience with this, working as a staff member of the Fragnation LAN Party Group based in Buffalo. Fragnation has been putting on LAN Parties for almost four years. Todd/ Blizzard X, who manages Fragnation, has a very unique philosophy regarding what LAN Parties should be all about. As Todd told us, “We want to run an event where people have a good time and have a chance to walk away feeling that they had a good time at the event even though they might not have won one of the tournaments. We place a higher focus on door prizes and challenge prizes that give everyone a chance to walk away a winner. This, of course, is different from many events where the focus is strictly on the game play. Let’s face it, not everyone is able to be the best at the games, and when you focus all of your attention and prizes on these select attendees, many people feel left out.”
More winners pose for pictures with Mouse Bungee in hand.
In addition to this philosophical difference in its distribution of prizes, Fragnation also places great emphasis on partnerships with sponsors in order to enhance the quality and feel of the event. One of these important partnerships is with the local Armed Forces Reserve Unit in Buffalo, which allows Fragnation to bring in military vehicles and replica weapons that give the event an authentic military realism feel. The winners of the Fragnation Event were able to secure Humvees that were parked on the facility floor and covered by huge, camouflage tent-like tarps. This military realism led to a totally different experience than occurs at most LAN party events. Fragnation also had military advisers at the event showing off real weapons and ammunition for curious onlookers. At first, this military emphasis seemed kind of bizarre to me, but it “grew” on me after I was there for a while. It was a natural fit with many of the First Person Shooter-type games that are commonly played at this type of LAN event.
It all starts at the registration desk, just like most LAN events, but I am told that the camo that they are standing under is radar resistant. I guess this is the first time that many people have stood under something like this to register.
Introduction, Continued
The Reserve provided cots and other amenities for the die-hard gamers and also helped with the logistics and organization this event. Some of the Reserve members are part of the Fragnation staff, so it was very handy and only natural that Fragnation could benefit from this relationship. Whatever the reason for the Fragnation/ military theme, it was a success in providing an authentic look and feel that is a cut above what we have seen at even the largest LAN parties.
Well, Army cots are perhaps not the most comfortable places to sleep, but if you had an expensive and long drive to get here and want to keep an eye on your equipment, it beats checking into a hotel. I was not that brave, so I stayed at the hotel.
One of the biggest concerns I had about attending the Fragnation LAN event was a potential date conflict with the CPL Event in Dallas, Texas. I was concerned that the LAN in Dallas might hurt the attendance at the Fragnation event and adversely affect the level of sponsorship that the Fragnation folks might be able to obtain. Todd assured me that Fragnation events are different from other LAN events, due to their numerous and faithful kindred who prefer attending an event of the type and manner that Fragnation throws.
It is important to differentiate between Fragnation and other LAN events. Fragnation charges a small $20 registration fee, but this registration fee covers the facility rental fee and the materials that are needed to run the event. The Fragnation not-for-profit philosophy is very apparent in the manner in which the event is managed. Every dollar that is collected from the registrants is used to put on the event. If and when there are extra funds left over, the staff eventually divides these and uses them as cash prizes for event participants. As Todd is fond of saying, “We are not here to make money. We are here to be a catalyst to allow the attendees to have a good time. I don’t believe in making a profit off the event, but of course, we can’t afford to lose money, either.”
Fun, fun and more fun. It seems like people could not get enough of the exciting LAN action at this Fragnation event.
This is a far cry from many other events where attendees are expected to pay a hefty registration fee, with little or no hope of reaping any reward from their attendance other than being able to say that they were there. I believe that this not-for-profit philosophy is crucial to the survival and continuation of these types of events. If attendees feel that the only ones who are receiving any recognition from the event are the sponsors and the organizers, attendees will eventually stop coming.
Contests and Challenges – Something New to Us!
Let me pose a question: what would you be willing to do to win an ATI USB TV Wonder? Initially, you might not be willing to do very much. However, when lost in the thrill of the moment, in a crowd of jazzed geeks, you might be willing to do more than you think. In order to win an ATI USB TV Wonder, would you be willing to take off your socks and shoes, run around outside a building the size of a football field, with no coat on, in bare feet in lovely 30 degree Buffalo weather, and THEN, at the end of the race, dive headfirst into a huge snow bank? Six adventurous attendees had no problem with assuming the gauntlet of this challenge. Let me tell you, when I first heard the proposal for this challenge and the prize at stake, I couldn’t believe that anyone would do this. But six attendees were more than happy to vie for this prize, regardless of their impending discomfort.
I am not going to pretend that I would even consider running around a building bare foot in six inches of snow and diving into a snow bank for an ATI USB TV Wonder, no matter how cool a product it is. Nonetheless, there were takers who were more than willing to race for the chance to get their hands on it.
Okay, then. You might not be willing to run around a building outside in the snow. Would you consider this challenge: you take your current monitor, smash it in front of everyone in trade for a brand new 17-inch ViewSonic monitor? Could you stand there with your monitor over your head, ready to smash it onto the floor? One attendee got the opportunity to destroy his current monitor in one of the most destruction-oriented and crowd pleasing events of the weekend. After being selected as the “smash” man, all he had to do was throw his monitor on the ground. It might not be as easy as it sounds, but I suppose if you are certain you are going to walk away with a brand new monitor, it is a little easier. And, the crowd went absolutely wild when the selected smasher pounded the front screen of the old monitor with a hammer for the grand finale.
What about crawling on your hands and knees from one end of the football-sized room to the other, over and around a variety of obstacles, for the chance to win an ATI Remote Wonder? This and a variety of military PT-style drills were just a few of the events that participants tried in the hopes of winning prizes.
I will be the first to admit that I not into serious physical challenges for prizes, but many at least gave it their best shot in hopes of walking away with one of the many great prizes from the Fragnation sponsors.
Contests and Challenges – Something New to Us!, Continued
My favorite challenge of the Fragnation weekend came at the end of my Questions and Answer Session on Saturday night. In a very simple contest, all the participants were required to do was run to their computer, de-install the current video card and bring it to the stage area for all to see. Once the participants reached me at the stage area, they had to break the video card in half and destroy it. The parts of the card would then be added to the Fragnation trophy, which is as steeped in tradition as Lord Stanley’s NHL Stanley Cup, with the Fragnation winners posing with it for pictures. In the sequence of pictures that you see below, the winner, surprisingly, removed the GeForce 3 from his computer and destroyed it for the opportunity to get his hands on an ATI Radeon 9500. In my many years of attending LAN party events, I have never seen anything quite like this. I must say that I found the prize distribution and contest methods to be some kind of combination of “Animal House meets GI Joe,” but the crowd loved it! It was the most entertaining display of strangeness that I have ever seen at any LAN event.
Are you sure you want to break a perfectly good GeForce 3 in half for an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro?
Believe it or not he did it! A pretty good deal if you ask me, but you have to wonder if he was thinking about all of the money that he paid for that GeForce 3 while he was breaking the card in half.
Yes, there were regular prizes for folks who won the regular Tournaments, but they were nothing compared to the mayhem and destruction – and just pure silliness and fun -of these wacky contests.
What Else Makes Fragnation Different?
By now you are probably wondering, so beyond this weird behavior and these crazy contests, what else made Fragnation different from any other LAN party? From the cheap hotdogs and drinks for dinner, to the snacks on Saturday, to the pancake breakfast on Sunday, Fragnation went the extra mile to make the event the absolute best of its kind. One of the things that made Fragnation so unique was the emphasis placed on FUN. Have you ever been to a LAN event where you could sit in a Humvee and fantasize that you are in a real FPS game? Have you ever had the opportunity to handle an unloaded M-16?
How often do you get to have your picture taken with a real heavy metal weapon? Well, it wasn’t loaded, but what struck me most is how heavy these things are. They sure make it look like they weigh nothing in the movies.
This exceptional “down home” feel was one of the most important, if not the most important, part of what separates Fragnation from other LAN events. In talking with Todd, it became clear that the Fragnation members have their sights on larger goals in the future. Todd plans to work with more LAN party organizers and put on even bigger and more robust LAN events. “I would like to work with more medium and small LAN party organizers to create a rich alliance in the LAN party community that would allow us to put on even larger and more fun-filled events.”
The staff area at Fragnation was normally a beehive of activity; in this rare moment during a contest, I was able to snap a quick picture when no one was around. Unlike most LAN events, the Fragnation staff treated me like royalty and let me sit in the staff area all weekend long. Thanks guys, for putting up with me all weekend!
If Fragnation is any indication of what these future events will resemble, they will certainly be not to be missed. I highly encourage LAN party organizers to contact Todd at his email address, todd@fragnation.com, if you are interested in working with him to help unite and organize a bigger LAN event for your group next time.
Oh, Yes, And They Had a Case Modding Contest, Too….
It seems I have become one of the foremost LAN party case modding judges. I have received requests to judge case modding contests all over the world. Unfortunately, I can’t attend them all, but I would certainly like to try. It didn’t surprise me when the Fragnation people asked me to judge the case modding contest. Unlike most case modding contests, clearly the battle for top honors at Fragnation came down to two systems. Fragnation was able to secure sponsorship for the Case Modding Contest from Butt Ugly Computer Concepts (I am NOT making this up, I swear) of Buffalo, New York. I was fortunate enough to be able to select a winner and a runner-up for Best Case Mod and, in an unusual twist, I was also able to select a winner as the “Most Mod-Challenged Case/ Most in Need of Case Mod Help.” In a lot of ways, you could call that category “Most in Serious Need of a New Case.”
I need a case… or at least I was determined to be so case-challenged that I was able to win a new case.
The winner of this category was able to score a brand new aluminum case, which could provide a good starting point for next year’s contest. The actual Case Mod Contest came down to one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in a while. Both of the contender cases were extremely well done and each featured a different direction in the case’s construction. (As I promised a lot of you who saw my new case set-up, I will include a picture of the new rig that I brought to Fragnation. Unfortunately, I was disqualified as an entrant due to my `undue influence’ over selecting the winner.)
So many of you asked me to list the complete configuration of my new gaming rig in the article, I could not resist talking about my new favorite monster. Since many of you wanted to build a similar configuration, here it is: Iwill P4R533-N with on-board audio and NIC jumper disabled; Pentium 4 2.53GHz; 512MB Kingston PC1066 Rambus; ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB; Hercules Fortissimo Gamesurround III 7.1; 3Com 3C905C-TX-M 10/100 NIC; Adaptec DuoConnect USB 2.0/ 1394 Combo Card; Sony Floppy Drive; Asus 16X ATA-100 DVD-ROM; Asus 40X CDRW; Western Digital 40GB & 80GB JB Series Hard Drives; AtechFlash Pro III Multi-Format Flash Memory Reader; Microsoft Natural Wireless Keyboard; Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer Pro, NEC/ Mitsubishi LCD1880SX; Super Flower 201 Series Case. The case was modded and painted with PPG Red Tri-Coat by Steve Horch of CrazyPaint, and I seleced the parts and built and wired the system.
Oh, Yes, And They Had a Case Modding Contest, Continued
The first place winner was Jason “«zX»” Green a very “tricked-out” aluminum Lian Li case that had a flat screen color display in the 3-1/2 inch drive bay that was appropriated from a Nintendo third party screen. It was connected to the video card as a secondary display unit. I have to tell you, although I had previously seen this type of mod before, this particular mod combination with its multiple cold cathode lighting colors and an exceptional wiring technique led me to declare this case the winner.
The winning case from Jason.
Jason earned a brand new Plextor CDRW drive for winning the case mod contest.
The runner-up was a case from Brandon “k0mPr3h3n$10n” Hamer, a full-tower case that featured textured, stone-like paint. This wasn’t the major feature of this case, however. The “coolness factor” was the integration of a remote starting system that was nothing more than a cannibalized garage door opener. That’s right – a garage door opener. This allowed the case to be turned on from across the room. I had never seen this before. This case also featured a very sexy looking back-lighted keyboard that I really liked.
The runner-up case from Brandon.
Brandon received a variety of case mod materials for his runner-up effort.
My congratulations to all of the case mod participants and to the case mod winners. You are all winners. If you didn’t win this time, keep working on your ideas. I saw tremendous potential and creativity in a number of cases that did not win prizes this time.
Fragnation Tournament Results
This time, Fragnation ran three major tournaments for Quake III, Unreal 2003, and Counter Strike. The matches were very hard fought and featured some excellent play by the winners.
Quake 3 Arena:
1st Place: Ryan “e:/GoDLiKE” Wachowiak
2nd Place: Weston “Lucky” Patch
Unreal Tournament 2003:
1st Place: Ryan “e:/GoDLiKE” Wachowiak
2nd Place: Jason “«zX»” Green
Counter-Strike Tournament:
1st Place Team: SchmuckmaN, Jamokie, alepsch, Solid-OJ, pops
Ryan was able to double-dip and score a win in both the Quake III and Unreal 2003 tournaments. In fact, I was very lucky to see my own step-son Weston “Lucky” Patch finish second in the Quake III Tournament in his first attempt to play in a LAN. Ryan was in very desperate need of a case, and that is what he got for finishing first in the Quake III tournament. Of course this was not just any case, but a one-of-a-kind PPG Lake Violet Blue Antec case painted and donated by Steve Horch of CrazyPaint.
Todd takes time to pose with Ryan and his new case from CrazyPaint.
Counter-Strike continues to be very popular, and I saw some of the more intense play of the weekend in the Counter Strike tournament. My congratulations to the team of SchmuckmaN, Jamokie, alepsch, Solid-OJ, and pops, who all played very well and showed me a few moves and strategies that I had not seen before.
Ryan was lucky to win again, and this time he poses with Jason, who finished second in the Unreal 2003 tournament.
Conclusion: This is the Type of LAN Party that I Want to Attend in the Future
Earlier in this article, I commented that the Fragnation LAN party was similar to a combination of Animal House and GI Joe. This is not meant to be derogatory, but only goes to explain the unique LAN gaming experience, which goes far beyond the scope of the typical LAN party. From the staff wearing matching yellow Fragnation t-shirts, to the Humvees parked in the entrance of the facility, to the exceptional prizes and loot that almost every attendee received. Almost everyone who attended either walked away with a Mouse Bungee or a nice-looking ATI pen. The new UT2003 logoed Mouse Bungees were really unique and geeky-cool looking (and I want to thank Ed for sending these to me to share with the Fragnation attendees).
I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend time answering questions lobbed at me from such a loyal audience of THG readers. Although I didn’t talk too much about the Question and Answer Session that I did at Fragnation, it was certainly one of the highlights of the weekend for me. The level of interest and enthusiasm from THG Community members, as well as the Fragnation attendees, was very unexpected, and the warm reception that I received at Fragnation was more than I could have asked for. It was good to be able to take some time away from the Lab and spend some time with THG readers, to listen to your input and perspectives on the current state of computers and computer technology.
Yes, it was very cold in Buffalo. Yes, the weather was bad all three days. It’s winter there and Buffalo is near Lake Erie. It snowed, it sleeted, it hailed, the wind howled, and then it snowed some more. To top things off, as many of you know, I experienced a monitor failure on Saturday at Fragnation and had to drive thirty minutes to the local CompUSA to purchase another monitor. Even given all of this, I had a blast! It was great playing games at all hours of the morning, noon and night.
Since the weather was on the “poor” side, to say the least, the turnout for Fragnation was a little less than we had hoped for. But, this is the most unique premier LAN party that I have attended in 2002, and definitely the LAN party that I enjoyed the most. Thank you to all of the Fragnation folks, and thank you to all of the sponsors who made this event possible: ATI, Mouse Bungee, Butt Ugly Computer Concepts, crazypaint.com, Cyberjocks, Ingram-Micro, Macronet, PowMax and US ITEK Incorporated.
It was a great event, and I look forward to being invited back next year.
