{mosimage} November 3rd to November 5th: OCC21, take 2.
After the cancellation of the original OCC21 edition early august 2006, OCC was shrouded under a dark shadow. The forum was shut down for about a month to protect the crews moral from ranting gamers, and rumours about the end of this monumental LAN party organisation were all over the LAN scene. The OCC crew always said that cancelling the OCC21 edition was not the end, but just an emergency solution to lacking participations and an unevitable financial disaster. Well, the crew came through, and OCC21.bis is a fact. This weekend in Temse and I will be there. Return later for a full report on what happened at this revival edition (if I still remember what happened when I wake up on Monday, I have a tendency to get really drunk at OCC LAN parties)…
* UPDATE *
Click “Read More” to read the entire report.
The arrival: I arrived half an hour late, so I didn’t need to queue. There is something to be said about smaller LAN parties. It’s always alot less noisy, and alot more relaxing. No stress, no worries, just gaming till you fall asleep from exhaustion.
Finding the power: this was a bit more tricky. While installing my system, I couldn’t find a empty power socket anywhere. Apparently they plugged the table switch in the socket that was meant for one of the gamers. Arriving late as I did, I was the one to be searching for the spare socket. I plugged in into a free socket with one of my friends (not without notifying him first ofcourse, it would really suck if he just disconnected me). The OCC crew is very experienced, so it’s hard to understand they would make an error like this.
Network: There were a few problems with connections to the Internet, but this being a LAN party, Internet is not really a pressing requirement. I have seen ping times of about 250 when playing multiplayer games with guys on the same switch. The server being a new Intel core 2 Duo system with high speed Raptor HDs, I thought that was rather high. But I’m not sure if that was related to the network or to the load on the server.
Competitions: again the famous OCC quiz being my all time favourite. Ok, I was too drunk to actually have a chance on winning, but I did have a great time. The fun compo’s were original, and the official competitions were well organised. Good points for the compo admin system, since last OCC edition this lacked a bit.
The atmosphere on this OCC edition felt different then the previous ones. The room was filled, so it didn’t look empty, but there was only half of the ppl. It was a very calm OCC, very relaxing and therefore the best I have been to so far. Less is more, as the proverb says. I had the best time this weekend. OCC: you rock!