From Friday morning up until midnight this morning (or last night, depending on how you view it), I was attending InLAN’s Great Friday LAN event. Before the event started however, I had Devastator and Freddy who wanted to attend the church service held in the same building beforehand. So that’s what we did.
I’m not a fan of church. Never was, never will be. I used to go to an Anglican school (Trinity College) and I found the assemblies a waste of time, and that just re-enforced my view of church being a waste of time. Time spent doing other things, like singing, instead of improving my knowledge. Notices could’ve been distributed by email as every student on the campus had access to email. Trinity Sunday was a 3 hour “celebration” of the school, basically a large yawn-fest. Worst of all, it was held on a Sunday.
But! I went to this service, and I found it not as drawn out as my other past church experiences, apart from Ray Frost who had only one tone of voice to speak in. The songs were variable, but could’ve done with more variety other than Jesus this, Jesus that, but I guess that’s what church is about. I even got a “Care Card”, which lists such options like “I want to commit my life to Christ”, “I would like a name badge” and”I would like someone from the prayer ministry to come and pray with me”, all of which I rolled my eyes at. Didn’t they think of all the trees that died just so they could print out these cards?! God.
I don’t believe in the whole God thing either. My opinion on the subject is that somebody wrote a semi-fictional account of events back in those days, and the book, or collection of books, has spread to so many people that they actually believe in what was written. Songs have been written about characters from this book, mostly about Jesus and God. I view the bible as an excellent work of fiction, much like Lord of the Rings. Now imagine if somebody wrote a book on a gamer. The gamer who was born into poverty (north or south suburbs of Adelaide), and rose throughout the ranks to become one of the greatest gamers. Along the way, he could not only own the noobs, but also teach them how to play better. The fiction? Simply by his touch could he improve the skill of any other player for any game by a significant amount. The Church of Gaming has a nice ring to it.
I guess we already have a very similar format to churches. We all meet in one place, we share a common interest, we give thanks to the gaming gods (Devastator, Insane Gazebo, me Fatal1ty, etc.). We sometimes exclaim in joy or frustration, “hax!”, much like the Christian term “Jesus Christ!”. But one of the key differences I see is that we don’t have a gaming book to read from, like the Bible of Gaming. Instead, we rely on knowledge and products of and recommended by other people. It’s a great way to share information and socialise at the same time.
InLAN was great fun (apart from getting a talking-to by TheScream about selling Jolt, which I broke even over), and I had a lot of fun there, I even got plenty of sleep.
The first comp I participated in was Quake 3 Corkscrew in which Insane Gazebo utterly dominated. Some of the kills he was getting were extremely awesome, and by the end of the 30 minute round he was >100 points above second place, me. I asked him after what his accuracy was, and it showed to be 61%. He’s a bloody legend.
I participated in the TF2 6v6 competition with Devastator, Cadiniller, Spike, Insane Gazebo (Zebo), TheScream and we easily won on 2Fort. My favourite part of this competition was in the second game, two minutes after Zebo and Devastator had taken out their only sentry we were on 1 point and we needed 3 for an assured win. We were planning on attacking and I switched to scout. I got into their base with no resistance whatsoever, managed to get down to the intel room and back up the straight stairs without seeing a thing, and then jumped into their courtyard to be confronted by a Heavy and Soldier. Heavy started spinning his minigun and the soldier shot a few rockets at me (all missed) and I walked out of there with most of my health still. The speed of which Cadiniller and TheScream were able to get their sentries up was amazing, and their placement of them. Nobody got close. Zebo was an amazing soldier and Devastator should earn a purple heard for his medic work. Let’s not forget Spike who ensured anyone walking in through the front door would have 8 sticky mines to contend with. For that comp we all won a 2GB flash drive, which Devastator and I gave away (I have no need for one) to a daughter and father combo who attend the LAN regularly but never win anything.
I also participated in Call of Duty 4 FFA, which I won. I didn’t have a strategy and Woodstar and I convinced aX to run the comp on Shipment because we didn’t have that many players. I switched to my 5th custom class which just so happened to have Martydom (drops a grenade when you die), which got me most of my kills. Favourite part of this was Sgt. Moo running at me, did almost a complete circle and then stabbed me for the kill. He was so quick. Also Woodstar’s and Morita’s identical abilities of just so happen to be standing on top of my dropped grenade when it exploded. Thanks guys. For this I won a Logitech G7 which roxxors my soxxors.
Thanks to the InLAN guys for holding an awesome lan party and to all the other people who attended for making it fun.