[Rickenwing]

Hello LANKnights,


I believe the time has come for me to resign. I am not doing it for any particular reason, but if you would like one, it is this; I have become tired of being staff and I think LANKnights could use a new Treasurer. Overall I am not resigning due to anyone or anything really. However I do feel like I need to make this a wall of text as per usual tradition.

The fact of the matter is I’ve seen LANKnights, grow from a small club, to a quite active and substantial club, and slowly declining over the past 4 years. It’s been a ride. There have been some great memories here. Certainly more good times than not, but I feel that there are a certain number of grievances I need to expose in this resignation.

Evidently, I feel like there has been too much negativity, too much drama and too much showmanship. I feel that as a club one of the things I would like to see, apart from my staffing, is the reduction in overall drama. We are all different gamers with different tastes; some of us are more hardcore tailored, while others bend towards the casual side. Nonetheless, we are all PC Gamers and as such we should reduce the bitter arguments and name calling.

Additionally, I see a severe problem in laziness. There are not many members or people in general willing to put forth the effort to dedicate time to run the club. While I may step on some toes, I think the excuse of class/work is kind of bullshit. I’ve had a full/near full time job plus 12-14 credit class schedule and was treasurer to two clubs plus active in a third. Anyone can run a club, all it takes it conviction and decent time management skills.

Moreover, I think it also falls on the fault of the staff, including myself, to motivate people into participating in the club. With games these days being always online or playing with people from around the world plus a lack of LAN server, it falls on the staff to build a certain desire to come to the LANs, whether that be through prizes or events or what not.

But, I also feel that to get some motivation to come to the LANs require active participation at the LANs in order to convince sponsors. It’s a pretty big vicious cycle. There are much larger LANs that attract thousands of dollars in prizes and hundreds of people. It is often brought up as a sign of LANKnight’s failure. I see it as a sign of what needs to be done both on the staff side and on the member side. Very few LANs don’t charge for entrance, we don’t. Hence all funding comes from either SGA or Dues.

Understandably, LANKnights could be a huge gaming group, as we are the second largest University in terms of population. We have a fricken game creation school, how can we not attract more than 60 people to be a part of a club? Hell Norml is the largest campus run organization, and what I think is just a front so ents can meet other ents to exchange “info.” Even so, they are gathered by one ideal, LANKnights should represent multiple ideals, different games, different likes, and yet we are much smaller than they are. I mean you would think a group of people who pretty much smoke pot wouldn’t have the conviction or motivation, but they certainly have more of both than LANKnights, a certainly sad situation.

Therefore, I must say that while I am resigning, I do hope to still help in ways that I can. I would like to find a better person to be in the position for Treasurer, and help them become acclimated to the position.

To conclude, I would like to say one thing, what will probably be a most unpopular thing, Gamma was probably the best thing to happen to this club. While he might have had some… anger problems (from what was a large coalition of people to troll him, and even from his own doing) the man had something which most of the rest us didn’t, a lot of impetus and a large desire to make the club better. He had La Passion ™. I’m afraid to say it but I think the club could use another Gamma.

Zero thing are done for you in this club, it is all about what you make of it.

Cordially,
Your (Ex)Treasurer

[Oen386]

I wasn't sure you were trolling until...

Quote

Gamma was probably the best thing to happen to this club

[SniperX]

Rickenwing, on 14 May 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

He had La Passion ™.

I think you mean Zorn des Juden

[Rickenwing]

Oen386, on 14 May 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

I wasn't sure you were trolling until...

Only the person at the center of it all would say that.

[MajorLag]

Is there a tldr?

[Rocket Ninja]

tl;dr: It's a listing of Rickenwing's legit grievances. Despite his arguable flaws, Gamma was good for the club when he was here. People need to stop being lazy, stop causing drama, and just play some games with each other.


To advertise the club more, and have it grow, the community part should be stressed more. A list of servers that LAN Knights lays claim to, like the Minecraft server, the UCF chat channel in Starcraft 2, the Mumble server, etc. Right now there's just the Steam, Facebook, and XFire group listed on the front page. Maybe change the info on the Facebook group to permanently link to the others. Get a link to LAN Knights added to the reddit /r/ucf sidebar so our trading of certain pictures through SC2 comes full circle.

Our target demographic are lazy shut-ins that want to play games. Maybe advertising LANs in entry level classes like DIG2000 could work also.

[Rickenwing]

Rocket Ninja, on 14 May 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

tl;dr: It's a listing of Rickenwing's legit grievances. Despite his arguable flaws, Gamma was good for the club when he was here. People need to stop being lazy, stop causing drama, and just play some games with each other.


To advertise the club more, and have it grow, the community part should be stressed more. A list of servers that LAN Knights lays claim to, like the Minecraft server, the UCF chat channel in Starcraft 2, the Mumble server, etc. Right now there's just the Steam, Facebook, and XFire group listed on the front page. Maybe change the info on the Facebook group to permanently link to the others. Get a link to LAN Knights added to the reddit /r/ucf sidebar so our trading of certain pictures through SC2 comes full circle.

Our target demographic are lazy shut-ins that want to play games. Maybe advertising LANs in entry level classes like DIG2000 could work also.

That sums it up pretty well. I would hope that LANKnights doesn't die in the next year or so.

[GreatDay]

We need nolifers to sit in skype, game channels, steam, and mumble all day so they can act as mini recruiters and play with random people who stop by.

Anyone wanna sacrifice their summer staying indoors and working on their nerd tan? Worthy of a staff position if you are baller enough, like a lanknights in-house promoter.

[Daman]

Rickenwing, on 15 May 2012 - 02:46 PM, said:

That sums it up pretty well. I would hope that LANKnights doesn't die in the next year or so.

tbh I sort of think the age of LANs is dead. all games require an internet connection to play with others, everything we do at LANs can be done from hmoe, and the only time major LANs happen anywhere is when they're yearly occurrences, not monthly.

lanknights should just become a "video games in general" club(or die and start a new club, w.e works best).

[cyb.tachyon]

Well said. Thank you for your time and dedication!

Just an FYI, I am still working on the College LAN Alliance and attempting to get our 'Clan' networking page set up and linked with the http://www.lanknights.net/lan/ stuff to help automate some of the communication and social mechanisms we need to grow. We can definitely use another staff member like Adrian, and I can use all the help I can get for these projects. Get involved guys!

[Blaze]

Daman, on 15 May 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

tbh I sort of think the age of LANs is dead. all games require an internet connection to play with others, everything we do at LANs can be done from hmoe, and the only time major LANs happen anywhere is when they're yearly occurrences, not monthly.

lanknights should just become a "video games in general" club(or die and start a new club, w.e works best).

Tried to do that, everyone whined and told us to go start our own "video games in general" club

[Rickenwing]

Blaze, on 16 May 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

Tried to do that, everyone whined and told us to go start our own "video games in general" club

I've been pretty hesitant/resistant to changing LANKnights into a normal video gaming club, from the fear of attracting too many CoD casuals. But at the point where LANKnights is right now, I see that it probably should turn into a general video game club, with an emphasis on PC Gaming.

[Oen386]

Blaze, on 16 May 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

Tried to do that, everyone whined and told us to go start our own "video games in general" club

"Tried to do that"? Did you run for a position in LANKnights? Did you take the advice and start a new club?

[Rocket Ninja]

Wasn't LAN Knights the "PC Gaming Club" or "PC Gaming Enthusiast Club" at one point? Is it officially LAN Knights again?

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tbh I sort of think the age of LANs is dead. all games require an internet connection to play with others, everything we do at LANs can be done from hmoe, and the only time major LANs happen anywhere is when they're yearly occurrences, not monthly.

The top selling games don't have a LAN option any more. Always-on DRM is going to become more and more prevalent for major releases; the games that do offer LAN, and dedicated server, support are usually niche titles compared to mainstream games.

Also, Call of Duty 2 would make for a great, cheap LAN game. Everyone would enjoy it.

[magicjames92]

I agree that LAN Knights becoming a more general gaming club would be better. Things like handheld games are much easier to bring and play multiplayer and would be a good addition. And I don't think casual cod players would be all that interested in joining a club. As far as PC goes, I used to be a console only player before joining the club. So any new members joining could be converted to pc after seeing how much better the graphics are and what not. Spread PC gaming joy! Either way though, we are all playing video games no matter what platform so I say lets get some more members.

[Oen386]

Rocket Ninja, on 17 May 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

Wasn't LAN Knights the "PC Gaming Club" or "PC Gaming Enthusiast Club" at one point? Is it officially LAN Knights again?

It still is the PC Gaming Enthusiast Club, the last time I checked. Which brings up the whole point of why making a new club was suggested. :/

magicjames92, on 17 May 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

Things like handheld games are much easier to bring and play multiplayer and would be a good addition.

I disagree. We already had the conversation about the issue with noise. I mean each of you could bring head phones, but then someone has to start reserving tables and chairs for people just playing handheld games. :/

In short, I would be really annoyed if I brought a PC to a LAN event, and a majority of people were just playing their handle held devices. I would be even more discouraged, if I was staff and wasted time running network cables and power for people that aren't going to use them.

That brings up part of the previous issue. If people RSVP for the "LAN", they might show up and not actually participate. The goal of having the LANs is to get people to play similar games, and to meet new people.



I really don't think a resignation thread is a good place to get into all this again. Someone is more than welcome to start a new thread. Or better yet, contact the guy posting on the Facebook group wall about starting a console club. I am glad people think this is a great idea, but if no one is willing to do more than nod their head yes, then nothing will ever happen.