LANKnights / Electronic Gaming Society at UCF: Brain?! - Viewing Profile - LANKnights / Electronic Gaming Society at UCF

When: 7 April 2012 - Noon to 11:30
What: 2012 BEST KOREAN PEOPLE'S COMPUTING MACHINES COMPETITION EVENT FESTIVAL
Where: Student Union 316 AB

Greetings being made to you, glorious comrades of the Lanking Knights! It is almost time for us to be making have the next PC gaming LAN event - Best Korea LAN! This is excellent chance for every comrade of the Lanky Knights to be having come out of house and show many appreciations for the Dear Leader, who has never put any Best Korean citizen in gulag and forced them to tend illegal drug crops.

In this of our latest People's Computing Machine Competition Event Festival, all comrades will be make participate in all Best Korea favorite cultural pastime, these being such as:

• Basket weaving
  
• Singing on barely functional 1980's Japanese karaoke machines, rebranded to appear as though they were constructed in Best Korea
  
• Putting on creepy large-scale choreographed shows for visiting Devil Capitalist Western Pig-dogs tourists
  
• Being overcome with love for the Dear Leader and spontaneously dancing
  
• Attempting to flee over the border into China and reach the Russian embassy in a desperate attempt to claim political asylum
  
• More basket weaving

We are hopefully wishing to be seeing of you there!*

GAMES LIST AND SCHEDULE TBA

• 12:00pm to 1:00pm - Setup and lunch
  
• 1:00pm to 3:00pm - Starcraft 2 and Dungeon Defenders
  
• 3:00pm to 5:00pm - TF2 Prophunt
  
• 5:00pm to 7:00pm - Dinner and Free Play
  
• 7:00pm to 9:00pm - Super Monday Night Combat
  
• 9:00pm to 11:30pm - Source Forts
  
• 11:30pm to 12:00am - Pack Up/Closing

We have copies of Dungeon Defenders and SMNC to give away for those who do not have them.

Source Forts and TF2 Prophunt are both free mods available to anyone.

* Attendance is strictly mandatory. All comrades found to be avoiding, or facilitating the avoidance of, the 2012 Best Korea LAN event will be sent to a re-education facility hidden deep within the harsh northern mountain ranges of Best Korea

More information and RSVP are located on the Event page.

This is a thread to discuss Mass Effect 3, so we can avoid paragraph-length shoutbox posts.

Please be courteous and place all spoilers or spoilerish material within spoiler tags.

I will begin my listing my grievances, in no particular order.

• There is a significant plot gap between the end of ME2 and the beginning of ME3. Characters are presented to you as if they had been there all along, when in reality you would not know of them unless you read the books. The circumstances surrounding the beginning of the game will be confusing to anyone who did not buy and play The Arrival DLC for ME2. The game attempts to explain subtly through dialogue but it fails pretty hard.
  
  
• Dialogue choices and interactions with NPC's are significantly cut down compared to previous games. Shepard will often participate in conversations or decision-making without input from the player (for instance, in ME2, during Garrus's recruitment mission, you have the chance to have one squad member stay with Garrus; in ME3, you are presented with a similar situation during one of the earlier main missions. However, instead of the player choosing who to send back, the choice is made for you). Events like that are more-or-less par for the course. The game definitely feels like it's leading you down a predestined path rather than taking your choices into consideration.
  
  
• Speaking of choices, the ones you made in the last few games largely don't matter. Bioware has written the game in such a way that the plot simply maneuvers around your past decisions.
  
  Spoiler

  For example, if you saved the rachni in ME1, then the Reapers indoctrinate them and they return in ME3. However, if you did not save the rachni in ME1, then the Reapers find more of them on the edges of space, indoctrinate them, and they return in ME3.
  
  
  
• Much of the plot and the dialogue is really, really unbelievable. Most of the NPC's I encountered spoke gravely about the Reaper invasion but many of them didn't seem too shaken about it. (I imagine this would be similar to Jewish resistance fighters in WW2 saying 'ah yeah, genocide, I guess this sort of sucks' when asked about the Holocaust). The game makes a few weak attempts at emotionally affecting the player but it fails, hard, and just ends up being worse for it.
  
  
• Many of the "side missions" are little more than fetch quests. You spend an inordinate amount of time in this game going to planet X to scan for item Y to return to random NPC #47-1138-C. If you're not doing that, then you're following a chain of requests - i.e., Ms. Asari wants something from Mr. Turian, but Mr. Turian wants something from Mr. Salarian first, and Mr. Salarian wants - can you guess? - an item that you can only get by flying halfway across the galaxy and scanning a planet. After this, you have to go back to Mr. Salarian, then back to Mr. Turian, then back to Ms. Asari to complete the quest. I was kind of hoping there wouldn't be any of these but I guess this is another Dragon Age 2.
  
  
• The quest journal is AWFUL. It's literally the worst journal I have ever seen in a game. In the past two games, the journal would update as you went through individual steps in a quest. Well, it doesn't do that anymore. It gives you a one- or two-sentence description of the events surrounding the beginning of a quest, but that remains static until you complete it. If you happen to step away from the game for a day and forget how far you've progressed in each quest, well, tough shit, because the game isn't going to tell you.

In summary, the plot is filled with holes and reads more like a bad nonfiction than a Mass Effect game. Certain events seem so incredibly forced and unbelievable that it negatively impacts the entire story. Bioware has managed to take what was a large, expansive and believable universe and turn it into something that just feels silly.

The club has reserved room 218AB in the Student Union for an event on March 10th. Note that this is the last Saturday of the Spring Break.

Because this day technically falls within the Spring Break, the Student Union will be operating on their Spring Break hours. This means that they are only open from 9am until 7pm. At the moment we have the room reserved from noon until 7pm, although we are looking into extending our reservation so that it's 9am to 7pm (allowing us to start the event whenever we want). We are also looking into the possibility of including a limited number of consoles (i.e. 4-6).

Would you guys be interested in attending a LAN on March 10th, even if it had to end at 7pm? If so, what kind of event would you like it to be?

When: 25 February 2012 - Noon to 11:30
What: LANKnights Second Spring LAN
Where: Student Union "Temporary Lounge"
(old computer store location, near the ticket office)

We welcome everyone to join us in attending the 2012 LANKnights Second Spring LAN! It's the second LAN of the semester, and we'll be featuring an exciting variety of new and classic games.

We will also be featuring both a GoldenEye: Source tournament, and a Killing Floor tournament, the winners of which will receive Please note that you must be a due-paying member to be eligible to receive prizes.

We hope to see you there!

Here is the LAN schedule:

• 12:00pm to 1:00pm - Setup and lunch
  
• 1:00pm to 3:00pm - Tribes Ascend and Space Marine
  
• 3:00pm to 5:00pm - Killing Floor Tournament
  
• 5:00pm to 7:00pm - Dinner and Free Play
  
• 7:00pm to 9:00pm - GoldenEye: Source Tournament
  
• 9:00pm to 11:30pm - DotA 2 and Neotokyo Source
  
• 11:30pm to 12:00am - Pack Up/Closing

Tribes Ascend and DotA 2 are both in beta and, as such, require that players each have beta access.
Players can apply for the Tribes Ascend beta on the game's website,
and for the DotA 2 beta by filling out the hardware survey on Steam.
GoldenEye: Source is a free Source mod that can be downloaded here.
Neotokyo is a free Source mod that can be downloaded here.
Source Forts is also a free Source Mod that can be downloaded here.
Space Marine can be purchased via Steam here.


More information, games list and RSVP are located on the Event page.
Please note that, because of the small capacity, we are initially only allowing paid LK members to RSVP.
The RSVP will be open to everyone at a later date.

Update: Switched some of the games around; added GE:S tournament.



Featuring guest appearance by Robert Downey Jr.! Guest appearance cancelled

When: 28 January 2012 - Noon to 11:30
What: SUPERFANTASTICFUNTIME BATTLEKNIGHTSAVAGEPANIC EXTRAVALANZA GAMESHOW
Where: Student Union Pegasus Ballroom ABC

Come one, come all to the LANKnights SUPERFANTASTICFUNTIME BATTLEKNIGHTSAVAGEPANIC EXTRAVALANZA GAMESHOW! We'll be playing a variety of exciting, relatively different games to break with the monotony of past LANs. Come join us for the first LAN of the Spring 2012 semester!

Here is the LAN schedule:

• 12:00pm to 1:00pm - Setup and lunch
  
• 1:00pm to 3:00pm - Battlefield 3
  
• 3:00pm to 5:00pm - Pirates, Vikings & Knights 2
  
• 5:00pm to 7:00pm - Dinner and Free Play
  
• 7:00pm to 9:00pm - Zombie Panic
  
• 9:00pm to 11:00pm - Savage XR
  
• 11:00pm - Pack Up/Closing

Savage XR will be provided to attendees. Alternatively, it can be downloaded here.
Pirates, Vikings and Knights 2 and Zombie Panic! Source are both Source mods that can be downloaded for free via Steam.


DISCLAIMER: The LANKnights SUPERFANTASTICFUNTIME BATTLEKNIGHTSAVAGEPANIC EXTRAVALANZA GAMESHOW should not be interpreted as an actual gameshow. No challenges, competitions, contestants, prizes, or shows will be present at the event. The LANKnights SUPERFANTASTICFUNTIME BATTLEKNIGHTSAVAGEPANIC EXTRAVALANZA GAMESHOW is not related to the LANKnights Habitanza event. SUPERFANTASTICFUNTIME is a registered trademark of Eccentric Japanese Gameshows, Inc.

More information, games list and RSVP are located on the Event page.

Hope to see you all there!