UW Gamers

UW Gamers LAN Party

Tomorrow we’re having the UW Gamers LAN Party!

Saturday, November 28th.
RCH 307
10am to 10pm

If you’re planning on coming, here are a few tips for you before you do! Please read over this!

Things you should bring:

DESKTOP supplies: (for those bringing a desktop computer)
1) Your computer + power cable
2) Your monitor + power cable
3) Power bar (don’t assume that there will be 2 power outlets just waiting for you)

LAPTOP supplies: (for those bringing a laptop computer)
1) Your laptop
1a) A laptop lock
2) Your power cord (label it!)
3) A power bar anyway! Sure, you only use one outlet, but if you can’t find a free outlet, you’re out of luck. Bring a power bar!

OTHER THINGS:
4) A mouse (and mousepad)
5) Headphones
6) Your longest network cable (label it!). With a 25 foot cable, you shouldn’t have any problems plugging in. Wireless will be provided as an option, but do you really want to do that?
7) Games! If you have a favourite game and want others to play it, bring your install CD
Money! We’re going to have some food/beverages available for nominal cost.

GET PREPARED:
1) Update your games with latest patches
2) Keep a copy of all those patches for those who forget to do item 1
3) Install DC++ ( http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/ ) We’ll set up a server for it and it will be the main IRC chat channel. It’s also a file transfer system for sharing those patches from item 2. This will be much easier than moving USB sticks around. For sharing those files, it has to hash everything beforehand, so setting it up tonight is a good idea.
4) Label your belongings! If anything is left over at the end, UW Gamers will hold on to it, but it would be nice to know who owns it.

That’s all!

See everyone tomorrow.

Rock Band: Battle of the Bands

It’s the end of term, and that means it’s time for Rock Band – Battle of the Bands! If you already know how this event is run because you were here last term, there have been a few changes so you might want to read this anyway. The event starts at 3:00pm July 30th, in the SLC Great Hall (if you’re participating, you’ll need to show up then, or notify us of your planned ETA), and runs until we’re finished which completely depends on the number of bands that sign up. You’ll play three songs, and bands can range in size from one to four people, but if you’re a band of one you’re going to be losing quite a few points unless you can play all four parts at once!

Contents:
*Our final event is coming up, Rock Band 2 – Battle of the Bands.
*What this event is all about
*Technical Score (400/800)
*Costume Score (80/800)
*Stage Presence (240/800)
*Team Presence/Tilt (80/800)
*Rental tracklist

Entrance fee is $15 per band, so fill up that roster!  The prize will be a gift certificate to the store of your choice, and the value will be determined by the number of competing bands. More information about the scoring and technical stuff is below.

Signups for this event can be found here:
http://uwgamers.org/signup/rockband

Facebook event link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105346894769

(Top) == What this event is all about ==

This event is not just about being a good Rock Band 2 player, it is about being in a Rock Band (that happens uses plastic instruments). We’ll have a whole stage set up complete with speakers and stage risers. Your technical score (how good you did on the song according to the game) is only a portion of your final score. The rest of your score is decided by a panel of judges who grade you on Stage Presence, Costume, and Team Presence. The combination of all factors decides how you do. If you really don’t want to get up on stage and jump around, don’t worry! First of all, you could get someone you know to join your band and do the jumping around for you. If that’s not an option, be creative! Some bands don’t move around a lot while on stage, and your band could be one of those!

The next bits of information will be talking about scoring. It’s a bit complicated, but after running a few of these things, we’ve put a lot of thought into it.  Here’s a brief rundown of the mathematical scoring, followed by descriptions of what you have to do to score best:

Score Sheet Equation

(Top) == Technical Score (400/800) ==

First of all, your band will need to select three songs from Rock Band 2 to play. You can pick three songs from the “Rental Tracklist” at the bottom of this email, or you can bring in your own 360/PS3 with the songs you want to play already downloaded. After each song, each part will be given a score out of 100, based on percentage of notes hit.  A difficulty penalty of up to 30 points will be deducted if you play on anything less than expert!  (10 points for hard, 20 for medium, 30 for easy.)  These scores across the band are added for a total max score of 400.  Then depending on your Star Rating at the end of the song, another deduction is made.  Aim for 5 stars to avoid deductions, use those Star-Power combos!  Your score for the three songs are then averaged as your final Technical Score.

(Top) == Costume Score (80/800) ==

Now comes the fun stuff, as the technical score only accounts for 400/800 total points. These next three categories are overall, and not per song. First up is costume, and it is worth 80 points of your total (20 per part). Costumes can be very subtle to incredibly obvious. If your costume selection is subtle, you can make it more obvious by choosing the name of your band or track list strategically. If your ‘costume’ is just what you happened to be wearing that day, you probably won’t get a lot of costume points. If all of your clothes are torn and have holes in them and you wear those, you would probably get points if you band was named “The Homeless” or similar. Be creative! You don’t have to spend money to make an amazing costume.

(Top) == Stage Presence (240/800) ==

Next is Stage Presence, and is worth 60 points per part for a total of 240 points! This is everything you do while on stage, your entire performance helps contribute to this score! Things as simple as moving to the music as the song is playing can get you points here. This is the main section where creativity comes into play. Use of props, playing off your other band members, putting the guitar behind your head and playing, really anything you can think of to give a more entertaining performance can add to your Stage Presence. The more unexpected it is, the better! Be sure to read the code of conduct before you bring in fireworks to end your final song though.

(Top) == Team Presence / Tilt (80/800) ==

Team Presence is the final scoring category, and is worth 80 points. This category rates how well you all did as a band, and also functions as a judge’s “tilt”, or how much they liked you. Everyone knowing how the song works is vital to Team Presence, as it allows you to work together by using multipliers at the proper time, and it helps you revive teammates at a safe time. All of these scores come together and give you a score out of 800. Highest score wins.

(Top) == Rental Tracklist ==

At the event, we will have the following songs:
*Rock Band 2
*Rock Band 1 DLC
*Harmonix Track Pack
*Punk Pack 1 and 2 (on the PS3)
*20 free downloads (if the owner of the console is feeling generous)

If you have a song that you’d like to play, and it isn’t on the above list you can bring your own 360 or PS3 and play your song from that. We will also have a complete set of instruments, so don’t worry about bringing them unless you prefer yours, or have modified it to add to your costume or stage presence score.

Music Appreciation Night tomorrow! (Wednesday)

Our Posters for this event say that it takes place on Thursday, but that’s actually incorrect. The event takes place tomorrow, Wednesday March 11th, so tell your friends who are thinking of going that the date on the posters was incorrect. Even if they weren’t thinking of going, tell them anyway.

Our Music Appreciation Night is taking place tomorrow, Wednesday March 11th, from 5pm to midnight in the SLC Great Hall.

All sorts of music games will be there, including Rock Band 2 and a few lesser* known ones like Beatmania and Samba de Amigo.

We’ll be in the SLC Great Hall, so come on by and make some beautiful music!

*The magnitude of lesser greatly varies from person to person.

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Winter 2009 Event Schedule!

Here is the event schedule for Winter 2009!

- Game On! –

Feb 11th
SLC Great Hall @ 5pm – late
Playing games for fun and profit!
(May not actually profit)

- Don’t Study: A Portable Systems Party –

Feb 26th
SLC Great Hall @ 5pm – late
Bring out your DSs or PSPs, and play that 10 player game of Tetris you’ve always dreamed of!

- Music Game On! –
March 11th
SLC Great Hall @ 5pm – late
Every music game we can get our hands on is going to decend on the SLC great hall. Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Beatmania, Pop’n'Music, Amplitude, REZ, Lumines, everything!

- Fight On! – & – Smash Tournament –
March 25th and 26th
SLC Great Hall @ TBD
Fighting games ahoy!
We’re going to have our termly Smash Bros tournament one day, and a reprise of last term’s “Fight On”, a collection of mini-tournaments for all the popular fighting game stand bys, SF3:3S, Guilty Gear, Arcana Heart, Soul Calibur, Tekken, and maybe even more.
All tournaments will have prizes!

- Omegathon –
April 6th
SLC Great Hall
The third annual gauntlet of gaming to determine the ultimate gamer!

Results: Rock Band 2

Thanks to everyone that came out to our Rock Band 2 event, especially all of the bands.

For those that weren’t able to make it, pictures were taken during the event. Only a small amount of the pictures taken during this event are on this page since we don’t want to kill your computer while this page loads.

You can view all of the low-res, low-quality images at once by going to this page: http://uwgamers.org/rb2-f08/

If you’d like to download all of the full-resolution, full-quality images, you can download this .RAR file (warning: it is 355MB) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TNFZKPLA

If you’d only like a few of the images in high resolution, please email us by using the “Contact Us” tab at the top of the page. If you only want a few images, please provide the image name by right clicking on the image and selecting properties. You can just send the band’s name if you’d like all of the high quality images associated with that Band.

Setting Up.



Country Bear Jambaroo!



D3V



Flaming Icecubes



Embrace the Antiheart



Full-Assers



The Ink Blots



Ethni city



Rusty Kings



Judges

Final Results from the Rock Band 2 competition:
1st: Rusty Kings
2nd: Ethni city
3rd: Country Bear Jambaroo!

Thanks to all of the other bands that came out: Embrace the Antiheart, Full-Assers, D3V, Flaming Icecubes and The Ink Blots.

That’s it for this term. If you’d like to give your input on what the events should be for next term, you should come by our initial club meeting, which will take place at the beginning of next term. Check the normal sources of information (below) if you’re interested.

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Rock Band 2 – Battle of the Bands

It’s the end of term, and that means it’s time for Rock Band 2 – Battle of the Bands! If you already know how this event is run because you were here last term, there have been a few changes so you might want to read this anyway. The event starts at noon on December 2nd in the SLC Great Hall (if you’re participating, you’ll need to show up then), and runs until we’re finished which completely depends on the number of bands that sign up. You’ll play three songs, and bands can range in size from one to four people, but if you’re a band of one you’re going to be losing quite a few points unless you can play all four parts at once!

Contents:
*Our final event is coming up, Rock Band 2 – Battle of the Bands.
*What this event is all about
*Technical Score (400/1000)
*Costume Score (100/1000)
*Stage Presence (400/1000)
*Team Presence/Tilt (100/1000)
*Rental tracklist

Entrance fee is $5 per person, or $4 per person and a canned good for the Food Drive. Vocalists get in free, so every band should have one! The prize is currently a $100 gift certificate to Future Shop, but it may increase if a large number of bands show up. If you don’t want a Future Shop gift certificate, Christmas is coming up and you probably know someone who would appreciate it! More information about the scoring and technical stuff is below.

Signups for this event can be found here:
http://uwgamers.org/rb2-signup/index.cgi

Facebook event link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=51382855655

(Top) == What this event is all about ==

This event is not just about being a good Rock Band 2 player, it is about being in a Rock Band (that happens uses plastic instruments). We’ll have a whole stage set up complete with speakers and stage risers. Your technical score (how good you did on the song according to the game) is only a portion of your final score. The rest of your score is decided by a panel of judges who grade you on Stage Presence, Costume, and Team Presence. The combination of all factors decides how you do. If you really don’t want to get up on stage and jump around, don’t worry! First of all, you could get someone you know to join your band and do the jumping around for you. If that’s not an option, be creative! Some bands don’t move around a lot while on stage, and your band could be one of those!

The next bits of information will be talking about scoring. I’ll be mentioning the scores as I go, but if you want to see a copy of the score sheet, you can get a copy right here:
http://uwgamers.org/rb2-signup/RockBandScoreSheet-Fall08.pdf

(Top) == Technical Score (400/1000) ==

First of all, your band will need to select three songs from Rock Band 2 to play. You can pick three songs from the “Rental Tracklist” at the bottom of this email, or you can bring in your own 360/PS3 with the songs you want to play already downloaded. After each song, each part will be given a score out of 100, based on how well it did. Note that it is per part and not per player, which means someone can play an instrument and sing at the same time while not negatively impacting your score (unless they screw up). If you complete a song perfectly, you get 100 points. From there, you get a bonus depending on which difficulty you played on (30 for expert, 20 for hard, 10 for medium, 0 for easy). That means if you played on expert and got perfect, you’d end up with 130/100 points. Each part is then added up to get you a score out of 400 (max 520/400 if everyone plays on expert and gets perfect). This occurs for the next two songs, and you get the average score of all three songs. Please note that if you fail a song you get 200/400 points for it and do not get a bonus.

(Top) == Costume Score (100/1000) ==

Now comes the fun stuff, as the technical score only accounts for 400/1000 total points. These next three categories are overall, and not per song. First up is costume, and it is worth 100 points of your total (25 per part). Costumes can be very subtle to incredibly obvious. If your costume selection is subtle, you can make it more obvious by choosing the name of your band or track list strategically. If your ‘costume’ is just what you happened to be wearing that day, you probably won’t get a lot of costume points. If all of your clothes are torn and have holes in them and you wear those, you would probably get points if you band was named “The Homeless” or similar. Be creative! You don’t have to spend money to make an amazing costume.

(Top) == Stage Presence (400/1000) ==

Next is Stage Presence, and is worth 100 points per part for a total of 400 points! This is everything you do while on stage, your entire performance helps contribute to this score! Things as simple as moving to the music as the song is playing can get you points here. This is the main section where creativity comes into play. Use of props, playing off your other band members, putting the guitar behind your head and playing, really anything you can think of to give a more entertaining performance can add to your Stage Presence. The more unexpected it is, the better! Be sure to read the code of conduct before you bring in fireworks to end your final song though.

(Top) == Team Presence / Tilt (100/1000) ==

Team Presence is the final scoring category, and is worth 100 points. This category rates how well you all did as a band, and also functions as a judge’s “tilt”, or how much they liked you. Everyone knowing how the song works is vital to Team Presence, as it allows you to work together by using multipliers at the proper time, and it helps you revive teammates at a safe time. All of these scores come together and give you a score out of 1000. Highest score wins.

(Top) == Rental Tracklist ==

At the event, we will have the following songs:
*Rock Band 2
*Rock Band 1 DLC
*Harmonix Track Pack
*Punk Pack 1 and 2 (on the PS3)
*20 free downloads (if the owner of the console is feeling generous)

If you have a song that you’d like to play, and it isn’t on the above list you can bring your own 360 or PS3 and play your song from that. We will also have a complete set of instruments, so don’t worry about bringing them unless you prefer yours, or have modified it to add to your costume or stage presence score.

There’s also a Code of Conduct that you will have to agree to when you come to register, it can be found here:
http://uwgamers.org/rb2-signup/RockBandRulesOfConduct-Fall08.pdf

Once again, you can signup for the event here:
http://uwgamers.org/rb2-signup/index.cgi

Facebook event link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=51382855655

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Brawl Tournament – Registration now open

Our Smash Bros. Brawl tournament is taking place on Wednesday November 19th from 5pm to midnight in the SLC Great Hall. (NOTE: Our article in mathNEWS says it starts at 5am, but even we are not crazy enough to start a tournament that early.) This will be a singles tournament, no teams this time. Sign ups for the tournament are now open, you can find it here: http://uwgamers.org/signup/F08Smash/

If you are going to come out to the tournament, please register as soon as possible. It makes it easier on us, which in turn makes the event run smoother so it is easier for you in the end.

The ruleset for this tournament is what we refer to as a “hardcore” ruleset. The rules are as follows:

• Mandatory $5 entry fee
• Three Stock
• Eight minute time limit for every game
• If time runs out, the winner is the one with the most stock. When the amount of stock is even, the winner is the one with the least percent. Sudden death decides matches where stock and percent are equal.
• All items are off
• First match the stage is random, the remaining matches the loser picks.
• Only stages deemed “neutral stages” can be randomly selected. A larger amount of stages can be selected as counter-picks.
• Best two out of three
• Swiss round robin (lose three times and you’re out) occurs at the beginning to reduce the number of entrants down to 16.
• Double Elimination will occur with the remaining 16 entrants.
• Bring your own controller if possible, the loaner controllers may not be the best quality.
• Glitches that have the potential to stop the match for the entire 8 minutes are not allowed (such as Metaknight’s infinite cape). If you don’t know what those glitches are, don’t worry because they’re banned!

Prizes (all values in Future Shop gift certificates):

• 1st $50
• 2nd $25
• 3rd $10
• 4th $5

Neutral Stages & counter-picks

• Check here for the list

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Don’t Study

Don’t Study is coming up. It’s our portable systems event, so bring your DS, PSP (or whatever you use) and come play portable games with others. If you’d like to try to co-ordinate games, come check out our forums to see if others will be games that you like to play. This event will take place on Wednesday October 29th, and runs from 4pm until midnight in the SLC Great Hall.

There’s a great opportunity for linked co-op and head-to-head portable gaming, so if you haven’t been able to find people to play with, this is the event for you. We will have Pokemon Battle Revolution on a projector as well.

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Fight On (Fall 08) – Results

Fight On is over now, thanks to everyone who came out and made this event a success. Special thanks to Bill who ran all four of the mini-tournaments throughout the night.

Results of those mini-tournaments are as follows:

Soul Calibur IV (PS3) – 7 Entrants

1st – John (lost to nobody)
2nd – Josh (lost to John x2)
3rd – Troy (lost to John, Josh)

Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core (PS2) – 9 Entrants

1st – Terrance (Robo-Ky) (lost Andy)
2nd – Andy (Faust) (lost to Terrance x2)
3rd – Joseph (Anji?) (lost to Terrance, Andy)

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike – 10 Entrants

1st – Chun (Chun Li) (lost to nobody)
2nd – Yang (Chun Li) (lost to Daniel, Chun)
3rd – Daniel (Elena) (lost to Chun, then had to leave)

Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection – 4 Entrants

1st – Henry
2nd – Andrew
3rd – Bobby
4th – Matt / Team Matt

More detailed information and full brackets can be found in the Fight On results thread on our forum. Videos will be posted eventually.

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts

Fight On

Fight On is coming up! It will be taking place at 4:30 in the SLC Great Hall on Thursday October 16th. We’ll have all sorts of fighting games around, so don’t forget!

Four Mini-Tournaments are going to be held throughout the night. There will be an entry fee of $1 per tournament, and there will be prizes.

Mini-Tournaments

• 5:30 – Soul Calibur 4
• 7:00 – Guilty Gear Accent Core
• 8:30 – Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
• 10:00 – Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection

This event isn’t just about the mini-tournaments, anyone will be able to play fighting games all night! Only a few TVs will be taken up by the mini-tournaments, so other games will be played even when tournament matches are going. Not sure if your favourite game will be represented? Check the list below.

Games

• Soul Calibur Series
• Guilty Gear Accent Core and XX-Reloaded
• Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection
• Dead or Alive 4
• Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
• Marvel vs Capcom 2
• King of Fighers XI
• Arcana Heart
• Virtua Fighter 5
• Smash Bros

As always, if you want to stay current with the club’s events, you can either check out our forums, join our mailing list, or subscribe to the RSS feed for these front page posts