Thursday, July 24, 2008 Ng: : 24-hour LAN party By Wilson Ng Wired Desktop
IT'S almost August and the Mandaue Business Month is just a few days away.
The website for the event is finally done. There were some things, though, that took some time, like the Cebu Blog Contest, Sugbu Kini Tag contest and the Subasta sa Sugbu, which required a fair amount of programming. But now everything is almost done. Those interested can check it at www.ccebu.net/mandaue
There are a lot of exciting events, and there are new developments daily. It is really what a website is good at—giving periodic updates.
One of the events that I find exciting is the LAN party that the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry is organizing. It will be held from 8 a.m. on Aug. 23 to 8 a.m. on Aug. 24. That’s right. It’s going to be a 24-hour party, and some of the techies are already starting to get excited about.
What is a LAN Party? It is a gathering of gaming and computer enthusiasts who will bring their computers to one venue and play PC or online games. It is also a meeting of PC and gadget enthusiasts, who want to share files, computer and gadget knowhow, and show off their “rigs,” a term used for modified or customized PCs.
PC and gadget enthusiasts are the computer world’s counterpart of car enthusiasts. If car enthusiasts spend a fortune on personalizing their cars, there are also an increasing number of people who do the same with their PCs. I have seen PCs that have been re-engineered and modified, which cost P250,000 and more!
In that event, there will be case mod comparison and competition, as well as file sharing and tips. There will be mini seminars too. It is also an opportunity to meet PC and gaming experts and see some cool software.
In one corner, there will be Play Station Portable Eyeball and Meet, as well as challenge booths where gamers will compete against some well known players for prizes. There will also be an eyeball for bloggers.
We will set up a network at the Cebu International Convention Center, which has a capacity of at least 500 computers.
Why is the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) doing this? Simply, to show the people in different parts of the world that there is a sophisticated PC crowd here in Cebu! LAN Parties are fairly common worldwide, and the events are followed and published.
One town in Sweden called Jönköping would probably not ring a bell before but now they are fairly famous in techdom because they host Dream-Hack, which, in essence, is billed as the world’s largest LAN party attracting over 10,000 computers! As a result, big companies started to take a serious look at the town. If you can host that big a LAN Party, you must have a fairly sophisticated populace! And Dreamhack is now a tourist drawer.
Our goal is to be able to put 500 computers under one roof, and show the world our increasingly sophisticated gaming and tech crowd. Hopefully, if we are successful, that is a fast way to put Cebu up. Maybe next year, we will aspire to go for 700 or even 800. After all, there is now a venue big enough to host it - the Cebu International Convention Center.
The event has been drawing a lot of comments and interest when it was posted in www.istorya.net, Cebu’s foremost forum. I hope more people would check it out.
Those interested can also register at http://www. bfwgaming.com. The cost is just P400 if you bring your own computer (the fee will take care of the venue and electrical, as well as the Internet/network costs). The sum is good for 24 hours of gaming! Those who and pay before Aug. 10, will pay only P350.
There will also be LCD monitors available for rent for those who don’t want to bring monitors. For those who don’t want to bring computers, there will be computers on the site you can rent for P1,000 for 24 hours, or P50 an hour. Entrance for spectators and other interested people is just P50, one time.
Please get in touch with the organizers: MCCI trustee Mike Pato; Ryan Yu of Fine Upgrades (www.fineu-pgrades.com);
Brian Gero-na of ACME Web (www. acmewebph.com), BFW Gaming(www. bfwgaming.com), and; MCCI trustee Brian Chua.
Let us show the world we also have a sophisticated tech populace.
