Meeting Minutes, Mar 29, 2012

–Attendance

Michael Huffman

Mike Curtis

Joseph Delong

Snow Carrion

Amanda Grippe

Christian Broome

Rogen Gardener

Jay Washington

Matt Driver

Josh Shank

BJ Wanlund

Felix Daniels

Sean Dowey

–Meeting started promptly at 8:30, however two non-executive members arrived late.

Joe started discussing upcoming LANs and how the UC grand room was booked solid for the rest of the year. He brought up an idea of his of having events smaller than the regular LAN events, but significantly larger than the mini-LANs. (Although no official name was agreed up for this type of event, I’m going to refer to them as semi-LANs for this document.) These events would be hosted in the UC multipurpose rooms, and would only have 3 games and have a more social focus. There will still be prizes and entry fees. Although there won’t be another traditional LAN this semester, they will resume next semester alongside the “semi-LANs” with the “semi-LANs” occurring roughly every month that doesn’t have a traditional LAN.

Joe has booked the UC MPRs April 29th for the first of these new LAN events, with the games League of Legends (PC), Modern Warfare 3 (360), and Soul Caliber 5 (PS3) to be played.

The issue of TF2, L4D2, and WC3 not being completed at the last LAN was brought up. TF2 wasn’t finished due to tournament time conflicts with Halo, WC3 didn’t have an attendance sheet and there wasn’t much interest in it.

Dungeon Defenders was discussed as a free-play at upcoming event due to its popularity. The game’s capture the flag mode was brought up as a possible tournament, but was shot down due to balance issues.

There was a discussion about the various communication channels the club is using. Some members brought up the need for a Twitter account. Apparently, the club has a twitter account, but none of the current executives have access to it. Efforts will be made to promote events through twitter. The topic of using the advertisements on facebook was also brought up, but concerns were brought up about its cost effectiveness. Additionally, some members brought up discrepancies between the forums, the website, and the facebook page. Snow discussed how she felt some content on the forum might turn away potential sponsors.

The conversation changed to prizes and sponsorship, and Snow mentioned she could probably get a sponsorship from Razor, but would need to talk to them two months ahead of the event. I brought up replacing the League of Legends pre-paid cards with Gamestop gift cards, as the Gamestop cards can be used to purchase LoL prepaid cards or a variety of other products. This got generally positive feedback. Monetary prizes were discussed, but were shot down due to issues with the Department of Student Community Ethics. Alternative forms of advertising such as using the student mailroom and mini-flyers on Papa John’s boxes were discussed. Apparently, the mailroom refused the offer in the past.

Some attendees at the meeting mentioned how a non-executive member of the club told them the Xbox games for the last LAN were cancelled, hence why they didn’t attend the LAN. Said member accused of spreading the misinformation was not at the meeting.

A student promoting a new live-action on campus game somewhat similar to Humans vs. Zombies based on the video game “The World Ends with You” met with the club to promote the game. The game will include a variety of live-action missions on campus, and will have a focus on meeting new people. While the student didn’t leave any contact information, he said there will be posters up around campus after spring break which will tell students how they can get involved.

Kazka brought up League of Legends rules, specifically people scouting their opponent’s champions to ban via match result history. Jay mentioned some tournaments forgo bans every match for a handful of champions to be banned outright. Many people were interested in the idea, and we may implement a minor meeting to vote on it before the next event. I proposed doing double elimination over single elimination, but we will need to determine the times for all the games before deciding. There was some concern over screen-looking and over-hearing opponents. Floor layouts were proposed to remedy this. Also, someone suggested having a spectator account watch the game and have it screened onto a projector somewhere else in the room.

Someone informed the club that Battlefield 3 is apparently getting servers that can be “rented” soon. This may help enable LAN events.

A few people brought up the issue of having an office. Joe said he put in the paperwork to try to get an office in the UC for the club. Alternatives proposed included a room in the Brown building or the CRIB.

The possibility of holding TCG events such as Magic the Gathering or Yu-gi-oh was discussed, as there have been weekly TCG meetings (not really a club, but there is consistently good attendance). The main issue is the Department of Student Community Ethics’ policy on gambling; as they see holding entry fee and giving prizes away in a manner a hobby shop does to be gambling.

We discussed the possibility of setting up a type of mailing list via XBL, PSN, and Steam. Viability of these will be assessed.

–Adjourned at 9:35