Using ALP

• PURPOSE
• TOGGLING ALP FEATURES
  • Benchmarking Competition
  • Caffeine Competition
  • File Uploading
  • Food Runs
  • Game Servers
  • The Marathon
  • Music Jukebox
  • Policy
  • Prize Registration
  • Seating Map
  • Shoutbox
  • Tech Support
• CONFIGURING ALP
  • Schedule
  • Lodging
  • Restaurants
• OTHER NOTES
  • Polls
  • Games and File Updates
• TOURNAMENTS

PURPOSE

This guide is not intended to cover any aspects of installation or setup of the ALP program, instead it is meant to help you to maximize the impact ALP will have upon your LAN Party. A lot of the LAN Parties I've been to that have utilized ALP, could have used the program more effectively. Thus, this guide was berthed.

TOGGLING ALP FEATURES

After you've successfully installed ALP on your server, you need to decide what main features of ALP you'd like to use at your LAN Party. Go into the admin control panel select box, and go to 'toggle main features'. The following options are available with recommendations on when to use them:

Benchmarking Competition

Gamers like to know when they have one of the best rigs at the LAN. The default configuration for the benchmarking competition adds the scores from the following benchmarking programs: Madonion PCMark2002 and Madonion 3DMark2001SE. You can modify the weight each of these scores has on the cumulative score by selecting 'benchmarks' in the admin select box. These are free programs, so make sure you have them available. If you drop them in the files/other directory, they will be displayed on the files page under important files. If you don't have the programs available to your users, most people won't even bother running them. Another thing to make sure you keep in mind. If you're running a *nix server, make sure your files directory (and subdirectories) have the proper permissions to allow uploading of files (for benchmarking screenshots).

Caffeine Competition

This competition may be risky. If you have some really competitive or otherwise stupid people at your LAN party, they may consume too much caffeine and become sick because of it. Caffeine pills and the like have been kept of the default caffeine items list because of this. Just keep that in mind. I've noticed that gamers don't participate in caffeine competitions unless there is free caffeine (ie: pop) at the LAN.

File Uploading

On a *nix server, make sure your files/benchmarks, files/demos, files/games, files/other, files/pictures, and files/screenshots directories all have the proper permissions. If they don't, you can use the *nix command "chmod" to change them to the proper directories (sample command: chmod 777 files). If you want to allow users to browse the directories of these folders in their web browser, plop an .htaccess file that looks like the following in these folders:

.htaccess file:

Options Indexes

Food Runs

Not much to say about these. I think LAN Parties are much more effective when you have food at them, or food very close nearby. That way gamers will tend to spend more time at the LAN, and less time out trying to find sustinance.

Game Servers

This will query the IPs and ports you input into the server and test if there is a game server on the other end. This section of ALP utilizes the GameQ tool and has approximately 50 game types that it can query. Also, make sure to read the guide on Using Game Server Queries.

The Marathon

The Marathon is a really good idea to do if you have more than 4+ tournaments going at your LAN party. It will encourage gamers to participate in more tournaments than they might normally participate in. It helps to have a pretty good trophy or some sort of pride gift to give to the winner of this competition after the LAN party is over. At our LAN party, we made a really janky sash that said "GOTY" (Gamer of the Year), had a crown, and made a pretty large trophy out of PVC pipe. Then for the ceremony, we played the Miss America Song that was in Miss Congeniality with our voices dubbing over where they said 'Miss America' and put in 'Gamer of the Year'. It was hilarious. Invent your own embarrassing spectacle to entertain your guests and the winner.

Music Jukebox

This is not currently implemented. It might be just as easy to install a 3rd party jukebox system, such as Tunez or NetJuke. If you want to play it over some speakers, play the stream through a computer and hook up the speakers to that computer. That way everyone can tune into the stream as well, instead of just listening over the speakers.

Policy

If you have your own waiver pdf or rules thing you made your gamers sign, the only thing we did for this is put in a field where you can make a link to it. That way your gamers can re-read what they signed or save a copy onto their computer for later, if they want.

Prize Registration

[needs to be written] Don't forget to check out the Prizes guide in the Guides module of ALP.

Seating Map

requires the GD Library to be enabled. This is pretty good if you have more than 30 people coming to your LAN. It makes it a lot easier to find people that gamers don't know, especially for random team tournaments.

Shoutbox

There is a shoutbox for people to whine or be happy on. A lot of times people will post on there if they want to play a specific game at some time, or if they need a team for a tournament. It's useful. We aren't integrated any sort of forum software on purpose.

Tech Support

A lot of times people will have trouble with their computers and they won't know who to turn to. This is generally for those shy people that don't like to go up and bother the admins for help. If you see somebody on there, it's kind of an indirect way of asking for help. See if you can help them or get someone to help them. It actually might be wise to appoint a 'tech support staff' of a couple of people to monitor the tech support queue and see who needs help throughout the LAN.

CONFIGURING ALP

Once you've decided what you're going to use, now we're going to put a few other things into the database.

Schedule

gamers like to know what's going on when. Put in the events of your LAN to keep them informed. This is one of the most important things in ALP.

Lodging

If your LAN party closes at night and reopens in the morning, it might be wise to list a few local hotels in the database that the gamers can travel to if they don't already have accomodations.

Restaurants

If you don't have food at your LAN party, it might be wise to list a few local restaurants. Make sure you specify if they offer delivery, because that works better than having your gamers leave to go get the food.

OTHER NOTES

Polls

Polls can be used for impromptu map voting if you can't decide what maps to use in a tournament.

Games and File Updates

It's helpful if you have all the games updates on the web server, so if anyone has an outdated version, they can just download the new version from the files page and play. Go to the admin select box and select 'games'. If a game has a value for current version, url to game updates, or url to map pack, it will be displayed on the files page. So edit all the ones you have.

TOURNAMENTS

See Running a Tournament.