My First iSeries

My First iSeries

Being a noob when it comes to LANs I thought it would be appropriate to document my first time here as a spectator. From walking into the event and seeing all the people, I could tell from the beginning that this was something I was going to enjoy.

So for those of you that don't know what a LAN or BYOC event is. I will explain briefly what these stand for and what generally happens there. LAN stands for Local Area Network and a LAN event is where everyone turns up with their PCs and, in this case, plays games together. This is also where the name BYOC comes from. BYOC stands for Bring Your Own Computer.

The main games you see here are League of Legends and Starcraft, the two hard hitters within the eSports scene these days there were also a lot of other competitive games such as Counter Strike and DoTA. There are also a few tournaments going on here for example the Team Dignitas Gamer Search tournament and ESET UK Masters for Starcraft and the i47 tournament for League of Legends, casted by our very own Stress alongside qu1cksh0t. This allows the local teams, and some foreign to get competitive and see who the best around.

My first thoughts when I walked into the exhibition centre was "this is pretty dead, where is everyone?". After walking for about 30 seconds I then walked into the main room. Wow, all the computers and the people there, the atmosphere was exhilarating and people were just having fun, that sealed it for me, I was definitely coming as much as I possibly can.

I have always been attracted to community events within the gaming community, so this was pretty much a dream come true for me, to see hundreds of like minded gamers playing together and competing in tournaments, generally having a good time, made me remember why I was so in love with this community in the first place.

Also the Hotel is conveniently located next to the event hall so there isn't too much of a walk after a long day of gaming, which, being a belligerently lazy person, makes me very happy!

I was a little sceptical at first, coming to the event being as this was my first time, I was under the impression that it would be way to crowded to even breathe, but being as it was one of the smaller events it wasn't too busy, which was good. However you could also tell that there was room for more people, so the bigger events would be easily catered for, you can tell that the organisers know what they are doing here.

You can also order food items to your desk, such as pizza, and if your feeling a little party time, some alcohol, and there were plenty of food stalls about. You could also buy peripherals and even some computer parts here.

So why should you come to a LAN? Well if you are into your PC gaming, and even consoles, although you don't see them here as much, and you love to game, then this is the place for you, there isn't a place you could look where there wasn't someone playing a game and having a laugh with the people around them. Also if you are a tech geek then you would enjoy it there are some pretty ridiculous PC rigs set up around to drool over.

Plenty of well known faces were at this specific LAN, LiquidTLO was here competing in the starcraft tournament and there were also some big faces from Team Dignitas such as DreAm, JonnyREcco, Tefel and BlinG. All in all for my first LAN experience, I have had an amazing time, although next time I think I will be bringing my own rig to the party! I hope you enjoyed this article, and I also hope to see you at the next iSeries!