Wightfrag V - Once more into the breach, dear friends...

[king_pellinor]

Well, I see from my calendar that May is coming soon: season of bluebells, dancing in the dawn, and the sound of swearing punctuated by loud explosions!

I speak of course of WIGHTFRAG, the games weekend so full of good stuff it needs its own Bank Holiday to fit it all in!

As ever it's the second bank holiday weekend in May (25th to 28th): turn up Friday afternoon or later, leave by early afternoon on the Monday.

For those who've been before, you know the score. Unreal Tournament, Settlers, Carcassone, Axis & Allies, Neverwinter Nights, Eyetoy, more Unreal Tournament, Munchkin, Total War....

For those who haven't, let me quote an eminent social historian:

"...a lot of thirtysomethings recapturing their carefree student existences. I don't think, actually, any of us had lost them..."

Or, in more detail, LadyofAstolat and I will set up:

- Two rooms for PCs (bring your own box), to allow moderately multi-player Unreal Tournament and other such games (8 PCs at least);
- A kitchen for you to fill with your choice of booze and snacks, with the very occasional vegetable sighting among the Pringles;
- A dining-room table for board games;
- Big telly for console games;
- Small telly for *more* console games
- Garden for, er, something or other. Why go outside?

All we want is lots of people who are happy to have their heads blown off by LadyofAstolat's flak cannon, their dignity destroyed by dance mat and Eyetoy, their integrity disputed after their shameless boardgame tactics, and so on.

"...my addiction to computer games has been reawakened..."

All you need to do is bring food, drink, and a few PCs between you. Oh, and some bedding for those who think sleep a good thing. Skill at games is NOT required: if Killer Kitten can go from saying "I can't do FPS games" to being the most feared predator on the planet in two days so can you, and besides no-one else can remember how to play half the games anyway.

It's not the winning that counts, it's the howls of outrage from the other room as you leap over their tattered corpses... :-)

"...I'm sure everyone who survived the weekend in one form or another would like to join me in thanking you..."

All are welcome (well, people I've at least heard of, for preference). We can fit a dozen or so in the house; tents and B&Bs exist for any surplus. More is merrier! Let me know by comment or email or whatever. If you can only make one or two days, don't worry, it's all good.

Just remember the Wightfrag motto:

"Killer Kitten again!! How did she do that?"

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Much as Killer Kitten would like to claim this image as a ruthless and unstoppable killer, honesty forces her to admit that she spends half the time totally failing to prevent an assortment of other people from killing her - in particular, Asthmatic Ant/Pathetic Earwig/"What on earth is he calling himself now>?"

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Well OK, but Small_Inoffensive_Beetle would like to point out that he never seems to be able to avoid the rocket-launcher of Cow_of_Justice, and similar folk.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

We'll be there!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Cow of Justice is indeed scary. I wanted to include him in the list of people who kill Killer Kitten, but couldn't remember his latest pseudonym.

[chainmailmaiden]

All we want is lots of people who are happy to have their heads blown off by LadyofAstolat's flak cannon

I fear her sniper rifle more than her flak cannon! I also fear anyone driving a vehicle as I am doomed to become roadkill :-(

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Unforunately, I can't use a sniper rifle or a flak cannon in UT2004. I was pretty good at sniping in old Unreal, but it all fell apart in the new one. I am, though, very very fond of charging around in a Hellbender mowing people down. In fact, I'm so fond of it that I tend to forget that I'm actually supposed to be building power nodes and trying to win the game, rather than trying to provoke cries out anguish from the neighbouring room.

[chainmailmaiden]

I can't use a sniper rifle or a flak cannon in UT2004

I find the trick with the sniper rifle in UT 2004 is to turn the effects off (which is probably cheating...), the smoke is very annoying. I've not noticed any difference with the flak cannon though, it's still definitely my favourite weapon. I have a disc from a PC magazine which has some more variations of game play UT2004 I can bring with me too.

Maybe we should try some old UT this time too for a nostalgia trip? - not that I have a particular wish to be repeatedly shot in the head by you :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

" ...a lot of thirtysomethings ... "

Am I not allowed to come, then?

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if some of the old Unreal's capture-the-flag maps might be a good training ground if we have some people who aren't so used to FPS gaming. They tend to be a bit simpler in layout than the newer ones, and have nice clean lines.

We can then take the noobs into Onslaught mode and rack up the kills :-D

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I think you qualified at the time :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

*is relieved* :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

But you can now consider me forewarned :-)

[phina-v.livejournal.com]

Pelago and I would like to come. We'll bring the Wii, but alas no PC as the graphics card has died is unlikely to be replaced in time. Hopefully skordh and jane_somebody can bring theirs to keep up PC numbers.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'll be coming and could potentially bring both Scatha and Ancalagon.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I think there's a mutator that puts old UT sniper rifles back in. There's certainly one that replaces those silly electric shock rifles with sniper rifles (but not the shock rifle itself (blue not yellow) - I like those for taking down Raptors :-) )

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

It's more fun hunting alert prey.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Is that "hopefully Skordh and Jane_somebody can come, bringing a PC with them", or "hopefully Skordh and Jane_somebody can bring their PC when they come"?

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

That would be handy.

[skordh.livejournal.com]

We can come and so can our PC so far as I know. It should cope with UT 2004, it just hasn't yet. It's good at UT GOTY though.

Yay! Wightfrag!

Although I should mention that prince_eldarion will be coming too and he is a lot more mobile & demanding than he was last year ...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

That's great! re. mobile babies: We will of course remove obvious baby hazards, like Narsil. Is there anything else we should do? Would it be a good idea for you to bring a Stargate, or bits of that nifty fence thing you had in your living room? Or shall we just rely on the fact that, with a dozen people in the house, there will always be someone able to snatch him away from the abandoned pints of beer or the attractive-looking power cables?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You are the worst driver ever in UT2004!

[chainmailmaiden]

Very true, and I would never try and pretend that I wasn't :-)

I prefer to shoot things than to drive. I've often wondered what my driving would be like in computer games if I used a wheel and pedals instead of a mouse, as my RL driving skills are certainly nowhere near as bad as my computer ones...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Now looking likely to be Saturday to Monday. Friday would be too difficult after work. Monday is viable now I have got national rail to behave themselves; looking for trains from "SOU" rather than "Southampton" appears to be the trick!

Stilton and pork pie will be ordered ...

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Roger.

[jhgowen.livejournal.com]

well, I'd love to, but we are moving from Japan to Switzerland on 30th, so we have a lot of packing to do.

Maybe next time.

[skordh.livejournal.com]

I'm just returning to Wightfrag planning & realised I never answered your question about whether we should bring a fence or gate.

As Aragorn said "Men are better than gates, and no gate will endure against our Enemy if men desert it." Except that El isn't really an enemy. And the gates are in fact pretty good at enduring against him. Plus of course Aragorn was thinking about men with swords which we agreed would be taken out of the equation. But apart from that, it's exactly similar. Lots of alert people are what is needed to keep El out of trouble / prevent him causing trouble.

Unfortunately, El really likes power cables! We have been teaching him ever since he could crawl not to play with wires. The result seems to be a wary look around before gleefully grabbing them with a shout of "Wire! Wire!"

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

We do have a lot of wires around, and will of course have more at Wightfrag. The main concentrations will be surrounded by people with computers, of course, except for the ones behind the TV. I'll see what I can do to proof them a bit.