2011 was held at the weekend (July 1-3) and Game Culture was there to chat to xLAN General Manager and ON3 Network co-founder Craig Nimmo all about his involvement, the brand new venue, WCG competition and where the future lies for New Zealand’s premiere gaming event.

GC: xLAN is now over for another year. How do you think the event went?

Craig: It’s always hard to gauge how you think the event went when you’re so deeply involved in making everything run smooth and making sure everyone has a good experience. Overall feedback has been positive so I guess that’s my best indicator so far!

GC: xLAN was held at a brand new venue this year as well which was a  lot smaller than the TelstraClear venue. How did this impact organisation of the event?

Craig: We planned for smaller numbers this year due to the tail off of interest in a number of games, as well as the separation of console and PC events. The change to the Showgrounds was a good one from the perspective of layout, having a compact and closer venue, and also to allow for better time spent around the attendees rather than running all over a larger venue like I’ve done in previous years! That said, the organisational aspect you have to very much start again with network layout, power set up, working out entrances exits and walk ways to ensure fire safety and other safety issues as well as trying to cater to the options you want to make available. Our biggest issue was getting internet to the venue as fibre is not available on the doorstep to be tapped in to like it is at most other large event arenas.

GC: Can we expect xLAN to be held at the Logan Campbell Centre in the future?

Craig: Working with the Showgrounds team was fantastic – they provide a great shell solution. I would definitely look at the Showgrounds as a future venue. It’s only downside is the size – if it was a few more square metres bigger, I’d say without a doubt we’d be back, but if gaming picks up and more interest is shown, then potentially the Logan Campbell Centre may not be an option due to size constraints. That said, as an organiser I have already looked at how I would use the same venue differently!

GC: How many xLAN attendees did you manage to acquire this year?

Craig: We fell just short of 500. We were expecting around that, but had facility for more if there was a massive interest! Most of the drop off is due to very few competitive releases being seen in the last 12 months, as well as a severe dip in the teams and players playing the existing competitive games such as Counter-Strike 1.6,Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4 & Team Fortress 2. This said, new games such as Starcraft 2 & Quake: Live gathered plenty of interest with over 40 competitors entered in to each (as well as overseas players coming across to enter the tournaments), and not so old games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had a very good showing – most likely due to the coming up new title.

GC: What sort of competitions did you host for competitors?

Craig: We held mainstream competitive tournaments for: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – Squad Rush was played for this tournament which is a 4v4 format. Call of Duty 4 – standard competitive format of 5v5 Search & Destroy.Call of Duty: Black Ops – again 5v5 Search & Destroy. Counter- Strike 1.6 – 5v5 Warmod. Counter-Strike: Source – 5v5 Warmod. Heroes of Newerth – 3v3. Quake Live – 1v1 Duel tournament as well as a 2v2 Clan Arena low key tournament. Starcraft 2 – 1v1 standard competitive format. Trackmania – a weekend long fastest time on each track across 5 tracks. Highest times had points allocated and then the placings were based on the highest points total.

GC: What is happening in terms of the WCG competition? Does xLAN still organise the WCG competitions for competitors?

Craig: We decided not to sign up to any continuation of WCG involvement this year for a number of reasons both gaming and administration related. From a gaming perspective there were only three real games that New Zealand players would have taken an interest in  – League of Legends, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Starcraft 2. The other games that WCG announced as it’s supported titles have very minimal showing on the New Zealand scene. In my opinion WCG is turning more to being Asian-biased, and this is reflective in the title selection – many of which are from Asian based developers and distributors.

GC: It seems that xLAN has reverted back to the earlier days when it was really an event for gamers to come together, socialise and compete if they wanted to. Do you prefer this over the super-competitive events of the past?

Craig: This is not really the intention if it looks that way from the outside. There is some rebuilding of competitive PC gaming that we are assisting to undertake at the moment for various reasons – one of which is the lack of truly competitive titles, as well as players being bored of the older ones and not picking them up due to the learning curve, or not wanting to take on the much more experienced players and teams. We have a few plans lined up that we hope will change this, and for which will change the focus of the players overall and bring NZ’s competitive communities back up.

GC: After taking over xLAN from the previous organisers, what challenges have you had to face in terms of organisation and sponsorship?

Craig: The organisation of the event is challenging in its own right, but the previous owners had a very good solution albeit not as dynamic as I would like. We like to make things more interesting and have let our key admins loose to allow them to put some more ‘funky’ solutions in place for the network as an example, or for server administration or just generally for tournament admins to run their set ups. We’re encouraging more pool play, multiple competition entry for players and the likes, which creates new challenges for our admins, but gives attendees more to be interested in.

Sponsorship is a prickly one, and I’ll walk around it saying that I’ve had my fair share of challenges to rebuild the xLAN ‘brand’. The sponsorship side of xLAN is one of my key focuses, and one that will be an ongoing focus to continue improving the state of the event and also the interest in the event.

GC: Has the community been responsive to the new and improved xLAN?

Craig: This year has been a lot more positive, and we do have a number of supporters who are always keen to help us, and always keen to give us feedback on what they would like to see or what they think could be done better. We had a big learning curve last year, and hopefully handled everything a bit better this year; there will always be those who are not happy with the event, and there will be those who are happy – we hope to hear from the unhappy ones so we can take their feedback and work on it, that’s how we improved on last year!

GC: The PC side of xLAN is now over but the console side kicks off in a couple of weeks with AvT Gaming at the helm. What made you decide to split the two into separate events?

Craig: There were a few reasons. One big one was network issues – people don’t realise that the Xbox’s get hammered by PC’s thanks to Windows features built in to it to be compatible with the Xbox 360. Another reason was due to the good work that AvT is doing with the community – we want to see this continue and they are a solid back bone to the console competitive arena. The final reason was feedback – a number of PC players wanted to see the console players in their own space, and the console players deserve to have their own focus for the event as they tended to get swallowed up by the PC tournaments and stage matches at the traditional set up. This said, we are only trying this split up of events, and will look at the options around it for the next event.

GC: What does ON3 Network have coming up in terms of events or LANs for the rest of the year? Are there any super exciting projects on the horizon for you?

Craig: ON3 Network is lining up a few things. We have Battlefield 3 coming out in October, and that is going to be a huge month for us with the beta prior to the release. We plan to be at Armageddon Auckland to release the game over that weekend, and then we are planning a few things for January next year. We are also looking to get a few small regional LANs up and running in conjunction with a few partners so keep posted for those events as we post up news.

Shoutouts: big thanks to all the sponsors we had for xLAN 2011, in particular Razer, and our ongoing supporter TelstraClear. Big ups to my partners in crime – Chen ‘Chenmeister’ Huang, an idiot who keeps everything light hearted even when the going gets tough, Nic ‘Nuke’ Scott, the best Event Manager you can get, Jordan ‘Prolax’ Gardiner for always being a legend and my wife for putting up with all this “xLAN crap” (her words). Final shoutout goes to the crew who help to make xLAN happen – ON3 Network loves you guys, and the event would not happen without you.

Thanks to Craig for his time. If you’re a PC gamer, be sure to check out ON3 Network’s page regularly for event updates and LAN happenings.

*Images kindly provided by xLAN