epic.FOURTEEN back in February may have been our biggest LAN to date, but there is always plenty we can improve on. If you weren't sure about attending, Winbar talks below about what we're going to do better next weekend at epic.FIFTEEN to help you make up your mind! Warning, MASSIVE POST alert! 

We learnt a lot from our last event, there were many compound problems that caused a number of technical and event issues that we don't want to happen again, and I'm sure you don't either. There will always be some technical issues at an event of this scale, it's inevitable, but what we can improve on is how we deal with them and communicate them to you as customers. We can't fix everything straight away, but we've certainly been busy since February:

Internet

Our technical manager has made a detailed post about the internet and internal network improvements for this event. In addition to those improvements, we've also added in more redundancy and monitoring to key services like DHCP/DNS so any failures behind the scenes should go unnoticed to you.

Oh, and where we've bought new kit, we're still bringing the old kit this event just in case anything fails! We've tested it all back at HQ as much as we can, but there's no substitute for putting 300 customers on the network, that's something we can't simulate accurately.

Damage to Venue

Sadly there was some minor damage caused to the venue by one or two childish individuals. We'll be adding a number of cameras around the venue in those sorts of areas to monitor some of the less visible places throughout the event. Not to mention increasing the security staff overnight as part of the camping improvements. 

Rubbish Bins

We've added more bins again this time and will have the cleaning stations in each main room. The bit we can't do is make people use them! Please do put your rubbish in the bins and clear food from your desks regularly, with the hot weather we want to make sure the event doesn't become too unpleasant. 

Cleaning

We've discussed the reduced cleaning reported over the weekend, particularly the Saturday & Sunday with the venue and had their assurances that there will be dedicated cleaning staff on throughout the event. Again you can do your part though by letting us know if you see anything that needs sorting. We've also increased our venue inspections to every 3 hours to make sure things are being kept clean, toilet rolls stocked up etc.

Oh, some of your aim is as bad as it is in game, but there's not much we can do about that (maybe put a crosshair in the toilets?)

Board Games Tables

We will be adding a couple of larger tables in to the Lakeside Foyer Board Games area (the same size we use for the pub quiz)

Music

Music library rebuilt again and more up to date tracks added in

Communication - Fair Isle

Big screen will be set up this event for participants sitting in Fair Isle to see what's going on elsewhere in the event. We've also re-organised staff locations to ensure that a member of the Event Team is also based in the room to assist with issues and communications. Unfortunately the size of the network means that there will always be issues seeing LAN games automatically, but at least you should know what's going on and where. 

PA Kits

We had a few damaged items last event causing issues with the sound quality in Lakeside and Gallery. A number of speaker cabs have been repaired or replaced as well as 2 replacement amplifiers. All audio cables tested and damaged cables binned to make sure they aren't used accidentally. 

Shop

We've looked through the suggestions and will see what we can source where appropriate, picked up a few good ideas from your feedback. We'd love to do more fresh food, but unfortunately due to fridge space we can't. However the venue catering does have things like fruit there for sale, so make sure you pay them a visit too. 

Internal Streams

This one ended up getting lost with all the other technical issues, but we have plans to have even more internal streaming this event, including announcements and all of our Twitch streams so you can watch them locally rather than using up external bandwidth. 

Battle.net Auth

We did log this request with Blizzard last event within their usual turnaround times, but for whatever reason it wasn't approved on time as it always has been before. We've put in our request this time much earlier and have had confirmation back already that it's being sorted.