The first draft of our epic.THREE timetable has been released giving you an idea of some of the organised activities we'll be running over the weekend.

You'll also see on there our three fun-tournaments which we can now confirm will be:

• 5v5 Team Fortress 2
• 1on1 CSS Rifle Trifle Cup
• Trackmania

The timetable just shows our big games and mini tournaments (hence mainly showing FPS games), but of course you're free to play whatever you want whenever you want throughout the weekend. Just shout up if you want a game of anything, and people will join in! We'll be randomly putting on some mini-games for other genres too.

So start having a think about your teams ready for the TF2! Both the CSS and Trackmania will just be individual fun events.

As you can see, there's loads going on at epic.THREE, book now if you don't want to miss out on the fun!

We barely even had chance to announce it and it's already sold out!

Our new mini event (epic.lite) taking place over the Spring Bank Holiday in May has just sold its last space with 32 people now booked and seated ready for an early summer weekend of gaming, meat and a few drinks to wash it all down.

If you missed out, then it's still worth making a provisional booking for the event, then if there are any cancellations, we'll contact the list of people signed up to grab any spaces that do become available. There will also be a very limited number of spectator spaces available due to the space restrictions at this event.

Failing that, then you really should make sure that you're coming along to epic.THREE, which takes place before epic.lite in February, with over 90 people expected to arrive at Uttoxeter Racecourse for 4 days of gaming fun from Thursday 25th - Sunday 28th February.

I wrote this some time ago as a piece of advice for people attending LAN events, and thought it was about time to resurrect the post!

Sometimes the whole event experience can be ruined by poor health during the LAN, but a lot of this can be prevented (if you think about it though 100+ unwashed peons crammed into a room eating crap for a weekend, it’s a recipe for some sort of disease to spread).

So we've put together a few tips to help make your LAN weekend more enjoyable. In addition, you should also take a look at our What to Bring pages to make sure that you don't forget some key item of kit for the event, you know...like your PC!

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Neptune's Pride is a browser based strategy game played in real time against multiple opponents and epic.THREE participants will have a unique opportunity to try out the beta in a special speed version.

The aim is to capture enough planets to have ultimate control using a mixture of diplomacy and acts of aggression. While the interface and controls are simple, with only 4 research strands of Weapons, Range, Speed and Scanning, the game focuses attention on strategy. You can upgrade your fleet's range to beyond your scanning distance so you never know what you might find on the other side.

Unlike the internet version, we will have access to a special speed version so instead of days to complete actions it will be hours instead!

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Because we're nice and helpful, here is our list of games that will be appearing in our Big Game Timetable during epic.THREE to give you plenty of time to get them installed before the event, rather than installing and patching when they're announced on the PA system and only joining the server just as people are finishing!

Now don't forget, the list isn't exhaustive, so just because a game doesn't appear in the list, doesn't mean it wont be played at all and the list only covers what we class as Big Games where we aim to fill a server with as many people as possible, so things like RTS style don't appear here, but they'll still get played!

Full timetable for the event is coming soon, watch this space!

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In addition to our "Decorate Your Desk" mini competition, we're pleased to announce the return of "Capture the LAN" and this one is for all of the budding photographers out there!

This one is quite simple, all you have to do is take a photograph and submit it to a folder on the FTP at the LAN. The photograph has to be something that captures the atmosphere of an epic.LAN and sums it up in one single image. Each entrant will be allowed to submit up to 5 images.

So this one wont be judged on who has the biggest camera lens, but more about who snaps the moment that just captures what epic.LAN is all about! Once again, we'll find a prize for the winner and show off some of the best entries in our gallery. Closing will be 12noon on the Sunday of epic.THREE.

Yes, you heard correctly!

We've been able to lay our hands on a very limited stock of Jolt for epic.THREE which will probably and sadly be the last time we're able to get hold of any reasonable quantities for the events after the announcement of the manufacturer's filing for Chapter 11.

We'll have some cans available for sale at the staff area, but we'd like to give you the opportunity to secure an entire crate of caffeine to be on your desk ready for when you arrive!

In addition, if you pre-order before the event, you will get 12 cans for the price of 11!

To secure your pre-order go to your epic.THREE Event Booking select Services and add the required flavour. Note that your order will need to be paid for in advance and this offer does not apply at the event.

So we asked you to show off your latest Christmas presents and how tidy (or not) you keep your  desk. The task was to simply take a photo of your desk perhaps including a small clue that might help people to guess whose desk it is.

16 People rose to the challenge and these are their desks below.

Send in your answers to desks@epiclan.co.uk between now and midnight 18th January we’ll work out
the winner. The person who then gets the most correct guesses wins a pint (or other drink) at epic.THREE. So let’s see how well you can remember what people bring to events.

Some clues are a bit more obvious than others...

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It's clearly time to announce some of the more important details about epic.THREE (25th-28th February), the bar times & prices and breakfast times!

For epic.THREE we will be using a large bar in the main hall with a huge space set aside for socialising, drinking, eating, playing card/board games and consoles. The bar will be open at the following times:

• Thursday - 5pm - 12.30am
• Friday - 1pm - 12.30am
• Saturday - 1pm - 12.30am

In addition, we'll also have breakfast being served every morning from 9am - 11am in the main hall, so you can get your morning nom without even having to leave the venue!

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As a result of recent stability issues with our website, forums and email services, our hosting provider will be moving us to a new physical server starting at 9am Friday 8th January 2010. As a result of the move and the following DNS changes, users may experience a period of downtime during this period.

We apologise for any inconvenience as a result of these changes, however the anticipated improved reliability will make it worthwhile.