Yet another fun evening!

Last night we had our third event, and it was the biggest success yet. 36 attendees were treated to some wonderful desert by a local chef who was gracious enough to donate her work. Halo 2 was system linked and is now playable by 8 persons to one map, Madden 2005 was on the big screen again and so was Burnout 3. Burnout is a total blast to play and I can't wait for our next event to get another crack at it. We also had our PS2 set up with a Tony Hawk scating game. Some other interesting news is that we will be starting a RPG (DnD) session for our Friday events. Next month we will feature a one shot game hosted by a local volunteer who has DM experience. Check back for pictures and video of Friday's event. We will get them up as soon as possible. This was an absolute blast and I hope you will consider making it in November!

If you are interested in our next event on November 25 from 6:30-8:30 at the Main Library, please let us know.

704-336-2725 or gotgame@plcmc.org

Martin

Gaming Night Embraces Voting

Its that time once again and Mecklenburg County is voting and the Gaming Zone has graciously stepped aside so that the volunteers running the early voting polls can use the Auditorium on the lower level of the Main Library. We'll still have snacks but we'll set them up in the hallway instead, just outside the auditorium.

Tragically, this means no movie tonight. But, on the up side you can vote at gaming night! That's right, the polls close at 7:00 and we open at 6:30 and you can come in earlier anyway, so while you're waiting for us to setup get in line and vote!

Teen Night @ ImageOn

With over 500 teens in the libraries new facility it was difficult to keep up with all the faces that passed through the X-Box room. We had two consoles setup to play Madden 2005, one console setup with Street Fighter, and another with Forza Motorsport. All three games were a huge hit. The night ended with one last Street Fighter bout.

The Teen night also featured Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke, Virtual game play, Extreme Twister, crafts, crafts, and more crafts. The DJ kept the music coming, which led to a dancing competition. All the teens had a great time, and I think that event was a complete success.

October, November & December Flyers

For your viewing and informational pleasure, here are our flyers for the last quarter of 2005.

Here is the flyer for our Friday Night Free For Alls that we hold once each month. We will have a new version of this one for November and December but here is the upcoming on on October 28th. This event has board games, PC games, consoles, a movie, snacks and more.

Here is the flyer for our console gaming events that we have each Tuesday at the Main Library with X-Boxes, Playstations and the like.

And, last but not least, here is the flyer for our RPG (role playing game) events each Tuesday.

Warcraft PvP

As I mentioned in the last post Warcraft III is fun when played against the computer but the real fun comes in having another human surprise you in ways an artificial intelligence never can. So, with four copies of Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne in hand we decided to go one step further than just letting players access Battle.net. We wanted players to not just be able to test themselves against other people but be able to do it with the folks sitting one chair down from them.

Thus, we searched around and settled on setting up PvPGN, an open source Battle.net emulator. Hosted on our own subnet that means functionally zero latency for top notch speed so that its your skill that wins the day not your opponent's lag. It also means you can do games of 1 on 1 PvP (player versus player), 2 on 2 wi co-operative sides or any combination allowing the computer to run some opponents as well such as 3 vs 1 with 2 computer opponents or even all 4 humans versus 4 computer opponents.

Warcraft III is running on fast PIIIs with plenty of power for the application on nice looking CRT monitors and headphones are at each station for players to hear the audio cues.

On the screen shot of the desktops we've prepared we've even gone a bit further beyond providing a custom on network PvP option. We've also loaded the machines with high end maps that take advantage of the Frozen Throne extensions, descriptions and previews of each on an easy to browse document and even cheat codes if you want to play in the single player modes. And no, the cheat codes don't work in PvP.

Warcraft III

There are probably a few gamers out there who aren't familiar with the Warcraft universe but I'm not sure who they are. Blizzard is a legend in their own right, beginning as a small console company that made addictively quirky console games and then exploded by nearly creating the RTS (real time strategy) game in early DOS graphics days with the first Warcraft game. Game magazines cover a new Blizzard game the way Rolling Stone would treat a lost Beatles album being discovered.

Warcraft has become its own brand with action figures, clothing, more RTS games, a MMORPG, novels, graphic novels, art books, DVDs and thier own convention.

We at the Gaming Zone are expanding into PC Gaming at the next Friday Night Free For All with Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. These are the terminal games of the Warcraft RTS line and although a few years old still considered some of the best RTSes ever made, still selling heavily and competed in at tournaments world wide. At a good five years old, both still sell better than many new games!

Of course, this is all nice but we aren't satisfied with that. We're going just a bit further with how you'll be able to play them. Combined Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne offer hundreds of hours of play time going through an intricate series of stories in campaign mode. And if you want to do that we'll have cheat codes to let you do as you please but frankly, the real fun comes in competing against another human being and having them push you to your creative and strategic limits.

Blizzard has long supported this through Battle.net, a gaming service that lets players go up against each other. But that's just not cool enough and tomorrow I'll tell you what we're doing to go one better.

X-Boxes Out in Force for Get Real!

All four of the Gaming Zone's X-Box units and games will be operational for the library's Get Real! Teen Party being held on Saturday, October 22nd from 7-9pm. Virtual reality rigs and Dance Dance Revolution units will also be present.

This program is open to teens in middle and high school only.

More details available at: http://www.plcmc.org/forTeens or phone: 704-973-2728.

We hope to see you there!

Analog Gaming for November

So October is already pegged (but "impaled" is a better word) with Zombies!!! but what should we play for November? Themes are out because, as far as I know, there are no Thanksgiving board or card games ... and running a simulation of Plymouth Rock with lead miniatures would thrill me but probably bore everyone else to tears.

So I've dug through my collection of games and randomly picked three. Leave your comments below with your choice of game otherwise I'll roll a d6 and you'll be at the mercy of my Dice O' Doom.

Bang!: A Rip Roarin' Spaghetti Western Card Game (Mayfair Games)
The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!

Cosmic Cows: Yahtzee-Style Bovine Theft (Playroom Entertainment)
It's time for the Annual Extraterrestrial Cow-Pulling Contest, and aliens from all over the galaxy have come to watch the event. Go head-to-head with your cross-cosmos rival to see who can abduct three Cosmic Cows first.

Castle: A Fantasy Card Game of Strategy and Deception (EuroGames)
Players are given a set of square-ish cards which are to be played onto the table, which has a cardboard castle battlement layout. Cards are played into one of three regions: in the courtyard, on the battlements, or outside the castle. And when played, the cards will usually allow you to take some sort of special action, which is unique to the card you played. The first player to rid himself of all his cards will be the winner, which can be a tricky proposition at best.

Let us know or you suffer the fate of my mad dice-throwing skillz!

Next big event on October 28th.

Well our next big Friday Night Gaming Zone event is coming up. We have the 4 Xboxes we started all of this with and also a PS2 now. I can't wait for our next event, it's going to be seriously cool. With James' "Zombies" game, we are adding an entirely new layer of gaming to our event. We are also going to link 2 XBoxes so that we can play 8 people head to head in Halo2 and its all on projectors with big sound systems.

e-mail us at gotgame@plcmc.org or call us at 704-336-2725 to sign up. You can still come anyway but we'll only have as much soda and snacks as we know to plan for.

Later,

Martin

Brraaainnnnnsssss....

In addition to the forementioned roleplaying games, I'll be starting up the next phase of our program to expand out into all forms of gaming. I will be heading up bringing in various board, card and miniatures games. The first of which, appropriately enough for Halloween, will be just in time for our Oct. 28th Friday Free-For-All.

Zombies!!! 4: The End
All of your hard work has paid off and now you stand here in the dark and lonely wood. Don't worry about that howling in the distance. It's probably nothing. Who ever heard of a zombie dog anyway?
The goal of Zombies!!! 4: The End is to be the first player to successfully "undo" the spell that is making the dead rise. To do this, you need to find as many pages from the Book of the Undead as possible; make it to the cabin and perform the spell before the other players. But, watch out for the "dead" dogs.
This standalone expansion, for two to six players, features an ever changing map and an always hungry pack of undead dogs. Players take turns playing map tiles, placing zombies, running furiously, screaming, fighting and generally creating havoc.

We look forward to having you... for the game that is! Raw brains taste terrible.

Madden 2005 Field Report (redux)

Hello. I'm James.

(chorus: Hello, James)

I'm a recovering librarian from the first game night that I put on at South County Regional Library. Needless to say, I was both happy and utterly exhausted with the attendance at our first event. The next event will be held on November 15th from 5-7pm with the featured game being Halo 2. There is some other events being planned, but, as they are still under wraps, I'm not going to say anything other than the programming selection will possibly be expanding with some help.

Everyone pigged out on Fritos, Pepsi and Mountain Dew until we ran out about two hours into the program. Note to self: buy double what you think you're going to need because of the number of people who didn't sign up ahead of time.

For those of you who like statistics, I had eight sign-ups in advance. When the program started at 5pm, I only had four people show. That was until about 6pm when the floodgates opened. By the time I had to ask people to leave because of the library closing, we had had 23 attendees. While the total attendance prevented my original idea for a structured tournament, everyone who attended got to play against an opponent and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I recieved numerous requests for other gaming systems to be represented and even had people volunteering to bring in their own games to play against others.

Trust me, folks, you've never really gamed until you've played on a giant screen. Madden was really cool - Halo 2 is going to blow your mind when you can play four-player slayer matches and have enough screen real estate to see what you're doing!

See you all on the 15th!

Ghost Stories & Games

We're still working up a Calendar to put on the site that will provide a nifty interface for seeing upcoming events but I didn't want to wait too late to mention this one.

Ghost Stories & Games will be our first role playing game event. Its Tuesday, October the 25th, 1 - 3 pm, in the Dalton Room of the Main Library. Let me quote the text from our RPG events flyer:

Just in time for Halloween learn about horror RPGs and resources for planning a scary game around the Queen City. The workshop will cover ghost tales from Charlotte's past and high light resources as well as introduce the Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness games.

I feel obliged to add a bit more detail than I could fit on the flyer with its easy to read large font. First, the World of Darkness book I will be using is the new World of Darkness published by White Wolf. Released over the course of the last year they recast their entire product line, sort of rebooting the universe (to borrow a term from graphic literature in turn borrowed from computers). I recently purchased the e-book version of their Ghost Stories book and will see if I can use content from it as well as the main rule book.

Given that H.P. Lovecraft has been so influential in having writers share his universe of imagination, with film makers, writers and musicians drawing on his mythos for inspiration, its no surprise that an RPG is based on the Cthulhu Mythos. Call of Cthulhu will be the Chaosium, not the Wizards of the Coast d20 version. I'll be staying in the best known time period of the 1920s and 1930s rather than the Victorian, Medieval or modern setting versions (Golden Dawn, Dark Ages and Delta Green books respectively). I'll also be bringing in items from our collection that people can use for additional inspiration or just enjoyment from our film collection, popular fiction, and other circulating collections.

Now, you don't need to understand a single thing I've just said to come and enjoy the program where I'll explain all that and talk about more still. In fact I hope we get folks who have never done this but interested in learning about role playing games or how to host one as a sort of social experience for friends and Halloween is the perfect time for it.

I'm reading Ghost Stories of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County right now in getting ready and will discuss some of this local folklore during the program and how to use it in games. In addition I will talk about a variety of items available in both our circulating collection and unique items only available as reference in our Carolina Room.

I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Tuesday Gaming Zone @ Main Library

Well, we had a successful second week of our Tuesday Gaming Zone. Although we only have one XBox in use for these events right now, we will have to grow it to two or three. Gaming time was maxed out with people trying to get a controller and everyone had a lot of fun competing with HALO 2. We will soon be taking some pics to show you what this looks like in real life. The setup is great. We have a large screen projector setup, with a killer sound system and wireless controllers.

Hope to see you there soon.

Martin

[Edited by Rogan]

Just to add to what Martin said, I've had a lot of feedback by folks who want to know a bit more about what we do to stage the events and want more diversity.

The mainstay of the Tuesday gaming has been the console gaming and as Martin notes we're expanding there. That's more his territory but I'll tell you what I know about it. We setup one of our meeting spaces at the Main Library with a digital projector, sound system andone or more game boxes. The meeting room varies from date to date as we have to share nice with others.

The standard setup are our most popular selections - Madden NFL 2005 and Halo 2 on the X-Box. Based on feedback we're planning on adding more games such as Capcom Fighting Evolution, War of the Monsters, Burnout 2 and Soul Caliber 2 and the Game Cube and Playstation 2 platforms. We're pretty confidant of a few of these choices such as War of the Monsters and the Playstation 2 but we're still looking for more input from attendees. You can come by, email us or leave a comment on the blog.

We'll also have special events from time to time such as our Holiday Game Buying Guide in December and our November Managing Madden NFL Franchises.

I'm more involved with the newest part of the curriculm of our Tuesday events, the role playing games. This is the newest thing we're doing and we're getting a lot of great interest already. I'll soon be posting an entry about the RPGs as well to give folks more information about them.

Madden 2005 Field Report

I was home last night catching up on usenet posts when I got a call from James at our South County Regional branch. He has been the first person to take the Game Zone on the road, so to speak, and do it somewhere other than at the Main Library.

His main draw was Madden 2005 though he also had Halo 2 and Capcom Fighting Evolution and all got a workout. He put out a flyer about a week in advance hoping for a just a few people to show up and try out the setup since it was their first time. Instead he had a 23 people bustling in the community room and is already planning on adding a PS2 and Gamecube for their next event!

Welcome

Welcome to our new blog!!!!!

This is a brand new venture the library is undertaking and we want it to be a big success. The last two events were awesome. Anyone is welcome! We'll have some things for the younger crowd to do and of course, we want you to have fun!

So tell all your friends about us, and come on down to hang out.

What We Are

The Gaming Zone has two major parts. Tuesday afternoon events are held every week while Friday Night Free For Alls are held once a month.

Tuesday Events

October

The first of the Tuesday afternoon events will start in October from 1-3 pm each Tuesday. This will be one X-Box in the Dowd room with a choice of Madden 2005, Halo 2 and Capcom Fighting Evolution.

November

The Tuesday events will double in November with two gaming stations on some days and a gaming station and an event such as a Madden Franchise class on other days.

Friday Free For Alls

October

We will have 4 X-Boxes on projection screens with Madden 2005, Halo 2 and Capcom Fighting Evolution.

A movie will be in the auditorium along with some food and drinks.

We will have Warcraft III on computers networked with a local server for players to compete or play alone. We may have some other PC gaming as resources permit.

There will be PS2 console gaming added this month with several competition games for players to pick from. A featured game will War of the Monsters where players take on the role of movie monsters evocative of the 1950s. The other featured game is Street Fighter Alpha.

We will add the first of our non-electronic offerings in October as well. A board game called Zombies! and Scrabble will be featured.

November

Currently confirmed for November are adding a Nintendo Game Cube for younger children who come with their families.

As a Library Service

Aside from the value of bringing the community together in a positive social space we also push traditional library goals with the gaming zones. At each event we sign up people for cards and circulate materials.

Other Than Games

The auditorium is used as a common social place with a movie, soda and snack foods available.

About Families

We list the event as 18+ but we do encourage families to attend, however one guardian who is 18+ must be there. Game areas will be broken up into two zones. One area is in Virtual Village will include games rated M for mature and have a different feel including rock and industrial music. Parents must accompany children into that area. The other zone will have more family oriented gaming in the lobby.