Dear GWAR Lan Party Members,
Unfortunately, this friday's lan party has to be cancelled, and all future lan parties will cease. We've had a good run folks, and it's been fun, but the bean counters have finally caught up with us.
Someone from the Alice Springs Town Council found us on the internet and tracked me down. They called and asked to see if we had public liability insurance for our lan parties. I said no, what are the requirements? They said they needed proof of insurance, or they would have to shut us down. I called Elders asking for an insurance quote, and for a monthly one time event, the cost is $300 per event. Now we average about 30 players per lan party, and that extra burden would have to shifted to the player, increasing the entry fee by $10 per player, to a whopping $20 per player, for one night's gaming. Nope, not gonna do it. Not going to do that to you.
There is a slim hope, and that slim hope is called sponsorship. If we could find enough sponsors to cover the $300 monthly charge, we might be able to continue. Frankly, and realisticly, I don't see it going to happen.
On that note, I'm sorry to say we'll have to cancel this Friday's lan party. Stay tuned for more info.
GWAR History
GWAR started in the latter half of 1999, with MixedBag (Aaron Steppat) and myself (Stinky). I dropped in to sign up for Octa4 internet service and saw Aaron behind the counter. We started talking about Quake and all things related. I went to a couple of house lans at Aaron and Todd's place, and told Aaron we could use the rec centre. Things clicked, a hub was purchased, and the concept was born. The hardest part was the name. We didnt want Red Centre Fragfest because everything in town is Red Centre ... Austin Powers II was just out, and the name Fat Bastard's International House of Pancakes was thrown out. While catchy, it just didnt have an air of relevance. Then we came across MECHWAR, an acronym for Mixed Bag's Eccentric Crack wHore's Wild Assed Riot. That name worked for the first few lp's, but seemed a bit wordy. Back to the drawing board. Aaron had hurt his ankle playing volleyball, or netball, I can't remember which
So i started calling him Gimpy. So we mixed that and kept the WAR part, becoming GWAR - Gimpy's Wild Assed Riot. It stuck. As our player numbers increased, our need for crew increased. We found Brad homeless under a bridge one night, and decided to take him under our wing. Stonefish became our server man when MixedBag had to leave for Sydney for work. LynxofCP came onboard as our on again/off again itinerant webmonkey, and Fast_Hackem we brought onboard because he worked at CCNT, and could steal parts for us
Lately, we acquired SupermanUSAF through extended negotiations, but shoulda let him play in minor leagues a little longer. I ,Stinky, as the Head Cheese lost all sense of smell long ago, and am slowly losing touch as well.
Over the years, we enjoyed great support from local computer vendors, early on JPG Computers donated a server, an Athlon 500, for our use, and have donated many games and prizes for our giveaways. CCNT and Comspec were always good to us in providing needed hardware like memory, lan cables, power cords, and new power supplies. Switch, the internet provider, gave us free net access for our lans. We at GWAR would like to thank them wholeheartedly for all of the outstanding support they have given us.
If Stinky had his way, we would meet at his house for Friday's LP, but Stinky's wife is mean and cranky, and due with our second little one in about a week, so no dice. If we go underground, maybe they wont find us...........
Sorry folks.
Regards,
Steve
aka Chief-Stinky
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