ATK LAN Sponsor: Novint

http://www.atkcommunity.com/sponsors/novintpost.jpg

The Idea
It's 2009, and I decided to change things up a bit.

We've had sponsors before, but never have we had a LAN Sponsorship deal that would improve or otherwise contribute to our experience at i37.

One company instantly popped into my mind - Novint, creators of the Novint Falcon. You'll remember we discussed it when the CEO of Novint announced that there would be a competition for people to win a Falcon of their own. Some of us tried, but the timezones difference made it nearly impossible.

The overall consensus was that we would like to try before we buy, and so I contacted the CEO of Novint with this in mind.

The Deal
A couple of days later I was put in touch with John T from Novint. After much discussion, we both agreed on LAN Sponsorship for ATK :D :D!!!

They will provide us with 3 NOVINT FALCONS & PISTOL GRIPS! All we have to do is pay for half the postage and promote them at the LAN.


So, what will we be doing with these Falcons & Pistol Grips?

• At least 1 (probably 2) will be used for demoing FPS games over the long weekend.
• We will invite anyone from the LAN to come and try them out.
• At the end of the event all 3 falcons and pistol grips will be given away (£40 each) to ATK members at the LAN! (see below for more details)
  

Note: Because of the effort I've put into organising this, one of the Falcons will be reserved for me.

Ways we will advertise Novint and their Falcons:

• 13 ATK members will have the Novint logo on their back.
• When the projector is pointing against the wall, we will mention on some slides that anyone can come to our seats to try out Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
• I will post on the MPUK forums saying that anyone can come and play with some Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
• If we run some game servers at the LAN, we will talk to people in-game about the Novint Falcon.
• There will be Novint banners up on ATKCommunity.com.

How is this going to work?
As a result of these new plans, I will need to be on the end of the row at the LAN. I will NOT expect everyone to be helping at the same time on this, but I will expect everyone to help me at some point over the long weekend (even if only for 10 minutes).

It would be sensible that the person who next wants to help the most with this sits next to me at the end. Please post below if you fancy that role.


What is the Novint Falcon anyway?

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The Novint Falcon is an entirely new type of game controller. Replacing your mouse or joystick, the Falcon is, essentially, a small robot that lets you experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history. This is a must have bundle for any serious gamer, particularly First Person Shooter gamers. The Falcon also has a compelling library of compatible games (described below), and this bundle includes a great beginning collection of them including the Orange Box from Valve.

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For more information see the previous thread here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1Rz2clLS0

On their site you'll see that the Novint Falcon & Pistol Grip bundle sells for $199.99 (approx £122 excluding postage from the US). This would easily be £175+ with postage to the UK for the bundle.

Receiving one from ATK for £40 is therefore a massive bargain, and I expect if there is large demand within our ATK group that we will either draw names out of a hat or if people agree, we could have bidding.

You. Fucking. Ledgend, I bugys buying one !, and chalex, i want to help out with this, if you dont mind

Nice work chalex, prob your best piece of work ever, really good deal on those Falcons btw. Should be really good and will deffo get us a lot of attention and publicity for the community. Now all we need is for everybody to have a t-shirt and we will appear epic as long as they dont speak to DE :D

I'll sit next to you and help with it all, am interested in this and may put forward an offer.

Holy godamn shit Chalex you really excelled on this one. That's fucking fantastic! Dibs on having one for my PC, i'll definately help if you want me :D. I'll probably buy one for £40 too after using it.

Fucking A* for that :D

I think everyone will want to buy one so how is that going to be decided?

edit: ah just read the thread again missed the bottom bit.

With all this going on will there be time for the ATK video, if not I could help out by filming stuff if thats needed.

HOW?!?!!?!?!?!?!

I think a bid system would just be silly as we want to get them as cheap as poss, maybe names in at hat or some sort of elabourate quest /game ????

1v1 CSS or CoD4 deathmatch elimination tournament TBQH. Using the Novint Falcon ofc.

Sounds like a good idea ^^

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Originally Posted by Phantom

1v1 CSS or CoD4 deathmatch elimination tournament TBQH. Using the Novint Falcon ofc.

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Names out of a hat lol.

Create a poll if you want about the 1v1 stuff, it would be interesting to see what people think.

Meh, I already knew about this. :p

I'll help out of course Cambi, although I don't really want to be sitting one from the end.

I am prefacing this post with this disclaimer just in case someone from Novint comes along to read this - THIS IS MY OPINION AND NOT THAT OF ATK AS A WHOLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ACT UPON THE COMMUNITY BASED ON MY OPINION. Also, please don't send me hate mail about this, or curse me out everytime I come on TS. But I expect that will mainly come from the people in charge more than the people that are actually on TS.

Bidding would be stupid - people with loads of money would just spend upto the RRP. Great work on getting the sponsorship and the swag.

But I am going to be honest for a sec - how glad I am now that I am not going. You make it sound like that during the weekend you'll be working for them, which is what you have paid a lot of money on in terms of travel, food and the ticket to get away from. Not to mention, some of you are not even there for the full four days, so your time will be constricted even more. You also make it sound like a mandatory service that we have to give up our PC's to let randomers use the product - what if someone would rather keep their PC to themselves?

On top of that, those which do give there PC's up are not even guaranteed 'payment' at the end of the event, because of the limited number of units. I appreciate that this is quite an expensive controller, and therefore they can't give away 13 of them, but it does seem a bit unfair that a majority of ATK members are going to be inconvienienced and then not compensated at the end. Plus, Chalex - your not even there the full 4 days. This isn't a personal jibe, and I understand that you, as the big cheese, have put a lot of effort into acquiring this deal for us, but I do not understand why you should automatically recieve one of the Falcon's when people will be doing more of what Novpoint want us to do by demonstrating over the weekend than you will be. Overall, it looks like an exploitation of circumstance, and considering the high demand and limited supply of the good - it would only seem fair if it were randomly chosen with no reserved products.

Personally, I think the Falcon is too pricey for what it is, a tad gimicky and is by and large, extraneous, and would therefore not personally buy one. However, I appreciate the opportunity Novint has given to members in the community who are more optimistic and enthusiastic about it to use and possibly own one of these devices. I also thank them for providing us sponsorship for the LAN event.

I do agree with you Oric about bidding being a bad way to go. I also agree with how it could be unfair how people lend their PCs out for some time and not get to buy one at the end.

However, I disagree that we're 'working' for Novint, I think it's a great opportunity to test out the Novint before buying, where else would you get that? I don't think they want us to do much 'lending' of PCs, I personally wouldn't mind if somebody came over and asked nicely to have a go with the Novint on TF2 for 10 minutes, provided it didn't happen too often.

The benefits (3 Novints for £40, advertising for ATK) by far outweight the drawbacks IMO.

Agreed the same on the first two points,

If people are willing to lend there PC's out they should be the first ones to get offered, if however all of us offer up our PC's drawing out the hat should be the only way.


Dont forget either having a stall inside the BYOC lan area is EXTREMLEY good and the pay for big companys do not get this, this will also advertise ATK quite a big amount.

Already working on the ATK banner sitting on our row? if not for £20 it could be ordered online.

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provided it didn't happen too often.

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That will most likely be the defining factor on it being a sucess or failiure in the view of ATK. Seeing it is a new product which not many people will ever own due to its price, I can imagine a massive load of people coming over to you during the weekend consistantly to use it and see what it's like.

You won't know how it will go until the actual weekend, but I can invisage it going quite badly.

Yeh and you dont have to give ur pc up if u dont want to, it just means u may not get to use the novint, and even if it is like working for them, we still get to try them out for free which is wot everyone wants to do, plus we can dictate how much time we get to play with them and on a variety of games. It also gives great publicity to the community and will also allow us to review the controllers for people not attending the lan. And even if we are not one of the lucky ones to recieve one of the controllers, we at least got a chance to try them out and decide whether they will be worth looking at in the future.
It may also open up more oppertunities if this is successful for ATK to take other companies products and test them at the I series or find us more members. I think chalexs deserves one as this is prob the best thing he has done in along time imo and a very good idea that i didnt see anyone else suggesting.

Oric we know your raging that your not coming now :D but u can read all about it on the forums :D

O man I am so so so so jealous of you guys, man I wish I could come now :(. Great idea and I’m sure it will get a load of publicity for ATK.

Uhh just one thought someone might have to be the enforcer to stop a constant crowd around our area,

Not only could stuff of the desks go missing very quickly, Stuff could get damaged even quicker like drinks over monitors and having a crowd round the ATK row the entire weekend would be dire when we try and play some games.

Maybe the only pc's being used should be the end ones and ATK members loan pc's to the people on the end?

I know that sounds a little harsh but otherwise it could get really bad.

Or we could say you have to post in a thread on ATK to have a go.

I think chalex is just going to have the one at the end of the row being used by other people on his pc and they can all crown round him. The other to be passed around the atk members to try out and test, we can always get multiplay to tell people to move away if there are too many or they are annoying :D

Maybe we could get Wizzo to come try it out first??? Wuld get everyones attention :P

I think we've sorted our differences on TS now, but I'll post this anyway:

First of all, everyone's entitled to their own opinion so I'm not going to kill you for having one ;).

About the bidding, I merely said that if everyone thought that would be a good idea, then we could do it. I would prefer names out of hat of course, but I was just saying that people could think up their own ideas of how they could be received. Personally I think it would be quite cool if one was given away 100% randomly, and the other was given away in a 1v1 tourney.

We are only required by Novint to use 1 of the Falcons for demoing, but I thought using 2 would make it easier for everyone to try one. 1 within ATK, and 1 at the end for the public. Perhaps if we get a sudden crowd we could move them both to the end, but that can be decided on the spot. I will take the 3rd to the event, but I think I'll only bring that out if the demand requires it. If the person sitting next to me ends up doing as much as I do at the event, I will vouch for the fact that they deserve one of them too. At the end of the day though, it's the community's decision how they are given out.

Since I will be at the end I will be giving over all of my time at the LAN to promoting this item. I seriously doubt I will get hugely involved in the rest of the event because of the demand I'm estimating for this. As a result of this, as well as the fact that I've put a huge amount of work and time into getting this deal in the first place, I think I deserve the right to have one myself. Remember, no-one even suggested this idea to me, so we would have nothing at all if I hadn't stopped playing TF2 and actually thought about this.

In regards to ez64's comment, I think if we could have everyone just being wary of the situation and if I am obviously being crowded at the end, just take the initiative and tell people to come back later. Phantom, although the idea of signing up on ATK before using the Falcon would be very beneficial to us, I feel that would be overly imposing.

I should really get on TS :D

Maybe a sign saying "Please dont crowd the area" or something along the lines of that could be the best way to deal with it without being pushy.

Tbh we can be quite pushy if we want, just dont wanna seem unfriendly :P Yeh ez its makes it a lot easier to keep up with things :D

Oooh been missing quite a bit, firstly congrats for Chalex on putting this together.
Personally i dont want anything to do with it, except from trying it out once. Im at the Lan to have a good time gaming and having a laugh and to be honest do not want anything disrupting that.

The thought of having big groups of people coming up and down our isles standing around makes me cringe BUT i can see the positive points mentioned, i feel as if one side of our isle will be turned into a novint advertising stand and if your going to do this you might as well take Phantoms idea and get the most out of it as you can

I completely agree and don't want people within the isle itself.

Showing off the falcon & pistol grips will be kept to the end 2 computers near the wall.

Kinda off topic but we should all start sending seat swap invites to one another around about now so we can all be in our correct seats

Back on topic i beleive the Falcons should go towards the people who put the most time and effort at I37 in letting other people test and use them IE: chalex gets one cause he put the effort to arrange it and is giving up a lot to let other people use it then the other two can go towards the people who lend there computers the most.

If there isnt a clear time difference then we can use the other ideas but then again not being too rude i dont like the idea that someone who is rarely involved in ATK Ie lex, cillet getting it over someone like Phantom or Vox

Yeah, today I'll also sort out who will be next to me.

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Originally Posted by Chalex4

If the person sitting next to me ends up doing as much as I do at the event, I will vouch for the fact that they deserve one of them too. At the end of the day though, it's the community's decision how they are given out.

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Originally when I thought of this idea I envisioned everyone helping out a little, so it wouldn't be an extra burden on anyone. However, since some people have expressed that they don't want to be a part of it, I think you're right Trigger that, as I said above, those that do help more than most should stand a greater chance of getting one or just get one too.

I think this sort of thing can really be decided when we're there and it's easy to see who's doing what, but it's good to have the ideas now.

What Oricalcos said.

Funny how the people who are going with ATK to i37 have very little problems with this, but those that aren't sitting with us or just aren't going can think of loads of problems :p.

Well, you can put your mind at rest Mr. Magic. You won't have anything to do with it, I promise.

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Originally Posted by Chalex4

Funny how the people who aren't going with ATK to i37 have very little problems with this

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Error there :)

Thanks, it's always annoying when I make no sense.

Welcome to my world... :D

I think the two people on the end should get first offers as those seats will be swamped for quite a bit of the event of two of the controllers, then maybe a public tournament for one.

then one for ATK members to be chosen out of the hat.

Not a bad idea, seems a fair way to do it: youve got time and effort rewarded, skill and just dam luck :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ez64

I think the two people on the end should get first offers as those seats will be swamped for quite a bit of the event of two of the controllers, then maybe a public tournament for one.

then one for ATK members to be chosen out of the hat.

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That makes 4 controllers, 2 on the end, 1 public tourney, and 1 hat draw.

I thought there were four lol dont know where I got that from.

To make it fair, if you are doing a draw, someone who isn't going should do it, because then there is no bias whatsoever, as they haven't seen who did what etc. Plus the last time we did a prize draw, Chalex was called out for fixing it and giving L4D to the only mod on the list of entrants.

but surely as a community we trust each other and are willing to take what's said at face value?

I'm glad I typed that, rather than saying it. I couldn't keep a straight face...