BobWAN 2020.1

The first ever virtual BobLAN event took place this weekend, and I think everyone will agree it was a complete success. Of course, one of the major aspects of the real BobLANs is just being there in person to catch up with everyone and enjoy the food and drink that's on offer. That said, Discord came to the rescue and we had 19 people on the video chat at one point - not only an amazing turnout but remarkable that the technology held up, even whilst gaming.

On the gaming front, some games worked better than others. Here's a rundown of what we played and how it went:

• CS:GO - Pup did a great job of setting up the servers on his AWS account, and this was the go-to game throughout the weekend. Even the scripted game mode changing process worked smoothly, as did the new map selection we tried
• Wreckfest - the other favourite throughout the weekend performed flawlessly. No dedicated server, but we were able to spin it up on a client PC and with the appropriate firewall ports mapped it worked a treat
• GRID Autosport - we only had one go on this, but it was quite good fun
• Rocket League - the tournament was fun, but a little one-sided. Well done Foxy and DBoy!!
• Battlefield 1 - didn't feature much but we enjoyed playing it. The maps are just too big for the numbers we usually have available
• Battlefield V - for some reason, we really didn't enjoy this and it's unlikely we'll play it again. Shame, seeing as it wasn't cheap
• Snow Runner - watching Foxy drive the truck round was actually quite addictive!

So there you have it - BobWAN in a nutshell. To view the full schedule of what we played, who attended and links to the photos head over to the BobWAN 2020.1 page. Hopefully the next one will be a physical event, but we now know that we can do it remotely if required.

The first gathering of 2020, albeit a virtual one, starts later today. Meet up in Discord to vote on games, join the voice chats etc. Also keep an eye on the BobWAN 2020.1 page for the schedule and links to join servers where possible.

The first BobLAN of 2020 should be starting three weeks today, however this will now be a wholly online event. We've been testing out game server options for CS:GO and QuakeWorld, and for the most part those tests have been successful. Testing has been every Friday evening from around 9pm, and will continue throughout the lockdown.

Game and server details will be posted in the schedule on the BobLAN page over the weekend, and also on the Friday Gaming page as a simple list of servers.

As well as the standard FPS games, we'll also be trying out the online versions of popular board games - things like Ticket to Ride, Carcasonne etc - should be fun!

The dates for the first BobLAN of 2020 have been confirmed as Thursday 30th April until Sunday 3rd May. Get those diaries booked!

Note that due to the imminent closure of the DFC Forums, there will be no forums topic for this LAN. Game and hardware discussions should be done via the Facebook group. As usual, you will be able to follow the LAN via our dedicated BobLAN 2020.1 page.