April 9, 2009

This site is really due for a redesign. Unfortunately, my skills at web design begin and end with using WYSIWYG editors. Anyone with some real skill want to give me a hand?

Enough of me bleating - the last few months have seen a lot of activity within the Laserforce world, both at a community level and a corporate level - some of it obvious, some of it not so obvious.

The news over the past few months from the playing community:
1) Sacramento hosted the first West Coast Tournament February 27th - March 1st. In what was a good time for all, Sac 1 emerged victorious with St. George coming in 2nd. We did decide that next time, we’re running things so that the final doesn’t occur at 5am. Because that was painful.
2) There’s been a fair amount of rules debate and discourse happening on the forums relating to shielding and the various wordings therein. At this point, the general consensus is that the US wording is going to be slightly different than the AU/NZ wording.
3) LF Syracuse paid a visit to LF Detroit for some pre-US Nationals practice. A good time was had by all, and both Syracuse and Detroit are now eagerly awaiting for August to come around.
4) Chula Vista has just started their 2nd ever league season with 6 teams of 5. Stewie (one of the owners) will be keeping us all updated week to week with scores and stats in the Chula Vista forum.

And now from corporate...
1) Laserforce has replaced Zone equipment in yet another site - this time in Rockhampton, QLD, Australia. I’ve heard that there are more sites on the horizon both in the US and in AU - this definitely goes into the category of things that don’t suck.
2) Laserforce Brisbane celebrates its 21st birthday today (ok - technically yesterday because I’m writing this from the US on April 9th and it’s already April 10th in Australia). Pretty amazing when you think about it - most companies in general don’t last 21 years, let alone laser tag facilities.

That’s all for now - hopefully I’ll get back into doing these updates a bit more regularly.

February 25, 2009

Yes, I’m aware of how long it’s been since I updated. Moving countries and having to use other peoples computers tends to do that.

New Stuff:
1) Another new site in Australia, this one in Thomastown, Victoria. This makes 3 in the Melbourne area nw. With any luck, we’ll start to see some regional competition soon enough.
2) Laserforce now has a Twitter page. The rough idea for it at the moment is to use it so that tournament game results can be posted instantly. I’m sure we’ll come up with more ideas than that to use it for, but it’s a good start.
3) The 1st US West Coast Tournament is this weekend in Sacramento. Teams from Chula Vista and St. George will be making their way to Sac in what will hopefully become a regular rotating tournament event.
4) Auckland has received their Gen6 upgrade. To say they’re happy is a mild understatement :)

December 22, 2008

Today we have an early Christmas present for the West Coast Laserforce sites - Sacramento will be hosting a Space Marines 5 tournament February 27/28. Please click here for more information. In addition, you can also now find Laserforce tournament replays on YouTube. The long term goal is to get everything from 2008 ANZAC Nationals up there, as well as everything from future tournaments. Here’s hoping.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all - this will definitely be the last update I make until after New Years. Moving internationally tends to put some additional pressure on your time :)

December 11, 2008

When things start happening, they definitely start happening. As mentioned in the last update, 2009 US Nationals have been moved from Chula Vista to Detroit. Today, the registration paperwork is available for download. The arena map is being worked on - as soon as that’s done, it’ll be posted as well.

December 9th, 2008

The date and location for the 2009 Laserforce North American Nationals have been changed - this event will now be held at Laserforce Detroit. Chula Vista, which was originally going to host this event, is at this point going to be hosting the 2010 event..Please check the Tournament Forum for the most up to date information about this tournament.

November 20th, 2008

It’s been a bit thin lately on the updates, not from a lack of things happening within the LF world, but from a lack of time on my part. Real life gets in the way ENTIRELY too much I’ve decided :) Between knee surgery and preparing to move back to the US, there hasn’t been a lot of free time on my end. Anyway - on to what’s new:
- New Laserforce site in Syracuse, New York.
- Sacramento once again has a Laserforce - right where the old one was. Good bye Zone, you won’t be missed.
- Laserforce International is at IAAPA this week in Florida - we at LFHQ hope everything is going well and they get some good leads and sales out of  the show.
- More sites are due to open in the next couple of months in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. As soon as we have exact locations, we’ll let everyone know where else they can play Laserforce :)

August 24th, 2008

Updates today include:
- 2008 Nationals stats & videos are posted
- Yet another new Laserforce in the US, this time in Minnesota
So not a huge amount in the grand scheme - but watch this space. There’s more on they way.

July 20th, 2008

The 2008 AU/NZ Nationals have been and gone, and the team that’s come away with the win was a bit of a surprise. Going into the tournament, most people had Oakleigh A as the favorites to win and hold on to their Nationals crown. However, in the end it was Auckland A who surprised a lot of people (even themselves truth be told) by taking the grand final 3 games to 1. It was a fantastic week with minimal complaining and bitching and people playing in the spirit of the rules.

A massive thank you goes out to Ballarat’s owner, Brendan, who was there the entire week and made sure that we were taken care of. As opposed to some prior nationals at other centers, there was no attempting to sneak bookings in during the day or anything of that nature - he let us have the time we’d agreed on. Also - a thank you to Mildura for coming down even though they’d only been open for 4 months. They may have gotten smashed, but they had a good time, learned lots, and seemed very keen to make things happen for the future.

TEAM RESULTS
1. Auckland A <2nd after round play with 70 points, def. Ballarat in 2/3 match, def Oakleigh in Grand Final>
2. Oakleigh <1st after round play with 80 points, def Hybrid in 1/4 match, lost to Auckland A in Grand Final>
3. Ballarat <3rd after round play with 52 points, lost to Auckland in 2/3 match>
4. Hybrid <4th after round play with 40 points, lost to Oakleigh in 1/4 match>
5. Auckland B <5th after round play with 20 points>
6. Mildura <6th after round play with 6 points>

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
Medic Killer: Hoodlum - Oakleigh A
Rookie of the Year: 2KKing - Auckland A
Best & Fairest: Tie - Monkey Crap (Auckland B) & Pat (Hybrid)

ANZAC Team
Commander: Mental - Oakleigh A
Heavy: Pat - Hybrid
Scout: Hoodlum - Oakleigh A
Scout: Black Sneak - Auckland A
Ammo: xThanatoSx - Auckland A
Medic: Fish - Oakleigh A

July 4th, 2008

Happy 4th of July to our US readership. :)

Today’s updates include:
1. The 2008 US Nats in Caseyville have been canceled. Unfortunately management there wasn’t happy with the level of pre-registration so has canned the entire event. Which is irritating on a whole host of level, not the least of which is I know how much time and effort the Caseyville members put into the whole thing.
2. Another new site in the US. This one’s just outside of Dallas, Texas and is using refurbished Gen5 equipment.
3. And in news that will really cheer up some of the Old-School US players, the former LF Sacramento is now in the hands of Sean Lively (Yama). It has Zone Infusion equipment in it currently, but somehow I just don’t see that hanging around for any length of time.

June 18th, 2008

A couple of quick updates, some based on feedback, others just based on needing to be done:
1. Fly-out menus with transparencies have been removed.
2. The registration page for the 2008 US National Tournament is now up and running. Head on over and get your team registered - should be a good time the whole way around given how many sites there are now in the US.

June 13th, 2008

Welcome to LaserforceHQ.com. With any luck, this site will end up being more stable than the last one - I still don’t know why the php includes decided to not work on some pages while working just fine on others. If you find anything that isn’t working properly, please let me know.

Updates:

• Laserforce Caseyville has finalized the dates for their upcoming US tournament - August 4th & 5th. This is shaping up to potentially be the largest Laserforce Tournament ever, both in terms of number of teams and number of sites sending teams. Please visit the tournament forum for more information.
• Laserforce International continues to have an amazing year with 4 new sites opening in the United States in the last 3 months. In the last 12 months, they’ve had 12 new sites either open or switch from another vendors equipment.
• Laserforce Chula Vista has also finalized dates for an upcoming tournament - the 2009 Laserforce Internationals will be held from August 3 to August 7. With 14 months notice, noone has any excuse for missing what should be an amazing tournament. As always, please visit the tournament forum for more information.

For older updates, click here. Please note that these updates will probably contain broken links.