After a number of applications and interviews. We're proud to announce the arrival of Hg to the team.

Hg will be joining us ready to help out with epic.THREE, particularly working on some of the big games, fun tournaments and event content, as well as helping out with the online community activities, such as our regular games nights.

On joining the team, Tim said, "I'm sure I will enjoy the role and enjoy working with the current epic.team as they are already friends."

"I applied for this role as I have made some great friends in the epic.community and I have enjoyed myself at all the epic events and lately online during epic.Tuesdays and of course in IRC.
As such I wanted to make sure this is same for all members of the community, ensuring they enjoy epic and what it has to offer!"

We all look forward to working with Hg for epic.THREE and beyond.

Time to announce the rounds that will be taking place in the epic.THREE pub quiz!

Our pub quiz takes place on the Saturday at around 8pm in the bar area of our new venue, Uttoxeter Racecourse.

It's £1 per person to enter, and all entry fees are distributed to the winning teams as 75% - 1st Place, 25% - 2nd Place.

So the rounds for the quiz this event:

• General Knowledge
• Gaming Music
• Film & TV News
• Movie Themes
• Current Affairs
• Photochop
• General Music
• Drinks
• Gaming News

Still some spaces left for epic.THREE so head over to our booking page now to grab yourself a place.

An opportunity has arisen for a member of the community to join the epic.LAN team in time for our next event, epic.THREE at the end of the month.

We're looking for a keen member of the epic.LAN community (you must have attended our events previously) to join in helping out both at our events and with our online activities.

The work is all voluntary, but there are plenty of other benefits, including being a part of a great team and a fast-growing exciting community, not to mention the benefits for your CV for both the voluntary and technical aspects of taking part in the events.

So we're looking for applications from people with suitable skills to be a part of that team. A good gaming knowledge and a basic technical knowledge for diagnosis of simple networking problems is required and of course you need to be able to work as part of a team. Creative skills inolving sound/video/photography or graphic design are always beneficial to the team, but not essential.

To apply, send an email to winbar@epiclan.co.uk detailing why you think you would be suitable for the role. Your email can be text based, or you could show off your skills in some other way such as an image or short video clip if you want to be a bit more creative. As the next is event is closing in quickly, the deadline for applications is 12noon, Saturday 13th February, with shortlisting and online interviews taking place Sunday 14th & Monday 15th in the evening. Obviously you will need to be available for epic.THREE to apply.

Good luck!

Now it's your chance to have a try at spinning the decks with our DJ Hero Fun Tournament at epic.THREE in February.

For some late night random fun, we're going to be hosting a DJ Hero competition at the event so you too can learn how to be a top DJ...well, almost!

And don't forget as part of the event entertainment we have a number of live sets from our very own DJs Haden & Superchief and a bit of random musical Armagetron fun from Graeme (Kustom).

The exact competition format is yet to be determined, but it's likely to be the highest average score over a number of sets.

But again, to take part you need to be there!

Find out more about epic.THREE and book your place now!

The first draft of our epic.THREE timetable has been released giving you an idea of some of the organised activities we'll be running over the weekend.

You'll also see on there our three fun-tournaments which we can now confirm will be:

• 5v5 Team Fortress 2
• 1on1 CSS Rifle Trifle Cup
• Trackmania

The timetable just shows our big games and mini tournaments (hence mainly showing FPS games), but of course you're free to play whatever you want whenever you want throughout the weekend. Just shout up if you want a game of anything, and people will join in! We'll be randomly putting on some mini-games for other genres too.

So start having a think about your teams ready for the TF2! Both the CSS and Trackmania will just be individual fun events.

As you can see, there's loads going on at epic.THREE, book now if you don't want to miss out on the fun!

We barely even had chance to announce it and it's already sold out!

Our new mini event (epic.lite) taking place over the Spring Bank Holiday in May has just sold its last space with 32 people now booked and seated ready for an early summer weekend of gaming, meat and a few drinks to wash it all down.

If you missed out, then it's still worth making a provisional booking for the event, then if there are any cancellations, we'll contact the list of people signed up to grab any spaces that do become available. There will also be a very limited number of spectator spaces available due to the space restrictions at this event.

Failing that, then you really should make sure that you're coming along to epic.THREE, which takes place before epic.lite in February, with over 90 people expected to arrive at Uttoxeter Racecourse for 4 days of gaming fun from Thursday 25th - Sunday 28th February.

I wrote this some time ago as a piece of advice for people attending LAN events, and thought it was about time to resurrect the post!

Sometimes the whole event experience can be ruined by poor health during the LAN, but a lot of this can be prevented (if you think about it though 100+ unwashed peons crammed into a room eating crap for a weekend, it’s a recipe for some sort of disease to spread).

So we've put together a few tips to help make your LAN weekend more enjoyable. In addition, you should also take a look at our What to Bring pages to make sure that you don't forget some key item of kit for the event, you know...like your PC!

Read More

Neptune's Pride is a browser based strategy game played in real time against multiple opponents and epic.THREE participants will have a unique opportunity to try out the beta in a special speed version.

The aim is to capture enough planets to have ultimate control using a mixture of diplomacy and acts of aggression. While the interface and controls are simple, with only 4 research strands of Weapons, Range, Speed and Scanning, the game focuses attention on strategy. You can upgrade your fleet's range to beyond your scanning distance so you never know what you might find on the other side.

Unlike the internet version, we will have access to a special speed version so instead of days to complete actions it will be hours instead!

Read More

Because we're nice and helpful, here is our list of games that will be appearing in our Big Game Timetable during epic.THREE to give you plenty of time to get them installed before the event, rather than installing and patching when they're announced on the PA system and only joining the server just as people are finishing!

Now don't forget, the list isn't exhaustive, so just because a game doesn't appear in the list, doesn't mean it wont be played at all and the list only covers what we class as Big Games where we aim to fill a server with as many people as possible, so things like RTS style don't appear here, but they'll still get played!

Full timetable for the event is coming soon, watch this space!

Read More

In addition to our "Decorate Your Desk" mini competition, we're pleased to announce the return of "Capture the LAN" and this one is for all of the budding photographers out there!

This one is quite simple, all you have to do is take a photograph and submit it to a folder on the FTP at the LAN. The photograph has to be something that captures the atmosphere of an epic.LAN and sums it up in one single image. Each entrant will be allowed to submit up to 5 images.

So this one wont be judged on who has the biggest camera lens, but more about who snaps the moment that just captures what epic.LAN is all about! Once again, we'll find a prize for the winner and show off some of the best entries in our gallery. Closing will be 12noon on the Sunday of epic.THREE.