Why am I telling you this? Although it might sound like I see myself as a hero, I actually really, really don’t. I am not writing this to dissemble me some appreciation or even pity (this thought will lead me to another very important question later, hang in there).
Quite the contrary, this would not have been possible at all if it was not for a shit ton of other people. At no point of time was I working on this LAN for the sake of appreciation or fame or any rewards. I never expected any medals or community weapons or praises. I wanted to do something for the community that I could be proud of. That’s literally all there is to it.
I am more trying to direct the attention towards those, that have been working behind the scenes a lot, or even people that you did not even know were contributing. I am not the kind of guy that enjoys the spotlight. Foungi´s and my name were somewhat attached to this LAN, but we could never have done it alone.
People and organisations I am very thankful for. I really hope I am not forgetting anybody, if so then it is probably because my brain practically runs on autopilot at this point.
There are loads of factors and people that made this LAN as amazing as it was. Without some of them, the LAN would not have been possible to begin with. Without others, this LAN would only have been half as cool as it was.
First of all, thanks to you guys! Without your interest and hype, DeutschLAN never would have happened. If nobody had picked up the idea on the forums, if nobody would have responded to that post, none of this would have happened. Tons of people donated money and items towards our project, although they knew exactly they would not be able to be part of it. I cannot stress enough what a motivation it was for all of us to feel the energy that came from you!
Thanks to MTA for hosting this event and believing in us, although we ended up with less teams than anticipated. They easily could have shut down this LAN with a swipe of their pen.
Valve for adding our medals to the game.
Thanks to TF2Pickup.net who filled the gap after we lost our main sponsor. The relation between staffs was always very smooth and filled with mutual respect and appreciation.
Thanks to our donators, especially Guyovich! It is crazy and still gives me goose bumps to think we raised ~2.500 €, although we were practically strangers to you!
Thanks to ETF2L for letting me abuse their homepage up to a point where it started to annoy people. Sorry to my fellow admin friends that I left hanging because I did not do any proper work for the league itself in the past months.
Thanks to the participants! My god, it was amazing to meet you all and see people show up to what had started as just another idea that bites the dust in the forums. Some of you had insanely long and exhausting trips to even get to DeutschLAN (and back), up to 15-20 hours.
Thanks to some unsung heroes: The casters of the showmatches and LANgames, Prph@ for handling all the server stuff at LAN, although he never volunteered for anything. To Yggdrasil & friends, who did a lot of artwork for us. To Jon, who was never technically a staffmember but got caught up in the idea no less than us. You guys out there cannot even imagine how much time and energy he put into this project. Without him, this LAN would have been a huge disappointment. Honestly, thanks so much Jon!
To my fellow staffmembers Hartz, Kkaltuu and Foungi. We all had never organized a LAN before and made a couple of (highly avoidable) mistakes, but we did it, boys!!
DeutschLAN was made from the community for the community. All we did was channel the willingness of many people.
DeutschLAN 2016??? Even before the LAN was completely over, people already approached me and were wondering if this would be an annual thing.
Honestly? Right now, I have no idea. At the moment, despite all the amazing memories that are still really fresh and flying around in my head, I feel a little bit burned out. I cannot speak for the other staffmembers, but I do not know today, if there is going to be a DeutschLAN 2016. I know it would be a shame if there wasn’t. But this is where my story from earlier gets picked up again: I personally procrastinated a whole bunch of things that “normal people” (running out of words) would rate much less important than a videogaming community. I definetly did neglect my education as well as my personal life and other hobbies for quite a while in different ways and changing intensities. If you asked me now and wanted a definite answer, it would probably be a “No”. It was a great experience; I do not regret anything, but do need a couple of months now to fix some stuff.
We would need a lot more teams next year. If there was a DeutschLAN 2016 and I am involved, it would definetly only be in Nieheim at MTA again. Although this place has some undeniable drawbacks, I cannot imagine starting from scratch. A whole bunch of things would run automatically that we had to work out with almost painful effort. I do not see myself approaching another venue, having to get to know and trust different business partners and locations than this one. That would simply take too much time and effort for me. This LAN was also special because it took place right there in Nieheim, Germany.
Generally, though: anyone who has another idea where you could host a LAN- just go ahead and do it! It is not actually difficult, it just takes time and dedication. The community needs makers. Without makers there cannot be growth and progress.