Hi Guys!

This is gonna be one bumper update, so i'd advise you print it off and take it to the bathroom as theres a good 5-10 minutes worth of toilet reading in the latest batch of gossip i'm about to fill you all in on.

Donations

We've had a FANTASTIC donation by [SAO]Bebefoxy, so i'd just like to thank her on behalf of the crew for being so generous. The donation has went directly towards renewing the L4D1 server, so thank you for that. As Valve has just revealed new content for L4D1 and L4D2 coming in March, im sure the L4D1 server is gonna shoot up in popularity, in addition to how much people have been revisiting it recently :)

SAO Celebrates it's 2nd birthday!

Indeed, on February 6th, SAO celebrated its 2nd birthday! Big shoutouts to everyone who has supported SAO, our members for joining and playing, and last but definitely not least [SAO]Magpie and [SAO]JI Hunter for helping create this wonderful monster we are all part of! Heres to many more years! Just to celebrate, all SAO members are entitled to a slice of fail cake...

Left 4 Dead 2 Servers

Big thanks goes out to [SAO]Commers, [SAO]Mac-Van, [SAO]Peter and [SAO]Strider for doing such an excellent job with these, I can wholeheartedly say that our servers are the best around, in terms of mods, gaming experience and intensity. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these, it's appreciated by all.

SAO:11 Gaming

As [SAO]11: Last Man Standing is in mere days, i've made a checklist of stuff for you all to make sure that if you are coming, you are prepared and dont need to take time out to setup stuff on your pc on the night.

1. Download [SAO]Peters Left 4 Dead 2 Addon installer, and get downloading some mods!

Incase you've been living under a rock for the last week or so, our very own [SAO] Peter has crafted one of the best pieces of software you have ever seen, which is designed to help you download and install mods for L4D2 onto your PC.

Once installed, it shows you a list of mods, which you can then download, unpack, install and have ready to play in 1 click. This can be downloaded from the L4D section of the forums or by clicking the banner above. At SAO:11, there will be Death Toll modified and all of the other maps from L4D1 being played on our L4D2 servers, so get it downloaded and get the mods installed!

2. Get your arse signed up to the event: Link is at the top, if you are coming you should be signed up :)

3. Energy Drinks: if you're coming for the long haul, remember to get some. Crisps/Potato Chips/phone to call pizza are good too!

4. Get ventrilo setup and ready (if you havent already) for BOTH the SAO server, and Mac-Vans server (see vent section below)

5. Spread the word: know a friend who would love to come? invite them along, the more the merrier!

6. Have Left 4 Dead 1, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, The Aliens Vs Predaor Demo (free download from steam), Shattered Horizon and Battlefield Vietnam installed if you have them, they will be played on the night im sure!

7. Install a catheter. Only required for some SAO members, but im sure you all know what I mean ;)

A trailer for SAO:11 can be found here to warm you up for the event!

Ventrilo Server

FACT: Our ventrilo server will be bursting at the seams on the night. There are already 21 members registered for the event (and thats BEFORE i've sent you all this newsletter!) so if you haven't signed up already it would be a good idea to, in order to give you the best chance at securing a slot in vent.

New Vent Users: if you havent been on it yet, get vent from HERE then use vent4.gameservers.com port 4464 to get in, and get chatting!

Current Vent users: please spread the word! we got 25 Slots, lets try to fill it! Other clans (including the =1= crew) and friends of the clan are more than welcome to use it too.

IF YOU DO NOT REGISTER FOR THE SAO:11 EVENT ON THE WEBSITE (requires logging in or link wont work) THEN YOU WILL NOT HAVE A GUARANTEED VENT SLOT ON THE NIGHT, SO YOU WILL HAVE TO RISK IT

Our wonderful Mac-Van has let us use his vent too for SAO:11 in the event of us being completely full and having members with no-where to vent (see the pun there...?) anyways get this copied and pasted as a new server, in the event of the SAO one being full:

Hostname/IP: lon2.ugt-servers.com
Port Number: 18111

Its an 8 Slot server, though small this means an entire L4D's worth can pile into here and make use of it, so very handy indeed! The Ventrilo server expires in june, and subject to donations I will hopefully be expanding this from 20 slots to 35.

[SAO] Peters L4D2 Add On Installer (L4D2AOI)

As mentioned earlier, Peter has been working (for weeks now) making this excellent tool for our members to download, use and enjoy! Please remember to use "Help -> Check for updates" to make sure you have the latest version installed, and be sure to let Peter know your thoughts and thanks regarding it when you see him. For now it is available to download via the link in the forums click the banner above to get it) but when we release it for the world+dog to download, it will be moved to our "downloads" section so only registered website users can get their hands on it.

This is sure to cause a massive amount of interest, so be sure to grab a copy before everyone else and put it to use

May I take this oppertunity to say THANK YOU to Peter, on behalf of myself, the staff, and our members for creating this excellent tool for us!

[SAO] Ghostwriter

As our websites visitors will have seen, we now have a writer/columnist for the SAO website. This is a [SAO] member who wishes to remain anonymous but is quite happy to supply you with up to date news regarding gaming and everything else that interests us. I'm sure you will find his writings interesting, and for this I have installed a comments system, so if you are signed into the website and click "read more" to see the full article, you can put your thoughts/opinions on the end of the news article for all to see!

[SAO] BloodBowl League

I've been poked by several members to see if there is any interest in setting up a league. There are a few of us who have this cracking game installed and if there is enough interest we will be hosting an ongoing league for our members to play in. If you are interested, stick your name down in the forums somewhere (make a post in general discussion saying you are interested!)

The Forums

The forums have been buzzing recently, especially with the release of [SAO] Peters fantastic L4D2 AOI, but also thanks to our members for posting some great, fun and interesting things to get everyone chatting, not to mention our GhostWriters news content too! ;)

[SAO]Meet1: Drinksfest 1 Date TBA

This will be discussed on vent on the night. If you wanna participate in an SAO meetup/pissup, then get on vent and find out whats going on! Since I have completely failed to organise this so far, hopefully this will help get a date set for it

Last Requests

As a favour, and purely if you have the time, i'd appreciate if you could do any/all of the following to make things a bit easier

1. If you haven't already, invite EVERYONE on your friends list to the SAO Clan Public Steam Group
2. If you ARE coming, register on the website
3. Help pimp the event through your status' on things such as MSN, Facebook, MySpace etc.
4. Join the "L4D2 Addon Installer" group on steam. We are gonna use this as a method of promoting it, and getting the message out to the world, so join the group n be part of it
5. Help pimp the event through other forums you use. Feel free to use the images, or the spray (available in the forums) to advertise the event.

Hope to see you all on vent and the forums, only days till [SAO]11!

Cheers

BigC90210 and the SAO Staff