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So I finally found a korean internet cafe in Brisbane after previously failing at watching (& finding a good place to watch) the MSL finals, as seen here.
I saw it this afternoon wandering through Queen Street Mall, and with little else to do I thought, "Fuck it, let's see what these bitches have got"
It's on the second floor of a building that's being renovated so I caught the little elevator, which took for-fucking-ever to come down and go back up. There was an empty fanta bottle in the corner of the elevator, an ill omen of what was to come.
The business itself comprised three things: a small PC room, a pool room (billiards) and a few karaoke booths with k-pop etc. I walked up to the counter and asked for a computer. Suprisingly, unlike other lan cafe's I've been to they asked me to pay before use instead of after which I thought was kind of weird but w/e, I paid 2 dollars for Half an hour and hopped on a computer.
The room itself was quite small, holding maybe fifteen computers, only about 5 of which were in use. I sat down and logged on and what was the first thing I saw on the desktop? Our favourite little icon, the Wraith, with the golden words underneath "Starcraft Broodwars". Unfortunately I had some business to attend to first so I got that out of the way as quickly as possible, I was eager to play.
Having finished my other work I sat at my computer and mentally prepared myself for what was to come. Having sufficiently meditated I double clicked on the icon, I suppose at this point I should mention the tools I would be playing with. The mouse and keyboard were standard microsoft peripherals, cheap and crude. The mouse itself was horrible, not only did glide anything but smoothly on the sticky desktop but it had trouble tracking on the uniform coloured paint.
So there I was, ready to play, having not played at all in over a month I was feeling a tad rusty. But 'lo and behold, the disc wasn't in the drive, this was my first inkling that things were about to go wrong, very wrong. It suggested to me that they were not up with the latest patch, or at least didn't know that you no longer need the disk to play. I was loathe to get up and ask for a CD, so to save myself the trouble and potential embarassment I relaxed, happy that I had an excuse for not tangling with the koreans that day.
I settled for watching the first game of the OSL finals, which I had yet to see. I navigated through the trusty TL.net website to the vods, and just as I settled into watching game 1 my computer logged itself off. My thirty minutes was up.
Upon leaving I walked past the man at the front counter and asked casually which computers acutally had SC running, so I could know for the future, he told me so. I then asked if they ever get many people in watching proleague/Gom (which there was also an icon for on the desktop, I forgot to mention)/OSL & MSL finals. The man laughed in my face, semi sheepishly, obviously amused that a foreigner such as myself would be intereseted in starcraft, so ended my first Korean PC bang adventure.
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CA10828 Posts
hmm that is pretty odd. usually they have a timer on the computer so they can just charge you for however many minutes you were on.
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
You need to find the right PC bangs 
Huge ones have like a hundred computer, selling snacks/instant noodles/drinks, and separated into smoking/non-smoking area. They give you this card, you can choose prepaid if you want. You then key in the card's ID in your comp, and you play as long as you want, which is recorded in the main computer, and before you leave, return your card and you pay your usage.
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On April 20 2009 20:13 LosingID8 wrote:
hmm that is pretty odd. usually they have a timer on the computer so they can just charge you for however many minutes you were on.
some allow it, others dont
Usually because a lot of people just say they're going to take a call and just leave without paying
majority of pc rooms its more expensive using the cards than making an account. If you make account they give you discounts/points but i dont know about foreigners because you need a korean id number. I think the owner can by pass that if you tell them you dont have one.
I personally of all the pc rooms i went to i liked 존엔존 zone and zone.
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
On April 20 2009 20:17 Ilikestarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2009 20:13 LosingID8 wrote:
hmm that is pretty odd. usually they have a timer on the computer so they can just charge you for however many minutes you were on. some allow it, others dont
Most of the new ones use the timer system though... even those in the countryside use them (my grandma's town area)
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Well yeah, that's the kind of one I've been to before, it's just this was the first korean one I've been to, PC cafes aren't really that big in Australia. The room was really small though, but they had really good internet, so I think I might be back should I want to watch sc, as most other PC cafes around here don't have good enough internets to stream (they limit dl speed so each computer gets equal share, even if the place is empty)
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I think the Korean PC cafe's improved A LOT. Well the ones I went to. Some even prohibit smoking now so the air is a lot cleaner And it's cheap too, as always.
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oh i thought you went to a pc room in korea ;;
The majority of pc rooms allow you to choose, 선불 which is paying before hand and 후불 which is the timer
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
okay nvm lol.
Why is there a 'Korean' PC-room? Run by Koreans or something?
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wow im actually confusing you with myself ㅡㅡ
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
On April 20 2009 20:24 Ilikestarcraft wrote:
wow im actually confusing you with myself ㅡㅡ
rofl scv icon ftw
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Yeah it's run by koreans, all the signs for it were in korean, I only saw it because the hangul for pc bang caught my eye and a few of my friends were talking about the karaoke part of it after korean class this afternoon
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
On April 20 2009 20:28 nataziel wrote:
Yeah it's run by koreans, all the signs for it were in korean, I only saw it because the hangul for pc bang caught my eye and a few of my friends were talking about the karaoke part of it after korean class this afternoon
Ah I see.. but you should really go to a REAL korean pc bang in Korea. They are so much better, as far as I can tell from your post.
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
Oops double post. God I'm confused with all the threads in TL open.
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Yeah, I'm sure they would be, is there always lan games going on or do they play on bnet? pc bang's here cost a lot compared to in korea I think, it's generally like 5 bucks an hour here, but most cafe's have shitloads of games to play, not just sc/w3/d2, but massive amounts of latest games and really good hardware to play it on.
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51480 Posts
We only have one internet cafe here in Albury, such a rip at $5.50 p/h (4.40 on Thursdays).
Two kinds of payment though (before and after) 
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offtopic:
why the fuck do you both have an scv icon???????
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NeverGG
United Kingdom5399 Posts
On April 20 2009 20:38 nataziel wrote:
Yeah, I'm sure they would be, is there always lan games going on or do they play on bnet? pc bang's here cost a lot compared to in korea I think, it's generally like 5 bucks an hour here, but most cafe's have shitloads of games to play, not just sc/w3/d2, but massive amounts of latest games and really good hardware to play it on.
Ouch - that's really, really expensive compared to S.Korean PC bangs - I used to haunt one back when I lived in a shitty backwater town here in Korea and it was awesome - unfortunately people did still smoke there, but they had comfy chairs, noodles and other snacks/drinks to buy, free water and the guys running it were lovely (they lent me umbrellas when it was raining etc.) I once stayed in there for about 10 hours (God I was bored back in those days.) and it only cost about $8.
I have my own laptop now and net access at home so I don't need to use them, but it's still nice to go to a pc bang from time to time to play around. There's also a big selection of games at most pc bangs ranging from SC and Kart Rider to FPS and dancing games. The demographic for them here is really wide.
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konadora
Singapore66224 Posts
I think P.C bangs are super cheap, 1 hour = 500 won (cheapest), which is around 70 Singapore cents. And they have great service too.
Most of them play LAN starcraft if they go out as a group, but for individuals, it's B.Net
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51480 Posts
to ilikestarcraft: do they have iccup installed on the computers at the pc bang these days?
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The chairs at this PC bang were pretty sick though, definitely made for extended gaming sessions, other ones in brisbane have standard computer chairs, which really aren't that great. There is a pretty good place here in brisbane that sells lollies, chips, drinks (no free water though D. They also do all nighters which are good value, 12 hours for like 18 bucks. If they sold instant noodles they'd make a fucking killing I reckon. People play a lot of Left4Dead at that one, and a bit of CS. There's this other one that is in this basement and is really disgusting, all the WoW and DotA nerds play down there, it's so dirty...
A few more left in this city for me to explore, we'll see which one I like the most, but by then I'll probably have my own computer so it doesn't really matter. I really like the social aspect of going somewhere like an arcade or a lan cafe though, nothing like shitting your pants shooting zombies heads off next to three of your mates.
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On April 20 2009 21:13 GTR wrote:
to ilikestarcraft: do they have iccup installed on the computers at the pc bang these days?
No,they do not.
Well from when I went at least.
And @konadora: They are super cheap! I remember I played for like 2 hours and a half and it only came to around two dollars and a couple cents.
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On April 20 2009 21:13 GTR wrote:
to ilikestarcraft: do they have iccup installed on the computers at the pc bang these days?
no
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is there still a cafe called bunker in brisbane? that was like the gaming hub of aus in my CS days.
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51480 Posts
i remember the bunker, it was 'the place to go' for sc in qld back in the day
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The kareoke rooms there are really nice, but the PC room are bad compared to other net cafes just from looking it from the counter, unless they renovated it recently. Don't go there for gaming next time haha, there are way better places along Queens Street. And yea.. the elevator is fucking scary, especially when your with a group of people. Sometimes it feels like its stopped, but it hasn't and you wonder why the door ain't opening in the horribly ventilated small cell you're in.
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Artosis
United States2140 Posts
theres always at least 1 ajushi sleeping in pc cafes in korea.
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Wow. There is a local cyber cafe called euphNET ( www.euphNET.com ) and it's one of the best cyber cafes in California. They used to have 3 stores until they had to close 2 stores down because that LAN scene was dying out. The way they run things here is really organized since all you do is tell them how many hours you want to buy and you give them your account name only. When you log onto a computer, you can click on the time session and it has the amount of hours you have left. When you log off the computer and there's still time left, it'll be there the next time you log in on any computer.
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I went to a PC bang in China and there it's just called an Internet Cafe...
whaddya know, everyone in the room was either over twenty or a smoker so my dad told me to exit the room and wait for me (I was like eleven at that time) because he had to take care of his email and stuff.
I sort of snuck in and glanced around and holy crap all these people were having the time of their lives, on their mics and playing games such as WoW or SC, but rarely SC since the games they played were all Chinese such as kart rider. And there was literally no swearing whatsoever or yelling....-_-
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lol do koerans get logged off in the middle of games? That would be wierd
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yeah the computer just turns off if you pay in advance
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i live in toronto and so there's a "Korea town" where I go to internet cafes with all my friends. Games are definitely more fun when you're sitting right next to the person you 5 pooled to ^^
most of the Internet cafes there suck (maybe because i've been to korea's which are comparably, a lot better in every way) but it does have most of the games up and running (definitely starcraft, counter strike, warcraft, and battlefield) which are the most played games there. For the internet cafe we go to, it's around $2/hour which isn't bad at all compared to some other internet cafes..
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On April 20 2009 22:42 GTR wrote:
i remember the bunker, it was 'the place to go' for sc in qld back in the day
On April 20 2009 22:27 haduken wrote:
is there still a cafe called bunker in brisbane? that was like the gaming hub of aus in my CS days.
Yeah the bunker is still here, it's one of the ones I haven't been to yet, I'll definitely check it out. I don't think there'll be many people in there playing sc though
On April 20 2009 23:47 Rhaegar99 wrote:
The kareoke rooms there are really nice, but the PC room are bad compared to other net cafes just from looking it from the counter, unless they renovated it recently. Don't go there for gaming next time haha, there are way better places along Queens Street. And yea.. the elevator is fucking scary, especially when your with a group of people. Sometimes it feels like its stopped, but it hasn't and you wonder why the door ain't opening in the horribly ventilated small cell you're in.
Yeah I didn't really go there for a certain purpose, I just wanted to check it out, after hearing so much good stuff about korean PC rooms.
Hmm, gom is about to start, maybe I should go to a PC cafe and watch... I have an exam tomorrow...
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On April 21 2009 10:43 Disintegrate wrote:
I went to a PC bang in China and there it's just called an Internet Cafe...
whaddya know, everyone in the room was either over twenty or a smoker so my dad told me to exit the room and wait for me (I was like eleven at that time) because he had to take care of his email and stuff.
I sort of snuck in and glanced around and holy crap all these people were having the time of their lives, on their mics and playing games such as WoW or SC, but rarely SC since the games they played were all Chinese such as kart rider. And there was literally no swearing whatsoever or yelling....-_-
I love Chinese cafes.. I like to smoke when i game so that was awesome but the downside is that the keyboards are always burned and people give you the eyeball lol
SC is a widely accepted non mainstream game.
You must have went to a pretty good cafe. Because cheaper cafes are almost always populated by gang wannabes. I've witnessed two fights in cafes lol.
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Calgary25981 Posts
On April 21 2009 12:37 imperfect wrote:
i live in toronto and so there's a "Korea town" where I go to internet cafes with all my friends. Games are definitely more fun when you're sitting right next to the person you 5 pooled to ^^
most of the Internet cafes there suck (maybe because i've been to korea's which are comparably, a lot better in every way) but it does have most of the games up and running (definitely starcraft, counter strike, warcraft, and battlefield) which are the most played games there. For the internet cafe we go to, it's around $2/hour which isn't bad at all compared to some other internet cafes..
YK Cafe?
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EPT
