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Ultimate Guide to Hosting a LAN Party
WebWord writes "The title says it all. This really is the best damn guide to setting up a LAN party I have ever seen. They cover all the details from equipment to food to network protocols. Excellent!"
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A mate and I set up a Quake2 party complete with a digital projector set up on a seperate machine on the network using the "camera where the action is" mode and..... no bloody one came. Everyone wanted to go see anyother stupid hollywood flick. :(
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
What makes lan parties fun is cramming yourself on the edge of a bed, where your mouse works crappy, getting fragged while the host(ess) kicks your ass while sitting at their desk - that and brownouts when the sub woofers woof (for the lack of a better word).
I see doom on the page - how long has it been since you've last played that game.
Honestly though, planning helps, but the article isn't that extensive.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Touche on that troll. Almost a legitimate answer.
Remember to allocate space for sleeping if your event spans more than one day because even the most hardcore gamer cannot play for 24 hours straight.
Poofters! Wimps! It doesn't get fun until after you've been up for 24 hours straight. Then you turn the volume wayyyy up, and shotgun about 4 cans of Jolt... Blammo! Good God, I'm hit! The monsters, they're all around meeee
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
They say to use optical mice. I have never really liked the feel of optical mice personally and aren't there tracking problems on most of them at high velocities. Ball mice just have that more definite feel to them. They point better and track more accurately. Just get a good mousepad and keep it clean. Optical mice are kind of cool, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to make them usable for hardcore gaming.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Our LAN Parties always end up deteriorating into long ass game of Worms.
Ursula Andress, Catherine Deneuve, and Charo, twice...
This could certainly help out those who have never done a LAN party before, or even those who want a quick list of sorts of things to remember to do. Seems fairly well thought out, especially the out of game information, such as feeding your guests.
And Mirrored.
Ultimate Guide to Hosting a LAN Party
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By Christopher Wong - September 29, 2001
First of all, what is a LAN party? Quite simply, it is a bunch of gamers who come together, hook their computers up in a local area network, and play games until their eyes bleed. It usually consists of gamers with their computers, food and drink (most often of the high-in-fat, low-in-nutrients variety), and lots of games.
LAN gaming had existed before Doom, but it was Doom that brought network gaming to the masses. Offices around the world experienced drops in productivity as sessions of Doom on the office network began to increase in popularity. Gamers realized that fragging their buddies was much more fun if they were within verbal abuse range.
The rise of the internet did not dampen the enthusiasm for LAN gaming, mainly because the dominant internet connections of the mid-90s were 14.4 and 28.8 modems, with the inherent lag and other communications problems. Local area networks, on the other hand, did not suffer from lag as much as modem connections, and being in close physical proximity to your teammates and enemies allowed verbal communications, greatly increasing the enjoyment of multiplayer gaming. Even in today's era of broadband connections and abundant online game servers, nothing quite replicates the thrill of trash talking your opponents in person after a particularly glorious victory.
Plan Your Event to the Smallest Detail
There are several important things you must consider when you begin to plan your event. Items include the size of the party, when it will run, where it will be located, plus miscellaneous things like entrance fees (if required) and promotion of the event.
While LAN parties can usually be as large or as small as you want, most people will find that with less than four players there isn't the same level of excitement and competition as with larger parties. Realistically speaking, at lot of fun can be had with 8-20 players, but any larger and the logistical problems with setting up such an event may well be beyond your capabilities and finances unless you are experienced in running such events. Larger events are also fun, but they no longer become one-man jobs and you will probably need some knowledgeable friends to help keep the event running smoothly.
LAN parties can also run for as long as you want, though reality will dictate that most events are three days or less, usually running from Friday evening to Sunday evening. For obvious reasons, one-day events are the easiest to set up, and it is recommended that the first LAN party you host be a one-day party. If you have friends to help you organize and host a party, you should be able to host multi-day events right off the bat. Remember to allocate space for sleeping if your event spans more than one day because even the most hardcore gamer cannot play for 24 hours straight.
One of the most important decisions that have to be made during the planning process is where the LAN party will be located. The primary factor in choosing a location is its size: it simply has to be big enough to accommodate all the guests comfortably. On the other hand, a venue that is too big can also create problems, so once you have decided where to host your LAN party it is best not to change the number of guests. If a planned location is booked and later needs to be bigger, you may lose your deposit and booking fees.
Accessibility is also an important factor. This mostly depends on what city you host the party in. Obviously, in a large city with a comprehensive public transportation system, getting to your event will be much easier for your guests. Hosting your LAN party in a rural "middle-of-nowhere" town will cause unnecessary grief for both host and guests, and should be avoided even if you live in such a town. It will be much easier to attract gamers to your particular party if it is easy for them to get there.
There are other issues to consider. Are there washrooms? Are there enough for the number of guests you expect? Noise is also a concern, for a group of rowdy gamers will inevitably create lots of noise and perhaps even some profanity. Make sure that you won't have neighbours calling the cops and complaining about your party. As mentioned above, additional room will be needed for sleeping areas if your LAN party lasts longer than a day. There should also be an area set aside for breaks from gaming, and it helps if there's a TV or some music in this area.
Lastly but importantly, the issues of electrical power and ventilation need to be addressed. If you are booking a location, ask the booking manager about how much electricity the building can supply and if there's air conditioning (in the summer) or heating (in the winter) available. You need to ensure that a large number of computers will not overload the electrical circuits in the building, which will bring your party to a grinding halt and possibly result in the cancellation of your event. Air conditioning and heating is important to keep your guests comfortable. Ventilation is especially important during the summer because the ambient temperature and heat generated by people and their computers will quickly rise to unbearable levels, and may actually result in damage to computer systems that are overclocked and thus sensitive to temperature changes. Of course, all of this depends on how far north or south you live: air conditioning is useless in the Polar Regions, and the same is true for heating near the equator.
Operating Costs and Promoting Your Event
Once you've decided on the size, duration, and location of your LAN party, there remains the issue of the entrance fee. If you are hosting a small party with just your friends, an entrance fee will not be necessary since the costs to run such a party are quite low. Anything larger, however, will require an entrance fee simply to cover the costs of providing the space and hardware to run the party, in addition to the time investment. Things get expensive quickly as the size of the party grows because of the need for high-speed switches and routers, and possibly even gigabit Ethernet equipment in parties with more than 50 people. The entrance fee can also cover things like door and tournament prizes, as well as food and drinks.
To help defray the costs of running a medium to large LAN party, you may want to consider having your event sponsored. Sponsors might provide food, hardware, software, or technical expertise, and even money if you're really lucky. In exchange for this you will most likely be required to promote the company's products and services, and maybe even allow the company to be the exclusive provider of for-sale goods at your venue. Remember to have any arrangements with sponsors in writing so that it becomes a binding contract, preventing them from dropping their sponsorship at the last moment.
Congratulations, you've just finished the planning stages. However, if you actually want people to come, you will have to promote your LAN party. A good rule of thumb is to promote your event at least a month before it starts. An excellent way to start is to create a website with all the details of your event. Be sure to clearly state the equipment that the guest must bring, as well as the entrance fee and other incidentals that require money. To let people know about your event, there are websites that are dedicated to listing LAN parties around the world. Putting your party there can greatly increase the chance getting the turnout you wanted. You can put your LAN party listing on www.lanparty.com or in the LAN party department of www.bluesnews.com . If you live in a large city, you can use the classifieds of your local daily newspaper to advertise your event. Mind you, it won't be free, but at least it'll have greater exposure.
What You Need To Have
There's a surprising amount of equipment needed to host a LAN party, and one of the best things you can do is to create a list of that equipment. I know it sounds simple, but by creating a list, you will always have something to refer to, ensuring that you don't leave out any critical components. Believe it or not, some of the most important things are not routers and network cable, but tables and chairs. After all, nobody likes to play games sitting on the floor. If you are hosting a larger event, you may well have to rent tables and chairs from your local party supplies dealer. If you do, remember to factor in these costs into your entrance fee. You will also need extension cords for people to plug their power bars into.
If your party is going to have more than four people, it is best to set up at least one computer as a dedicated gaming server. This is very important if you want your games to be lag-free. As a rule of thumb, you should have one dedicated server for every 10-15 people so that a good mix of games is available at any time. You should try to avoid running more than one game server on each of the dedicated server computers, as it will tend to slow down even your ninja rig (which will become the "grandma" rig in six months!) to unacceptable levels, usually as a result of insufficient network bandwidth. If you have enough guests to justify using more than one server, it would be ideal to place a different game on each server.
Of course, all the computers in the world would be useless in a LAN party without the networking gear. This is one of the trickier issues you will have to deal with, as it may be difficult initially to estimate your bandwidth requirements. However, as a rule you should be using switches and routers instead of hubs in all but the smallest parties. My suggestion is to use a separate 24-port 10/100 switch for each node (of course you can use a switch with fewer ports if you have less people). Servers should be equipped with gigabit Ethernet cards connected to gigabit central switches if you are hosting a large event. If you have a router with a built-in DHCP server, you can use it to set up dynamic IP addresses, which will be discussed in greater detail.
Lastly, you will need all of the games and other software you will be using. Especially important are your operating system discs. Configuration of hardware and network settings will often require additional drivers, so make sure you have your OS and driver discs handy. If possible, install and test everything the day before your LAN party so that as soon as people come they can set up their computers and start gaming.
What Your Guests Need To Have
There are many things your guests will need to bring, and because of this you'll usually have someone who has forgotten something. Make sure that you specify on your promotional materials what each guest has to bring. If you want, you can also sell some smaller items, like network cable and power bars, to those who forget to bring them, assuming that you don't have a sponsor that will be providing such a service. Below is a checklist of everything your guests will need to ensure they have a good time:
POWER BAR - This is extremely important. Forgetting this is basically the ticket to frustration. A surge suppressor (a good one, not one of those $10 jobs) is highly recommended, and a UPS is even better.
COMPUTER WITH NETWORK CARD - Of course, without the computer, you'll be stuck playing charades against yourself, which definitely won't be as fun as fragging your buddies.
NETWORK CABLE - You will need at least 10 feet of CAT-5 cable. Bringing 25 feet is a much safer bet.
MONITOR - Because of space restrictions, bringing anything larger than a 19" CRT or an 18" LCD is not recommended, unless you're willing to sit in a dark, musky-smelling corner all by yourself.
HEADPHONES - If everybody brought their massive Klipsch speakers or DJ rigs, then the cacophony of sound will probably drive everyone into the local insane asylum. Besides, if your opponents can hear the output of your speakers then you'll be at a disadvantage.
INPUT DEVICES - Most keyboards work pretty well, so you don't need anything special here. Having a good mouse is another story. An optical mouse is far better than any mechanical mouse, and you won't need a mouse pad. Also bring along any other devices like joysticks, gamepads, or wheels. Whatever you do, do not use wireless peripherals. Besides the slower response rate, if other people have wireless devices there may be interference problems. Or maybe your batteries will run out. Invest in a cheap corded device for your LAN gaming needs.
SOFTWARE - Remember to bring your OS, driver, and game discs. Forgetting to do so will result in much frustration, unless you have someone burn you an illegal copy. Needless to say a large crowd of gamers with loads of pirated software can invite trouble, so just remember to bring all of your own software. [Ed: We at OnePC.NET do NOT and WILL NOT endorse the use of illegal software in any way.]
MONEY - It always happens. Someone comes up to the door with a car loaded with computer gear and they forget to bring their entrance fee. Or they don't have enough money for food. Let's just say that hunger and gaming addiction do not mix. Bring enough money to cover the entire event, plus a little extra.
The layout of the gaming area has a big impact on how accessible the whole setup will be. Typically, rows of rectangular tables are created, with gamers sitting on both sides of the table. For example, one person will sit facing south, while the people beside him will face north. With this setup, it's harder to see the screen of the person beside you because there will be another monitor, this one facing the opposite direction, between the two of you. This is optimal because it gives each gamer more space to move around, plus it minimizes the ability for players to cheat by looking at their opponent's screen.
Sometimes, the space available just doesn't permit this kind of setup, and gamers will all have to face the same direction. If this is the case, then be sure to give each gamer more horizontal space to accommodate the width of the keyboard plus the mouse, and some additional elbowroom so that they can get out of their seats without too much trouble.
Place extension cords and other cables on the floor under the table where it will be easy to access but not cluttered. Remember to keep servers and other equipment away from the gaming areas. Not only will this give your guests more room, but it will allow you to prevent people from unauthorized access to your network hardware. If cables have to run across an open floor area, tape them down with duct or electrical tape to prevent people from tripping over them.
Setting up the Network
The difficulty of setting up the network can be significantly reduced if you have a router. With the router, your guests simply have to plug in their computers to the network and will automatically get an IP address through the router's DHCP server. If you don't have a router, each guest will have to configure his or her computer with a static IP address. You should have a numbering plan in place so that you can be sure each guest gets a unique address. Once you assign an address, write it down on a Post-It note so that your guests can always refer to it. Any range of addresses will do, as long as you are consistent. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0 for each computer. If you want to simplify things, also ask each guest to change their computer's domain to one of your choosing, though it is not strictly necessary.
Your game servers should be a little different. Even with a router, the IP addresses of your servers should be set to a static address so that it doesn't change if the server has to reboot for some reason. Once you have the IP set, write it down somewhere so that all of your guests know how to access each server. Don't change the server IP addresses under any circumstances! It will only complicate things.
You may also want to set up some of the other network protocols, IPX being one of the more important ones. This will allow legacy games to be played, if there is a demand for them. Also remind your guests about file sharing: if they don't want others to access their files, it should be turned off. To keep viruses from spreading, you may implement a policy whereby it is mandatory to have an anti-virus program installed and running at all times. Most people will be smart enough to have an anti-virus program running anyways. If you do implement such a policy, remember to make this policy known to your guests before the LAN party starts.
Usually someone will encounter problems getting on the network. Ask them to check all the usual suspects, including the network adapter, the communications protocols, and other network settings. Sometimes it's as simple as someone not having a power cord or Ethernet cable plugged in, so take a quick look at that as well.
Main Event
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Checking In
Unless you have a small party, you will need someone dedicated to the job of checking people in. When checking someone in, a list should be made of every piece of equipment that they bring inside. If possible, affix some kind of label or tag on that equipment that clearly identifies its owner. People will get very pissed if their stuff goes missing, and you should do your part in trying to prevent theft.
You then have to assign the guest their seat, and if necessary an IP address. This is the time to provide all the information regarding network settings and other things they must do to connect to your network. You may or may not have the time to assist the guest in setting up, so make sure that your instructions are clear enough to be followed properly.
Keeping Your Guests Entertained
The most important thing to remember when you host a LAN party is to keep your guests entertained. Whatever you do, don't make them feel bored. The easiest way to keep your guests happy is to have a good mix of games. This usually means mixing different genres of games as opposed to playing 7 different FPS's in a row and calling that variety. If your party is of the smaller variety, you can let people vote for the game they want to play, if you wish. This doesn't really work with larger parties because of the difficulty in gathering votes, so your best bet is to come up with a "games playlist" before the party starts and stick with that. Remember that with large parties, you'll very likely have a couple of separate groups playing different games at any one time, so don't be too rigid in your planning. Set up multiple servers with different games on each one in this scenario.
Over the course of your party, your guests will need to take breaks every so often. If you are hosting a medium to large party, you should have a separate break area for people to relax in. In this break area should be a place for people to sit or lie down (a sofa works great) and some type of passive entertainment like a TV or a stereo system for music. Above all, make sure that this break area is close to the food area, because typically the need for a break coincides with the need for food. In any case, it's best to keep food away from the computers, and having a break area gives your guests a good place to eat.
Preparing the Food
On the topic of food, the typical LAN party consists of pop, chips, and pizza. These foods are convenient, delicious, and relatively cheap. However, these foods are also the reason why life expectancy for males is in the 70s rather than the 80s, so guests that are health-conscious will have to bring their own food. As the host you shouldn't be expected to supply actual nutrients, but merely stomach-filler. Make sure that you have more than enough food for your entire event so people don't complain about being hungry.
Unfortunately, because of natural biological processes, what goes in must eventually come out, and this problem is particularly tricky with large parties. Not only do you have to keep the washrooms well stocked with toilet paper and paper towel, but you also have to keep the facilities clean. This is particularly important in large parties because given the aim of most guys, a washroom can get nasty real fast. If you've ever seen the men's washroom in a high school, you'll know what that means. Being unable to relieve themselves makes people grumpy, to say the least.
Conclusion
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Checking Out
When checking people out, refer to your equipment list and make sure that they actually own everything they're taking out. It's an inconvenience for both you and the guest, but if it prevents theft then it's all worth it. If you have leftover food, let your guests take it home. This alone will help to save you some cleaning time.
Getting Feedback
Before a guest leaves, ask them to give you feedback on your event. Was it fun? Did they have any complaints? Was there anything that should have been done differently? Constructive criticism will help you make your next LAN party more fun and cut down on some of the inevitable mistakes. The best way to get feedback is to have a short, yes/no questionnaire, with a section for comments. Preparing one ahead of time is an investment that will make your future events more enjoyable, and maybe even profitable.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
However, speaking as someone who has lived through a sustained series of terrorist bombing attempts, fixating on it is the worst thing you can do.
You could die tomorrow, under a car.
You could choke on a peanut.
You get on and live your life instead. You accept that your understanding of the way the world works was wrong; you adapt.
You live in the moment. That moment might include a LAN party.
You need to get a grip. Living life is what's important. Growing to be more than you are at the moment is important. Some god-fearing nutter is not important. Not unless you can DO something about it - and YOU can't.
True, there were terrorist attacks a few weeks ago. True, lots of people died. Some people (read: most people) have moved on with their lives. All the whining and crying in the world won't do a lick of good now. The only thing we can do is try to make some sense of what happened and try to live our lives.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
FU!
The worst terrorist attack in recorded history occurred less than three weeks ago, and you are trolling on slashdot instead of doing something about it? Go donate some blood, money or some of your time instead of ragging on other people if you are so concerned about it.
Come on now .. exactly when is it time to move on then?
Are you seriously saying that all fun activity all over the world should stop, "just" because of what happened in NYC?
Its not, in any way, that I dont think this was a terrible terrible thing, but hey, life DOES go on, even after a tragedy like this.
It seems like that article leaped out of stasis from five years back.
Nowadays, with a net/LAN gaming café on every corner it is much easier just going there instead - the iron is faster, the network is already set up, everyone has a decent chair, and they have more games than I care to count. At 2-3 an hour for the cafés, spending hours getting things set up for a private party really does not make sense to me.
This only applies to smaller at-home LAN parties, as I have never been involved in organizing a large 20+ persons LAN party.
Anyway, my experience is that you shouldn't overplan what activities/games should take place/be played when you are throwing a LAN party.
Mostly, just going with the flow is a really good idea, as pressuring people into playing a game they might or might not want to play, most often leads to a lot of bitching, and generally unsatisfied players.
Another thing you should consider (when hosting at home), is to offer other activities than LAN gaming.
Ofcourse, if you only have a weekend, then this mig ht not be all that important, but when we do LAN'ing, most of the participants take a week of from work, and then we do a 10-day stretch, and THEN its important to offer other activities, such as DVD movies (if you can get a projector, its a BIG thumbs up, ditto for a decent 5.1 surround system), if its summer, setup a barbeque, take an afternoon on the beach, etc.
I've found that this is a really great idea, which makes participants happy, and gives a generally much better ambiance at the LAN party.
The guy mentions getting a 24 port 10/100 switch. Is this guy made out of money? I've been to god knows how many lan parties, and there are some pretty pathetic gaming rigs people have scraped up the little money they have to build a box with. How does he expect someone to just pull a damn switch out of their a$$? and DHCP? Why? If you use windows and tell it to automatically select an IP address (w/o a DHCP server present) it will automatically choose a random IP address out of the 169.254.0.0/16 range. a DHCP server is a lot of hassle for less than 20 people. This guy goes way too much into depth on holding lan parties. See, if this is how it is going to be in the future, I guess i'm going to be the old fart reminiscing on how "lan parties used to be simple, back when we just brought computers over to our friends house with an 8 port hub and played quake, no planning, no charging, no designated break areas, no sponsorships...".
We have lan parties typically every weekend. They consist of 10-20 people at any given time. It is extremely simple... some of us in our group work for the city and have access to one of their buildings (hookups are great). We hold our lan parties in a big room, have tables & chairs there for our use. We pitched in $5 each (one time fee) and bought a 24 port 10/100 hub. There are no designated break areas. People go on their own food runs if they're hungry, and we don't charge or have sponsors. Just a bunch of guys (and one girl) who get together and play counterstrike for hours up on hours upon hours.....Dick
A guide like this has existed for quite some time. Check out lanparty.com. It rocks!
Here's a direct link to their guide to hosting a lanparty
http://www.lanparty.com/theguide/
r is yur '' key having prblems als?
For some reason, whenever I write out a plan for an upcoming LAN event hosted by myself (using vi, of course) we never get around to playing the games I planned to play (Eg. AvP, Jedi Knight, Emperor battle for Dune, Summoner, CounterStrike), instead, everyone wants to play nothing but UT. But, when I use emacs to plan it out, noone shows up :(
One thing not to do... post your gateway to /. and watch your systems get flooded.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
My best Lan Party investment to date was the nifty little Sony CPJ-200. Street price is under $800.
2 00projector.htm
http://www.supremevideo.com/internet_specials/cpj
You'll need a dimish room for it to be effective, but we tend to have our lan parties in darkened rooms anyway. 16 monitors keeps things bright enough to walk around, yet dark enough for the projector to work fine.
I have been reading Slashdot for many years now, and only now decided to speak.
Behold the Legend and His handle of the Captain.
Please mod this funny or I'll have serious psychological issues.
Thank you. Carry on.
The Legend has spoken!
Another website with not only tips on how to plan/organize your party, but a big list of parties in towns that might be near you, is www.lanparty.com.
Personally, I'm getting too old to cart my 'puter across town and hook it up just to play games, but I sure had fun at the parties I did make it to.
How come there are no portuguese stories on slashdot? Bastards!
The legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
Me and my brother playing Red Alert!
That was the shit!
Nowadays I don't play anymore. Too busy chasing women and drinking Captain!
Peace!
The legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
Used to play 8-player doom on ps/2 machines (with token-ring) at school every day for my entire freshman year of highschool. We would've had more people, but the DOOM engine was limited to only 8 nodes.
:)
I think it would be cool to get the ol' gang together for a lan party, the suggestion has come up.. but people don't want to move their equipment, bastards. Then there was the issue of a place to put the equipment for those interested.
Now that I have my own place (apartment) and everyone of us has at least 3 spare computers lying around.. this suggestion may come up again soon, I can only hope
Braindead but alive!
I HATE BEER!
The legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
Go to either Barnes and Noble, Borders or Books-a-million!
Wait for the chicks to come!
The legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
But this post is damn funny!
Moderators, get a damn sense of humor! This guy is funny and smart. I bet Icaza is laughing. Loved the address dude!
The Legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
Yes! PUSSY RULES! Amen you frogshit-eating assfucker.
the first rule, of course, if you're going to be playing online, is bandwidth.
*ahem* slashdoted *ahem*
- This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along, move along..
I want to be constructive, so here are some portuguese insults: Vai para o caralho que te foda!
Paneleiro da porra!
I shall spare you the translations, by the way, this is the real thing, not that Brazilian crap!
Jose Saramago got a Nobel Prize for literature and he is PORTUGUESE from PORTUGAL in EUROPE. You know, the country that went all over the place. Not some Samba dancing dudes from Brazil!
The legend has spoken!
The Legend has spoken!
There are far worse than 'terrorist' attacks. Like american attacks, for instance, which have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people over the last few decades.
Get over it, people die for foolish causes. America's ignorant gluttening consumerism finally pissed off some pshycos across the world, and you feel it when your phallic buildings collapse, bringing your brainwashed delusions down with them.
And how about American sanctions starving further hundreds of thousands, regularily- with none of your sympathy. But boohoohoo all night and day, it's a 'tragedy' when a few of your own fall to their firey death, while you panic and let the terrorists succeed in terrorizing you.
Remember, who trained Bin Laden? Who armed the middle east? Who gave them guns, educated their leaders and then killed their children, utterly and cowardly destroyed their civilian establishments, cheaply masacred their entire armies, and then starved their people to death? America did, you just won't see it on your precious television.
America fucks with so much shit it should never have had it's cock in. It's about time you have to feel it back home.
The events of 9-11 were violent and terrible, but insignificant in contrast to the suffering and torment the US has inflicted on others. You can't press buttons to drop bombs on distant cities forever, not expecting some to hit back home... to think that would blatantly incriminate your ignorance.
Now, open your eyes to the whole truth, or it could happen again. No multi-trillion dollar missile defence system would have or could ever have stopped this.
Your security is and illusion.
you are one of the best trolls ever, my hats off to you.
or you are a retarded man. still, i respect the fact that you remember what a sinclair zx 81 was and how you used to pull double handfulls of shit from your diaper and fling it into your sleeping mothers open mouth.
but i think you are just a quality troll.
Well I've never been to a Lan party, but I presume they are pretty wild. Kids overdosing on Jolt soda, and snickers bars. I've heard of some so wild that police were called for fights over who gets to be the first to play the new Warez role playing game.
A list of one-time and recurring LAN parties is available Blue's News. Notice something weird about it?
Yup. There's no regular LAN party in the San Francisco Bay Area. (BANGG (Bay Area Network Gaming Group) appears to have gone quiescent.) Anyone out there know of recurring LAN parties on or near the SF peninsula?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
was kind of fun,
i remember walking into a Cyber Cafe to see if anyone wanted to come over whoop it up with me in a game of "gunslingers". I noticed that there was really attractive woman reading an Ann Rand novel, she looked lonely and in need of FUN!
So I walked up to her and said, "Hi would you like to come over to my house and play on my computers?" She just looked at me for a long time so I knew she was thinking it over.
Then this big gorilla of a fella in really nice suit came over and said, "I am in Marketing, is this guy bothering you?" to the attractive woman. I told him, "oh not at all, I was just asking her to come over to my super cool LAN party! You can also come over and mix it up with us!"
"Yes" she said, "he is really bothering me a lot."
I couldn't figure out why she would say that but just as I was starting to think that she didn't want to come over the big fella punched me really, really hard in the solar plexus and while I was doubled over in intense agony he side handed me on the small of my neck so that I slammed into the floor hard and bloody.
Just as I was about to pass out from all the pain I could hear the man say to the woman, "I have a Porsche, would you like to have sex with me?" to which she replied, "yes, lets have sex immediately!"
Talk about embarrassing.
Well the worst part was all that food I bought going to waste while I was in the hospital. Or maybe the orderlies stealing morpheme from my drip. Not to mention my neighbors high school aged kids stealing all my computers and LAN equipment while I was in there.
Anyways instead of LAN parties I think about climbing to the top of the water tower in my town and killing people with a high-powered rifle.
I thank you for your attention.
Lameness filters suck dog nipples, btw
I just twisted my tits!
I just lost out on a deal to get this idea going, so i'll GPL it as long as I get credit(donations to keep me thinkin are cool). I was gonna post my business plan but i'll keep it short to save bandwidth.
Gamehouses are just starting to arrive on the US shores. They are a import from over the pacific.
If current economic trends continue, gamehouses will continue to rise in popularity because games will continue to require ever more complex hardware than before.
Plus setting up a network is easy when you got 3 network guys in the room (unless they start arguing over what's wrong with the network) but can be quite intimidating to the average user.
Broadband companies are dropping like flies.
So the time is good to start one.
I've looked at several game houses around where I live, and I know the secret to setting myself apart from the ordinary screwdriver shop gamehouse..
Game House with hard rock cafe style nostalgia gimmick.
Not rock and roll, game nostalgia, you know, old console systems and computers. Thresh's mouse from the first tourney he won, or his ferrari(actually carmacks). The first pong machine or maybe one of those atari store units with 100 cartridges in it.
Serve sugary sweet liquids and solids.
Anyways lan parties are nice, but i've done many and there is allways some kind of hassle. I can't provide hardware for my buds to play on cause I just can't afford it. Game houses, one's gonna be near you soon.
--toq
~~Mods *Note, posted with my real account because I stand behind my opinions, remember AC=karma whore
Duuuuh, the man is obviously thinking of JEFF STRYKER! Why did it take this long for someone to point this out? Where are all the faggots on this site? Normally every other post is about sucking man-meat.
The two attempts at a local net cafe in my area failed. They closed their doors and are gone. Perhapse they didn't understand the market. Or maybe the economics are different in this area. (shrug).
That article was cleary written for morons, who overplan everything. IT IS A PARTY, not a damn business conference. Checking in indeed. Just get together, bring as much kit as you can get hold of and have fun setting it up half the night.
- Hypnos
a LAN party shouldn't be about extreme hardware or exotic projection systems. It should be about fun. We started ours in a small one-car garage and they've only gotten better. But looking back, it was the least-planned parties that were the best. We even had one in my tiny apartment -- in fact it got so cramped that we had to move the furnature to the bedroom and outside and even balance a monitor on the edge of the kitchen sink. But know what, it was a blast! We played games for over 18 hours, most of us surviving thru the whole thing.
http://www.hublan.com/hublan09/HubLAN9-6.jpg
http://www.hublan.com/hublan09/HubLAN9-7.jpg
Best Lan parties I've been to: TakeOver
:-)
http://www.takeover.nl/
Held on a campus with a GB uplink to internet
500-600 people, great accomodation, great everything
I agree, lanparty.com has the best stuff for hosting a lan party. This guide is very servicable, but it doesn't get down to the nitty-gritty of eletricity, eletricity, eletricity. Setting it up, having enough of it, and creative solutions when you don't have enough.
Back in the 80's I had a party at my house dedicated to the game Modem Wars. Anyone remember it? Awsome game. We didn't have a LAN though. We just hooked the computers up in pairs with 1200 baud baud modems. Half the machines were PC's and the other half were Commodores. At the time it was quite impressive that the game could be played between different operating systems.
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This Web site is very handy for small and HUGE LAN parties. Everything you need to know!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Firstly, there is a lot of different types of LANs.
:) ).
:).
:(.
:)
I started out doing a 2 player thin coax LAN at my house.
That balloned up to a 12 player coax LAN at my house.
Then it became a 10/100 2 5-port hub, 8 player LAN at my friend Mikey's house...
The next step was a 40-50 player LAN in nice comfortable leather high back chairs and rented hotel space.
And now it's a 100-140 player LAN at Stars recreation center (www.stars.com) in Vacaville.
For lack of a better term I turned "pro". I now do it for money. Once you make the jump from garage LAN to paid LAN you have to keep the atomsphere of the garage LAN but deliever the reliability, power, and network of a professional LAN.
Garage LAN:
DIVERSIFICATION
Some people are console freaks, some people are PC freaks. Have plenty of both. Consoles are great, because you don't have to blow $500 to play a game. Big screens with movies are good too (but watch them copyrights on public viewings!)
PARTY ATOMSPHERE
Keep it relaxed and enjoyable. Do not break out the fine china and do not throw a LAN at a house or location with fine China to break. Loud music (techno, phat beats, or rock) is a must.
Professional LAN:
POWER
Buy, rent, or steal enough power so that there is never a blow circuit. Waiting an hour or so for the circuit breaker to cool down is retard (Go morons in Sacto!).
NETWORK
9 ms ping is your target. Have you ever tried to lightning gun in Rocket Arena 3 with higher than 50 ping? It sucks so much ass... Do you know how evil a railgun is at 9 ms ping?
Internet access is always very nice. More is better, but a little with do. If you have multiday events it's great to check your email. (Gets people to advertise your event to their buddies
SPONSORS
Everyone likes to get something for nothing. Give away prizes. Get some local or national company to pitch in and just give the stuff away. It's not that big a deal, but to a gamer it makes all the world.
TOURNAMENTS
Everyone likes to win too. Not only do you get the sweet file sharing at a LAN, but you also can prove your skilz. Run a baby single elimination tournament and then ballon it from there. Double elimination is good if you can handle the logistics... It gives everyone 2 games at least... even the people that suck at Quake 3 like me
LEGAL
If you allow minors, back off the pr0n and alcohol. You need stated policies and enforcement against them. That's the damn rules
Ok, it's 3 AM, I'm going to bed. Gamerzday is always looking for more locations to LAN... got any ideas?
(Damn it's 3:02... It took 17 minutes!)
-Tom
To keep viruses from spreading, you may implement a policy whereby it is mandatory to have an anti-virus program installed and running at all times. Most people will be smart enough to have an anti-virus program running anyways. If you do implement such a policy, remember to make this policy known to your guests before the LAN party starts.
What the F*ck sort of people is this guy expecting to have at this lan party?
Why not implement a policy that people must bring their BRAINS to the party, and not run "infect.doc.exe" unless they really want what it brings.
File shares... Hmmm, don't set write access and you're safe... Don't set read access and people won't rip off your pr0n. It's pretty simple last I looked.
Virus checkers are for (l)users. Any hardcore GAMER who can pick up a virus unknowingly deserves it.
My experiance from lan parties is you're at greatest risk of viruses when your asleep, because one of your mates will take your HDD out of your box, put it in theirs, replace your explorer.exe with backorrifice.exe and return it. (Yes, we do it. It's punishment for sleeping at a lan party. You're here to play games. Not to sleep.)
Just curious, how many /.'ers goto tribescon lan parties? 1999/2000/2001?
We have normally over 200+ people, and each person chips in 25-50 bux for renting the room. (also couple bux of it goes for prizes)
At the 2001 tc3 we had tribalwar.com and wsbn sponser us, it was at portaland airport embassy suites. 2002 tc4 will be in SanFransico (Rumors)
Oh yeah, we had the Dynamix dev team show up again. Nice of them, since they were just canned. (fcking sierra...)
This is great and shows that those that run large lan-parties are good at networking abd are valuable people to have around.
Only problem was the author's crack, "Any smart people will run virus software anyways"... Hey Bite Me! I have virus software but I do not run it, I use my computer in a way that significantly reduces the threat of Virii. First, I have completely switched to linux, but before then in my Windows life, I have NEVER gotten a virus running rampant on my pc. I have found and dissected them, researched them (and the early virii were damned clever programs, the stuff now is all crap)
a SMART computer user doesnt need to run a virus scanning program, they dont get infected by the normal stupid channels by blindly opening email, downloading filez from untrusted sites, leaving shares open, etc... and yes I do scan once per day (well in my windows world I did) just to clean up any shared areas on the server.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Me and a couple of friends set up a lan party at School during the last week of the summer term. We had about 12 computers with an extra one projecting the game onto a large screen. We made loads of money for charity but it was really difficult to persuade the admin to allow us, we also had problems with irritating kinds wanting to change the controls every 5 minutes. What is the best option, leaving it on default controls, or allow people to change?
There will be a LAN party in Skien in Norway 4-7th october.
www.norvegia.nu for more information.(flash thing, and popup. yeah, i know it is annyoing. but the webmasters dont give a shit)
This is just not a LAN party with a bouch of (l/g)amers, but also with some coders, artists, and musicians. Hopefully, some cool demos also will be released.
Best regards
"If you loved me, you`d all kill yourselves today"
Spider Jerusalem
We will NEVER (hopefully, that will be a long time) collect/share/sell your personal inf., at ScaredCity(?tm?). In fact, we don't care at all, who you are/where you browse. We think the "partnership" between the FTC, & BiG "business" is whoreabull. IT looks like, now, ONLY criminals will have any privacy. We're all for using technology to capture crooks, but this behaviour (buy the FTC) rings of puppeteerism.
That aside, don't forget to investigate your chances of acquiring this semi-private, descriptive URL, from us, due to your interest in participating in the brave gnu world of open/honest communications/commerce, & your ability to follow simple directions.
in case you missed IT, here are the face scans of the REAL .commIEs.
Things that are important to us:
- DHCP - I know people say its simpler to let Windows arrange the networking by itself, but generally all my friends houses (that are big enough to have a LAN party at) aleardy have DHCP, and Windows messes it up sometimes anyway when there's lots of people. Plus, DHCP will set up your internet gateway and DNS too
:-)
- Air conditioning - Even with 5 people in a small room on a cold day it gets pretty warm pretty quickly
- Be near a shop - No matter how prepared you are, you'll always need more food (unless you're rich and over-buy to start with
- Someone experienced in networking - It sucks when people get confused about what an uplink socket is for. You should have someone that knows all about it overseeing the network setup.
- Installation Disks/CDs - We had one computer refuse to see the network and refuse to re-install its network drivers, so it needed Windows re-installed (typical); and another lost its registry and didnt have it backed up. it's always a good idea to have Video, Sound, Network and Windows installation CDs with you.
- Internet - People need a break from gaming at some point and most geeks need to check their mail. I've also found this to be useful for downlaoding latest patches, using USENET (or Google) to find the answer to some strange compatability problems, etc.
- Music - The louder the better. And make sure there is one source of music (people's PC should be playing sound effects - not music. If its' mp3 music, get it all onto the machine thats's going to play it at the start so SMB file transfers aren't slowing down the network during gameplay.
My friends and I haven't ventured into the organized type of party where there are tournaments and prizes, but I think we'll be trying that next time, just for a change.P.S. Why do people try to bring up the subject of terrorist attacks in nearly every slashdot discussion? That's really annoying to some people. If you're going to discuss terrorism, do it in a newsgroup about terrorism, or current events.
Follow me
Don't forget to tell newbies to bring headphones/earphones. While your set of klipsch promedia speakers may be cool, we don't need to hear explosions at gut-ratteling volumes times 20.
sig?
Guys... I have been a system administrator for LAN Arena 6 in Paris and I lead the "SubLAN" event in south of France.
Note that LAN Parties are no longer the same event that we knew in the start/mid 90's.
Think that LANs wont be like everyone seems to agree with today in a few years : many hardware and software solutions are missing to reach the highest quality I dream about, as a gamer.
The majority of the LAN events organisators claim to make high quality events and praise its merits announcing nice reports, etc.
I just want to say that LAN Parties havent reached 10 percents of their available quality : many software has to be developped...
http://www.lansurfer.com
Yeah, sorry for the blunt "spamming" but their intranet system is real nice for running 'paid' parties. They provide you with: Party registration, automatic guestlist and seatplan (Scripts are hosted on their servers) and just before the LAN starts, you can download the data for your LAN (ie guests, their payment status, which seats they reserved...) and their Intranet scripts and install them on a webserver of yours. That way, people can login to your LAN Intranet where you can put up tournaments, a board etc.
And now for the killer: The tournaments practically run all by themselves. You enter their parameters and then users login and register for the tourneys. Start the tourneys and that's it basically. The scripts determine the start matches at random and have users enter the results according to which it keeps track of the players. (Double Elimination included)
Phew... got longer than expected. Anyway, if you want to, give it a try. We've run several parties with it (one with 250 players, the others with around 70) and it keeps saving us a lot of paperwork at the LAN.
It's called a college dorm. There's food, plenty of switches, and a DHCP server (at least here anyway). Dorm = 24/7 lan party, and it only costs $10,000/year!
Seems like ever lan party I've hosted or been to in the last few months always ends up in a game of ArmageTron. I think they played it for 5 or 6 hours straight once.
The last LAN party I went to was real fun. We had a projector which played a few good/bad movies(it doesn't make Joes Apartment any better), but momre importantly, we had tables.
Nothing is more fun than having a DJ spin while you're playing Counterstrike, and having a large projection(life-size) screen of someone playing Cstrike on that.
Then when we were all gamed out, we watched Quake 1 and 2 done quickly, some strange music videos(one from Atari Teenage Riot involving erasing faces) and had a blast.
It's all the music of a rave, without the fucking e-tards, cudddle puddles, or police involvement.
Back in the early days of broadband (1999 for me :) I regularly got pings to most servers in the 40-80 range and was LOVING it. Fast forward 2.5 years and packet loss makes nearly every game unplayable. I can't find any servers under 100ms ping time.
:)
This weekend, I'm going to one of the best, if not the best, lan parties around http://www.gamersgauntlet.com/
They have networking and power consumption down to an art form. They give away prizes (last time a GeForce 2 Pro card was one prize), run tourneys, and all-around provide an excellent time. The staff is friendly and accomodating to everyone's needs. It really can't be beat.
I've hosted a few mini-lans at my house and I have to say that having some networking experience w/Linux has been a great help. Running the games servers on Linux has given me very favorable results (compared to win2k).
It's so sad that I'm 33 years old and addicted to LAN gaming. So sad.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
Ok, for the uninitiated...
A capacitor is constructed of 2 plates of metal that do not touch each other, so no current can pass between them. There is a voltage difference between the plates, resulting in a charge difference. No flux (see below), just an electric field. Capacitance is the capacity of the two plate to store an amount of charge.
An inductor is a coil of wire through which current passes. Current passing though a coil of wire creates a magnetic field (think electromagnet). Flux is defined as the flow of magnetism through the coil of wire. Since current is constantly flowing through the coil of wire, there is not an accumulation of charges, therefore there is no capacitance (well, a little between the turns of wire, but this is of interest to engineers, only).
Therefore, a capacitor cannot, by definition, have any flux.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
A wierd hting I noticed...
This comment (2382187) was posted at 03:00 AM. I then posted this comment (2382608), which natuarally gets a higher comment ID.
The strange thing is that viewing this page which shows threaded comments, oldest first, shows mine above the original article. Am I missing something, or does shalsdot have a strange and twisted idea of "oldest first"?
Follow me
While it is true that these optical mice have a much higher samping rate and, as such, tend to be much more accurate and sensitive, they also have a problem tracking when you move the mouse rapidly, where the old-fashioned ball mice do not. This can be a problem for gamers that are accustomed to moving their mouse in that fashion, it was a problem for me initially. However, this problem can be worked around if you just INCREASE the sensitivity [or rather scaling, so that LESS mouse movement is required to rotate the same number of degrees in the game] and learn not to move the mouse itself quite that rapidly [there appears to be a certain threshold where the problem vanishes all together]. Once this is done, the optical mice makes a vastly superior gaming device, because it is more accurate, but probably most importantly because it tracks more consistently overall [No more crumbs and crud causing your mouse to move around jerkily].
PS: If you don't believe me, just try whipping your optical ball mouse left to right, over virtually any surface, but particularly sub-optimal ones, and you'll see the cursor get totally lost and move in seemingly random directions.
I know that everyone recomends quake, etc as great games, but here is the major problem that i've run into. what if everyone doesnt have the games (trying to stay legal here.. somewhat)??
Games like starcraft take care of this problem by allowing spawns... are there any other options like this? maybe using demo games that will allow one to connect to a network game and have full options?
I'd like as many options as possible... that will work without using hacks... (no duped cd'keys and all that... again.. i'm trying to stay somewhat legal here...)
--fyrebryan
-Fyrebryan
This post was really a trick to get all of the dorks to confess. I will now be taking your lunch money and delivering wedgies.
The worst terrorist attack in recorded history occurred MORE than three weeks ago! So now the official period of reflection is over and it's time to PARTY PARTY PARTY! Fire up Unreal Tournament bizitches and I'll frag your asses from one end of Facing Worlds to the other!
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Amen to that, Anonymous bro. Or else you'll have to suffer when the non-geek friend of a friend of a friend shows up with his PC running Windows 95, wanting to "join the fun", and then having to spend several hours trying to reconfigure his PC (obviously he didn't bring the installation CDs) only to find out that his Network card is useless.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
> happen, there is always the chance that two
> machines will grab the same IP address.
First of all it's not the "Windows" random assignment. The 169.254 stuff is a public spec, and so far both Windows and MacOS support it. It's called "Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses" and you can read about it here. (Microsoft's implementation is called APIPA and you can read about it here).
Have you ever actually seen an address conflict happen? It's not supposed to under the spec. Each box after picking a proposed address is supposed to ARP it. If it gets a reply, it then tries again. And so on. Works kind of like a hash table.
Lanwar is a huge event in Louisville, KY(http://www.lanwar.com) that draws lots of people every time it's held. It's semi-regular (about 3 per year) and the Lanwar XI is going to have over 500 people.
10mb client switches on a 100mb switched backbone and filesharing is still fast, and pings are still super low. The network head literally spends weeks planning out the configuration of the switches and the layout of the actual network, and they have plenty of electrical power to go around (one glance at the giant transformers near the end of the room will tell you that).
It's pretty much full for this event, but theres always next time. I've gone to every one of them since Lanwar 8. This is a perfect example of how a large lanparty should be run.
What are you talking about, theres no style to this troll.
This guy seems to imply LAN parties are solely for l^Hgamers.
Aren't there any for useful things?
I don't wanna host. Where is the best damn guide for those attending a LAN party?
These large-scale lan-parties need to organize a little bit between themselves - like holding the parties at the same time, and having some high-speed links between them. Then, you're not playing with 100, or 200, or even 400 people, you could be playing with 1,000 or more. Done right, it could be implemented without a terrible increase in cost, but make things a lot more fun.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Its just like it says, simple rules until everyone passes out or forgets how to use the mouse. (this is for Quake 3, but you can adapt it anyway you want)
1. Set up a game like you normally do.
2. at the end the winner takes a drink(or shot if you're so inclined)
3. for each of the status badges you got (multi-kill, rail award, accuracy...) you take a drink.
4. Repeat ad nausem.
Ah, fragging your friends and your liver at the same time! What could be better!
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
might be true for a 4 to 20 ppl party, but i don't think it is just about fun and party for a 100 ppl lanparty... this is hard work and kind of a business
I hosted one a couple of years back, check it out:
Ottawa Citizen Coverage of some local parties
and
My party... Ottawa Quakefest
that was well put and incrediblty salient. If you wanna be a BIG STUD, show up to a LAN party with a woman. If your GF plays its even better, IF SHE IS GOOD, your a LAN GOD :)
:)
of course if she beats you, you'll have to deal with that
of course your intellect is a wee bit on the small side but us geeks are understanding and forgiving, we'll let even wastes of skin such as yourself in :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
will allow speakers..sorry try head-phones, 40 sets of speakers going is a waste of POWER outlets and makes playing impossible.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If you're looking to run a party, it's not as much of a party as it is for the party goers.
The people who set up and organize it will probably not be playing as many games, nor having as much fun as the guests because they'll be ironing out problems, setting out food, crimping another network cable, etc.
If this article helps them get things better organized beforehand, they then have the opportunity to play more and have more fun themselves... and thus be more likely to run another in the future.
So stick a sock in it, buddy.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
That's why I got a good pair of Plantronics.
A good microphone coupled with a nice pair of speakers.
Well, I'm glad some of you loved it and some of you hated it. Weirdly enough, nobody has sent me any comments through my email, which if you notice on the top of the article, is cwong@onepc.net. This is my first article for OnePC.net, and I'm happy that at least some people think it's a great article. Please tell me what you liked and didn't like.
BTW, thanks for all the hits to OnePC.net, the most of any article so far. I'm going to see if you guys can crash the server again with my next guide!