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Ultimate Guide to Hosting a LAN Party

Posted by Hemos on from the planning-and-preparing dept.

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!"

4 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Don't plan TO much by FlyveHest · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:I disagree on mice by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually the best 2 mice out are the Boomslang and m$ intellimouse explorer. They have higher dpi(or whatever) than a standard mouse. Boomslang is suppose to be the best gamers mouse, but rides a little high on the grip for my taste.

    So the 5 buttons, scroll wheel, and opitcal made me choose the m$ mouse. It took me a little while to get used the extra weight for the m$ie mouse, since it doesnt have a ball to roll on. A nice 3m mouse pad fixed that.

    Ive been to Lan games where people still keyboard it. Some peeps even use a trackball, this I never will understand.

  3. it's all about fun (with pics) by green+pizza · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  4. Half rave, half lan party by British · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.