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!"

Comments

Projector fun...

[Shanep]

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. :(

Re:Projector fun...

[ThatComputerGuy]

At the piss-poor high school I went to in one of the many horrid school districts in CA, we somehow managed to get a lab full of P2-300s a few years ago. Whether we played Doom II, Quake 2, or whatever, each of us though he/she was the shit. Then we had the bright idea of letting the self-proclaimed-king-of-whatever-damn-game-us-lose rs-were-playing-at-lunch-time play on the computer which was hooked to a projector, obviously projecting on the front wall of the classroom. After all, if he's so good, shouldn't everyone else in lab get some sort of aid, ie. see where he's at and what he's up to?

I can't help but think how much more interesting those games would have been if we had done this. Everything was all set, but the teacher backed out at the last minute... something about "$500 bulbs" and "work to do"... whatever.

Re:Projector fun...

[jamesidm]

where I used to work we would play games on the projector every night, from MAME classics like Donkey Kong, to NES mario, all the way through to dreamcast games (soul caliber is much more fun when they are the same height as you are), and unreal tournament (though this we did not play much as we all got motion sickness from playing it on such a large scale). The volume was so loud (thanks to some very nice speakers) that you had to shout to the person next to you... I dont think that it will be easy to top those gaming evenings :)

Re:Projector fun...

[kc0dby]

Anyone know of any web sites that quote the bullshit from movies? IMDB usually has a pretty good selection of factual errors listed on each movies page. You can't exactly set imdb to search all movies for factual errors that are +3, Highest Scores First, but if you just guess a couple of movies that were fairly "technical" in nature, you can find some pretty funny stuff.

Re:Projector fun...

[superflex]

If they have to describe something non-existant, at least make up a new word for it! Instead of "ip-chains multiplexor" for a time machine, or some shit like that.

Like the "flux capacitor"?

Crazy old Doc Brown... why the hell couldn't he just call it an "inductor" like everyone else?

Re:Projector fun...

[WNight]

So bring your girlfriend.

Hollywood flicks are for morons who can't handle a book, and "real" parties are for people who can't meet someone and have sex without needing to get the women drunk first.

Well, if you like those two things, you'd probably need help getting your computer running and don't have a girlfriend. Maybe a LAN party isn't for you.

Sorry.

Bbbu-bbut

[loraksus]

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.

Re:Bbbu-bbut

[ThatComputerGuy]

Amusing... but subwoofers "hit". Unless they _hit hard_, in which case they knock. When they're _knockin somethin crazy_, they're pounding.

Re:Bbbu-bbut

[Lord of Caustic Soda]

Isn't that the most common excuse when someone start losing badly - "My mouse isn't working properly!" :)

We used to have a few quick rounds of Doom every time at the beginning while someone inevitably take a while to set up their computer. Until we started having them at work and play Unreal Tournament instead.

Pansies!

[Anonymous DWord]

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

Re:Pansies!

[Karma Sink]

The movie you'te thinking about is Mazes and Monsters, based on a novel written by Rona Jaffe.

I don't think the concept would transfer over to FPSs, however, since the game is so much less social on screen... It may feel social when you type in a term window, but it's really a solo game, on-screen.

The other big problem, at least with the same formula, is that while the kids in M&M were a bit on the weird side for playing a live-action version of their game, one would have to be fucking batshit to do the same with an FPS... and there isn't a character to get "lost in", to boot.

Re:Pansies!

[JabberWokky]

Hehehehe... We started a LAN party on Labor day here in Florida (a three day weekend, Monday is generally not a work day for most people), and we went from Saturday morning at 10:00am until Tuesday evening at 5:00pm. I know I slept about two hours (and I was the host with my bed in another room).

And then there was the now legendary four and a half hour long Age of Empires II battle, which started off as a three way, and one person dug in hard while I knocked off the other player... and then became the most epic seige ever (we both agreed not to use boats). At one point, five of his knights decimated an entire unit of mine - and I build units as 20 knights, two Monks, one builder, and two seige engines. It was horrible - the kind of thing that history records as the bloodiest battle ever.

Two days later, everyone recovered (somewhat) and we all met at my place for SFAM (Anime night), and I had a big sign on the door - "AOE Free Zone".

ROTT, Worms, AOE, ROTT, C&C, Worms, AOE, Red Alert II, ROTT, Worms, C&C... the twitch and cute buffer the long and intense nicely. And all hail prism tanks!

--
Evan "Who had only played Chrono Cross in the year before that, and hasn't played a single video game since" E.

I disagree on mice

[sokoban]

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.

Re:I disagree on mice

[yellowjacket03]

I've never had a problem with my optical mouse in any FPS. If you have to drag THAT fast just turn up the mouse sensitivity. I guess it's all a matter of preference.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Lord of Caustic Soda]

The major problem I find with optical mice is that because of the lack of a ball they tend to have virtually no traction. I suppose you'll get used to that lightness after while but it just feels odd.

Re:I disagree on mice

[drodver]

I have an optical mouse and game with it all the time. I love it because it's so light and less resistent to movement. When you get to the end of the mouse pad with a ball mouse you have to pick it up, move it and set it down. The ball tends to shift when you pick it up and when you sit it down, which usually screws me up. With the optical mouse I have full control at all times. The problem I think most people experience is that not all surfaces are perfect for optical mice. The instructions have some pointers for good surfaces. If you run it over something like a newspaper it can jerk around, for example.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Shanep]

I suppose you'll get used to that lightness after while but it just feels odd.

I used to like the original MS mouse for it's weight, but now I have an optical Logitech wheel mouse, when ever I use someone elses mouse I find it feels too heavy and usually jumpy.

Although the high speed tracking problem can cause problems at times, I find nothing as smooth (both physical feel and tracking) and love the light weight.

I have a so called 2nd generation optical though.

Re:I disagree on mice

[larva]

Certain games require a high sensitivity setting on your mouse. counter-strike (to name one) needs this so you can spin around 180 degrees with as little handmovement as possible.

Now, if you want a ballmouse that can operate at this sensitivity without producing jagged scrolling you have to buy a boomslang or something like that. However, the optical mouse you can get much cheaper will do exactly the same, so why waste the money?

k

Re:I disagree on mice

[BrookHarty]

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.

Re:I disagree on mice

[SyniK]

A couple of my friends use a logitech trackball for LAN'ing. It seems to be OK, but certainly killer on the thumb. Using it with the right hand it feels kinda right when playing a game with a right handed weapon (I know you can edit the centered'ness in the config, but all you FOV 110, Center handed'ness pansies can kiss my railgun).

One mouse that was pretty decent is the Kensington Expert Mouse. It gives a real good feeling of movement because of it's size. And if you must use center handed'ness it has a really good feel to it. I think it also has increased DPI like the M$ Explorer mouse or the Razer Boomslang.

Re:I disagree on mice

[DarkEdgeX]

I just recently got into using optical mice, and I love them-- for some reason (maybe it's my own fault) dust and whatnot screws up old-style ball mice for me faster than anything (sometimes to the point where left/right motion won't function).. with this optical mouse though, there's just about nothing that can cause me to have that same experience. As for your concerns about "pointing better and tracking more accurately", I believe they are unfounded. Microsoft's IntelliMouse Optical, IntelliMouse Explorer and Wheel Mouse Optical all take snapshots 6000 times a second-- that's more sampling than your typical ball mouse receives. (Granted, it likely never sends all that data down the wire, but it does likely process this data in the mouse to create a more accurate representation of your movements.)

I dunno, maybe it's different mice for different folks, but you should give them another chance. =)

Re:I disagree on mice

[dorward]

I use an Intellimouse Explorer (I don't use anything written by Microsoft at home EXCEPT my mouse!) and I've had no tracking problems with it.

And lacking a ball means any gunk just rubs off.

(I should point out that my model is the one advertised at having 33% better resolution or some such)

Re:I disagree on mice

[Spacelem]

I have a M$ Wheel Mouse Optical, and I have found it to be very comfortable to use and accurate. For some dumb reason (maybe my hands sweat too much or something) I can't use ball mice without them gumming up after a very short time.

I have to agree that they aren't perfect though. The tracking screws up at fast speeds, which means that you suddenly end up pointing the wrong way right in the middle of that flick shot.

I've heard that Logitech are bringing out a new optical mouse that has two sensors, and should remain accurate at much higher speeds, and I'm interested in seeing how that turns out. For the moment though, optical mice are far superior for standard OS work like graphics, cos they don't skip.

Re:I disagree on mice

[balthan]

I use a Logitech Trackman Marble (the thumb operated trackball.) I hated it when I first started to use one, but I quickly fell in love. I will never go back to a mouse.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Zaknafein500]

Absolutely. Trackman Marbles are awesome. For gaming, I liked the non-wheel variety better since the middle button is easier to press. I only game about 20% of the time though, so I wouldn't give up my wheel for scrolling in other apps.

FWIW, LanParty.com has had a hosting guide up for something like 3 or 4 years. It is a bit dated, but the info is still good.

Re:I disagree on mice

[newbiescum]

The thing I've noticed with first person shooter players is that when players try to do a 180 degree turn in one swoop (moving the mouse from right to left across the mouse pad or left to right), the optical mice aren't able to keep up with this rapid movement. Also, when lifting up the mouse in case you're near the edge of your mouse pad or surface, the mouse takes a second or two to read its location again.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Pyrosz]

Some peeps even use a trackball, this I never will understand.

I used to use a regular mouse and couldn't understand how anyone could use those "track ball things", until I got one to try and help out with my wrist pain (worked too!). After about 2 days of cursing it, I could finally use it like a regular mouse. After about a week of use I could play games like I did before. After 2 weeks, I play games even better than before. I absolutly love trackballs now. Best damn thing in my oppinion for playing games. No more lifting up the mouse to move it back to the pad. You can spin 360's all night long! Cleaning couldn't be easier, remove ball, swipe with finger, put back ball. I dont use the thumb ball ones, I use the ones that you use your "other" fingures on. I use the Optical MS Trackball Explorer at home and I use the Logitech Trackman Marble FX at work, which is also uses a form of Optical ball tracking instead of the stupid little rollers.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Pyrosz]

(maybe my hands sweat too much or something)

This wouldnt be such a problem if you dint look at porn all the time.

Re:I disagree on mice

[jayhawk88]

I second that. The Marble Trackman I used to have was freaking amazing. Once you learn the beauty of thumb controlled movement, you'll never go back.

I played with that mouse so much the damn thing broke, and when I went to go looking for another they were sold out in my area. I ended up getting an MS thumb-controlled one, but it wasn't the same. Still, I got used to it, and actually sort of like it now.

Re:I disagree on mice

[Unknown Bovine Group]

I got the Boomslang mouse encountered nothing but trouble... And I gave it more than enough chance so I'd get accustomed....Sure it's great that it's USB but...

One problem is that the wheel is very low on the mouse, near the heel of your hand. This is a 'feature' designed to get you to hold it differently than a 'normal' mouse. It does have some benefit, and works well with the big sensitive buttons. HOWEVER, the Scroll wheel is NOT slid back so if you hold the mouse the way they describe scrolling is nearly impossible.

The side buttons are a good idea, but are awkward and not good to use in 'fast fire' situations. There is a cool feature that lets you adjust the mouse sensitivity on the fly, but this is tied to one of these side buttons (combined with the scroll wheel) so you don't want to have to change sensitivity while somebody is on your ass!

Finally, and this may just have been a problem with my hardware or something, but occasionally when I'd hit the right-mouse button, the left-mouse button would also signal. This can be a big problem if you have rockets equipped and you're in front of a wall, or if you're trying to sneak up on somebody. Has anyone else encountered this?

Eventually I went to the MS Intellimouse Optical. I love it. I never really encounter problems with tracking at high speeds because, if you're flailing your mouse about THAT much, you're out of control anyway. Adjust your sensitivity.

Re:I disagree on mice

[brianosaurus]

If you turn the trackball upside down, you can use it *just* like a regular mouse. It helps to have big hands, though, since you have to stretch your fingers around the edge to press the buttons.

Re:I disagree on mice

[WyldOne]

Well I, for one, prefer the Cordless Optical mice from Logitech - It's fast, accurate and I don't get snagged up from that biatch of a cord. I fell they respond faster and are better for aiming (precision) I have used 'ball' mice and was sceptical of the optical mice, but I won't purchase another one again. Furthermore: I use USB optical Cybork 3d-gold stick for the left hand - better than the keyboard I have found. It has a decent amount of buttons, and works well.

Re:I disagree on mice

[JohnRlI]

MS Mice are great. The original (without the 33% improvement) had a bug, and so when mine died I got it replaced under warrenty. MSUK had no stock, until the guy on the phone said - "ooh - i've found some".

I now have 5 mice. I even tried to return them. The Fax and Phone number on the invoice didnt even exist. You think MS are bad; but just think what they could do if they got their act together....

Deterioration

[Blackneto]

Our LAN Parties always end up deteriorating into long ass game of Worms.

Re:Deterioration

[SyniK]

Worms? Some LAN parties would kill to be able to play Worms...

I'm not proud of this, but it's the honest truth... the first LAN party I had after I got DSL was a Friday to Sunday shindig. NOT ONE GOD DAMN GAME WAS PLAYED. The culprit? Friday afternoon I had found the alt.binaries.* newsgroups and shared my new found bandwidth and knowledge with others... Good lord that was a lot of porn!

Re:Deterioration

[Alan Partridge]

that's NOT a deterioration, that's an improvement. the next stage is a bout of super Mario Kart, the stage after that is wip3out in link up mode and the last stage to social interaction is rolling Tekken tournament. after that you are fit to re-enter society - or an arcade, whichever you prefer.

Interesting LAN guide

[ispq]

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.

Re:Get a GRIP

[sane?]

Sure lots of people died, sure it was a shock to you that warfare is now global.

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.

Get OVER it

[sokoban]

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.

WHO needs priorities?

[jetgirl25]

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.

Re:Get some PRIORITIES

[FlyveHest]

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.

Why bother - go to a net caf� instead

[mjul]

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.

Re:Why bother - go to a net caf� instead

[Unknown Bovine Group]

Nowadays, with a net/LAN gaming café on every corner it is much easier just going there instead

Where the heck do you live? I gotta move there...

I never considered a cafe type situation. I assumed that those computers were all web-surfing stations and not game stations. Do they have late-model 3d video cards? Do they have decent games installed (or can you install your own -- I doubt it)?

Re:/. ed

[Gaccm]

Considering i opened the story almost immidaitly after it was posted (only 2 posts at that time) and am still able to click prev and next, i'd say the site ISN'T slashdotted and this guy is just a karma whore. Any moderators reading this, don't mod the parent up.

Don't plan TO much

[FlyveHest]

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.

Re:Don't plan TO much

[drodver]

You can also goto the bars after a hard day of drinking... err... gaming! That way you can hide in the dark until that big-bright-ball-in-the-sky-that-hurts-my-eyes goes down.

Re:Don't plan TO much

[Lord of Caustic Soda]

Leeching MP3s and warez off each other happen pretty frequently in the LAN parties I've been to. And everytime some nitwit decided to start their copying right in the middle of some intense Quake CTF.....

Re:Don't plan TO much

[malfunct]

I've found that convincing the participants to set thier computers up the previous day to the party at whatever time they have time and making sure they have the "software list" smooths things out a great deal the next day. Also get thier computer set up on the lan and all the hardware tested and running. It should be like 30 minutes to an hour for each person the night before.

Getting all the patches for CS or Unreal or something on your box when everyone wants to play is a real drag. That sort of thing needs to be done ahead.

I haven't done this but I think planning ahead a bit for what games to play at what times helps as well. Especially those games that need like 2-8person teams or something organized like that. You can fill the time with deathmatching or whatever other sort of fun you want.

The movies are a good idea as is buffet style food of some sort.

Man now I'm itching to throw a party.

This guy is too difficult!

[Calle Ballz]

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

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[alech]

you head a hub? (goodoldBNC :-) SCNR...

ALeX

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[BrookHarty]

Um, no. DHCP isnt hard to setup, and any linux geek could download dhcpd and the sample config works fine. And @home/dsl(some) peeps seem to use dhcp anyways, all lan parties I goto use DHCP so nobody has to give out settings. Plus you can do cool stuff like playing with DNS and redirects. So people can hit the fileservers without knowing its ips. http://files and they can get all the mods/patches.

I personally love DHCP, I can plug in my work laptop at home and not reconfigure any tcp/ip settings. I even tweaked my dhcpd.conf so that my MAC address gets the same IP and network settings for VPN.

Also, Now that switches are cheap, might as well spend the extra 10-20 bux and get a switch. 8 ports switches are like 40 bux now.

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[YKnot]

The guide is for public LAN-parties, where some people may need guidance because it's their first time to such an event. For public events, a certain level of planning is necessary to avoid problems which just don't need to be considered when all attendants know eachother and the location and have met for a LAN before.

Besides, switches are cheap, the added cost compared to hubs is negligible. Switches avoid problems with network cards which are set to full duplex, perform much better in mixed 10mbit/100mbit situations and provide better overall bandwith. If new hardware needs to be bought anyway, don't go for hubs. If you got the hubs already, keep them.

It is worth noting though that other LAN guides recommend against DHCP because conflicting DHCP servers are hard to find unless you have manageable network equipment. And the more participants there are, the more likely someone will have forgotten that he's running such a server.

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[Sinistar2k]

The best place to find cheap 24 port switches is eBay. I snagged a 24 port Addtron switch from there for $139 and have never had problems with it at our LAN parties (web link in my user info). I also have a 24 port hub, just in case our numbers go above what the switch can take, which ran me $189 from Buy.com.

Also, DHCP is a snap to set up. If you let the Windows random assignment happen, there is always the chance that two machines will grab the same IP address. We're kinda cheapin' out right now by using my Linksys Cable/DSL gateway, which has built-in DHCP. We also use that to give the whole group Internet access via the usual host's cablemodem. Even works for multiplayer out in the wild (we typically do this with Counter-Strike). You can get a 4 port Linksys gateway/router for around $99 these days.

Now, if you're thinking that you need to have all 3Com gear, then yes, you will be spending huge bucks. Or if you get the idea that gigabit ethernet is your cup of tea... cha-ching, bye bye retirement fund. But equipment sufficient for running LAN parties can be found on the cheap. Keep this in mind - for the cost of a GeForce 3 at launch (~$400), you could have all the gear I've mentioned.

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[shyster]

It is worth noting though that other LAN guides recommend against DHCP because conflicting DHCP servers are hard to find unless you have manageable network equipment. And the more participants there are, the more likely someone will have forgotten that he's running such a server.

ipconfig/all|more on problem machine, get address of DHCP server.
nbtstat -A ipaddress "WHO THE HELL IS ??????!? TURN OFF YOUR DHCP SERVER!"
ipconfig/release_all ipconfig/renew_all

Re:This guy is too difficult!

[kiwimate]

A DHCP server is pretty simple to set up. But in any case, the 169.254.0.0 auto-address is a W2K feature (APIPA, which stands for something that sounds impressive, I'm sure). If you have a pre-Win2K machine configured as a DHCP client and no DHCP server, you'll find your Windows machine enters a confused and lonely little non-networked world.

Lanparty.com

[*Pres*]

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/

Re:lanparty.com

[Lev_Arris]

Yeah, but don't get all too creative when fiddling with electricity, otherwise you'll see some fried extensions cords like we had. (I would have told him to unroll that cord before he plugs it if he had asked ;)

Well, I'm not really sure what this article is geared towards: a small party, with 24 Port 10/100 Switches and a router with built-in DHCP? (Let's leave aside the fact that everybody with ICS could potentially be running another DHCP and cause a nice colliding mess ;) Doesn't really fit IMHO. As an example: We're a small club running parties of about 70 players and all we have is a handfull of 8 Port Switches that we try to interconnect without bringing too many hops in between the computers.

Re:lanparty.com

[buckeyeguy]

At the GeekFests we have (that's what we call 'em) the one friend who is willing to host this silliness has a duplex with a basement; half the people set up upstairs, half in the basement. Naturally, this works great for team games, like 'capture the flag' in your favorite shooter, teams in Tiberian Sun, etc.

But the side effect is that no circuit breaker has more than about 4 PCs on it, and usually less. If ya don't have a basement, try setting up in separate rooms, long cables and all ;)

Re:Lanparty.com

[lordrhett]

Personally I really like the guide at http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/howtolanparty/

But maybe thats because there is a picture of me. yeeeeeee.

Rhett

Re:Lanparty.com

[lordrhett]

Hey, why don't you check this link out on the mysteries of cut & paste: Cut and Paste

Don't plan!

[rootedgimp]

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 :(

Re:Don't plan!

[portuguese legend]

When I use WordStar for DOS everybody shows up.

When I use my Atari 600 XL I see blue horses flying around. The Legend has spoken.

Re:Don't plan!

[Gremlin77]

UT seems to be the default game for our LAN parties too. Starcraft and Ages II usually get a game in as well. I gotta ask : Is Jedi Knight good in multiplayer? I love the game, just never played it in MP.

How many keys do I have to hit to save? Control-what? Take this :x

One thing not to do:

[Misch]

One thing not to do... post your gateway to /. and watch your systems get flooded.

Good Projector - Sony CPJ-200

[green pizza]

My best Lan Party investment to date was the nifty little Sony CPJ-200. Street price is under $800.

http://www.supremevideo.com/internet_specials/cpj2 00projector.htm

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.

lanparty.com!

[Maditude]

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.

My LAN parties

[portuguese legend]

My LAN parties were bad ass!

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!

Haven't done a lan party in years.

[GiMP]

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 :)

bandwidth

[ByteHog]

the first rule, of course, if you're going to be playing online, is bandwidth.

*ahem* slashdoted *ahem*

Re:bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The first rule of the LAN party is that you don't talk about the LAN party.

LAN Party?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Whither the SF Bay Gaming Scene?

[ewhac]

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

Re:Whither the SF Bay Gaming Scene?

[SyniK]

BANGG pulled out of some really big deals and then shrivled.

www.gamerzday.com

We're an hour north up in Vacaville however.
Quite a few in Sac too... but that's a little far.

We got some things in the works to spread the LAN lovin' though. Don't be surprised if Gamerzday mutates and multiplies.

Re:Whither the SF Bay Gaming Scene?

[[amorphis]]

The biggest one in NorCal is Lantrocity, in Sacramento. They put on a good party (I've been to a few).

I also help run a midsize (50-80) bimonthly lanparty in Modesto, about 90 minutes from downtown SF.

I went to the last three BANGG events, and they were good, but very irregular.

Re:Whither the SF Bay Gaming Scene?

[k9-quaint]

K9Con has been one of the larger Bay Area events in the past (upwards of 100 people). We had one in 2000, we may have one in 2001. We will definately have one when the new Doom or quake4 is released. You can catch us playing quake3 while we wait on q3.thejadegarden.com:27960

Ultimate Guide to Hosting a LAN Party COMING SOON!

[t0qer]

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

What caf�?

[_Sprocket_]

Nowadays, with a net/LAN gaming café on every corner it is much easier just going there instead...

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).

Re:What caf�?

[BrookHarty]

Same here, I did the tech support for the only CyberCafe in town, they did ok, but mostly kids just playing Magic and drinking coffee. Not alot of income for a big place, maybe if they renamed it to StarBucks or something.

They closed down, and the local D&D store in town "Merlins in Spokane Washingtion" has the only game PC's around (kinkos has 3, but for printing only). Merlins has Inet access, but when I was back home and needed VPN access, thier nat server couldnt handle IPsec correctly. (Its always something...)

Over here in Seattle, theres a place in little silicon alley that has a dozen pc's in enclosed booths with 29 inch gateway tvs. They actually have subs and base thumpers in the seats. Playing counter-strike on thier t1 was smooth as silk. Thou a tad expensive. Also me and my friend seem to be the only ones over 25 lol.

Wishy-washy namby-pamby corporate sponsored crap

[Hypnos7787]

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.

it's all about fun (with pics)

[green pizza]

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

lanparty.com

[S30m4n]

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.

Modem Wars

[Alsee]

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.

I agree

[antdude]

This Web site is very handy for small and HUGE LAN parties. Everything you need to know!

Gaming Cafes Instead

[shut_up_man]

I've run quite a few LAN parties, but I'm steering more towards booking out local gaming cafes these days. It's just easier.

• All hardware already there and set up
• Games installed and patched
• Hardware competition-grade (no more sore losers on P233s)
• Nerdboy clerk to help people with tech problems, so I don't have to
• Often ninja-fast net link for online team gaming
• Stacks of gaming supplies (caffeine drinks, snacks, local fast food delivery menus)
• Some cafes have a BAR! (Playing Fields in London, yay!)
• Paying to play makes people act cooler, reducing the "Screw you guys, I'm playing Tribes Shifter Server or going home!" factor

Re:Gaming Cafes Instead

[MisterPo]

True on all accounts cept that everytime I go to the Playing Fields I end up getting hopelessly drunk and thus my mad gaming skills being to slip away. Then trip on those amazingly steep entrance stairs :)

The thing is that it is only some of the patrons who are cool. Too often some social-misfits think that it is funny to sit far apart and then have to shout across the desks. Told one guy to shut up once, he was shit at Counterstrike and so would hurl abuse at everyone else once he died, usual crap like "camper", "AWP whore" etc. Anyways, I tell him to shut up and I got challenged to a fist fight!.....but thats a different story :)

Po

dilweed's 15 minute guide to LAN party bliss.

[SyniK]

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!)

Re:Best lanparty.

[alech]

That sounds quite cool.
Do you know if takeover 2k2 is going to be
in Eindhoven as well?
(that would yet be another good reason the be an exchange student here, which I am right now :-)

ALeX

Tribscon lan party

[BrookHarty]

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...)

Great article except....

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Great article except....

[xQx]

Exactly what I said.

The *ONLY* virus checking I have on the servers at work is a scheduled file based scan once a week.... and thats only because I don't trust the other sysadmin.

I have no virus checkers on my workstation, and I doubt I ever will. Any *nix IRC user will know the phrase "Do not IRC as ROOT" ... because you can't get into lots of channels / networks if you try. Same shit applies for windows. If people didn't check their email, browse the web, and mindlessly open .exe files as ADMINISTRATOR, there wouldn't BE a virus problem.

Well, it probably would, because companies like VET and McAfee would then employ people to write better viruses, like the nimda virus, that exploits applications.

Who? me? Accuse virus scanner companies of employing people to make viruses thus increasing their profits? NEVER! They wouldn't do that. Thats immoral.

At School!

[tplayford]

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?

Re:At School!

[turbine216]

you avoid the situation altogether by asking people to bring their own equipment. I know that in your particular situation, this wasn't really a possibility...but hey, that's the disadvantage of using someone else's LAN.

Re:Virus Checkers? Whats this guy selling?

[xQx]

My problem with virus scanners isn't so much the theory, rather the idea that the payload of a virus checker is greater than the payload of most viruses.

Virus checkers of today:
- Sit in your system tray, consuming 4MB of ram to keep you notified of the fact they're running.
- Intercept all file IO to ensure no viruses are written to disk.
- Pop up an alert users every time a suspect file is found, and usually prompt for an action.
- in Win9x systems, add 30 seconds to boot time to ensure that between the time the virus checker was stopped during a windows shutdown, and the time the commandline scan was run no viruses were added to your system.

Payload of most viruses:
- Intercept file IO
- Email themselves out to propegate

The new installs of Mcafee don't give you the option any more of just installing the command line client. And 'netshield' for servers happily sits there on your file server and adds another layer to your file IO.

Really it's not like wearing a condom, its more like staying 3 feet away from everyone of the opposite sex all your life because it 'minimises the risk of viral propigation'

It's absolute overkill spawned by market hype and paranoia.

There are *STILL* no viruses out that propigate without USER INTERVENTION.

Which means, if you do get a virus, YOU'VE FUCKED UP.

Installing virus checkers is like installing crumple zones on the bottom of PAN-AM aeroplanes so they are less likely to kill people in the event of a crash... the question shouldn't be "What can we do to make these aeroplanes better in a crash" It should be "Why the fuck do our aeroplanes keep falling out of the sky?"

From experience...

[jaavaaguru]

I've hosted a few LAN parties at my house, and we're doing it more now (2 in the last 2 weeks). It's usually 8 to 15 people. Nobody's got any amazing hardware, just a few 8 port 10Base-T hubs, although we'll be going 100mbps soon.

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.

Re:From experience...

[Sinistar2k]

Regarding Music... I've recently started taking an OGG jukebox to our gatherings, though, so far, I'm the only one who uses it.

It's a Linux box running Apache, PHP, and Andromeda to stream OGGs over the LAN, so all you have to do is set up your playlist, click Play, and stick WinAmp/XMMS on Repeat/Shuffle. It plays in the background while you play whatever.

The downside is that you need to have a machine capable of playing games and music at the same time. Also, it helps if your players use headphones so that nobody else has to listen to music they think sucks.

So far, Atari Teenage Riot seems to be about the best Quake music ever. :)

Re:From experience...

[jaavaaguru]

Oops!

I noticed your sig and remembered this (dunno where I got it from)...
Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the earth's
supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century. As man
struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help.
Please...

CONSERVE GRAVITY

Follow these simple suggestions:

(1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.
(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling.
(4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big pile.
(6) Stop flipping pancakes

earphones

[zerocool^]

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.

Re:earphones

[Mr.Phil]

Or those guys (and girls) that bring 5.1 sounds systems with them and have sat speakers laying on the floor behind them

morons

Re:earphones

[Vuarnet]

Volume shmolume. The real reason you need to get earphones is not to avoid hurting your friends' delicate ears with your Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, but to avoid having them hear all your game sounds and messages.

In several games I've played, there have been cases where I waste a perfectly planned ambush / attack / whatever, simply because the other player heard the background noise coming out of my PC speakers, and knowing exactly where my character was.

Earphones are a necessity, whenever you're surrounded by hard-core gamers.

Tournaments? Try...

[Lev_Arris]

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.

Re:Tournaments? Try...

[SyniK]

http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/ggs

I'm actually working on some GPL software to run a LAN's intranet as well as the ability to run a LAN online. It's really slow going though. Damn this life around me!

We are currently using www.lanpartyonline.com at our events. It works pretty well. I'm just a control freak and would like more control.

Re:Tournaments? Try...

[Lev_Arris]

Hmm ... development on such a thing is hard, I know. I've seen several other systems (Intralan, LAS, ... sorry can't remember the URLs only the names) and they all seem to get stuck at a certain point of time or are just lagging behind LANsurfer which is IMHO the most feature loaded system until now. I didn't get to look at lanpartyonline.com but reading that they actually charge you for double elimination tournaments I think I prefer my free (as in beer) LS ;)

I did notice one difference though:
- Lanpartyonline.com has everything in the Internet, that way ppl can sign up for tourneys BEFORE the LAN but need Internet access at the LAN.
- Lansurfer.com has divided the stuff and put the tournament part into an Intranet Script. That way users unfortunately can't sign up before the party (except if you put your Intranet Webserver online before the LAN) but need to do that at the LAN. Advantage is that the LAN doesn't have to have an Internet access.

Re:Virus Checkers? Whats this guy selling?

[Mr.Phil]

Unfortunatly, at the last lan party I was at, a virus got out in the wild. Everyone was play q3a, and someone had the new Dragonball Z mod, so everyone grabbed that and started installing it. When about half were already done, someone shouted "Hey, this shit's a virus." Sure enough, it had a virus payload.

I'm sure glad I wasn't the guy with the virus'd file. He got the piss kicked out of him by some pretty upset drunk guys.

*chuckle*

I got your lan party right here......

[(startx)]

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!

Re:Virus Checkers? Whats this guy selling?

[Maniacal]

I agree.

I've been a heavy computer/network admin for over a decade, have never run a virus checker on my computer and have never been infected. NEVER.

Plenty of my customers have though. Even with a constant barage of warnings and virus checkers running they always manage to infect themselves. Stumps me.

Mike

Half rave, half lan party

[British]

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.

Re:Half rave, half lan party

[British]

Oh no, no drug usage at all. The most chemical abuse was a few beers. Trust me, the E-tards would have been taken care of rather violently, but that didn't even come close to happening.

Thank God for LAN Parties

[BadBlood]

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. :)

Re:Thank God for LAN Parties

[Louziffer]

Incredible... I was just browsing comments on a decent LAN party article and came across your ringing endorsement of our party.

Thanks, badblood. I'm glad we have some fans out there. You guys are the reason behind our work.

- LouZiffer

Ain't no such thing as a flux capacitor

[smartfart]

That's part of the joke. A capacitor doesn't have flux, but an inductor does. And the two (inductance and capacitance) counteract each other. So a flux capacitor is an oxymoron.

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.

Oldest First? [ot]

[jaavaaguru]

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"?

Not exactly.

[FallLine]

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.

Re:Not exactly.

[drinkypoo]

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.

It depends largely on your surface. I've actually had the greatest luck with a green vinyl tablecloth (don't ask) which has a sort of wood grain under the effects of vertigo pattern on it. It's not a lot of color variation, but it seems to work very well.

Also, traditional mice have, generally, two kinds of balls. There are plastic balls, and metal balls, both with a sticky coating. *cough* The plastic ones are only capable of tracking on a mousepad or similar surface, and frequently lose traction during quick movements even on the 3M precision mousing surface. (BTW, if you wet the back of that thing and stick it on a smooth desk it forms a nice seal and doesn't move around much.)

The metal MouseballZ (I couldn't resist throwing that in there) most commonly found on logitech mice are very rubbery, and so pick up lint with a vengeance. So basically, if you get a mouse with good traction, it's going to get dirty quickly.

All this said, there are a couple issues with my logitech optical wheelmouse. First, in some situations, when you let go of it, it can't decide where it is and it "vibrates" back and forth, which you can observe as a one pixel left-right shift in the mouse cursor. This continues until the mouse is bumped. Also, as you have noted, on certain surfaces there are high-speed tracking problems. Avoid this by having a surface with good contrast.

I've had very, very good results with my optical mouse with regards to gaming. It's increased my accuracy considerably. When coupled with my Lexmark/IBM positive-feel keyboard (P/N 51G8572, shipped with a RS6K) I'm truly a force to be reckoned with :)

Re:Not exactly.

[FallLine]

It depends largely on your surface. I've actually had the greatest luck with a green vinyl tablecloth (don't ask) which has a sort of wood grain under the effects of vertigo pattern on it. It's not a lot of color variation, but it seems to work very well.

Shrug, I've tried a number of different optical (though primarily MS) mice on various surfaces and had largely the same problem, just to different degrees. While the surface makes a difference, the problem never vanishes. I really think this is a pretty fundamental limitation of the technology, at least at the given sampling rates and computing levels. It's just not enough to persuade me to drop optical in favor of ball mice. It's not a problem for me, now, anyways, as I do really well with sensitive setting on my optical mouse. (Having few abberations on the optical mouse allows me to go more sensitive).

I'm curious though, try this with your setup:

Whip your mouse left to right (or right to left) about 4 to 6 inches. I'll bet your cursor jumps well up or down, and maybe even well in the opposite direction.

Or if you run at, say, 1600x1200 like me, position your cursor in one corner of the screen and try moving to the opposite corner as fast as you reasonably can. Again, I'd be suprised if your results differ significantly.

Re:Not exactly.

[DarkEdgeX]

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've tried to reproduce this with my optical mouse (a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical USB -- http://www.microsoft.com/mouse/), and CAN'T-- sure, when I do quick motions left to right (or the other way around) it fluctuates up and down ever so slightly, but this is more likely do to the fact that I'm really not moving the mouse EXACTLY left to right on a perfect line (in the natural position for using a mouse, your hand moves left to right more like the long blade on a cars windshield wiper). This is just moving left-to-right on a 1024x768 Windows desktop, I mention this in case you meant to try this someplace else (eg: in a specific game or something).

Regardless, I imagine optical mice will become the norm soon, and the technology is ever improving (it's my understanding that the processor inside current optical mice rivals a 486, if you can believe that.. quite a little bit 'o CPU power for something as basic as a moving input device if you ask me). I'm sure the old-style ball mice will be relegated to either a) collector's items or b) elitist "true" gamers (and at a premium price).

Re:Not exactly.

[FallLine]

You must not be moving it fast enough (maybe because you do have a high level of sensitivity set already). I really have been able to reproduce this problem 100% of the time with a number of different optical mice (I use the exact same mouse as you, 3 of them in fact, one for home, work, and the road, for my own uses--games and applications--same problem here). I don't believe that this has to do with different surfaces, processing power, mouse, or input (USB vs PS/2) as I've tried it in so many different settings. The explanation that the hand simply is not moving in a straight-line does not hold water (other than the possiblity that it serves to further CONFUSE the device), because:

I move my hand left to right, playing close attention to the start and ending position AND the path, making sure that the device is firmly on the ground the entire time, yet I see the cursor moving in VASTLY different, and often opposite directions. For instance, I'll move it 5 inches to the left, and see it move as much as 1200 pixels up (vertically) the screen (a long distance given my sensitivity setting) or backwards (in the opposite direction!!)--neither are explainable given the undeniable general path AND final destination of the mouse. I also know other people that have actually tried this and they've all reported the same problem.

From a financial and engineering point of view, this problem is also very explainable. Because the optical technology works by sampling and comparing the previous frame, it stands to reason that there is a point where each frame is too different than the previous [or maybe even entirely different] such that it's simply impossible to determine the direction and speed of movement by comparing the two. Furthermore, it makes little sense for MS (or ANY company targeting the mainstream primarily) to increase the marginal cost of each unit, thereby reducing their profits significantly, just to design a device that may make 1% of the population happier just 30% more often.

In other words, it just doesn't make sense from a cost/benefit point of view. I frankly don't blame MS for this (though I'm no fan of theirs), it's a completely justifiable business decision. There is no question in my mind that these optical mice will and should replace virtually all ball mice, but the fact remains that it has this drawback over the traditional ball mice [and even there, I'm saying that with my suggested workaround, it makes an overall superior mouse].

Re:Not exactly.

[drinkypoo]

Shrug, I've tried a number of different optical (though primarily MS) mice on various surfaces and had largely the same problem, just to different degrees. While the surface makes a difference, the problem never vanishes.

Almost all of these mice (if not all of them) use the same camera part, which IIRC does the decoding as well, or has a matching decoder.

I'm curious though, try this with your setup: Whip your mouse left to right (or right to left) about 4 to 6 inches. I'll bet your cursor jumps well up or down, and maybe even well in the opposite direction.

Or if you run at, say, 1600x1200 like me, position your cursor in one corner of the screen and try moving to the opposite corner as fast as you reasonably can. Again, I'd be suprised if your results differ significantly.

Well, be surprised. While I only tried the latter test at 1280x1024 (I'm running a whole bunch of programs under windows right now and I don't trust them all to survive a screen resize) I had performance far superior to that which I'm used to from traditional mice. In neither case did I experience anything close to the behavior you describe.

Are you using your mouse via the USB interface? I'm using PS/2. The USB interface caused a lot of chunking for me, especially while gaming (IE, during periods of heavy CPU utilization.) When doing anything serious (like decoding binaries from USENET while unpacking a rar file and playing an mp3 - Yes, this is serious work even on an Ultra160-equipped Athlon 700, at least under windoze) the mouse was completely unusable, so I went back to the PS/2 interface and it solved a number of problems for me.

Alas, if only USB weren't so processor driven...

Re:Not exactly.

[FallLine]

All I can say is that you must be doing something wrong or you're simply extremely lucky. You probably just aren't moving fast enough, but since there are no easy metrics to measure your rate of movement, never mind. FYI, I use PS/2 too on my laptop, for the same reasons, but I've experienced the exact same problems with USB.

Re:Not exactly.

[drinkypoo]

As an avid /. user, I assure you, my wrist is well-equipped to move the mouse back and forth rapidly.

Tips for Games?

[fyrebryan]

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

Re:Tips for Games?

[Mirotrem]

Actually, You will find many gaming companies know it is absurd for them to expect every pc at a lan party to have their own cd-key. Which is why most of the time, Half-life, Q3..etc...You can use the same cd-key for LAN play but for Internet play it checks the key.

jokes on you

[CoreyG]

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.

What is this guy on?

[SomethingOrOther]

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.

Well, no shit!

Of course, all the computers in the world would be useless in a LAN party without the networking gear

Sherlock :-P

Dont talk about the LAN Party

[Vuarnet]

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.

Address conflicts shouldn't happen

[Krelnik]

> If you let the Windows random assignment
> 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.

Re:Address conflicts shouldn't happen

[Sinistar2k]

Thanks for the correction.

So, then, it's key that everybody be plugged into the LAN before they boot up, otherwise the ARP will be pointless (and conflicts could occur). Is that accurate?

Re:Address conflicts shouldn't happen

[Krelnik]

Yes, that's right. You need to be plugged in when you boot or it can't determine if there is a conflict. This is no different from DHCP, where you need to be plugged in at boot in order to receive an address.

Now, to take it to the next step....

[NerveGas]

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

LAN Party == Drunk Quake

[k_187]

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!

Big lan Parties Rock

[helleman]

I hosted one a couple of years back, check it out:

Ottawa Citizen Coverage of some local parties
and

My party... Ottawa Quakefest

and you fit in so well

[Archfeld]

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 :)

Re:and you fit in so well

[Alan Partridge]

fit into what? why would you let someone like me in anyway, no-one turned up again? face it, you might as well end it all if your love of your computer has reached the point where you have to take it to parties with you. go out, get a life.

NO LAN PARTY I've ever attended

[Archfeld]

will allow speakers..sorry try head-phones, 40 sets of speakers going is a waste of POWER outlets and makes playing impossible.

Re:Wishy-washy namby-pamby corporate sponsored cra

[rho]

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.

Thanks for commenting on my article

[tritium4ever]

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!