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DreamHack Winter 2002

Posted by michael on from the i-dream-of-genie dept.

JJC writes "DreamHack, a huge LAN party, is taking place this weekend in Sweden. Here's some information in English and a daily report from sponsors ASUS. This and this ought to give you an idea of the scale of the thing. Here's the obligatory webcam and their Internet bandwidth graph. It's a massively impressive event, wish I was there! :-)"

22 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. The energy companies... by smaug195 · · Score: 5, Funny

    must be weeping with joy

  2. The First Thought to Pop into My Head? by Murdock037 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anybody care to imagine the B.O. that's gotta be emanating from this place?

    No? Me neither.

    On the plus side, there can't be any shortage of munchies lying about this place.

  3. Marketing Slogan... by LaNMaN2000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is the biggest fragfest outside of Afghanistan!

    --

    ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
  4. How much power are they using? by b1t+r0t · · Score: 5, Funny
    That's a lot of monitors running at the same time there. All those computers have to be pulling a lot of juice that has to go through the building's electric wiring. Just getting power for all those computers is a feat in itself.

    I feel sorry for the guy who kicks over the wrong plug in that place. :-)

    --

    --
    "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
    "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
    1. Re:How much power are they using? by blair1q · · Score: 5, Funny

      Uh, you do realize the lights are not on, right?

      --Blair
      "Coincidence? Or conspiracy..."

  5. Do I wanna be there? by kirkb · · Score: 5, Funny

    You bet. I hear these LAN parties usually have a decent internet connection. Since @Home is gonna leave me in the dark any minute now, I'd love to be anywhere else but here.

    --
    Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
  6. Higher resolution image by Tack · · Score: 5, Informative
    A higher resolution version of that picture is available here. There's probably around 1000 people in that one picture. Wow.

    Jason.

  7. Do I wanna be there!? by ucblockhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    Sweden? December? Are you nuts!?

    Let me know when they have one in July...

    --
    The cake is a pie
  8. Chicks? by Spackler · · Score: 5, Funny

    All 7 women in the room have strategically placed laptops right next to the door, for quick exits.

  9. athlon heat by staeci · · Score: 5, Funny

    The town that it is hosted in is flooded by melting snow from around the building.

    --
    'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
  10. NOT a lan party you fucks. by Wojtek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    dreamhack is a DEMO party. For art, not for playing retarded videogames all night. It's
    for hacking out that great 4k intro with the full
    first level from decent. Or faking that multiple light source "phong" with a picture of your mate holding a coke can. Not for playing videogames.
    I wish people would grab a clue. Gamerlamers used to get chastized or beat up for going to demoparties, sadly this isn't the case anymore.

    I doubt i'll even bother ever going to asm if this is what they have become. There's no thrill in watching some dorks play videogames. There *is* a thrill in seeing the latest wizzbang effects on the screen and figuring out for yourself just how they worked so you can do that plus more in your next demo.

    1. Re:NOT a lan party you fucks. by W2k · · Score: 5, Informative

      It may have been a demo party. Once. Today, those art/animation/demo compos are merely a bit of a distraction from the gaming, although some people (obviously) come for the demos rather than for the gaming. Still, they're quite obviously in minority, and I for one don't care. If they want to spend four days in front of their C compilers, let them.

      But hey, do tell me, if we're only supposed to be programming, why do we have a 1 GBIT Internet connection? Why is Microsoft here hosting Counter-Strike servers? Obviously, neither is neccessary for exchanging 64 kBit demos. The DH Crew are the ones organizing, so they decide what kind of party DreamHack is, at least officially. From the looks of things, they don't agree with you.

      I don't know if we here at DreamHack have the pleasure of having you among us, but if we do, please stand up on your chair and shout your opinion. There are ~4 999 "gamerlamers" around you, it'll be a blast.

      --
      Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
  11. An Inside perspective :-) by iolaire_in_swe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi all, I'm sitting in the picture that's linked in the little article.. and it's cool. I recently moved to sweden from the UK (where we have nothing on this scale). A little info:

    1. We haven't noticed any /. effect.. we've got a 1Gbit uplink here (although how they got that to an exhibition center is beyond me).
    2. Wintertime is a GOOD TIME for this sort of thing - it's 27C (80F) here just now. The other big swedish LAN (Remedy) is held in the summer, and it's a real sweatfest by comparison.
    3. Yes, there is a bit of a discrepancy in gender... there are about 20 girls here, out of the 4500 people here (luckily I happen to be going out with one of them :-).
    4. The most popular game here is Counterstrike, the half-life mod. the main tourney is 5v5, 128(!) teams. Q3 is also popular. There's also a history of demos here, and we've seen (and heard)some very cool stuff on the big screen. Microsoft is also here with some Xboxes - and a competition to win them (played on the machines themselves).
    5. You can buy Jolt Cola by the 24 pack slab :] These people know who they are dealing with it seems - very popular. There's also a smattering of hamburger/hot dog/sandwich places around the halls.

    All in all, I'm having a fine time - and so are most other people. Apart from some horror stories with DOA machines, it's all going splendidly.

    You're all welcome to come say hi on IRC - irc.quakenet.org #dreamhack has about 700 of us.

    iolaire (Qnet oper, gamer, blah blah)

  12. Some Observations... by CaptainCarrot · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. I would love to have the Coke/Jolt/Whoop Ass concession at this thing.
    2. Not to mention the pay-urinal concession. Get 'em coming and going!
    3. But not the condom concession. All those boys, and not a single one of them is going to get laid any time soon. The only use for those things in this picture are as balloons.
    --
    And the brethren went away edified.
  13. Some DH stats.. by abelsson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    40 km ethernet cable.
    15 km electical wiring.
    6 000 chairs.
    2 km tables.
    1.5 Megawatts of power.
    40 000 cans of Jolt cola.

  14. Geez by Junky191 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats seriously a lot of fucking jolt. Dear god. I mean really, holy fucking shit. Damn.

  15. So... by acehole · · Score: 5, Funny

    Any prizes for beating the 86 hour mark for gaming?

    Can't let Korea hold that forever ;)

    --
    Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
  16. The Gathering by cstrommen · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the curious, there's also a similar event once a year (easter) in Norway. The event is called The Gathering, and had almost 5000 participants last year (not including the massive stab etc etc). For more information visit http://www.gathering.org

    --

    --
    \ Christian A Strømmen

  17. 4 days?? Is this as scary as it sounds? by Woogiemonger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you think any of the thousands of geeks bother to shower?

  18. Just think.... by efedora · · Score: 5, Funny

    If the roof fell in there wouldn't be a single broken hearted sweetheart back home.

  19. When I was younger, it was called computer camp... by dagg · · Score: 5, Funny
    And everyone there was a pale, weak, super nerd. Things have sure changed.
    --
    None of this at computer camp.
    --
    Sex - Find It
  20. Live feed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm one of the 5000 participants here on Dreamhack and it's a blast. There have been lots of tournaments, and some events that you perhaps wouldn't have expected. For example there has been a Mr Paperbag competition, where participants have been dressing up in nothing more then small paper bags. ATM there's a stand up comedy competition and for a couple of hours ago there was a snowball war arranged outside. There's been all kinds of companies giving away free stuff like t-shirts and games. M$ has even given away a couple of Windows XP cd-roms. =D

    It seems like some of the readers here believe its main goal is to make a flash demo for ASUS, and well, I can tell you that that's far from the truth. I would estimate that there are 80%-90% gamers here, and I would be surprised if it turns out that even 1% participates in creating a flash demo for ASUS.

    If you take a look around you would probably guess that M$ has a big part in financing this event. There's a game corner where you can try different X-box games for free and M$ has dragged a bid Unisys server down here. There's even been an attempt to make an unofficial world record in max CS gamers hosted by the Unisys server.

    A pic of the server can be found here.

    O well, back to the fun, there's something going on at the scene again.