Slashdot Mirror
Hints for Planning a Network Gaming Marathon?
"We have prior experience with private weekend-long gaming parties (with 20-30 people) a handful of times per year at the homes of attendees, and usually they conclude with few problems. However, we are planning on this session being bigger and more public, hopefully upwards of 120 seats. Although we have experience with smaller gatherings, we generally know all attendees, and have little experience with larger, public gaming marathons.
What did you do for advertising? Is it more effective to reach the intended audience by advertising on the radio, TV, internet, or billboard? What can you do about the rare, unmanageable, lunatic gamer? How have you handled cheaters (aimbots, wall-hackers, etc.)? Have you brought in sponsors to help offset the cost? Has there been technical support for the non-tech savvy? If so, was it free, or included in the admission cost? There are other questions, but I'll stop there.".
http://www.lanparty.com/ has quite a few tips/suggestions for setup.
Read the LANParty.com guide and make SURE you have a power grid already mapped out so you can troubleshoot power failure on the fly. Also, have trash cans EVERYWHERE and designate ppl to take the trash out. Trust me
I've organiced several 200 ppl lan parties and i can tell theres always something that goes wrong.
The main thing to remember is that it IS work, not fun, if you want to do it for fun your in the wrong bizz. Also remember security, are you capable of throwing out people if needed. How about alcohol, fights? Warez? Whats your policy? Tech support, people always need help with tcp/ip, remember to always have a few people on call to help people. Power recheck power, recheck power again, i can't stress this enough, when ppl start rolling in and they put their machines on, arr...
Also remember that personal faulty equipment like a coffe cooker thats broken can shut down the power to 20-30 machines depending on your setup. Whos fault is this if a computer breaks? (it has happened several times) Do you pay? Be sure to have the answers.
If youve got a local shop try to bring them into it somehow. Many of the local LANs around here have some sort of sponsorship or help from a local shop. On tech support I would guess that anyone who would be coming to a LAN would know enough to keep their stuff up and running, but just in case have a few guys there who know what they are doing. If you can get a hold of a large confrence room in a hotel power shouldnt be too much of a problem im guessung, but it doesnt hurt to have a back up if you can get one.
wtfsig?!11
I'm currently in the final stages of doing something like this myself. We're gonna have ~128 people at the LAN. Here's some tips:
Go and talk with the manager at your local software shop. Chances are they'll be happy to place a flyer on the counter, and they may even be willing to help sponsor.
Give yourself at least 3 months planning time. You're gonna need it.
Set a minimum age and stick to it. We decided on 16, no exceptions.
Make it clear that cheaters will be evicted with no refunds.
HAVE SOME PRIZES - very important. Best Case, MVP, winner of tournaments. Sponsors can really help with this one.
For networking we ended up getting several cheap 24 port Dlink switches with gigabit uplink, then had an 8 port gigabit switch that they all headed into.
Get some volunteers to help with setup and takedown. Offer them a free spot, but make sure you can trust them to stay afterwards.
Keep the rules understated. Make having fun the priority but let everyone know on a basic level that the rules are there and will be enforced. Anarchy is not a good thing with respect to a good LAN party.
Have FUN! I plan on doing so.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is another one. Very fun, and completely free (of cost, anyway).
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
hmmmm, my first concern is hygeine. Definitely want to get a place with the appropriate accomidations (SHOWERS!!!).
Okay, LAN party experience tells me a few things. Make sure you have a few knownledgable network guys to set the thing up. Make sure you have a game plan for the configuration! Avoid DHCP if at all possible, it's much better to have a well thought out addressing scheme.
Power has always been an issue at the lans I attend. So make sure the facility you are going to has appropriate power.
Cooling is big. Lotsa computers can make a room very toasty.
Food and beverage consumption is a biggy at LANs, so charge people admitance fee to help cover the costs.
Don't be afraid to through ass holes out, a LAN that big will attract some unwanted guests.
Have a few spare gaming rigs that people can use if they don't have their own.
Also, remind people to watch out for their belongings. The LANs i attend are small (30-40) gatherings of friends, yours won't be.
I'm sure there are a million other things I'm forgetting, I'll post more if i can think of it.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Be very clear about what you will and won't provide and groundrules:
- 3'x3' desktop space (so make sure all your stuff fits on top of that or below)
- 1 120 VAC power jack (so bring your own power strip(s))
- No speakers (headphones only)
- Bring your own software
- Detail recommended software and network config
- No food or smoking in the game area
From a large (1500) lan party in Wash DC, IIRC they had issues with lan cabling, so BYOB 50ft of cat5 might not be bad either. Lighting could be an issue. And of course monitors. The DC gig eventually had rentals eventually.
This is the biggest issue I've ever had every time I've tried to do a LAN party: Set the start times for the beginning of any game and hold it. If you don't and allow anyone to say, "But just wait a minute while I configure my system," you'll never get anything done. If you're up and ready, you're in.. Of course, if you have games where people who can come and go as they please, it's not an issue.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
I have attended a couple of LAN parties. The 4 last years I have been attending The Gathering, with almost 5000 people, but the last LAN party I attended was a local LAN with about 100 participants where I was a crew member.
:).
:), and we even made a small amount of money of it because of our 24 hour kiosk!
The first problem occured on the opening day. 70% of the people on the LAN was unable to get a IP address. The problem turned out to be that we were assigned too few IP addresses.
The sysadmins on the school network we were using were however kind enough to give us an extra subnet, since the school was closed
Make sure you have enough IP addresses!
Once the network was up and running, everything worked almost smoothly, except for the occational few who had problems with their network card, graphic card, hard disk etc.
Since we didn't have a tech crew to handle these people, most of our spare time was used to help people fix their personal computer problems.
Make sure you have a tech crew to handle such problems!
We had a small kiosk inside the building where we sold food, beverages and soap. After a few days of sitting in front of the computer without sleep, you need to shower. The last couple of days the LAN party smelled like sh*it. It was horrible to enter the building when you had been outside for a while.
Make sure everyone is clean and shower at least twice!
In advance, we were planning on updating our webpage with stuff that was going to happen (competitions, results, general information etc.). It failed. The webpage was too difficult to update, so noone bothered to do it, since there was more important things to do (like downloading stuff and helping people).
Make sure your webpage can be updated in a second (PHP/MySQL solution preferrably).
These were the 4 biggest problems we had. Except for this, things turned out pretty well I think
--
Will work for bandwidth.
I've been involved with a couple lan parties, the biggest being 15 people and along with the aforementioned patching (have a fileserver with all the latest patches for the games you plan to host...it works great) the biggest problem was with the gameserver crashing. The first time around we had people hosting and playing on the same machine, and it would crash more than we'd like (both windows and mac). The second time around we set up a few game servers on the linux box and things were MUCH MUCH better....in fact, they never crashed once. Nothing will piss people off more than the quake3/CS/etc server going down in the middle of a session...well, maybe a power outage ;)
www.lanrental.com is great if they are in range of you. they do lanwar (600-1000 person LAN every 3 months) and asylumlan (200 person LAN every 3 months) and probably a few more I havent attended. you should really get on irc.gamesnet.net and join #lanwar and #asylumlan for pointers, there are people in there who have run dozens of multi-hundred-attendee events.
Make sure you know the power grid; power outages are common as 20-30 computers trip breakers.
Make sure you have a phone book [pizza is good mmkay]
Make sure you state the RULES beforehand, so everyone is on the same page:
- Alcohol? if minors are attending, it's probably best to set a policy banning it
- Speakers? Speakers are fun, but at a lan party, they can be disruptive. They DO help if you're doing more than gaming [I actually watched the Matrix for the first time at a 3 day lan party like this at 2 am after playing quake for 36 hours. whoa.]
- Minors? While adults can choose to stay up for 3 days in a communal sleeping area, minors make for a sticky situation
Suggestions:
give a list of things to bring; sleeping bags are good, commonly forgotten things like surge protectors, power cables, CDs are good.
Bring extra power cables/surge protectors
Specific questions:
Advertising: put it on lanparty.com a few months in advance. slashdot is also good, but maybe you should tell us where the hell it is.
crazy gamer: usually with 120 people, 1 crazy guy can be contained if anything by sheer numbers. If anything, cops are good if they're breaking stuff. Keeping 'officials' awake and patroling helps disuade thievery.
cheaters/lamers: What else do you do to lamers?!? beat them with a lead pipe until they stop cheating.
costs: charge a fee for attendance; charge less for pre-registration. Only use sponsors for prizes, though charge them ahead of time if they'd like to come and setup a booth or advertising.
tech support: abso-frickin-lutely. Most gamers are computer savvy, but not necissarily network savvy. With that many machines you'll likely need a dedicated network guy/girl or a few non-dedicated. Tech support should be free! materials like power cables and network cables should be free [and retrieved afterwards if possible] though things like network cards, extra mice should be for sale. ALSO: the network guy/girl should not provide technical support beyond getting the guy's computer on the network. It's not your problem.
Ahh . . . we've come so far since that time a buddy of mine brought his P-133 to a LAN party where we were playing Descent and we all bowed before the might of his power.
You have two enemies - well, three or more if someone in the crew is married - when holding an event such as this.
1. The lack of experience of some people who come and hope to immediately set up their computers and start fragging
2. The lack of proper facilities for the enjoyment of all
For issue 1, your best method of correction is to publish a 'So You Want to LAN Party with the Big Dogs' type web page or brochure. Get this to the folks who you are expecting to attend and make certain that they understand the necessary things:
- All NICs set to DHCP; if they don't know what this is provide a link to one of the bajillion sites on the web that document this
- All parts that should be brought with attendees (such as snacks, money for the conference room, pillows to crash when necessary, power strips/surge protectors,proper games, tables or chairs, etiquette expected, etc.)
- A rough schedule of events i.e. Diablo 2 from 9pm-3am followed by Counterstrike from 3am-3pm or whatever; nothing spoils a party quicker than someone coming who was expecting to play one game but then couldn't play.
For issue 2, make certain if you are using hotel facilities to have a conference room with multiple circuits!!! I may be using the wrong terminology but I once set up 18 rooms in a conference room near the Astrodome where the hotel electrician SWORE that there were multiple circuits but the first time the instructor asked everyone to open a certain document, the combined juice request from 18 hard drives overloaded the circuit and bamm-o, instant darkness. Good when you're with a chick but not so good when you want to slay some demons. Explain that you will be having X number of PCs and that continuous power is an important thing!
A few years back, I attended a weekend long LAN party that was hosted by a group called RRGC (Road Runner Gaming Coalition, or something like that). It was like 10 buck for the weekend, wich covered the cost of renting the hotel room (conference room actually. The one thing that I notice people stressing is power, and I agree. This particular group double checked power consumption, and the hotel guarenteed that the power would be adequate, but when people started showing up with dual headed systems with two subwoofers and neons, along with mini fridges, it got out of hand. We blew about 12 circuit breakers in a day, and the second day decided to play in "shifts". Kinda slowed things down and killed the romance, if ya know what I mean. Power is probably the number one thing, with food, drink, and setup close behind.
Try to discourage people from pirating the games on your watch, but you won't stop it. Tell them ahead of time what games you'll be playing. Also, ask eveyone to bring a pair of headphones. The last thing you need is 100 different sets of 5 piece Monsoon systems pumping out 100 different MP3's mixed with game noise. (The 15 year olds listening to Britney Spears and NSync won't mix well with the 40 year olds listening to BTO and Steelers Wheel)
If you have it in a hotel, tell them that there will be 100 geeks in a room, competing at senseless computer games. People will get in arguments, I would bet my gonads on it. If you let the hotel know, they can have security ready incase anyone need to be persuaded to calm down, or dragged out by their feet. It would be nice to think that even if a few people got into it, the others would control them, but that doesn't always happen.
I would recomend food and drink be provided by individuals, yet a group chip-in on a bunch of pizza's could be a cheap way for everyone to eat as well. Encourage non-gamer spouses/sig. others to cater!
Other than that, just make sure you keep it chill and not too competitive. Make sure the nerds know it's just a game.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
My work frequently hosts events at conference centers in locations across the nation and we have discovered that each city/state has different rules. Make sure you know the ones for where you are at. We've run into lots of trouble with unions and hotel rules which have included the following:
1. Not being allowed to touch anything power related. Apparently unions have contracts which require you to hire them even for something as simple as plugging in a television
2. Unable to bring in external equipment. They might make you rent from them any one of a number of items: televisions, power strips, extension cords.
3. Not allowed to have snacks/drinks brought in.
Basically, read everything and make sure you don't get hosed with the fine print. Good luck.
Ok, first of all, I'd definately advertise, sell tickets or something. Use the proceeds to offset the room rental costs. The rest should be set up in some sort of fund as prize money. (Which will help get people there...)
Next, I can not stress enough, have a set list of what games will get played, what versions/patches, what maps, etc. Make sure everyone knows this in advance (maybe provide it with their pre-ordered ticket). That should reduce the amount of headaches. I can't tell you how many times this has caused problems at LAN parties at my house because somebody wasn't patched up or didn't have the new map pack we all wanted to play...
Have a set schedule of what game will be played when. That way if somebody wants to check out for an hour or two of sleep they can do it during the time block of a game that they don't like to play. Also, make sure you schedule BREAKS!
Find the local rock stations and see if they can advertise the event. However, it is usually expensive to do a real advertisement. Some stations (at least here in Atlanta) have a "what's happening this weekend" segment during their Thursday or Friday morning shows. Maybe you could get in on those. Fliers on local college campuses work well too...
As far cheaters/hackers... Just having somebody walk around and observe is always a good deterrent. Most hacks are easily noticable by the casual observer walking around the party room viewing monitors. If you get caught, you get removed from the current running game and DQ'ed from the money prize...
Require headphones (NO SPEAKERS!) for all users. Everyone brings their own power strips. UPS'es and extension cords are recommended because you're probably going to need more power than the room will provide.
The only other issue I'd be concerned with is theft of property. How does somebody secure their gear while scooting off for 30 minutes to take a leak, grab some food or catch a nap?
Also, make sure you check out the room and what the hotel/hall can provide for tables. Most conferences at hotels usually have either round dining tables (usually good enough to fit 4-5 computers on) or long rectangular tables that are horrible because they aren't deep enough for a keyboard and a monitor.
Anyhow, hope this helps. Good luck! Make sure you post a followup report after the event!
--Mike
Make sure to find yoursefl a lawyer and take care of having ppl to sign an agreement for the rules you put up. A good disclaimer could save your ass a big trouble.
badges really do keep people out pretty well. at the CPL last year this guy was like "let me borrow your badge for 10 minutes while youre eating"... why you ask? so he could go around and steal ram, mice, headphones, keyboards and mousepads. keep in mind gamers are known to spend 80 dollars on an illuminated keyboard and such.
Size
Make sure you have more than enough tables, chairs, and floor space for your attendees. I've seen attendance estimates very as much as 20%, and you never want to turn people away at the door, so always over-estimate your space requirements
Electricity
You'll have some attendees. who will bring machines that draw next to nothing, and others who will plug in giant subwoofers and space heaters. Spread your load over as many circuits as you can, and make sure you have plenty of thick-gauge extension cords.
Over a year ago, we ran an event at the local Masonic Temple. It's an old building, and some of us had power concerns from the start. Within two hours, we had run wires to every floor in the building, blown almost a dozen fuses, and destroyed the high-amp fuses on the main. (These fuses, circa 1936, were burned and torn in half)
Technical Support
Without fail, someone will set up, and their NIC won't work, their video card will fail, or they'll need to reinstall their OS. Chances are, you'll be enlisted to help resolve these situations.
Someone will forget a mouse/power cord/length of Cat5, so bring a few extra just in case. A decent percentage of attendees. won't have current patches for their games, so before hand, burn about a dozen CDs with patches for popular games, and hand them out as needed.
File Sharing
The biggest problem we've had to deal with recently comes from this department. When it comes to sexual content, we consider ourselves to be a PG-13 Lan Party. Until recently, we permitted the sharing of adult material, but we've had two recent incidents of inappropriate use. Now, we have a strict policy on the matter. Additionally, we've had problems with infected files/machines on the network. We still allow file sharing, but this may change if this problem continues.
If you do allow file sharing, you'll run into people that don't understand the concept of restricting their shares... You'll see entire hard drives with read & write permissions enabled. We haven't had anyone maliciously delete files off of someone's computer, but a few years ago, someone accidentally shared pictures of his naked wife lying in the bath. He was none too pleased to discover that the photo made the rounds.
Getting back to the inappropriate use subject... a few events ago, someone decided it would be a good idea to bring their LCD projector. Since we hold our event in an airplane hangar, it's pretty easy to set up a 20' screen. Sure enough, it only took a few hours before there were larger than life sexual acts being projected on the wall.
Other
Other than that, you'll run into issues about food & drink, sound (headphone requirements), tournaments, bathrooms, and trash. Use common sense, and these issues *usually* resolve themselves.
Very important but often overlooked if you are running an event larger than a few friends in someone's basement, is to get public liability insurance. Many venues won't even let you hire them out without having it. You may never need it, but its a damn good idea.
first concern: power
we usually distribute power based on the assumption that each computer will use 4 amps. on a 20 amp circuit this means 4 computers (5x4=20, dont want to overload a circuit). you can get cheap 100' extension cords from walmart. put no more than 2 computers behind one (get some cheap power strips while you are at it). this works out well, it means you run 2 of these to a group of 4 computers (and there are 2 plugs on the outlet anyway). make sure you label EACH extension cord, on both ends. this is INFINATELY valueable when tracing down power problems. also make sure that you have a designated electrician who knows what circuits correspond to what outlets. DO NOT OVERLOAD a circuit. if you are hosting a 120 person event, assume you need 480 amps just for the players, not counting server row, consessions, lights, anything else. make sure you stay at or below 80% power usage for the facility you are at. you might look at getting power boxes or renting a generator from a local construction company. keep in mind generator power is not very clean nor natural to your pc. we got our power figures from lanwar, arguably one of the most successful regular lan parties in the usa. POWER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION
second issue: food
decide up front if entry cost will be paying for any/all of the food for the gamer.
either see if you can get some stuff donated or on a discount, or just go buy generics. there are always decent generic brands that are alot cheaper than normal name brands. people at lan parties are not going to care that they are drinking vess or big k as long as its halfway decent and there is plenty of it. you might also see if you can get some kind of discount on catering by a local food place, such as subway or a pizza joint. use the "you can only take 1 sandwich" or "you can only take 2 slices of pie" rule until everyone has had an opportunity to go through the line.
third concern: networking
hopefully someone in your group will be a good networking tech. decide up front if you are going to allow file servers on server row (i would advise against, alot of wasted gaming bandwidth). my advice for the networkside is rent out some professionals. www.lanrental.com, i knwo these guys, they know what they are doing. in any event try to build out a network with low latency and not high bandwidth (if you can get both then great, but latency is more important for a game lan IMO, and i dont even game at the ones we throw).
fourth concern: parking
minor concern i admit, but still one to consider. make sure there is enough parking. try to make an area where noone can park but is used for loading/unloading. call the local authorities and tell them what you are doing and where you are doing it.
fifth concern: bathrooms.
make sure that the bathroom facilities are ample and work. this is especially important for multiday events. you might consider offering a location for the attendees to shower.
sixth concern: sleeping/chilling locale.
mark off an area for sleeping. sleeping under your computer with people walking over you sucks. set asside an area with a decent sized tv and vcr/dvd player or run a video projector. have alternate entertainment past the attendee's own pc.
seventh concern:
have people who are definately designated as in charge at all times. they should all wear the same shirt in a bright colour indicating they are event staff. always have someone on duty at a helpdesk or where they can be reached.
please mod this up, should be rather informative
Prepare to deal with the bane of IP networks... rogue DHCP servers.
Any sufficiently large LAN event will inevitably include attendees who for some reason run Windows 2000 Server with a DHCP Server Service configured. Without the proper tools, tracking these down can be a nightmare. Be prepared. Ideally, you'd have managed switches that can tell you what port a given MAC address is connected on, coupled with sniffers to tell you which MAC address is the source of the DHCP service. The DHCP protocol monitor plugin for Snort IDS can be used for this latter purpose (and Snort can also be used to detect hack attempts and DoS attempts).
These tools will also help in identifying conflicting IP addresses.
Maharito is talking nonsense, ethernet is very well standardised at the link layer. There is no problem at all mixing different brands of NIC.
Power: 1 computer uses about 350-400 watts, a monitor is about 60-70, and a small speaker set uses about 10 or so. that's 480, call it 500 watts per computer. I'm also thinking that your in the US so one computer will use about 4.5 amps on the high side. So at the lans that i run we drop 3 cords hooked up to 15 amp breakers into the table setup with 12 computers, since not every one has the biggest baddest super power hungry computer this works out fine. ;)
Network: With that many people it makes much more sence to try and get your hands on bigger switches to hook together with a trunk of some kind insted of lots of little switches, just for price and performance. At the lan i run we have a few centillion switches along with a cisco 5k all of these have 48-96 ports in them the switches are hooked together with ATM or gigabit... but this leaves you with a problem, 48-96 ports in one place is way more than your going to have in a single table cluster. the solution! network snakes 30-50 foot long bundles of 6 or 12 cat5 cables with rj45 plugs on one end, and a box with keystone jacks on the other. this keeps individual cat5 cables to a minimum, and makes clean up a bit easier. besides with big switches you can poll them and find out who's leaching off who
food: I have found that for the really long parties it makes sence to only provide 2 meals (normaly both dinners) since by the time the next mean comes around not every one feels like eating the same thing as every one else... also get buddy buddy with the local pizza manager, some times they will give you deals if you order lots of food at a time, and they might want to sponser you.
BATHROOMS: Possibly the worst lan i've ever hosted was at a place with bad bathrooms, i can not stress this enough. make sure you have the number for the guy who is in charge of fixing them if they break to... it has been known to happen.
Internet always a good thing to have around... for patches or for email... but it is a good idea to have some one who knows what there doing to setup a firewall to limit stuff like... kazaa etc, other wise the people who actualy need that bandwidth wont have it (a cache of some kinda helps here too)
Polices: Make some and dont bend them for anyone, unless you want the attendies walking all over you. it's one thing to have a lan with all friends... it is MUCH diffrent to have a public party were random people show up. It isn't a bad idea to let the local police know that there is a event going on at your location and that you will not hesitate to call them if you need help... then make sure the people at the party know that too. I'm sure theres more, i might reply to this and never mind the spelling mistakes. Seany
"Where ever you go, there you are"
First, get measurements on the building/room you will be using and map out where you will want all of your tables. You can fit about 3 people per 8 foot folding table. Make sure to leave room for people to walk and have areas for the admins/servers and a checkin table by the door.
For power, my general rule of thumb seems to be about 3 Amps/system. We run 6 systems per 20 amp circuit (117 VAC) in our building without any problems. To get gamers to connect to the right circuits, first map out which circuit every outlet in the room(s) is on. Then, run a fairly heavy duty extension cord from one outlet on each circuit to a group of tables and stick a power strip on the end of it. (use the map to figure cable lengths) Then, just tell gamers to plug into the power strip at their table and things should go pretty well. If you want more info on power usage by computers check this study out: http://www.fwgg.org/files/FWGG_POWER_TEST.pdf
For networking, just go to pricewatch.com and find some cheap 16 port 10/100 switches with uplink ports. They are ~$50 each. Bigger switches require gamers to have really long cables to connect to switches. Smaller switches require too many uplinks to the certral switch. Anyway, you will be able to plug 15 boxes into each switch (1 is used for the uplink) and uplink all of the switches into a central switch that you also plug the servers into (again 16 port should be fine unless you have more than 150 people or a lot of servers).
Once you have all of your switches, go on ebay and buy a reel or two of stranded cat 5 cable, a hundred or so rj45 plugs and crimper and wire stripper. Get a bunch of friends together and make your uplink cables plus a few more cables of whatever size you want in case you need them. Use your map to plan out where each switch needs to be and don't forget to add length for running from the table to the floor/ceiling.
It is really handy to have a dhcp/dns server on your network for easy client setup and to make it easy for gamers to get to stats pages (ie. set a default subdomain and give each server its own dns name in the given subdomain. Then to see your counter-strike stats, gamers can just open up their web browser and type cstrike).
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned that is really nice is a PA system. Being able to crank up the volume and announce tournies, etc is much easier than trying to yell at everybody.
Finally, a central web/file server with current info about your LAN party and torunaments if you have them is also nice.
Finally, check out http://www.nerdclub.net/alp/index.php for some nice LAN party management software.
Okay, one more time:
;-).
You need a dedicated network person who only handles issues as they arise, this person can also handle the power load. This person does not need to deal with troubleshooting of PCs because....
You need a few volunteers to get PCs up and running on the network in the first few hours. Ideally, have spare cables and one NIC available for sale (but don't make them cheap, the poor sods deserve it) for the one awkward guys that won't have a proper NIC.
Power:
Prepare the distribution "network" ahead of time and make sure that the different sections are really on their own breakers and not overlapping with those 60 feet away. Providing the initial plug in points limits within 10-15 feets from their anticipated usage point helps control the load on the circuits.
DO NOT under ANY circumstances allo unrestricted access to any wall/floor outlet that is not designated for end users. Tape them over.
All cable snaking on the floor should be taped over, many cables running parallel should be grouped and run under those special ramps that let people walk on them.
Have an extra long extension and duct tape to tape it to the ground. This is to run alternate power to an underpowered cluster of PCs from a place with spare juice. It comes in handy, especially if 10 guys with 3-4 HDs, 21" screens and 5.1 speaker set up all gather nearby, you know like a clan
Misc:
Written policies for thefth, damage, injury, cheating, minimum age, etc. Trash and trash extraction. Facility cleaning and maintenance. Food, Beverages, Bar (and license if you have one) and other things need to be planned out. This means hoodles of soft drinks, whatever you can come up for decent food, etc. Bars are problematic and most venues that will let you have one (hotels) will insist on running it.
Badges are great, tee shirts for staffers and volunteers are awesome. Prizes should be PC/Gaming related, either games, graphics card, speakers, mices, gift certificates for electronics stores, mp3 players... Bonus for anything given by a sponsor.
[I have been involved in running 5 or 6 lan parties before. None as big as 120 people, but my points below are relevent anyway for anything larger than 20 where you don't know everyone personally already.]
A) Actually, I would strongly recommend AGAINST using DHCP. If it worked like it was supposed to, it would seem to be ideal for that kind of setup. Unfortunately, it never does. Somehow, with the combination of Win98/ME/2000/XP and Linux computers all stuck on the same LAN, there are always some computers that just won't get an IP correctly, and cant see the other computers. (You might be able to figure out the problem with some driver or something after hours of messing with it, but you don't want to spend that time.) The most efficient method we ended up using is giving everyone a small piece of paper as soon as they walk in, which contains:
1) Their name (real and in-game name)
2) IP address they are to use
3) workgroup name that everyone is to use
4) Table number that they are to sit at
5) the IP/computer-name of the "game" servers
6) the IP/computer-name of the "file" servers
(you could even go as far as numbering the seats at the tables, but you have to take into consideration that some people have gigantic monitors, or have shorter NIC cables, are really fat, etc., so you might want to let them pick their positions within the table.)
Everyone having this information cuts down on the repeated questions immensely. Along with these sheets to hand out, you have a master list which contains:
1) each person's name (real and in-game)
2) IP address they are using
3) Table they're sitting at
4) whether they've checked in yet
5) whether they've paid their money or not
B) The master list can be a file on your computer at the check-in area, or it can be a paper list with spaces at the end to hand-write in names of people who show up. Of course you also the need extra sheets with blank name spots to hand to those people too. If the master list is on paper, IT STAYS IN ONE SPOT THE WHOLE TIME, no exceptions. Loose paper and CDs get lost in a blackhole in seconds at a large lan party.
C) I highly recommend requiring people to sign up before the first day of the event. You need to know how much space you need, hubs/routers, cables, table/network layout, etc. Unless you work at a computer store where you can borrow a bunch of extra equip on short notice, you definitely need a good estimate of attendees. You can still accept people showing up at the door with no notice (there WILL be some), but it removes a lot of grief if you've already planned for them.
D) Don't plan on playing any games yourself. Now this depends on how many people you actually have working with you, but with 120 people under your supervision, you will always need at least 4 people to be "available" for all the little issues that come up. Now if you've got 10 of you running the thing, then you can rotate and still get some hours of play in, but you will be playing a lot less than people who are just there for the ride.
E) Make everyone handle their own food deals. It always seems like a good idea to get money from everyone and then order 20 pizzas, but with more than 15 people you end up with people who can't eat certain kinds of foods, or who dont like whatever it is that most other people are getting (pizza), or brought their own food and dont want to pay, or get out of paying somehow but then still eat the food (ie. you collected all money on the 1st day and some people only show up for the 2nd day), want to eat at a different time so there's either no food yet or it's cold/stale etc. You can have some common snacks/drinks included in the cover price, but that's it. You don't want to have to include 2-3 days worth of meals in the cover price, people will balk at it and not show up, even though they will be spending that amount of money on food themselves anyway.
Make up a list of directions to the nearest restaurants and phone numbers of places tha
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
...CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS MESSAGE...
[...security blah blah]
With 120+ people, odds are there will be several "Mister Angry's", and the only reason they dont annihilate the person sitting next to them at smaller LAN parties is that almost everyone there knows who they are, and/or where they live. If they're stuck in a room full of strangers, after the 10th time they get blown away by a teammate, someone's monitor is going thru the wall. Be ready to jump on it as soon as they stand up and start yelling.
G) Make Headphones Mandatory. No exceptions. If they 'forgot' to bring theirs, they have to play with no sound. You can't have 100 people all showing off their sub-woofers the whole time, it will be mass chaos because no one will be able to hear themselves think. If you want to be helpful/entrepreneurial, buy a bunch of cheap headphones beforehand and sell them to people who dont have any. You should also bring lots of extra (long) network cables and power strips to sell/loan to the people. Without fail, at least 2 person in a 30 person LAN party will FORGET their own NIC cable or powerstrip and won't be able to play. With 120+ people, you'd have to assume at least 10 or so.
H) Post a list of games that will be played at the event, and try to loosely schedule times to announce that "everyone is playing Counter-strike now", or whatever game you kids play these days heheh. Otherwise you will have lots of little factions of people who want to play a certain game, and with 120 people you'll have 20 groups of 6 people each playing their own favorite game. Defeats the purpose of having a large lan party and everyone will feel that the event sucks because they could play with more people at home on the net. You don't have to be too strict about it, but someone who is "in charge" is going to have to be a negotiator between the main factions, and get everyone to agree to "play BF1942 for 3 hours, then we'll play Counterstrike for 3 hours", etc. With 120 people, you can increase the number of simultaneous games being played to 2 or 3 probably, and still have full servers.
Also, if you have the hardware to spare, run dedicated servers for the popular games yourselves. Otherwise, you have 5 people who all start running servers for the same game at the same time, and people get split up into little groups again, waiting around for 'everyone else to join the server'. If you can't/dont want to run the servers for all the games, have some way for everyone to easily see the IP/names of the "officially sanctioned" servers, even tho it's just some random guy's computer actually running it. Like write big on a chalkboard or use a projection screen which most conference rooms have.
I) Download the latest patches/update files for ALL the games that anyone might play during the party and set up a file server to share them. Make sure you include the address(es) to access these servers on the little sheets you hand out. Assigning everyone an IP/table and giving them a central location to get patches will cut down on HOURS of people wandering between tables asking for CDs or the folder names on each others' shared drives. Actually, you'll probably want multiple servers doing this, but make sure everyone has the addresses of them. Now that BitTorrent is available, it would probably help dramatically reduce the load on the server's hard drive, which is usually the bottleneck in these situations.
Actually now that I think about it, if you've got the time/money/CDburner, you'd probably be better off burning all those files onto a CD and handing them out to people with their sign-in sheets. (We never actually tried this.) Only problem is, even if you only stick to 4-5 games thru-out the whole weekend, one or more of them will have a new patch released between the time that you announce the event and the day it actually happens, so you'd either have to burn them all the day before, or risk having some of them obsoleted. Dunno, something to think a
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
...CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS MESSAGE...
J) If you can pull it off, go and setup the tables in the room you're planning the event for, well before you announce it to the public. You want to get all the logistics of where chairs will go and how many hubs you need and where all the NIC cables will go and which switches they will plug in to, etc. LONG before people start showing up. You might setup half the tables and then realise that "Hey, there's no way in hell we can fit 120 people in here!" or "Hey, these 5 tables here that are supposed to plug into this hub here are more than 100 feet from it!" or "We've got too many hubs on this chain, boo packet loss!"
K) Sponsors: they're good if you can get them, but usually they'll only offer free stuff that they already provide (like a software games/package or free net access), which you can use as contest or random drawin prizes, but it's rare to find a company that will just give you cash in exchange for their banner hanging up or whatever. It's worth asking around for it, but plan on having to cover all of the costs of the event from the money you collect at the door and whatever you're willing to spend on it.
Also, on the food issue that I mentioned above: if it's a larger hotel that has restaurants in it, you can provide the menus of them and tell people to order from there, as long as you make it clear to the employees beforehand that NO ONE is allowed to charge to the "room" for their orders.
Well that's all for now. I'm sure there's more but other people will fill in the gaps. Have fun!
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
I have been involved in running LAN parties with about 130 attendees, and I agree with most of your points. However I would recommend using DHCP if you have a fully switched network. The only problem with DHCP is if someone has configured their computer as a DHCP server. Then they will start handing out false IP-numbers. With a switched network you can easily find the culprit.
:-) Our local store sponsor us in exchange.
Hubs are evil. Avoid them if you can.
Don't forget to get everybody to bring _long_ ethernet cables. To our parties everybody has to bring a 12m ethernet cable.
Another thing: Invite you local computer store. Give them free entrance to you LAN. Get them to sell hardware at the LAN. It is a great service to the participants, and the store is happy to sell some extra network cards, graphic cards, games, etc. The hardware hype at LANs can be very profitable for hardware stores
If you can, get some really good switches. We are in the fortunate position that some of us work at a big ISP, managing a huge backbone. This gives us the expertise to configure the network and the possiblity to borrow monster switches (they are expensive to buy).
When it comes to getting people to your party, my experience is that it is no problem. When we announced the party, it was sold out the next day. This may however be because we run a gameserver, and we announced the LAN as "a LAN for regulars". This way pretty much everybody knew everybody, at least by nickname, and it gave the whole LAN a very familiar and good atmosphere.
older versions of Windows don't do DHCP very well at all. Some don't like releasing old IPs or grabbing new ones. Think a bit before you flame someone.
This space for rent, inquire within.