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MillionManLAN Party: The Doors Are Open
socram writes "Tom's Hardware has an overview about one of the biggest Lan Parties. This event is sponsored by AMD, ATI, ASUS, ABIT, Cisco, NVIDIA, and the Hitachi storage division. Check this article out, more than 1000 people killing their brain cells! Presentation by ASUS, ATI's Q&A Session and more."
Does this event actually fit one million people, or is that just hyperbole?
Dreamhack Summer 2003 had about 4000 visitors.
why?
Hell, pick Orlando so people can do a theme park or something else that makes the trip more worthwhile. Or those with families can let the kids go do something while they hang out geeking.
LA, NYC, Orlando, New Orleans... the places are well known. All major events occur at them. They are picked for good reason....
Louisville, KY??? what are they smoking. No wonder they can barely break 1k people.
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I love gaming as much as the next guy, and this is a good way to show off the hardware, could someone please tell me how they picked the mecca of Louisville, Kentucky as the location for this event???
ben? D:
Or ~5000 seats, if you read the info.
Hope it will be well ventilated. Even at small LAN parties, no matter how much cologne is sprayed, the BO from geeks quickly takes over the whole room. Hate to see what happens with one million nerds...
It's been a great time so far...we're into Day 3, and things have run very smoothly. The discussion sessions held by the sponsors have been a big hit, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.
Did anyone else think its weird ATI and Nvidia sponsoring the same event?
Maybe Asus/Abit as well but thats not an as obvious rivalry.
I guess this is what happens when you have a giant corporate-sponsored lan party...you get lots of advertising and sponsor hype.
I mean think about it, the spirit of the lan party is in gathering your friends for hours of fragging and trash-talking. In a giant event like this, you're stuck between uber 1337 n1nj4 d00dz (strangers telling you to ph33r them, j00 n00b!) and companies advertising products in your face all day.
I'd take a teeny little router with a few friends any day instead.
I'd have to say that you are rong.
I've been to Dreamhack twice now and they've estimated everything from 4000 to 6000 people.
How's that for a Lan, Tom'sHardware?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
They should provide bodyguards for the girls. If I were one, I sure as hell wouldnt want a million men...oops...nerds after me...
I'm not sure how appropriate it is to call the LAN party the "Million Man LAN" when only 1000 people are expected to attend.
This year QuakeCon in Dallas will have 2,000 BYOC attendees, with 3,000 total people expected to show up.
In a related story, organizers of the event displayed disgust with the "conservative" news medias "clearly biased reporting." Bob Roughhead gave this statement:
In an interview on Larry King, the Reverend Al Sharpton took the side of the geeks, pointing out in a rambling incoherent 12 minute statement that the Man also tried to keep him down.
Police called to the scene for traffic control were adamant with their totals, saying that there were no more than 2000 geeks present at most. Tear gas and beanbags gun were put to use, however, when a college sorority on a scavenger hunt strayed too close to the pack. There were no survivors.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
They should have put the servers in the women's restroom. Might as well, as they wouldn't get used otherwise.
Killing their brain cells? Alcohol is rarely seen on the LAN parties I've attended. Doesn't help the aim. Other drugs are similarly unattractive to gamers and smokers are usually separated from non-smokers. So how do you kill brain cells on a LAN party anymore than a computer worker does all day every workday?
Firstly, this must be one of the most poorly written /. "news" items in the history of the website. "Tom's Hardware has an overview about one of the biggest Lan Parties". That sorry excuse for a sentence alone makes me sick.
Second, with LANs like DreamHack attracting I believe around 5000 visitors each year (actually twice each year, since there's both DH Summer and DH Winter nowadays), a LAN of merely a thousand peeps hardly qualifies as "one of the biggest" IMO. Reading the official website they seem to really think they're the largest LAN party in the world, judging from the "about" page. A bit US-centric are we? Morons.
I won't even go into how the whole thing seems more like a giant marketing gig (the people attending are basically paying $30/day to be fed advertisments from AMD, ASUS et al) than a LAN party.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
Ever been to Kentucky?
Although the visitors amount doesn't make it sound like one of the top-5 biggest, but as it's so well credited I guess those who really wanna play and not goof around made it there =).
From Slashdot File: [slashdot]
I just want to mention The Gathering kinda beating Dreamhack. TG had 5100 people last easter at least.
But, it was pretty damn crowded. They halved the space for each participant to fit in more people.
But it was pretty damn fun.
Indeed, but also - remember The Gathering, Norway (this year, The Gathering again reclaimed the throne as the world's largest computer gathering with 5100 attendants).
But again, it's a computer party, not a strictly LAN-party. For those of you not into this, check tg.nlc.no/notalan.html for more information regarding competitions not game-oriented.
Linux IS user friendly, it's just choosy of who it's friends are.
YOU FAIL IT!
m4yb3 if j00 w3r3n't 50 c0nc3rn3d w1th h4t1n9, j00 c0u1d h4v3 had teh 11th post, but instead YOU FAIL IT!
jesus christ.
Claiming you'll be modded down is the quickest, weaseliest way to get mod points on Slashdot, and everyone knows it, yet the mods still fall for it.
it's available.
Not to be flamebait or anything but he kinda has a point. After all what's wrong with just sitting at home and playing multiplayer games over the internet?
In other news, the thousand-man LAN party was a great success last night, as the sole attendee played Quake all by himself. Organizers were delighted with the success of the event.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
promulgated by the "million man march" in Washington DC circa 1996, set up and sponsored by the Nation of Islam.
/. fashion, we're just being a bit too pedantic.
The goals of the march were noble (no government assistance, personal responsibility, family responsibility), but more than a few people had serious reservations about the march, particularly the Nation of Islam's Leader, Louis Farrakhan, who in the past has made some mighty anti-semitic statements.
According to any number of sources, the final tally was nowhere near a million attendees.
So, maybe the MML people are secretly NOI members... or maybe they just like Alliteration.
Or maybe, in typical
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
If the BO from the geeks could be unberable imagine the bathrooms!
Those gamers that are able to place a round into the head of another player within 50 ms from 1000 feet are commonly unable to get their piss into a foot wide hole right in front of them.
First of all it was "One of the largest LAN parties in North America, not the world. Bullshit you read the article or you would have realized the marketing/vendors were quite seperate from the gaming and that the people chose to go to the Q&A's etc..
Had I mod point you would most certainly be modded down.
Just another nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand more million-man-lan parties to actually get a real million head count!
http://www.nerd-boy.net/nbbrowse.php?beg=281&end=2 90#285
Tom's Hardware got it right. I was referring to the website of the LAN itself which _does_ use the term "largest lanparty[sic] in the world".
/. account too and is posting as AC to avoid the downvotes and the resulting loss of karma. Coward, indeed.
Btw, of course you don't have mod points, you're an AC. Though I bet you have a real
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
Cale?
...is like having a 'French WWII Heroes' convention-- barely anyone will show up, but the ones who do smell reeeeally bad!
Caffiene.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
...which kind of explains why they're calling it "Million Man LAN" but only 1000 people are actually expected to show up. :-)
...with a thousand people? it shoudl be renamed to MillionManLAN Full Speed
And we're suppose to respect the opinion of someone who uses the word "peeps"?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these Million Man LANS!
I'm at MML2 and it being on the 3rd of 4th days now, I can say it's been incredible. I'm Lockhart on Netizen CS Team 2, and we lost to our Team 1 13-11 in the quarters. Our match was played really late because we had a hardware problem on one of the tourney computers, but other than that 1 glitch, the computers are incredible. I didn't win anything other than all the amazing free things up on the FTP here... I'm not at liberty to say what I've gotten, however ;D
For the people who said that there isn't anything to do for the family... Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom is literally next door. And so far, I've left my stuff here 3 days straight and not a single thing has even been touched. My monitor, case, mouse, keyboard, even my backpacks and food have not been taken. This is one of the coolest things I've ever been to, and even if you don't come for the games, come for the free stuff and the people. I drove for 15 hours from CT to get here, and it has been worth every minute of the drive.
Is insanely high here in Kentucky for some odd unknown reason. 70% of the people I know are nerds, and in practically every town there are 10-20 computer stores within a few miles of each other. Its odd, but just come down here for a few weeks and you'll know what I mean.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I'm not the AC to whom you're referring, but I'll reply anyway.
Had you extended your quote enough to not unfairly remove it from its context, we could see the About page actually says "MillionManLan 2 continues the mission to hold the largest lanparty in the world."
They merely state it as their mission, not as an accomplished feat.
1000 people isn't very impressive. Dreamhack, Sweden has 5000 twice a year (I was one of the 5000 a few weeks ago). And later this summer there's another LANparty in the south of Sweden -- Gamehalla -- which is supposed to have 5400 or something.
I'll be impressed when there's a 10.000-person LANparty. Not that I see the point of that many people, but anyway.
We (in the Netherlands) have DROME (www.drome.nl), with room for 2000 people.
because that's where the group that throws it, LanWAR, is from.
(No, I didn't read the article. Why should I read the article?)
This is not my sandwich.
Cause they are all one big happy family down there.
Thank you. It is our mission to become the biggest. (i'm merely an attendee but i feel like i am part of this party not just an attendee.)
Gnu:Free your mind, free your code, and the princess in ghosts and goblins. Go on I dare you I swear its impossible.
lol. Since when did PCI video cards fit in AGP slots?
yeah, last year it was supposed to be a two location event (CA and KY), and house about 10,000 people. Of course actually attendance fell way short, so they limited the plans this year. I have to tell you though, if you ever get the chance to attend lanwar or millionman lan, burden & co. throw one hell of a lan party. You barely notice the sponsors, as they spend most of their time playing games right along side you, and giving out free shit :-) Last year I got a geforce 3, some kick ass Altec Lansing speakers, and friends got a Athlon XP2000+ and a geforce 4ti4600 respectively. Everyone has a great time.
these bashers. I'm tired of the reference to dreamhack. Sure its big, its also in Sweden. Lets see how much is a plane ticket to sweden with your computer as well as hotels and everything? Its not a viable option for everyone. We also have a large numbers kids under 18. Fat chance one of them will make Dreamhack. I'm not dissing on dreamhack here i'm sure its a great time but i cannot afford to make the trip. I have an hour and a half drive and i have room to bring my own chair. Don't have to rent a hotel because I can bring an airmatress and sleep on the sidelines. Our venue has a shower so smell isn't really a problem. We aren't corprate whores, all corporate talks and advertiseing is held in a Seperate room. Though the corporate integration is a positive thing. Prizes, game demos, and many other pluses have come of it. How many of you get to see a full athlon 64 system running ut2003 in 64 bits? Any hands? Didn't think so. As for the why lousiville kentucky posts, you may be surprised just how many lanners the midwest has. And the number of lanparties. Thereis one local attendee that has attened lanparties for 65 straight weekends. We also have an amazing case artist for you "little modders that can't" or who ever just wants a cool design. Seriously check him out @ www.humantree.org he is amazing. In conslusion, all you l33t3sts thanks for your amazing commnets you sure owned us. To all others, it really is a great event that you should look into attending. Ps. Cronies please don't come we don't want your negativity.
Gnu:Free your mind, free your code, and the princess in ghosts and goblins. Go on I dare you I swear its impossible.
its just better when you actualy get to talk to people in person drink beer with them and such
its a much better atmosphere then sitting in your bedroom on your own
Most of the people who actually lug their computers out to Texas for QuakeCon are there for the LAN Party in the BYOC area. Yes, it's a LAN party. There's more to the event than that, but in the BYOC area it's a 72 hour LAN party. Regardless of what else is going on, MML is NOT bigger than QuakeCon. Thus, they aren't the biggest in the US. And don't even begin to claim that most of the people at QuakeCon aren't there for the LAN. Maybe the 2700 people that were there that didn't bring their computers were there for the rest. But the other 1300 were definitely there for the gaming. As for Dreamhack, were there actually 4000 computers there? Or just 5000 people got tickets and only 4000 showed up and not all of them brought computers? I can't find specifics on the site.
oops...
If every party has 1000 people, they will need 1000 such parties (or 999 following this one).
cmeador
You should take a visit to us in Scandinavia, we know how a lanparty should be. The Party (.dk), The Gathering (.no), The Assembly (.fi) and DreamHack (.se) are Really Big Parties.
Mod me offtopic if you want, but since the article references Tom's...
t ml
I have used Tom's site for a reference for a few years now and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a drop in quality or even a dreaded 'selling out'. I find this sad, since I read with great interest during Tom's crusade against RAMBUS when most of the other PC press was buying into Intel's BS about RDRAM.
As evidence of a difference from the hard hitting reviews of yore, I present:
Tom's watered down review of the Hydrocool200: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030616/index.h
And HardOCP's complete panning of the same product: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDUx
Any thoughts?
I'm near Louisville and would have loved to have gone.. I didn't even hear of MMLP 1 let alone 2...
He could not give him a PCI video card at the moment since his Gateway system didn't have an AGP slot.
This infers that "He", the offerrer/giver, HAD AGP cards (but not PCI cards!!). However the Gateway system does not have an AGP slot, only a PCI slot. Therefore, he could not give him a PCI video card at the moment since his Gateway system didn't have an AGP slot.
Indeed it is a poorly written sentence, but it makes perfect sense.
Whoa! And here I thought you guys over the Atlantic only pulled off stunts in two sizes: Large and Jumbo. One thousand people? Geez, well color me impressed. Over here in Sweden (a teeny weeny lil' country just north of Germany - psst, that's in "Europe") we host a few LANs ever so often. Take Dreamhack for instance where five thousand computer jocks converge each year. I guess it'd be more if they could stop running out of tickets within a few days of release ^^ --- Gosu japanese smiley just for you.
I won't even go into how the whole thing seems more like a giant marketing gig (the people attending are basically paying $30/day to be fed advertisments from AMD, ASUS et al) than a LAN party.
Um, from where i'm seated at the LAN, i can't see one advertisement - unless you count the guy with the ASUS logo painted on his head. Yup, i'm really being force fed advertisements...
Sure there's marketing - they have to pay for it somehow - but you only see it coming in/going out, or at the q&a sessions that are quite a ways away from the gaming area. We're here for an awesome LAN, and the MML guys are doing a DAMN good job of it.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
No. I wouldn't give devil a capital d.
Not to mention I like CS. I just don't like playing it with people who know how to talk.
several NVIDIA and ATI employees found dead after a vicious geekfight over pixel shading.
Its amazing how you people are so quick to bash on the fact that its "not a million people" and that its in Kentucky. Ever come to think of the fact that Lanwar (the lan which is held in Louisville KY) is run by the same people that run MML, which is why its in KY. Bunch of whiney bastards just have to complain and nit pick about everything. Get a damn life. Its a lanparty, so unless you have actually been to MML or Lanwar, you have no clue to what you are commenting on.
I wish I had gotten one of those A7N8X Deluxe boards..... I need one......
No, really. Bad capacitors on my board...... Slashdot provides the intriguing story behind them if you search for it. Hint: I've got a broken Taiwanese ECS motherboard....
Anyone win one of those and not want it??
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
We had a much bigger one in my home down in Denmark some years back. That was an AWSOME party with 3412 paying visiters. http://www.theparty.dk/pages/other/history_1996.ht ml
There is a long history of LAn parties in Europe.
The went from programming to Demo to play games events. I fund them borring now adays where the realy computer freaks are not there and only the guys that bring ther Xbox.
Regards,
Lars
the article mentions that this party is one of the biggest (or THe biggest) ever to take place in North America.
You must remember, however, that these parties have been going on in Europe on an incredibly larger scale for over ten years.
To them, 1,000 people is nothing, and they do so much more at their parties (Demo Competitions, music compos, and even some good ol' fashioned C64 compos. In fact, gaming (and warez trading) is outright banned in some of the parties. You've gotta have respect for these people who see the parties as a chance for social interaction, learning new stuff, meeting new people, and writing kick-ass code. I just don't get why we (americans) just like to shoot stuff - how unimaginative! Probably has something to to with the present administration....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
You truly are kings among men.
Well, they do all get to see breasts of a kind...
-Nano.
Im not sure how aware /. readers are of the
blackballing
THG is performing at the MML, but it absolutely sickens me. I've been reading Toms for a number of years, and this kind of control over the online media HAS to be stopped, before it becomes the defacto standard for events like this. Major props to amdmb.com for bringing this type of slime to our attention.
LAN parties are a fucking pussy way to kill brain cells... if thats what they think they are doing. They are actually a good way to do somehting that DOESN'T kill braing cells, I have thought all along.
Perhaps the article sender should get a real idea of what having a wild time is. It's not a LAN party.
Juln
Sigh you guys really need to get you Lan parties going. I did this before the "gaming revolution" came and we were all sitting there with amigas and SLIP to connect to each other...
Wuzzes. 1000s that is NOTHING.
Not entirely sure why this is newsworthy, as professionally-run, sponsored LAN events have been breaking the 1,000 user mark for years now. The main difference I can see with this one is that there are a larger number of sponsors allowing the ticket price to be lower.
The Tom's Hardware article is pure advertorial.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
I'm so dumb I can't even find a link to the information!
I must be looking right over the information, no way would anyone write a article encouraging people to attend an event and not put the obvious like the time and date of the event...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I'll probably be modded down for this, but... thanks! I didn't know.
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Might as well ask motorcyclists why Sturgis, SD
The event can make the place. Also, may be less overhead and better facitilites than trying to compete with these other locales.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar