The Gathering 2005

Advill wrote to mention a story on Tom's Hardware discussing The Gathering 2005, an enormous LAN party that takes place in Norway. From the article: "For a while now, The Gathering (TG) has been competing with Dream Hack in Sweden for the title of World's Largest LAN Party. Last year The Gathering won the title, but then Dream Hack struck back again and regained it. This year, the organizers of The Gathering thought that 5,200 participants ought to be enough and decided to stop competing for the title."

Comments

Bastards.

[Seumas]

I wanna be a norwegian! What is your immigration policy with regard to obese biker-looking geeks? And more, how easy are your women?

Re:Bastards.

[Seumas]

I went to a place like that once. Looked like I'd fit right in. Everyone was tall, fat, hairy. Everyone was wearing lots of leather. Some seemed to like leather so much that they didn't even want to wear shirts underneath the vests or pants underneath the chaps. Funny thing though - there weren't any women there the entire night and they played a lot more disco than I'm used to hearing.

Big selection of games...

[rlbond86]

Counter-Strike, Quake 3, Battlefield (1942?) and Warcraft 3. For such a huge event, they should have had more than 4 games!

Alert Gary Bettman!

[Otter]

That's a great use for an unoccupied hockey arena. We've got quite a few in North America now -- maybe the NHL could throw LAN parties to cut their losses a bit.

Re:Alert Gary Bettman!

[nc_yori]

I can see it now... "LANboni, 2005"

Re:LANning Out?

[the_unknown_soldier]

Filesharing Would be awesome at this lan. I would go just for that. Also, LANS offer shorter pings so that nobody has an advantage on different servers. It also helps teams look at eachothers strats right in front of them.

Most of all it turns an online community into a real community. Where people talk and interact. For computer nerds this is an important thing to do every so often.

Re:Temperature?

[Cheapy]

What part of "Norway" is so hard to understand?

No no no no no!

[bVork]

The Gathering (and really, how hard is it to put the official URL in the summary?) is primarily a demoparty, not a lan party. I'd say that this would better belong in a different section. Its not just about games and it has never been about games!

Instead of just oogling over the gaming competitions, take a look at the compo winners (hell, all of the entries) and see what kind of artwork can be done with computers.

Ignore the games and appreciate the demos. Keep the spirit of the demoscene alive.

Re:No no no no no!

[Lord Graga]

The Gathering is not a fullblodded demoparty, but rather a combined LAN and demoparty. The largest demoparty, Breakpoint 2005, was held at the exact same time as TG, and we had "live" contact on the bigscreen from time to time.. great fun :P
Anyway, if you wanna see PC art, check out the Breakpoint entries too.

Re:LANning Out?

[Catnapster]

At least for me and my friends, LAN parties are more fun because of their dual nature - aside from the multiplayer gaming, they are also physical gatherings of like-minded people. The games are only a part of the experience, as we can share our music (often at high decibel levels), show each other amusing websites between games, talk trash as one can only do in person, and feel the goodwill and cameraderie that comes about from the donation of drinks and snacks to the party. And don't even get me started on the communal partaking of pizza.

It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

Demo party

[mwvdlee]

Didn't the Gathering used to be a Demo party? You know; with people who could actually do something remotely usefull with their sparetime.