Do Lan Parties happen any more?

[n0ob3r]

I had some great lan parties at my house the last being in 2010. Usually about 10-15 pcs networked and playing till the morning.

I don't mean to necro this thread but I don't believe I saw this last post.

Love the picture. Miss the days of lugging around CRT monitors

 

[Flybye]

I don't mean to necro this thread but I don't believe I saw this last post.

Love the picture. Miss the days of lugging around CRT monitors

Yeah…and now CRTs are making a faboulous retro comeback 🤣.

 

[n0ob3r]

Yeah…and now CRTs are making a faboulous retro comeback 🤣.

I had my time lugging around 20" + CRT monitors....No need for come backs for me =).

 

[cjcox]

I had my time lugging around 20" + CRT monitors....No need for come backs for me =).

You may need an NTSC tuner and antenna balun so you can play pong on channel 3 though. (just because I know some of you are wondering)

 

[JSHamlet234]

I worked for a small business that specialized in LAN parties back in the early 2000s. Think internet cafe, but targeted towards multi-player gaming. Cool idea, but very costly to maintain and keep current since we provided the hardware, especially back then given how fast technology was advancing.

AFAIK, LAN parties are mostly a thing of the past, but we actually still play Quake 3 Arena as a family. There was a time when I was the best, but now my 16 y.o son can frag me at a rate of about 50-2, my 13 y.o daughter is roughly my equal, my 7 y.o. daughter is getting a lot more "lucky shots" all of a sudden, and even the wife is giving me a run...

 

[n0ob3r]

........There was a time when I was the best, but now my 16 y.o son can frag me at a rate of about 50-2, my 13 y.o daughter is roughly my equal, my 7 y.o. daughter is getting a lot more "lucky shots" all of a sudden, and even the wife is giving me run...

Hahha, that is great. =)

 

[alxlwson]

I worked for a small business that specialized in LAN parties back in the early 2000s. Think internet cafe, but targeted towards multi-player gaming. Cool idea, but very costly to maintain and keep current since we provided the hardware, especially back then given how fast technology was advancing.

AFAIK, LAN parties are mostly a thing of the past, but we actually still play Quake 3 Arena as a family. There was a time when I was the best, but now my 16 y.o son can frag me at a rate of about 50-2, my 13 y.o daughter is roughly my equal, my 7 y.o. daughter is getting a lot more "lucky shots" all of a sudden, and even the wife is giving me a run...

LANwar is still around.

 

[Wade88]

We did them in the mid 90s when PCs were drawing 200 to maybe? 300 Watts and we still had breaker issues.

Serious PCs are now 600-900W and putting more than a few in a home is going to cause issues - and maybe fires....

They make houses with 400 amps of service. I picked mine partly because of this. 400a meter split across 2 200a breaker boxes, i.e. one per floor.

 

[DoubleTap]

They make houses with 400 amps of service. I picked mine partly because of this. 400a meter split across 2 200a breaker boxes, i.e. one per floor.

The rare exception kind of proves my point.

 

[LukeTbk]

We did them in the mid 90s when PCs were drawing 200 to maybe? 300 Watts and we still had breaker issues.

Serious PCs are now 600-900W and putting more than a few in a home is going to cause issues - and maybe fires....

At the same time going from CRT to LCD would reduce how much of a different it is (if we talking about serious PC of the time), was around 100/120watt I think at 19 inch back in the days, but apparently it is Amp that matter not watt, googling amp usage it seem to me they had quite the peak load or were not using all the 120v which is something I do not undertand.

 

[Ripskin]

I miss going and hosting lan parties for sure to a certain degree. Some games were just so much more fun in that side by side setting. Likewise late into the night after playing the popular stuff the random stuff came out and if you didnt have it nab it off the FTP and jump in for some off the wall random fun till morning.

Got to be a hassle to downgrade from triple screens to one and had my gear messed with at a few which was not cool. Then family came and most of the games switched to online so its really hard to get motivated for them but a classic one would be fun. Still have most of my old systems around my room lol.

 

[CanonicalAbstract]

Ahh, memories.... Back in the day when I had my first apartment (2002-2003), I would host LAN parties at my place. Usually just a core group of us, and we were usually ending up tinkering with other shit, drinking, maybe getting into a Quake deathmatch or Rocket Arena. Or, we would fire up the PS2 and play GTA

 

[lopoetve]

I threw one in 2019 for my birthday. We skipped 2020 because, well obviously. Modern systems, all mine (generally servers/etc that I can dual boot or drop a quick windows SSD into for gaming). Works amazingly well actually. We did old schoiol.

 

[Bop]

I had my time lugging around 20" + CRT monitors....No need for come backs for me =).

I haven't been to a LAN party in 20 years. I had an Antec full tower case and a 19" CRT. Hauling them around made lifting weights in high school gym class a breeze.

 

[zandor]

I haven't been to a LAN party in 20 years. I had an Antec full tower case and a 19" CRT. Hauling them around made lifting weights in high school gym class a breeze.

My main rig back in those days was something like that. First a full tower Antec which was initially a dual P3 1GHz and later a dual Athlon XP "Barton" 2500+ (bridge modded to enable dual). That rig had at least a half dozen hard drives in it plus a couple of opticals. All SCSI drives. The PATA storage drives were in my linux machine. The next one was a dual Opteron 246 in a Chenbro pedestal style server case, but I'm not sure if I actually went to a lan party after building that rig.

I had some fun with my lan party rig back in those days. I got an early gen iMac for free. It was a "grape" (purple) one. I gutted it and built a Windows PC inside the iMac chassis. I removed the CRT and replaced it with a 14" 1024x768 LCD mounted to a custom made frame that mounted an mATX mainboard on the other side. HDD was in the original position, USB and audio jacks were wired up, and I managed to find an adapter to plug the laptop style tray load CD-Rom drive into a desktop PATA cable. The ATX PSU was stuffed into the space where the CRT used to be along with the mainboard and vid card. That machine got a few funny looks when I showed up at a lan party with it, which of course was at least half the point of building it.

 

[Kiriakos-GR]

At 2007 I was hosting Lan party for two, at my electronics repairs work shop, Unreal Tournament Era.
Greatest thing of all, live screams in the room, when your opponent was unable to handle the pressure any more.

 

[AthlonXP]

My buddy will host one once or twice a year at his place but sadly I think its a dying thing.

 

[learners permit]

Has any forum ever hosted a lan? Wonder how many would sign up and pre register for that?

 

[lopoetve]

Has any forum ever hosted a lan? Wonder how many would sign up and pre register for that?

a bunch of them did back in the day, far less now.

 

[sharknice]

Has any forum ever hosted a lan? Wonder how many would sign up and pre register for that?

I was part of a LAN party group that hosted a forum 😁
We had a couple LANs every year usually with 50+ people and created the forum just for us.

I also discovered and got invited to a LAN party group through this forum. They used to organize it all on Yahoo groups and I haven't heard anything since that got discontinued.

 

[boss99]

For my son's 17th birthday, he has a circle of PC gaming friends and I told him that we can have a LAN party. I have network equipment and cabling, as well as a table big enough for all of them, and when he suggested it to them, they all scoffed at the idea of bringing their monitors and boxes over to our house. I felt a part of me die inside.

 

[Niner21]

For my son's 17th birthday, he has a circle of PC gaming friends and I told him that we can have a LAN party. I have network equipment and cabling, as well as a table big enough for all of them, and when he suggested it to them, they all scoffed at the idea of bringing their monitors and boxes over to our house. I felt a part of me die inside.

That is sad. I miss the LAN party days. The guys I used to work with got together and it was a blast. Everything today is done online and doesn't require people to move their equipment around which I understand the simplicity of it, but nothing can match getting together and seeing the reactions in person while gaming.

 

[Mopar63]

LANWAR/Millionman LAN still takes place. They tried for their JAN event this year but where forced to cancel due to Covid. Still shooting for their July event. NETWAR is scheduled for early April in Nebraska. There is still PDXLAN in Portland and Windy City in Chicago.

 

[FlawleZ]

A LAN party is much like a true manual transmission sports car. While modern automatics may eclipse them in pure performance, they will never replace the experience.

 

[MavericK]

I think more than anything the prevalence of "always online" gaming really started to kill the LAN party. I remember when games started to require a connection, we had 50-60 people in a hotel conference room and a slow/spotty connection at best. Then, if you had internet, you would inevitably get the chodes who would just play WoW the entire time (why come to a LAN party if you're going to play WoW by yourself?).

 

[Mopar63]

I think more than anything the prevalence of "always online" gaming really started to kill the LAN party. I remember when games started to require a connection, we had 50-60 people in a hotel conference room and a slow/spotty connection at best. Then, if you had internet, you would inevitably get the chodes who would just play WoW the entire time (why come to a LAN party if you're going to play WoW by yourself?).

There is no doubt that this has had a negative impact on the LAN Party. However, internet gaming still lacks to true interpersonal experience of the LAN event. While LAN Parties have shrunk, I feel like the core of these parties is more hard core than ever. A LAN Party is not about gaming specifically but about socialization and that is something online gaming cannot even imitate well.

 

[MavericK]

There is no doubt that this has had a negative impact on the LAN Party. However, internet gaming still lacks to true interpersonal experience of the LAN event. While LAN Parties have shrunk, I feel like the core of these parties is more hard core than ever. A LAN Party is not about gaming specifically but about socialization and that is something online gaming cannot even imitate well.

I 100% agree with you - my point is that games requiring an internet connection became an actual burden to hosting LAN parties, rather than just another option for multiplayer gaming.

 

[Ripskin]

I loved arriving at Quake con just in time for steam to drop their typical required update for games to work properly. And we had to update as half the place would have pulled it from the hotel network, or brought it with them if they did not arrive at the start of the event.

 

[Mopar63]

I 100% agree with you - my point is that games requiring an internet connection became an actual burden to hosting LAN parties, rather than just another option for multiplayer gaming.

The actual game play is not the load issue for most larger events. The big issue is the game updating where you have 100+ PCs at once hammer a network at full load to get a bunch of Steam updates. Steam caching servers help a lot with this.

 

[TheToE!]

As someone who hosted lan parties in the 100-200 people range, I would say that I miss them terribly. Maverick is on the money with his assessment that broadband kind of killed them. Nothing can compare to the atmosphere they offered. I truly miss them, and even more, the people.

 

[Flybye]

I have to disagree with the broadband. I had lan parties up until 2010. What really killed it was the lack of custom servers. People were getting tired of playing the same games, and nothing new had custom configurable servers.

 

[lopoetve]

I have to disagree with the broadband. I had lan parties up until 2010. What really killed it was the lack of custom servers. People were getting tired of playing the same games, and nothing new had custom configurable servers.

UT3 and 2k4 still rule. My lab becomes a 20 person lab party with a script. I’ve used that… sogh … once.

 

[Flybye]

UT3 and 2k4 still rule. My lab becomes a 20 person lab party with a script. I’ve used that… sogh … once.

UT2k4 and Onslaught were the best gaming years of my life. It had everything. Sci-fi, decent music, crazy action sequences, hilarious kills, insane tug of war sequences, I mean the list just goes on and on. I had a few home lan parties with 10-15 people playing it till sunrise. I think about it all the time, and people once in a while ask me about them, too. I will never understand how slow and boring "modern warfare" beat out Unreal Tournament. And I tried and tried to like these games with basic guns. Just not the same.

 

[lopoetve]

UT2k4 and Onslaught were the best gaming years of my life. It had everything. Sci-fi, decent music, crazy action sequences, hilarious kills, insane tug of war sequences, I mean the list just goes on and on. I had a few home lan parties with 10-15 people playing it till sunrise. I think about it all the time, and people once in a while ask me about them, too. I will never understand how slow and boring "modern warfare" beat out Unreal Tournament. And I tried and tried to like these games with basic guns. Just not the same.

Oh god yes. SO many hours spent.

Oh! And Serious Sam!!!

 

[magnetik]

I setup a UT2k4 server back in the lan days with my fav Bombing Run with only Arena style maps. Left it on and found out clans were using it for months. I spun up the same server a few years ago and got it to show up on the server list... no one showed up. I do miss lan days.. don't miss CRT lugging though or the heat generated but do miss 6+hr custom map Warcraft 2 6-way battles under the same roof.. People would fall asleep and wake and we'd be playing the same game. We'd get to the point of yelling GLITTERING PRIZES and just get overwhelmed by the computer cheating faster then us. lol 6 hour, multiplayer, stalemate battles ending in 15-20 minutes of chaos.

 

[mvmiller12]

We still do our annual LAN party, still going on after 20+ years (only missed the first year of the pandemic). We're not at peak attendance of 20 people anymore, but there are still ~8-10 of us left...

 

[Mopar63]

Millionman LAN is coming up in July. Close to 300 attending.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

UT2k4 and Onslaught were the best gaming years of my life. It had everything. Sci-fi, decent music, crazy action sequences, hilarious kills, insane tug of war sequences, I mean the list just goes on and on. I had a few home lan parties with 10-15 people playing it till sunrise. I think about it all the time, and people once in a while ask me about them, too. I will never understand how slow and boring "modern warfare" beat out Unreal Tournament. And I tried and tried to like these games with basic guns. Just not the same.

Onslaught was bad and helped kill Unreal Tournament. The thing is UT was always really about CTF first with TDM and 1v1 taking a back seat. Quake was 1v1 first with TDM taking a back seat and CTF distant third. They worked best as this. UT2004 threw so many game types in it fractured the community. Furthermore you can't balance a weapon and movement for Onslaught and have them work in CTF, 1v1, and TDM. The end result is Onslaught was what ended the Unreal Tournament franchise and it was an entirely self inflicted wound.

Modern Warfare beat out UT because of bullshit like Onslaught. MW was not a fractured community. With UT, 2003 and 2004 were so radically different from 99 that a huge portion of the community never moved over. With 2004 Onslaught fractured the community and the changes to BR killed that off. There was no coming back from that and UT3 was still born. What happened to Unreal 2 XMP was tragic as well. Really EPIC drove off their own fanbase.

A lot of it felt like they didn't know what they were doing. They caught lightning in a bottle with Unreal and Unreal Tournament 1999 and then sort of flailed. UT2003 was disjointed and had elements that were an obvious attempt to take down Quake 3. UT2004 was an epic cluster fuck and obviously tried to merge elements of battlefield and Unreal XMP into Onslaught and then shattered the community (mods like TAM didn't help). UT3 was obviously an engine showcase first and foremost when they were turning into an engine company with a focus on consoles. And their latest "the community will build it" nonsense obviously shows they don't give a damn. It's sort of sad in a way. I don't like COD but COD keeps delivering a known product rather than just throwing jello at the wall.

I think more than anything the prevalence of "always online" gaming really started to kill the LAN party. I remember when games started to require a connection, we had 50-60 people in a hotel conference room and a slow/spotty connection at best. Then, if you had internet, you would inevitably get the chodes who would just play WoW the entire time (why come to a LAN party if you're going to play WoW by yourself?).

IMHO competitive gaming getting serious also helped kill it. Things used to be where winning these events at LANs, which happened on the regular, was fun and mattered. Even if you were only getting a CPU or a graphics card maybe a small check if you were lucky. That all changed rapidly. Now those events have entire seasons and professional events with much more at stake and higher payouts. It's very different.

It's not that people don't game in person it's that it's very corporate and organized right now. All the sorts of low budget clubby community run stuff in gaming is dead. We used to have community run leagues and ladders, that's gone as well.

 

[lopoetve]

Onslaught was bad and helped kill Unreal Tournament. The thing is UT was always really about CTF first with TDM and 1v1 taking a back seat. Quake was 1v1 first with TDM taking a back seat and CTF distant third. They worked best as this. UT2004 threw so many game types in it fractured the community. Furthermore you can't balance a weapon and movement for Onslaught and have them work in CTF, 1v1, and TDM. The end result is Onslaught was what ended the Unreal Tournament franchise and it was an entirely self inflicted wound.

Modern Warfare beat out UT because of bullshit like Onslaught. MW was not a fractured community. With UT, 2003 and 2004 were so radically different from 99 that a huge portion of the community never moved over. With 2004 Onslaught fractured the community and the changes to BR killed that off. There was no coming back from that and UT3 was still born. What happened to Unreal 2 XMP was tragic as well. Really EPIC drove off their own fanbase.

A lot of it felt like they didn't know what they were doing. They caught lightning in a bottle with Unreal and Unreal Tournament 1999 and then sort of flailed. UT2003 was disjointed and had elements that were an obvious attempt to take down Quake 3. UT2004 was an epic cluster fuck and obviously tried to merge elements of battlefield and Unreal XMP into Onslaught and then shattered the community (mods like TAM didn't help). UT3 was obviously an engine showcase first and foremost when they were turning into an engine company with a focus on consoles. And their latest "the community will build it" nonsense obviously shows they don't give a damn. It's sort of sad in a way. I don't like COD but COD keeps delivering a known product rather than just throwing jello at the wall.



IMHO competitive gaming getting serious also helped kill it. Things used to be where winning these events at LANs, which happened on the regular, was fun and mattered. Even if you were only getting a CPU or a graphics card maybe a small check if you were lucky. That all changed rapidly. Now those events have entire seasons and professional events with much more at stake and higher payouts. It's very different.

It's not that people don't game in person it's that it's very corporate and organized right now. All the sorts of low budget clubby community run stuff in gaming is dead. We used to have community run leagues and ladders, that's gone as well.

Might have to agree to disagree on the first part - we loved onslaught here, but we did it 100% as PVE vs PVP - warfare/ctf/etc were always PVP (or PVE), but onslaught was 100% PVE always - see if you can get it done faster than the bots on masterful or higher. We did a TON of it back then - but we also weren't playing competitively or the like either. Just for funsies. Totally agree that UT3 was an engine demo first, and a game distant third or fourth - but we also skipped UT2k3 and jumped straight to UT2k4 (from UT99).

Definitely agree with the second part though - competitive gaming was death to older games and to ones that didn't have a clear meta at times too, and the fast twitch > longer, drawn out battles.

 

[cjcox]

LAN parties are now called COVID parties. If the space is tight, it can be upgraded to a Monkeypox party.