So why those years? Well, for me, those were the years of the Lan Parties. Great years those were, when nobody knew, that one day, Epic would make boring gear games and Microsoft would promote gaming on a couchbox instead of on a PC. We played games like q3, ut, age2 and sc for many weekends, and it was the best thing ever back then. Sometimes we could get together even 18-20 people, which was a whole fucking lot, or at least it seemed to me that way. Heck, I loved making the network work, sure it was easy, but it felt so cool plugging all the cables and switches together. I remember, we didn't really have access to internet other than 56k then, and we didn't really read up on strategies and such, so we felt so great, when we came up with a new build order in SC, like early mass marine/medic, and rushing the opposition, not knowing, that millions have done it better than us before. I remember the surprise on many friends' faces, when we did non-standard stuff like that, and discovered things for ourselves on our PCs.
Then slowly the habit died, we played over the net or we stopped playing altogether.
But we got together today, and from morning until now, we just played like there was no tomorrow. There were 11 of us, including girlfriends (who don't play that bad themselves - or we deteriorated so much in the past 10 years ).
We started with good old unreal 2k4, then moved up to ut 3, when we finally convinced our mate to fuck his laptop, and just bring his desktop over already. Gibs flied, taunts were made, people were cursed at, and laughs were had - I forgot how good face-to-face gaming felt like. Looking someone in the eye, when you kill him for the tenth straight time is priceless. Also priceless, when we teamed up against the snipers with sledgehammers. This was a social event, no matter what haters would say. We then played a sc2 2v2 tournament, that ended in major laughs and cheers (mainly because I was at 50% handicap, and my forces melt so fast).
At the end of the day, I asked myself, why the fuck we don't do these kind of stuff anymore? I mean, yeah, sure, all of us have our careers, some of us even kids, but god damn it, this was fun like I haven't had for ages!
welcome to the future.
thank god to fast internet connections we don't have to go to these crappy lan parties anymore.
no more stinky fat geeks everywhere or no good place to sleep.
I still host regular lan's with a group of 5-6ppl in london, and even my mates from bham come down for the weekend. we stock up on vodka, redbull, microwave pizza's - close the curtains and keep blasting until we pass out.
It's great when 8 of us are in a vs match of l4d/2 or battlefield, day of defeat, tf2, we even have a round of ultimate doom when the mood takes us.
I have a full-time job, even working most weekends, but it's still possible to have the good ol' get togethers. and with todays laptops (like my xps15) gaming is great.
(PS: I also have a decent tower - i5-2500k 560ti, but social gaming is great on laptop)
Man, my grammar sucks, but it serves to get my point across. Radicalus - I totally agree, it must be done more often, and games should go back to the "Lan Only Mode" roots, instead of this centralized proprietary platform
I once lived in an big apartment with 4 other guys at the hight of Scarcraft etc. Most weekends we would have friends over for a LAN. 10-12 guys...Our electrical bil was nothing short of insane. But ya LAN is dead as we knew it.
There are two kinds of people I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
these was fun days - today its just killing kids over the internet Nothing is better then killing someone ingame and after then laught him to face
but still have some "LANs" on college ( mainly me and my roommates vs. other room)
-Sad that with rise of steam - dissaperade LAN option from games (here is only crappy public/private/ranked)
Ah yes, LAN parties.. Some mates and I were missing those as well, so a few years ago we started having 2-3 every year and the next one is the coming weekend; friday afternoon to sunday evening with sleepovers on floor mattresses and stocking up trips to Sweden beforehand for beer and stuff ^.^
Always great fun, but we usually limit to 8 people since we tend to favour 4 vs 4
my friends in a local youth centre have hosted some lan parties with 20+ people at least. It's great fun imo, if i have transport for my pc. Only thing is that it's tiresome so cant do those too often.
funny,
just two days ago i went on a lan to a friend
we do this about 2-3 times a year.
5-8 people, beer, whiskey, cola, and a big pot of chili
played through the night from around 8pm to 8am.
we usually play ut2k4 and q3 instagib only.
10 to 15 guys Friday to Sunday - starded with H&D then Rainbow six 1 2 3 until Internet jobs..family.. etc toke over, in the last one half the guys where using laptops.
Anyway there isn't anything like Rainbow Six Rogue Spear in the market since, closed tactical unforgiving play, 5 min rounds best out of 5, go great times
I went to a LAN party once when I was young because a friend insisted day after day, it was my worst gaming experience ever. Gaming is fun, but it's boring as hell when you're surrounded by nerds constantly talking about games. After that shit, I stopped playing MP because the guys at that party made gaming a fucking chore with all kinds of stats and whatnot.
Yeah i miss those days too, far better MP experience than playing over the internet. When things gets too accessible it loses its magic, quickly.. i can't even remember the last time i played a MP game, its just so anonymous and boring.
Last edited by vurt on Mon, 24th Oct 2011 15:09; edited 1 time in total
Oh man... playing Unreal Tournament (the original one), various half-life mods, warcraft 3 custom maps at LAN parties was an amazing experience... Kingpin multiplayer was fun as fuck too and let us not forget Europa Universalis II, Red alert 2 etc etc...
I remember those days fondly as well.
Maybe we should organize an nfohump lan party at some point - kinda like dreamhack but for humpers
I actually thought about this as well, but as a first step, we should try and organize at least a nfohump common night, where we make a server for a few games, and play that all night, even a tournament, who knows (casual tournament for fun, ofc).
It wasnt just about gaming, it was about sharing huge amounts of porn, people on lan parties buying extra hd's just for porn, ah yes it was a fun time...
I only ever went to LANs because my PC was so shitty (so was my internet)
I don't think most gamers see any benefit now that everything can be done from the comfort of their couches. Basically in anything gaming related, effort = bad, be it physical or in the game itself.
That's how I see it anyway.
"I jus wanna come hom n sit down, put the disc in n play, I kan play wif ma frends on LIVE"
I have seen a lot of console "LANs" though, which go over the net anyway (no latency benefit) but PC ones around where I am are virtually non existent these days. It was a good way to interact with likeminded gamers at one stage in my life. I wonder if they're all as disgusted as I am with how it all works now.
Let's not forget a lot of modern games don't even support LAN options.
We're some guys who do this every 6 months or so. Beers + summerhouse + LAN = major fun. These past 5-6 years, Company of Heroes is probably the game we've played the most overall. It just never gets old.
Also play a lot of Sins of the Solar Empire and Far Cry 2.
Being in the same room, constantly insulting eachother is THE way to play
I agree wit OP on almost everything. Although I only attended a handful of LAN parties, I thoroughly enjoyed them. Way better than playing over the Internet. Face-to-face gaming is the best, regardless of whether you are on a winning or a losing streak.
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).
and let us not forget Europa Universalis II, Red alert 2 etc etc...
