Have you ever been to a LAN party?

[John Connor]

If so, what was it like and what games did you play?

 

[evident]

I never have, but it was something I always wanted to do growing up.
All of my friends were console gamers and there weren't any PC gamers in my high school. By the time I went to college, all my friends just played together from our dorm rooms.

 

[Fenixgoon]

long time ago in college. played DOTA (WC3), TF2, smash bros wii (just came out). i think i got 4 or 8 hours of sleep across 3 days. wouldn't be able to do that again

 

[Red Squirrel]

Only once. This is back in the CRT days, so I was happy when I found out I only had to bring the tower. LCDs had just come out so a coworker had a super nice one he had just bought so he brought it and we were all jelly. I had one of those clear plastic cases with fully modded electrical/fans and lights so people were impressed at that too. Half the fun of a LAN party was checking out everyone's different configs haha.

We played LOTR Battle for Middle Earth, I don't remember what else. Whatever FPS was popular at the time. I think Counter Strike.

 

[Chaotic42]

When I was in high school we had one virtually every weekend and most of the summer. Four PCs on two tables pushed together with a coax network. We played Duke3D, Master of Orion 2, Janes USAF, Diablo I, Total Annihilation, and Shadow Warrior. We also had an N64 so we'd play Killer Instinct Gold, Madden, GoldenEye, etc.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Circa '96. At the computer labs in college. Descent 2.

 

[John Connor]

GoldenEye

Wooo, Goldeneye. That's a classic. I was pretty good until my Bro discovered a way to kill me. He always played Oddjob and would run past a door way and spray and pray. Yet the little ah heck go me every damn time. I was so pissed. LOL

 

[Chaotic42]

Wooo, Goldeneye. That's a classic. I was pretty good until my Bro discovered a way to kill me. He always played Oddjob and would run past a door way and spray and pray. Yet the little ****************** go me every damn time. I was so pissed. LOL

I am absolutely and utterly horrible at console shooters. It was basically a game of seeing who could kill me the most.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yes, LAN parties were awesome.

 

[John Connor]

Yes, LAN parties were awesome.

I'm afraid I missed out. I mostly played online with BF2, BF2142 and COD Modern Warfare.

 

[bbhaag]

I used to host them along time ago around 1999-2001. I had four or five buddies that were into pc gaming and since I was the only one that had my own place I was stuck hosting. That was awhile ago but I remember playing Half-Life, UT, and D2 the most. I'm sure there were others but I don't remember.
It was a lot of fun just hanging out and gaming all night. Drinking beers with friends and gaming what is not to like, right?

 

[John Connor]

I am absolutely and utterly horrible at console shooters. It was basically a game of seeing who could kill me the most.

Now a days I suck. I have an emulator where I play Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I bought a N64 USB controller too.

 

[John Connor]

I used to host them along time ago around 1999-2001. I had four or five buddies that were into pc gaming and since I was the only one that had my own place I was stuck hosting. That was awhile ago but I remember playing Half-Life, UT, and D2 the most. I'm sure there were others but I don't remember.
It was a lot of fun just hanging out and gaming all night. Drinking beers with friends and gaming what is not to like, right?

Damn, that sounds fun.

But I'd pass on the beer and go with a Jack & Coke. HAHAHA

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've done it, when I was in my 20s. A slightly older buddy of mine hosted them, and another buddy of mine brought his PC over, and I brought mine, and the damn cheapo LinkSys 5-port switch that I had to tie everything together, seemed to have a flaky port. But regardless, we got it going. Playing UT in the same room with a bunch of buddies was a blast. (I used to be fairly decent at that, though I never played ranking online. I'd probably get 0wn3d online.)

 

[Riverhound777]

Did it back in high school (late 90s), back when everyone had dialup so 100MB LAN was insane. Played lots of Starcraft, Unreal Tournement, warcraft, things like that. Was a ton of fun.

 

[KMFJD]

We used to go to the local college and install quake on a bunch of computers and play

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Briefly around 1999-2000 for team Fortress (now called TF Classic) and AvP. Had a lot of fun, but then came this thing called broadband and turned it into a high speed super highway sort of thing and no more LAN parties.

 

[vi edit]

I used to host them along time ago around 1999-2001. I had four or five buddies that were into pc gaming and since I was the only one that had my own place I was stuck hosting. That was awhile ago but I remember playing Half-Life, UT, and D2 the most. I'm sure there were others but I don't remember.
It was a lot of fun just hanging out and gaming all night. Drinking beers with friends and gaming what is not to like, right?

Yep. Pretty much the same for me. We did a ton of Quake 2 and then counterstrike once that was out.

 

[NutBucket]

Late 90's/early 2000's for me too. Game of choice was UT. Ah the old days of overclocked Celerons and dual Voodoo2s!

 

[Scarpozzi]

LAN parties are a bunch of work just because of the setup/teardown. What was pretty cool was back about 15 years ago I attended the annual Novell conference in SLC Utah at the Salt Palace Conference center. Back then, companies spent more money on conferences and conventions...near the food court, they had a 'lounge area'. Basically, this was a huge trade show sized room with hundreds of tables for the food....but near it was a bunch of massage stools (like the ones they have in the mall), they had pool tables, and about 30 or so PCs running a number of games. Half life was probably the main one for the first few years, but I remember they had CounterStrike Source in 2005, but don't remember what else that year. It was just cool though because they had CS running on SuSE linux.

 

[chitwood]

yes, a ton.

AsylyumLAN was hosted 4 times a year, probably 20 mins from my apartment. Got a block of seats with my PC buddies, we'd play DOTA all weekend. Decent size, about 100 people.
There was also LANWar, and Million Man LAN in Louisville but I never went to those, they were a lot bigger, MML was several floors worth.

 

[ch33zw1z]

once, circa '00. played ut99, was a clan lan party.

it was fun, dont care to do it again.

 

[Nashemon]

Tons.

I was introduced to them around 1999 by my new step cousin who had some friends who did them several times a year.

I have a hard time remembering what games I've played in my own life let alone what I've played specifically at LAN parties, but a few I do remember are:

Call of Duty 1
Dungeon Seige
Age of Empires 2
Crystal Chronicles on Gamecube once, too.

We'd stay up all night. No one slept. Those stopped when I moved away in 2004, though. A friend up here had a Halo ODST only LAN party several years ago. He had like 20+ Xbox 360's and 20+ TVs in his finished basement. That was more fun than expected.

Then I hosted a couple at my house where we played Starcraft 2, Amnesia (not multiplayer). I had more stuff setup to do like two TVs and consoles. But the turnout was only like 2 or 3 people and everyone left by like 3am for the first one, and 1am for the second, so I stopped doing them.

Most recently there's an event called Massive LAN hosted twice a year that I usually attend. Over 250 people come to those, and it lasts Friday-Sunday, though people start packing up around 1pm Sunday. They do several tournaments for different games, give out prizes for the tourneys as well as just for being there (raffle), make food you can order, have sleeping quarters, etc. Some people start to smell pretty bad, but other than that it's pretty epic. I go with a group of friends whom I game with online a lot, they usually play LoL most of the time and whatever cool indie game we all have or decide to buy. Last one I remember we played Sanctum 2 a lot and HeroSiege.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Tons of 'em. Similar to other posters here, during the golden age of mid-90's through early 00's. Mostly same group of friends, we'd mix up who's house we were at... The most extravagant ones would include around a dozen people, with computers set up in bathrooms and stuff (limited electrical budget on circuits, as well as space constraints). Games included Team Fortress Classic, UT, Action Quake, Action Half Life, Opera (another HL mod), WC3 mods (mostly DOTA), some Carmageddon, and probably another dozen games I can't remember at this point.

Now I just LAN party with the GF whenever we play multiplayer stuff.

 

[BurnItDwn]

In the mid to late 90s went to a lot of small lan parties with friends.
Went to a couple of bigger organized ones with like 20-50 people.

We played stuff like Total Annihilation, Quake, Doom 2, Warcraft 2, command and conquer, and a shitload of Duke Nukem 3D. LOTS and LOTS of Duke 3d.
Ohh, and TONS of Carmageddon, and then Carmageddon 2 when it came out.