Ultimate Guide to Hosting a LAN Party

[Sapphire9800]

http://www.onepc.net/index.php?view=docs&doc_id=75&page=1

[deftno9]

NICE, lan parties are the shiiite. But is there a guide in making friends host lan parties at THEIR house, I like my carpet the color it is.

[Rich]

As someone who has hosted many a LAN party in my basement. The best suggestion I would have is to add 2-3 hr setup time. Having a server setup with all the patches helps too. That is about the time the internet craps out is when you need to update a game. :(

[Kahoona]

lan parties are the funnest thing since dodgeball!

[fhetw]

some things that need to be emphasized
if youre gonna host your own lan party make sure you have lots of power.
at uberleet we shorted out a hotel like 4 times. silly them, they got mad.
that was with 30 people. biggest lan party ive had at a house was ~20, make sure you draw power from as many rooms as possible.
from personal experience make sure you have lots of fans or portable ac units, especially if youre in a house. All those computers, especially monitors, make hella lot of heat.
get a nice switch, mass hubs/routers = gay
internet is a plus too

[Rich]

Switches are KEY to good low pings. If you are having LAN parties a lot, investing in a good MANAGED switch will do you good too. Keep in mind it does not have to be a 100 switch to get good low pings. I use an older cabletron 2200 which runs at 10. Sucks for file transfers, but the pings are nice and low. 10 switches are also cheaper to come by. I got mine after a network upgrade.

[caniswolfie]

I particularly liked smaller LAN Parties with groups of friends better than the large monstrocities.. :)

It was better that you could do stuff together and have a little more fun without being too competitive. It also made it a little easier to deal with going to someone's house and hanging out etc..

It was also easier to get together and decide what games to play.

[Rich]

Probably one of the hardest parts of a LAN party is finding places for everyone to set up. People only have so many kitchen tables. I had one once where someone was setup with the monitor on the dishwasher. I think we crammed something like 8 people in my kitchen and living room. :lol:

[handrail]

be sure to have a couple extra vid cards and some network cards as well. these seem to decide to quit working about 2 minutes before the LAN begins. some extra cheap monitors are good to have around too. someone always has an 80 pound 22" monitor at home they don't want to move to the LAN.

[caniswolfie]

Aww.. what fun would a LAN party be without the required Trip to CompUSA/BestBuy/etc.

There's nothing like peer pressure in one of those stores when somone needs hardware..

"Bad videocard huh.. good excuse to get the top of the line now.. " :)

Even better is the guy that decided to build his PC during the LAN Party and finially gets it built just before everyone goes home.. *grin*

[Rich]

I always like when one person decides to change their game version and then messes everyone else up.

[Hippy]

Never been to a LAN :( but hopefully a cfew mates will get together for some gaming, about 5-6 of us. Only problem is we all like different games so finding something common for us to play would be hard.

[notix]

I've never been to a LAN party either. I've seen the RAMCON 2002 video though (ramcon-2002.avi). I searched the net, couldn't find it... I'd upload it to my server but I am on dial up. It was 3 days sped up into 3 minutes. It was a basketball court... showed people setting up tables and desks and stuff, looked pretty fun. Nowadays, in my city, they have these little places where there is about 20-30 computers, networked, and you can go in and play CS on them. It costs money, like 5 dollars an hour or something... I've been there a few times, not much of a gamer, but it was pretty fun. They had the lights out, big black office chairs, sold cold twix (that was good ;)) ... optical mice, 17inch monitors, loud speakers. You walk in and it sounds like a shoot out. That was pretty fun... couple of friends are still into it, they get hook ups and stuff. I remember watching on a news though, a while back... that a kid was jumped outside of one :shock:

[caniswolfie]

Although those shops are pretty kewl and nice if you don't have friends to get together with, it's not quite the same then what I'm used to. I guess there's a level of familarity with the people you are playing with and if the place is somewhere you are comfortable there is more you can do.

I'm used to being able to just hang out if I'm tired or get together with the guys and play whatever. *shrug*

[Cabot_Teg118]

I would love to have a LAN party at my house, but only like 2 people are willing to bring computers :(

[Rich]

Portability does become a problem. It definitely helps to have a spare monitor lying around. Make it easier to just bring the case and game.