At the beginning of the gathering of each LAN party and had to say "Hello" or even shaking hands to some one in real life. Sometimes the toilet was blocked by another gamer during an important match! OMG You could smell pizza, not being yours. Or hear screams from the other side of the room. This type of social interaction quickly disappeared with the upcoming internet game servers.
Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
31–40 of 172 posts
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#32Direct link to the book:
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#33So much nostalgia. Does anyone remember the Frozen cd piracy sets that used to float around at LAN parties? They were awesome man.
Have not heard of Frozen, was it like Twilight/crazybytes?
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#34What killed the LAN party? In short, Halo 2 and Bungie. Before Halo 2, even games on XBox Live followed the same foundations as PC games - a bunch of servers listed in a browser that you had to pick from to join, then instantly relay the details to your friends so they could also join. Bungie developed a matchmaking system that made it effortless to play with friends, and it was soon used as a bedrock for XBox Live and copied by PC developers quickly. Peer to peer worked with everybody using broadband and was cheaper than running servers.
That has led us to our present moment where the developer controls the life of a multiplayer title from cradle to grave. They issue patches you have to apply; they balance weapons, they ban players, they charge for cosmetics and loot boxes and season passes. It all traces back to giving up control over how we connected and played games together.
Nowhere is this more evident than the Battlefield community. The majority of that community desperately wants a game that really follows up on Battlefield 2, without realizing it will never happen because EA as a company is too big to cede that much control over its multiplayer titles. They wouldn’t be able to monetize it if the community controlled as much as they did back in the day.
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Split screen was never a part of lan parties. The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. Even during that period it was much easier to go to a lanshop and play there either as in lan or on the proto cloud servers they had. Many fond memories of early battle.net and much fewer of steam.
The Internet killed the LAN party
I (roughly) hear it on the tune of "video killed the radio stars".
Yes I'm old.
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#36The obvious answer is that the Internet killed LAN parties. Now we're all on the same network. My kids primarily game online with their friends from the real world, not randos, so the dynamic is similar. Sometimes it's on xbox with the headset, sometimes on the PC, and when necessary they'll use ipads to facetime and have that on the desk next to the gaming screen. They're very connected to their friends when playing.
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#37I think they missed a main factor: lag compensation inproved greatly.
The old Quake style games often had very naive networking. Whereas now, I seldom notice the network even exists.
It's not that lag has changed much--contrary to the article, broadband is less important in games. It's latency that matters, not bandwidth. Team fortress 1 can run on 16kbps.
And latency is still the same as I had 20 uears ago, 50-150ms.
But the benefit of LAN was that it was the only way to experience latency free gameplay. And it really did make a big difference. In comparison, internet play always felt weird after experiencing LAN.
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#38I think the comment that it was harder to be an asshole because someone would just ask you to leave (physically! With your equipment!) is quite relevant. It’s way too easy to be a jerk online now. There was a real magic to LANs at one time, and these photos certainly bring back memories. University and college dorms were pretty fun too, I imagine their LANs are quite locked down now and only serve as an isp to the in…
> I think the comment that it was harder to be an asshole because someone would just ask you to leave (physically! With your equipment!) is quite relevant. It’s way too easy to be a jerk online now. Maybe the big difference is that you would do a LAN party with friends, whereas you would play online mostly with unknown people.
That’s true! Certainly I was invited to LAN parties where I knew a few people and was getting to know 2 or 4 others, perhaps there was even the opposite effect to being a jerk, I wanted to have a better relationship with the others ?
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Split screen was never a part of lan parties. The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. Even during that period it was much easier to go to a lanshop and play there either as in lan or on the proto cloud servers they had. Many fond memories of early battle.net and much fewer of steam.
Agree with your 1st statement, I dont think split screen had anything to do with LAN parties. There was no network with split screen. However I don't think LAN died because of tower size. Maybe towers got a tad bigger at some point, but monitors got way thinner. I've done a few LAN parties on laptop even. I think they just died because it was easier to play over global network, and subsequently LAN mode disappear fro…
One of the greatest gaming experiences of my life is when I and my three younger brothers hooked up two original Xboxes with a network crossover cable and played the original Halo 2v2 split screen in separate rooms.
Split screen LAN may not have been the norm but it is fantastic.
Re: Just a bunch of idiots having fun: a photo history of the LAN party
#40Gaming companies contributed to the death of LAN parties too. They killed the "split-screen" gameplay that would support 2-4 players on the same machine. They wanted each player to require their own copy of the game. They killed LAN support, forcing you to play on their servers. Culturally we saw a shift towards social isolation. People are more comfortable talking over a mic.
Split screen was never a part of lan parties. The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. Even during that period it was much easier to go to a lanshop and play there either as in lan or on the proto cloud servers they had. Many fond memories of early battle.net and much fewer of steam.
> The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around.
No, no. The effort played itself. As OP said, it was a cultural change with companies piggy-backing on it. Split screen is not a major reason, no, I don't think so. But luggaging towers? That's not the reason.