The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

> Titles like 1998’s Half-Life ... Other first-person shooters (FPS) like Counter-Strike (itself originally a mod for Half-Life) ... the typically low network speeds of the period meant that these games, unlike slower-paced and less graphically intensive strategy games, were nearly unplayable over an internet connection. In this moment, in which communications technology was being outpaced by graphical power, the LAN (local area network) party was born.

Yup that's exactly how I remember it. We were playing half-life at home LAN parties (often at my place and sometimes at big LANs) even before the beta of CS came out. We'd spend lots of time on the various maps, like the "small" map (if I remember the name correctly).

We'd also play Warcraft II on LANs but Warcraft II was playable over "KALI": we'd simulate a LAN over the Internet. For Warcraft II the latency was good enough already.

My best LAN though was the one between my home and my neighbour's home, where a coax cable (!) would hang from window to window, on the second story, in the street. And the phone calls: "Mate, did you forget to put the terminator on a cable, my LAN ain't working anymore!" (if you were to forget the BNC terminator, nothing would work anymore).

"RJ45" ethernet cables already existed but we were broke ass teenagers: so we managed to fetch a shitload of coax network cards and cables a company was throwing away. We didn't have the proper tool(s) though so we'd use kitchen scissors to cut and attach the 'T' connectors to the cables (by squeezing them with the handle of the kitchen scissors). It was totally ghetto but it worked fine.

Great memories, thanks for TFA and for posting TFA!

I remember having LAN parties in HS with my friend, we'd do a lot of Quake 3, Urban Terror, Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament 2003-2004, etc; and another friend we'd LAN and even more we once rented out the community center and had a massive LAN party with like 30 people. Not everyone had to play the same game, but most did. We'd all chip in on pizza, etc. Man, to be 16-20 y/o again.

There was something special about being in the same room (or at least building) as a bunch of friends playing a game.

Nowadays the internet makes it easy to play with friends, but it’s too easy now to make the effort of trying to be colocated not worth it.

Even couch coop games, while still around, aren’t near as common, and people would still just rather play games like that online.

The internet has made connecting with people so easy.

Yet the world feels much lonelier now.

The massive irony here is that the internet itself has become a much more dangerous place for kids than itself or going outside ever was. Particularly when it comes to mental health, parents don’t let their kids go out but the same parents put no parental controls or at the very least, screen time limits on their devices.

I was just excited to be the “networking guy” who got all the PCs to talk to each other. NetBEUI was the trick IIRC. And Quake 1 multiplayer was great! Vaguely remember a multiplayer mod named Rune?