Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

aftermath.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#61

Post by treflop »

lmm wrote: post #35
sshine wrote: post #5

I remember showing up at my first LAN party, ~20 years younger than my online friends. They just couldn’t believe I was actually 13. They were really nice. One woman had a son my age that I went to a music festival with when I was 20. Another got me my first job as a programmer. Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a g…

> Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a gym hall with some strangers from “The Internet”. Either the world was smaller and simpler back then, or my parents were crazy, or both. Parents were sane back then, it's today that they've gone crazy. They watch too much news and keep their kids caged up, and end up doing far m…

Oh helicopter parents existed back then too.

And these days, there are still plenty of parents that let their kids run wild.

I don’t think anything has changed.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#62

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #58
lmm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a gym hall with some strangers from “The Internet”. Either the world was smaller and simpler back then, or my parents were crazy, or both. Parents were sane back then, it's today that they've gone crazy. They watch too much news and keep their kids caged up, and end up doing far m…

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'm happy to report that the internet is still safer than what "going outside" meant for me as a kid. Mostly we were blowing things up or seeing which roofs we could get on.

All that freedom was good for my head though, so I'll give you that one.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#64

Post by Jare »

sshine wrote: post #5

I remember showing up at my first LAN party, ~20 years younger than my online friends. They just couldn’t believe I was actually 13. They were really nice. One woman had a son my age that I went to a music festival with when I was 20. Another got me my first job as a programmer. Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a g…

> Either the world was smaller and simpler back then, or my parents were crazy, or both.

Back then, I can't imagine parents letting their daughters do that either. The kind of freedom to roam at 12yo that you describe was what allowed me access to people and computers we didn't have the money for; but I've always been very conscious that my sisters would have never been given that kind of opportunity.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#65

Post by unixhero »

parl_match wrote: post #59
unixhero wrote: post #57

Gamers and gaming killed it. There used to be a large element of computer exploration, making stuff work amd so on. TThe decline started in 2000 when Counter Strike came out. The new type of gamers it attracted helped kill the scene. Picture a wine convention, where a new breed of visitors just chugf down each glass instead of actually savoring. That isban apt analogy.

I honestly don't think this is it. High speed internet enabled a whole new class of games and experiences, and new distribution methods. And the relatively monocular monoculture of games exploded - suddenly, everyone was playing different games. So no, it wasn't "those kids".

I was there and saw it happen.

This is way before mmorpgs, mass online multiplayer and consoles mostly completely took over.

It killed the culture. But of course as we know, gaming is now a billion dollar industry so maybe it was the gamers that had it right all along.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#66

Post by hyperman1 »

lmm wrote: post #35
sshine wrote: post #5

I remember showing up at my first LAN party, ~20 years younger than my online friends. They just couldn’t believe I was actually 13. They were really nice. One woman had a son my age that I went to a music festival with when I was 20. Another got me my first job as a programmer. Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a g…

> Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a gym hall with some strangers from “The Internet”. Either the world was smaller and simpler back then, or my parents were crazy, or both. Parents were sane back then, it's today that they've gone crazy. They watch too much news and keep their kids caged up, and end up doing far m…

Sleep in a gym hall? I don't remember sleeping much at lan partys. Besides, there were more kids than computers, if you fell asleep you lost your seat.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#67

Post by theyinwhy »

j45 wrote: post #11
sshine wrote: post #5

I remember showing up at my first LAN party, ~20 years younger than my online friends. They just couldn’t believe I was actually 13. They were really nice. One woman had a son my age that I went to a music festival with when I was 20. Another got me my first job as a programmer. Somehow I just don’t see that kind of stuff happening nowadays; sending your kid off to some unknown destination with his PC to sleep in a g…

The interesting thing that you point out to me is the indirect mentoring / support from someone ahead of you in tech you received simply based on mutual interests. Sadly there's a lot of segments where juniors want to learn much on their own, often re-learning lessons of the past that could have been put towards more meaningful progress for them in hindsight.

I prefer learning myself as it leads to finding novel solutions.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#68

Post by unethical_ban »

Joe_Cool wrote: post #25
unethical_ban wrote: post #19

LANAllNight in Dallas is happening this weekend, it happens twice a year now. 200ish people, good old-school vibe. Minimum red tape. Quakecon is this July or August in Dallas. Several thousand people. A sight to see, but a lot more bullshit these days, lots of security, metal detectors, etc. In fact, I'm wearing a Quakecon shirt right now! LANs even today are so much fun, just to escape reality for 2-3 days and play…

Does Helldivers 2 have a LAN mode? The first one didn't. Or does this LAN have Internet? Where I am at LAN parties are completely offline, so genuinely curious.

Yeah the LANs I go to are online. Steam and many of the games have global browsers. Also, unfortunately, I don't think even the smaller one is literally one LAN. it's a routed network.

That eti launcher looks neat, though.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#69

Post by c0l0 »

nixone wrote: post #63

VulkanLAN in Graz, Austria, last year with 925 participants, growing every year, maybe this year with over 1000. See https://event.vulkanlan.at/

Oh wow, I did not know(/remember) that this existed! Will try to be going with my brothers-in-law this year, it's gonna be awesome :D Thanks for linking it!

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#70

Post by yayitswei »

kentonv wrote: post #38
yayitswei wrote: post #21

I found out about this LAN-party-optimized house ( https://kentonshouse.com/ ) from a previous discussion on HN, and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Hey that's me! Thanks! I finished the new, bigger, better one a few months ago. (The old one was actually very small -- photo angles are deceiving.) Not published on the internet yet, maybe later this year... Recently held my 28th Annual New Year's Eve LAN Party, as well as a big party around the solar eclipse (we had totality at the house). Both were attended by some of the same friends as the first one (and many ne…

That's wonderful! Would love hear about it / see some photos if you do decide to publish. Sounds like you've built a real community which is priceless.
Post reply on HN