LAN parties still seem to be a thing where I live, and demo parties are still going strong.
I think it matters a lot where one is looking for such gatherings.
The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
81–90 of 121 posts
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#82I think it shouldn't be left out that the audience of LAN-parties were not people who just played games . It was a "PC-community", people really focused on their PC. Its hardware, its OS, how to squeeze as much power as possible out of it. The perfect CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for each game, which hardware to use/buy next etc. And THEN they played games. But they also hung out with like-minded people, exchanged alo…
> LAN-parties were not people who just played games
True: we also swapped warez and burped too many soft drinks.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#83I think it shouldn't be left out that the audience of LAN-parties were not people who just played games . It was a "PC-community", people really focused on their PC. Its hardware, its OS, how to squeeze as much power as possible out of it. The perfect CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for each game, which hardware to use/buy next etc. And THEN they played games. But they also hung out with like-minded people, exchanged alo…
I don't feel like that is quite true? I was never really interested in pushing as much as possible out of the hardware (beyond being able to play the games in the first place), but LAN parties were still the shit.
The one time we could steal the schools computer room with 24 or so PC's in and have an all day LAN party is still of the things I remember most fondly from that time.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I usually slept under my table, but just for convenience ; I've never heard of occurences of seat being stolen (plus your computer is plugged in, how are they supposed to take your seat ? That would be stealing).
> I usually slept under my table, but just for convenience ; I've never heard of occurences of seat being stolen (plus your computer is plugged in, how are they supposed to take your seat ? That would be stealing). I guess what gp is saying is that not everyone that attends the LAN party is able to sling along their computer to the venue so there are more people than machines and of course limited seating for folks w…
Correct. Everyone knew everyone, so stealing is the wrong way to look at this. A lot of people had no PC and were just hanging around, looking at other people playing mostly Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. We tended to e.g. switch the PC between players when they got fragged.
Some people played until total exhaustion, so around 3AM you started to see people fall asleep while playing. That's the moment the hopefull looker in the next seat would gently grab they keyboard and mouse and 'borrow' the sleeper's PC and finally join the game.
Good times. Don't ask about the smell of the room after a 2 day fragfest.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#85> 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…
Warcraft 2 was playable because it has a good netcode, it's easier to write one for RTS than FPS though.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#86I think it shouldn't be left out that the audience of LAN-parties were not people who just played games . It was a "PC-community", people really focused on their PC. Its hardware, its OS, how to squeeze as much power as possible out of it. The perfect CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for each game, which hardware to use/buy next etc. And THEN they played games. But they also hung out with like-minded people, exchanged alo…
The bizarre world of a bunch of friends bragging about who had the best AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Those were the days.
yea, we did that in elementary school and progressed towards the intricacies of networking tech by the time coax gear was thrown out at dad's company.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'll argue that blowing things up and seeing which roofs you can get on are a lot healthier than Facebook.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
My sisters definitely did have the same kind of freedom I did. Say, my little sister took her first intercontinental flight (with two plane changes I think) alone around age 14.
I mean, that sounds a bit stressful for her, but eminently possible. Can't say I'd have liked the idea when I was 14, but I was capable of it.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#89I think it shouldn't be left out that the audience of LAN-parties were not people who just played games . It was a "PC-community", people really focused on their PC. Its hardware, its OS, how to squeeze as much power as possible out of it. The perfect CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for each game, which hardware to use/buy next etc. And THEN they played games. But they also hung out with like-minded people, exchanged alo…
> LAN-parties were not people who just played games True: we also swapped warez and burped too many soft drinks.
warez was the main thing for lots of ppl, as internet speeds at the time more or less prohibited sharing at home.
gaming was the goofy part
Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party
#90Happy memories. I started with just 1:1 multiplayer games using the serial port (GTA, Dogfight, Doom). GTA (or our serial port config) had horrible problems with de-synchronization. The game just went on but players where in completely different locations in the game. As a workaround we yelled the scores to each other from time to time because that was one the best ways to notice the games where out of sync. Later we…
> Also, for some reason we often got electric shocks when we touched the coaxial connectors, I guess it happened because the different players connected their PC do power outlets connected to different phases.
Different phases should not cause electric shocks - these are a result of a ground connection being broken or impeded (e.g. due to a clamp not fastened tightly enough). You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed.