Live data from Hacker News

The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

aftermath.site

101–110 of 121 posts

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#101

Recently, my friends and I recreated our old LAN parties. Went up to a cabin in the woods, brought some cheap network switches, and had everyone install OpenRA ( https://www.openra.net/ , open red alert), and had a blast, even with everyone on laptops (mac/win). You can still do this in 2024 and it's worth it!

OpenRA looks great.

> For others to join your game, you must forward a port in your router for them to connect to. By default, OpenRA uses TCP port 1234. You can test this on sites like canyouseeme.org yourself.

This however concerns me.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#102
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes it is a necessary experience for them.

Totally. There's plenty of necessary experiences that are shared.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#103
post #42

Staff member of Lanwar.com here! We are still kicking it in Louisville, KY and encourage everyone to check us out! Our next event is Lanwar 72 Thursday, July 25, 2024, 12:00 PM EDT - Sunday, July 28, 2024, 12:00 PM EDT

For UK folk, StratLAN is still rocking - July 4th-8th

https://stratlan.com/

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#104

Happy 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 kill…

Thanks for the clarification. Luckily BNC connectors are rare nowadays. It happened at a friends house. I lost contact but I'm pretty sure he's still alive but maybe their house is still dangerous.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#105
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep not sure if I would have been up for it either at that age. She's always been much more of an adventurer than I would ever want to be.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 kill…

Thanks for the clarification. Luckily BNC connectors are rare nowadays. It happened at a friends house. I lost contact but I'm pretty sure he's still alive but maybe their house is still dangerous.

> Luckily BNC connectors are rare nowadays.

This can manifest anywhere that has grounding issues and electrical wires that are not isolated from human touch, not just BNC.

For example, in conventional Ethernet, you have to ground the shielding for EMF reasons, but you usually ground only one of the shieldings on both sides of a cable - conventionally, at least in Germany, in the distribution rack of the patchpanel, and if you connect two distribution racks/rooms, on the "upstream" side - but you never ground both ends as that can not just cause ground loops but especially very weird issues where fault current suddenly doesn't pass back to the AC distribution panel on cables with the proper wire gauge but through the (very tiny) gauge of a network cable shielding. That's a perfect recipe for invisible fires, and even assuming there is no fire, some points of the effective "micro grid" can be at a high enough potential to shock someone.

Neutral connection losses/resistances in multi-phase grids are even worse because these aren't just a threat under fault conditions - here, "normal" operating return current makes its way back to the actual neutral/ground via whatever path it can, and that may even include water pipes [1].

[1] https://www.tiktok.com/@ericandrade45/video/7051359949812731...

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#107
1996. I'm 14 years old. My best friend and I are obsessed with the new big game, Descent. My city suffers a massive freezing rain storm that coats everything in ice. Power is out almost everywhere. School is cancelled. My neighborhood, with underground power lines, is one of the few that still has power.

My best friend and I load up his computer -- CRT, peripherals and all -- in a plastic toboggan, and haul it (On foot! We were't driving yet!) about a mile over to my house, dodging foot long icicles falling from power lines all the way.

The glory that was a couple of junior high nerds turning a snow day into a LAN party.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#108
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First principles learning is critical for sure.

Being able to navigate first principles concepts and learning to use them gets to what's novel is more a little quicker.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was there too. I work in the game industry. That culture you're describing was completely destroyed by not having to leave the house to participate in it.

It's even killing off conventions, it even got major ones 20 years in - like E3. Covid just hastened the slow decline.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#110
post #42

Staff member of Lanwar.com here! We are still kicking it in Louisville, KY and encourage everyone to check us out! Our next event is Lanwar 72 Thursday, July 25, 2024, 12:00 PM EDT - Sunday, July 28, 2024, 12:00 PM EDT

Just tried to dig up the old LANWar video I have on my steam profile, looks like it's down [0] :{

Still have my CS:GO [1] "trophy" from 2012.

Was a great LAN, good people and nice setup(s). Thanks for still doing it.

[0]: http://video.smithville.net/lan-war-xxiii-player-and-rig-cov... [1]: https://i.imgur.com/p2EdyxH.jpeg

Post reply on HN