The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#111

Post by genewitch » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:16 PM UTC

derwiki wrote: post #60

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?

i was the tech support at every lan party. I think i got relegated to that role because i could whip everyone at starcraft and counterstrike (for instance), so it was usually 3-4 hours of me quickly fixing everyone's network stack and replacing cables, then setting up my computer to join in the fun.

After drinking age we didn't LAN party much anymore, but i would host poker nights with two tables full of people. Less tech support, and i still whipped everyone.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#112

Post by genewitch » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #50

$70/month 512Kbps SDSL from Verio/NTT at Davis CA enabled our LAN party flop house. 7 ms to Stanford.

i had both 768kb and 384kb sdsl in los angeles, and we had 4ms ping to most servers, we got accused of being bots so much. 4.2.0.0/16 ;-)

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#113

Post by genewitch » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:20 PM UTC

t0bia_s wrote: post #74

Since 2015 we occasionally have LAN party with 4-5 friends. Usually we play Titan Quest, however we cannot finish it. They still make updates and new expansions!

i've tried to beat that game a half dozen times on 3 different platforms. My latest save is on a Switch, even.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#114

Post by genewitch » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:25 PM UTC

holoduke wrote: post #6

I loved lan parties. Putting all my heavy gear in my cheap old little car. Big ass 19 inch crt and a big tower full of useless buttons and knobs. Spend the entire day and evening setting everything up. Of course everything broke to the point windows had to be reinstalled. Driver issues, network issues, hardware issues. But then finally at 1am we started playing serious sam, unreal tournament, dune 2000, 1nsane, moha,…

always had that one friend who bought a tower case with a handle on it, and the other friend that had a little handcart for their CRT and tower.

I bought a silverstone desktop case (like a 4U but the same size as a midsize tower laid down, so not as "long") that i would bring to LAN parties. That held a large variety of machines until they started requiring larger (longer) PSUs. I wonder if i still have that case in a closet somewhere.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#115

Post by genewitch » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

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.

No LAN mode but on PC the "host" actually hosts the game (not sure how they do TURN/STUN but it does work most of the time), so if you have all four people in the same building it should run as though it's LAN. There are server side checks for the items you find in the game so it has to run partially through a central server.

battlefield bad company 2 is a similar experience to helldivers 2, IMO, and that is LAN-able.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#116

Post by Joe_Cool » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 11:59 PM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #115

Joe_Cool wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No LAN mode but on PC the "host" actually hosts the game (not sure how they do TURN/STUN but it does work most of the time), so if you have all four people in the same building it should run as though it's LAN. There are server side checks for the items you find in the game so it has to run partially through a central server. battlefield bad company 2 is a similar experience to helldivers 2, IMO, and that is LAN-able…

Bad Company is a staple at our LANs, you need a server emulator though. It's really fun when a few dozen people are playing.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#117

Post by Joe_Cool » Fri, Apr 26, 2024, 12:01 AM UTC

thesnide wrote: post #26

Another thing that DRM (and always online) killed... Being online just hasn't the same feeling when you could hear screaming within earshot when your plan executed to perfection... I miss the raw simplicity of IPX. Not the NE2000 IRQ hell, though

Good thing those old games are still just as fun today ;)

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#118

Post by xtiansimon » Fri, Apr 26, 2024, 3:19 AM UTC

A friend setup RedHat 2 server to run NAT server so my housemate and I could share a DSL modem c1997. And the LAN let us play Marathon and Myth between our Macs. Weekly games ensued for a time.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#119

Post by IIsi50MHz » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 2:19 AM UTC

freilanzer wrote: post #101

yesimahuman wrote: post #9

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.

Seems to be an instruction for people who are playing over internet, not a LAN.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the LAN Party

#120

Post by Lammy » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 9:42 AM UTC

gorbypark wrote: post #99

TacticalCoder wrote: post #52

> 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…

Not quite the same, but I used to play Duke Nukes 3D (iirc) with my friend over a direct modem link (like my modem would call his, no ISP involved). I don't remember the exact details, but playing over the proper internet was more or less unplayable with our 33.6 modems, but the direct connection worked pretty well!

Starcraft supported direct-dial too and a friend and I played it that way all the time.