On LAN Parties
I’ve been involved with the Gamers of OSU for the last five years, four of those as an officer, three as president. Yesterday, I helped host what was in all likelihood my last LAN party as an officer due to my upcoming graduation. It’s a weird feeling. It’s something I love doing, but something that is a frustrating endeavor that barely pays off 7 times out of 10.
I’ve seen LANs of 30 people, and LANs of 3 people. I walked into the scene in the aftermath of World of Warcraft‘s decimation of not just our group, but organized LANs everywhere. I kept thinking that the next big FPS would turn things around, and a dozen ‘œnext big things” later the scene is still on life support. Hell, we wouldn’t be able to keep going if OSU didn’t let us use some of its facilities for free.
But as I’m reflecting on this occasion I have some thoughts from a half decade of experience:
1. Quake 3 is still the best deathmatch game ever made. I’d say for FFA or CTF it would be UT2K4. The Call of Duty games are great, but there is just something about those two games.
2. id Software REALLY screwed up with Quake 4. I know dozens of guys who either upgraded or, like myself, built whole new rigs in anticipation of what we thought would be the next big thing in PC gaming. And for a few months it was. We held tournaments, and everyone tried to keep an open mind (‘œWell, it’s pretty much Quake 3 with better graphics.’) but we just couldn’t keep supporting a game that had dropped to a couple dozen empty servers at any given time.
3. Seriously, who comes to a LAN and plays WoW? If we didn’t need your $5 from the door we would have kicked your asses out. Playing for 30 minutes while people are running out to grab lunch is fine, but to come to a LAN and only play WoW, what’s the point? You aren’t playing with us, and we don’t need you making our power layout more complicated.
4. Never leave your PC unlocked, or when you come back from lunch your desktop will be goatse.
5. If you make a big deal of a game (console or PC) during the planning stages of a LAN, you better fucking show up to play it. Nothing is more frustrating than people telling you how great it is to play Rock Band at a LAN (which it is, as a side thing), then after you haul it all out two guys play it for 15 minutes while their friend runs to Subway.
6. The Left 4 Dead games are two of the best games today for the state most LANs are in, because you should be able to find 8, or at least 4 people to play versus.
7. No matter who they are, they will play in a hastily thrown together Soul Calibur tournament.
8. People talk about how cool it is to see obscure stuff like an Atari Jaguar or 3DO at a LAN, but then spend all afternoon playing Smash Bros.
9. Always keep ISOs for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Star Wars: Jedi Academy around. Everyone can run them, they don’t take long to install, and they always seem to be a big hit.
10. Never underestimate the unintended spin-offs. DotA, various Tower Ds, and Garry’s Mod are always fun. Often more-so than the triple A title that came out last week.
11. If you don’t do it, no one will. Whether it’s advertising, getting the room or set up, make sure you only trust people who you know you can count on. The majority of people, even close friends, will flake on you at some point, so plan on doing it yourself, even if someone promises to be there at 9:00 a.m. setting up with you.
12. Everyone loves a good Quakecon story. And no, I don’t mean about the matches (unless they are amazingly bad). Stories of people uninstalling Quake 3 so they can steal more porn. Stories of being scrubbed out of the tournament -2 to 32. Stories of seeing your friend talk a stripper into giving him a lap dance for a used, losing, out of state scratch off lottery ticket. I once heard someone say, ‘œQuakecon? That place is awesome! I got robbed at knife-point down there last year!’
I’m sure I could come up with more, but that’s enough for now.
Wow, that looks like a LOT of fun dude.
Lou
If there was some button I could press that would make me appreciate this article more than I already do, I’d be slamming my thumb on it. I used to go to a LAN center about a block away from my house. It was called IJAG, or “It’s Just A Game”. Tons of people playing Counter Strike 1.6, Desert Combat, and of course, the occasional MOHAA match. This was all in 2004, though. I haven’t been to a LAN since then, but man alive, that was the best year of gaming in my life.
You didn’t mention Counter Strike… Are you actually able to play Quake 3 at LAN parties? I’ve completely stopped going to LAN parties years ago, because I inevitably end up in a room filled with 90% Counter Strike playing douchebags who have no idea how to play a real game… They will literally swear on their Grandma’s grave that a game where you spend most of the time waiting to respawn in between cries of “you fucking noob” while 2 dickheads are playing hide and seek on a huge map is their idea of fun. Fucking amateurs.
9. Always keep ISOs for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Star Wars: Jedi Academy around. Everyone can run them, they don’t take long to install, and they always seem to be a big hit.
That sounds like piracy! I’m telling!
On the Counter Strike comment, yes, there were always people asking for that, but we ignored them or agreed to play on the condition that it would be Gun Game. Really Gun Game should have been under the 10th bullet point too.
On piracy, at least a couple people remember to bring their old discs, but most people forget either the game or CD key, so it’s easier to have copies to get multiplayer going. Officially we don’t condone piracy, but it’s useful to the point where it borders on a necessity for LANs.
CHANGE YOUR MOTHER FUCKING BACKGROUND IT MAKES MY EYES WANT TO JUMP OUT OF MY SKULL AND STAB THEIR SOCKETS UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT BUT A BLOODY PULP. YOUR BACKGROUND IS ALMOST AS ANNOYING AS WHEN PEOPLE TYPE IN ALL CAPS YOU FUCKING RETARDS.
My absolute favorite LAN game was UT2K4, specifically the Bombing Run gameplay mode. Only bad part was getting people to play with. :P
Quake 4 was written by Raven, the people who did Heretic and Hexen.
I know Quake 4 was Raven, but it still doesn’t excuse them from letting something that was so highly anticipated and had at least 4 years in development come out so, well, average.
The only problem is that OSU sucks when compared to schools like PSU – especially in the LAN party arena.
Great article. If I were to add 1 point at the end, it would be that LANs are great, but only in moderation. We have a group down here in SoCal that has been organizing a 30 to 60-seat annual LAN for something like 13-14 years now, and one of the keys that has kept us going is the frequency. When we first started, trying to host a LAN once a month, or even just once a quarter, sounded like a blast until we tried it in practice, but the interest just wasn’t there and our organizers just ended up getting burnt out. As we grew up, finished school, got jobs/families, etc., it became obvious through trial-and-error that once a year was the sweet spot, and we’ve been largely successful at pulling off at least 1 great 3-day event every year since.
College LANs are a great bonding experience and jumping-off point. After you and your friends start to graduate, move on, get jobs, and get lives in general, keep that torch lit! ‘Getting a life’ often involves a steady paycheck and disposable income that, as a group, can turn into a pretty awesome and collectively cheap 2-3 day vacation every year doing something we all love.
This is a great read!
WHOA! I read this whole thing, grinning a fools grin. I am entering my third year as officer, second as president in (an association dedicated to gaming and videogames in general). The business is bitter, and the payoffs are not complementing the taste; but I still do it even though everything falls apart, and I end up reinstalling games I don’t like. I go on even though nothing is what it was supposed to be; delusions of grandeur flipped and turned against myself, the cold hard truth: No one cares enough. I still do it, I will keep doing it, (for two more years at least), and it is nice to see someone feels the same!
Great read, friend!
7: We called those “funnaments”, and had a different unnanounced game for every round. It’s just great to be able to beat the best quake player of the party (who threw you out of the tournament 32 to -2) into a bloody pulp in mortal kombat :D
And: getting an energy drink manufacturer to sponsor your LAN party is a big plus.