By request heres a chance for all of us to discuss LAN parties.

If your a gaming geek then chances are you have been to LAN party before, if you have not then I shall explain what it is:

LAN parties are when a group of friends bring their consoles, computers or both to one place...hook eachothers systems up on a Local Area Network and fight eachother on their own private multiplayer game

Unlike playing Multiplayer over the internet, at a LAN party you are playing with people you know and get along with. You also get to chat with those people across the room instead of having to type or use teamspeak and people also bring around fish and chips to eat plus lots of Coke, chocolate and coffee. Things you would normally have to get up and fetch yourself any other time.

Teamkilling noobs, asshats, laggers, racists, chauvanist harassers and other miscreants are extremely rare at LAN parties. Often you can spend an entire night at a LAN and not see a single one.

If they do appear you can walk across the room and knock their lights out.

And finaly the beauty of the Local Area Connection is its stable 100Mbs that does not randomly disconnect or lag.

But things arent all rosy as I will now explain

For computers

When setting up a computer LAN it is important to know that problems are common. There are always people who's computers dont comply with a certain standard and making a network isnt always easy.

I suggest these basic princibles:

-Stick with games you know will work

Theres no point spending 2 hours fixing network issues with a game you will likely spend just 15 minutes playing, its more fun playing one game that just works

-Setup the LAN network beforehand

Expect to be using the network setup wizard on alot of computers. Create a workgroup for people to join in once they arrive rather than leave them configuring windows for the first 30 minutes of the party. The sooner you get the network settings prepared, the better.

-invite a skilled network user

A second year IT student will do. You need someone to rely on when things just dont work. This can include yourself if you have the training.

-invite known gamers, not just anybody

Not everyone knows how to play this or that. The last thing you need is some random whining "this game sucks" because he has only been playing it for 10 seconds and then suggests you play a game you never even heard of. It more fun with just people you know.

-Always bring spare PC's if possible

Every now and then one person shows up without a computer, I know the pain of having to wait around for someone to let you have a turn while everyone else is blasting aliens. You can tell people as much as you like to bring their PC's but this still happens

If you have an able bodied PC to bring as a spare then bring it.


By following these guidelines, problems may be easier to manage but those problem still occur.

The most common I have seen are:

-Space

You will never host a Lan party in a kitchen dining room with one nearby wall socket. You want LOTS of space, and more than one place to plug your computers into. 8 computers attached to one wall socket is a fire risk (and potential game ruiner if one guy trips on the cord)

-Cable confusion

Some of the problems start with plugging things into the wrong place. Remind everyone to check where their wires go. Some people bring faulty cables. You can address that by bringing some spares.

-Lack of knowledge

Some people honestly dont know what to do in order to get their machine into the network and you will need to help them. Memorise the steps you took to get yourself connected and guide them through it. You should do this before the party starts with a little practice

Usualy most people have the same OS so that simplifies things

-Anti-piracy software

This is the biggest problem of all. Usualy you will be playing a LAN game with one legal copy and a list of CD keys. This worked for older games but today alot of games insist you have a legal copy for each person. Sadly very few people actualy carry the same game or even the same version of the game, there is not much you can do about this unless everyone really does have a copy. The best you can do is avoid this problem before it starts by planning the games in advance: ask people what they have and tell them what you want to use, search the net for the latest version of those games and put them on a USB disk. I dont recommend trying to bypass the security measures, waste of time.

For the console

Consoles are a bit easier to manage so long as you dont attempt to mix the Xboxes with PS3's

Most rules still apply but there are far less compatability issues you need to deal with

This time instead of keeping track of the network settings and workgroups, you just need to mind how many controllers and consoles will be availalbe.

Keep in mind that with consoles, software security is truly going to dominate you. You must have a legal copy of the game for each console. If one copy of the game goes missing, 2-4 people are effectively screwed.

Choosing between the two

Wether you want a PC or console LAN is up to your tastes but here are the pros and cons

PC pros:

-You get to show off your flash rig
-You can get a first hand preview on how a certain processor/video card performs if someone has it.
-You can trade media and music
-You have far more different games available to you
-Mouse and Keyboard
-Some of the best Lanning games are on the PC platform. (AVP2, CS1.6, Halo custom edition, UT99)

PC cons:

-Not all PC's run games perfectly
-Not all PC's talk nicely to eachother
-Network problems are common
-Getting a game to work can be complicated

Console pros:

-It just works
-More open to more people
-Consoles always run their games pefectly
-Consoles dont have trouble communicating with other consoles

Console cons:

-That bloody controller
-If one console fails, everyone on splitscreen fails. (one detached controller will freeze an entire team)
-Requires multiple copies of the same game
-Screenlooking is tempting

I will stop there for now, lets have some input. Any questions?
Anything someone wishes to add to this?

Awesome! I'll be sure to refer to this in the future.

Many of the cons for Consoles can be rather easily fixed, actually.

-Controller: Some people *shudder* actually prefer this archaic piece of plastic for their first person shootering. This is rather convenient and proves to be no problem for them. But, for the people that prefer a mouse and keyboard, there does seem to be a fix, at least for classic Xbox.

I have done some looking around and found a device called the Magic FPS something or other. I have yet to try them out, but I plan on getting one soon, will give a brief review of it here.

-Requires multiple copies: That can be a problem, but then again, if you can fit 2-4 people per console, you're not going to need many copies. It makes things easier.

-Console failure: This can definitely be a big problem, but thats the nice thing about consoles, not much can go wrong with them.
Plus, with a bit of looking around, you can probably find a spare xbox or ps2 for pretty cheap, what with the next gens out and all (got one with 2 controllers and cords for just $50, the next day I got another with nothing with it for only $10 ). Just throw a spare in the trunk and keep it there as backup.

-Screen peeking: We just slapped a team on each tv. There was plenty of screen peeking, but it was on our own teams. For the most part I was just watching in awe as my team mates expertly killed that team without even flinching.

Now, I have a question regarding Halo 2. We now have 3 xboxes in our house and a copy of Halo 2 to go with each of them (found some good deal ). So the question is, how many xboxes can be linked together for system link for Halo 2? I heard it was 4 max, but I wouldn't mind having my own screen some times. I just wouldn't want to bring extra stuffs only to find they are simply taking up extra space.

I dont think our Xbox LANS have gone over 4 either, I saw the network setup options for Xbox and im pretty sure I never saw "5" on the list of cross link options. The maximum number of players we ever had was 10 but I think all Xbox games can support 16 (4 players on 4 Xboxes)

The 360 might support more.

Hmm... I'll have to confirm this one way or another sometime then.

You can set up as many XBoxes as you want together (360's that is) on FM2 I know.

But that's so you can use them each (all have to have a copy of Forza 2) for a TV 360. Literally you can have a 20 TV setup in a 360 around you. Awesome....

My littlebrother, my dad and I play BW 2.0 on lan using our network. It r0xx0rz...

You've pretty much got it summed up nicely.

2 things I can add:

Your IT guru, MUST know/understand TCP/IP networking properly...when assigning IP addresses and masks he must know what he's doing...also for fault finding as firewalls can cause endless headaches!

and most important:
INSTALL A GOOD UP-TO-DATE ANTIVIRUS BEFORE going to a LAN party
it's amazing how many people do not bother, then wonder why their pc keeps crashing!

I run lan parties about every month or so when I can, and they tend to be in the 10-man range. Usually go pretty well, though the games tend to sick to HL2DM and CSS, mostly because they scale really well, so people on any decent PC can run them, and because the netcode is great, flexible, and doesn't require too much goofing around with windows.

Is it too much diffuculty getting a LAN game running with steam? I thought it would be a bit of a hassle.

No, but it's a bonus if you have a broadband connection available for your lan guests (a good dedicated firewall helps control them!)
They can run steam in offline mode, but to play the games they need to have an up-to-date full cache of the games they are going to play! this can cause hassels if someone is not waware fo this before hand...

Yeah, I've only had problems with steam games at a lan once. Oneof my friends got his account deactivated. His brother no doubt. I know he spoits and suspect he hacks. Anyways, he couldn't read the internet at our place for some reason, though he could read other computers just fine. Normally he could start in offline mode, but since his account is invalid, that wouldn't work. And I couldn't log him in to my account since he couldn't read the internet.

But other than that incident, steam hasn't given us any trouble for lans.

We'd do UT2k4 with BW more, but UT is a way bigger pain to install for people who don't have it, and the netcode isn't as good.

Games so huge in file size are always a pain to have to pass around the room. Thats why organising the software is wise.

me like LAN parties

we have up to 4 of us these days, but i still really like the 8 player UT99 matches with cyberax we had years ago

and TCP/IP problems, firewalls, and anti-virus stuff always takes us a while to get right before we can start

never played on net, but i heard it's packed with jerks no offense

Now that was FUN !
Also the good old Heretic2 Blade matches...and who can forget the chickens in that

mmmm....time for some more me thinks....

Heretic?

Is that the game where you carry mystical wands and crossbows and slay demons and evil spirits etc?

I remember a feature item in that game that turned soulless automata into chickens. Hilarious.

Possessed human: "GROOOAAAR".....*wooosh*....."Puck, Puck Puckaaww!"

Yes...and yes...and
OH YEAH...it's a LOT of FUN in a lan game

One more pro for computer lan parties: number of pixels. Consider 4 people, each with a standard 1280x1024 resolution monitor. Now, compare that to one quadrant of a standard TV (I think it's around 640x480). If my specs are correct, then the computer guys have 16 times the pixels that the console guys get. If the console is hooked up to a high def tv, then maybe computer guys only 4x more pixels. Now, when you consider my bro with his 2000x1600 res monitor, that's a another story that causes me no small amount of envy (-:

I'll bet. I've got a pretty decent monitor myself, though my brother in a fit of stupidity hit it with an airsoft gun, so now I've got a cluster of dead pixels about a centimeter from my crosshairs. Grrr. . .

My personal favorite LAN game of all time: Deus Ex Multiplayer w/ Shifter 1.8 Beta4.

iv only ben to a lan party once and that was with counter strike source