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LAN Parties
Being Friday week starts off a 3 day weekend for me (Teachers Only Day), I have decided to run a LAN party of sorts. I'm kind of a noob and it will be pretty low tech.
I imagine that many of the members of this forum must have attended a LAN party at one stage or another.
So I have some things I would like to know:
What games work best? What food and drink is best? etc.
Should I have other things running? (Video Games, Music etc.)
Basically I would just like to know how to run a LAN party that would be fun for all.
I imagine that many of the members of this forum must have attended a LAN party at one stage or another.
So I have some things I would like to know:
What games work best? What food and drink is best? etc.
Should I have other things running? (Video Games, Music etc.)
Basically I would just like to know how to run a LAN party that would be fun for all.
Comments
Make sure that people in opposing teams aren't sat next to each other (this applies more for RTSs).
Make sure you don't let people copy files while games are in progress (unless everyone's packing gigabit).
Stick mostly to stuff like pizza for snacks, a few decent meals will keep the slow feed of energy going as opposed to a bunch sugar rushes.
Bring lots of spare LAN cables and tell everyone to bring an extension cable with at least 3 sockets (one for PC, one for monitor, one to daisy chain onto the next guy). Don't turn on all your computers at once unless you are doing so deliberately.
Leave at least an hour and a half for everyone to get their crap sorted out and realize they haven't got half the games you're going to be playing.
If anyone in (or can get to) Leeds is interested, I have a 24 port switch handy so we could set something up.
Oh, and welcome to the forums, we're going to bring you to your, na na na nanana knees knees!
Sorry, I am in a highly caffeinated state.
I preferably play FPSs because there would be a lot of shouting and taunting going on, its good fun.
Also what are your game selections?
Y'know the basics.
While impromptu LAN parties aren't a bad thing, a lack of planning IS. Make sure everyone knows what they are expected to bring, not only PC-wise, but also food-, drink-, and personal-wise.
Let's take the major items in turn:
How many people are going to be coming? You're going to need to make sure that you have enough space (i.e. card tables), network ports, and power plugs to go around.
How are you going to network it all together? If it's a small group then you can probably get away with hooking an 8-port switch into your router and the let everyone plug into that for network and internet connectivity.
Make sure everyone brings their own PC supplies: copies of the games you're playing, their own CAT5 cable (minimum of 12 feet long, 24 might be better), PC, monitor, mouse, keyboard, power strip, and headphones. Yes, headphones. No speakers. You don't want to be hearing the guy next to you blaring ABBA while you're playing Quake2, right?
Make sure everyone has some sort of anti-virus software on their PC and that it is up to date. You don't want to end up with some kind of virus from the twit who infected his PC while looking for the latest pr0n.
When hooking up the power, DO NOT daisy-chain the strips together. If you have to, have one main strip and then have everyone plug into that. If you do daisy-chain them all together in sequence then inevitably there will be someone who has to leave and their power strip will be the one at the beginning of the chain.
Decide well ahead of time what games you're going to be playing so that everyone can patch their stuff to the latest version before the get to the party. Nothing is worse than having to wait for half the group to download and install updates, or for someone to be left out of a session because they didn't know you were going to play a specific game.
FPS and RTS games usually work best for this sort of thing. You might be able to get away with some multiplayer Baldur's Gate 2 or Diablo 2 if everyone is RPG-minded, but don't count on it. Stick to the old reliable classics - Quake, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament. Starcraft, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations. You get the idea. Be sure to have a variety - just because you rock the house in Team Fortress or Natural Selection doesn't mean everyone else is going to want to play it.
As for Console Games, have something set up that everyone can enjoy and can jump in and out of. Guitar Hero or Rock Band fit the bill quite nicely on this front. Mario Kart and Wii Sports are good ones too.
Food is another thing people need to agree upon beforehand. Everyone should chip in on the food, be it through bringing a couple bags of chips or 2-liters of soda, or by everyone chipping in on pizza (or chinese, or what-have you).
Personal-wise, is this thing going to be a multi-day event (a la the Visigoths coming to visit Scrym)? If so, are people staying at your place or are they going home in-between gaming days? You're going to need space for people to crash if they're staying at your place. Also, if it's an overnight, it's a good idea to have some kind of a plan for breakfast, even if it is only "walk your sorry ass down to Denny's after you get up".
I recommend getting an 3.5 jack to RCA cable and hook a laptop up to any nearby sound system, it stops each person having their own music in their headphones and not being able to hear when you need to tell them things.
Also consider people who will be turning up without tower PCs (as in, just along to hang out), have a sofa they can hang out on with their laptop.
If anyone has a CRT, try and get them to ask someone else to borrow a TFT. This applies especially if you are using a kitchen table with screens back to back.
24-port switches are a godsend, as are CAT 6 cables. If you can make your own, excellent. Otherwise buy them from some bulk online store.
If people have headphones that aren't noise-canceling (like SR-60's), that's fine. Otherwise, go with speakers turned down low.
What we usually do at The Gent's Club is:
3:00 - 5:00: People come over, set up, play some short games (Worms Armageddon, Cultris, Soldat, UT2004, Armagetron).
5:00 - 7:30: Start playing longer games, such as Wh40k: Dawn of War, sometimes a 5v5 Team Fortress Pyro (Sadly, it comes down to this), DoTA, SmOTA, or other Warcraft III maps.
7:30 - 8:30: We all pack into cars and go to the local Chipotle. Mmm, delicious. Afterwards we go to a local pie place for dessert.
8:30 - 1:00: We continue playing games, including UT2004, TF2, Warcraft III (Mods), and such. We have a long-running game of Sins of a Solar Empire, as well as a super-long-running game of Civ 4.
RULES:
Make sure that people agree on what game to play. We use a simply majority vote. The minority must play the game, unless it unbalances the teams. Speaking of, make sure you know people's skill levels so that you can balance teams. We generally go with "Table Teams" - each team gets a separate table / room, so they can talk strategy.
Vary the games. People are good at different types of games. A DoTA god might suck at UT2004. Give everyone their moment in the sun. Also, don't play games that last over 1.5 hours, they tend to get boring.
If people are Hamachi-ing in, make sure one or more people on-site have Ventrilo/Teamspeak open, and communicate with the external players. Don't leave them out, unless the teams are unbalanced. Then on-site people have priority.
Hmm, what else?
If some people are angry, convince the group to play a game they like next. And never, EVER leave a game because you are losing. EVER.
P.S. If people have DS's, bring them. They are good to have when the inevitable tech support needs to be done.
Anyways
Me and my friends are RPG nuts and thus normally we get a bit further on Neverwinter Nights each time.Also we fall back on the RTS classics, such as Dawn of War and Rise of Nations. But the fun gets going when it turns into UT 2004 5v5 matches
But will we ever finish that Civ game (bets on space win for me
Now, that's episodic.
EDIT: Crap, necropost. Please disregard. >_
It's better to play the latest expansion for it, Soulstorm. If you're playing the original, especially if you don't patch it well, the balance isn't great. Balance in DoW has come a long way.
As such, what you should do is install Soulstorm, then do the registry hack that makes it think you have all the games installed and lets you have all 9 races in multiplayer.
Also, if you're going to have any bots in a Dawn of War game, always get the AI mod, it's much more intelligent.
SS Race Unlocker
Dawn of War Skirmish AI mod
Community Map Packs 1-4 for DoW (may be better to get these separately)
Also, does anyone want to talk about DoW (though I'd rather play it than discuss it)?