If you play enough online or multiplayer computer games, eventually you will hear about LAN Parties but you may not know what people are talking about. Many people think these games are the domain of the 15-25 year old age group but I am 42 and I participate/host in LAN Parties several times a year. Of course, some of it may be the little boy in me trying to come out but people older than me are in our group of regulars. Let me tell you what a LAN Party is and how it works.

With the Internet many people will play computer games on Websites and Internet servers with other players from all over the world. The types of games vary as much as the people playing them. There are card games, board games, flight simulation games, role-playing games, strategy games and action games all over the Web. Many software companies have built features into their games to allow people to play on a network or across the Internet. Some games require you to connect to a multi-user Internet server to play.

While playing games from your home PC against a person instead of your computer is often better than playing alone, it still lacks direct human interaction other than a few short message typed into the computer. This is where LAN Parties gain their popularity. When people host a LAN Party, they invite a number of people to come together to play with them. The parties are usually BYOC: Bring Your Own Computer.

Here is how it works. The host will provide a location, a server, tables, chairs, power and some basic network equipment. The players will bring their computer usually with a network card already in it. My group will usually set a time like 9:00am to show up on a Saturday or other day we are all off work. Many of the younger crowds may start later and play a lot later. We will begin setting up our PCs and connecting them to the network switch that makes up the LAN (Local Area Network) and make sure that the LAN works. This is why it is called a LAN Party.

Of course, we setup our refreshments by our computers so we don’t have to get up from the game too often. My group likes playing a fast action game named Unreal Tournament 2004 (gamers pronounce it “UT ‘04”). By about 10:00am we are ready to start. Someone is usually the server master who sets up the server to control the game, in our case that would be me. I start up UT ’04 on the server and set the game parameters such as the number of players, type of game (we like “Capture The Flag”), maps or game scenario, etc. Once the server is up and running, everyone starts their game up and joins into the server so we can play with each other. Usually we are divided into teams and try different strategies while talking to our teammates or give taunts to our opponents.

Playing against people you know and can talk to while you play really adds some new excitement to the games. Many of these games will keep various statistics about who won the different matches and much more information. For instance, Unreal Tournament will score a lot of different aspects of the game such as flag captures, flag recoveries, weapons proficiency, etc. It then generates a large set of Web pages to show you all of these statistics with graphs and much more. Our group will usually play until around 4-6pm without taking too many breaks. Although our group usually doesn’t award prizes for best players, some large LAN Parties will charge a small fee to play that they use for prizes. Some larger professionally managed LAN Parties or Tournaments may have prizes reaching into the thousands of dollars.

Anyone interested in joining a LAN Party?