How many people actually use the lan option in games?

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tybert7

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It seems to me that the vast majority of players could care less. I have played lan games in the past, notably the original starcraft, but it is really not a big deal to not have it. So long as the online service and venue to hook up and create games is robust enough it is a non issue.


The objections seem pathetic.


Need to be online.... most people are who play computer games, particularly newer games. Ever since I first got broadband I have ALWAYS been online at all times. Useless objection for MOST people MOST of the time.

the situations of man bites dog where the internet is down is just that, it is almost as rare as having the power out at this point unless you live out in the sticks or back country somewhere. And if you live there... move.
 
I know people who basically played Starcraft and Warcraft 3 exclusively on LAN. I figure LAN is for more social people.
 
I haven't used the LAN option in a game since playing Unreal and Warcraft 3 in my high school computer class.
 
tybert7 said:
It seems to me that the vast majority of players could care less. I have played lan games in the past, notably the original starcraft, but it is really not a big deal to not have it. So long as the online service and venue to hook up and create games is robust enough it is a non issue.


The objections seem pathetic.


Need to be online.... most people are who play computer games, particularly newer games. Ever since I first got broadband I have ALWAYS been online at all times. Useless objection for MOST people MOST of the time.

the situations of man bites dog where the internet is down is just that, it is almost as rare as having the power out at this point unless you live out in the sticks or back country somewhere. And if you live there... move.
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So...I should move country because you don't think LANs are worth bothering with anymore, just because your country has stable, fast and affordable internet?

Pull your head out of your arse.
 
LAN is a useful option if you are going to go to a LAN party, where you and your closest 50 - 100 friends are going to be playing games together. Even more so when said location doesn't have a good Internet connection. Even better so that you don't have to pay for a series of dedicated servers for the weekend, which will drive up the cost of the LAN Party.
 
All the time. We have 4 computers capable of gaming in the house and the kids and I, and sometimes the wife play together over lan. Though I do agree it is becoming an option far less used than it used to be. However, it's not like it's a big deal to add lan support to a game that already has mp internet and local server or dedicated server support.

OP, What's pathetic is you not seeing how this no lan support or dedicated server support has negatively affected PC gaming in general over the last few years. Instead of the, Q3, UT2k4, TF2, model, we are moving towards the MW2 model. If you think that is a good thing, you prolly work for Activision, or Ubi Soft, or the like. By the time MW2 is done with it's fans it will have cost them $120 or more. (game $60, + I am guessing, 3 - 4 expansions with only 3 - 4 maps each, at $15 to 20 a pop). This is what settling for a little less here and a little less there gets you. If you are cool with that fine, but don't tell us our arguments are pathetic just because you don't mind taking the high hard one.
 
I haven't used LAN since the last time I actually had/went to a LAN party and that was probably 6 years ago. It was fun but unless there is a big reason (prizes) to go and a bunch of friends it's pointless to lug this giant fucker around.
 
I game on a LAN almost weekly. I have a couple of buddies that come over and bring their laptops to play various games. The real nice thing about the LAN option is going outside, setting up an adhoc wireless network and playing some games while getting fresh air. That's just one example of good LAN use.

I haven't been to a LAN party in awhile but the small ones I went to didn't always have great internet. I'd hate for that to be one more reason to toss the LAN party idea. It's hard enough to get people to lug there monster PCs around.
 
Just about the only time I play multiplayer games any more is at LAN parties with friends. If the game doesn't have LAN support or an easy way to connect with friends via web server, it doesn't get played.

I wouldn't say LAN mode is an absolute must, but in general connectivity for pc games does seem to be getting worse lately, not better. It seems really bizarre that so many game devs are screwing this up lately when many (often even the same companies) had it working perfectly just a few years ago. How hard could it possibly be to just stick to the old system that wasn't broken. :p
 
I always use it for local play if the option is available. Why deal with all the issues of remote hosting (like firewall holes, user accounts, etc) when you can just connect directly to the other host on the LAN?

I have three systems setup at home from gaming with family/friends and LAN play is a great feature.
 
I do less LANing these days, but having a computer out on my family room tv then my gaming rig LAN would be a liked feature, when friends come over there's two computers set up for LAN and some bring their laptops over too so there's always a need for a LAN feature. it's not needed as much as it used to but it's still a viable feature imo.
 
Last time I lanned was with a big meetup with my Tribes clan.

That was in like '99.
 
tybert7 said:
the situations of man bites dog where the internet is down is just that, it is almost as rare as having the power out at this point unless you live out in the sticks or back country somewhere. And if you live there... move.
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I use to live in Alpharetta GA, and anytime it rained, comcast internet would go out.

Just the time you want to stay in and play a game, rainy day. BAM no internet. And Alpharetta is no small back country town.

Your points are moot
 
I love the option to play LAN games, especially on RTS games -- C&C4 not having LAN is a tragedy.
 
tybert7 said:
It seems to me that the vast majority of players could care less. I have played lan games in the past, notably the original starcraft, but it is really not a big deal to not have it. So long as the online service and venue to hook up and create games is robust enough it is a non issue.


The objections seem pathetic.


Need to be online.... most people are who play computer games, particularly newer games. Ever since I first got broadband I have ALWAYS been online at all times. Useless objection for MOST people MOST of the time.

the situations of man bites dog where the internet is down is just that, it is almost as rare as having the power out at this point unless you live out in the sticks or back country somewhere. And if you live there... move.
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What a dumb post. Just because you don't use LAN does not mean others do not as well. Reminds me of the same dumb posts console fanboys make about why dedicated servers are not needed.
 
tybert7 said:
Need to be online.... most people are who play computer games, particularly newer games. Ever since I first got broadband I have ALWAYS been online at all times. Useless objection for MOST people MOST of the time.

the situations of man bites dog where the internet is down is just that, it is almost as rare as having the power out at this point unless you live out in the sticks or back country somewhere. And if you live there... move.
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Where do I move to when the authentication servers go down?

Oh snap.
 
I lan with my wife on occassion and my internet does go down the odd time. so yes, lan is important to me. if i want to game with someone under the same roof why should i have to rely on my broadband connection?

outages may be rare, but things can happen. isp gateways fail, ddos attacks, authentication servers go down (as mentioned above). but with lan play, your only possible failing point is your own network and hardware.
 
Majinhoju said:
if i want to game with someone under the same roof why should i have to rely on my broadband connection?
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Especially with caps on bandwidth, I have never hit comcast's 250 GB cap, but i'm sure i could if i hosted lan parties all the time
 
Majinhoju said:
outages may be rare, but things can happen
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Just NB: I mentioned authentication servers going down because that very thing happened with AC2 just recently, directly after all kinds of talk about how it won't happen, "get better internet" etc.
 
The op might not be the most sensitive guy in the world but he touches on a key issue. Devs don't really support it well becuase frankly not many people use it. Even the posts above talk about the last LAN part they went to was like 5 and six years ago. Now they are few and far between. RTS I see the issue more than with any other type of game. But still if there was a strong LAN scene and people shouted for this feature it would be there. It simply is not being used enough in new games and therefore won't be in future games.
 
Here's a scenario for the LAN naysayers. What happens when you're at a LAN (which really isn't a LAN because you have to go through an internet connection to play the "LAN" game) and someone shows up late who then needs to get a nice big patch to match the version of the game the other people already have? All of a sudden your game(s) are shot to hell because of the load on the net connection.

I don't know about anyone else, but I've been to a number of LANs where a decent amount of patching for different games was needed in order to get everyone on the same version of each game. On top of that, there were other things such as driver updates which needed to be done because the newer version of the game didn't like the driver the person had installed.

Here's another scenario. What happens if you're trying to play a LAN game over the internet and you don't have a high end line? You know for those reasons such as local availability, lack of competition for internet providers in the area and other reasons. You now have several people trying to play a LAN game through the internet connection but it goes to shit because the best line you could get can't handle the traffic.

Yet another scenario. What happens when the servers you are connected to in order to play the game go to shit? The game drops off or the server gets laggy or a myriad of other problems. With a real LAN connection you don't have to worry about outside influences like that. I'm sure just about anyone who has played an online game knows exactly what I'm talking about. Any time you add another link in the chain to do something like this increases the chances of something going wrong. Increasing the number of points of failure for no reason is nothing but stupid.

 
I do. I've got quite a few computers at home that are capable of playing games with good performance, so I have friends come over and play games with me all the time. My girlfriend and I also play LAN games together when we have the time.

LAN options are not necessarily required, but i take advantage of them when they are there.
 
I don't generally play games online with other people. I either play single player, or I play on a LAN. Basically, if I'm going to play a multiplayer game, it's going to be with friends. Occasionally we'll play online, but most of the time not.
 
Consider also another use of the LAN setting: Tunneling. Some need to tunnel out to get around content controls place by say, their university. When I was at school years ago (We did have actual LAN parties by the way), there was a 6 month period of time where the entire student body was furious because IT blocked the traffic necessary to connect to outside servers. Thankfully, the CS/IS students set up internal servers for many of the major titles of the time, but if you wanted to play with someone off campus, using a service like Hamachi was one of the only ways to do so.

Even today, LAN mode allows tunneling which is useful very frequently for a variety of usages, especially running an "Off the grid" game session - lets say I have someone new and not very good at a game. They want to play JUST with me, in a controlled environment (ie my server) to get the hang of it, or even the hang of playing multiplayer at all. Now, either I could pay for and set up my own dedicated server apparatus, get it loaded onto the official browser, lock it down so that nobody else can join (depending on the game this may not even be possible for an official server) and tweak it for my use, then ask my friend to to go into multiplayer, set up an account, find my server, find me, log in via the password and play. If the game is something modern that doesn't allow dedicated servers, then I'm even more up the creek.

Or I can set up a game over tunneling protocol, tell them to double click Hamachi, go into their game, click LAN, click on the only game/server they see which is named "JESS COME PLAY HERE", and we're in.

LAN is not obsolete yet and it should be included in every game. Its simple and helpful.
 
Dan_D said:
I've been there and done all of that many times. Though I'm the smart one and I get my shit in order before going to a LAN event.
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Same here, but that's beside the point. I was also smart enough to save all patches (I don't like in game patching) so they could be copied and installed much quicker than having to download them from the internet. I also kept multiple drivers handy for video cards as I hated waiting on a download if I had another system I was working on which needed a different video driver. I don't really LAN anymore but I still keep a rather large directory with patches, driver updates and all kinds of other software as backups in case internet access is down plus it's quicker just to grab the stuff off my network.

Even then, there was still a lot of patching and other updates to do as I didn't have all the same games as everyone else. I'm definitely not going to be storing multiple patches for games I don't even own, much less play.
 
My Dorm in highschool (I went to a boarding school) used LAN exclusively since they closed all the gaming ports.

My Dorm in college used LAN very often.

When my friends come over to my apartment now we use LAN.
 
I use LAN functionality almost every week. I like to play games w/ my kids, ages 3 and 8. I prefer to host the games offline, and connect via LAN. This is for CS:S, COD, Demigod, Titan Quest currently. For me, no LAN (F.U. to MW2 for this) makes me not want to play the game.

I do see why they are dropping LAN functionality though, as traditionally many people used it to play 'evaluation' copies of a game w/ their friends.
 
The repair shop i work at hold a 20 man LAN every 3 months. I also use LAN mode almost every other day playing with roommates - if the Game doesn't have LAN play we don't buy it.
Standpoint said:
I do see why they are dropping LAN functionality though, as traditionally many people used it to play 'evaluation' copies of a game w/ their friends.
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Back in the day when companies still made LAN spawns I bought many a game after playing it LAN. Companies are so paranoid about having the games pirated that they no longer focus on making people want to buy their games. I see people buying games after playing "LAN' versions constantly nowadays too. I know that's anecdotal but it still represents part of human nature - we tend to throw money at things we like (games, booze, women, cars) and stick it to things we don't like (the man, assholes, idiots, overbearing organizations)
 
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darkpaw said:
I always use it for local play if the option is available. Why deal with all the issues of remote hosting (like firewall holes, user accounts, etc) when you can just connect directly to the other host on the LAN?

I have three systems setup at home from gaming with family/friends and LAN play is a great feature.
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I agree! I use LAN capabilities every weekend. I have 4 computers ready to go now. 3 was okay, but then my wife and I could only have 1 friend over to play without needing another computer. Now, 2 friends can play and it's no trouble. Having 4 gaming-capable computers makes LANs a reality every weekend.

You just can't beat having a room of 6-8 people playing an RTS. 4 is ideal for newbies when you ally up against the AI bots.
 
Agent.Nihilist said:
The repair shop i work at hold a 20 man LAN every 3 months. I also use LAN mode almost every other day playing with roommates - if the Game doesn't have LAN play we don't buy it.

Back in the day when companies still made LAN spawns I bought many a game after playing it LAN. Companies are so paranoid about having the games pirated that they no longer focus on making people want to buy their games. I see people buying games after playing "LAN' versions constantly nowadays too. I know that's anecdotal but it still represents part of human nature - we tend to throw money at things we like (games, booze, women, cars) and stick it to things we don't like (the man, assholes, idiots, overbearing organizations)
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I agree, and this is one reason I love Stardock. They included LAN in Demigod, and I know a few people who bought the game after playing it at a LAN.
 
since it's no longer an option in most games, I no longer use it, but MANY was the time we'd have a little informal gathering, hunked down in the mancaves across America, and let me tell you, we hooked our PC's up to a switch, and had all-night sessions of fragfest fun.

Those days all but gone for me, replaced by the fact you can use the power of broadband and dedicated servers to have the same technological experience, but it does NOT replace the social experience in any way, shape or form. I know you guys can point to voice chat, but that's not really the same thing as knocking some cold ones and having pizza or takeout and bullshitting between games with your friends or just hanging out.

I think that distinction is lost sometimes when discussing LANs, because of course everyone can sit on their ass at home and play a game together, but we all know it's better when you're in the same room with your friends and you can make it a little more personal!
 
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