For those who lan-party, need your opinions

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bob

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Feb 13, 2002
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Im sure im not the only one, but many who lan-party or host them at your home for your group of friends, there has always been things you wish you would have done earlier, or had second thoughts about the way you had your server set up. I also apologize if this post makes absolutley no sense, but bear with me.

Lan party has two things for me : 1 - a good excuse to buy about $30.00 worth of soda and chips, and 2- a place to argue with other geeks face to face, and game-playing with low pings.

(Im building up to some point, give me a minute)

I usually find that people have had to reinstall windows, and are missing about half of the maps, or forgot to update/patch. Sometimes the server is the persons computer which they also play games on, and it may crash... or the user may accidentally trigger the damned stickey-keys and cause the game to pause while they disable stickeykeys.

Im saying all of this, because I would like some insight from my fellow [H]ard members, toward lan parties. Im trying to put together either a linux distro, or windows package for this. I could sit here and download 20 or 30 different programs that accomplish the same thing and test them all out over several years, or ask for some good opinions... And not just from the hosts end, but the people attending.

Would you like to see an Intranet server with statistics, map-packs/patches/drivers/videos avalible for download? Reply or PM me, im trying to get something together, and id apreciate any comments or on-topic discussion.
 
Set up a web server and make a page that links to the downloads. This will take all of 10 minutes and everyone will figure it out how to use it.
 
One thing you can do, especially if you have the finances for it is to burn as many CDs as people coming. Put all your maps, mods, patches, updates, even demos and installers on the CD/DVD. Hand them out as people enter, and its less work for you then setting up a web server. LANs tend to have some basic networking quirks at first, so while you fix them and ensure everyone can properly connect to the game servers, those that need maps mods and patches can be installing them without worrying about the internet or network.

Also see if someone can bring a dedicated server box. Perhaps their secondary PC. All the better if its Linux, provided they know how to work it.
 
se always had problems with moochers who refused to buy the game even if it were like $9.99. It took hours trying to copy and paste or figureing out all the free crap for a long time.

I remember at one point a long time ago I said the hell with it stopped trying to give people stuff they didnt deserve or buy and I have been a happier person becasue of it. Bunch of loser kids too. JUST GO BUY IT

Just have a list of stuff that everyone NEEDS to have before they can attend. IE have BF 2 patched. 20 min of work at home saves hours of headaches when everyone is there.
 
CDs is a good idea, since its pretty damn hard for anyone to screw that up.

I do have boxes ive been using as servers occasionaly. Ive sold off all but one 500Mhz K6 which Ive used in the past to host HL1. Im not looking to do this for myself, but more toward posting this on my site, to help people who are problaby asking questions like I did (I know they are out there, people keep bugging me by email).

So far ive considered :
VLC for video/audio streaming, because of its web config.
PHP based upload/download script, which indexes a folder
ALP - php based lan management software, possibly integrate everything into it
 
have enough electric outlets so things arent overloading in a certain area.. .have good ventilation.. gets hot in a room with a bunch of bodies and computers.. (was at a lan in arizona in the summer and the ac died.. we did too)... lots of ice.. lots of drinks.. and tell people to leave their bad attitudes at the door.
 
lol, its not a lan party without at least one person formatting and reinstalling windows.
 
bob said:
Im sure im not the only one, but many who lan-party or host them at your home for your group of friends, there has always been things you wish you would have done earlier, or had second thoughts about the way you had your server set up. I also apologize if this post makes absolutley no sense, but bear with me.

Lan party has two things for me : 1 - a good excuse to buy about $30.00 worth of soda and chips, and 2- a place to argue with other geeks face to face, and game-playing with low pings.

(Im building up to some point, give me a minute)

I usually find that people have had to reinstall windows, and are missing about half of the maps, or forgot to update/patch. Sometimes the server is the persons computer which they also play games on, and it may crash... or the user may accidentally trigger the damned stickey-keys and cause the game to pause while they disable stickeykeys.

Im saying all of this, because I would like some insight from my fellow [H]ard members, toward lan parties. Im trying to put together either a linux distro, or windows package for this. I could sit here and download 20 or 30 different programs that accomplish the same thing and test them all out over several years, or ask for some good opinions... And not just from the hosts end, but the people attending.

Would you like to see an Intranet server with statistics, map-packs/patches/drivers/videos avalible for download? Reply or PM me, im trying to get something together, and id apreciate any comments or on-topic discussion.
Click to expand...


Basically what i've done is this; having had to reformat lately, I keep every single installer and executable i've used to bring my PC up to speed (drivers, windows updates, game patches, mods, maps, browsers, registry cleaners, everything) and burnt all two gigs or so to a DVD so that i don't have to spend days reconfiguring next time I reformat.
Take that disk to my forthcoming LAN; presto, everyone compatible. Of course, we all do sensible stuff like open up HL2DM, CS:S etc the night beofre so we've all the same updated version and such.
 
LordVampyre said:
have enough electric outlets so things arent overloading in a certain area.. .have good ventilation.. gets hot in a room with a bunch of bodies and computers.. (was at a lan in arizona in the summer and the ac died.. we did too)... lots of ice.. lots of drinks.. and tell people to leave their bad attitudes at the door.
Click to expand...


Uhm... what does this have to do with setting up a lan-party server package?

bob said:
Im trying to put together either a linux distro, or windows package for this.
Click to expand...
 
Wally said:
Basically what i've done is this; having had to reformat lately, I keep every single installer and executable i've used to bring my PC up to speed (drivers, windows updates, game patches, mods, maps, browsers, registry cleaners, everything) and burnt all two gigs or so to a DVD so that i don't have to spend days reconfiguring next time I reformat.
Click to expand...

Good plan, I do that but onto my 2nd hard drive which is basically just a store for all my media, whenever I rebuild my machine there are all my installs waiting for me on my 2nd drive.
 
coofoostu said:
lol, its not a lan party without at least one person formatting and reinstalling windows.
Click to expand...

I've never been to one but wow i guess all the "hey my mouse stopped working let me reinstall windows to find out it just wasn't plugged in by said MORON" idiots go to them... hmm must rethink ever going to one before i snap and tell said MORON that he should NEVER EVER touch a PC again because he is a complete MORON! ;)
 
We always used dedicated servers and file sharing for patches etc. The one main problem as listed above is people not having games. Thats what makes me angry.
 
how big are you meaning? i mean if its jsut friends, put together a crap box out of spares, install whatever u want for servers on it, fill the hd with whatever maps/mods you want, and hook it the the network. usually the first hour of a lan party nothing happens anyway, so people can get their shit together then
 
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