Setting up a LAN PARTY, internet needed?

RobotChild

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In the first LAN Part we had we had everyone hooked up to hubs, which were hooked up to a router, which was hooked up to the cable modem.

This months LAN we have rented out a local Judo Dojo, and will be using that.
The bad thing, there's no way to hook up to the internet.

Q - Could we hook up all the computers together with the router and hubs and still run games via LAN?

Edit - This months LAN will be much bigger with 30 people or so, so I will buying a 24 port switch.
Could we use the switch (with the hubs) to hook them all up?

Any other suggestions?
 
Your gonna need a router or some kind of server in order to assign DHCP IPs, unless you plan on going static ips on all of the clients. Of course you can run games on lan if your connected to the internet. How to you think LAN centers/LAN parties do it?
 
you sure can only problem is how will the computers get IP's? you would have to setup a DHCP server somehow or you could do something like make detailed instructions on how to setup static ip's on windows xp print out a bunch of copies and give it to everyone when they come to the lan?
 
gta95 said:
Your gonna need a router or some kind of server in order to assign DHCP IPs, unless you plan on going static ips on all of the clients. Of course you can run games on lan if your connected to the internet. How to you think LAN centers/LAN parties do it?
I have a router.

No, I was asking if you can setup LAN games and such without the internet.
 
Yes, still will need a router
hook the switch to the router and will be good to go
 
no internet required.

make sure you've got all the patches and whatnot you'll need beforehand to game. the tricky part like everyone said is assigning IPs to everyone, but you've got that covered.
 
While not required, internet makes things much nicer. Our LAN (AcademyGamers) did the first 4 months without internet, someone was always running home to burn patches to a CD.
 
Dew said:
While not required, internet makes things much nicer. Our LAN (AcademyGamers) did the first 4 months without internet, someone was always running home to burn patches to a CD.
My house isn't too far away.

I'll be able to run back and forth if needed. :)
 
It would really be to your advantage to get internet access there. I'd be thinking about things like nearby business or residential locations that have internet. Negotiated properly, you could borrow access to a internet connection nearby and perhaps feed it into your lan via a long cat5 cable or a wireless connection.

Another option is ev-do, or cellular data. These provide dsl-light speeds and would quickly bog down if they were abused. If you could setup a proxy server and a bandwidth limiting tool like clarkconnect you'd probably be able to get away with it. Without a proxy server and a qos tool I wouldn't think you'd be happy with the expense. Also, if you were to go with this approach, you could get a clark connect box setup with multiwan. This would allow use of multiple cellular data cards, preferably from different cell companies.

If you need any help with the proxy server stuff let me know. I can walk you through a clarkconnect setup in about an hour. And the hardware requirements are quite light, just an old, reliable pc with a harddrive. If you have access to scsi or raptors you can certainly use though and see a nice boost in performance.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
he can just do static ip's

yup.. thats a lot more work and pretty much guaranteed to run into a noob who can't do it the right way... a simple router is infinitely superior to static.
 
If you don't have an internet connection at the LAN party, you need to be prepared to keep people busy with in-house game servers, scheduled tournaments, etc. I have been to a few lan parties with no internet, and without well planned out schedules, they sucked.

A few things I can think of:
  • Make sure to have a local FTP/SMB file server with all the patches for all the games you will play (some games require incremental updates, so you may need more than just the latest patches for games...BF2 is like this, IIRC)
  • Schedule tournaments, and publish the schedules somewhere. Then announce them. repeatedly.
  • Test out your game servers/switches/equipment -- make sure to test everything out beforehand. Make sure your electricity will hold out. Make sure your network has no bottlenecks (or reduce them as much as possible -- FTP server goes on the switch with the users connected to it, game servers go there too, if possible). Make sure your game servers are up-to-date, and working with any mods/scripts you might be running on them.
  • If possible, try having some console games available or a movie playing -- something for people to do when there isn't gaming going on, or if a tournament is going on that they don't want to play in.
  • Food! Get dominos or papa johns to hook you up with a special rate on a large amount of pizzas (if you want to provide food, anyways)
IMO, you should try to get some internet access there, because it can help to take a huge strain off of the admins of the lan party to keep people busy. If you can't get it however, just try to make a schedule and get some gaming going that gets people involved!

just my .02$ -- hope the lan party goes well. Where is your lan party going to be at, out of curiosity? I'm always down for a good lan party :D
 
cleric_retribution said:
If you don't have an internet connection at the LAN party, you need to be prepared to keep people busy with in-house game servers, scheduled tournaments, etc. I have been to a few lan parties with no internet, and without well planned out schedules, they sucked.

A few things I can think of:
  • Make sure to have a local FTP/SMB file server with all the patches for all the games you will play (some games require incremental updates, so you may need more than just the latest patches for games...BF2 is like this, IIRC)
  • Schedule tournaments, and publish the schedules somewhere. Then announce them. repeatedly.
  • Test out your game servers/switches/equipment -- make sure to test everything out beforehand. Make sure your electricity will hold out. Make sure your network has no bottlenecks (or reduce them as much as possible -- FTP server goes on the switch with the users connected to it, game servers go there too, if possible). Make sure your game servers are up-to-date, and working with any mods/scripts you might be running on them.
  • If possible, try having some console games available or a movie playing -- something for people to do when there isn't gaming going on, or if a tournament is going on that they don't want to play in.
  • Food! Get dominos or papa johns to hook you up with a special rate on a large amount of pizzas (if you want to provide food, anyways)
IMO, you should try to get some internet access there, because it can help to take a huge strain off of the admins of the lan party to keep people busy. If you can't get it however, just try to make a schedule and get some gaming going that gets people involved!

just my .02$ -- hope the lan party goes well. Where is your lan party going to be at, out of curiosity? I'm always down for a good lan party :D

I think we'll be able to keep people entertained.

The party is on Dec. 8th, meaning the Wii will be out.
I'm also trying to borrow a projector for some movies or something.

Oh, and as for location, a small city on the West Coast of Canada.
If you want more info shott me a PM.
 
Another thing, Steam. While offline mode is available, I guarantee that 50% of those who use it will have something screwed up so they need to sign in online. Even a 56k modem would do the job for that.
 
If you're worried about patches, just invite Ockie to the lan. He has every game patch out there :p
 
RobotChild said:
In the first LAN Part we had we had everyone hooked up to hubs, which were hooked up to a router, which was hooked up to the cable modem.

This months LAN we have rented out a local Judo Dojo, and will be using that.
The bad thing, there's no way to hook up to the internet.

Q - Could we hook up all the computers together with the router and hubs and still run games via LAN?

Edit - This months LAN will be much bigger with 30 people or so, so I will buying a 24 port switch.
Could we use the switch (with the hubs) to hook them all up?

Any other suggestions?


Ick... hubs connected together? The rules forbid me from posting ebay auction links, but hit up ebay and type "enterasys switch". $90.00 for a 48-port switch... http://www.enterasys.com/support/relnotes/VH-4802-2050509-patch-rel.pdf

Just make sure the switch isnt password-protected before you buy one used. If I want to reset the pasword in my switch from them (its an older one), I will have to throw it out and buy a new one.

If it were me, id forbid internet. I usually find that a few hours into it, half the people are on ebaums world/albinoblacksheep wasting time. Things I can think of (some have been covered by others already):

- DHCP, because IP addresses are too complicated for some people to put in.
- FTP server/captive portal. Face it, windows networking with the shared folders never works right, and theres always a group of people who never update. XAMPP on an old crapper stuffed with game patches is the way to go.
- Possibly VLC streaming a dvd/random video clips during breaks?

Software to look into for the ftp server :
https://www.nerdclub.net/alp/index.php
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
 
What about setting up a game server?

Last LAN I just created a room from my PC.

Would there be benefits from a seperate game server?
 
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