Author Robert "[tmc]honestplayer" Dhondrup
Monday, April 7, 2008 12:01AM
“Isn’t the So Cal LAN scene dead?” Thinking about LANs in Cali as a long-time gamer who first played the then newly-released Doom 2 over the SC network (via IPX!) when I was a researcher in Trojan-land, I like a lot of others, pondered that question.
For most of us, So Cal literally invented the LAN party as an institution and way of life – with the infamous parties that HatTriQk of HATLAN, BigTrucK of OWNIJ and kfc of LANmaniac fame ran – ever since gamerz figured out that the pings on a LAN sure beat the heck out of a slow DSL connection. And, the face to face smacks while slaying your opponent with a well-placed frag made all of us addicts to the new culture as well.
Those So Cal LANs helped define what LAN parties are all about, many years before LANs became so widely popular across the world. HATLAN delivered an unbeatable LAN environment within a hip and barebones garage-land like atmosphere, OWNIJ delivered the party atmosphere with DJ muzik, BBQs and white socks for the tourney winners, while LANmaniac was all about the gamez, hard core smack and pings that made your eyes bleed.
Altogether, the So Cal LANs from a decade ago defined what today we call a true LAN party.
But changes like life happen. As LAN culture became more main stream and the wildly popular CS (and its young fans) replaced Quake3 as the game of choice, tectonic changes in LAN culture moved the universe. More and more of the Nor Cal and Oregon gamerz who used to attend the So Cal LANs, many centered in the newly emerging high tech economic regions, began their own LAN parties. Most looked to the So Cal LAN culture and adopted it.
The infamous and historic Octane LANs, EtherrealLANs, SVFrags and LANtrocity parties shaped LAN culture to new heights embracing new converts. And while the names may change, many of today’s biggest and hardest LAN party organizers owe their first LAN experience to the early influences of So Cal LANs. Knowing all this and looking around me it also seems a lot of the old-skool gamerz are seeing more and more hard core gamerz joining the ranks.
So when the opportunity arose to make some more history, with a coalition LAN of some of So Cal’s finest LANs, I couldn’t resist. LANmaniac, LANGO and HATLAN organizers were planning a seriously good time for hard core gamerz; great swag from a lot of gamer-friendly sponsors, a tasty finger-lickin good BBQ, muzak that made your ears bleed and hard core pings and fragging that would have you picking out the shrapnel from your eyes. Oh yea, did I also mention it was also going to have all the atmosphere of a house party? Because it would in fact, take place in a huge house in Reseda as well.
I had been getting primed for this LAN for weeks as LANmaniac lent their forums for the setup and arrangements. When the announcement was made, kfc and the LANmaniacz had no idea what they could have been getting into.
Crazy Gamer was able to procure the ultimate p**p location, a huge empty house undergoing renovations that just happened to have dual 100 amp power lines drawn into the house and then subdivided into 20 Amp circuits from there. Enough juice to run a small country for a year. 400 total amps for a houseful of geeks armed with gaming rigs.
And three 24-port switches of gig-goodness provided enough to handle traffic on the 405 freeway. And a sound system wired throughout the house armed with Tunez, a streaming music server where you could upload your song, vote on others, and have a master juke box seriously made for a good time. This LAN was going to be a sold out geek-fest!
Driving up to the location, the first thing that took me by surprise was the atmosphere. A projector was serving up game demo’s 24/7 on the walls which were also covered with a ton of gamez posters. Talk about a gamerz ambiance – it was screaming ‘get your frags out.” And the setup was perfect, absolutely no hitches or outages. Setting up the rig was effortless and before long it was time for some serious BF2 pwnij.
What is really cool about BF2 is that while it is still a fun game online, nothing beats pwning a loaded server full of players while talking smack to them across the table as well. That is what LAN parties are all about. And with the 50 Man LAN, there was some serious fragging and pwning going on – looking across at others and myself – it would have been hard pressed for anyone to not notice that smile frozen on our faces staring at our monitors from all that fragtastic ping-goodness!
Next up, old-skool Call of Duty, United Offensive. I don’t remember how long it had been since anyone played this first-rate shooter. Yeah, a few of us old geezers got pwned a few times by the new faces at the LAN; but darn if we didn’t get in a few well-placed headshots in as well. Take that n00b! Oh yeah, the ‘official’ third game was Tribes 2, but I was too busy finally getting Q3 running. Love that railgun! The LAN admins kept the game server config settings tight and the official times even tighter, as all the official games ran for the entire LAN. Whatever your scene, this LAN had you covered. Total sweetness.
Finally, time for some LAN grub. Ask any serious gamer what the ultimate LAN grub would be, and of course its meat. Animal flesh, freshly cut and bloody, thrown on a fire and cooked until it was sweet and moist enough to be ripped apart with your hungry teeth. And, for a LAN of epic proportions like this one, you gotta have at least 50 pounds of it, smeared with Mexi-c**p and smothering a tortilla – for the ultimate Carna Asada. Heck, I think that even the koi in the indoor pool wanted some. Carnivorous fish anyone?
If that wasn’t enough, how about a truckload of sweet treats and salty chips; and cases upon cases of Cocaine and Jolt (courtesy of the sponsors) to wash it all down. A seriously good gamerz menu – fare that screamed eat, drink, be merry, and pwn like hell.
Finally, a good LAN must have lots of free swag and the 50 Man LAN didn’t disappoint. Thanks to newegg,com (where most of us buy our l33t goodies), Bgears, Steelseries,Fatal1ty, Nvidia (makers of the finest g3ar anywhere), AMD/ATI, Kyosho, Patriot,CPU Magazine and Vroom Foods, everyone walked away with swag of some sort. Yep, you may have been a n00b in the gamez servers and couldn’t fight your way out of a knife fight even with an AK-101 Assault Rifle in BF2; but, you still walked away a winner at this LAN.
How do you summarize a LAN party like this? Well, it was fun and action packed. The organizers really put some serious thought towards making sure that every detail was covered right down to the most minor details like pimping the walls and providing a server for the tunes. They kept it going till even the most hard core gamer could not help crack a smile and kept the high energy flowing so that you really didn't want to leave and begged for more.
And, the minimum requirements were lavishly covered, thanks to all the LAN organizers from LANmaniac, LANGO, HATLAN and the sponsors from Cocaine and Jolt - food and drink were non-stop with a seriously good BBQ to stuff you till you could not take anymore. And enough free swag for everyone to take home.
So Cal LANs are alive and well, and judging from the 50 Man LAN, there is a great deal of enthusiasm and energy to keep it going with a new generation of gamerz. All the faces of new gamerz joining the ranks of old skool gamerz like myself – heh, lots of fresh new blood to frag and talk smack to!
If you haven’t attended a LAN before, then you seriously need to readjust your So Cal gamer instinct and join in. And it doesn’t hurt to pwn the most p**p gaming rig either. Who said the So Cal LAN scene was dead anyway?
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* Here's the Xpert forum thread on the event: http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/271965.aspx