Epic Default Productions

What follows is Part I of a twisted, part-story, part-history of a formerly prevalent form of gaming. Read on if you dare gaze upon the twisted face of what once was — or if you’re simply curious as to what PC gamers are rambling on about as you pass them by on the street refusing to offer spare change. Parts Two, and perhaps Three, are to come.

It is a phenomenon considered elitist to some, archaic to others, but to a select few, it is a way of life. I speak, as the title belies, of the LAN party – one of the geekiest known forms of entertainment by anybody’s reckoning. One may wonder why the standard-bearers of this institution carry on, even in the face of the MMOG and console multiplayer; indeed, when more prevalent and less expensive technologies become the norm, why would anyone persist with an outmoded, financially burdening form of the art?

My personal experience with LANning dates back a number of years into my youth in the Old Country (Fairbanks, Alaska, specifically). There were relatively few geeks in Fairbanks — in part, perhaps, because the conditions weren’t the best for us there. The ISPs were (and still are, in some cases) barbarous, online retailers were burdened with expensive shipping, and game shops were small, with limited selection and fairly high prices. While some havens existed (the local comic shop was particularly excellent), we were always a people limited in number. As a minority, banding together was something of a necessity for us; in the long, harsh Alaskan winters, one can very nearly go mad, confined inside with only family (or worse yet, themselves) for company. The LAN party was the natural solution to this — we all had a passion for gaming, and, being students, most of us had computers (of varying capability though they might have been).

These LANs became our collective life’s blood. We all lived for the next gathering, collecting media to share and games to play. Funds were horded in the summer and spent on hardware — components decommissioned from upgraded systems were put into “homonculi” systems for those unable to afford expensive parts. Networking hardware was purchased on a collective basis — large switches and spools of ethernet cable were used to assemble the events all the more rapidly.

Within a year, it all came to a crashing halt. Some blamed classes, some blamed personal lives, but in the end, there was only one root cause. First, one succumbed to Ragnarok Online. Another, to EverQuest II. Then, World of WarCraft came out, and the rest of us were well and truly frakked. Where there once was energy, only a crushing collective apathy remained — weekends were spent alone instead of with friends; many of us dropped off the radar entirely. Some tried to carry the torch, with varying degrees of success, but the heyday was over.

Bitter ramblings of a deluded old man these most certainly are, but not without reason. After my move, I was deeply chagrined to discover that, not only is the LAN party still alive and well as an institution, but they are alive and well everywhere but Seattle. I needed to investigate this lower-48 anachronism; I needed to make an expedition.

Stay tuned for Part Two, wherein Oz, desperate to prove the legitimacy of the LAN party, is even more of a bitter old man and drags a perfectly happy console gamer into the nightmarish world of all-night PC gaming. Speculate as to why Oz loves LANs so dearly in the comments or tell him to get back on his medication in the forums!