Lord_Santa has 6 chronicles

1. The birth of LAN
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Apr 09 2008

   LAN
   
   Local-Area-Network
   It may not mean alot to most of you (grown up with Internet and all), but to us "older" generation, I like to think that LAN made an impact.
   
   I remember my first "LAN-party" as being a couple of friends gathering with our C-64's (Commodore 64, that is), with no way of "connecting" our computers to one another and mainly playing Spy Vs. Spy and ACE (flight-sim), with 2 TV's (Televisions, to those of you born with Flatscreen, and what have you not) connected to eachother... (and now you would think "hey, you could connect C-64's via NULL-MODEM").. alas No, it was via "splitting" the connection of one computer to 2 different TV's and playing in "split-screen mode" and then using "duct-tape" to tape a paper on the half o the screen, which you were not using... thus creating a kind of "2-monitor"-way of playing
   
   Does it sound primitive? Yes... I mean, come on... even at the Stone-Age (or at least the Bronze-age), they've figured out more advanced techniques than this.. but hey.. we we're young and LAN wasn't even in the dictionary
   
   Thus my experience of "computer-parties" was born.
   
   It would take years, before I finally had the opportunity to play Amiga on NULL-Modem-cable and trying out Lotus II accordingly... That is; we played 2 player split-screen on one TV and 2 player split-screen on another; thus being able to play 4(!!!) players in 1 (ONE) game at the same time!!! This was incredible.
   
   Then came "Firepower" for the Amiga... And here you could also use NULL-Modem-cable to connect and thus being able to play on 2(!!) different Amiga's
   
   Then, much later on, I moved onto PC...
   I remember my first "true" LAN-party.... We were about 16 people, who hooked our PC's together, via NULL-Modem-cables, and thus we could play DooM (1) 2 player-CoOp!
   
   It was incredible, to say the least
   
   Me and a friend of mine, had gotten a hold of a copy of DooM 2, and although we'd finished the "original levels", in CoOp, several times; we'd go back to the game, just to try it on a more difficult level...
   After a couple of months (after DooM 2's release), we'd get a hold of "The Cobra Mission Pack" (I think it was called... something with Cobra at least), and we spent 6 hours (!!!!) copying the mission pack, from my computer to his (at this time, we were to young and to afraid to open our computers and "direct-connect" our Hard-Drive's to one another); but after the process was done... We played... for hours at end...
   We'd have our computer's attached to one-another for days, only so that we could invite friends over to try it out.
   It was an incredible experience... DooM 2, modded.. and Co-Op!
   
   A few years later, I moved in with my best friend, and we got ourselves THE Internet connection (64kbps) and we used to put money in a jar, for each hour we spent on-line (since it was an hourly fee, at the time); but after a while, we'd invite all of our friends.. and after we'd lived together for a couple of months, we suddenly had "at least" 12 computers in our apartment (a 3-room, mind you) and all of our friends were gathered at our house, all the time; everyone contributed to paying the "hourly fee" (we didn't charge any extra), and we'd all play LAN and an on-line MUD, called Illusia.
   
   This my introduction to the Internet... and although it cost me a fortune, I enjoyed ever bit of it...
   
   Later, we (me and my best friend), would "grow up" and move to (the same) "college", where we (amongst the 200 other people), would share a 2Mbit Internet connection(!!!)
   Nowadays, 2Mbit shared with 200 people, don't seem much; but at the time it was the fastest in town; and we'd spend not hours, but days, weeks, months, playing Quake, Unreal, DooM 1+2 online, at lightning-fast speed.
   
   These days I have a 24Mbit connection (wishing I had 100Mbit like my friend) and 2 computers, hooked up.
   
   That gives each of my computer's about 12Mbit each. And it may seem a Far Cry from the old C-64 days; but stilll... DooM 2, will fire up once in a while (nowadays with an "enhanced" engine) and I will be able to enjoy it, not only on LAN, but also on the Internet (although I get my a** kicked so much that, I am afraid to log on)
   
   (This may seem like mere ramblings to the most of you, but to the one's of us, who've been "struggling" since back in the days; I hope it meant something more)

   
   

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Lord_Santa has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. GoblinBob
   Posted On Apr 11 2008

   Great Chronicle! My LAN experience has virtually mirrored your own in a lot of ways, and it is still my favorite way to play my favorite games.
   
   There is an almost indescribable rush, known only to LAN players, associated with actually hearing the howls of your opponents when you nail them. It's a great way to spend a few hours with friends, and I'm always surprised that more folks don't participate in LAN Parties on a regular basis.
   
   Of course, since the office I work at has a fairly robust LAN, most of us play nearly every day at lunch, and I meet other friends at the office after about once a week to play LAN games as well. My company is cool about guests at the office, so as long as no one spills a beer onto a keyboard, I've got a place to play.
   
   PS: Lord_Santa, if you're at all interested in trying a new LAN game that was designed for LAN lovers such as yourself, let me know... I'd be happy to send you a free, full copy of the game, (ARCTIC STUD POKER RUN), and I'd really be interested in your, or your group's, feedback.
   
   www.arcticstud.com

2. Sn1pe Warman
   Posted On Apr 09 2008

   Since i'm part of the new generation I rarly have any "LAN parties", but recently I hooked up 2 360's and played 2v2 on Gears of war which was a blast. We tried to play Call of duty 4 but you could only have 1 person per tv for system link. How lame is that!