Last weekend my wife and I held a LAN party at our house for the people in our youth group. We live in a *very* small house, but still managed to fit a dozen people and 9 computers in our "cozy" living room.

We tried to make it a legit LAN party, meaning that we weren't going to play games unless there were enough licenses of it to go around. The basically limited us to free / open source software (F/OSS) games. The games of choice for the evening were the Unreal Tournament demo (the old one) and a game called LieroX. We also tried the Raven Shield demo, but it was buggy and was too advanced for some of the old computers there.

Overall, the party was a blast. There were a lot of non-gamer types there , and it was even about half-and-half guys-to-gals. The party started around 7 o'clock, and the last handful of people packed up and left around 8:30 the next morning.

It went over so well, that we decided to have our next one in 2 weeks (Easter weekend). I ordered 16 licenses of Unreal Tournament (the full version) from an online reseller, all-told we got them for around $4.68 apiece with shipping. That means we'll be able to have a lot more CTF and deathmatch maps for the next party.

We're all also really looking forward to playing LieroX again, that'll definately be the warmup game of choice.

What do you all like to play for LAN parties? Any good suggestions that you have for me for free or open-source games that you have enjoyed? Share your LAN party experiences here.

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

hmmm free games for LAN. I won't talk about internet ones like Gunbound and Conquer.

well, Shadowflare is an diablo-style RPG which was once commerical but realeased as freeware.
http://www.shadowflare.us/

Cube is both an engine and game, FPS, free, open source. never tried Multi on it but should work
http://www.cubeengine.com/

a good resource for free games is www.gamehippo.com
big ol' site. my main source for free games.
I did a search for multi-player games:
http://gamehippo.com/search/search_advanced_title_1_870989f41a06568c3fedbdca276c4384.shtml

you can customize the advanced search as you want or just browse through the categories. enjoy.

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Soterion Studios

Well, there is 'Trackmania' which is a multiplayer racing/stunt game with crazy loops and stuff and different racing modes. Dunno how much full version is (but may have dropped in price cos they have just released a new version) and there is the demo which has about 4 tracks with it I think. Hmmm, you will need to check if demo allows LAN play.

I think this is main site, but seems to be for the new version (prolly too high spec)
http://www.trackmaniagame.com/

And this is another link which seems to be for older version
http://www.enlight.com/trackmania

If you want something a bit different on the FPS front, try one of the 'Tribes' game demo's. I am a big fan of the Tribes games which are basicaly your typical CTF FPS games but with Jetpacks - makes combat truly 3D!! If a lot of your crowd are new to FPS, then maybe too much for them - dunno? You can buy Tribes2 really cheap and has fairly low specs and there is a very good demo for Tribes:Vengeance (but high spec). Dunno if you can even buy the original Tribes game anymore.

Site seems out of date!
http://www.tribes2.com/

And the latest version
http://www.tribesvengeance.com/us/

And the only link I could quickly find to the old original 'Starsiege Tribes' version (and the other two)
http://www.sierra.com/search_results.do?keyword=tribes&genre=all&platform=all

Rhy Out

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~~~boogie woogie woogie~~~

Regardless of your views about the previous statement, here's a game all can enjoy:

Little Fighter 2 - best freeware fighting game ever. Impressive and attractive graphics and animation. A wide variety of characters to choose from, each with very unique abilities, advantages, and disadvantages. Playing arenas range from small to very large. Supports up to 8 players. Can play networked games or on a single computer. Runs windowed, and is therefore great for playing while doing other stuff in the background. Even without a friend to play with, this game is very fun.

GameHippo may be a large site, but most of the games it hosts are very low-quality.

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"True friendship is not characterized by the absence of conflict, but by the ability to resolve conflict."

[This message has been edited by imsold4christ (edited March 20, 2005).]

We do a similar event for our youth group here in the UK. We hold it at the church and deck the place out with camouflage netting and have some cool lihting. Get pizza in and plenty of coke.

We run servers which makes things a littl easier, but we also run a free lan game intranet program. It gives you all the info on who's on the leaders board and can arrange tournaments as well. It can even tell the indiviual person (if they enter the amount of coke or coffee right) how much caffeine they have had

--D-SIPL

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler

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There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies; the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

--C. A. R. Hoare
[B][/B]

I used to play Half-Life in the college dorms. Although it's not free, the mods you can download for it are endless.

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Karl /GODCENTRIC
Visionary Media
the creative submitted to the divine.
Husband of my amazing wife Aleshia
Klumsy@xtra.co.nz

Thanks for the excellent links!

I hadn't heard of Shadowflare, thanks Arch.

We had burned 3 gigs of games for the party -- things like Tribes 1 (Tribes 2 is no longer free as they ran out of CD keys to give out), Wolfenstein: ET, Games Knoppix, Cube, BZFlag, LieroX, Raven Shield demo, Serious Sam demos, and several others. I downloaded just about every reasonable hit on Sourceforge that came up with the search term "multiplayer".

I hadn't heard of gamehippo before, thanks!

Trackmania was also a new one for me to hear about, thanks

I hadn't downloaded Americas Army -- not sure why. I guess I didn't know if it was LAN or not, but since you tell me it is, maybe I'll have to check it out.

Imsold4christ: I don't think that's a real law (the 24 hour thing). I think while it may be a morally acceptable standard, I don't think it's "legal".

Thanks for the tip about Little Fighter 2! I hadn't heard of that one before, I'll have to check it out!

D-SIPL: That's sweet that your youth group does the same thing! That sounds really cool -- how often do you guys do that?

I think I could totally run my own server for the games, I've got a spare Linux box sitting around with a web server installed on it, that would be sweet.

HeardTheWord: I haven't played much Half-Life, but I picked a copy up at Goodwill a few days ago for $1.75. I have yet to try it out, but I'm looking forward to it.

Klumsy: Oh yeah? That's what a lot of these guys practice at their LAN parties (they're okay with everyone playing it as long as one guy owns it and you start all games with the legal CD). I'll have to read the EULA's more carefully -- do you know which games have this provision? I know some games used to allow you to install "spawn" copies -- didn't Starcraft have something like that? I'd be interested in finding other games like that.

In case y'all are wondering, there's a great game out there called "gusanos", which is much like LieroX, except the graphics are much better (and it's open source, w00t!)

One thing I'd love to do is to have a Linux live CD for a LAN party -- no installations required, just grab a CD-R at the door, boot to it, and you've got all of the games on the menu for the evening. Don't have to worry about cheats, viruses, or not enough hard-drive space to install the games. I haven't learned how to make my own Knoppix or Gentoo live CD yet, but I think that's got great potential for informal LAN parties. Also, you could use that Live CD at computer labs and not have to install games on the computers.

Thanks all!

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

ftp://cog:download@ulv.ath.cx/

I'm looking forward to trying this one at the upcoming party this weekend.

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

quote:

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D-SIPL: That's sweet that your youth group does the same thing! That sounds really cool -- how often do you guys do that?

I think I could totally run my own server for the games, I've got a spare Linux box sitting around with a web server installed on it, that would be sweet.

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A dedicated server is a must with more then 10 players.

I think there is a book called Ultimate Frag Fest or something and it's all about setting up and planning LAN parties.

--D-SIPL

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler

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Start Learning How to Use Linux
Geek Your Vocabulary

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"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike." -- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963), "The Poison of Subjectivism" (from Christian Reflections; p. 108)

Switch Mayhem now available! Get it here
Codename: Roler - hoping to get more done over the holidays . . .

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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- Chels

quote:

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That sounds sweet about the XBoxes. I never got into them much, but they seem really cool (especially Halo). I've seen the Warthog Jump video, and that's just sweet. ( http://halo.bungie.org/misc/warthogjumpmirrors.html )

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quote:

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man, I should REALLY get back into playing games...

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If I were a drummer I would use a cymbal.
If I were a writer I would use a pencil.
I would use my voice if I were a singer.
No matter who or what we are we must praise.

[This message has been edited by brandon (edited April 22, 2005).]

Yeah, I got like a bajillion games for my birthday and don't have time to play them. Then I bought FFX, and Halo PC... I'm wondering how long it'll take me to beat them all...

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Try to explain divine election, and you may lose your mind, try to explain it away and you could lose your soul (my youth pastor quoting somebaody he can't remeber)

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Start Learning How to Use Linux
Geek Your Vocabulary

quote:

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We run servers which makes things a littl easier, but we also run a free lan game intranet program. It gives you all the info on who's on the leaders board and can arrange tournaments as well. It can even tell the indiviual person (if they enter the amount of coke or coffee right) how much caffeine they have had

--D-SIPL

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What program do you use D-SIPL? And do you know where I can get a copy of it?

quote:

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Just as it's legal to download a ROM of a game you do not own for a period not to exceed 24 hours, so I say that it's not immoral to install a game you do not have a license for, provided that you delete it by the next day.

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The ROM part is true, the idea of porting those legal loopholes over to actual PC games (not emulators and the like) is false.

StarCraft if you buy a single copy you can spawn to all of the other computers a play multiplayer (it works up to 8 people) its completely legit. There is one other game that has a special "spawn" function in the installation menu but I dont remeber what.

Personally I am a big LAN and gaming freak so (IMHO) I know a ton about this type of stuff. If hardware requirements are not an issue but legality is I can help, all you gotta do is play demos (unless you want to take time to find a *good* FPS for free, not including americas army )
Good demos:
Halo - http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/downloads.asp
BF1942 - ftp://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/demos/battlefield_1942_multiplayer_demo.exe (sorry but I cant get to "www.eagames.com" from school so If you prefer to download from there go ahead but I think its the same link)
UT2k4 - http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/downloads.php
UT2 - http://www.unreal2.com/download_demo.html (lower-end game)

Normally my friends and I stick with Halo, BF1942, or our full-version copies of HL2 DM or Counter-Strike Source

So yeah... I guess I dont know that much but I prefer either StarCraft, or CSS at LAN parties

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There are 10 people in this world, those who understand binary and those who dont.

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Try to explain divine election, and you may lose your mind, try to explain it away and you could lose your soul (my youth pastor quoting somebaody he can't remeber)

Human weapons only (no rocket launchers)
No shields
4 Vs. 4 One-Bomb Assault
One life per round, bunch of rounds

It's like CounterStrike but with Halo 2 YAYAYAYA
Except the patch is like now magnums do no damage...

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Soterion Studios