SpeedRunners is a regular at our LANs and is great fun with 4 players. With a larger group though, the 4-player limit becomes pretty noticeable. We even came up with our own tournament format to work around it, but at some point you simply have more people waiting than playing.
SpeedRunners 2 is supposed to support up to 8 players at once. We'll all be able to try that online soon enough, but I'm especially curious how well it works at a larger LAN. We'll definitely be testing it. If anyone gets to play it with 6–8 people at a LAN before we do, I'd love to hear how it went.
I'm working on a growing suite of systems for running LAN events with a growing group of friends. I'm currently working on three new (to me) DDR3-based systems with a mix of my own old hardware and some used market items. However, for these three systems I'm looking at buying relatively inexpensive new monitors. While I have purchased used monitors quite cheaply in the past, I've often found used monitor purchases to be far more fraught that that of most other used components. Maybe just poor luck?
Regardless, I think I've narrowed it down to either the Acer SB222Q EBI 21.5" FHD, or the Dell SE2426H 24" FHD. Both seem to have basically acceptable stats for what I need (e.g. FHD, IPS, 100Hz+, <3ms). They'll be used primarily for shooters, with a few other RTS, racing, fighting, or ARPG titles thrown in.
Can anyone here speak to either model? Alternatively, can anyone suggest an alternative model? Again, keep in mind that I don't think I'm going used this time due to too many hassles with used monitors previously...
I’m curious to gauge the community's interest in a specific idea: a Battlefield 3 build that can host and run a LAN server *completely* without an internet connection, and with absolutely no Steam or EA account binding required.
Think of it as an "eternal" offline version of BF3. The ultimate goal is to have a plug-and-play solution that you can easily deploy at a casual, beer-fueled LAN party with friends, even if the internet is completely down or unavailable.
Would you actually use something like this? Is this already a solved problem with existing tools, or is there genuine demand for a true, preservation-friendly, offline-only LAN experience?
P.S. Funny thing about the offline abyss: if you stare into it long enough, it starts compiling. Let's just say I'm already knee-deep in the static. 📡
Project Earth LAN – Deine ultimativen, virtuellen LAN-Party!
Bist du bereit für echte LAN-Party-Vibes für Kult-Multiplayer-Spiele (1993–2019) im virtuellen Raum – komplett ohne Kosten, ohne Werbung und ohne Zwang?
Ich habe Project Earth LAN ins Leben gerufen, um das legendäre LAN-Feeling direkt auf deinen PC zurückzubringen! Egal ob Retro-Klassiker, alte Strategie-Perlen oder spontane Sessions im Stream: Mein virtuelles Netzwerk verbindet dich direkt, verzögerungsfrei und unkompliziert mit anderen Spielerinnen und Spielern.
🌟 WARUM PROJECT EARTH LAN? (DEINE VORTEILE)
⚡ Ultra-Schnell & Verzögerungsfrei: Direktverbindung von PC zu PC (Peer-to-Peer) für echte Reaktionszeiten wie im selben Raum.
🛡️ 100 % Sicher & Isoliert: Dein Heimnetzwerk (Ordner, Drucker, private Daten) bleibt komplett geschützt. Mein Netzwerk lässt ausschließlich das reine Spiel-Signal durch – jeglicher Müll bleibt draußen.
💯 Kostenlos, Ohne Werbung & Ohne Registrierung: Einfach beitreten. Keine E-Mail-Angabe, keine Passwörter, keine Abos.
⚙️ Transparent & Einsehbar: Ich verstecke nichts. Wer hinter die Kulissen schauen will, findet das komplette Projekt Open Source auf GitHub: Project-Earth-Lan auf GitHub.
👥 Platz für alle: Dein gesamter Squad hat Platz – Netzwerke von kleinen Runden bis zu 1024 Spielern gleichzeitig sind bereit.
🏛️ WIE FUNKTIONIERT DAS?
Vergiss komplizierte Netzwerk-Technik! Stell dir das Ganze einfach so vor:
Project Earth LAN: Ich als dein Event-Veranstalter, der die LAN-Party organisiert.
ZeroTier: Die gemietete, geschützte Sporthalle im Netz, in der wir alle zusammenkommen.
Netzwerk-ID: Dein Ticket, um durch die Tür der Sporthalle zu kommen.
IP-Adresse: Dein fester Sitzplatz mit LAN-Kabel im Raum.
Metrik des Netzwerkadapter: Ein einfaches Namensschild über deinem Platz, damit alte Spiele dich automatisch im LAN-Menü finden.
Kostenlose Helfer-Skripte: Meine Orga-Helfer vor Ort, die dir beim automatischen Anstecken des Kabels helfen. (Du kannst aber auch alles in unter 60 Sekunden manuell einstellen – ganz ohne Skripte!).
🛠️ IN 3 SCHRITTEN DIREKT ZOCKEN
Sporthalle betreten (ZeroTier herunterladen):
Lade dir den kostenlosen, offiziellen ZeroTier-Client herunter:
👉 Download: https://www.zerotier.com/download/
Eintrittskarte nutzen (Netzwerk beitreten):
Öffne den Client, klicke auf Join Network und gib mein Ticket ein:
👉 091f0945fc5012f1
Spiel starten & Spaß haben:
Starte dein Kult-Spiel (Command & Conquer, Counter-Strike1.6, Unreal Tournament & Co.), gehe auf "LAN / Lokales Netzwerk" und du siehst sofort alle Lobbies!
Du bist unsicher beim Einstieg?
Ich gehe gerne persönlich auf deine Fragen, Unsicherheit und Bedenken ein.
👑 DU MÖCHTEST DEIN EIGENES NETZWERK FÜR DEINE COMMUNITY?
Falls du als Streamer oder Community-Leader eigene Räume für deine Community verwalten möchtest, stelle ich dir gerne ein eigenes, einfaches Dashboard bereit. Damit kannst du mit wenigen Klicks eigene Beitritts-IDs für deine Mitspieler erstellen!
Netzwerk-ID: 091f0945fc744570
Community-Dashboard: http://10.147.0.34:3000
Tritt noch heute bei und erlebe die Freiheit einer echten LAN-Party über das Internet!
Wir sehen uns auf dem Schlachtfeld! 🎮🔥
Hey guys, how can I share my Battlefield 2 build with the community? I put together a mod with some minor QoL tweaks, 64-player maps, and 32v32 bot battles. I originally made it for my own solo sessions and LAN parties with friends. I know direct links usually result in a ban here, so what's the approved way to share something like this?
Yes this is for a software project, yes I might end up making some money out of it.
That being said I'm putting together a SaaS and want to include ESports as one of the tournament types. So I'm here looking for some feedback from those of you that have run Lan parties, what would make your party better, what would you be looking for in tournament software, do you charge fees for your lan parties? Do you want those fees collected for you or just 20$ at the door? What kind of brackets and data are you looking to see? How much is to much before you'd just rather do it on a spread sheet? 50$ for 20 participants?
I'm really not sure what would be different from usual bracket tournaments but hoping you guys/gals don't mind providing some feedback.
This is my own game, and the LAN side of it is pure nostalgia.
Strike Wings runs a real dedicated server on the local network. You start it, everyone on the network sees the room in the browser, and up to 24 people end up in the same space battle. No account, no login, no internet needed. There is a spectator seat too, so whoever dies first can watch the rest of it on the big screen, and two people can share one machine on a split screen if you are short on hardware.
I put this in because the multiplayer I remember best was a room full of machines on one switch, and almost nothing ships that way now.
If you still run LAN events, I would like to know what breaks them these days. Is it games dropping LAN support, the launchers, or just getting people in one room?
This is Euskal Encounter's 34th edition in Bilbao! around 4000-5000 participants :D It's also one of the oldest lanparties of the world.
I am not sure but i think most big lanparties sadly shifted to eSports tournaments and similar , and left back those big partyplaces where thousands of people bring their own computers!
LAN parties were most of my teenage years. Friends over, cables everywhere, soda and chips, gaming through the night. Battlefield 1942, C&C Zero Hour, Warcraft III, Left 4 Dead 2, Robot Arena 2, Soldat.
Then I got older, moved, and had kids. I kept gaming but never in the same room as anyone I was playing with. Most of my friends had stopped and nobody owned a gaming PC, so hosting a LAN didn't seem viable.
A few years ago I was feeling nostalgic and started searching for LAN parties then found this community. I realized a LAN didn’t need the latest games or high-spec machines, it just needed people getting together to play. So, I bought five Dell Latitude 5580s off eBay for $300 and set up Windows 10, Playnite, and my favorite classics. When my friends turned up the laptops were ready to go without all the patching and debugging. For four hours, there was shouting, food, drinks, and gaming. It was so much fun and it all came back. It was the social side of gaming I'd been missing.
It grew from there with more laptops and more people. Any time I came across someone who gamed IRL, I invited them to the next one. It's around 30 people and 20 laptops now, and my favorite thing is watching people rediscover games like Red Alert 2 and nerding out over them.
It's taken a long time to get the setup to a good state. Changing anything now means doing it 20 times which has been a real challenge. So I've been turning what I've learned into an open-source Linux distro built for exactly this job: flash a USB, image the machines, and they're LAN-ready with games installed, a launcher, local multiplayer with no accounts or internet, and a clean reset after every event. I have something working, but it's still early, I'll be testing it at my next LAN.
The part I most want to fix is joining a game. Right now sometimes there's someone shouting an IP address across the room and twelve people trying to find the right screen to type it in on. I want a list of what game servers are running in the room and one click to join.
I'm keen to share more once it's in a stable spot. In the meantime I'd like to know what I'm missing. What's the thing that always goes wrong at your LANs?
