Trying to host a LANparty at school

[Thalandros]

So I'm in my final year of High school in the netherlands, and was looking around and found a great idea for our ''final project'' (project we have to choose to work on all throughout the year), a LAN party at school with the profit we'd gain going to a charity case. (local, national, international doesn't matter). We'd game for 24 hours in a row, so in a way a gaming marathon for charity. we have enough tables and chairs, and I'm sure we can find the power to power 20+ computers, but the internet is a bit of an issue. We have pretty terrible internet (The school has WiFi) and considering it's a LAN party we'd need a lot of cables. What should I do to prepare this and is it doable for a reasonable price (not too much because that'd destroy the entire point of the charity)? I'm pretty unknown on the territory of internet so what should I be able to get to gain a bunch of internet speed and enough slots for internet cables? I'm assuming purchase a different router for a different (temporary) provider? PLease someone shed some light and help me out a bit!


Much appreciated!
 

[Jerakl]

LAN means Local Area Network, which as far as I know means you don't need a connection to the internet. I think you set up a server then all connect to it.

 

I THINK

[Speedbird]

LAN means Local Area Network, which as far as I know means you don't need a connection to the internet. I think you set up a server then all connect to it.

 

I THINK

Pretty much yeah, one of the PCs will act as a server and everything else gets connected to it.

[Juggernautilus]

LAN means Local Area Network, which as far as I know means you don't need a connection to the internet. I think you set up a server then all connect to it.

 

I THINK

LAN Party pretty much has a new meaning now. It's just people playing games together. Example: "I went to this LAN Party expecting to play some Dota but they decided to play League of Legends", none of these games have LAN mode. I think people still call it LAN party because of how CS1.6 and other games used to be hosted for the minimal ping.

Nowadays even events like Dreamhack and ESL finals (for cs go) are played online for Steam features like weapon skins, replays, GOTV, etc.

[PirateCoffee]

That does seem pretty fun.

 

I hope you have a good time.

 

I can only play for 10-15 hours at time before I'm burnt out and say screw this, I'm going to bed.

[Thalandros]

LAN Party pretty much has a new meaning now. It's just people playing games together. Example: "I went to this LAN Party expecting to play some Dota but they decided to play League of Legends", none of these games have LAN mode. I think people still call it LAN party because of how CS1.6 and other games used to be hosted for the minimal ping.

Nowadays even events like Dreamhack and ESL finals (for cs go) are played online for Steam features like weapon skins, replays, GOTV, etc.

 

 

You don`t need high internet speed or at all because you are playing in LAN.

 

 

Pretty much yeah, one of the PCs will act as a server and everything else gets connected to it.

 

 

LAN means Local Area Network, which as far as I know means you don't need a connection to the internet. I think you set up a server then all connect to it.

 

I THINK

I know, I know. But obviously being able to download games at a REASONABLE rate (not expecting super high obviously) is a big plus and a lot of games like Starcraft II dont support purely LAN. Not everyone has the games they need or want to play installed and ready to go either.

[Thalandros]

That does seem pretty fun.

 

I hope you have a good time.

 

I can only play for 10-15 hours at time before I'm burnt out and say screw this, I'm going to bed.

When Im on my own I agree, but if you play with a couple of people it's amazing fun especially with some caffeine in you, it's great.

[Speedbird]

I know, I know. But obviously being able to download games at a REASONABLE rate (not expecting super high obviously) is a big plus and a lot of games like Starcraft II dont support purely LAN. Not everyone has the games they need or want to play installed and ready to go either.

Just get the PCs to a place with reasonabe internet acess, and download them before the party.

[Thalandros]

You should do a backup on a fast USB device with all the games you will going play at the LAN party.

Not everyone has large storage USB sticks around or will (be able to) do that.

 

Just get the PCs to a place with reasonabe internet acess, and download them before the party.

What place with enough room that I wouldn't need to rent would that be? =P 

[Speedbird]

What place with enough room that I wouldn't need to rent would that be? =P 

What about your house? Have everyone bring their PCs and download the games. Or assuming you're playing one game and using Steam, download it to your PC, copy the Steam folder to a USB drive and use it to install the game on all the PCs. A good thing about Steam is that it's portable.

[Thalandros]

If you don`t have a usb-hdd, usb-ssd or usb-stick (big enaught for games), then make a backup of all the games in one computer (internal storage) and make a shared folder and everyone can install the game from there.

What's the point though if 80% of all the games people intend to play don't have LAN anymore. Starcraft II doesn't have it, League of Legends doesn't, Dota 2 doesn't, CS:GO doesn't and I'm assuming games like CoD don't either.

[Thalandros]

What about your house? Have everyone bring their PCs and download the games. Or assuming you're playing one game and using Steam, download it to your PC, copy the Steam folder to a USB drive and use it to install the game on all the PCs. A good thing about Steam is that it's portable.

I don't live in a giant mansion. In order for something like this to count and be succesful and allowed as a project I'll need to attract 20+ people. 

[Speedbird]

I don't live in a giant mansion. In order for something like this to count and be succesful and allowed as a project I'll need to attract 20+ people. 

Then read the second sentence in my post. Do the games use Steam?

[Thalandros]

Then read the second sentence in my post. Do the games use Steam?

Most games with the exception of Dota 2 and CS:GO don't, which aren't very popular here. (Also CS:GO costs money so won't work in everyone's steam account.) Whether we need to install 20 games or not though, doesn't 20+ people trying to connect and play games online still take a certain amount of bandwith that a very bad connection won't be able to handle? isn't there a way we can get our speed (temporarily) up by using 3rd party devices or routers?

[Bloodyvalley]

Most games with the exception of Dota 2 and CS:GO don't, which aren't very popular here. (Also CS:GO costs money so won't work in everyone's steam account.) Whether we need to install 20 games or not though, doesn't 20+ people trying to connect and play games online still take a certain amount of bandwith that a very bad connection won't be able to handle? isn't there a way we can get our speed (temporarily) up by using 3rd party devices or routers?

No, just host a game on your LAN. Of course, not many games support this function, but a few do, such as Counter-Strike:GO.

 

Here's a list of games that support LAN. What you do is you connect all the PCs via ethernet cable to the router and you use that router to play versus each other. You'll create a group, called LAN, and you play with people who are connected to that router. You don't need a fast internet connection since everything is done via ethernet cable.

 

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Local_Multiplayer_Games

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Even if it's a LAN, sometimes they will have games that require internet access. For instance, my university does a semi-annual (2x a year) 48hr LAN war that involves tons of games, and tournaments. One such tournament, is LoL, which requires an internet connection, but can still be used in a LAN, because everyone on it, is still technically on the same LAN, and moreover, the same WAN.

 

Anyway, if you do attempt this, you'll want to talk to your school's IT admin as well. Bringing in networking hardware could cause loads of problems.

 

As for the school connection supporting a bunch of people, again, talk to the admin. It really depends on what the school has overall, but the network for most schools is designed for a couple hundred concurrent users, so it should be ok. That being said, it may strain the WiFi, really depends how many AP's are present, and how many concurrent users will be present, along with what will be one.

SIDE NOTE: Setting up a LAN war is actually a pain in the ass, especially when you have to help set up the network for 300 concurrent users.

[Blackterror25]

Perhaps you can contact a couple of providers, explain that it will be for charity and ask if you can get a deal for the lan party only or perhaps have them sponsor your lan party in exchange for the internet.

Also if the internet is crap over the wifi it's probably because there are to many people connected to a shitty access point, but if you connect to it by cable I'll be fine, 20+ gamers should compare evenly to an entire school in terms of internet usage.
 

And btw, even if you en up having to get and pay new internet, you should get an amazing deal anyway seeing that you're from the Netherlands and your internet is really cheap anyway.

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

So I'm in my final year of High school in the netherlands, and was looking around and found a great idea for our ''final project'' (project we have to choose to work on all throughout the year), a LAN party at school with the profit we'd gain going to a charity case. (local, national, international doesn't matter). We'd game for 24 hours in a row, so in a way a gaming marathon for charity. we have enough tables and chairs, and I'm sure we can find the power to power 20+ computers, but the internet is a bit of an issue. We have pretty terrible internet (The school has WiFi) and considering it's a LAN party we'd need a lot of cables. What should I do to prepare this and is it doable for a reasonable price (not too much because that'd destroy the entire point of the charity)? I'm pretty unknown on the territory of internet so what should I be able to get to gain a bunch of internet speed and enough slots for internet cables? I'm assuming purchase a different router for a different (temporary) provider? PLease someone shed some light and help me out a bit!

Much appreciated!

 

 

You need A 24port switch to connect each PC to the network. and some cheep cat5e will do.

A line out to the internet. preferably wired, there cant be just wifi in a school. Talk to your network admin bods they will let you know.  You might not have to setup a seperate router and just be able to plug in to the schools network but this is still something you would have to talk to your IT department about. they will know what you can and can't do and even if they are willing to let you use their internet.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

You need A 24port switch to connect each PC to the network. and some cheep cat5e will do.

A line out to the internet. preferably wired, there cant be just wifi in a school. Talk to your network admin bods they will let you know.  You might not have to setup a seperate router and just be able to plug in to the schools network but this is still something you would have to talk to your IT department about. they will know what you can and can't do and even if they are willing to let you use their internet.

Certainly talk to them before bringing any networking hardware in though, or you could cause some real problems.

[Kenifyable]

A simple file server should do the trick if the download speed is limited.

[DirkW]

Although the OP was 2 months ago (last post only 2 days though), there's a small correction:

Here's a list of games that support LAN. What you do is you connect all the PCs via ethernet cable to the router and you use that router to play versus each other. You'll create a group, called LAN, and you play with people who are connected to that router. You don't need a fast internet connection since everything is done via ethernet cable.

 

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Local_Multiplayer_Games

Actually that list shows only games played by multiple users on a single device (i.e. splitscreen/shared screen/hot seat, etc.) and is explicitly not about LAN games.