RandomLAN the early years. (2001)

Hard to believe RandomLAN has been around for 10 years now.  Cody and I started RandomLAN way back in 1999 when we started having LAN parties out of someones house.  Those LAN parties were limited to 14 or so people for reasons of space to put everyone and our old slow network.  From there we grew into the church rec room.  The first RandomLAN at the church was May 2001 if I recall.  Once we started hosting at the church we increased the number of space to 30 people.  We really didn’t want it to get too big, but we were limited by power.  Those of you that have been there know we threw the breakers a few times in the early years at the church.

The games have certainly changed over the years.  The very first LANs were dominated by games like Jedi Knight, Tribes, Team Fortress Classic, Counter Strike v4, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, Age of Empires, and Rocket Crowbar (Half-Life Mod – I couldn’t leave that one out lol) .  I am sure I have forgotten something we played.  The first tournament game was Pirates Vikings and Knights I think and we gave away silly hats then too.  One of the tournament ideas that we never did that I always wanted too was a Quake 3 Arena game to 500 or 1000 frags as kind of a marathon game. Now days we have Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament 3, and the list goes on.

RandomLAN in 2002.

The future of RandomLAN is uncertain we haven’t done a LAN in about a year now mainly due to time restraints and a location. For me my photography is keeping me pretty busy quite a few on location shoots over the last year and another big one in September. For now we are doing gaming nights of Left 4 Dead, Unreal Tournament 3, or Sins of a Solar Empire. If you would like more information about the gaming nights just post on our forums. As for another LAN only time will tell.

Steam News announces this Friday will be “Freaky Friday” for Left 4 Dead. The festivities kick off at 12:01 am GMT on Friday.  Here’s word:

Beginning Friday at 12:01 am GMT, the PC version of Left 4 Dead will be available for a free 24-hour trial via Steam. The free trial will include access to the recently released Survival Pack DLC, which introduces a new multiplayer game mode and two additional Versus campaigns. Those who wish to give L4D and the Survival Pack a try may now pre-load everything needed to play with no obligation to purchase.

So anyone that has not played it can come join us this weekend.

After some very successful gaming nights. The question is should the full LAN parties come back?

• New Location
• Upgraded Equipment: New Dedicated Servers, New Fast Network, Internet
• Themed LANs such as a Retro LAN bringing back some of the classics. Quake, Unreal Tournament (Orginal), TFC you get where I am going.
• Probably some swag
• We will be doing pictures and video for each LAN

The biggest problem we have run into is a new location.  I have looked a several different locations and they all either didn’t sufficient power, space, or location was just bad.  We are open to suggestions on location.

For now however we will continue with the Left 4 Dead gaming nights.  Ventrilo and gameserver information is available in the randomlan members section.

As always tell us what you think.

View the thread in the forums.

I finally gave in and added a blog to RandomLAN.  The staff will post updates about upcoming events here.

I would like to apologize for the lack updates to the site and not setting up another LAN party. I have been extremely busy with other projects.