RandomLAN is 10 Years Old

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.