Just something I’ve been thinking about. I always enjoyed a good LAN, but do they still happen seeing that most games these days are online and with voice comms being as good as it is etc?
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I am not up on the LAN scene anymore but logic will dictate that yes, the LAN is dead.
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I think it started dying when internet became everyday for everyone.
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There still seem to be some big lans that happen - most centred around one or two competitive games, and obviously the Rage Lan.
It terms of small lans among friends, I still meet up with good friends of mine for a lan every few months - sure we could play online (and do) but it’s still great to get together, have a few beers and catch-up while playing games. In fact lanning/gaming is the shared a hobby that has kept us together as friends since primary school!
On a related note Matrix Warehouse recently opened up a big gaming centre in Rivonia:
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Seeing that most titles these days won’t support peer-to-peer, self-hosted server or hybrid client/server you can say “LAN is dead”
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Now that makes sense, sure you can get together with buddies but the fact that you are connecting through your host internet makes it a WAN party.
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That’s exactly right!
I rarely do a physical get-together anymore since most of my PC gaming buddies are in other parts of the country. When we do, it’s via the WAN connection.
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I am in a similar situation, all the kids I used to teach and have LANs with have now moved to other parts of the world and we only connect through online play.
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I have a LAN every friday… my mate comes over and we game/watch csgo/hang out.
Yes I consider that a LAN because he either uses my 2nd pc, or (since its semi permanent) when its not working brings his own case (i have monitor/kb/mouse spare). sure we’re only 2 but we still LANNING 
Its actually a rather cool tradition that even my gf sort of “respects”. she’s well aware not to try make plans friday coz its our “gaming night”…Saturdays are entirely hers tho 
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Most of these places never seem to last long.
I can think of 2 that opened in the last 3 years or so. Both failed and went out of business.
This might do better as it has Matrix backing it.
Only places where LANS have a place is in competitive gaming.
The good old days of Casual/social lans are dead. MPLD and such. Very sad though
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I think this is the main crux of it all.
Actually not even, they end up hosting a “private” server in a nearby hosting facility on the internet and provide a high speed internet link for most tournaments.
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It is still seen as a LAN, even if there is internet available is it not?
There are still pcs connected to each other via a router, and the router has access to the internet.
The Servers are hosted at the event, and most of the time not even on the internet. To avoid DDOS Attacks.
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Servers are almost never hosted at the events these days, the servers (let’s use a more correct term - backend infrastructure stack) tends to be created for the tournament; These servers tend to NOT be publicly accessible.
“Since 2015, tournaments of any size and all types of game have been hit. In the last couple of years, mainly Hearthstone tournaments and the Dota 2 world championship were victimized, and several national Dota 2 Challenger Series were targeted by DDoS attacks. Also hit were numerous Counterstrike tournaments and small events with small prizes. The worst-case scenario for a DDoS attack is that an event must be rescheduled or canceled if the organizers can’t handle the situation. In the case of the Dota 2 world championship, the competition could only resume after several hours.” <- Would not be possible if the servers were hosted onsite. Most of the backend stacks tend do be so tightly integrated that you cannot separate a single or even group of sessions from say accounting and authentication servers.
This pretty much rings true for CoD, CS:GO, Dota2, LoL, StarCraft II, Fortnite, H1Z1, Halo, Hearthstone, Overwatch, PUBG, WoW and FIFA.
The only one that’s not affected by this is Rocket League as they support local non-official servers that do not require tight integration into other backend services.
About what tournaments are you speaking?
The thing you are quoting from is most likely online Tournaments.
Even the small local lan competitions I use to play with CSGO, servers were hosted locally. Do not tell me that they do not do the same at big proper lans like DreamHack.
But thanks for the quick google copy pasta though
So why did they postpone a number of Dreamhack finals due to a DDoS attack?
Was not aware of that, read up and the case I read they continued further on Lan with local servers.
We are however digressing now and comparing epeens it seems. The point however being it is still a LAN as there is still a local area network between all the computers even if there is access to internet.
Agreed
Also Flex, there was at one point on GlobalOffensive reddit a guy from an ESL tournament showing off with pics and description just what hardware etc was necessary. and it did sound like all the heavy-hitter servers/services etc were off-site, but nearby.
Will try edit post if i find the reddit thread, quite a cool read
Here it is…now kiss and make-out you too…or is it make up?
The major issue is that without internet access they would not be able to play most titles, its pretty much a “LAN” in the loosest sense you can describe it.
a more technically correct term would be MAN ( metropolitan area network), but “MAN Party” just sounds wrong on so many levels
Most of the bigger titles will use a managed provider like Fragnet or Multiplay;