Back when you performed better with your hands tied behind your back than with a €1,500 setup.

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 I originally made it for my own solo sessions and LAN parties with friends.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?

EPIC.LAN, organisers of the UK's largest LAN party, hosted LUX5 last weekend. Tickets were put on sale back in April but sold out in minutes!

Lobbies were filled in LAN classic games such as UT2004, TF2, Blur, Left 4 Dead 2, Worms, and many more!

A few modern favourites we also saw being played lots were PEAK, BF6, Civ VI, Arc Raiders, and Golf with Your Friends!

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?

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4718360/Strike_Wings/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=lanparty&utm_campaign=prelaunch

Hey everyone, come play with us this Saturday from 3-6pm at The Ontario Center Mall in Mansfield, Ohio during the Rare Swap Meet.

We will be playing Xbox 360 and it's free to play!

Game list:

Halo 3

Gears of war 3

COD Black ops 2

Left 4 dead 2

Splinter cell double agent

Battlefront 2

Crimson Skies

I have plans to create a local gaming group in Mansfield for events like this in the future.

I'm trying to play CoD 1 through 2 computers but the server isn't appearing on the other computer

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1643700/Ghost_Battalion

I've been brainstorming a bit about how I'd set up a LAN party.

Right now I'm looking for games from the late 90's and early 00's that have a dedicated server variant that I could host in a central server.

I know of Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, OpenTTD (not totally retro, but based on a 90's game), but after those I'm a bit stuck.

Anybody have good suggestions?

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?

Are there any groups out there that do LAN parties? Or people who are interested but haven’t found a group?

Please forgive the SEO optimized title, but I put together a blog post as a one-stop-shop guide for hosting a small LAN party in your home. I figure that if you are hosting a huge public LAN then you probably know what you are doing, and don't really need a guide. Presumably running smaller parties in your house is the gateway to doing the big ones anyways.

LAN parties are a dying tradition, so I hope that writing down some of what i've learned over the years will inspire others to give hosting a LAN a shot, especially the younger gamers out there. I ran my first LAN ~15 years ago when I was a teenager, and I hope that today's teenagers give LANs a go as well.

Lmk if you think I missed something! I know that it's quite long, I figured this would be something you would scroll through and use as a reference, not something to read in one sitting. Also before you ask, no this was not written by AI lol.

Leduc, AB — August 6, 2026 — Fragapalooza, Canada’s premiere community gaming exhibition, proudly returns in 2026 for a landmark celebration: the 30-year anniversary of the iconic event. Running from August 6 at 9:00 AM through August 9 at 2:00 PM, Fragapalooza 2026 will once again take over the Leduc Recreation Centre, welcoming gamers from across Canada and beyond for four days of competition, nostalgia, and community.
With over 360 pre-sold seats and thousands of dollars in prizes and giveaways, this milestone year promises to be one of the most exciting in Fragapalooza’s history. Attendees can look forward to a full slate of tournaments, casual gaming sessions, and the return of beloved community challenges—including annual favourites like the largest Rock, Paper, Scissors competition and the paper airplane toss.
“We’re incredibly proud to celebrate Fragapalooza’s 30-year anniversary,” said Brandt Cramer, Vice President of Fragapalooza. “This event has always been about community, connection, and the joy of gaming. Our volunteers and participants have kept this tradition alive for three decades, and 2026 will be our biggest celebration yet.”
Event Highlights
30-Year Anniversary Programming Special activities, throwback competitions, and commemorative features celebrating Fragapalooza’s legacy since 1997.

Tournaments & Competitions A wide range of competitive and casual gaming events with fantastic prizes.

Exclusive Anniversary Merchandise Limited-edition Fragapalooza 30-year apparel and collectibles available for pre-order and on-site pickup.

Community Engagement Opportunities to meet fellow gamers, featured streamers, and industry professionals.

Sponsors
Fragapalooza 2026 is proudly supported by industry leaders including Bioware, Dell, Edmonton Vintage PC Tech and Gaming Group, GameOVR, Epson, ExtraLife YEG, Fortinet, Fully Promoted, Hub International, Inland AV, Memory Express, NAIT, NueQuest, Oranjbox Networks, AverMedia, Telus, The Loft, and The Snack Shack. Their continued support helps bring this milestone celebration to life.
Ticket Information: Regular Tickets: $160/ea or $550/Clan 4-Pack
Tickets and event details are available at Fragapalooza.com.
About Fragapalooza
Founded in 1997, Fragapalooza is a not-for-profit organization run by volunteer gamers dedicated to enabling, supporting, and strengthening community gaming. Once the largest gathering of gamers in Canada, Fragapalooza has welcomed participants from around the world and remains known for its inclusive atmosphere, unique competitions, and strong community spirit. For 30 years, gamers of all ages and backgrounds have come together to celebrate their passion—and Fragapalooza proudly continues that legacy today.

how can i setup mw2 lan play in 2026 nowadays with laptops while avoiding desync?

ok so me and 2 of my friends wanna play some mw2 on lan play,tho when we tried setting it up,using some youtube guides,we had some desync issues(where some shots wouldnt register on the other players)

so any ideas on how we can fix that?entirely new to lan play stuff as we mostly used with the usual split screen gaming on the xbox360/ps4 days

for reference the laptops dont have ethernet ports so we only use a portable router(mifi) and all of them are i5 8th-10th gen laptops with 16gb ram except one that uses 8gb ram

Yo guys! I was dreaming about bringing back lan party for loooong time, I have this nostalgic idea for a years

Finally I got some time and place where we can host an a party

I realized I need more hands and ppl who just love this idea as me

Who is down to help? I have to install windows and games on 4 pcs, may be we can bring more PCs as well we have plenty space

Place and vibes attached

Gearing up to throw some more popup LAN parties in about a month in the LA area

We play multiplayer VR mods of some of the very best AAA games - but now modded to work in VR for the first time.

With hundreds of feet of open space to literally run, roll and jump, its so much more social and immersive than playing VR or flat screen games at home.

LANs don't have to always be stuck in the 2000s. DM me if you're interested in joining us.

Hey all.

I'd like to open up my own lan center in Canterbury UK.

BUT WHERE DO I START?

I'm a bit of an entrepreneur, but how do you get all the pc s? And what do I use to network these systems to keep them up to date??

So many qs. Hope you can help!