The (un)Civil War LAN 2
I participated in the Civil War LAN 2 (CWL2) here at the UO ballroom in the EMU. There was a gigabit LAN set up that was linked through an intranet to one at OSU.
Dedicated servers were setup for a variety of games including Counterstrike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Left4Dead 1 and 2, and Heroes of Newerth was hosted through their internet servers.
A wide range of games were played from single player to co-operative. I saw AudioSurf, Borderlands, the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne mod Defense of the Ancients, Rock Band, and a range of others. The LAN was a great social outlet, as many people came in groups. I personally wandered the rows of computers and interacted with both gamers and staff. Standing up one could witness a variety of computer usage from people writing large blocks of text to Facebooking.
There was a console side to things with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Street Fighter IV tournaments linked in with OSU.
Snacks and energy drinks were provided with the cost of admission all night.
The PC tournaments included: Starcraft: Brood War, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Team Fortress 2, Counterstrike: Source and Heroes of Newerth.
The Unreal Tournament 2K4 tournament completed and slardel, our victor, faced off against OSU’s victor, WookieeGT in a one on one winner takes all match. OSU was the victor as WookieeGT took 8 kills to slardel’s 5. Boos, cheers, and jeers erupted regardless of the individual games being played, as players looked up to watch the tournament broadcast on a projector.
I participated in the Starcraft 1v1 tournament and made it to the third tier of the tournament out of five. I also participated in the Counterstrike tournament, to which my pickup team was completely shutout in the first round.
UOs Counterstrike team beat OSU’s with almost utter domination to take the victory.
At this point I began to become deeply entrenched in a four-player LAN match of Left4Dead. It was nice to play it with real people you could see, even hear from across the room. At one point we decided to stand up and introduce ourselves to one another and it added a certain level of fun.
The next thing I knew it was the following day and people were packing up, I had become so entrenched in my multiplayer experiences that I’d completely forgotten to pay attention to the outcomes of any other tournaments.
I made my way home and got some well-deserved rest.
LAN parties are always about the social aspects. It’s never about how many games you play or what games you play, it’s a social event where we all have something in common. Many people were just milling around, talking, and hanging out. A lot of monitors were black whenever I’d stand up to see what people were playing. I, myself, only managed to play about 8 hours of games out of the 14 I was there, leaving a six hour gap where I was just socializing. And perhaps that was the most memorable and fun of it all. Meeting other gamers, comparing rigs, watching the people with the most skill battle to the death, and occasionally wandering over to the console side of things to see how the other half lives.
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