Not 8 hours. More like 1. Then thinking F... it, inserting a Linux floppy, and messing with the LAN from there, unfortunately not usable for gaming then :-)

However, the instantly working IP connectivity impressed the others, and reinforced my aversion for anything from Microsoft at the time.

Absolutely ... but don't forget the fun of trying to play multiplayer Command & Conquer via dial-up modem: "Wait, I thought I was calling you?", "Why is your phone engaged?", "Hold on, let me call you on my mobile" ...

This entire post is pretty much the definition of having rose tinted glasses when remembering the past. There was a lot of annoying shit back then too, you just choose to not retain those memories.

There's an element that all the silliness of the LAN party was technically necessary for the production, and as a grassroots thing the hardship added to the buyin and culture.

Part of the reason this was all acceptable in the LAN party era was that you were having fun together with friends while dealing with the annoyances. You could curse, you could laugh, and you could eat pizza together while you were wrestling with the faulty ethernet hub (remember those?) or whatnot. I remember I once accidentally blew a transformer at my friend's home while getting set up, and we all had a good laugh.

Nowadays, you play a game over the internet and you would be lucky to have even a friend next to you watching enthusiastically and intently.

More than that, people knew that they were going to have to do technology stuff, and tech stuff was oriented more at semi technical users.

So people actually learned how to do stuff, and that in itself was fun. Whereas the current low friction set up is so difficult to fix that if the first three Google results don't work, there's nothing you can do.

More than that, people knew that they were going to have to do technology stuff, and tech stuff was oriented more at semi technical users.

So people actually learned how to do stuff, and that in itself was fun. Whereas the current low friction set up is so difficult to fix that if the first three Google results don't work, there's nothing you can do.

* * *

Am I misreading your post? I think that’s my whole point right?

Someone is agreeing with you... on the internet.

Oh lol - I read it as a critique of my post (which confused me) not an agreement about the parent article

Ready to play Quake 3 and then someone decided to bring a G4 Mac. Easy to communicate right "It just works!"... :D

Just getting everyone on the same patch version to play a game was a pain. We ended up just copy pasting around Half-Life folders, and you'd have to change your player name when you first started or your have the same as the source copy.

Ah LAN parties, AoE, BfME 2, C&C ... good days. The LAN setup times, not so much but we had it down to a spritely 1.5 hours ;)

But then things improved and none of that had to be done to play with friends. We had it better then they ruined it again. I think that's the entire point.

Especially on consoles with limited patch sizes. Compare the experience of playing Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360 to the experience of playing the newest CoD on a console. I haven't played in a long time but just reading that the first thing you have to do is download dozens of GB to play a disc you just bought is bonkers.

And Steam is really a great piece of software when it comes to utilizing your connection. They can saturate even high capacity connections much better than any other software I know and you can play basically immediately after the download has finished.