> Titles like 1998’s Half-Life ... Other first-person shooters (FPS) like Counter-Strike (itself originally a mod for Half-Life) ... the typically low network speeds of the period meant that these games, unlike slower-paced and less graphically intensive strategy games, were nearly unplayable over an internet connection. In this moment, in which communications technology was being outpaced by graphical power, the LAN (local area network) party was born.

Yup that's exactly how I remember it. We were playing half-life at home LAN parties (often at my place and sometimes at big LANs) even before the beta of CS came out. We'd spend lots of time on the various maps, like the "small" map (if I remember the name correctly).

We'd also play Warcraft II on LANs but Warcraft II was playable over "KALI": we'd simulate a LAN over the Internet. For Warcraft II the latency was good enough already.

My best LAN though was the one between my home and my neighbour's home, where a coax cable (!) would hang from window to window, on the second story, in the street. And the phone calls: "Mate, did you forget to put the terminator on a cable, my LAN ain't working anymore!" (if you were to forget the BNC terminator, nothing would work anymore).

"RJ45" ethernet cables already existed but we were broke ass teenagers: so we managed to fetch a shitload of coax network cards and cables a company was throwing away. We didn't have the proper tool(s) though so we'd use kitchen scissors to cut and attach the 'T' connectors to the cables (by squeezing them with the handle of the kitchen scissors). It was totally ghetto but it worked fine.

Great memories, thanks for TFA and for posting TFA!