First LAN party unites gamers

By Benjamin Circelli
Collegian Staff
April 12, 2006

On Saturday, April 8, La Salle’s first ever LAN Party was held in Olney 100. The event lasted 15 hours, from noon to 3 a.m., and was free to all participants. The party was organized by ResNet and the IT Department, and was hosted by ResNet Technology Coordinator Melissa Miller. Food, beverages and prizes were contributed by Late Night La Salle.

Students gathered for a 15 hour long gaming experience. Photo courtesy of
Anthony Nardone.

Computer gaming enthusiasts brought their computers (desktop or laptop) to the party and connected them together, forming a LAN, or local area network. This LAN enables the gamers to compete against each other in real-time computer games at high speeds, so that there is no interference or delay.

Due to the bad weather, Miller was worried that the turnout would not be as big as she had hoped. The rain didn’t seem to stop most gamers from showing up, as there was still a 90 percent turnout rate.

“That rate is really good for any school event, and we hope to double the crowd next semester since we will have more time to give students to register and prepare,” Miller said.

Although the IT staff planned the event for a month, they only gave students two weeks to sign up for the party. The staff did this to try and limit the amount of people who would be participating. Only 50 spots were open due to
were available to La Salle residents and their friends due to limited power and space.

Official tournaments were held with games such as Counter-Strike, Battlefield 2 and Unreal Tournament 2006. The 20 participants were split into two equal teams, and competed against each other in all three games. At the end, each member of the winning team received $50 and other various swag, including stickers, T-shirts and posters donated by two computer hardware companies, NVidea and ATI.

There was also an official tournament held for Halo 2 on XBox, which was played on a projector in Olney 107. The winners, Brian Decky and Bill Schott, each won $50. During the down time when a tournament wasn’t being played, open gaming was allowed, where a person could play a game of his or her choice while hosting his or her own servers on a personal computer. There was even Donkey Kong set up in the back of the room for the less competitive gamers. In these competitions, there was no prize given to the winner, since it wasn’t actually part of the tournament.

“I was impressed with the competitiveness, but it’s all in good fun since the morale was so high,” Miller said. “We just wanted to bring together students who have similar interests in gaming, and hopefully we can establish a gaming club next fall.”

circellib1@lasalle.edu