Networking: more fun, less hassle

Do you know what a "LAN party" is? Have you ever participated in a LAN party? If your answer is "no," you do not know how much fun you are missing. A LAN party is a formal, and sometimes informal, ad-hoc gathering of computer game aficionados, in which dozens of players compete against each other over a local area network (LAN). Gamers look forward to playing against some other human beings, instead of playing against the machine. One can do this over a residential connection (be it dialup or broadband), but there is so much more excitement when the players are actually collocated: the joy of doing well mixed with the "despair" of losing yet another round fill the same room. Players are eager to leave the solitude of their room to discover the solidarity of a LAN party. In a way, a LAN party demonstrates that computer networks enable people not only to communicate, find information, do business, and even make money, but to have fun as well.