Building a LAN Center

[mikesgroovin]

This is actually the 2nd question that i've asked on this website....amazing!


I'm involved in building a LAN center in a local area around town. My question is really simple. I need to drive popular games into about 10 computers. Can someone give me a "top 10 list" of games that are out there? No need to put them in order....I'll figure that out. I just need to know what people are playing these days so that I can figure cost.

::Thanks

 

[NathanM]

Here's some good stuff off the top of my head that'd be good LAN material:

• 
  - Counter-Strike / Counter-Strike: Source (preferrably Source)
  - UT2004
  - Battlefield 2
  - Call of Duty 2
  - Quake 3 Arena
  - Quake 4

And possibly some RTS games. I'm not too experienced with them, but Warcraft III + expansion may be a good choice.

 

[MrCoffee]

Dawn of war is a good RTS for net play... not sure how popular it is thouh :-/

You might want to check out gamespy or something like that and see what server populations are like.

other than that:

UT04
BF2
CSS

Personal favourites.

 

[mikesgroovin]

Great, thanks for the suggestions. I had these in mind:

BF2
UT2004
CS (Didn't know about the Source version though)
Quake 3/4

Call of Duty is pretty popular, eh?

Thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[NathanM]

Of course CS is the #1 choice. It's real noob friendly and really popular, so most people have played it. UT2004 definetly isn't a beginner's game, but can have some great results if everyone knows how to play. Make sure you start with CS cause about everyone plays / has played CS, then move on to some of the other games like Quake, UT, BF2, CoD2, etc.

 

[mikesgroovin]

Thanks again for the information. Upon viewing a few software title sites like Blizzard, Activision, etc, I noticed that most of these companies charge a licensing fee if you wish to host their title on a profit basis. So, I called Blizzard and Activision and their sales people couldn't even pricing information right away if at all. It seemed I was getting the run-around after wanting to pay them money in order to get this done....strange. So, I became skeptical and called some LAN center owners and Internet Cafe software developers in different countries. I ended up talk to this guy in Sweeden for about an hour or so. Turns out, they have the right to do this but LAN center owners don't. Simply based on the fact that these software companies have better things to do than chase LAN centers down in order to get them to pay for this kind of service. And they would be better off to let me host it if my revenue is up because of the PR that they get from people walking into my center.

Anyway, it was an interesting phone conversation. This guy is going to send me licensing info for the 60 most popular games out right now as well as event strategies and other LAN business rated tips. Right now....I'm just an information sponge. I'll take anything that I can get.

 

[KCRMYZ]

Theres a place like that by me. They charge 5$ an hour for First persons, they charge 2.50 for MMO. But the most they all play in CSS, then comes WoW then BF2. they also have something cool called a lockin, hwich runs for 12 hours.

 

[KCRMYZ]

They have a great selection of games, thats what everyone wants to see in my opinion. That they have every latest games. Im getting a digital camera so Ill take some pictures and send em. If you need to contact me I could tell you wahtever ya need. My AIM= KCRMYZ or xfire KCRMYZ

 

[KCRMYZ]

Sorry for the multiple posts, but for one thing you have to find a way of making alot of moneyt and having alot of people you know. Because the fact is your electric bill is gonna be crazy. Also look into drr and itg. Possible some step games

 

[Frank Jaeger]

Hey KCRMYZ, its called the EDIT button.


To add to the list of suggested games, Command & Conquer:Generals along with its expansion pack Zero Hour.