Many chapters of the larger Laclede’s LAN story took place at events other than ours. Had we been thinking about it more, we might have referred to these road trips and random party crashing as “active outreach”, but the truth is we just loved hanging out with gamers of all stripes and did it whenever we had the chance. Our philosophy was clear, though; when you’re trying to grow, nurture, and serve a community, you can never make too many friends. ...
Laclede’s LAN 7 is where things really started happening. We more than doubled our attendance to 72 gamers, we added Havicaz and his famous posing abilities to the staff, and generally ramped up our LAN experience into what we had always wanted it to be: the best in Saint Louis. The Dickie Burgers, the Console Corner, Tim’s Pink Lemonade and other LL staples were all part of the action, but we continued to add features we thought our community would enjoy, like a large projection screen broadcasting the tournaments on a delay and the Counter-Strike Ice Cream Cake (a subject of much controversy and sardonicism). ...
Laclede’s LAN 6 was a staff-only event. LL was about to undergo major changes to the staff roster, location, and scale; we needed to have a small event to re-center ourselves and explore our new venue. It was a great LAN, and it coincided with ACE and Sarge being officially added to the staff, as well as a brand-new website and the creation of the iconic Pierre Laclede logo. ...
Laclede’s LAN 5 finally saw us move out of the cramped kids’ area and into a rec room, as we started to outgrow the smaller area. The Console Corner continued to be a fun diversion with four-player Halo 2 running on a projector. Meanwhile BEan spent much of his time trying to track down muggers, vagrants and criminals outside the church. At A Glance Attendance: 16 gamers and 3 event staff Staff: John Dickerson, Tim Dollarhide, James Dudley Games Spotted: Counter-Strike 1. ...
Laclede’s LAN 4 was our first major battle against an unwelcome new enemy – Valve’s new digital distribution platform, Steam. Steam required an internet connection to update, and Valve released an update for Counter-Strike the night before our event that made older versions incompatible. Committed to making our tournament happen, Dudsmack took a 56K PCI modem and systematically got every tournament entrant updated via a dial-up connection he owned. The release of Half-Life 2 was huge, but at the time, Steam was a nasty price to pay for it. ...
At Laclede’s LAN 3, we stumbled upon the perfect method of lighting a LAN party – multicolored Christmas lights. Just bright enough to keep you from tripping over a cable or misplaced foot, but still dim enough to put the focus where it belongs – on gamers’ screens – our Christmas lights were both the perfect light source and a visually appealing accent to the neon case lights and monitor screens. ...
If you’re looking for the first Laclede’s LAN appearance of both BEan and ACE (and who wouldn’t), it’s right here at our second event. ACE showed up with a case whose yellow sheen evoked visions of a tropical paradise, even in the darkest basement of Chesterfield Presbyterian Church. Although still sequestered in the kids’ area, and still using ancient monitors and equipment, we doubled our attendance to 16 people, and started the competitive tradition of LL with our tournaments in StarCraft and Counter-Strike 1. ...
Laclede’s LAN 1, known at the time as “Event Zero”, was LL’s first foray into the world of public LAN parties. At the time, we were just trying to figure out what LL offered to the gaming community, and we had no way of knowing that simple fixes to simple problems, like the Dickie burger and the Console Corner, would end up becoming defining characteristics of the community we would ultimately help build. ...