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The Mac at the LAN party

Q

quickmac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 22, 2011
273
16
I'm often the only "Mac" at my LAN parties or as some in attendance like to say "the only computer in the room that doesn't count."

I take a lot of jokes and crap for using a MBP at a LAN surrounded by custom build desktop Windows machines.

The irony...

While half of them are trying to figure out networking, settings, glitches, and system errors I'm busy playing games with the 1 or 2 computers there that seem to be working.

I've even pointed out I run Windows XP on boot camp for a lot of the games and still doing better than them.
 
If your car failed to start, crashed randomly in turns, and got super super slow after 6 months of use. Youd light the thing on fire and ghost ride it down the road.

mac ftw.
 
I remember bringing my powerbook to a LAN party back in the day. I just got drunk and listened to music while everybody else was pwnin n00bz
 
Don't mind them. Just run XP, play the games with them, and kick their butts. It helps if you're really good at the game. Then whenever they make fun of your computer you can just say "So how come I'm always the one kicking your @$$es?"

You're never going to win an all-out Mac vs PC "war" but the ones who are open to reason will eventually notice that you're never struggling with settings. They will be blinded by denial at first, but eventually they'll figure it out.

Bonus points: bring a projector one day and set it up for big screen gaming.
 
quickmac said:
custom build desktop Windows machines.
Click to expand...

Like some PC dork is going to build a more reliable rig than Apple engineers. They ain't no Woz.

All the clever ones I know run Linux or Unix. All the wannabes I know still run Windows and the self-build is a mess and usually a waste of money - they'll replace the motherboard, get a latest quad-core CPU, get DDR3 RAM and wonder why it's still slower than my 3yo Mac Pro.
 
Allow me to just calmly butt in on this vainglorious circle-jerk.

I'm a 'wannabe', Windows-using, self-built-PC gamer.

Boo.

Personally, I don't have any issues with networking and the like. I'm usually up and running in a few minutes. Sure, it used to be a problem with XP but times have changed.

I used to be one of those Mac owning LANers. It was okay I suppose... For WoW and Starcraft. I could dual-boot, I guess, for TF2 and steam. But it was slow and not particularly pretty.

And then there were the mildly embarrassing GPU graphical glitches when my comp started dying. (though I can't doubt Apple's free repairs for education policy. That's seriously cool of them)

So now, during Summer when my friends all get together, it's just my ex who owns a Mac. It runs SC2... just.

There's no doubting you get more bang for your buck with a PC. More freedom. It's just heavy and ugly and there's lots of cables.
 
BertyBoy said:
Like some PC dork is going to build a more reliable rig than Apple engineers. They ain't no Woz.

All the clever ones I know run Linux or Unix. All the wannabes I know still run Windows and the self-build is a mess and usually a waste of money - they'll replace the motherboard, get a latest quad-core CPU, get DDR3 RAM and wonder why it's still slower than my 3yo Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

Apple engineers are building for the mass market. They're trying to fit the best combination of raw power with energy efficiency, size and a reasonable price. As such, they make compromises (like the fact that we're still using Core 2 Duos).

Your LAN party gamer doesn't necessarily care about energy efficiency, or for that matter, cost. They can afford to buy the best of the best and assemble an entire machine accordingly. It would certainly be possible to build a "better" rig than what the Apple engineers come up with.
 
Huntn said:
You can run Windows but they can't run Mac, I'd say you have the best of both worlds and they are too prejudice to realize it. ;)
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I know, exactly. I try to tell them the benefits of OS X and their reply is often "Yeah its for stupid people too stupid to troubleshoot their computer. It can't crash or fail because its too basic."

I point out that not all people want to spend time "troubleshooting their computer" and thus OS X usually just "works." That's not basic thats genius. While I enjoy troubleshooting PCs and even building them, day to day use on a Mac is so I can get things done not spend 3 hours wondering where a driver went, why a system error occurred, or being asked "are you sure you want to do that" 8 thousand times a day in Windows.

Of course none have ever used a Mac beyond trying to use it and not being able to. (ie- "It doesn't have a DeFrag program, no wonder it sucks!", "wheres the run command, wheres the loading screen, why is there no start menu)
 
I've only seen this happen once, because we were playing WoW at the time and the guy was playing on a iMac 24 he brought with him.

He didn't have any problems and neither did anyone else.

/shrugs

But, when it came time to load up some other games, he was SOL. ;)
 
This can be a touchy subject with many people (as is the whole PC vs. Mac argument which IMO should be laid to rest). The few experiences I've had in the past with the 'mac bashing' usually comes from jealously or poor attempts at trolling. I was at a LAN party a few years ago and my friends wife brought her iMac with her. While we were waiting in a line to check in a few guys with a video camera, probably thinking they were funny, walked up to her started harassing her by asking her what games she plays on it. After they realized they weren't getting any responses from anyone, they moved on and no one else bothered her the rest of the weekend. None of my friends I attend LAN parties with act this way, so try not to generalize that 'PC gamers' are also Mac haters. Don't let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch (I love little Mikey).

I have Mac which I enjoy but I also have a nice custom built desktop that I use for gaming. When I go to large LAN parties I don't bring my Mac I bring my desktop - because it runs games a lot better than my mac. I also don't have network problems or miss-configurations, etc. I'm very tech savvy and keep all of my machines running at tip-top shape. Also, I don't mess around with any of that water-cooling bit, I've seen too many 'accidents' over the years and figure in the end it's not worth it (sorry I digress).

A personal pet peeve I have is people who bring any computer (PC, Linux, Mac) to a LAN party and don't actually use it for gaming. I've seen people spend a whole weekend watching anime/movies, or editing photo's in Photoshop, or just listening to music. If you're going to pay money for travel, hotel, LAN entrance fees, why spend the entire time doing something that you could easily do at home. Recently due the demand that many games require a internet connection (*cough* MW2), many LAN parties now have internet access. Because of this, I've seen people spend the whole weekend playing World of Warcraft, suddenly many people realized they wouldn't have to miss their weekly 'raid' all hoped on - reducing the number of players in the other games. I even noticed one person who spent the whole weekend fishing in WoW, hope he caught a delicious bass (bad Napoleon Dynamite reference).

Like I said, it's a personal pet peeve of mine, to each their own right?

Regardless, game on!
 
Friendly smack-talking is required at LAN parties. If you can't deal with it, or dish it out yourself, don't go.

People don't just smack-talk Macs. There's AMD vs Intel, Nvidia vs ATI, etc.

It's part of the life of the LAN party.
 
Anyone willing to share some info with the uniformed (i.e. ME LOL) as to what exactly is a LAN party and why would someone haul in a desktop computer to be part of one?

It sounds like one brings a physical desktop computer with them to these parties. What is the purpose? At first I was thinking maybe it has to do with sharing a large internet 'pipe', but then someone else posted that 'they' are just now starting to include internet connections at these parties.

The whole reason I have a laptop is so I don't have to take my desktop computer with me. Yet, it sounds like it's the desktop that people are taking.

:confused:
 
mstrze said:
The whole reason I have a laptop is so I don't have to take my desktop computer with me. Yet, it sounds like it's the desktop that people are taking.
Click to expand...

And the point of a lan party is to bring over your hotrod built over time with parts from Newegg and 'pwn' the competition with your sweet rig.

But as far as the mac thing goes, OP lol just deal with it. That's what they do at lan parties. Just be glad they are only making fun of you. If you brought it to a competition they'd probably just kill you and take your wallet.

Seriously I have a macbook pro i7 w/ 8 gigs of ram + intel SSD and soon to be raid 0 when the 510's come out and if I saw a stock white macbook purring along on the carpet i'd laugh too.
 
mstrze said:
Anyone willing to share some info with the uniformed (i.e. ME LOL) as to what exactly is a LAN party and why would someone haul in a desktop computer to be part of one?

It sounds like one brings a physical desktop computer with them to these parties. What is the purpose? At first I was thinking maybe it has to do with sharing a large internet 'pipe', but then someone else posted that 'they' are just now starting to include internet connections at these parties.

The whole reason I have a laptop is so I don't have to take my desktop computer with me. Yet, it sounds like it's the desktop that people are taking.

:confused:
Click to expand...
A LAN party is where a bunch of people come together to play various games with/against each other. Desktops are typically much more powerful than laptops, and that's why people take them – though from what I've seen/read it isn't completely uncommon to have laptops there too.

Or you can just read Wikipedia's entry. :)
 
It would be kinda cool to find one in NYC. . . Not really my scene but Ive never been to one. . .
 
Tomorrow said:
OP, how do you find these people? Look them up on the local BBS?
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I lol'd :p

I don't see why it's such a rare thing. I was invited to join a friend's family for a holiday dinner just after Christmas. His kids were all home from university etc. and they all brought their laptops with them. Before we cleared the table for dinner, all the laptops had been brought out, and everyone enjoyed a group game of WoW or whatever it was.
 
I bought 2 2006 Mac Pros from a storage unit auction for 800 bucks. Put a Radeon 5870 in one, and 12 GB ram. It games like a beast. I love it. Runs everything maxed except Crysis.

Since I "gained" so much on this buy, im selling the main one next week for a 2010 Mac Pro, and going to crossfire radeon 5870s inside of it :) gonna be fun.
 
Eddyisgreat said:
And the point of a lan party is to bring over your hotrod built over time with parts from Newegg and 'pwn' the competition with your sweet rig.
Click to expand...

Mackilroy said:
A LAN party is where a bunch of people come together to play various games with/against each other. Desktops are typically much more powerful than laptops, and that's why people take them – though from what I've seen/read it isn't completely uncommon to have laptops there too.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. I knew I could do some research about it, but I figured I'd ask the experts. :)

notjustjay said:
I don't see why it's such a rare thing. I was invited to join a friend's family for a holiday dinner just after Christmas. His kids were all home from university etc. and they all brought their laptops with them. Before we cleared the table for dinner, all the laptops had been brought out, and everyone enjoyed a group game of WoW or whatever it was.
Click to expand...

THIS sounds reasonable. Everyone bringing portable laptops. I'm OK with. ;)
 
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