Ozone's LAN Party and Online Gaming

Ozone's LAN Party and Online Gaming

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Standard Rules

In general, just have respect for the other players. Several people have stopped coming to my parties because they were treated badly. Please don't let that happen again! If you are respectful to the other players, the rest of the rules pretty much take care of themselves.

Respect the other players (e.g. no personal attacks, no insults, no name-calling, be nice!)
Keep your language G-rated
No cheating
No whining or complaining
Don't be a sore loser (it's just a GAME!)
Have self-control (don't get mad when things don't go your way)
Be a good team player
Complete objectives in the games
Do not kill members of your own team on purpose
No voice-activation allowed with voice chat

Additional LAN Party Rules

These rules help to keep my parties legal.

No smoking, alcohol, or illegal drugs
No porn or other sexually-explicit material
No offensive material (music, videos, pictures, etc.)
No P2P file sharing (Bittorrent, ED2K, etc.)
No speakers during gaming

Age Limitation

Any age of gamer is allowed to play online or at LAN parties as long as they obey the rules on this page, and meet the following criteria:

You must be able to read and understand everything on the screen quickly.
You must understand how to play the games, or be willing and able to learn.
You must understand and complete the objectives.
You must be a benefit to the games, not a detriment (i.e. not just messing around or killing teammates).
You must be well-behaved and not horse around.

We stick to games rated E, E10+ and T with few exceptions. Children under 18 will not be allowed in the room when we play Left 4 Dead 2 or any other M-rated game unless I have heard from their parents directly that they have permission.

I consider a game family-friendly when it has no cussing, no gore, and no sexual content of any kind. Many T rated games are rated that way due to the lyrics in their soundtracks! FlatOut 2 is an example of this. That's easily fixed by muting the music. Other games are rated T for violence, but are typically no more violent than a Disney animation or PG movie. Video games tend to present violence in a more detached and unrealistic way compared to the movies and television kids watch regularly.

Borrowing My Computers

I have several computers set up for my kids. I have made these available for use at parties by my guests, but there are some rules that you must agree to before using them:

The computers belong to my kids. Their profiles are on these computers, and they may have spent time unlocking stuff. If they want to play a game on their own computer, you may get bumped off, even if you are an adult.
The computers are first-come, first-served. If you come late, you might not get a computer right away.
The computers are to be shared. If there are more people than there are available computers, you will need to share with others. For instance, you can switch after each round. That has worked quite well in the past.
You may not modify the computer or install anything. These are the computers my kids use for school, so I need them to be in top shape. I can't easily reinstall Windows on their computers in the middle of a school year. So please don't install anything or change any configuration.
Wait for me to set you up. I spend a lot of time tweaking games to make them run well on each system. If you create a new profile, you may end up with incorrect settings, and you may mess things up for the next person. This is especially true for Steam games and the Nations at War mod for Battlefield 2. So please let me get you set up before you play.
Let me know you want to use one of my computers on the sign-up form. There is a box to check on the form to tell me you want to use one of my computers. I need to keep track of how many are needed so I can have enough computers set up.

There has recently been some confusion about the use of my computers. They have always been first-come-first-served. I never have, and I never will reserve a computer for one person to use for the whole party. I'm not going to let a computer sit idle while there are people waiting to play. That would be wrong.

If you are not OK with these rules, keep in mind that you are always welcome to bring your own computer. :)

A Word About "Camping"

I will enforce a rule about "camping", but in order to do so I need to define exactly what camping is, and what it is not.

If we are playing a team-based game, like Counter-Strike for instance, and you have some objective, i.e. you need to rescue the hostages, you MUST attempt to complete the objective. This will prevent stalemate situations where the last remaining person on a team waits until the timer runs out (at which time they may lose anyway because the objective isn't complete). Hiding out when you have an objective to achieve is camping. On the other hand, if you are on the defensive, i.e. preventing the hostages from being rescued, it is perfectly acceptable for you to hide out and wait for the enemy to show up. That is not camping. That is defending.

Here is a complex example: In Counter-Strike bomb defuse maps, it is not camping for the counter-terrorists to hide out at the bomb site and wait for the terrorists to show up, because the counter-terrorists are on the defensive. This changes as soon as the bomb is planted, though. Suddenly the terrorists are on defensive (protecting the bomb from being defused), so it is OK for the terrorists to hide out at the bomb site and protect it. At this point it would be camping for the counter-terrorists to hide out instead of trying to defuse the bomb.

Here is another example: During our first game of Age of Empires 2, we played on a snowy map. Christal's color was white, so you couldn't see her people and buildings on the mini-map. Early in the game, all of her buildings were destroyed, and every person killed except one. She moved that one person through the snowy parts of the map for the next 6 hours, effectively keeping her from losing the game. That one game went over 8 hours! As a result, some of Christal's family who played with us swore off video games for life! Sometimes you just have to accept defeat gracefully and move on.

To sum up, if you have an objective, you should try to accomplish the objective, even if you are the last member of your team. Yes, you may die trying. But that will keep the game moving. And if someone is defending an objective, I don't want to hear people complaining that they are "camping". Grenades and sniper rifles are very handy tools against such defenses, and everybody has access to them.

Another type of camping that I will not permit is spawn camping. This is where you camp in a spot where the enemy spawns, and the kill them as soon as they appear before they know what is happening. That is not very sportsmanlike.

Please note that the bots in the Counter-Strike games will announce to their teammates that you are camping, or if you are in a sniper nest. When one bot spots you, all of the bots know where you are, and they will definitely come kill you. They can also hear you. If you move behind a crate, don't be surprised when a bot comes around the same crate with his gun already aimed and firing. Camping doesn't work well against bots.