The Nerd Otaku LAN Party with Liquid Intelligent Technologies at Bongo Hive was an opportunity for our PC gamers to come nerd out and enjoy a day of non-stop fun! Events like this don’t happen often enough, and the pandemic has put a hold on our plans and events for the past two years. However, with Liquid’s sponsorship we were able to welcome a bunch of enthusiastic gamers who all relished the chance to interact and casually play the games they love with old or new friends. The day started early on Saturday morning and ended after the sun had set.

In today’s ever connected world, being able to play your favourite online games with your gaming friends is amazing, but it cannot compete with the energy and interaction a LAN Party provides. Nothing beats gaming together in the same space! This is why we do LAN events, we want to give the community a space where they can come and meet friends, discuss their beloved games, movies, shows, etc, and have a blast learning new games.
Nerd Otaku are very proud of the people who make up the community, and we commend those who attended for being chill, open to new ideas, and willing to nerd out and celebrate playing games in a way that makes everyone feel like a fellow gamer, no matter how casual or hardcore they think they are.

Although the fan favourite, Dota 2, dominated the day, we hope those who aren’t into Dota will forgive us since its been a long time coming and this event was primarily organized by the Dota players in our community. There was some deviation though, we had a small but passionate group sharing controllers around their fighting games, and there were Apex Legends and Insurgency fans in attendance. Our promise is that this event will remain casual, and that gamers can come and play whatever they want. The next Nerd Otaku LAN Party will be on July 16, so please watch our events page to register starting on June 27th.

Nerd Otaku are very proud of the people who make up the nerd community in Zambia, and we commend those who attended for being chill, open to new ideas, and willing to nerd out. We loved the way they celebrated playing games in a way that makes everyone feel like a fellow gamer, no matter how casual or hardcore they think they are. One of the great things about a LAN Party is the sharing of the experience and the sense of discovery, even if its single player games. Our gamers showed off their favourite games and we were able to play on each other’s rigs or laptops to experience and showcase what we all love, video games!

The show and tell stretched beyond video games, as people shared their stories of building their gaming computers, what the market looks like for GPU’s, and what they are excited about within the tech world. We want everyone to be able to get inspired to try new things, be it games, getting into computers, learning about networking, discovering the art of hard drive troubleshooting, or just having a blast with friends. Which is why we have a Nerd Otaku Discord server which is open for anyone to join so you can interact with our wholesome community! The potential for social connection, and even professional networking, is difficult to overstate.

All gamers who play online games have experienced lag or connectivity issues at some stage. For those who experience it frequently, we offer our condolences, with a solution. One of the focus points of the LAN Party was to understand how 20+ people would affect a single Liquid connection, and if their updates and downloads would have a negative impact on the latency to South African gaming servers. The speed provided by Liquid fibre is something very few of us in Zambia have properly experienced, so we were all blown away by the download speed and incredibly stable ping. One of the unique selling points (USP’s) of a LAN Party, is the fact that you can play it with zero lag, however most games today don’t have local lan support. However, with 20ms ping to Dota, CS GO, and Insurgency servers in South Africa the Liquid connection made us think that we were playing local lan rather than on servers thousands of kilometers away.

Setting up our online lobbies enjoying uninterrupted play with solid connectivity was a dream,  and made us realise how far internet has come. Our passionate Dota players had a blast and welcomed some new players into the fold! Coordinating team movements and beating each other in friendly scrim was awesome!

Liquid’s gaming bundle is really great for gamers in this era of online play. The internet has given us a way to connect, interact, and play with our friends no matter where they are, which is amazing! Breaking down barriers and facilitating fun from the comfort of one’s home is incredible. Using voice lobbies and connections via the Nerd Otaku Discord server its almost as if we can be at a LAN every evening! Close bonds are developed as we utilise the capabilities of the internet, and Liquid are leading the way with their low-latency high-bandwidth capable network.

With loads of free-to-play options, there is no better time to get involved in the world of video gaming. The barriers which limit participation are ping and data. Ping describes the time it takes for information from your game to reach the online server so that your clicks and movements register in the multiplayer hosted game. The lower the ping the better the experience. Anything over 100ms is considered poor ping because it will allow your competitors’ actions to register before your actions, which in turn handicaps your performance and degrades your experience. This is why many members within our gaming community recommend playing on regional servers since it gives you lower ping while also supporting distributors who prioritise giving sub-Saharan gamers a “local” option.

Data is also important because most of these modern free to play titles represent over 50gb of data usage each, as that is how large they are to download. Lots of data, fast internet, and low ping rarely come in an affordable package or bundle. Enter Liquid’s gaming bundle. With it you can download as much as you want from all the major gaming platforms and still have access to fast and low latency gaming.