A LAN Party is a place where people bring their computers into a room that is set up with chairs, tables, power, and ethernet and play network games with each other while socializing as a community.
The Marf-LAN parties were created because of the lack of internet gaming capabilities at UNF. Another reason the parties were started was because the founder (Dan Bidleman) was hosting small lan parties (only 3-6 people) already, and wanted to make larger ones, as part of his dream. These parties have grown to the current size of 60+ people every party. The parties were started in December 2003, at an inital size of 10-20 people. With the great support of David Crabtree, and the staff at building 14 the parties grew. After a year, the parties got their own club called the UNF Computer Gaming Club, because the UNF Gaming Club folded because of lack of interest. The club then sought a modest budget, and because of the quantity of events combined with the number of attendees, got a descentally sized budget. Because of the generocity of the Club Alliance and Student Government the club got new switches so the LAN Parties could grow. They also gave the club money for which they could buy food for the clients at the parties. Other contributions by individuals allowed the file server to have a greater capacity and for a game server to be built. Now a community has grown larger than expected, and so the LAN parties continue to grow, the online community on the forums continues to be strong and will be supported as long as it exists.