HomeLAN
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HomeLAN existed as a self-described "Haven for Serious Gamers". Through its online gaming community, HomeLAN Federation, the mostly-volunteer philanthropist group provided online sanctuary for more than 3000 hardcore multiplayer gamers worldwide. The organization started out as "DMM", or "Diamond Multimedia" of Diamond PC hardware fame, by hosting quality, moderated servers for the original Starsiege: Tribes online multiplayer game. As their popularity gained, support quickly branched out to other popular online titles like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic.
HomeLAN set itself apart by attempting to provide a sanctuary for "true gamers", billing itself as a collection of people free to mingle and compete amongst each other in an environment free of discrimination, cheating, and other undesirable, immature elements that are pervasive among the multiplayer community.
Contents |
[edit] Financial support
HomeLAN was funded by ControlNet Inc. as a controlled interest and ControlNet was founded by the same person who invented the world's first IP switch and founded Kalpana. HomeLAN's commercial interests resided primarily around the sales of hosting and support for commercial high-bandwidth multiplayer computer game servers. HomeLAN was staffed mostly from the ranks of its largely volunteer private gaming community. HomeLAN hosted official servers for Microsoft's Halo PC for a brief period and America's Army, the U.S. Army's videogame flagship which was intended to aid US military recruitment endeavors. HomeLAN hosted virtually every aspect of America's Army, from official game and authorization servers to the game's website and IRC channel; even the official America's Army support staff was comprised of HomeLAN admins. The contract to host Halo was quickly pulled by Microsoft after a series of HomeLAN-related performance degredations.
HomeLAN also ran a public videogame news website, HomeLANFED.com, which featured unique content and commentaries from HomeLAN staff. The news section at HomeLAN and its forums formulated a 'draw' to the HomeLAN community as a whole and eventually brought in a small amount of money from ad impressions near the end of HomeLAN's existence.
The corporate side of HomeLAN collapsed when - in the words of HomeLAN's chairman and CEO - marketing high-quality moderated videogame servers had become an unsustainable business plan and the expected volume of orders never materialized because of the re-allocation of hardware by ControlNet and significant delays in software development/support for the HomeLAN Xtreme Division. The fall of HomeLAN's corporate half was a major factor in the downfall of its gaming community.
[edit] HomeLAN and the community
The HomeLAN Federation provided a number of free services to the multiplayer PC videogame community.
- Free game servers were provided to the general public and were considered havens by their respective players. The HomeLAN Federation and Alliance public gaming servers were hosted using commercial-grade internet connections and provided cheat-free servers with clean language. The servers were moderated by in-game admins and out-of-game moderators via AnytimeAdmin.com, which was staffed 24/7 by admins. From a handful of Tribes 1 servers, HomeLAN FED grew to housing over 30 Counter-Strike servers alone. Along with the Tribes, CS, and TFC servers, HomeLAN hosted servers for Day of Defeat, Battlefield 1942 and its mod, Desert Combat, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament and its sequel, Unreal Tournament 2003, and even Ultima Online. HomeLAN game servers were easily distinguished by the "HomeLAN FED" or "HomeLAN Alliance" prefix in the server name.
- A gaming community portal was created and served up fresh and sometimes exclusive news, previews, and reviews about the videogame industry as a whole. The portal also featured a number of regular, exclusive editorial columns, including "The Hard Wire", "The Sunday Matinee", and "Gleaming the Mods".
- Free hosting of high-volume game-related sites including, for over 2 years, the popular and controversial internet webcomic Penny Arcade. Others include TeamXBox.com, AmericasArmy.com, halflife2.net, tribalwar.com, and GDSE.com.
- Free web hosting provided through GoHomeLAN.com for all qualified HomeLAN members. (paid services were offered through HomeLAN Xtreme)
- Free e-mail for HomeLAN members.
- Large public and private community forums.
- Public IRC network
- Private Voice-over-IP/Teamspeak servers.
- Private for-pay game server rentals.
[edit] Organizational Structure
HomeLAN existed as an organizion of its corporate and community halves. The corporation, "HomeLAN" with the HomeLAN.com portal, sought financial stability while supporting the community. The community, known as HomeLAN Federation, comprised of mostly volunteer members who, besides moderating the public game servers HomeLAN hosted, did most of the dirty work of the community and corporation. Most activities fell into either the business part or the community part of the organization. Some areas though, like the News found on the community portal website, HomeLANFED.com, served both purposes.
The HomeLAN Federation was divided into two divisions: the Federation (HomeLAN FED, Fed, HF) and the Alliance (HA).
[edit] HomeLAN Alliance
When the community started to expand, HomeLAN created "The Alliance". HA was set up for two primary reasons. The first being a way to screen potential admins. The second was to give those members who did not necessarily want the obligations and responsibilities of an HF but still wanted to be part of the organization. Those desiring to admin the servers on which they played every day could be active in the community, follow HomeLAN guidelines/rules, and contribute when possible (time, energy, ideas, etc) and would theoretically be given a chance in the Federation. Those "just along for the ride" found home in the Alliance with very little responsibilities but with a large gaming community with which to interact.
The Alliance eventually became to consist of the bulk of the HomeLAN community. They were under no obligation to assist in the operation of HomeLAN, but were also held under similar, albeit relaxed, behavioral standards of their Federation brethren. The only overt obligation Alliance members had besides abiding by HomeLAN's rules was a requirement to sign in to the internal site at least once every 30 days. Community participation was fostered and encouraged, and of course Alliance members were required to wear their tags while out "in the public" - on HomeLAN game servers, IRC network, forums, and any public site where they would represent the organization or community.
To join the Alliance one applied at the HomeLAN public website and was then shortly contacted by a greeter. The greeter was the applicant's personal contact with HomeLAN. They were qualified and trained Feds that welcomed new applicants, and made sure they understood what HomeLAN and the Alliance was about. After about a month, they gave a usually text-based interview to the applicant which was to be reviewed by fellow greeters. Admission to the Alliance, and thus into HomeLAN, pended on the outcome of the interview.
Some HA's decided that the Federation, with some of its responsibilities and stricter guidelines, was not for them and opted, instead, to climb to the rank of Senior HA. Senior HAs had no more "power" than a normal Alliance member, but it showed their enhanced commitment. They were usually members who were eligible for possible promotion to the Federation. Senior HA's were often awarded some of the same perks as Federation members.
HomeLAN Alliance members were expected to garnish the "tag" of HomeLAN Alliance; "[HA]" or "HA" in their nicknames. The "nick" "Coroner" became "[HA] Coroner" and "IFS|Coroner" became "HA|IFS Coroner"). HomeLAN later decided to make tags voluntary for Alliance members and forbade entry level HAs from wearing them at all.
[edit] HomeLAN Federation
The original body of DMM was "the Federation", so when DMM became HomeLAN, Federation came with it. The Federation was the workhorse of HomeLAN. They existed as the administrative and supervisory staff charged with the oversight over the entire HomeLAN community including the gaming servers, website, and forums. Federation duties included serving as moderators and administrators of the gameservers, contributing and maintaining the HomeLAN internal and external websites, moderating the HomeLAN community forums, serving as a community liaison between the various tiers, supervision of specific elements within the community, and anything else required to run a gaming community of its size. The Federation was often referred to as "admins".
In order to enter into the Federation, a candidate had to meet stringent criteria. They had to adhere to strict rules regarding positive attitudes, fluent knowledge and interpretation of game rules, acquire a sponsor from within the Federation and pledge a certain level in performing the aforementioned duties. Once this pledge was made, a candidate was promoted to a probationary HF rank where they were scrutinized by their peers. Finally, once all of the prior steps had been completed, members of the Federation voted on whether the probationary member was to be become a full admin. While membership to the Federation was not strictly invite-only, it was stressed that one must not try to apply for the Federation, as the Federation actively sought out Alliance members as needed.
Federation members were required to display their "HF" tag at all times when out in the public and representing HomeLAN. HF tags looked like "[HF] PlayerX" or "HF|CM PlayerY". Higher level admins were designated by "HF+" as in "HF+|N PlayerZ".
[edit] Top-Level Admins
The HomeLAN Top-Level Admins (TLs for short) consisted of all HF members levels 0 through 2. The total size of the TLs was never more than a handful of the Federation community, and promotions into the ranks were not common. Members of the TLs were individuals who had been appointed directorship of their various divisions in the HomeLAN structure, and would were considered the "upper management" of the organization. They made or authorized virtually every decision within HomeLAN. Some enjoyed partial employment under ControlNet, Inc, and the upper-ranks of the TLs were considered full-time employees. At the top of HomeLAN for the majority of its life was [*HF] Serpentius, the director, producer, and founding member of DMM. When HomeLAN decided to split management into community and corporate entities, he headed the business management aspects while [*HF] Chemical_X took over managing the member community.
Top Level Admins were known by the tag "*HF", as in "[*HF] Serpentius", "[*HF] Webjester", "[*HF] Chemical_X" and "[*HF] Shadow".
[edit] Historical Overview
Originally HomeLAN was known as the Diamond Multimedia Federation (DMM), and started out as a project of Adam "Serpentius" Vener. It largely consisted of a small private website and forums and a dozen or so Starsiege: Tribes servers. Only a handful of people had ingame admin and remote console access and were charged with policing the servers and enforcing Federation rules.
During an era when having a 56k modem for gaming was common, the servers were very popular due to their low ping times and stable connections. As a community of players grew around the servers, clans began forming and a larger influx of people began flowing into DMM. Servers began expanding into other games such as, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and the Shifter mod for Tribes.
With growth came the development of an organized method of admin training and rank, and specialized tools for administration of servers. An admin training curriculum was established to train incoming members in proper procedure, though it proved to be exceedingly slow and ineffectual. More office and company administrative personnel were hired to deal with the larger volume of people, servers, and rules.
Eventually, Diamond Multimedia cut funding for the Federation and HomeLAN was created with financial backing from Control Net. The move was, internally, disliked by many, though there was no where else to go.
HomeLAN relied heavily on volunteer work by members, paying most L2 and higher admins, Anytime Admins, and contractors (though it should be noted some contractors were never actually paid).
HomeLAN began to sell itself as an admin support service, game server host, and beta test company. It managed the beta programs for Savage, Battlefield 1942 and America's Army: Operations as well as creating U-Drive, HomeLAN Xtreme, HandleBank, and many other game related services. Games began branching out into Ultima Online, Battlefield, Half-life mods (i.e. Counter-Strike) and of course, America's Army.
HomeLAN provided all the infrastructure for America's Army. However, after losing the contract to Super Computer Inc. and a similar contract terminated by one of Microsoft's gaming divisions shortly after it was instated, HomeLAN began to implode due to lost and/or failed business contracts, a growing shortage of previously-available server hardware, internal politics and aging (kids to college, collegiates to life), its core membership began to wane.
HomeLAN's final significant project attempt was a system called In-Game Chat (IGC) which let players chat in IRC, MSN, ICQ, etc. from within any game they were playing by drawing into the game itself. The project showed a lot of promise, but was scrapped as HomeLAN neared it's end.
As servers dwindled, and key members began moving on, discontent grew and interest and enthusiasm waned. Internally, politics began tearing the Federation apart, eventually leading to the departure of Adam Vener (the focal point of HomeLAN community morale and vision). Serpentius' departure lead to the exodus of various long-time members, morale dropped and marked the eventual demise of a once vibrant and thriving online gaming community.
[edit] Notable Players
[edit] Top-Level Admins
- [*HF] Serpentius (Founder/Director)
- Sockpuppet (Director/ControlNet Liaison)
- [*HF] Chemical X (Producer)
- [*HF] Webjester (Director/Engineering Manager)
- [*HF] Shadow (Primary Web Coder/Administrator)
- [*HF] Invictus (Primary App Coder/Administrator)
- [*HF] CowRacer (Lead Admin Manager-Trainer/Content Writer)
- [*HF] Lofar (Coder)
- [*HF] Dread (Manager, AnyTime Admin)
- [HF+] Greenhorn (Manager, HomeLAN Xtreme)
- [*HF] Belan (System Administrator)
- [*HF] Redemption (System Administrator)
- [*HF] Nitro (Training Manager / Game Group Manager)
- [*HF] DevilDog (Internal Affairs Manager/Army Game Admin)
- [*HF] JOB (Administrator / Game Group Manager)
- [*HF] Tonic (Administrator / Game Group Manager)
- [*HF] Vikarou (Administrator / Game Group Manager)
- [*HF] Reload (Administrator)
- [*HF] Pendragon (Membership Services Manager / Administrator)
- *HF|CM blah (Membership Services Manager / Administrator)
[edit] Administrators
- [HF] Shamrock
- [HF+] Tanis (Forum & Game Admin)
- [HF|CM @unt Be@ (Administrator until 2003)
- [HF] Kung Fu (Administrator until 2003)
- [HF|RH] Mad Bunny(Admin Training Manager)
- [HF] Tapcon
- [HF] LunaticChick
- [HF] Berserker
- [HF] Vallisse (Game Manager)
- [HF|CM] TSTHB (Game Manager)
- [HF|CM] Tattoo (Game Manager)
[edit] External links
- Archive.org Wayback Machine's archive of www.homelanfed.com: http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.homelanfed.com
- Archive.org Wayback Machine's archive of www.ingamechat.com: http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.ingamechat.com
- Archive.org Wayback Machine's archive of www.udrivextreme.com: http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.udrivextreme.com
- Archive.org Wayback Machine's archive of www.homelanxtreme.com: http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.homelanxtreme.com
- Continuation of the HomeLAN community at The Common Grounds: http://www.thecommongrounds.net
