Question on an 8+ player lan party.

An LAN is a Local Area Network and is not connected to the Live service. Therefore, if you've hooked things up correctly no one should require a Gold membership to play.

However, if you are connecting and playing a game locally through the Live service then all person's participating should need a Gold membership.

Thanks for the quick reply. So you are saying that if i do a wifi party, everyone will have to use live? Is there any serious lag on wifi lan parties? If so, i dont want to do wireless then. My router is on the second floor of my house. How can i move
it to my basement?

Found the answer to the router question. I'll just run an ethernet cable to another router(?) and connect xboxs to that. Does anyone know if there is a lot lag for wifi lan parties?

I think you've made the right choice, by selecting a switch with more than 8 ports, for future needs.

If you want to prepair for future ahead, try find a switch that support 10/100/1000Mbps.

[quote user="R4W Retaliate"]when i connect the xboxs, do they all have to use Cat5e cables? Or can some use Cat5 and Cat5e at the same time.[/quote]It doesn't matter if you choose Cat5, or Cat5e cables, to connect the consoles. The Xbox 360's Ethernet network
adapter support 10/100. So, it doesn't matter, as it can't send or receive more than 100Mbps (200Mpbs in full duplex). And yes! You can mix Cat5 with Cat5e.

[quote user="R4W Retaliate"]How would i connect them?[/quote]Each console connects with an Ethernet cable to a port on the switch. That's it. It could take a few seconds for the switch to detect devices and update this information on its CAM table, that maps
MAC addresses to ports

[quote user="R4W Retaliate"]If i have map pack 1, and my friend has map packs 1,2 and 3, does he need to delete 2 and 3 in order to play with me at all? Or we can still play with each other, just not on map pack 2 and 3?[/quote]He doesn't need to do anything.
You can both play, as long as you both have the same map pack.

Sorry for the late reply!

[quote user="R4W Retaliate"]Does that mean the xbox's communicates between each other not on a wifi Connection?[/quote]Ad-Hoc mode is a very simple method, to allow wireless (Wi-Fi) devices on a
Local Area Network, to communicate with each other, without any involvment of a wireless access point/wireless router, as the central node for communication.

My only concern with Ad-Hoc mode and Xbox 360, is that this method only support up to four consoles.

If you and your friends get toghether and play LAN on a more frequent basis (which I think you do), then I would suggest that each console connects with an Ethernet cable to a switch (L2, unmanaged Desktop Switch). The beatuy with a switch, is that as soon
as it is up and running, it works, right out of the box.

For cables, use Cat 5e straight-through (Xbox 360, as most switches today, support
Auto MDI/MDIX crossover for all ports).

Simply connect the switch to a power outlet and connect each console to an empty port on the switch and follow the game instructions to start system link play.

Since there's no DHCP server involved, each console should be assigned an APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing), or a link-local address (169.254.x.x).

Whenever you decide to purchase a switch, whatever you do, don't confuse a switch with a Hub.

[quote user="R4W Retaliate"] We are going to play black ops 2 mostly and we dont have all the map packs. Do we need all the same map packs in order to play with each other?[/quote]Yes!