About Fragged

Fragged.net.nz is essentially a communications hub for gamers in and around Invercargill. It is primarily used for organizing LAN parties in the area, or announcing social events. Unlike most gaming groups, the Fragged LANs are very relaxed events with light restriction on play styles. The only thing we really frown on is dirty play styles like using hacks and macros! We're a very social style group, who enjoy the jestful nature of LAN gaming, having quiet beers and shooting the shit.

Fragged in its current form has been around for four years. However it has a very long history...

The origins of Fragged start around 1999 when a selection of like minded lads started playing games together in Winton. Some of these lads remain to this day as members even! In the really early days we were limited to two-player serial link gaming, two-player dial-up gaming and occasionally (especially given the connections of the era) three-player games via the internet. As time went on however we all started procuring stronger machines with meatier hardware, and ethernet equipment. By early 2000 we all had machines with network support, the equipment to suit and played closer to six player games at any one time. We also started keeping scoreboards around that era.

As time went by the members went seperate ways. I moved to Edendale, Tahii hung around Browns, Shevy headed to Palmy and Rabbi disappeared to Dunedin. Of course, in Edendale there's not that many people, so finding like-minded chaps to play games wasn't actually that hard! Of course, in Edendale there was always my uncle Barry to play games with. This was essentially the start of the NUNZ era, early 2000s. Again, another core of members started forming. This group however was more about the drinking than the gaming, which led to hilarious hijinks (and to several of us being asked to never return to one of Willu's SLAS LANs!). The Edendale gaming scene lasted for quite some time, until eventually Tooboukou headed away to Dunedin, Urger moved back to Waimate, and I headed back to Invercargill.

And that's where Fragged began!

Of the past members, most remained in contact. We also visited another tech-friendly gaming page to keep up with the goings on. The only downside was that all the LANs that were going on were always either us having beer, or some chaps in Dunedin! For po' folk, this was far from ideal. As the other site was targeted for a southern region, the early core decided a page for Invercargill specifically could be beneficial. Thusly, after a few rocketpacks at Waxy's on the 16th of December, 2005, Fragged was born. The forums were up a day or so later, and the core quickly joined the new site, ready to vent about all and sundry topic that crossed the mind. The Dunedin kids showed up and wrecked the place up some within the first few days, which somewhat severed the ties between the chaps up the road and the chaps down here for a time - this rift has since been well closed.

Between 2005 and 2009, Fragged grew in forum membership from the original half dozen to a strong rollcall of over 80 registered members, with 30 clearly active in the LAN scene. Our registered base hails mostly from Invercargill but a number of folk travel from Dunedin and in some cases Christchurch to attend our LANs. We've changed venues several times, and currently run one main venue and another alternate venue in Edendale for special LANs. And it's only getting bigger!