You get to see your opponents before and after games face to face and there is an atmosphere of good camaraderie that you will hardly ever find online. No trash talking and no bad manners. Another, almost liberalizing sensation, is that you play every game free of fear of hacking. You can practice every ambush tactic you want and go drop happy across the map. It was a relief playing a game, at least for me, not having to worry if your opponent hacks or not.
There was however something I had not even imagined – next to zero latency. It is an amazing sensation to be able to queue actions and assume they all will be done and not have to wait for the unit or command to respond. This is especially true for the heavy mouse user, the difference was amazing. This is why perhaps some top players avoid playing online lest it ruin their low latency speed and timing.
Anyhow, if you have not played in a LAN environment please take the time to find one and give it a try. I guarantee you will be hooked.
Here is a site I found mainly for USA LANs, but there are also many LANs around the world advertised. If you happen to know of similar sites from your own country please do leave a post as a reply and I will add them.
Check out to see if around where you live there is a LAN café or party going on.
» Lanparty.com
Links
Lanparty.com - Big List of Lan parties around the USA and the World
GosuGamers.net - Old Starcraftgamers Poll: Have you played in a LAN?