Posted by
timothy
on from the please-give-me-a-driving-simulator dept.
PokeBlor writes: "Arena.net has an article by Patrick Wyatt, a Blizzard ex, that goes into depth about the creation of multiplayer games, ranging from replayability to lag. He uses good examples from Starcraft and Warcraft 2, two games that Wyatt was a designer on."
Re:Avoid lag?!
by
Gailin
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Off Topic:
Figured I would post the email that I received from a Blizzard employee in response to the letter I wrote them regarding bnetd
Hello.
Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.sht ml if you have any questions or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy.
{WR655}
Thank you for your email, Kenny Z. Technical Support Blizzard Entertainment PS. If you plan to reply to this message, please include all previous messages between us.
-- I wish there was a fscking blue pill
I don't know if StarCraft is 'balanced' . . .
by
stevarooski
·
· Score: 3, Informative
. . . or if it is, its very subtly so and outside the range of your average player. The article makes a great statement as to the importance of balance, and this is exactly what turned me off StarCraft.
Every time I played on Battle.net, anyone with half a brain simply played the Zerg and rushed the hell out of everyone else. Usually, the Zerg won. In a war of 'resource command' it would seem that those who can expand the fastest would win.
Just to convince people I'm not blowing hot air, look at the StarCraft Season III Ladder Tournement results and count the occurances of Zerg versus occurances of other races. By my count, of the top players, there was 1 instance of Humans, 2 of Protoss, and 21 people playing the Zerg.
--
- - - - - - - - Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
We hope you have enjoyed this article. Check back in March for our upcoming article on one of the most controversial issues in Internet gaming today: Dealing with Online Cheating.
A b.net clone can let people with pirated serial numbers for games play a b.net game. Say I run a popular b.net clone server that doesn't check for the game's serial number, a hundred people regularly connect to it and only twenty five of them have valid copies of the game. Blizzard has lost out on seventy five sales of the game and the pirates have no penalties for pirating the game. Blizzard makes megabucks you say and thus seventy five less sales isn't even a market statistic. What happens when there's thousands of people running b.net clones each with a hundred regular users a majority of which don't have valid copies of the game. That amounts to appriciable percentages of revenues being lost. It makes sense to disallow b.net clone servers even if those developers personally aren't infringing on any of Blizzard's copyrights. Warez copies of Warcraft 3 are going to hit servers weeks or days before the game is actually released, if these people can connect their warez copy of it to a b.net server that doesn't give a shit who copies the game Blizzard is going to lose out on a ton of sales because there's thousands of college and high school students with fat connections who don't feel they ought to pay for a video game.
Slashdot Mirror
Off Topic:
t ml if you have any questions
Figured I would post the email that I received from a Blizzard employee in response to the letter I wrote them regarding bnetd
Hello.
Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's
CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made
with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing
users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd
been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow
access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby
eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore,
Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at
http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.sh
or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy.
{WR655}
Thank you for your email,
Kenny Z.
Technical Support
Blizzard Entertainment
PS. If you plan to reply to this message, please include all previous
messages between us.
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
. . . or if it is, its very subtly so and outside the range of your average player. The article makes a great statement as to the importance of balance, and this is exactly what turned me off StarCraft.
Every time I played on Battle.net, anyone with half a brain simply played the Zerg and rushed the hell out of everyone else. Usually, the Zerg won. In a war of 'resource command' it would seem that those who can expand the fastest would win.
Just to convince people I'm not blowing hot air, look at the StarCraft Season III Ladder Tournement results and count the occurances of Zerg versus occurances of other races. By my count, of the top players, there was 1 instance of Humans, 2 of Protoss, and 21 people playing the Zerg.
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
At the bottom of the article:
We hope you have enjoyed this article. Check back in March for our upcoming article on one of the most controversial issues in Internet gaming today: Dealing with Online Cheating.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I wish I were a moderator
A b.net clone can let people with pirated serial numbers for games play a b.net game. Say I run a popular b.net clone server that doesn't check for the game's serial number, a hundred people regularly connect to it and only twenty five of them have valid copies of the game. Blizzard has lost out on seventy five sales of the game and the pirates have no penalties for pirating the game. Blizzard makes megabucks you say and thus seventy five less sales isn't even a market statistic. What happens when there's thousands of people running b.net clones each with a hundred regular users a majority of which don't have valid copies of the game. That amounts to appriciable percentages of revenues being lost. It makes sense to disallow b.net clone servers even if those developers personally aren't infringing on any of Blizzard's copyrights. Warez copies of Warcraft 3 are going to hit servers weeks or days before the game is actually released, if these people can connect their warez copy of it to a b.net server that doesn't give a shit who copies the game Blizzard is going to lose out on a ton of sales because there's thousands of college and high school students with fat connections who don't feel they ought to pay for a video game.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.