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Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Warcraft III runs on Windows 95/98/2000/NT and Mac OS. My setup was easy as pie, which was surprising since I run WinXP. And, on a side note, I was running it on a LCD screen and had no problem. Blizzard has an effective video setup that allows you to customize the game to match your hardware by changing the resolution, model detail, animation quality, texture quality, particles, and lights. This is especially helpful if you're running on an older machine and still want your game to run fast. The sound setup even allows you to have Dolby Surround!
I'm always disappointed that Blizzard's betas only let you play multiplayer, but that's life. In multiplayer mode, I found my abilities only let me get about 30 minutes into the game before I was demolished by the hard-core players. Maybe it was me, but Warcraft III seemed to have a faster pace than the previous two releases. The pace is a double-edged sword, because some players like their video games to be fast paced while others like to take their time. I think Warcraft II is somewhere in between Urban Terror and Civilization III. So, until I can take it low and play in a single player campaign mode, I'm counting the days until Blizzard releases Warcraft III 1.0.
Most important, if you're looking forward to the game, be assured: the gameplay is cool. This time you have a choice between four races: Human, Undead, Orc, or Dark Elf. Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army with which to crush your opponents. Or in my case, getting crushed.
This is where one of my favorite features comes into play. When enemies are attacking you (or your allies), the map flashes, letting you know that there is a throwdown and you should send in backup. Features I'm looking forward to in the upcoming release include: LAN games (five laptops, five six-packs, you know the drill), the single-player campaign, map editors, and polished cinematics. I realize that cinematics may not really be a game feature, but I can down a tub of popcorn when I'm watching Blizzard's cinematics, they're just that cool.
Warcraft III gives new meaning to strategy RPGs. If you like to play pure strategy games where your only goal is to be the last one standing, this game is for you. If you like games where you can take a character, build him up, and watch the character grow over the life of the game, this game is for you. Warcraft III is a successful cross between the two genres. You can build your basic Orc Grunts and go fight the enemy, but you can also build Heroes. Each class has different Heroes with which you can gain experience, attain new levels, and learn new skills. Warcraft III even lets you carry around an inventory!
I think the biggest improvement that Warcraft III has over its predecessors is Blizzard's ever more impressive graphics. With a decent video card, the graphics are crisp and clear. Nowadays, 3D is the name of the game, and Blizzard again comes a step closer to reality with this strategy role-playing game.
Did we already forget?
I mean really.
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All armed with ) and wearing ]
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Most important, if you're looking forward to the game, be assured: the gameplay is cool. This time you have a choice between four races: Human, Undead, Orc, or Dark Elf. Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army with which to crush your opponents. Or in my case, getting crushed.
RTS is dead. Its all about who's the 1337 D00D that can build up his army faster and rush the enemy. Adding 3D and new races isn't helping. You need to force strategy on the opponent. Games like Conquest:Frontier Wars is a game thatforces stratgy on the player, and removes the micromanagement. That needs to be done to bring RTS back to life.
I'm afraid WarCraft3 is nothing more than an upgrade of Warcraft2. Sure, its pretty, and will entertain for about a week, but it'll all come down to who can rush faster.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Blizzard has always been a company that's lagged a bit behind in making use of new computer power, ie they lock you into a specific screen resolution, limit the options for tweaking eye candy, and for a long time would only make games that used sprite animation.
:p
I always feel cramped playing blizzard games in their enforced low resolutions, to the point where I really don't enjoy playing them. The control panel takes up too much screen space, the buildings are too large, and I end up fighting with the interface when it comes to getting done the things I want done.
In other words, does anyone know? I notice the faq says they're upping the available resolutions.. but that doesn't say much as you could have 1600x1200 and still have a graphic rendered to take up one third of the screen.
If the game doesn't provide zooming out and camera rotation, ala Myth, count me out.
Check it for yourself if you have it.
You still need WineX to announce that you have DX8 support. After that if you are NVidia user WC3 picks up OpenGL as a renderer.
The will be problems authenticating with BattleNet but hopefully next WineX release will be able to deal with them.
From the WC III FAQ: Are there any plans to port a Linux version?
We are currently developing WarCraft III for the PC and Macintosh and have no plans for versions on other operating systems.
Would have been nice to know if was going to be available under OSX or Classic. Perhaps I just missed where it was listed??
Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army with which to crush your opponents.
IMO Blizzard has always done a good job differentiating the races. In Starcraft, for example, you could not play the Protoss and Humans in the same way. They were so different that a new strategy was required for each. I can't see them taking a step backward with their flagship product in that respect.
I'm looking forward to in the upcoming release include: LAN games (five laptops, five six-packs, you know the drill), the single-player campaign, map editors, and polished cinematics.
Hmm. So you're expecting the game to be finished? Come on now, what are the neat features that those of us who haven't been following the beta forms don't know about? What innovations has Blizzard come up with this time? Undoubtedly they have something more than a flashing map, "letting you know that there is a throwdown and you should send in backup." That feature has been in several previous RTS's. Where's the meat in this review?
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
either you support them and buy their product or you dont. In fact, it is a testimony to your principles to not play the game especially if it is good. It doesn't take much effort to stand by your ideals if the game is crap now does it? Hypocritical.
How we know is more important than what we know.
By buying the game, you're supporting the messenger. Saying "Man, I hate Blizzard, but hot damn, I love this game!" is hypocritical.
Blizzard is evil; here, take my money.
If you hate the messenger, don't support him/her/them by giving them money. Make a stand and say, "No, I'm not going to give you my money because you are trying to crush the little guy." If you tell them that you won't let them do that, they'll soon learn to embrace their user base.
Until then, they'll keep walking all over us. And while they do that, I'll continue to not buy any Blizzard games, simply because I won't stand for that kind of corporate abuse.
Bah on you.
If you went to a restaurant where the waiter slapped you really hard every time you walked in, would you keep going there just because the soup is good?
it's perfectly possible and not hypocritical to hate Blizzard and want to fuck them five ways from Friday and still enjoy Warcraft III.
Bullshit. If you don't agree with what a company does, you don't use their software. If you do, you're a hypocrite. It's as simple as that. Hence, that is why I no longer use Windows. I got sick of Microsoft's bullshit (and Windows bullshit too), so I did something about it. (I'm not one to drag Microsoft into every argument, but this one is appropriate. I'm not pandering to Slashdot by saying this, I'm simply stating truth.)
I'm not one of the whiners that whines and complains about how horrible something is, but still continue to use it. That, my friend, is hypocrisy.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Here's an older and simpler Conquest game, which is pretty much all tactical, very Risk like and can be had for a pittance in shareware (remember supporting shareware?) registration fee. Available for WinCE (not that I have one or have tried one), too.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I know I can't be the only one that refuses to play RTS games until they come up with a decent AI for your forces? For me, the real question about the beta is what your forces do when they are finished with their assigned task? Do they stand around waiting for another order, or do they do something intelligent?
;-)
Until RTS games have decent enough AI that when your grunt is done building that fort you assigned him to build he goes and either returns to his previous job or starts doing some other productive job, I won't play them. I don't want to micromanage a bunch of grunts, that's my boss's job
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
But, I myself have played the Warcraft III beta, and I don't think I've ever been so disappointed. I was expecting very large innovations in gameplay, and a whole lot more from the graphics, for the amount of time they spent developing it. What I essentially feel I got was Warcraft II with a few minor changes.
Perhaps I'm just bitter. My friends and I spent many many hours playing Warcraft II, and while an updated Warcraft II is nice, I was still expecting more.
Lacking, to say the least.
"winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army with which to crush your opponents. "
Yawn. Boy how original. In 1984.
Hmm, theres combat, and that part of the screen flashes, gee just like every other RT strat. game.
Yawn.
Has Dolby Sound, could be cool, unfortuanatly a very small percentage of there payer will have a speaker set up for this. I'd hate to think the game took so long to develop because of this.
Detects your hardwaye, now thats new. oh wait, no its not. Yawn
"Warcraft III gives new meaning to strategy RPGs. If you like to play pure strategy games where your only goal is to be the last one standing, this game is for you. If you like games where you can take a character, build him up, and watch the character grow over the life of the game, this game is for you. "
didn't you say its all about building up fast earlier in your review?
How where the graphics? did you need to look up anything in the manual, or was the interface intuitive? did you try it with different settings, on different machines? in which way is it better or worse then WarcraftII?
When Considering the reputation of Blizzard, and comparing it to the reputation of Slashdot, I'll believe the reviewer just isn't any good at doing a review and assume Blizzards game is going to be good. Mind you, thats only because I've enjoyed their *Crafts series so much.
Although I couldn't stand Diablo.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Did you use a bnetd server, or an Official Blizzard BattleNet server?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I have been playing since the beta was shipped .. and 95% of the games follow the exact same pattern.
.. walk around map killing creeps .. the idea is for your Hero to gain experience .. but you need to back your hero up with troops as well which can become costly ..
.. MASS troops and rush!!
First part of game
and while your doing that the person / team that is going to win the game is simply MASSING troops for a huge rush.
Second part of the game
Even with the Upkeep system in place it still seems that the teams with the most troops wins.
As the subject says - Transgaming's WineX does support (fully) War Craft 3 and it works perfectly with the current CVS.
However - you DO need to subscribe to WineX in order to use the final release of WarCraft 3 due to the fact that WineX will support the copy protection that will come on the WC3 CD.
Subscription is $5 - worth every penny IMHO.
Hetz (Heunique)
That review was terrible. If slashdot wants us to read content, they really should ask timothy to actually play the game first.
,the addition of Neutral units (in that they hate all players equally), and Upkeep.
/dev/null for 'upkeep' of my units. If I am ready to attack and I pump out a pile of Necros, Gargoyles and Meat Wagons, I'll prolly move into 'High Upkeep', where 70% of my gold is going into /dev/null. This discourages building tons and tons of units and turtling in your base. Unless you maintain a lot of expansion bases and mines, your income would be slowed to a point that losing your army would mean very little money in reserves for a rebuild. This gives the nimble conservative player the opening to pick you apart.
I'm beta-testing also, so let me give you a better explanation:
There are 4 races (already mentioned). Each one of them have very particular strategies that make them suited for different players. The real twist on WarIII that breathe life into a dying RTS genre are the Heros
Each race has 3 heros available. Generally one is a melee, one is a caster, and one is a mixture. Your first Hero only counts against supply (food), but the next one will cost money. Heros gather experience from battle, and you can level up their skills (similar to Diablo II). These skills range from the area-effect spell Blizzard to 'auras' that enchance all the units around your hero. At level 5 your hero gains an 'ultimate' ability that can turn the tide of battle. One of the undead heros can raise all the dead bodies in an area to fight for him, that's pretty powerful.
Neutral units and buildings are scattered around the maps. You must fight the units, and you can use the buildings for hiring mercenaries or buying potions/buffs/spells. This doesn't sound like that big of an addition, but attacking an enemy player who just finished mixing it up with a large group of 'creeps' (the slang for these units) can give you a huge advantage.
Upkeep is the single most revolutionary part of the game. Those familiar with RTS games know all about supply/food/houses or whatever. Traditionally you can only support finite number of units, and to handle more you must invest more money into your base. Upkeep slashes a percentage of your gold relevant to the size of your army. For instance, I might have an undead base with a pile of ziggurats (undead 'farms') that allows me to support 90 units (the game max). If I only have say, 10, I'm in 'No Upkeep', which means that 100% of the gold my acolytes (undead peons) mine goes into the bank. If I decide I want to beef up my defenses with some abominations (undead heavy melee), say 5 or 6 of them, I'll move into 'Low Upkeep'. At this point 30% of my gold is being diverged into
These features, coupled with some really cool little ideas (Orc Raiders gain resources from enemy bases each time they attack a building, human peons and be turned into militia, elven bases can uproot and attack enemies, and undead units heal when on their own land, just to name a few) make WarCraft III much more pleasing for any player. Sure, you can play fast, or you can be defensive and prepare for a long game. Either way you will marvel at the graphics, laugh at Blizzard's sense of humor, marvel at the huge number of strategic possibilities, and have a smashing good time.
*troll on*
I don't wanna hear a single comment about the bnetd stuff, I'm happy to pay them $50 for hours and hours of mindless-computer-fun, and I understand them wanting to keep the online play within their control.
*troll off*
Moderators, see if you can replace my text with that slop that timothy called a review...
It amazes me that people can't think through why this is the case. Put yourself in Blizzard's shoes (ok, brrr). If you release a Beta that's a stand-alone game, why would the tester every buy the full product when it comes out? People are cheap, and that's why there's rampant copying of the Beta (hell, even I have a cracked copy).
The purpose of a beta program is to test the product (interface, network utilization, balance), test the market readyness, and expose any critical bugs that might hinder a good rollout. If you're players are on your network you can get a pretty good idea of a lot of these things (I wonder if the program does a callback if there's a crash/etc.). If it's standalone, not only would you have to have finished standalone missions (hint: they're probably still being produced/tested), but you'd lose out on any ability to monitor critical statistics. On the other hand, if you people do warez your Beta, and connect to your network, at least you have more useful stats from determined fans.
On the side of the BnetD v. Blizzard, I can see their point of view. They make great games, cater to the user even after the sale (battle.net, custom maps), they make sure that their games are reasonably compatible with older hardware (I can still play Starcraft with my 5 year old laptop)... and what happens? Major Anger because people want to steal their beta program and play it off their network? Of course, I understand the problems with Blizzard's position in this case, and I support the EFF. I've made my donations in the past, but I'm just a bit iffy on this case.
On a side note, I hope they fix the balance issues with the Undead. Undead are way overpowered.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"Slashdot was lucky enough to get a beta copy of Blizzard's upcoming Chutes and Ladders: Vertical Assault. So, CmdrTaco and Hemos locked me up beneath a stairwell and forced me to play for the last week..."
"This time you have a choice between two races: Chutes or Ladders. Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army of chutes (or ladders) with which to climb to the top. Or in my case, get climbed over."
You (the Slashdot "editors") just gave me the biggest laugh of the day. After all the hype about Blizzard's attacks on Battle.net clones, you guys come out with a fanboy, suck-up article for Warcraft III. Not unexpected, but definitely a sign that Slashdot is losing its relevance.
This article leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like a Jon Katz polemic. So much for Slashdot's "reputation" as a "defender of freedom." I wonder if Katz will write an article about how people let fanboyism get in the way of their putative idealism?
As for me: I'm donating the purchase price of a Warcraft III to the EFF, and I'll find other fine games to play. Morrowind looks terrific; Heroes of Might and Magic 4 should be fine, too.
Until now, I've bought and played heavily every game Blizzard has produced. But no more; I don't need Blizzard, and I won't support their misuse of copyright. In my book, Blizzard is no better than the Scientologists, in that both breed cults of ill-manner folk, and then get their dander up when anyone dissents.
All about me
Well yeah, if you oversimplify anything, it sounds uninteresting doesn't it?
The problem with most genres is that few companies seek to truely innovate. "We need the next Quake Killer!! Okay, we'll Quake, add 2 more new features, it'll drastically change the game!" -- the market suffers from that. Westwood's Command and Conquer series somewhat suffers from 'cookiecutter-itis' where they rehash the game a few times too often.
It's easy to say "well, I guess the genre is dead because it's all more of the same", but when you do that, you're forgetting about games like StarCraft and Age of Empires. Those weren't just subtle upates to the theme, but drastically different strategies can be used in those games.
I would agree with you that RTS is basically dead when all the companies make 'me-too' products, but when Blizzard comes along and reinvents the genre, I wouldn't be willing to call it dead yet. If anything, it'll inject fresh life into it. From what I've read so far, Blizzard has been hard at work making this into a new type of game. It will be really disappointing if they prove me wrong.
"Derp de derp."
Do I really want to ruin this AC's day by telling him/her that Slashdot is a diverse group of people, each with their own principles and opinions ?
Slashdot's editors are free to post whatever they think is worthy. If that means CmdrTaco and Hemos post a review of WC3 while Michael reports on the crushing of bnetd, so be it. Face it, it's better this way. If it were just Rob & Jeff's Droolworthy Games, or Michael's Anti-Microsoft Rant of the Month, the site would have gotten stuffed a long time ago.
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... which seem like "selling out"
/. tries to help them sell the WarCraft III product.
We totally trash Blizzard for, well being assholes and shutting down a project like BNETD which people use for legitimate purposes using the DMCA, then
After having been addicted to Starcraft for the past 3 years, I was damn excited to receive my beta of WC3. The short and sweet is that it doesn't live up to my expectations. This isn't to say it isn't fun, but I'm not yearning to play it every chance I get.
The one thing I found difficult about Starcraft was playing Terran and managing my army effectively. It takes considerable concentration and experience to utilize the advanced units effectively (lockdown ghost, EMP sci vessels, optical flare medic, etc). This is the type of control you need for Warcraft III. You need to be in the mindset and constantly moving, doing things. Resource gathering has been completely deemphasized.
Another difference is that when I'm attacking, it doesn't feel so much like I'm actually killing anything. You see their little health meter go down, but to me, it doesn't FEEL like I'm kicking ass. In Starcraft, it actually felt like I was kicking ass, or getting my ass kicked.
Visual Observations
The graphics look good, but aren't what I would call spectacular. Although, it looks amazingly sharp on my 17" LCD w/ GF2 Ultra. I'm still trying to figure out why zooming would ever be useful. You see, it's basically a top-down view like SC, but you can use your mouse wheel to go from top-down to a 3rd person type of view. It's somewhat neat, but useless IMO thus far.
Hardware Requirements
I loaded WC3 on a P2 400 to see its performance and man was it slow. I must have been getting 10 FPS. You're going to need at LEAST a 600 MHz processor with a decent video card (GF2MX).
Overall
There are tons of cool things about WC3: Heroes, auras, multiplayer game auto selector based on your rank, etc. If you're curious, check out a full blown review somewhere.
A good game, but not as good as I was hoping. I'm hoping the final version will have something the Beta is missing that will make me change my view.
By NOT buying their latest game, we would directly affect their coiffers.
I couldn't care less who does their hair.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Obviously, if an opponent rushing you easily defeats you, then your strategy is flawed. This complaint is just like saying Chess doesn't allow for strategy, because an opponent can always rush with a bishop and a queen and you lose in 4 turns.If rushing is a better strategy than what you use, improve your strategy. I think your complaint is that you can't sit around as long as you like builiding up cool stuf without setting up a proper defense. When you have a small group of friends it is cool to build yourselves up until you have massively advanced units beating the crap out of each other, it may be fun and time consuming, but don't mistake this for strategy.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You seem to be under the impression that Slashdot is some kind of crusade or political pressure group. It's not, it's a forum, a site where people submit things that others might be interested in and then comment on them.
Guess what? Some of those people are interested in Warcraft III. Some of them don't care or even agree with Blizzard's actions over Bnetd.
You assumed that the posting of a previous story was some sort of editorial stand, when in fact it was just another story.
If you want to give money to a 'cause' give it to the EFF or GNU or someone like that.
I believe the original Command & Conquer[*] worker peons would finish a job, then look around for something to build/repair/harvest. The worker Imps in Dungeon Keeper have a priority list of things to do if you haven't assigned them anything (claim any unclaimed ground, reinforce any un-reinforced walls, scavenge dead bodies, etc).
Right now I have a hard time keeping track of my Citizens in Empire Earth because if something needs doing within their line of sight, they wander off and start working, and then I can't find them. (I have the most efficient, productive, confused society ever!)
[*] Made in the bad old days before Westwood could hire professional actors. I believe the man who plays the bad guy (Kane? Cain? sp?) works in the Westwood financial division or something. That's really cool. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I've seen a fair bit of Warcraft III (although I haven't really played it myself much) and I thought I'd offer a few insights...
First, the graphics. Very cool, but at the same time a bit dissapointing. You can't rotate the camera. At all. All you can do is zoom and tilt from a near overhead view down to an angle closer to the ground... but the camera ALWAYS faces north.
That being said.. it works great. The game plays just like Warcraft II, but with much cooler graphics, and more unit diversity. Extremely easy to dive right into if you've played Warcraft II or Starcraft. I disagree with the reviewer that it's all about the rush. It's not. Blizzard is going for a smaller, more diverse army approach. Unit limit is 90. Which brings us to heroes. (I can't BELIEVE the reviewer didn't talk about heroes)
Heroes are what really make Warcraft III more compelling that its predecessors (which is very high praise) These are like RPG characters.. they have experience, they level, they can collect magic items, they get really powerful magic spells. They ALSO increase the combat effectiveness of any group of creatures they lead into battle.
All this means that instead of hordes of faceless grunt swarms, you have smaller, more carefully built and selected combat groups, led into battle by a character you've worked building up, who actually has a name, who you actually care, yes care about his welfare. You will know despair when you see the message "Lord Darkthorne (Lvl 8) has been slain in combat".
Despite the lack of camera rotation, the 3D graphics are VERY well done. Creatures don't look like polygons, they look almost hand drawn. I just wish they had pushed the envelope with the 3D technology a little more. Ground Control is a perfect example of how to do camera control in a ground based 3D RTS. And camera control is everything. It's what made Homeworld so amazing.
Overall concluding thoughts? I was dissapointed with Diablo II, I thought it was almost a (very large) expansion to Diablo I, with a stupid quasi-3D graphic gimmick. I am NOT dissapointed with Warcraft III. It shines of Blizzard quality. The legendary Blizzard play balance and more importantly, personality, is here, and here in spades. Warcraft III is going to FLY off the shelves when it's done. And they have MONTHS left to improve it even more! I can't wait to see what the campaigns are like.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Thats TACTICS!!!!!
Strategy is in building, planning, and managing resources
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
So when Sony admitted that they had invented a fake reviewer to generate favorable quotes for movie ads, did you write a venomous missive to your local newspaper, calling them hypocrites for a good review of "Black Hawk Down"? Because that is real journalistic integrity. They didn't let the misconduct of Sony's marketroids alter their opinion of the film. (Hypothetically speaking. For all I know, your local rag hated "Black Hawk Down".)
I don't seem to recall a post stating that all the editors got together and agreed that Vivendi/Blizzard are a bunch of soulless corporate bastards, and shall never get good press from Slashdot again. (Come to think of it, I don't seem to recall a post stating that all the editors got together for any reason. Unless a lan party at CowboyNeal's place went horribly wrong, and they're all sworn to secrecy. <g>)
Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion. It's quite possible that, while Michael loathes Blizzard for daring invoke the DMCA to squelch an Open Source project, Rob may agree with Blizzard that bnetd will let punks war3z them out of business. I don't know that for sure, but it illustrates the point that the editors are individuals. Each one posts what he thinks is important, and let's the reader make his or her own judgements.
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-AP
Wow, looks like the /. crew is at it again.
The way I see it is this...Blizzard is arguably one of the top software gaming manufacturers worldwide. The gameplay might not be a huge improvement over SC and WCII, but there is a change in the hero char. aspect, inventory, and from what most of the review sites say, less need to mindlessly gather resources.
I know that the company is backed by some shady roots that throw the DMCA around like it's thier own personal problem-solver. Does that mean I'm not going to buy thier game, No.
I'm a gamer, and I support Blizzard. They make great games. The simple fact that it seems everyone is missing is that BnetD and the like are putting out a software that has the direct repercussion of cutting into Blizzards profits. Why that is being overlooked is beyond me. Sure they engineered it from the ground up (or so it's being said), but the fact still remains that BnetD is a pirate utility promoting NOT purchasing a full licenced version of W3.
If any one of you owned a business which produced a software, and some outside source put up a utility that basically let any jackhole on the web download an ISO of your CD-ROM and play it multiplayer (which, let's face it, is the entire premise of these types of games) for free, effectivley pissing on your bottom line (monitarily that is), you'd be irate to, and find any legal loophole there was to shut them down. Blizzard did just that, and I say Bravo.
BnetD asking to use Battle.net's CD-Key verification was a total farse. Blizzard saw the fact that if they opened up that kind of information that it could be much more easily exploited...who knows how secure the BnetD guys really are...would you risk your couple hundred thousand dollar investment on it...hell no you wouldn't. Do you know how easy it would have been for BnetD to just overwrite any CD-Key you typed in with a valid one and send that to Battle.net for obviously successful verification?
Think it through guys, they are protecting thier investment and any one of you would do the same think if you had that kind of money riding on it.
Bottom line...Blizzard makes great games, to continue to do that, they need to make money. To make money, they have to shut down those out to exploit thier product for free.
Sorry for the rant, but that had to be said
-Grover