Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard Confirms No LAN Support For Starcraft 2
Kemeno writes "Blizzard has announced that they will be dropping LAN support for Starcraft II, citing piracy and quality concerns. Instead, all multiplayer games will be hosted through their new Battle.net service. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this move, but wasn't LAN play how the original Starcraft became popular? Blizzard said, 'More people on Battle.net means ... even more resources devoted to evolving this online platform to cater to further community building and new ways to enjoy the game online. World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that has evolved beyond anyone's imagination since their Day 1 and will continue to do so to better the player experience for as long as players support the title. ... We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.'"
Are they at least going to release a battle.net server clone source/ dedicated servers for private hosting? Similar to how Valve has a source dedicated server they release for all their major games? A lot of large LAN events only allow limited net access, if any.
For the record I think this is really,really dumb idea.
moox. for a new generation.
but it definitely won't keep it's longevity without LAN support, I mean the best thing about games like Starcraft or even FPS like BF1942 was the LAN aspect of getting your friends together ordering a pizza, talking shit and zerging each other. Sure, I can throw on a headset and play with friends, but what if battle.net is down? What if I'm getting a lot of lag...fast paced game players don't have the tolerance of players who are into mmo's exclusively. I think Blizz is making a poor decision.
Ave Molech Setting
LAN support is what makes StarCraft (classic) the best game ever. You can get a bunch of people together in a computer lab and play 4vs4 or in my case 7vs1. BNET access will be blocked from most schools so the multiuser experience will be eliminated since schools and libraries are some of the only places you can find rooms full of 25 PCs. Also, the LAN doesn't LAG like battle net.
:)
So how is this going to play out? If SCII is any good, the community will just produce a local battle net server e.g. (bnetd) for playing games on the LAN. Blizzard is making very a bad, short-sighted move. As for piracy, everyone I know owns at least one copy of the Blizzard Battle Chest, which costs $20 or less for SC and BW. It is the best entertainment one can buy for under $20. The mega mineral maps require internet access though
If anyone from Blizzard reads Slashdot, please go up and smack your management in the head and tell them to make SCII LAN playable. If they don't build it, someone else will and writing a small server to emulate BNET isn't going to be that hard. Even with encrypted session, it will be reverse engineered, just ask Sony about ShowEQ and their futile attempt the encrypt Everquest Traffic. Everyone on planet earth is going to buy the game the day it hits the shelf. Please go smack them in the back of the head now.
Maybe if BNet is just used for a quick auth and lobby, then a LAN game is started, that might not be so bad, but it's not looking that way.
Blizzard will obviously be doing it this way, they're just being unnecessarily cryptic. Not doing so is a surefire way for Blizzard to piss off everyone involved in E-Sports/competitive gaming.
Also, the piracy issue isn't small scale piracy at private LANs, but large scale piracy in China:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=96603
A few thing about Haofang: It is biggest gaming site in China, it has millions of users for many games including SC and WC3. It is free and using LAN(TCP/IP protocol) to allow players to play.
How Haofang works: You download a small program for Haofang, run it, tell it where your SC folder is. You join a room(max 255 players because TCP/IP can handle max to 255)then hit RUN, the little program will load your SC up and instead of log on to Bnet you go to LAN, and can find many games their to play since 255 players in the same room is a lot.
Why it is bad: Cos millions of players in China were/are/going to using pirated SC/WC3 to play without any limitation.
Why Blizzard cares: Of course they care, if even SC2 is going to last only half the life of SC the next big market is definitely China(cos Korea is given). If things going on like SC/WC3 Blizzard is going to lose tons of money.
Did Blizzard do anything about it: Yes they did but failed. A few year back Blizzard sued Haofang but lost and Haofang is continue to grow and now become the most recognize site in China(among gamers of course).
Why is Haofang able to sneak pass Blizzard: Haofang told that they only allow players play via LAN(TCP/IP) they do not do anything to mess with Blizzard Battle.net and thus can not be judged. I know it is bullshit since it allows players with pirated copies play multi play which is the life SC, but it holds true in the EULA and Blizzard can do nothing about it.
For those of you that aren't aware, LAN gaming is very much alive with our soldiers stationed in Iraq. Starcraft, Warcraft 3, and Dawn of War were all extremely popular for those with laptops. Even attempting to validate a cdkey through the tiny pipe that is the on-base internet connection would prevent most people from being able to play. This is a disgusting money grab. Nothing more.
Well, think of it this way. I'm a fanboy and I'll buy this game.
I own eleven fucking copies of Starcraft and Broodwars. I can have my own 8 man LAN party and then some. That's how big of a SC nut I was. Will I buy multiple copies of SCII? Fuck no. No LAN party, no reason to.
Blizzard is going to make "fuck-you money" with this game one way or another, but I'm telling you now, that's 7 copies unbought because you're greedy and removing LAN support.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Still, would you block 40% of your target demographic? how about 20%? 5%? You will have plenty of new gamers that were not playing when SC1 came out. Plenty of older gamers that are no longer interested.
It's a veiled attempt to combat piracy that's likely to work against them in the end. Just because it worked for WoW I think someone got it in his or her head that this is the greatest idea evar. Piracy of Wow is, essentially, zero. Sure, there are rouge servers, but if you look at the total number of players on legitimate (that is, account/key/subscription enforced) realms vs. other the 'loss' is negligible.
It's unfortunate that bliz is treating a much smaller, simpler, less involved game the same way they do WoW. Hopefully they'll add LAN support back in at some point...or someone will hack it in and P2P it.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.