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.'"
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.
I find it odd that a comparison is being drawn between a stateful monthly payment role playing game and a stateless (allegedly subscription-less) real time strategy game. I definitely see how World of Warcraft is enriched by the spider webbed interaction of thousands of players on a server. However, I fail to see how Starcraft II would benefit from this if you've got a single digit cap on number of players in any given instance of the game.
And can we give up on the piracy concerns? It's just getting embarrassing.
Also, if you're going to force everyone to use Battle.net, I hope you have improved its quality since I was last one it several years ago.
My work here is dung.
luckily we have bnetd!
oh wait...
So now, aside from locating a place where you and your friends can setup your computers and play - you now get to find someplace with an internet connection that can handle all of them at the same time.
Way to go Blizzard.
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.
Quite disappointing, considering some friends and I still get together and play an 8 man LAN every month or so of Starcraft 1. Feels like an internet connection would be saturated if we were all trying to send data back and forth to BNet, especially the uplink. 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.
Shame the official reason is to combat piracy as well, since it seems this will cause more players to find BNet emulators and won't solve the piracy problem.
There was some thought that Blizz isnt completely stupid and will have client to server authentication over the net, and then P2P the clients on the LAN. At least with this method you could have as many LAN stations as your power will permit.
Good-bye
Somehow I think its more to do with stopping the pirates, no valid key, no multiplayer ever. Diablo II is fun to play on battlenet, but when theres 4+ of us all on lan, we notice the difference with Lag when we all go on battlenet (Do they even run servers in the europe for anything but WOW). Not only that, means if ever the net goes down at a LAN meetup (or is otherwise unavailable) we can't play your game at all.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
No, Blizzard, you wouldn't take out LAN support (which is obviously popular) unless you thought you could make money by forcing everyone to use battle.net.
Or maybe requiring battle.net allows you to check everyone's serial number without generating a bunch of bad publicity by using SecuROM.
Now I'm gonna have to let all the LAN-party machines access the public Internet. Oh, goody!
Sheesh...
You have the right to remain silent. If you don't, anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
As a purely coincidental side effect, I'm sure, this will make sure that everyone on the LAN has their own copy, as battle.net will only allow one CD key on at a time.
Quite a reversal of the "Ghost Copy" feature or whatever of StarCraft 1 that allows many people to use one copy over the LAN.
It seems like we are always pushed towards using broadband just as the quality of these connections is on a constant downfall. Means there will be no multi-player StarCraft II for you when your ISP fails you with their DNS servers; even if everyone in your household owns a legitimate copy of the game.
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
We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.
How is connecting all the computers in the room to a server across the state going to ever be better than connecting all the computers in the room to each other? This man just told everyone that his bullshit is going to start tasting better than icecream. He just needs a neon sign over his head that says "Do not trust this man or anything he says."
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I dunno about this. What if my ISP is acting up, and I need to get in a bit of Starcrafty goodness with a couple friends I have over or something? No matter what Blizzard does, there's going to be piracy of their game; it's inescapable, no matter what they do. I'm sure bnetd (or at least something similar) is going to pop up.
The most jarring thing to me is the worry that they won't at least let you meet up with specific people on bnet and form a closed game to at least simulate a LAN game (fat chance, with the lag back to Blizzard's servers =/ )
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
This is all about the only form of DRM that works: centrally controlled and account based. Regardless of how many reasons that Blizzard gives, this is all about controlling the product.
Blizzard used to make games because they were fun to play? Given that Blizzard has basically dominated the market why do they continue to stray from their roots... Remember KALI? Warcraft 2 owed ALL of its success to KALI and that would have never existed if LAN play wasn't an option. But battle.net takes in HUGE profits all by itself so I guess its better to force players to use it then make it optional. Control is the name of the game these days. Oh yah.. I forgot, DRM and other Piracy measures work sooooo well don't they?
This is just a blatant money grab to monetize Battle.net. They realize the first Starcraft is still being played a decade later, but they aren't making any more money. Throw some ads on Battle.net and you have a continuous revenue stream for years to come.
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
So how will people edit maps and then test them? I mean i know there will be 3rd party ways to lan this but is Blizzard trying to prevent me from taking a map, editing it, then having a few friends over to test it out before putting it online? or will all this be done through bnet?
I haven't been to a LAN party in about 10 years. It's really easy to get the same experience nowadays with broadband and a microphone. I don't see the point in hauling all my computer stuff over to a friends house when now I can just hop on Steam and round up a few people and play Left 4 Dead. 10 years ago when we were all playing Starcraft and Quake II, there was a definite need for LAN parties since we all had slow 33.6/56K dial-up internet which made multiplayer games extremely slow.
"While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with Starcraft II and safeguard against piracy."
THis is the result of a great gaming house bought by a corporate whore. Good job Blizz, not only are you selling the integrity right out from under WoW, you are going to let them fuck up your other franchises too. I still dont understand why Starcraft II has to be 3 separate retail releases. Can someone at least point me to a link that explains their 'reasoning' on this?
Good-bye
Not only did Blizzard's RTS games gain popularity as LAN games, but they capitalized on casual LAN gaming (in offices, etc.) by allowing multiple players players on a single purchased copy of the game. That feature became standard for other RTS games for awhile, but at first it certainly helped Blizzard propel over the crowds (and it certainly was a crowded genre).
So I'm contrasting the old "free" partial copies of the games to gain popularity, to the server = copy-protection methods now that they have the popularity locked in.
I wouldn't care much about it, but I still love LAN options and I'm not all that fond of Blizzard's style of "community building" because I know it's going to be ladder climbing and stat building designed to capitalize on achievement-focused obsessions. I'm sure that will sell them many games, but I'd just like to fire up a quick game with friends without everyone so obsessed with the meta aspects.
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.
This sounds like it might make playing as a group from behind a household NAT router much more difficult, no? There at least will be a speed penalty.
That takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Lan parties are different than online play, because everyone is in the same room. You know everyone who's there, and you can see them from across the room. Nothing is a substitute for human contact, and playing on battle.net won't be the same.
At least it'll have local campaign play, right? You can still play that forever and ever.
I continue to play Warcraft III fairly regularly, mostly in the form of the custom map DotA. My thoughts:
Battle.net has failed to evolve and I feel is discouraging to communities rather than promoting it. I've seen nothing really appreciable since War-III came out with the sad "clan" system. Bots are officially disallowed, but required to develop any sort of reasonable group. The new Warden service makes running a bot far more of a challenge.
The necessity of the bots is this: you can't functionally setup an organized game any other way. There's no mechanism for taking a private game public once you get your friends in it. Game names can't be changed. Custom (non-ladder) games without an external mod have no disincentive to them to deal with the burgeoning population of juvenile tools who like to bail on their first loss in a team game, or worse find a way to actively ruin the game. Blizzards clan system itself is lacking and hasn't been improved upon at all. It's nearly useless outside of ladder games. Players end up creating new accounts with clan tags in the name to "fly their colors." Simply being more prominent in displaying the affiliated clan would have gone a long way.
And come on... the game came out 7 years ago. Fix the damn pathing issues! Blizzard makes amazing games, but their handling of B.net lately has been horribly disappointing.
SIG: HUP
It's ridiculously stupid moves like this that cause me not to purchase the game until, oh, ten years down the road when I can pick it up for a quarter at a yard sale. I'm serious with crap like that. I'm still boycotting Sony (and all their products, including tri-star films) for their stupidity.
It is my understanding that people who are on the same LAN and are playing with each other will still be sending the actual gameplay packets to each others LAN ip address without having to first pass through Battle.Net. All Battle.Net will be doing is authenticating the game and setting up matches and keeping various stats. That said we won't know for sure till the beta is released or Blizzard confirms or denies it.
they seem to have forgotten that they used to give "spawn" CD keys that allowed you to play with friends. I thought you could play LAN with that too.
I buy games, and bought SC1 [and Brood War] and played the hell out of it [spawn copies at LANs!]. might not want to buy SC2 if that's how they want to play...
Until I read about this. HOLY crap am I pissed. I used to work somewhere with a 5$/hr gaming machine rental on a lan of about 10-15 machines. Starcraft, Q2, CS, TF were HUGELY popular lan games we allways had people doing group play 2v2 etc. We did tons of tournaments too that were often won w/ a zerg rush or an a carrier warp.
Those were the good ol days!
We're all going to have to wait for Total Annihilation 3?
Effin A.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I'm not buying also, first: no Linux version and now this.
Blizzard: if you want your products to sell start listening to your possibles customers.
Though generally regarded as ineffective, but if enough people join the effort... http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html
More and more companies are dropping co-op games (except for strategy games), pushing off PC onto consoles (or at least developing on consoles so the control schema sucks), and now droping LAN games?
It seems like the industry is trying desperately to get me to stop playing games.
Oh, and it won't really do much to damp piracy, just shift it from stolen images to stolen keys, thus increasing the harm to legit gamers. Not having a whole "way to go" moment here.
Recently got UT3, BTW, which is so buggy as to be more frustrating than fun. Thank goodness it was only $10. Does play LAN games, but the settings are arbitrarily restricted (and seemingly somewhat random re: options and difficulty).
Is it just me, or is gaming in general going downhill?
It was easy to see this coming. They already said that LAN play was axed from Diablo 3, and we saw direct TCP/IP axed even as far back as Warcraft 3 (requiring tunnels like Hamachi to play across the 'net but not battle.net). Blizzard fans/apologists will lap it up, nonetheless.
So now, aside from locating a place where you and your friends can setup your computers and play - you now get to find someplace with an internet connection that can handle all of them at the same time.
Or you can just pay $60 per computer per month with a 24-month minimum commitment for mobile broadband, like a lot of proponents of cloud computing on Slashdot have been recommending.
...they'd either need to include the server as well or have a separate network architecture for peer-to-peer play.
So? Both of these have precedent. Valve releases servers, and some of Blizzard's own games (including SC1) have peer-to-peer play.
While we're at it, why is this post modded down?
Whenever a company does something that hurts the consumer in the name of "fighting piracy", it seems to me to be taken by the community as an open invitation to pirate their game. Given the choice between pirating and buying the game, frequently the reason the individual consumer chooses to pay money for the game is the impression one has of the company. Sure, no one is going to pay for a crappy game, but look at the difference between Spore and Starcraft. Spore was seen as a slap in the face of the consumer and consequently was one of the most pirated games in history. The original Starcraft, despite the fact it is easily pirated, is still profitable enough to be sold for $20 in stores.
You want to insure piracy? Piss off your users. Removing LAN and telling LAN users they're nothing but pirates seems to be going down that road pretty nicely.
I don't think piracy is their main concern here. I believe this may be a (somewhat misguided) idea to get a subscription of SCII players, like they got used with WoW. Sure, they said they would allow all bought copies to play on bnet, but they haven't precluded some options (like e.g. a subscription allows you to have pre-made groups, or bigger battles, or something like that). If people buy the game and don't log on bnet, some carrots and sticks will be missing on their options.
What if my ISP is acting up
<devils-advocate>If you fear that your ISP might act up, subscribe to both cable and DSL and have your router automatically switch between the two. It's called multihoming.</devils-advocate>
and I need to get in a bit of Starcrafty goodness with a couple friends I have over or something?
How will your friends play at your house if their PCs are back at their houses?
Most people play online on bnet. The only issue I can see is how will they host those Starcraft tournament in Korea, will they have to login to bnet also?
I have been waiting for this release for quite some time now. I have faithfully worshiped the screen shots, the anticipation was just killing me. Fond memories of Starcraft 1 LAN games still fresh in my mind. With this new twist, well it is like a virtual kick in the balls. Blizzard has pissed on these fond memories without a care in the world. The massive success of WoW has blinded them to what the game players really desire. The justifications are a thinly veiled attempt at retaining control over the user experience. I, like many others will probably never purchase this game unless they reverse the decision. It has now become something I have no reason to spend $59.99 of my money on. Thanks but no thanks gentlemen...
So how will people edit maps and then test them?
<devils-advocate>Against bots. And be glad there even is a map editor; there wasn't one in Warcraft 2 for the original PlayStation or in Starcraft for Nintendo 64.</devils-advocate>
If Blizzard were offering something better, they would not have to remove the game's LAN capability. Customers would just use the "better" thing, right?
Oh wait. Better for Blizzard. Ah, now it makes sense.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
I think this kills the market for people who want to goof off at work, as there's no way those SC2 packets will make it through a corporate firewall, but they'd probably do just fine going back and forth with your cubicle neighbor.
More data, damnit!
More importantly... how many of your friends bought the game after you introduced them to it with those spawn copies? Blizzard is shooting itself in the foot.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
but wasn't LAN play how the original Starcraft became popular?
That's how Warcraft became popular. Starcraft had LAN options but it was more popular over battle.net than LAN.
Two possibilities:
1) They don't want to code LAN support, probably because it's extra coding time and they don't see the immediate benefit, and they see the extra benefits to them (not to users) of forcing people to battle.net.
2) The parent company of Blizzard is putting antipiracy pressure on them and this was a loophole in their plan.
LAN support makes the game last longer for hardcore gamers. That's the major benefit to consumers. However, 95% of the starcraft populace will play on battle.net. Even out of all you slashdot complainers who end up buying it, you'll play on Battle.net. A very small section of people will not buy it, and the cost of coding LAN support vs the lost sales will probably not matter much (and might even save them money).
It's definitely a consumer loss, but it's not a bad move for the sake of Blizzard's own bottom line.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I don't know how would you want to access battle.net without an internet connection
I'm a big fan of Blizzard titles (but then, who isn't?). My friends and I still get together on at least a monthly basis to play Starcraft or War3 on a LAN. Given that, it should be no surprise that I think this is a very bad move by Blizzard. There's no way my friend's place is going to get an internet connection that is capable of handling all of us simultaneously, with latency comparable to a LAN.
If they keep on this path, Starcraft2 will be largely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. I doubt it will have the staying power of Starcraft 1 simply because you can't play a pick-up game with friends. Yes, I'll probably still get it eventually for the single-player and occasion B.net game, but you can bet that the pirated version cracked to include a B.net clone for LAN is looking mighty good in comparison.
While we don't yet know what "super" features B.net 2.0 is going to have that are supposed to make up for LAN play, it has been confirmed that B.net play will be free for Starcraft 2 purchasers. However, rumors are starting to fly that B.net will not be free for Diablo3. The statement that SC2 play will be free was carefully worded, and Blizzard responses on D3 have evasive, but with not re-assuring implications.
Given that Diablo3 also has been confirmed to lack LAN play, the only way to play multiplayer is via B.net. If the rumors are true, then the only way to get D3 multiplayer is to pay for it. This is a total reverse from the old days of "spawned" copies of Blizzard games where you could have several players all using the same copy of the game.
I think the removal of LAN play signals the decline of Blizzard as a long-term game maker. Which is too bad as they have wonderful legacy support. SC2 and D3 will still sell like crazy I'm sure, but 10 years from now we'll probably still be playing Starcraft 1 at LAN parties. That or some enterprising pirate will save the day.
Anyway, there's a petition to include LAN play, not that it will do much good. Doesn't hurt to try.
No LAN support means that I know I'll enjoy SCII less than Starcraft I. I think I'll pass this one and wait for some people to hack something to make it playable on LAN.
And this piracy thing is strange. When I invite friends, we can play at 8 people on a board game I was the only one to buy. It is strange that multiplayer video games should work another way around.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
In the past battle.net has just done match making and left it up to one of the players to actually be the server when a game started. Hopefully this is a sign that games will be served by the battle.net servers. This would cut down on things like map hacks because no one player would need to know where all of the units are.
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.
Then what was I playing Diablo on in 1998?
I realize the service has surely been overhauled several times since then, but it's hardly a new service. Battle.net has been around for ages.
-William Brendel
How long have they been talking about Starcraft II? I'm beginning to believe it will have the same release date as Duke Nukem Forever......
Does this mean we won't have it for Diablo III as well? Plz noooooooo.
Does bnet\sc use UDP? Are they going to fix all the issue with two machines being on the same nated subnet? Will they auto pick a random UDP port so NATing worked
If the server and clients are on a LAN the packets will go to the person's box who started the game(the server). They will likely be desitened for the external(internet) IP...so even though you are just sending a packet to the machine on same switch you are plugged into you are going to route thru your cable/modem. It will have to go thru NATing...what a waste and a potential for LAG if you have a crappier router. Add 8 machines being NATTed and I don't know what will happen. Not to mention if you Dad is watching Hulu in the other room your local gaming should not be affected.
Hopefully they add an option where you can tell the game you are on the same subnet as the server so it will use the local IP. For security the server should have to say it is okay so you don't give out your internal IP scheme.
I still think it is a bunch of stupid nonsense for selfish reasons(how much money did they make reselling SC1 for years) and not good consumer reasons like they are pitching it. Leave it in Aholes.
Blizzard just wants to ensure that people aren't running a 16-player LAN game using <16 legitimate copies of the game. Instead of requiring everyone to use battle net, how about some alternatives? Maybe like a Blizzard-licensed USB anal probe that activates SC2 LAN mode... Brando would probably sell it.
Seriously though, why are game companies so quick to fuck their paying customers up the ass these days in the name of fighting piracy? They may well reduce piracy but they also lose sales from people who don't want to be jerked around. I'm a long-time PC gamer but I don't buy any game that requires an Internet connection to "activate" or to play multiplayer. I shouldn't need to "ask for permission" to play locally.
If it's simply using bnet to authenticate I'm fine with that but if everything is hosted online I hope blizzard is ready to have the bnet protocol for starcraft II reverse engineered, becasue thats one hell of a way to piss off your user base
So now instead of all of us having to futz around with our modems we can just click and play? This is somehow a backwards or undesired step? I remember the good old days, when if we wanted to play together we had to deal with crappy modem based connections hoping that something did end the game prematurely.
So what, with most friends I can just waltz in and fire up the laptop and connect right to their internet with a simple password. If I am out and about, like on the town or eating, the last thing I am going to be doing is playing a game on the computer. Sorry, but playing games on the Macbook Pro while sipping half caf decaf lattes with a twist at the local coffee shop just isn't as cool as many think it is.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
For every person who feels as you do, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of people who are going to just buy the game.
Battle.net is far less reliable than LAN play. Internet connections are far more likely to drop than LAN play which really never drops unless you have a hardware issue. As well, Bnet frequently has delays and drops players in Warcraft III so I don't foresee Starcraft II being any different. As well with Bnet, some players have delays due to slower internet connection.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
...citing piracy and quality concerns...
I just had lunch so I am going to use the summery here instead of wading though any marketspeak. At first I was upset that they are trying to coat an obvious desire to have the best DRM option over with 'quality'. But then I thought, hell, at least they cited piracy. That's a hell of a lot more than most do these days.
I've grown so used to seeing everything spun without even a nod to the actual issue that it took a few before it sunk in that Blizz at least gave us that nod. Not that at the end of the day it makes a damn bit of difference. Their reasoning behind it is still weak at best and I'm sure they know it.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Well I don't know about anyone else, but I *HAVE* boycotted Blizzard since then. I missed out on the LoD expansion of D2 because of it, and honestly I ha ven't missed it much at all.
The only two exceptions made in all that time were playing Warcraft 3 over at a friends house (WC3 will forever be Wing Commander to me.), and picking up one of those 2 dollar Trial CDs to check out mangos with.
Honestly given both of those I saw nothing visually, play, or character-wise that made me feel particularly impressed with them, with the exception of maps that actually allowed jumping/flying in 3d. The few other MMOs I played all do the invisible wall thing, or had no jumping at all, which annoyed me to no end.
But then I'm in the minority, and 10's of millions of players of WoW and Blizzard products can't be wrong?
...and dispense some indiscriminate DRM!!!
This is insanely stupid AND evil. I'm a big fan of StarCraft. I still do LAN parties with my friends from time to time, except we are now over 30, we use laptops instead of desktops and I have to run it inside of Parallels to play it (runs awesomely well and that's the main reason I have Parallels)
I'm so disappointed by this move. The best part of the game is viewing your enemies multitasking desperately trying to keep their bases in one piece or trying to find a ghost when the "Nuclear launch detected" echoes in every computer in the room. You get to actually SEE their faces, hear their frenetic clicks and screams for mercy mixed with insults.
How exactly are you going to make that experience better Blizzard? Don't bullsh1t me, you can't.
I'm keeping my cash with me until they decide to support LAN play and I call to boycott Blizzard until the genius in charge of this decision steps back and, preferably, dies from severe full-body itching after a very long and bloody agony.
Easy, modify your hosts file with the line:
127.0.0.1 battle.net
Then set up a webserver with your own content/services. Anyone else on your LAN can simply modify his/her hosts file with your IP address. Of course, you might want to exchange the IP address of 127.0.0.1 with your LAN IP address for better functionality.
I was a big fan of RTS from the early days with Dune 2 up to Total Annihilation. But Starcraft was where I finally started to ask "Is there nothing else?" Sure, it was an incredibly polished game and I would have been astounded by it five years before. But the thing is, it really was little more than Orcs in Space. Snazzy voice acting, high production values, but the gameplay was little more advanced. Now I'm sure that there are a million South Koreans who are ready to flame me on this so fine, let's say it's the pinnacle of RTS gaming, we'll run with that for a second. Has anyone done better since then? No.
No matter how advanced the graphics have become, no matter how much more bling has been shoved onto the disc, at the end of the day the AI's still suck and the controls are maddeningly primitive. Here, five units I want to move! Select, click move, watch them run into each other and eventually form a ragged column and then approach a target one at a time, allowing themselves to be crushed in detail.
I've been away from PC gaming for a few years and am catching up on demos of games that have come out in the meantime. So far there's little evidence of any advancement in all these years. The videos for Starcraft 2 look like 3D representations of exactly what went on in Starcraft 1. I suppose if Starcraft was the pinnacle of RTS design for you then a graphics buff is all you need.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You know, the whole phone-home every time you want to use the product model? Claiming it would be awesome for consumers. What was it called again?
Oh yeah, Divx.
Whatever happened to that?
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
That's all well and good until you have a LAN party which has a crappy/non-existent connection to BNet. I'm certainly not taking a hit on my own experience to give Blizzard a bone to protect their IP. Not especially since there are so many other better ways to tackle piracy.. And don't get me started about me being a pirate, I've bought pretty much all of their games since SC1. Except WoW which I refuse to play.
Why couldn't they STILL make people connect to bnet to start up a game, but once the game is started it uses the local network only. This way all they get the control they want, and the players get the LAN performance they want.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I see this being, like diablo III, just an easy way to get more people to pay monthly for bnet access. No thanks.
I found dealing with all of the adolescent assholes on bnet bad enough with Diablo II, I'm certainly not PAYING for a laggy experience filled with bigots and idiots.
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Everyone on planet earth is going to buy the game the day it hits the shelf.
Therefore they don't give a shit.
Best times of my teenage LAN life. Mine bus. Tank. Rocket launcher. It was like that old Micro Machines game with guns.
A little Starcraft. Command and Conquer. Subspace. And Ultima Online... that was like introducing heroin to a bunch of guys drinking chocolate milk. Cruising IRC bots for warez and mp3s.
Man. Anyone remember the sheer joy you felt when you connected with something more than dialup for the first time? It was like a geek frontier back in those days. Cue the guys who were phreaking long distance to get into BBSs with acoustic couplers to tell me that I missed the real frontier...
But what if there's a nuclear war
Then you get to use your war skills learned while playing Starcraft games in the world away from keyboard, and playing video games is the least of your worries.
People are forgetting starcraft 1 didn't initially have lan support either until a few updates. There is still a possibility lan support will be added on later. This could be a method to reduce initial piracy initially where it matters the most. Hopefully, they will add lan support after while.
If that's the case, this is a acceptable decision on the part of blizzard in my view as long as they don't wait a long time. If not, then I can only say that this make starcraft 2 much less appealing to me.
Sorry if I don't feed on "legends", but I'll pass on this one.
From battle.net forums; Karune is a Blizzard Poster.
Q u o t e:
I think the reasons starcraft has lasted so long as a game and community are because:
1) Well designed and fun to play game.
2) Free battle.net - Having a place where gamers can come together and play the game 24/7 helps to foster a bolster and lively community.
3) Continued support for the game even after 11 years, they still patch it when it needs a patch.
4) Pro-Starcraft gaming. This is a big deal to serious starcraft players or to anyone that enjoys competition. These games are fun to watch and makes casual players want to play the game.
5) Lan support. - Lan parties are fun.
If you take away LAN support you will still have the 4 other pillars for a strong starcraft community. Plus if LAN support helps rid battle.net of hackers, cheaters and piracy because the network traffic is harder to decipher then all the better. That only strengthens the spirit of fair competition on battle.net.
The first 4 pillars are ALL being made better.
1) Development time for StarCraft II have far exceeded the original StarCraft in both the standard of quality and duration, to ensure the highest in quality RTS experience we can possibly create.
2) Not only is it free to play online for people who purchase the game, Battle.net 2.0 is designed with the new generation of online community and eSports in mind.
3) As long as there are people playing our games, we will continue to support them, and we have continued with this tradition with our legacy titles like the original StarCraft.
4) StarCraft II was created with eSports as a cornerstone in design philosophy. StarCraft evolved into an eSport. Preview Options Submit Continue Editing Preview Cancel Get More Comments Reply Prefs Search Everything will be just tickety-boo today.
5) Map Editor will be better than any we have ever released.
and:
6) ??? - will have to wait and see :)
For me personally- I loved LAN parties, but the direction in which Battle.net is headed, I would always choose to play on Battle.net > 99% of the time and even if for whatever reason I did decide to lug my computer to a friend's house in this day of age (<1%), I would still be playing with them on Battle.net against others at their place.
[ Post edited by Karune ]
Company Blizzard(TM) is looking to hire top prosthesis designer to replace left foot.
News at 10.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
As far as I know, Starcraft was always about click counts and fast action. It's a real time strategy game after all, where every moment counts. Now even with a very good connection (and that already poses problems) the latency with b.net servers will be at 50+ ms (more like 200+ ms in most cases, remember, data has to go out and come in on the other side + processing overhead). This will basically make the game unplayable for the more experienced gamers (the fans and core target audience). To me this simply looks like a marketing suicide, but maybe I'm missing something here.
I have three copies of Star Craft/Brood Wars. They're for LAN parties, and the occasional solo game.
I never have played, and never will play, the game on BattleNet.
Now, what do I do with the copy of XP that I bought to play the game, since 2K (or, maybe, WINE) is enough for Star Craft and I don't do Windows for anything but Star Craft?
This does give your company's IT the ability to monitor and crack down on unauthorized play. If SC2 becomes as popular as SC1, I could kind of understand if a company wants to block SC2 traffic during work hours.
That said, I agree with the points on avoiding lag. But I think we shouldn't fault Blizzard for wanting to cut down on dev costs by keeping their servers in-house. I'd imagine that their in-house servers, which are designed to scale to many thousands of players, would have an almost completely different code base than the server they'd ship with the product. I'm also sure that they weighed this dev cost against statistics of their existing products and players.
In other words, stop bitching. You know you're gonna play it no matter what.
Witness the first MAJOR flop for Blizzard in 11 years.
I mean, comparing SC2 to WoW? WTF? SC2 is a RTS, WoW is MMORPG. Sure WoW basically forces you to be legitimate, but not at a very high price. SC2 is not that interactive and you cannot be "drawn" into it as with WoW.
Sorry people, I give SC2 no thumbs up out of 2.
Seriously though, it's tiring to have companies actively inconvenience their users just in case some people might steal it. To throw a company a bone to help protect their IP, strange how Blizzard did just fine until wild success of WoW got them gobs of cash. Now, suddenly, with the most successful MMORPG, with the most revenue, they need to be careful about people stealing their games or else they will go poor?
I suspect that the sudden success of WoW has attracted unfortunate decision makers who tend to jump into successful companies/products and sink them. I see it all too often, a brilliant idea brilliantly executed draws the people who don't achieve success on their own to take it over and enforce the same decisions that keep them from succeeding on their own onto the otherwise capable group.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If there is no possibility to play the game in a LAN without Internet access I won't buy it. Period.
Which is perfectly fine. Blizzard believes the number of people who do this (and I'm sure they have no illusions about the fact that this will dissuade some people from buying) will be smaller than the number of sales they will make that they wouldn't otherwise make if they require everyone playing to be able to legitimately log in through battle.net. Having hosted one LAN party where we required everyone have a valid key to play, and personally witnessing a group of players make a quick run to Best Buy as soon as this was clear, I would have to say they're almost certainly right. They may indeed lose you as a customer, but they'll gain many more customers than they lose.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
And besides, my upstream hasn't changed in about 7 years, sadly, so the network experience concerns that are 'old' aren't necessarily behind us.....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
This is to block stuff like Hamachi and GameRanger.
I got your message Blizzard, and frankly I don't care what you have to say about digital rights management. You damn fringe world software companies are all alike, don't know where your loyalties lie. Y'all have a real good day now, y'hear?
When they say they found a way to "curb piracy" they really mean they found a way to stop people from reselling non-subscription games. If you can't get a subscription out of people you can at least force everyone to buy a new copy of their very own. Battlenet accounts contain all your games similar to steam, so the only way to sell one would be to only have one game on it. Aside from that, trying to sell something that requires more than just the physical media is enough to stop most of the casual sales - there might be some but it would be rare. (not sure if gamestop type stores would even try to deal with that kind of hurdle)
You know the "pirates" will be the ones who actually supply people with a patch that allows LAN play. Not necessarily for people who want to steal the game, just for people who don't want to be gimped/monitored.
You know, I used to support Blizzard going after bnetd, as it's major use was to avoid Battle.Net's authentication servers.
This has changed my mind. Eliminating LAN play, which was one of the features that made Warcraft 2 popular. 8-player LAN no less!
Fast fotward 20 years, to when high-end laptops can play modern games so that you can do LAN games without having to lug desktops around... and they cut this feature? WTF, Blizzard?! I used to respect you!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
"We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better."
You fucking can't.
You know this a priori how? Personally, I have no religious beliefs about network performance. I like to actually see it in action before claiming I know how well it performs. Silly me, preferring evidence to religious fervor...
I haven't used Battle.net in well over a decade because it BLEW CHUNKS. The only way I could ever get a decent game of SC going was to call my friends up and have a LAN party.
So you not only haven't seen how well the new game works, you haven't seen how well Battle.net works in over a decade, but you know how well it will work next year based on a completely different game you saw over a decade ago.
You just ripped the HEART out of your game. Fuck you, Blizzard. You just guaranteed I'll NEVER touch another thing from your company ever again.
I doubt it...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
No Lan support for Stacraft 2 (or Diablo 3) then I wont be buying it.
I advise you all to do the same, and I don't even have to tell my friends not to as we all only play LAN.
Blizzard games I own.
1 Warcraft 1
1 Warcraft 2
1 Diablo 1
1 Warcraft 2 Bnet
2 Starcraft
2 Broodwar
2 Diablo 2
2 Diablo 2 LoD
2 Warcraft 3
2 Warcraft 3 frozen thrones.
Oh, and try playing with a few people behind 1 router/firewall. It doesn't work so well on most game patch levels and on most routers/firewalls.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I am not a Blizzard RTS fan (like Westwood and EA's RTS games like C&C) and disappointed by this move. I signed the online petition too.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I understand their piracy stance. However, all they would have to do to make me happy would be to require bnet authentication when starting a game and then letting the game itself run over the lan without the need of an external connection. Hell, have it authenticate every minute or two. A shared pipe could easily accommodate that. But my measly 40k up speed probably can't handle an 8-man lan...
-SaNo
If memory serves, the spawn installs were multiplayer-only. Back then, Blizzard wanted people to play multiplayer for free.
s/Fast fotward 20/Fast forward 15/i
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I bought the first starcraft (probably multiple copies, plus the expansions) because ONE friend had ONE cd, and installed it on a 4-computer LAN.
I don't care if you have all sorts of copy protection and CD keys and authenticated servers required to play over the internet. That's fine. But if four of us drag our computers together and two people have the game and want to play, you need to ENCOURAGE the other two to play. That's how you make more sales.
Your first sentence said it best.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I want Starcraft 2 with lan support. If Blizzard doesn't want to supply lan support, then I'm not buying. It's that simple.
I don't have a consistently solid internet connection. My ISP stinks. Even today I get lagged off a SC game if it is longer than 30 minutes. Guess I am screwed. I actually connected with my wife's stepfather playing SC on his LAN when we would stay the night. I think not supporting LAN play is a big mistake. It is bad enough that the entire game will end up costing people close to $180. They are going to have 3 sets up single player missions (each with new units) in a staggering release.
Yes, and you also couldn't serve as a game host on a LAN game.
There's another factor for Blizzard to do this: They've gotten greedy. They've realized that multiplayer is where most of the buyers are, so now they don't want you to be able to play multiplayer without paying them first.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Blizzard really should have just updated the graphics and released a SC1.5 for $20. Everyone would have bought that the day it hit the shelf.
With all the patches Blizzard has put out for Starcraft 1, I've never understood why they never added in support for resolutions higher than 640x480. They added 800x600 support to the Diablo II expansion, but that's as far as they went. (I didn't ever play Warcraft 3, so I don't know if they supported higher resolutions there.)
Instead of everyone connected over a 100mbps local network, you now have 8 players funneling out through the same shared Internet connection.
Does all the data exchanged between computers in the game have to go out through Battle.Net? I would have thought that most of the actual game-state data would go host-to-host with no intermediate. In that case, the data wouldn't have to go out past the router...
Still not an ideal situation, though. What if you want to host a game somewhere you don't have internet access handy?
Bow-ties are cool.
Whoa there! It sounds like you're contradicting lupis42. The only (valid) reason they would require you to open ports to host a game would be to allow game traffic to bypass their servers and go directly between players. Traffic in a LAN party would reach the router, and bounce back to the hosting machine (assuming the router behaves correctly, not all of them do). Your limiting factor there is the ability of the router to process the packets. It is a bottle neck, but not nearly as big as the DSL uplink.
Of course, this then begs the question, why remove LAN? All the game traffic is being directed between clients anyways. It sounds like they have ulterior motives of some kind. (Piracy fears are overblown, but legitimate. Add "revenue"? Minute cuts to development costs? Corporate insecurity/control freak issues?)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I don't know this for myself, but several others have commented that BattleNet now requires you to open a port to host games. In essence, that means game traffic does not travel to their servers at all, but between clients and the "host". Only the lobby traffic need travel to their servers. In other words, they really don't have a great incentive to streamline their game protocol.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
While I am annoyed by Blizzard's decision, I suspect it may not be as bad as all that. I'd be surprised if ALL traffic is going to be routed through battle.net. What seems more likely is that Battle.net would handle authentication and matchmaking, but have the actual gameplay be a traditional peer-to-peer situation. If that turns out to be true, then a LAN-based SC2 game would still take advantage of your 100mbs local network. Of course, I'm just guessing here.
But I suspect I'm right, simply based on how greedy Blizzard is. I can see them wanting to make sure you paid for your copy and serve you ads, but they *don't* want to pay for all that gameplay bandwidth.
You guys remember a few years ago when EA released Need for Speed: Underground and it was lacking LAN support? It wasn't long before someone made their own fix and put out a Lan Patch that added the feature. I bet someone will do the same for Starcraft 2.
Loading...
This isn't a piracy issue, it's a control issue. A stupid one at that.
I am a huge SC fan, and still play to this day.
I seriously don't know if I will buy SCII now.
I have many computers, and they all have legit version of SC on them. So not only do I need to pay for 4 new copies* I also have to really on have a fast WAN connect? and on Battle.nets servers having the same ping and latency as my internal net work? Somehow I doubt that will happen.
Lag is bed enough on Battle.net games now, and this won't improve things.
Of course, if Blizzard decided to turn off battle.net, or has some issues, or goes out of business** we are screwed.
Also, I know people who played in environments where there isn't a WAN, just a LAN.
*That's a different topic, and really games should only need 1 license per household. Just like every other type of game medium in the world needs. The fact that I generally need to by 2 or more copies of a game is why I am really picky about which games I buy. I wont buy any game I haven't played elsewhere, and it has to ahve excellent reviews from people I know and trust. This meams I probably only buy 10 percent of games I would normally buy.
** Anyone who has been at a company going through bankruptcy or a merger know the "we will release a key if that happens' line is utter crap and a bold face lie.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And yes I did once participate in such a thing.
I am failing to see why this is difficult or worse than what we had to do before.
Hell I can remember it was a bear getting everyone on the same local lan because some people are just thick.
If Steam is ok for many where is the fault in this? What? I might actually have to worry less about people cheating/etc? Or is the hold here simply because so many people still hold a grudge over the battle net issues from many many years ago though some holding the grudge were never impacted whatsoever? (as in they want to join a victim class regardless of the issue)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Funny, Battle.net was the reason I never played the Warcraft 3 collector's edition I bought. I installed it, tried to get into a multiplayer game, got 'placed' in a game full of Koreans, was wiped out before I even started collecting resources. Tried to join another game, something similar happened. LOVE your no-choice unavoidable automatic game matching system, assholes! I still want my $80 back.
Fuck it, I don't even like (traditional) RTS games anymore for about the same reason. (World in Conflict is awesome though) If they screw up Diablo III, I'll be REALLY pissed. I love Diable.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
My point wasn't that everyone could play multiplayer for free. My point was that someone who owned the game could spawn multiplayer installs so that all his friends could play for free.
The person who had the CD would have to host, of course, but the idea is that one or more of the free players would go out and buy the game themselves.
I agree with your assessment of why they're making this decision.
That really sucks for families, and or people rooming together that wish to play. I have two kids and 3 PCs. I guess we will have to create a private game on battle.net then all play via one modem connection. Up yours Blizzard! I may skip this game. I given enough money to you guys over the years(D2,wartcraff3, and monthly WOW).
And Blizzard just lost a sale with this announcement (probably MANY sales, but I can only speak for myself).
I've only played about 10 minutes of StarCraft 1, but I *was* still planning on buying StarCraft 2. But if they're going to make stupid, disrespectful decisions like this, I certainly shall not be giving them any of my money.
Sig? What's that? Oh, 'signature'...and it's supposed to be witty? Right...
jumped the shark, is over the hill, run by the marketing department, etc
id buy their arguments if people across the world had unlimited acess to the internet, but since this sadly isnt the case, theyll be cutting out a major part of their playerbase whose only chance to get in touch with blizzards games is trough LAN parties (found out about diablo1 trough a LAN party myself which got me to look into blizz games alot since then)
This is stupid. The onliest reason people are still into StarCraft I is because it is still the RTS of choice for gaming championships and good fun for LAN-parties. When there's no LAN-support, neither will be driving continued playability for Starcraft II - meaning Starcraft III will be a much tougher sell.
The reason is indeed twofold: piracy, and the fact you cannot monetize LAN-parties as easily as you can monetize Battlenet.
This is a kick in the balls for most users, wholly greed-based, and no good will come of it.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Yes, I ahve been a proponent of famly lisencing for years. I think when the industry started it was geard for a single male and created by single males.
SO no one thought in terms of a family playing.
Seriously, SCII is a trilogy, and there are 4 people in my house.
So I am looking at 60 bucks per game, 3 game 4 people -- 720 dollars.
Now I ahve to rely on buggy servers, latencies out side mu control? AND they strip out first sale possibilities?
No, no thanks.
You know who did this write with their games? Age of Empires(MS no less) and the M&M heroes series.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If those people are too thick to get on a LAN game which takes just one step, what makes you think it will be easier for them to go through Battle.net, which takes four or more steps? (It gets worse if they can't remember their password; I don't think you can have the same CD key attached to multiple Battle.net accounts.)
I have no problem with requiring authentication via the internet before allowing play. I have a problem with forcing people to use Battle.net to set up the game. That, and I'm not convinced these pseudo-LAN games will even be possible - it seems that even now, people behind the same router can't both play games on Battle.net at the same time.
Associate the Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft franchises with Activision, and this will start making sense. Maybe the Taco Bell and AT&T billboards in Ironforge aren't too far off either.
Kirkland Signature
thanks for helping me save $60, assholes.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
LAN play could've checked the RegistryKEY used for the game to ensure it wasn't just the same game installed on multiple machines.
Sounds like the company has lost touch with its roots and the fans. They want draconian control over their product. Unfortunately it will prolly still sell like crazy. Like others here though, it wont be one of my purchases.
I'm not a big gamer, in fact so much so, that StarCraft remains the only game that I've continued to play many many years after it came out. I hope that Starcraft 2 is as good of a game. I've been to a few LAN parties, and they're kind of fun. However, the people I did that with have moved on with their lives. We live in distant places, and LAN parties aren't practical. We do still play Starcraft occasionally. I'm a little disappointed, but this certainly won't stop me from buying the game.
This is correct. Though we haven't seen pricing yet. It would be safe to infer the standard $50-$60 price point for each one.
Kinda crazy no? Not like the "expansions" will provide new features... all the Races need to be complete in each Game/Campaign or else you wouldn't be able to play against the AI's differing race.
So it will basically be 50-60 bucks for some more maps. Lovely.
I was probably going to buy SC2 before this news. Now, at best, I might pirate it. Without LAN it might not even be worth doing that... Fuck you Blizzard!
Your summary here needs help. I don't know anything about Haofang, but I know that your post is riddled with holes.
You seem to lack an understanding of TCP/IP. "Transmission Control Protocol" over "Internet Protocol" is used by, well, they whole Internet. How do you think you access Slashdot? You're not on the same LAN they are! (hint: HTTP travels across TCP/IP)
A limit of 255 would not be a TCP limit. 254 might be, but only if a VPN and a /24 subnet were involved. Of course, that too would be a silly, arbitrary limitation. You can have thousands of connections using the ubiquitous 192.16/16 subnet. You can have private networks with millions of machines using the 10/8 subnet. No, 255 isn't a TCP/IP limit. It is probably some other type of technical limit in their setup.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
what a pedantic, arsehole reply.
Screw my karma. You sir, are a dick.
I, in a civil tongue, point out that the poster who capitalize SCORES was incorrect if he was trying to say very few people care about this. I get moderated Troll.
Earlier today, someone corrects me on a technicality and gets moderated informative (because I was incorrect). You, being a typical foul mouthed internet denizen, call me an "arsehole" and "dick." Which results in you getting moderated insightful. What did you add to the conversation? Nothing. Pretty much the model for not insightful if you ask me.
You know, I'm only an asshole if the guy didn't know what "scores" meant and if he didn't he shouldn't use the damned word.
So I better call you an "asshole dick" if I want to get moderated insightful and not a troll? Which causes me yet again to wonder why I bother wasting my time on this site.
Boy you sure DECIMATED me.
My work here is dung.
pr@blizzard.com
billing@blizzard.com
Dear Blizzard,
You are dropping support for LAN play with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, so high speed internet is required for multiplayer, and if your Battle.Net servers are down for any reason then I can't play multiplayer.
I have been waiting breathlessly for these games, so that I can have LAN parties again, now all that was for nothing. You have destroyed my hopes.
Because of your decision, I am canceling my World of Warcraft, and my wife's. And I will never purchase another Blizzard game as long as I live.
Sincerely,
Now just in case Blizzard actually listens to it's customers, there is a petition started yesterday.
http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html
But only 25k people have signed so far.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I am writing from Africa on a shoddy internet connection that 12 of us share, Sometimes even when you're the only one on you can't even log onto Google talk. Not to mention caches, transparent proxies and firewalls. Please give those of us who pay for the game LAN play.
The support contact is here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US
Let them know the disabling LAN support will only INCREASE the number of pirates of their game who will then turn to the "other" battle.nets.
I will be setting up an Auto Dial to spam (800) 953-SNOW with a pre-recorded message aswell, the more of you who can do this the better!
I'm sure everyone remembers spawn copies so only one person needed a disk to play on a LAN? Whatever happened to that line of thought?
Blizzard is no longer the company I once knew them to be and worshiped, they got sunk by the fat WoW cow.
Now I look to companies like Stardock/Ironclad who seem to have gotten the right idea about how to treat it's users. IE giving people what they pay for.
Citing piracy concerns is just corporate spin mumbojumbo.
Its only ever profit expectations that concern a corporation.
Quote "While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with Starcraft II..." Quote This is just a load of BS. I find it really hard to believe that my friends and I will be better served connecting to a service (most likely in another state) and wait for the lag to get through the time of setting up a âoegame roomâ that we have to password protect to keep the random Bnet kiddy from popping in and spamming âoego go goâ. They are looking for a new way to pump advertising to people plain and simple and to suggest otherwise is just downright insulting. I had played WoW (and most every other Blizz game) since before the release and finally gave up because of their attitude: we are going to control every aspect of how people play our games and funnel them into having the fun we want them to have. They will probably pull the crap that the people that made Dawn of War 2 did. Where you have to have an internet connection just successfully install and activate the single player. On the bright side with the gaming companies starting this crap I will have more time to spend outside.
Like alot of people here, Starcraft was perhaps the best game to play at LAN parties. Sure Blizzard said they are going to improve battle.net servers, but can they improve my connection? LAN support is an absolute MUST have for games like this and removing it is a deal breaker for me. I bought SC1 and Broodwar, but there is no way I would buy a game that takes such a key feature out. There are alot of games out there for my limited gaming dollar... Blizzard just reduced that list by one.
...and after being a fan and user of almost EVERY single Blizzard game since WarCraft I, I have now just dropped Blizzard and will not be purchasing SC2. Some of us actually want to use what we pay for by ourselves. And fuck having to connect to the 'net to use it.
-a pissed off very long time customer who just washed his hands of you.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Just signed.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Starcraft 1 isn't balanced between the races. Get BroodWars :)
Maybe I just have things configured wrong, but right now I can't get two PCs to play StarCraft on Battle.Net at the same time from in the same room. It's because I have to use Port Forwarding. The LAN solution works great, as long as we don't want anyone from outside to join us.
Without LAN, how will this work in SC2?
Maybe Battle.Net will only be used for auth, and then allow for local games? That would eliminate any lag issues, too.
-David
Yeah "Blizzard, here is your foot and here is a shot gun". I actually bought D2, and then later the D1/D2 Collectors Edition Box set, and was most likely going to buy a similar box set with D3. So in some cases I would own 3 copies of the one game, just because I loved it so much. How was I introduced to it? Yep a "Copyright Infringed" copy, if I hadn't played it for free, I probably wouldn't have been so hooked on it. I could barely afford food back then, let alone a computer game. "Piracy" != "Copyright Infringement" and "Copyright Infringement" doesn't necessary mean lost sales.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Not only was I going to buy Starcraft II, but I was thinking about purchasing a nice laptop to run it (as my current machine is a desktop and WAY too outdated to play it) and a second "LAN license" so my roommate could play. Now, it's not worth it to me; our internet connection can't handle the traffic of two online games to Battle.net at once, and even if it could, what if we have our laptops somewhere we cannot access Battle.net? Maybe we're on a bus, or train, maybe we're in a park. Maybe we don't like latency.
Blizzard, the only thing you won't be selling out with this move is copies of Startcraft II.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
You want to combat piracy? Make the game phone home to Battle.net before the LAN game, check the SN, and then let people connect locally. No net connection? 5 LAN games and then you have to check in. Hell, set up a phone line users can type a number into and get a response code to authorize more games with a legit SN, if you've got computers capable of playing Starcraft II, you can at least usually make a phone call.
It's still a slap in the face but at least it's not removing one the major features that draw people to your game COMPLETELY. You're going to learn a swift lesson from this, Blizzard. Mark our words.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
"Piracy" != "Copyright Infringement" and "Copyright Infringement" doesn't necessary mean lost sales.
This is the one truth that the gaming industry will probably never admit.
I have noticed that piracy is often associated with pc owners.If they make the game unusable on the pc, piracy will be stamped out for good. Win all round eh?
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
...say "Fuck them."
If I feel like playing multiplayer Starcraft, it's not because I want to play online with a bunch of teenage trolls. Looks like I'll be skipping this game. Ah well, more money for publishers who don't punish their players.
There is a war going on for your mind.
except there wouldn't be a server there.
...and run it on wine (on Ubuntu).
But looks like I'll use my money for something else.
You can't strip LAN from SC2, like removing LAN from Q3A...
Shame on you Blizzard, you're just becoming worse and worse...first you ruined WoW, now you are ruining SC2...
as someone who played sc back when it came out in the time throuh lan and internet, and as operator of the foremost sc gaming community forum in my country, i say, shove it. if they dont offer people to hold their local tournaments through lan with minimal ping, and instead force people to >100ms pings all over the world through internet, the very factor that made starcraft will go bust - competitive, easy to set up multiplayer matches.
then whichever genius that came up with that idea to remove lan support can do what it would be best used for : shove it up his/her butt.
i aint buying sc2 if it doesnt have lan support. period.
Read radical news here
better like in .. make all your friends pay for the game even if they never played it before just so they can play with you on LAN/schools and other social events? Wow that's one hell of a company evolving in the wrong direction, even wtih EA's DRM t hey managed to let us install our game on 4 machines and play with it in LAN but who am I to judge, I only played SC @ LAN during all my years of high-school during dinner and afterclass at the computers room...
This is terrible news. They will kill LAN parties unless someone happens to have a T1 at home. The typical user broadband connection would crawl with more than a handful of people all going through the same link.
The claim that it will prevent piracy is stupidity at it's best, which is something I didn't expect from Blizzard. I have zero interest playing with the prepubescent crowd that traffics BNet. I also seriously doubt they can improve it to the point where it's lag free like a local LAN either. It's physically impossible to approach that level of performance with a remote server. I won't be holding my breath.
Last but not least, this pretty much screws folks with poor ping times (so long Australia).
Really? QOS and Piracy? Who's running that place?
I wonder how blizzard feels about a certain semi-pro ladder server which allows anyone ( even without a cd key ) to play starcraft online, they have a link where you can download a 100 mb install of starcraft in a zip file so that all you have to do is unzip, run and play online within minutes. Of course no one doesn't already own multiple starcraft copies and are only downloading the zip file for convenience of being able to play on any computer will actually enjoy playing the game since if they aren't a hardcore starcraft player they will lose 99.99% of the time since this is after all a ladder server. I think that if blizzard does make starcraft 2 bnet only, it would be totally unsuitable for korean pro-gaming, unless the korean's hack a lan into the game, which is pretty likely given that there have been lots of features which were added by third parties for starcraft which are now used widely in bnet and the mentioned ladder server, including a feature which allowed for much better latency ( delay between player and server ). Today's online starcraft community is mostly dominated by people who are familiar with korean pro gaming and I think if starcraft 2 does not cater to korean pro-gaming, they will be losing a lot of potential buyers from that audience. Also, the only people who play starcraft on bnet and bnet like servers now are mostly between the age of 20 to 30, and IMO vastly different than the audience of WOW or warcraft 3, although there are younger people who play from korea since it is a game embedded into the korean gaming culture, north american teen gamers are not likely to play or even know about starcraft nowadays.
They're going to regret removing LAN play and turning single player into a trilogy. I was looking forward to SC2, now I can't be stuffed. No sale. What a shame...
Especially since the shared connection to battlenet for multiple people will never be as good as a connection on a LAN
Especially when I go out to a lent beach house where I can bring a router but no internet.
Or is Blizzard going to sell Hosted Battle.net? ;-)
I was so looking forward to this game. I doubt I am even going to buy it now...
What happens when the internet goes down and I want to play with my roommate? Go eat a dick, Blizz.
This is another form of DRM. Another game I now won't buy that I otherwise would have. I never play multiplayer games (of this genre) except on the LAN. I don't want or need Big Brother watching me.
Aside from that, it also breaks first-sale; you don't own the game because you can't (in a practical manner) sell it to someone else who will be able to use it in full.
Thereby proving that it's not worth paying $X for the game if it can't be played without also paying $40-100/month for internet service. If that's something Blizzard wants to make as a requirement then they'd better not be surprised when sales are not as high as they should be.
Another Blizzard product requires not only an Internet connection but also an additional monthly fee. So yes, there is a cash-cow level.
I completely disagree with this move. They're not considering that if people are actually at a LAN, there are two primary problems: 1. No Internet access. While unlikely, it's possible there wouldn't be Internet Access. Not being able to play the latest game because there's no Internet sucks. 2. Bandwidth. Playing 8+ (?) players on BNET is only possible on the top end Internet connections ...
Rediculous.
If Blizzard doesn't revoke this decision, I won't be purchasing the game after all ... I ONLY play for the LAN experience. For the most part, I could care less about online playing.