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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.
Then no offense, but your friends suck. There's still no way sitting at home alone in your basement playing with friends online and yelling at them over teamspeak compares to packing 12-15 friends into same basement and duking it out all night long. Sure, you can trash talk over the mic, but there's still going to be times you just need to grab something soft and wail it at your friend when he curbstomps you... Or the joys of building a massive tower of dew from everyones empties.. or waiting to see who crashes first and then raiding his hard drive for that uber pr0n collection he's been hiding....
Don't get me wrong, broadband has changed the world, but there are some things that just aren't the same even with broadband. Hell, my wife's computer is upstairs in her own little room, and I always feel bad that's she's getting left out of the fun when the party's at our place (I keep trying to convince her to move her gear downstairs for the even, but no love).. it's a world of difference being in the same room together versus even being on separate floors, let alone zip codes. (yes, a wife that enjoys lan parties... granted she's more apt to enjoy the simple classics, ala Q3 and Unreal then "complicated" ones in her opinion, like TF2.. but it's a start).
Overall, I think this is a mistake on Blizzard's part. There *are* those of us who still do actual physical lan parties, and in some instances, network dependency in a game can be a BITCH... case in point, new fangled games that have *one* way to patch, direct from the internet. You have 15 people sharing a broadband connection, you know how long it takes for each of them to download a separate 1-2 gig patch? And if it's an EA game, good lord, forget it, I think they're using C64s as their patch servers.... Before all this "lets assume everyone is connected to the internet all the time" mentality, one person could grab the latest patches (from home, before the lan party), bring them to the party, share out the EXEs, and everyone could patch direct from that... now, especially with Steam games, it's always a crapshoot to see who all is upgraded to the latest and how many people will need to download (at the same time) slowing everyone to a crawl. Even trying to plan ahead you can still get burned (last lan party I think it was, there was a TF2 update that came out the night before before the lanparty.. some people had patched the previous weekend, but nooooo, we still had to sit through the mess)
As mentioned by Rob Pardo in interviews, piracy is a serious problem and often times tie in closely with LAN. At the end of the day, we want the best for the community and fans that support our games, and having chunk of the community pirate the game actually hurts the community.
1) Pirated servers splinter the community instead of consolidating all players who love to play the game. Battle.net will bring players together in skirmishes, ladder play, custom games, and allow everyone the opportunity to share a common experience.
2) More people on Battle.net means more 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. The original StarCraft is an even better example of how 11 years later, players still love and play this title, and we will continue to support and evolve it with patches.
We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.
If I were to buy StarCraft II or any other title, I know the money I spent would be going to supporting that title. Personally, I would be upset that others were freeloading while others are legitimately supporting a title that has great potential and goals of making this title have 'long legs.'
If you like a song a lot, buy it, and that artist will only come out with more awesome songs for you. If you like a game, buy it, and we will promise to constantly work to make the player experience better at every corner we can.
Support the causes you believe in (This is applicable to all things, not just gaming).
Don't be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations.
Bolding is his.
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.
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 $20 in stores.
You want to insure piracy? Piss off your users. Removing LAN and telling LAN users they're nothing but pirates seems to be going down that road pretty nicely.
They keep saying that they are offering something better. No amount of fancy battle.net matchmaking features is going to get over the technical limitation of requiring every machine on a LAN to constantly communicate back and forth across the same shared pipe to blizzard's servers. This is what they do not seem to understand. That, or more likely, they understand it just fine and don't care, and are more driven by sales and fighting piracy than making their customers happy. When will gaming companies learn? Do not worry about your non-customers, worry about the people who fund your paycheck!
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
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.
In other words "We want Starcraft 2 to become a glorified chatroom just like WoW has become, and that can't happen if people are having LAN parties with legitimate copies of the game as they have for 10 years with Starcraft... which we now refer to as... 'PIRATED SERVERS!'" and the rest is "The entertainment industry and its programmers deserve to live wealthily while you struggle to find a job to support the nation and its economy. If you disagree with that, you must hate video games!"
I like hamburgers, but that doesn't mean I need to go spend $60 on a burger to "support" the beef industry. I spend $3 on a burger because I want to eat the damn burger.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
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.
I think that it's odd that none of the linked articles or well-moderated comments have raised the most salient and powerful issue against this measure: that you can play the game only as long as Blizzard desires to support it or, more pertinently, for so long as Blizzard continues to exist. Blizzard is doing well, but recent events have demonstrated that that can change.
As recent shutdowns or attempted shutdowns of DRM servers have shown (Major League Baseball, MSN Music, Yahoo Music, Wal-Mart Music, Adobe ad-supported PDFs), once a revenue stream dries up, your continued enjoyment of multi-player will be subject to a simple calculation: is the PR cost of cutting off support greater or less than the expense of maintaining the servers and support. The MSN, Yahoo, Wal-Mart servers were only used sporadically in order to shift DRM authorizations from one computer to another. The MLB servers were used every time someone attempted to play a purchased video. The Battle.net servers will be used by far larger numbers of people virtually every time that they want to play (once players exhaust the single player potential). World of Warcraft is the only Battle.net game that generates a continuing revenue stream to justify the expense. Even if there is support for 15-20 years, at some point discontinuation is inevitable -- and there are surprising numbers of people who still play legally purchased 15-20 year old games.
Considering the importance of multi-player in Starcraft 2, players are justified in planning for reality and demanding some form of LAN functionality. Blizzard has legitimate concerns about piracy, but purchasers have legitimate concerns about being able to play the game long after Blizzard has lost interest in it. Blizzard should be willing to develop LAN functionality as a patch, place the code in escrow, and include a contractual provision on the box which automatically authorizes release of patch by the escrow agent if online service is terminated. If it is not, then players should browbeat them with every DRM failure that they can think of, because ultimately they are the only ones who are likely to care.