Blizzard Previews Revamped Battle.net

Blizzard updated the official StarCraft II site today with a preview of how the revamped Battle.net will function. They emphasize the social features, competitive matchmaking system, and the ease of sharing mods and maps. Quoting: "When the legacy Battle.net service introduced support for user-created mods such as DotA, Tower Defense, and many others, these user-created game types became immensely popular. But while Battle.net supported mods at a basic level, integration with tools and the mod community wasn't where it needed to be for a game releasing in 2010. The new Battle.net service will see some major improvements in this area. StarCraft II will include a full-featured content-creation toolkit — the same tools used by the StarCraft II design team to create the single-player campaign. To fully harness the community's mapmaking prowess, Battle.net will introduce a feature called Map Publishing. Map Publishing will let users upload their maps to the service and share them with the rest of the community immediately on the service. This also ties in with the goal of making Battle.net an always-connected experience — you can publish, browse, and download maps directly via the Battle.net client. Finding games based on specific mods will also be much easier with our all-new custom game system, placing the full breadth of the modding community's efforts at your fingertips."

Comments

Great stuff!

[dushkin]

I think they really recognized one of the strengths of their game(s).

Sounds great, Blizz!

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just say no to DRM, lack of LAN support, and splitting the game into multiple parts.

Boycott Starcraft II!

Re:Who cares?

[dnwq]

Yes, that will work so well.

Re:Who cares?

[ztransform]

Boycott Starcraft II!

I hate DRM, I have been close to spitting tacks over the multiple mandatory online accounts and SecureROM havoc played with my system by Grand Theft Auto, but I have been longing for Starcraft II for years now.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, 30 kids didn't like it but still got it as a present or just bought it.

That does not mean that we shouldn't express our opinions.

Re:Who cares?

[insnprsn]

DRM... well we can only hope but given most of the rest of the industry...
Lack of LAN support... honestly who gives a crap if Blizz comes through with features in Battle.net to make up for it as they have indicated
Splitting games into multiple parts... yeah this is really a huge huge deal, i honestly cant think of any other games that are releasing as episodic content, and the fact that these multiple parts will be full length game is just a terrible idea

Boycott Starcraft II... really? Good luck with that
a) There are far to many people who realize that the complaints such as you have logged are either minor (lack of LAN support, Battle.net features should compensate) or completely insane (breaking the game into 3 parts is a bad thing, 3 full length games > 1 full length game)
b) There are far to many Blizzard fan boys for this

Re:Who cares?

[Draek]

Just say no to a company that likes suing their own fans to the ground and directly expanded the reach of EULAs in the United States.

DRM, LAN, they're all just the nip in the proverbial bud of Blizzard's evil, reasons to boycott them we've had for years now.

Re:Who cares?

[mrxak]

That's.... not a boycott though.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

Ridiculous. What other company still supports servers for a 10+ year old game? What other company ignores release pressures and won't release a game until it is done? Evil my ass.

But let's talk about bnetd. Bnetd was where people went to play pirated copies of Starcraft. You can argue some minority of people owned the game and preferred playing. But the reality is, that is where people who didn't pay for the game played. If you owned a company, I am sure you would shut down anyone who did the same to you. This is where some people argue "But the bnetd people said they would do key checks if Blizzard would give them their key gen algorithm". And this is where I look at them funny for being so stupid. Do you really think a company would hand that over to some random people. Give me a break.

Never even heard of Freecraft. Sounds like Blizzard didn't like the name association and its copying of Warcraft's idea. So they changed the name and actually tried to make a unique game instead of copying. Sounds find to me.

As far as Glider is concerned...are you serious? Bots ruin MMOs. People running Glider were getting banned since you had to dig around on the site to even know that it was something that violated the ToS. It was an application made EXPLICITLY to do something that would get you banned. There was absolutely no other application of Glider but to cheat. It deserved to be shut down and was something that benefited people who actually played the game.

You can not like them for doing these things, but you have to realize from a business perspective it is all completely logical. Companies have to protect their IP. If you counter balance this with the fact that they still support and update really really old games and that they make some of the best games ever, you can't really hate them without looking like some sort of hyper-polarized buffoon.

I am not trying to convince you to buy their games. I am just saying, you aren't going to change my mind with those examples since they are all justified by any reasonable person.

Re:Who cares?

[Draek]

Ridiculous. What other company still supports servers for a 10+ year old game? What other company ignores release pressures and won't release a game until it is done? Evil my ass.

So that's all it takes for you to deem a company 'non-evil'? Windows still supports 10-years-old OSes and ignores release pressures to release software before it's done, are they a good company too?

But let's talk about bnetd. Bnetd was where people went to play pirated copies of Starcraft. You can argue some minority of people owned the game and preferred playing. But the reality is, that is where people who didn't pay for the game played. If you owned a company, I am sure you would shut down anyone who did the same to you. This is where some people argue "But the bnetd people said they would do key checks if Blizzard would give them their key gen algorithm". And this is where I look at them funny for being so stupid. Do you really think a company would hand that over to some random people. Give me a break.

BitTorrent is where 'people go to get pirated copies of MPAA movies', yet is that sufficient reason to shut them down? no, because BitTorrent is not, by itself, illegal. And neither was bnetd, regardless of what your RIAA-like red herrings may suggest.

Never even heard of Freecraft. Sounds like Blizzard didn't like the name association and its copying of Warcraft's idea. So they changed the name and actually tried to make a unique game instead of copying. Sounds find to me.

Yeah, except the part where they also had to remove compatibility with Warcraft II's files to avoid getting sued. That's how the whole freaking project *started*, btw, as a way to play an improved version of Warcraft II. Somebody does that to ID's games and they give it their kudos. Somebody does that to Valve's games and they freaking advertise it on their website. Somebody does that to *Blizzard*, however, and here comes the lawyers.

As far as Glider is concerned...are you serious? Bots ruin MMOs. People running Glider were getting banned since you had to dig around on the site to even know that it was something that violated the ToS. It was an application made EXPLICITLY to do something that would get you banned. There was absolutely no other application of Glider but to cheat. It deserved to be shut down and was something that benefited people who actually played the game.

Did it deserve to be shut down? perhaps. Did it deserve to be shut down by the bullshit copyright and EULA claims Blizzard used? hardly. Did we, people who had nothing to do with the whole thing, deserve to gain such an incredibly dangerous legal precedent over it? hell fucking no. Yet that's what happened.

You can not like them for doing these things, but you have to realize from a business perspective it is all completely logical. Companies have to protect their IP. If you counter balance this with the fact that they still support and update really really old games and that they make some of the best games ever, you can't really hate them without looking like some sort of hyper-polarized buffoon.

"Business perspective" has a way of making otherwise evil acts seem completely logical. Hell, nothing Microsoft has ever done has been illogical from a strictly business perspective, specially given their current size and power, yet we're perfectly fine with calling them a bunch of evil motherfuckers. Also, the 'best games ever' thing is purely subjective and, therefore, fails at being a decent enough argument.

I am not trying to convince you to buy their games. I am just saying, you aren't going to change my mind with those examples since they are all justified by any reasonable person.

Not really, they aren't.

Re:Who cares?

[flabordec]

I will boycot Starcraft II until Blizzard decides not to give me games for free!! And only after they don't give me anything for free will I buy it.

Re:Who cares?

[Toonol]

I was eagerly anticipating Starcraft II several years ago. Now, after all I've heard, that enthusiasm has completely waned. Charging $180 for a game which will require a battlenet account so that I can be constantly pestered to buy new maps to continue playing with my friends? Bleh.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

*sigh* Ok, let's get in to it again. It's always an uphill battle since being pro-piracy/anti-DRM is just part of the Slashdot groupthink these days.

So that's all it takes for you to deem a company 'non-evil'? Windows still supports 10-years-old OSes and ignores release pressures to release software before it's done, are they a good company too?

No, it isn't. I responded to all the points the parent poster listed as making them evil and why I didn't think it was evil. But nothing like starting out your argument with a strawman, right?

BitTorrent is where 'people go to get pirated copies of MPAA movies', yet is that sufficient reason to shut them down? no, because BitTorrent is not, by itself, illegal. And neither was bnetd, regardless of what your RIAA-like red herrings may suggest.

BitTorrent is a horrible analogy. BitTorrent simply is a fast way to transfer files among peers. The tool is inherently neutral even if many uses are illegal. bnetd was designed to bypass protection on proprietary code so that people could play online without paying for the game. Even if you want to say that it was designed only to give people better online performance (weak at best considered how it was used), the fact that it was doing it for proprietary code is the difference between bnetd and BitTorrent. If BitTorrent only transferred files based off of someone else's code, then maybe you would have a point. But it doesn't, so you don't.

Yeah, except the part where they also had to remove compatibility with Warcraft II's files to avoid getting sued. That's how the whole freaking project *started*, btw, as a way to play an improved version of Warcraft II. Somebody does that to ID's games and they give it their kudos. Somebody does that to Valve's games and they freaking advertise it on their website. Somebody does that to *Blizzard*, however, and here comes the lawyers.

That's great for Valve (another company that is awesome). But if Blizzard doesn't want other people using their assets, IT IS THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO. Why can't people write their own code and make their own art? Slashdot props up originality but then defends people who want to steal the ideas, art, and code from other games to make a game exactly like the original (except that it is usually worse) instead of coming up with their own ideas. In any case, you may not like it. But companies have the right to defend their property. It doesn't make them evil.

Did it deserve to be shut down? perhaps. Did it deserve to be shut down by the bullshit copyright and EULA claims Blizzard used? hardly. Did we, people who had nothing to do with the whole thing, deserve to gain such an incredibly dangerous legal precedent over it? hell fucking no. Yet that's what happened.

Tin foil hattery. Call me when this is used in all the BS ways Slashdotter say it COULD be used. They will be shot down. Also, this is a problem with the legal system. If there was a simple way for Blizzard to say "Hey, Glider needs to be shut down because it is doing this..." and it was reasonable (which it was) then it could have just been shut down. Our legal system is so screwed up that they had to jump through hoops to get Glider to shut down. Also, no one blames Glider. If it wasn't created in the first place, then this wouldn't have happened. I understand why you don't like Blizzard because of it, but it doesn't make them evil.

ell, nothing Microsoft has ever done has been illogical from a strictly business perspective, specially given their current size and power, yet we're perfectly fine with calling them a bunch of evil motherfuckers.

Uh, no. MS does break monopolistic laws all the time. That is why they are evil. Their actions are not reasonable.

This game is going to sell in the millions. Talking about this stuff is not going to stop anyone from buying it. I'd like to get on games.slashdot.org and talk about games. But you guys politicize everything.

Re:Who cares?

[Cornflake917]

I'm assuming the $180 is implying that Starcraft II is going to be released in 3 iterations each priced at $60. You're most likely wrong. The devs said that the 2nd and 3rd campaigns will be more like expansions packs, and will be priced accordingly. Besides it's not like you're forced to buy all three games.

What makes you think you will be constantly pestered to buy maps? Wouldn't you want to see what kind of cool mods/maps the community made without having to jump through hoops to search them? You post is devoid of logic and common sense.

Re:Who cares?

[Cornflake917]

Yeah, except the part where they also had to remove compatibility with Warcraft II's files to avoid getting sued. That's how the whole freaking project *started*, btw, as a way to play an improved version of Warcraft II. Somebody does that to ID's games and they give it their kudos. Somebody does that to Valve's games and they freaking advertise it on their website. Somebody does that to *Blizzard*, however, and here comes the lawyers.

You make such biased political comparisons. At least say what Valve game and what id (not ID) game you are talking about.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

Maybe you should go back to anticipating it since all the things you've heard are not true. Garbage in, garbage out.

Re:Who cares?

[spire3661]

So $140 then ($60+40+40) I highly doubt each expac will be less then $40. Look at Dragon Age's expac. I was excited until i saw it was $40.

Re:Who cares?

[Toonol]

Maybe you should go back to anticipating it since all the things you've heard are not true. Garbage in, garbage out.

You're wrong.

They might NOT be true. They MAY be true. They aren't KNOWN to be true or untrue. I think they're LIKELY true; I would be happy to be wrong, but I doubt I will be. As the other poster said, maybe the three games will total $140 instead of $180. I wager they'll be $180. They have said they will sell maps, scenarios, and units on battlenet. You seriously think they won't try to market them to you? "Monetize their leverage in the battlenet platform by incentivizing participation?"

Again, neither you or I know for SURE... but again, I'm pretty sure they will. Obviously, the only reason they eliminated local LAN play is to force people to use battlenet. That's a marketing decision, not a developer decision. Blizzard seems to be pulling a Sony... thinking that they are big and popular enough that they can force things on consumers.

Re:Who cares?

[Toonol]

*sigh* Ok, let's get in to it again. It's always an uphill battle since being pro-piracy/anti-DRM is just part of the Slashdot groupthink these days.

Don't conflate "pro-piracy" with "anti-DRM". Two different issues, and one doesn't imply the other.

Re:Who cares?

[Draek]

No, it isn't. I responded to all the points the parent poster listed as making them evil and why I didn't think it was evil. But nothing like starting out your argument with a strawman, right?

So why mention it, if it has no bearing on whether they're evil or not?

BitTorrent is a horrible analogy. BitTorrent simply is a fast way to transfer files among peers. The tool is inherently neutral even if many uses are illegal. bnetd was designed to bypass protection on proprietary code so that people could play online without paying for the game. Even if you want to say that it was designed only to give people better online performance (weak at best considered how it was used), the fact that it was doing it for proprietary code is the difference between bnetd and BitTorrent. If BitTorrent only transferred files based off of someone else's code, then maybe you would have a point. But it doesn't, so you don't.

Wrong. You could already play online with a pirated copy of Starcraft and Diablo 2 thanks to the wonders of LAN and direct TCP/IP play (why did you think they took it out for SC2?). All bnetd did was to allow people to run their own Battle.net-like servers for running a private league or such, something that had a lot of interest not just from the 'pirate' crowd but from legit owners as well.

That's great for Valve (another company that is awesome). But if Blizzard doesn't want other people using their assets, IT IS THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO. Why can't people write their own code and make their own art? Slashdot props up originality but then defends people who want to steal the ideas, art, and code from other games to make a game exactly like the original (except that it is usually worse) instead of coming up with their own ideas. In any case, you may not like it. But companies have the right to defend their property. It doesn't make them evil.

Yes, it does. That a company has the legal right to do something doesn't mean the act itself is automatically "non-evil", legality is independant of morality. And suing your own fans because they tried to port their favorite (and quite ancient) game to Linux and make a couple improvements on the way *is* evil by almost any definition of the word.

Tin foil hattery. Call me when this is used in all the BS ways Slashdotter say it COULD be used. They will be shot down. Also, this is a problem with the legal system. If there was a simple way for Blizzard to say "Hey, Glider needs to be shut down because it is doing this..." and it was reasonable (which it was) then it could have just been shut down. Our legal system is so screwed up that they had to jump through hoops to get Glider to shut down. Also, no one blames Glider. If it wasn't created in the first place, then this wouldn't have happened. I understand why you don't like Blizzard because of it, but it doesn't make them evil.

And you know it'll be shot down for a fact... why, exactly? And yes, expanding the reaches of EULAs and copyright law beyond the limits that came before it is pretty much "evil" as well.

Uh, no. MS does break monopolistic laws all the time. That is why they are evil. Their actions are not reasonable.

This game is going to sell in the millions. Talking about this stuff is not going to stop anyone from buying it. I'd like to get on games.slashdot.org and talk about games. But you guys politicize everything. I feel like Slashdot becomes a bunch of Fox News watchers when it comes to Blizzard. There is this positive feedback loop that mods up people that hate Blizzard but then ignore the millions of times more evil companies like Apple and Nintendo. Can't you guys just be excited for a new good game? No, I guess not.

Apple and Nintendo can't be evil, they made the iPod and the Wii respectively and they're great. Seriously, you may try to get away from politics, but politics certainly won't leave you alone, and if you don't actively protest companies that behave unethically, that's exactly how they'll continue to behave.

Bread and circuses indeed.

Re:Who cares?

[rockNme2349]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6199172.html

Pardo also said that the second two releases could be considered expansion packs, but that "we really want them to feel like stand-alone products."

i.e., they will charge full price.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

I agree. But both pro-piracy and anti-DRM messages are modded up these days. You will see plenty of people say they pirate games (for other reasons than DRM) and they will be modded up just the same.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

Your first point makes no sense at all. I was simply pointing out that your first statement was a strawman and I explained why. If you can't figure that out, I can't really expect you to follow anything else I say.

The rest of your points are just arguing to try to seem less wrong. The fact that you can play through TCP/IP has nothing to do with my point. It had to do with tearing apart your horrible analogy. You couldn't address that so you countered with something irrelevant and not even accurate.

Yes, legality is different than morality. But just saying a cliche statement is meaningless. Stealing people's art assets and copying gameplay is morally wrong. So I agree that it was both moral and legal to shut them down.

Like I said, if any of the insane things happen, I'll admit I am wrong. But they won't so I'm not worried.

I'll just go to reddit where logic is modded up, not an ideology.

Re:Who cares?

[Lunzo]

Ah, episodic gaming. You get to pay full price for a fraction of the game.

Re:Who cares?

[Meski]

Who cares if they are $60 each? That's nothing against what you pay monthly for the battlenet subs.

Re:Who cares?

[Satanboy]

Wrong. You could already play online with a pirated copy of Starcraft and Diablo 2 thanks to the wonders of LAN and direct TCP/IP play (why did you think they took it out for SC2?). All bnetd did was to allow people to run their own Battle.net-like servers for running a private league or such, something that had a lot of interest not just from the 'pirate' crowd but from legit owners as well

I will attest to this statement.
I ran a bnetd server with many friends for a couple of years which allowed me to keep stats of our games and play relatively lag free and away from battlenet.

We all had legitimate starcraft copies, we just preferred to play through a private server. It was more fun and games were much faster to setup than when using the blizz run battlenet.

Re:Who cares?

[Fozzyuw]

i.e., they will charge full price.

I'm wager that SCII will come out at like $60 and $90 for some "collectors" edition (US pricing). The 'xpacs' will then probably be followed up at $40-50, depending on how soon they're released after the first game. Blizzard marketers know just as well that dropping 3 $60-90 games back to back to back is not a great strategy. Of course that's just my speculation. My crystal ball has been broken before.

Re:Who cares?

[Draek]

The rest of your points are just arguing to try to seem less wrong. The fact that you can play through TCP/IP has nothing to do with my point. It had to do with tearing apart your horrible analogy. You couldn't address that so you countered with something irrelevant and not even accurate.

Let's see. You: bnetd only existed so pirates could play online. Me: pirates could play online without bnetd. Yep, nothing to do with your point at all.

Yes, legality is different than morality. But just saying a cliche statement is meaningless. Stealing people's art assets and copying gameplay is morally wrong. So I agree that it was both moral and legal to shut them down.

They didn't steal anything. Much like the hundreds of Doom engines out there, you needed to provide your copies of the original files to play them, FreeCraft was just an engine.

Like I said, if any of the insane things happen, I'll admit I am wrong. But they won't so I'm not worried.

And your own, unfounded opinion is supposed to demonstrate Blizzard isn't evil? you need a better argument.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

They concurrently release games for windows and mac. That alone is enough to make them "not evil" in my book.

Re:Who cares?

[DarkEmpath]

But let's talk about bnetd. Bnetd was where people went to play pirated copies of Starcraft.

No, sorry, bnetd is where I went to play Starcraft. Here in Australia, the official Battlenet servers are unplayable, they simply don't work for us. Blizzard never gave Australia a server of our own.

You can argue some minority of people owned the game and preferred playing. But the reality is, that is where people who didn't pay for the game played.

Fuck you, I paid for the game and got ripped off when Blizzard didn't provide me a playable server. I got double ripped off because I paid for the Battlenet edition of Warcraft II as well. Don't accuse me of being a pirate because I found a way of getting what I paid for.

bnetd was also a great way of being able to play multiplayer Starcraft without an IPX network (before v1.09, when Starcraft finally got UDP support).

So don't call me a fucking pirate because I found a way around the obstacles Blizzard put in my way. Pull your head out of your arse and realise that not everybody is in the same position as you.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

BitTorrent is where 'people go to get pirated copies of MPAA movies', yet is that sufficient reason to shut them down? no, because BitTorrent is not, by itself, illegal. And neither was bnetd, regardless of what your RIAA-like red herrings may suggest.
 
Absolutely 100% right with this, but you miss the mark. Bnetd allowed pirated copies of the game to enjoy a feature reserved for people who purchased the game legally, in short they bypassed part of the copy protection.
 
  Yeah, except the part where they also had to remove compatibility with Warcraft II's files to avoid getting sued. That's how the whole freaking project *started*, btw, as a way to play an improved version of Warcraft II. Somebody does that to ID's games and they give it their kudos. Somebody does that to Valve's games and they freaking advertise it on their website. Somebody does that to *Blizzard*, however, and here comes the lawyers.
 
The difference is Blizzard never release source code where as Valve (not too sure on) and ID have release game software.
 
  Did it deserve to be shut down? perhaps. Did it deserve to be shut down by the bullshit copyright and EULA claims Blizzard used? hardly. Did we, people who had nothing to do with the whole thing, deserve to gain such an incredibly dangerous legal precedent over it? hell fucking no. Yet that's what happened.
 
Thats the problem with you, you dont see it for what it is which is that they own the game servers they determine the rules governing it. You purchased an account that can let you play on those servers. If they tell you that using a Bot program is not allowed by their rules, which is what the gold farmers were using to flood the market with gold and drive up costs, then you have no choice but to either play by the rules or risk being banned. Its just like me saying to you that you can come over to my house and if you start smoking a cigarette you will be banned from my house. You may not like the rule but its still my house.
 

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. You could already play online with a pirated copy of Starcraft and Diablo 2 thanks to the wonders of LAN and direct TCP/IP play (why did you think they took it out for SC2?). All bnetd did was to allow people to run their own Battle.net-like servers for running a private league or such, something that had a lot of interest not just from the 'pirate' crowd but from legit owners as well.

They took out LAN and direct play because they wanted to simplify gameplay for the mass users. There are a lot of hooks into bnet now from the gameplay for spectators and e-sports. To enable a LAN would almost require two multiplayer codebases. Not to mention that not everyone who plays games is a nerd, which means that most end users will require documentation on how to open ports, find ip addresses, enable UPNP. After all that documentation you will still see a lot of customer support helping consumers setup their home network just to host games. Considering Starcraft is not an online FPS game, this direction makes sense going down the route of bnet being the matchmaker system.

As for Bnetd the primary reason was because it bypassed the copy protection of the games for multiplayer, which is where the replay value of the game. Whether there was legit people using it or not, thats not the case it bypassed their design.

Just cause you the minority feel that this is an offense to you and your sensibility it doesnt mean that this is to benefit the majority. Lastly, its their product and if you dont like it dont buy it and keep quiet.

Re:Who cares?

[brkello]

That says nothing about how they will price it. i.e., your i.e. is full of crap.

Why does everything have to be a market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't adding a monetary incentive for mods going to overshadow the inherent incentive of creating something fun?

Re:Why does everything have to be a market?

[JorDan Clock]

Payments aren't required. This will provide the perfect mechanism to allow full game replacement mods as those usually involve a small team of developers and real monetary investment. There is nothing wrong with giving mod developers the option to be paid for their work.

Re:Why does everything have to be a market?

[mrxak]

My hope is that people resist the urge to get greedy, and the only maps that end up being pay-to-play are the truly commercial-grade level of mods for the game, like completely new campaigns with new art, new units, etc.

My expectation is any stand-alone maps that cost money will simply be copied, with or without enough changes to justify a legal defense, and made available for free, undercutting the entire paid DLC model on Battle.net.

Re:Why does everything have to be a market?

[grumbel]

The trouble is that creating something fun, isn't always fun. Money is a good incentive to walk the last mile to add that extra polish which turns a neat idea into an actually good game.

Re:Why does everything have to be a market?

[mal3]

Google "capitalism" sometime. Its amazing the things people will create to try and make money.

Will it stay free?

[Shag]

Just wondering. The subscription model of WoW has kept me using WC3. :)

Re:Will it stay free?

[Noghlin]

Yes, it's free. http://starcraft.incgamers.com/blog/comments/no-monthly-payments-for-starcraft-ii/

Re:Will it stay free?

[PopeRatzo]

Yes, it's free.

So there's no ongoing benefit to Blizzard keeping the Starcraft 2 servers going after about a year when the sales start to trail off.

What is it like TWELVE YEARS now and people are still playing Starcraft against one another via LAN? You think there's any chance that Blizzard is going to still be running a Starcraft 2 server in 2022?

Sometimes, being a fan of a product to the extent that you'd buy it no matter what works against your own best interest.

Re:Will it stay free?

[space_jake]

It's been 12 years since Starcraft came out and legacy Battle.net is still up.

Re:Will it stay free?

[Duradin]

Isn't Diablo 2 *still* active on battle.net?

Re:Will it stay free?

[wjousts]

For now.

Re:Will it stay free?

[mrxak]

Yeah, I don't think we really have to worry about Blizzard taking their servers down any time soon. They sell their new games based on the fact that Battle.net is so good and reliable for more than a decade now.

Re:Will it stay free?

[darkvizier]

Yup. There's still quite a few playing Diablo 2. Though Blizzard has pissed a lot off with the upcoming patch... lot of failed expectations there.

Re:Will it stay free?

[Yvan256]

These days, I think there's more spambots than players though.

They're not only annoying, they're badly coded. They enter a game, spew their crap and then leave in less than one second. Lags the game to hell, annoys all the players.

The worst part is: five seconds later, another spambots enters the game and spew the SAME crap again. And then you get a bonus spambot spewing crap for another website three seconds later.

Re:Will it stay free?

[brkello]

Are you completely stupid? If you can judge by the history of Blizzard which still runs battle.net for Starcraft, a 10+ year old game. Then yes. Yes it would still be up.

Turn in your gamer card for not knowing that.

Re:Will it stay free?

[ildon]

Diablo 1 is still active on battle.net. This is the game that launched the service in 1996.

Re:Will it stay free?

[Denjiro]

Well, seeing as how you can still play Starcraft on Battle.net, it's pretty obvious you have no point to make and just enjoy talking out of your ass.

Re:Will it stay free?

[squall14716]

Yes, it's free.

So there's no ongoing benefit to Blizzard keeping the Starcraft 2 servers going after about a year when the sales start to trail off.

What is it like TWELVE YEARS now and people are still playing Starcraft against one another via LAN? You think there's any chance that Blizzard is going to still be running a Starcraft 2 server in 2022?

Sometimes, being a fan of a product to the extent that you'd buy it no matter what works against your own best interest.

The ORIGINAL Diablo is still playable on Battle.net, as is Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. Blizzard isn't one to drop their servers when the game gets old.

Re:Will it stay free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even without that, Blizzard has gone to some fair lengths to be certain that their non-MMO games are still playable without the central servers. Warcraft 2 and 3, Diablo 2 (and 1?), and Starcraft all work over LAN or direct internet connection. Warcraft 1 was always LAN and IP based IIRC. If Battle.Net went down tomorrow, you could still set up games both online and locally using the software on the install CD alone. Add in some patches (which can be downloaded as stand-alone packages -- no stubborn DRM-laden DLC/update authentication crap), and you're golden. As far as developer commitment to a durable product, it doesn't get a lot better than that.

It's one of the perks of being royalty in PC gaming dev; they can make nice things and not have to scratch their heads too much about how much abuse their customers will swallow in the name of profitability.

Re:Will it stay free?

[wjousts]

Sure, but you seem to be discounting the fact that they are now part of Activision. What they used to do in the past says nothing about what they will do in the future.

Re:Will it stay free?

[cbhacking]

I ran across my WarCraft 2 Battle.Net Edition CD a while ago (for those who don't know, WC2 - the barely-even-32-bit predecessor to WC3 - shipped with networked play but no online matchmaking service because Battle.Net didn't exist at the time; Blizzard later released the WC2 BNE which added basically the same Battle.net features seen in SC). Just for laughs, I installed it and loaded it up (worked out of the box on Win7 x64, which was pretty damn impressive). There were maybe a few hundred people on the Battle.Net servers, and a few tens of games... yet they still run. (for comparisons, both SC and WC3 will have several orders of magnitude more players/games at any given time).

Facebattle.net

[tuxedobob]

Great, more of this "social networking" garbage? Can't a game just be a game anymore?

Re:Facebattle.net

[JorDan Clock]

It's garbage to include these kinds of tools in a game that is primarily played as multiplayer? Gaming has become a very social activity over the past few years, in case you haven't noticed. Adding social networking to Battle.net is a pretty obvious choice when you see the success of Xbox Live! and PSN as gaming platforms. They do so well because people have the ability to create groups. You can keep in touch with all the people you enjoy playing with instead of just playing endless games against people you don't know. A multiplayer platform without social networking abilities is pretty much an oxymoron today.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Anonymous Coward]

No. This is simply poorly hidden DRM.

"Lets give the sucker... erm, 'customers' some features they -already had-, but make them call-home constantly in order to use it, so that when we want to release SC3, we can just shut this version down and make them all 'upgrade'"

Re:Facebattle.net

[alienzed]

It's not fun until people you know know you think it's fun.

Re:Facebattle.net

[DavidD_CA]

Yes. Just don't log on to Battle.net.

Re:Facebattle.net

[zoloto]

Purely moronic actually :P

Re:Facebattle.net

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming has become a very social activity over the past few years, in case you haven't noticed.

He has. That's the nature of his complaint. I'm equally annoyed by this movement, and miss the day when multiplayer gaming just meant playing against an opponent smarter than the single-player AI, not someone that would want to talk and otherwise have to be thought of as a human being.

Most importantly, what I miss the most are games where the single-player experience is placed above the multiplayer aspects. Sure, every once in a while we get games like Mass Effect, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Re:Facebattle.net

[JorDan Clock]

You might miss those days, but the vast majority of gamers don't seem to miss it. Hell, some probably don't remember it. You're not the market. They are.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Ihmhi]

I just wish they would have made a deal with somebody at some point. I'm all over the "gaming social networks" because I'm a heavy gamer - there's LIVE, PSN, Xfire, Steam, Facebook (in a way), and now BNET 2.0. I wish they would have just cut a deal with Steam like so many games do and saved a whole bunch of people the headache.

This takes me back to the IM client wars of the early 00s...

Re:Facebattle.net

[ShakaUVM]

>>there's LIVE, PSN, Xfire, Steam, Facebook (in a way), and now BNET 2.0.

Almost every company is making their own usually terrible social network site. For example, you have to enroll with Bioware's shitty social networking site to play Dragon Age or (presumably) ME2, or at least to get the collector's edition items that you probably should have just gotten included when you bought the game. I'm principally annoyed at them since they had two different email addresses on file for me, and kept bouncing me back and forth between the two saying that my email was wrong each time, which kept me from being able to play Dragon Age for nearly a week until they fixed the bug in their software. And my character on their online site is permanently stuck at level 12, even though it shows me having the achievement for hitting level 20. And... yeah. It's pretty bad.

But the thing that really bugs me is: Why do I need to be part of a social networking site to play Dragon Age or Mass Effect? They're single fucking player games. Adding "friends" or whatever doesn't make the slightest bloody difference.

Re:Facebattle.net

[jerep]

It still should be optional, people should be free to decide whether they want to use the bnet integration or not. I myself will most likely run sc2 behind a firewall when i play the single player campaign to not be bothered and find a bnet-to-lan utility for lan gaming.

Re:Facebattle.net

[BlueTrin]

/agree with you, had some issues on the launch date, it was pretty annoying.

But to answer the question, it was needed because they plan to make some additional money by selling expansions and additional content.

Re:Facebattle.net

[DJRumpy]

I have to agree. I have no interest in BNet. I would rather play with a few of my close friends (as in people I actually know and have met in person). I find most people in these online communities to be about as desirable as 'Anonymous' for personalities. They tend to be irresponsible, infantile, or just douche bags in general when the whim suits them.

I'm one of those that was very disappointed that I would even have to log into BNet just to play Diablo. What I find most amusing out of all of this is that the 'social aspect' that the younger crowd extols as being the be all end all of platforms, turns out more social misfits than I've seen in my life. Younger people are simply socially awkward in many aspects these days. They lack basic social skills. They get so used to hiding behind an IP address, that they just don't know how to interact very well when they are face to face with a real person.

Re:Facebattle.net

[johny42]

This takes me back to the IM client wars of the early 00s...

When did the IM wars end? Most people I know still use 2-3 distinct IM services, and now that anyone providing any kind of service feels that it is necessary to have IM as a part of it (e-mail services, social networks, and now, it seems, games), it's only getting worse. At least, with Google's support, XMPP is finally gaining some traction (even between non-geeks).

Re:Facebattle.net

[sgtrock]

It's garbage to include these kinds of tools in a game that is primarily played as multiplayer? Gaming has become a very social activity over the past few years, in case you haven't noticed.

You youngsters don't know what you missed during id software's heyday. Gaming "has become" a very social activity??? You never played a player mod for Doom ][ or Quake, then, I take it. You never got to play with Homer Simpson as your avatar. Never played Quess, or Weapons Factory, or the original Team Fortress, or QRally, or Loki's Minions, or the original Threewave CTF, or any number of other lesser known player created mods. You never played the original Counter-Strike betas on the HL engine, either.

You never played on team ladders like those hosted by OGL. You never listened in on Tapper's live netcasts on Radio Evil.

You never found a handful of servers that you played on regularly. Never got to know the regulars as friends. Never participated on a hosting clan's forums.

Going even further back, you never played Empire on PLATO.

Online gaming has always been a very social activity. The only real change is that many gaming companies, Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. I see this as a HUGE step in the wrong direction. :-(

Re:Facebattle.net

[ShakaUVM]

>>But to answer the question, it was needed because they plan to make some additional money by selling expansions and additional content.

An online store is one thing. A social network, though? That's kind of inexplicable.

Re:Facebattle.net

[nschubach]

it was needed because they plan to make some additional money by selling expansions and additional content.

There must be a different meaning for the word "needed" that I'm unaware of.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Arthur Grumbine]

You and tuxedobob should move in together. With your powers combined none of us would dare tread on your lawn ever again.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Opportunist]

As long as I don't have to disclose everything including the times I'll probably sit on the can as in most other "social" websites with the rest of the world, I can stomach it.

Face it, what do I want from a "multiplayer community platform"?

a) A matchmaking service that pits me against (or with, in co-op games) players of a similar skill level.
b) A way to keep track of the people I liked to play with (today elevated to "friend" status, but personally, I'd use the word far more selectively).
c) A way to keep me from having to play with cheaters and other morons.

I don't care about these people's shitting habits or their pets and families. For all I care they could be well made scripts. I pick friends to talk with and exchange ideas and discuss worries in the real world. When I play a game, I want to play a game. Not more. Not less. I don't care about what music they listen to or that they are in emotional turmoil because some movie star got divorced. Tell your shrink if you can afford it or your friend if you have any. I'm not your friend. I am your game partner. Not more. Not less.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Hadlock]

Steam has some pretty rudimentary social networking features. Profile pages, a wall, groups, and chat(+groupchat)/buddy list that works in game, with voicechat/group voicechat. The groups and chat are indespensible though. We managed to get six people together for a competitive 6v6 team and schedule games that way using the group and groupchat features. I probably wouldn't be playing TF2 still (and Valve selling tons and tons of copies of TF2 2.5 years after the release date) if it weren't for the community features. Prior to Steam you had to run your own website and recruit players and keep in touch with them via email. Now you just have your steam name/number which isn't publicly tied to an email address allowing people to be more willing to casually join a group or team. It's worked very well for Valve and I'd imagine Blizzard's service will be a clone of Steam with some more advanced features (an online "mapp store" - heh, get it?).

Re:Facebattle.net

[brkello]

Your argument makes absolutely no sense. You can still play against strangers. But now, if you find someone you like playing with, it is a lot easier to know when they are online, chat with them, and set up a game. There is no downside. If you don't want to deal with that side of the game, ignore it. No one is forcing you to make friends.

You must be completely blind. There are more games with great single player experiences than any other time in history. Fallout 3, Borderlands, Tales of Vesperia (or others on different consoles, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, BioShock (and now the sequel), Fable 2 just to name a few. There are so many great games right now, I can't keep up.

Re:Facebattle.net

[brkello]

Then don't friend random people and only friend the people you know and like to play with. It just makes it easier for you guys to organize and play together. I swear, people on here complain about everything. It is like you are all 70 year old men with bad health problems.

Re:Facebattle.net

[thesandtiger]

Except it really isn't inexplicable. Some people make friends with people they've met online in various ways, even if "making friends" wasn't their primary reason for going into that online venue.

Years ago, when I played Diablo II on battle.net, I wound up meeting some people during random runs who seemed cool - we chatted a bit, and played together regularly. When Star Wars: Galaxies came out, a bunch of us got together and made characters there, and met more people in that game and over a year or two a group of about 40 of us became pretty tight. When City of Heroes came out, and then World of Warcraft, we pretty much moved en masse to the new games, and it'd now been over 10 years that the core group of 6 of us from the Diablo days met, and at least 5-6 years for everyone else in the group that we've all known each other. I've met everyone from this group easily half a dozen times IRL over the years, some more than that.

Social networking tools in this venue makes absolute sense - it makes explicit (people are getting together to game in part for the social aspect) what was unsaid before, and gives people better tools for keeping track of people.

Re:Facebattle.net

[blahplusplus]

"Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. "

IT's about managing eyeballs in the end, battle.net remember has ads spamming, even if many of those ads are centered around blizzard products, I imagine ad spamming will get worse in the future.

Re:Facebattle.net

[apoc.famine]

Heh, you bring back some fantastic memories. Homer, Cartman, Gumby, and Chewy playing the Headhunters mod for Quake II. "Doh", "Respect mayh Authority", and "Muaaaahhhaaa" echoing around a basement....

You make fantastic, fantastic points. Thanks.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Cornflake917]

Starcraft II will have a single player mode.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Ramchak]

If the software can't phone home, you may not be allowed to play the single player game

Re:Facebattle.net

[Cornflake917]

The new Battle.net will give you more tools to make it easier to play with your close friends and avoid people you don't want to play with. Why would be against this?

Re:Facebattle.net

[Cornflake917]

Battle.net had one ad displayed at the top of the screen. Are you not able to move your eyeballs down?

Re:Facebattle.net

[spire3661]

Ubisoft is coming out with their own network as well. EA has a login for most of its games now too.. Pretty much all the major players have competing 'networks' now. Game for Windows Live is the fucking worst though. If im playing a GFW Live game even in SINGLE PLAYER MODE, i have to be connected to the net to even SAVE MY GAME. Worse then that it kicks my GF off Netflix on the XBox becasue Live is PER USER, which i find to be an incredible scam.

Re:Facebattle.net

[spire3661]

I will say this about Bioware social club. At least your DLC can be cross platform. When you get DLC codes it is added to your Bioware site, platform agnostic. I do also like the screenshots it takes of your adventures.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Miseph]

Because, Padawan, some of us remember the "good old days" of the LAN party. We actually LIKED the idea of being in the same physical place as our friends, and considered that to be an entirely valid means of enforcing who you played with/against.

Nobody has a problem with BNet becoming more powerful, what they have a problem with is losing the ability to accomplish the same thing without resorting to BNet in the first place.

Re:Facebattle.net

[blahplusplus]

"Battle.net had one ad displayed at the top of the screen. Are you not able to move your eyeballs down?"

Of course ads get ignored but think about the amount of time spent in games and the trend of collectivization of game services so there are no stand alone servers (i.w. modern warfare 2), I believe this is just a setup and eventually there will be an advertising platform slowly eased in.

Re:Facebattle.net

[peragrin]

only a very small group of geeks actually pulled out lan parties. they were popular only among a limited skill set.

Re:Facebattle.net

[ShakaUVM]

>>Some people make friends with people they've met online in various ways, even if "making friends" wasn't their primary reason for going into that online venue.

Do you often make friends when playing single player games?

And, while I do agree with you, it seems rather redundant to force everyone into Bioware's social networking site when I'm already running DAO out of Steam.

Re:Facebattle.net

[thesandtiger]

Considering that this is about Blizzard, and battle.net is only required if you want to play the games multi-player (as far as I know), I'm not sure where you're going with this comment.

However, even were it to be people playing single-player games using a social networking site - and I would hardly call it "forcing" since I'm pretty sure you can just not participate with it - it could be one way of putting people with similar hobbies (playing certain kinds of games) into contact with other people who have those hobbies.

It wouldn't hurt, and could be a good thing; why would people be down on something voluntary like this, you know?

Re:Facebattle.net

[thesandtiger]

Oh, *bonks self* you were getting back to your original comment - yes, I get what you mean about the bioware and single player game. I was being way more general. Sorry :)

Re:Facebattle.net

[Ihmhi]

Since we're making wishes here, I also wish that Steam chat had some of the most basic features that other chat clients have had for ten years. Ghost mode, custom away messages, a friends list longer than 150 people, etc.

Re:Facebattle.net

[brkello]

So, you all get together at the same house. Get online, authenticate to the server, then play the game over the local network. It isn't like battle.net is hosting the game.

Do I know it will be implemented like this. No. But no one else knows how it will be implemented either. So I am holding off on calling the death of LANs over this.

Re:Facebattle.net

[jerep]

If they do that they're just begging for their games to be pirated so these fascist enforcements can go away.

Re:Facebattle.net

[DudemanX]

I'm no fan of GFWL either but this statement isn't accurate. You are able to create a local profile if you just want to play single player and save your games on your PC. Unfortunately they don't make it obvious that you can do this. The advantage that the online profile gives you is that it makes your saves available no matter what computer you log in from. The Steam Cloud is nicer on cloud supported games as it works more seamlessly to synchronize your local saved games and will save controller configs too.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Jedi Alec]

I'm one of those that was very disappointed that I would even have to log into BNet just to play Diablo. What I find most amusing out of all of this is that the 'social aspect' that the younger crowd extols as being the be all end all of platforms, turns out more social misfits than I've seen in my life. Younger people are simply socially awkward in many aspects these days. They lack basic social skills. They get so used to hiding behind an IP address, that they just don't know how to interact very well when they are face to face with a real person.

Interesting. I somehow keep finding myself hooking up with people I meet while playing games online, going out for a few beers and on occasion waking up on the right side of the wrong bed.

Yes, there's 14 year old dickwads out there. There's also legions of bona-fide geeks in their 20's and 30's having a blast. A *good* social (gaming) network allows you to filter out the first group and have tons of fun with the second.

Re:Facebattle.net

[DudemanX]

Oh man I totally miss custom models in FPS games though I'm sure it would lead to excessive abuse these days if used online. It's what led to having to use forcemodel commands. It was a big hit at LAN parties back in the day though. I still have my giant Q2 models directory somewhere. Well it's like 200mb which was giant back then. I think the best was a really good looking(by Q2 standards) John McClane model that would play Die Hard quotes. I used Mega Man most of the time because it had the death sound from the NES games.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Miseph]

Limited skill set? Like hooking up a computer, setting up a basic network, installing a game and playing it? Really?

Maybe you meant the "limited skill set" of "making and retaining friends", or the "limited skill set" of "eating ramen and drinking Mountain Dew", but you can't seriously mean that setting up a LAN was too hard for most geeks to do.

Frankly, I've always been smarter than the average bear, but I'm no genius or child prodigy, and I was doing those by the end of 8th grade. Once the last of us got away from Win98 it wasn't even remotely difficult.

Re:Facebattle.net

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding social networking to Battle.net is a pretty obvious choice when you see the success of Xbox Live! and PSN as gaming platforms.

Easy to call Xbox Live! and PSN successes when there isn't a competitor network to connect to for you hardware of choice...

Re:Facebattle.net

[Reapy]

I think you are confused with the problem.

Back then the community was small. You knew everyone cause you saw them everyday.

I used to play warcraft 2 on kali when I was 15 (am 30 now). You could could count how many people were on kali by reg numbers. I was number 10024, and that was still considered early...but sort of second generation. None the less, the community was split out to different servers, but in general the good players were in one spot, and the newbies were in another. That was it, two spots, one server for games organized via good players in chat, another server that you go over to with your friends and curb stomp newbies.

Even then the newbies would now who you are. The popular players who were good at the game were well known. No one would play them. They changed their names, to smurf names. Hence, the term smurfing was born.

When battle.net came out, esp for starcraft, it was so vast. I would play random games and never bump into the same person twice in the same night. And it's like this with most communities, so big, you never see the same person ever again, and no community forms.

I've been playing the mount and blade warband beta a ton, and I am having a very similar experience to playing war2 on kali, the community has been somewhat small, and I see mostly the same faces day in and day out, to the point that I know who I am fighting based on their playing style without even seeing their name.

It just opened up though so there are a lot more players, but none the less, you CAN still find that experience if it is small enough.

But the point of all this is, that communities that are as large as the ones in bliz games need tools to manage it. You have to somehow isolate and connect people to familiar faces amongst the larger subset of players to create that feeling of community.

Gaming is too popular and too big and vast to rely just on news websites and meet ups at the same server anymore, it needs the tools.

Re:Facebattle.net

[tuxedobob]

Did you miss what Blizzard said a year or so ago about how no one needs to be able to play on a LAN because they can make the experience better on battle.net?

*always* connected?

[xlsior]

From their site: In the past, Battle.net was presented as a multiplayer option off to the side, off of the main menu of Blizzard Entertainment titles. That is all changing. With the new Battle.net experience, the service and the game are now interwoven into one experience. Whether you are in single-player or multiplayer StarCraft II, you are always connected, and enjoy a bevy of new and enhanced functionality.

Just... Great.

Yet another game that you can't play without being tethered to the internet. No biggie for multiplayer, but it really shouldn't have any business in single-player campaign mode...

Re:*always* connected?

[ztransform]

Yet another game that you can't play without being tethered to the internet

Heaven forbid you could entertain yourself on a long haul flight, or on a high-speed long distance train journey.

Re:*always* connected?

[zoloto]

Could always have your firewall block and play in offline mode. It's not like they'll prevent it like Steam tried to, right?

Re:*always* connected?

[Schadrach]

Other than assuming the worst, there's no reason to assume the game cannot function in single player without being connected to battle.net.

After all (and ignoring that GFWL is crap for a second), I could make the same statements about Fallout 3, Dawn of War, or Resident Evil 5 and GFWL. Being able to be "always connected" for "enhanced functionality". None of them require you to log into GFWL to function in single player though. Or any Steam game for that matter (you can go to offline mode, but then you lose the "enhanced functionality" of steam achievements and friends.

I'd expect something similar to the Steam overlay for the new battle.net.

Re:*always* connected?

[s1lverl0rd]

What makes you think it isn't optional? I think you'll be able to play the game without Battle.net quite well.

Re:*always* connected?

[Sockatume]

It doesn't say that it's mandatory, just that it's available. XBox Live and Steam both have an online presence in singleplayer games, it didn't stop you starting the software offline.

Re:*always* connected?

[regular_gonzalez]

I imagine the subset of the population that this will impact is vanishingly small. Your desktop is obviously always connected, so we're looking at laptops. Given that the graphics are fairly modern, we can eliminate vast swaths of the notebook market. RTS games require a mouse - using a touchpad for an RTS is an exercise in frustration and can only sound like a viable option to someone who has never actually tried it. So now we're looking at a gaming laptop with enough flat area to use a mouse - something like a desk or table. Certainly a larger area than, say, the fold-up tray on an airplane; something more like a table at your local coffee shop (which almost assuredly has free wifi). It's not a huge leap to say that the number of people who will play this game on a gaming laptop in an area with no internet connection is miniscule.

And that's not even taking into account that there will likely be an offline mode similar to Steam.

Re:*always* connected?

[shadedream]

... or on a high-speed long distance train journey.

You obviously don't travel in the states...

Re:*always* connected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its been stated before, but there are plenty of steam games that will not let you play single player unless you are connected to steam. Left 4 Dead 2 is just one example. You can get in less than 5 minutes before the game dies and kicks you out for not being connected to steam. This includes offline mode.

Posting as Anon because I've modded in this thread.

Re:*always* connected?

[mrxak]

Believe it or not, but there are trains here.

Re:*always* connected?

[shadedream]

Oh believe me I do know, I've taken them many times. A descriptor I would not use for them is "high speed" though... I think half of a lot of the trips were spent cruising slowly through residential areas or stopped waiting for freight traffic.

That said I still prefer it to flying... it just takes too long given the speeds, track sharing and the whole having to use Chicago as a central hub thing.

Re:*always* connected?

[nschubach]

There are quite a few long distance train services in the US. Most of them are scenic routes because nobody wants to sit on a train that long.

Here is a site you can go to for tickets if you want to sit on one of these long boring rides: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage

They even offer sleeping cars because some of these trips are days...

Re:*always* connected?

[shadedream]

Yes, but they don't exactly qualify as "High Speed".

Re:*always* connected?

[ildon]

You can play it just fine in offline ("Guest") mode. It simply does not record your "achievements" in that mode. But you can still play single players and save your games and what not. This was discussed at length at Blizzcon, mostly due to angry people asking about LAN play at the Q&A session after the speech. I didn't check out this new preview so I'm not sure if it was mentioned there.

Re:*always* connected?

[nschubach]

Depends on what you qualify as "high speed." ;) Compared to walking, it's very fast.

Re:*always* connected?

[shadedream]

I suppose. You could apply the same logic that defines "high speed" internet in the US and come to that conclusion also.

arg...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't read it here in Korea since it just endlessly redirects me to the empty Korean version of the site.

Re:arg...

[ascendant]

I'm sure if you press F5 fast enough it'll eventually load.

Nice deep integration but hoping for API

[tarkin]

I like the deep cross-game integration of status, matchmaking and voice chat but I wish all the players building their own closed social gaming platforms would also build a proper external API to go with it (Xbox Live, Steam etc.).

Maybe we need a Open Game Achievement Standards Body RFC comity group thingie?

Fawks

[Ruatxnjr06]

That's ok for moders. What about those of us who will not buy StarCraft II without LAN party capability? I think I irritated a Blizzard employee one time when we met. I told him, I hope Blizzard does not screw up StarCraft II like they did WarCraft III. I hated the look of WCIII and did not even finish the human single player campaign. Thats after paying $70 for the special box set of WarCraft III. If they do not have LAN capability in StarCraft II, I will not even waste my money on purchasing the game.

Re:Fawks

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, there will be offline play and LAN capability in the TPB-version of Starcraft 2

Re:Fawks

[dnwq]

"I bought your product even though I thought you screwed it up, but if you screw it up again I won't buy it. Honest!"

(plus, bonus "I hated and didn't finish one of your GOTY titles, thus demonstrating I am not your representative customer and can be safely ignored")

Re:Fawks

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard had one simple job: release a sequel to StarCraft. All they needed to do was give us a new race, some UI enhancements, increase the unit cap and make a few other tweaks. Instead, over a decade late, we get this nerf'd piece of shit. But "oooh it's got nice graphics." Right..

Re:Fawks

[dskzero]

That's really, really wrong. You see, the thing with some games is the fact that they aren't overly complicated to jump on, but are very deep on another level. They don't really need to fix what's not broken. Go play Age of empire if you want to play with 20 something races. No one is forcing you to play SC2. It's like you don't even know what blizzard's made of.

Re:Fawks

[Kenoli]

over a decade late

Pffth! It only took them seven years to make it.

Re:Fawks

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. If you don't plan to buy their game because it doesn't feaure LAN play out-of-the-box then...boo-hoo? I'm sure Blizzard will cry themselves to sleep on their humongous piles of money.

Re:Fawks

[VGPowerlord]

"I bought your product even though I thought you screwed it up, but if you screw it up again I won't buy it. Honest!"

Actually, wasn't this more of a "I bought one of your products and found out while playing it that it sucked, and if you screw it up again I won't buy the next one. Honest!"

Re:Fawks

[Chris Burke]

What about those of us who will not buy StarCraft II without LAN party capability?

Your money will scarcely be missed.

Re:Fawks

[brkello]

I really don't get people like you. You don't finish a game because the artistic style is so offensive to you. I thought game play mattered more than graphics?

If I were a Blizzard employee, I would be annoyed with you too. They probably had nothing to do with the development of WC III. And you just come up and randomly trashing a game their company makes.

I think you have severe social skill problems. And that says something when you are on a tech site.

Re:Fawks

[ildon]

Read the context. He "didn't like the look" and "didn't finish the single player campaign". And he's concerned about LAN play. What does this tell you? Despite "hating" WC3 he probably put a few dozen hours into it (at least) at LANs or possibly even on battle.net. If he really didn't like the actual gameplay of the multiplayer, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't give two shits about SC2 or whether or not it had LAN play.

Re:Fawks

[VGPowerlord]

Despite "hating" WC3 he probably put a few dozen hours into it (at least) at LANs or possibly even on battle.net.

You know what they say about assuming...

Now, I know I've played War3 over LAN (although never on Battle.Net), in addition to playing completely through some of campaigns.

I'm another person who didn't really like War3. Adding 3D graphics was a good idea. Adding more races and variety was a good idea. Making all units cost at least 2 population units was a bad idea. Halving the population cap was a bad idea. Adding an upkeep system was an even worse idea. Adding Hero units in a vain attempt to try to offset all the previously mentioned deficiencies was the worst idea Blizzard ever had.

War3 plays too much differently from Blizzard's previous games, and my friends and myself quickly went back to Starcraft before eventually moving to one of the Age of Empires games.

This gets published on Slashdot?

[Elokane]

All of this information was already revealed during the last Blizzcon, and it wasn't exactly mind blowing then if you compare it to what's already available for WarCraft 3. http://www.sc2blog.com/2009/08/24/blizzcon-2009-battle-net-2-0-and-the-galaxy-editors-hour/

Re:This gets published on Slashdot?

[mrxak]

The more interesting story in my mind is the fact they've got an investor conference call today, the SC2 beta forums got created (and then quickly made private) on battle.net on Monday, and rumors are going around about the beta coming out on Friday, at least since last week sometime. This battle.net preview thing is really just more evidence that they're getting close to beta, since basically the game was delayed until 2010 due to battle.net taking too long.

WINE

[emanem]

Honestly I just hope it will work in WINE.
If it does I might give it a shot. Will DRM not make work it in WINE?
Well one less customer.
Have fun!

Re:WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly I just hope it will work in WINE.

Why use Linux if you need to use Wine for everything?

Rejoin game?

[killsome]

The most important feature would be, to be able to reconnect to a running match. I don't want to know how much time I have waisted because someone was disconnected...

How to do tournament play? with out have the on li

[Joe The Dragon]

How to do tournament play? with out have the on line part? as for tournament you need to keep stuff to local systems only as any kind of lag / server mess up may mess things up and being on line makes it more likely to not be 100% the same for all players. also people may not want to get banded for what ever software may be on the tournaments systems that are not there own systems.

I beg to differ

[tepples]

Your desktop is obviously always connected

I beg to differ. A lot of people who stick to single-player or split-screen gaming do so because they live where they can't get anything above dial-up and don't want to tie up the phone line for an hour at a time. Even people who live in range of low-end DSL often have PPPoE, and my mother reports that PPPoE will deny her a connection if too many other users are connected to the same DSLAM.

Given that the graphics are fairly modern, we can eliminate vast swaths of the notebook market.

I beg to differ. Any chipset with a better GPU than Intel's "Graphics My Ass", such as the NVIDIA ION chipset, can run video games.

Selling mods...

[kungfugleek]

From TFA: "With the StarCraft II Marketplace, players will be able to browse, download, rate, comment on, and even buy mods if their creators choose to put a price tag on their work."
That's neat and all, but I'm wondering if there will be some way to prevent a user from buying a mod, changing it just slightly, and re-uploading it for free.

Re:Selling mods...

[Necroman]

As many people I've talked to about this feature has brought this up as well, I'm guessing Blizzard has already thought of this. Maybe Blizzard will specially encrypt maps that you had to pay for so you can't distributed or edit them. I'm pretty sure it's been thought of, but we'll have to see the protection method when the game goes into beta/live.

Re:Selling mods...

[mrxak]

Probably nothing will prevent somebody from doing that, other than edit protections built into the maps themselves. Such things tend to get hacked, though. The real thing will be simply folks making a very similar map for free. My guess is, the folks trying to actually charge for maps will be laughed/scorned so much that nobody really bothers, though maybe we'll get some commercial-grade full campaign mods that cost a bit of money (and actually be worth it).

Re:Selling mods...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright.

Re:Selling mods...

[TikiTDO]

Or the people charging for mods will be trying to sell work they invested a very significant amount of time into. Something that would not be easy to reproduce for free. Steam has shown that this model works pretty well, so SC2 is not likely to be fundamentally different.

Re:Selling mods...

[brkello]

They could, but not much you can do if someone buys the content and then makes their own free version of it from scratch. Might be really hard to control. I'd rather they do it for mods that require much more effort and keep maps free.

Here is a Problem

[kenp2002]

Here is a problem that has risen from social networking and what not and I can point the finger at Blizzard.

In WoW they came up with all this great new data mining and achievements. We end up with gear scores and Wow Heroes etc.

Now I have a friend that just decided to start playing back in October. He signs up and starts playing on Elune for instance. In 3 months he never was invited into a single group. Ever. Why? "He didn't have any heirloom gear" and "His gear score is too low." etc... The digital equivalent of "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

At far as what I've seen most of this social networking crap is only going to frustrate new players and build walls to keep new players out. Most game related social networking results in Clique building and tribal nonsense. I survived the ACiD, TRiBE, iCE ANSI wars in the BBS era. I witnessed the grand flame wars of Usenet. I saw the clan wars in the MMO days, I saw the Guild fights in the early days of the MMOs culminating in the rise of the Uber guilds. The one thing I can say with certainty is "The more 'social' networking tools the more 'anti-social' people behave." or another way to say it is "Social networking is the fertilizer on the asshole crop". I am also fond of "Shit floats in the waters of user content" but that is a bit off topic.

I fear that, from what I've seen, Bnet's new social networking tools is going to be more about shutting people out rather then bringing people together.

Re:Here is a Problem

[emanem]

Please don't confuse a fashion game like WoW, where you have to be dressed (errmm equipped) with latest gear to be able to be defined WoW player, with a RTS game like SCII/Wc3 where your skill is what makes you a better player.
I think this is a bit OffTopic.
Cheers,

Re:Here is a Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

When's the last time you play? 5-man groups are formed by the blizzard random machine in the latest patch as long as you sign up via the in-game LFG interface. You'll only be quizzed about your gearscore and achievement if you try to join a raid group. And why is your friend not playing on your server? It's easy to boost a new player into full t9 now with emblem farming.

Re:Here is a Problem

[mrxak]

You really can't compare MMORPG drama with social tools like having a buddy list in an RTS matchmaking system. There's no persistent gear in Starcraft II. There's going to be battle.net clans, but there already are battle.net clans. The new tools will help those clans keep in touch with each other better, that's really it. As for the achievements, they amount to "this guy finished the campaign" or "this guy reached rank 10 on the multiplayer ladders", neither of which will really matter beyond what will already be readily apparent.

Re:Here is a Problem

[scamper_22]

so... you have a problem with humanity then?

Online social networks are not much different from regular life networks

Have you grown out of the high school stage where you sit there pointlessly wondering "why can't everyone be invited to the party?"

Well everyone can't. The house only fits 20 people. You can't be friends with everyone, because there's only 24 hours in a day and you won't get to know anyone a friend without sacrificing time with someone else. Socializing means excluding some others. Just accept that as a fact of reality.

And the same is with guilds. No different than regular groups of people in life... just more exclusive. Like car owner clubs, or sports clubs...

You have nothing to fear but your own denial of reality. Form your own guild and help your buddy out and when it comes time for you guys to enjoy your group, you'll have to exclude people too...

Re:Here is a Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're blaming the tool and not the assholes who don't use it correctly?

http://www.mmo-champion.com/raids-dungeons/gearscore-%28long-you%27ve-been-warned-dont-bitch%29/

Re:Here is a Problem

[bigstrat2003]

Now I have a friend that just decided to start playing back in October. He signs up and starts playing on Elune for instance. In 3 months he never was invited into a single group. Ever. Why? "He didn't have any heirloom gear" and "His gear score is too low." etc... The digital equivalent of "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

So wait... you're blaming Blizzard's tools for the fact that these other players are morons? Any WoW player with any sense knows that it's not worth obsessing over someone's gear for 5-mans, let alone the low-level ones. It's unfortunate that Elune is apparently populated by elitist morons, but I don't think we can blame the Armory for that. Before there was the Armory, there was inspecting someone, and yes, people got booted from groups when they got inspected and their gear wasn't up to someone's "standard".

Re:Here is a Problem

[brkello]

All new players are going to feel left behind when they join an MMO years after it started. It isn't hard to find a group because of gear, it's hard because most people don't run lower level instances any more. At higher levels, there isn't much of a problem finding groups unless you really have no idea what you are doing.

Re:Here is a Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend started playing and he had no problem getting groups and/or gear. Within months he has full epics, just like everyone else. Maybe your friend sucks at playing, sucks at socializing. Wow really isn't that hard, and there are tons of people that are new and willing to form groups with other new people. It sounds to me like your friend wants to go lone wolf style, and only join groups when he wants stuff. WoW is an mmo and that kind of behavior doesn't work well.

I also hate to break it to you, but there are no "uber guilds" in either Wow or Starcraft. Both games are highly competitive, unlike those other games you've played, where there was nothing for people to do other than flame each other en masse. People don't want to waste time with shit groups. Having a gigantic guild does not help you whatsoever.

Re:Here is a Problem

[court12b]

I came back to WoW after a 2 year break. I didn't know a single active player on any server. I explained my situation to a few top tier raiding guilds and it wasn't long before I got a guild invite for my non-max level main character. There are decent groups of gamers in this world. Finding them takes more effort than zero however. My beef is with WoW's new Dungeon Finder system. You can stumble across some really great people, have the time of your life for an hour or so, and have no way of interacting with them for the rest of your life because they're from another server.

Re:Here is a Problem

[apoc.famine]

....I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.....

Re:Here is a Problem

[NeutronCowboy]

Or, in other words, make sure you play with friends. Then you don't have to worry about gear checks, loot whores, anonymous assholes and other douchebaggery. And look - the social networking tools make that easy! Whodathunkit.

Re:Here is a Problem

[ildon]

In WoW they came up with all this great new data mining and achievements. We end up with gear scores and Wow Heroes etc.

All the data gearscore uses has been available since WoW 1.0. All it does is inspect a player (something you've always been able to do), add up the item levels of their gear (while hidden to players until recently, item level has been available to mods since 1.0), and then share that number with other users of the mod using the mod communication channels (which have been available since 1.12 or so, but mods like Cosmos and CTRaid had been setting up their own in-game channels before that anyway).

100% of gearscore's functionality has 0% to do with the armory or WoW's "social networking" features. The fact that a site like wow-heroes can put that on a webpage is pretty irrelevant when douchebags are just going to inspect you and boot you if your gear is bad when they see it in-game, anyway.

Re:Here is a Problem

[Thaelon]

Tools are just tools.

How they're used says nothing about the tools and everything about the user.

Re:Here is a Problem

[euxneks]

[...] I survived the ACiD, TRiBE, iCE ANSI wars in the BBS era. I witnessed the grand flame wars of Usenet. I saw the clan wars in the MMO days, I saw the Guild fights in the early days of the MMOs culminating in the rise of the Uber guilds. [...]

"I've seen.. things, you people wouldn't believe... All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain..."

Re:Here is a Problem

[qsliver]

Tools are just tools.

Sounds like a lot of us actually...

Re:Here is a Problem

[kenp2002]

I was wondering if anyone would catch that reference!

Re:Here is a Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a rant. I am, by most definitions, one of the bad guys. You've been forewarned.

The "good old days"
You don't need superior comm tools for exclusivity, clannishness, douchery, or whatever you want to call it. I reckon that I'm a little younger than you, so excuse my presence on your lawn, but I DID get my start back in the DikuMUD days, albeit via a relatively-snappy 33.6k modem. Someone who really knew what they were doing could have a max-level character on the MUD I played in a couple nights of hard play -- god bless rogues. Thanks to scripting, proxies, and multiplay, they could turn that one character into a half-dozen in a couple more nights. The only "community" tools we had back then were one super-crappy html message board and e-mail. That didn't decrease the douchery, I'm sorry to say. My little group of seven to nine players (we weren't called a clan, but we had a custom tag we all appended to our names -- how little things change) was hugely insular and protective. We harvested the game's best gear and even made a point of monopolizing it -- grabbing copies from infrequent spawns and targeting other players that had them (today's players haven't got a frickin' clue about PVP), then either publicly dropping it into the junkyard (item poofs with a visible message) or hiding them in our fleet of rent-alts (saving equipment cost money, see?). When someone managed to kill some of our characters, our revenge was venomous; we'd keep someone logged in 24/7 to spawn-rape them repeatedly. This was easy, because everyone logged in at the same spot in the Temple of Midgaard. Hell, we could sit a level nothing alt in that room on a spare connection and have our client beep us and all our allies the instant that anyone on the black-list popped in. Ctrl-alt-1 and my entire squad immediately recited recall scrolls and appeared on top of the target, ready for butchery. Oh yes, we could track your sorry butt anywhere in-game. We could charm and control you. Even if, by some miracle, you could take us toe-to-toe in combat, we could flood you offline by making 40,000 freshly-purchased pet kitten cubs mew in the room with you -- a room we would NOT be in. We didn't CARE about newbies, but if we had, we could have stopped every last one from playing at all. The ops would have gotten tired of us at that point (even though we had one on our side covering our filthy asses), but a the ENTIRE WORLD, which amounted to at most 300-400 unique players, was controllable by one small circle of rotten trolls. No Web 2.0 necessary.

But enough about my early-adolescent brutality. I played Everquest, too, and I was a douchey clan-tard there, too. We had an HTML BBS and ICQ for communication at that point; one of us even had an IT job and an ISDN line for web hosting, but voice chat still wasn't an option for 2/3 of us. In-game, we did more of the same as before. However, it wasn't so easy to control everything. Yes, we took over a few key spawns on our servers for extended periods; we operated both on the "Zeks" (PVP) and several "blue" (PVE) servers, and we caused the care-bear guilds some grief. However, coordination and application of power were recurrent problems. Most of us couldn't afford to have the accounts or the computing horsepower necessary to log in full groups of characters simultaneously; I two-boxed with two, sometimes three accounts, but the second and third characters were only running at 60-80% of best performance. And, sad to say, in spite of picking up some new talent, we got outfoxed sometimes by better-organized guilds on both pvp and pve servers. In the OLD Everquest days, building up characters took a LONG time. Even if you could tag-team and power-level a character through the experience grind in a week, gearing them up took much longer. Every single raid went down with the textual equivalent of the youTube "MORE DOTs" guy, with explicit instructions given for every damn thing, because it didn't work any other way. Oh, yeah, instances. Kids, remember what I said

Re:Here is a Problem

[theArtificial]

I agree! I've met some great players. Although with the way things are headed I wouldn't be surprised if battlenet allows you to have friends on either faction.

Re:Here is a Problem

[Reapy]

Hrm.

When I played wow it was at the end of TBC and mid way into the latest expansion.

We had a group of friends and a small guild. We wanted to 25 man raid. This usually meant bringing in PUGS sometimes.

We armoried anybody that came in. Gearscore matters. Generally you have to look farther to see if people have gemmed their gear and are in fact wearing the correct gear. Class/specs are so defined now a days that yes, there is correct and incorrect gear to wear.

If you take some guy in who isn't pulling his weight, who hasn't done the work before hand to get ready for a raid, you are generally looking at a person who is going to consistently wipe the raid and/or not contribute to getting bosses down.

Yeah, douchebags kicking people out of 5 man for a gearscore is a dushebag, but gearscore is a really quick way to make the job easier when picking up raiders for a PUG. It is always not the best filter, but it can make it a little bit easier to weed through the people.

The unfortunate fact of that game is no matter how 'good' of a player you are, if your gear isn't good enough for an encounter, there is nothing you can do in it. That's the nature of an MMO though.

Anyway, this entire comment section cracks me up, that people pissed off for having more features. People are weird.

Needed Mod

[ChinggisK]

They emphasize the social features, competitive matchmaking system, and the ease of sharing mods and maps.

Great! Maybe someone will make a mod for playing LAN games.

Re:Needed Mod

[Anonymous Coward]

You're complaining about lack of LAN play when you don't even understand the basic functionalities of the game? "Mods" in WC2/SC/WC3 have always been synonymous with "user created maps" and nothing more. If a user created map can somehow enable LAN play, that'd be quite a feat.

Just because you played WC3 at a LAN once back in 2003 doesn't make you a gamer or give you the ability to complain about shit you don't even understand.

Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. They created Steam. Kind of.

Congrats.

The right way of fighting piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Offering a great online experience is the best way to fight piracy. It forces users to have an authentic copy if they want all the features. Make enough great online features (which blizzard is fully capable of) and get people to want to pay.

Hats off to you Blizzard. Stay classy.

Re:The right way of fighting piracy

[mrxak]

Actually, the best way to fight piracy is to make a product pirates aren't interested in.

Re:The right way of fighting piracy

[brkello]

Um, which would be to make a horrible game. It's Starcraft 2. It is going to be pirated even if they priced it at 5 bucks and washed your car.

Terrible GUI

[Anonymous Coward]

Without even having to use it I can tell you that the GUI will piss people off in no time. Where have all the simple Menus gone that don't require transitions for everything? If I want to play a quick match, I also want to get to play the match quickly.

Re:Terrible GUI

[brkello]

I remember plenty of transitions in Starcraft. I even remember the noise it makes...the little beep and whoosh sounds between each one. I looked at the screen shots and see nothing that indicates that it will be that many more clicks. It just has a lot more options you can choose to ignore if you don't care about. It isn't like you have to look at your achievements to start a game.

And actually, an extra click wouldn't be bad so that you could find the specific game type you wanted. Rather than have everything one one screen and refreshing and trying to hunt down, it will probably be easier to find a game and easier to join in one with a friend. Your complaints are dumb particularly since you haven't even tried it.

Map Publishing

[AlpineR]

The Map Publishing feature is interesting to me. I have released dozens of popular Starcraft maps and distribution has always been a problem. For one, maps are copied peer-to-peer, so the only way to get a new map is to find somebody else who happens to be hosting it at the moment you're looking. For another, maps are not cryptographically signed, so it's trivial for somebody to alter a map so they can cheat in the game. Although I have a reputation as a skilled mapmaker, there are maps circulating with my name still on them that are rigged or badly modified.

On the other hand, the viral transmission and mutation of maps is part of what keeps the mapmaking community alive. Players find a map they like, try to modify it, and set the new version loose in the wild. If it's good it will spread and become the basis for others to tinker with.

So the Marketplace sounds like a potentially good way to encourage the creation of polished maps. But I wonder if closed-source mapmaking can really keep pace with open-source development or if many players will accept (or even discover) pay maps.

TheNevermind

Re:Map Publishing

[darkvizier]

Good points. I find the map features interesting as well. I like the idea of having some sort of organization there, as with Starcraft you just had people appending a bunch of random ascii characters to a name and throwing it out there. Dunno about others but I often found it confusing to determine exactly what I was looking at. Giving the option of paid maps/mods is a good idea too... players can decide for themselves whether something is of value, and conversely map/mod makers will have to tell a convincing story in order to get people to pay.

Also really looking forward to a more robust set of editing tools. One of the funnest things for me was building storyline maps. Triggers were a wonderful asset for that, but some customization was still missing. Can't wait to get my hands on the new map editor.

The Only Factor That Matters Is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Will bnet be secure from hacks? will alterations to
code be detectable via hashkey checks, MD5 sums
or whatever would be most appropriate, I don't know :/

Will the new system be running continuous checks
to confirm unaltered code? I run a quadcore, most of us
have enough GHZ to spare. CHECK EVERY PLAYER
BEFORE EVERY GAME, EVERY TIME.

If people in sc2 use MH and Drophacks. Then there is absolutely
no reason to include any upgrades to battlenet at all.
Any upgrades to anything are worthless. I'd rather play
LEGIT in 640 x 480 resolution than play the newest
HD eye candy with a BUNCH OF HACKS!

A.C.

What about spammers?

[Yvan256]

If anyone has been playing Diablo 2, then you know how annoying spambots have been lately.

Will this "revamped Battle.net" stop them or will they continue to rouin the game?

Re:What about spammers?

[subanark]

Considering the number of spam bots you get in WoW... probably not.

Even though WoW has a $20 initial purchase fee (you can't spam trade channels with a trial account), you still get a lot of spammers. This is due to player accounts getting stolen though key loggers. After the account is striped of anything useful, the spammer creates characters on other servers and starts spamming trade channels with them.

Additionally, even with a trial account you can still create a character, run to the town, and start spamming stuff in /say near the auction house where many players reside. Another tactic used is the creation of a lot of trial accounts, and using a game hack tool, spammers will get their characters killed in such a way as to form a corpse message with their dead bodies.

Until Blizzard can figure out a way to prevent this from happening, we will see this keep continuing. Although with the reporting tool, if enough players "report spam" on a player, that account will be temporary muted from standard channels and private tells (unless responding to another player). The report spam does have the draw back of being able to silence someone you don't like if you get enough friends to help you (as there is no penalty for using this feature).

Few StarCraft players here

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell that very few of you were StarCraft players back in the day, or you wouldn't be complaining so much about the social networking features of the new Bnet. I saw a few complaints about how this will create "cliques." Clue train is here! Better get on! Clans/Guilds are a huge part of online gaming. I do not know of a single game that does not have them. Clans were a huge part of the original B.net, which lacked any sort of features for this. We had to change our names and now we called ourselves a group. The b.net released with Warcraft 3 added some support, but didn't do much beyond providing dedicated channels with moderator support.

These features address many of the desires that players have wanted over the years. One, for example, is the Real ID which will let you tie a person's multiple game names to one identity. Having multiple names was common for any semi-serious player, so you could go and goof off without hurting your ranking. Yes, rank matters. Also a big deal is the online content delivery, so no more having to wait for everyone to download the map in the starting room, which usually resulted in people leaving because they don't want to wait. In Warcraft 3 they decided to start kicking people who didn't have the map, so now you had to tab out and look around the Internet for updates.

Instant messaging is also nice, although it may seem redundant. However, communicating with whispers can be a hassle. Sometimes you get other people messaging you, and then you can't use /r anymore, sometimes you say things to the wrong people, and it always gets scrolled offscreen by all the chat going on in the channel.

The "always connected" feature may kind of suck for single player, on the other hand it may not be bad at all. I'm not sure they would totally bar you from playing the game when you have no connection; there will most likely be an offline mode. The vast majority of Starcraft players spend most of their time in multiplayer anyway, and being always connected is sort of the point in that case.

I suppose this was a waste of my time, and it also reveals what a rabid fanboy I am. If you don't like these sorts of things to begin with, then this game isn't for you, and no amount of fanboying will make you like it.

Forcing you to be online

[Snaller]

But they don't emphasis that you now are forced to be online (being monitored by big brother?) when you want to play a solo game.

Apparently there isn't any privacy either, if you are forced to put some family on your new 'friend' list they can track you forever - really bad design.

No, it has to have community

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it has to have community aspects now for direct marketing and brain warping via "game cliques"...

Alright Slashdot...sit down

[brkello]

What is happening to this community? I come here to read about interesting tech articles. I come here to see what is going on with games. I like to see what other people think about these articles and games. Instead, all I get is a constant barrage of politics and group think.

What do we have modded up for this article? Anti-Blizzard bnetd, anti-social networking, anti-online connected, anti-WoW. And just one...one! person actually commenting on how it will be great way for him to release his maps.

Slashdot has just become a circle jerk to promote a single view point. If it was just Linux advocacy, I would be fine. But no, you have to love Apple and Nintendo, hate Microsoft/Blizzard/Sony, hate DRM, be cool with people justifying piracy because someone might have once said something that isn't true, and be a Libertarian. That and almost every upmodded post is a negative comment that has already been said 1000 times before.

Every now and then there is a gem of a comment that makes it worth coming here. But that is becoming less and less. People here have all become overly cynical and hateful. I'm really glad I am not like the majority of people who get modded up here. It just seems like you hate living. Every game sucks. You think that Blizzard having you online means big brother is watching you (that insane notion is modded up just above me). This community seems to be sick. I just can't stand the negativity and paranoia anymore.

Re:Alright Slashdot...sit down

[spire3661]

Those of us who have been gaming since the beginning see the gaming companies locking up gaming and all the tools and spoon feeding it back to us at a cost, and you expect us to be thrilled about it? I like some of where gaming is going, but this constant feeding frenzy of user data is just too much. HAving ot be connected to the net all the time is jsut extremely greedy. I wouldnt mind it nearly as much if they provided EASY TO USE methods of playing offline. As it is now they use the online aspect to leverage you instead of helping you. Steam, while i enjoy the service, stil lags behind in this regard. It shouldnt take computer alchemy to get it to work in offline mode AND i shouldnt have ot pre-bless to get it to work.

Re:Alright Slashdot...sit down

[brkello]

And you have absolutely no idea how Blizzard will implement it and you are already bitching. I am sure I have been gaming just as long, if not longer, than you. Games are freaking amazing now. Yeah, bad DRM is bad. If the DRM is too onerous, I won't buy. But every game I have purchased, I have not had any issues from DRM. None. And I play a lot. You guys exaggerate and belly-ache over the stupidest crap. Somewhere from when you were a kid and grew up, the fun part of you died.

Re:Alright Slashdot...sit down

[spire3661]

For every blizzard there are 4 infinity wards. Even Carmack is going this route of lazy control freak by not allowing dedicated servers in Rage. THe game companies want it so that if you are playing their game, they want to know EVERYTHING you do in it. In 3 years there wont be a game available that doesnt require internet. I love where gaming is now in some regards, but the constant barage of pay me now and pay me later is a bit much. ITs the constant reminder that if you havent bought the latest map pack you wont be able to play your game like you had in the past. If i pop in my Halo 3 disc right now and try to get some matches i GUARANTEE that i will have ot jump through hoops becasue i dont have the latest maps.

Re:Alright Slashdot...sit down

[Reapy]

I think everyone is just getting old.

I've gamed a while, and while I wasn't an atari guy I was into PC games when atari's were around (thanks to my father). I think being a long term gaming guy yourself, you can see that while the gameing tech and moding tools and just general production that goes into games is AMAZING, the creativity and daring experimentation in gameplay is gone.

What I see within these last two years are the huge effects of consoles finally making their way to the pc. Everything is becoming proprietary. No more connection. When I do meet a player in a game I want to talk to, I have to check with one of likfe 15 different IM tools to stay connected...aim, msn, yahoo, icq, jabber, steam, xfire, blah blah blah. Sure things like miranda-im help here but it is still not easy to stay connected to people, even though there are more tools then ever before to do it.

Not only that, but games are losing things. We've seen this from the decline of 'stuff' in the box. Even when you buy a collector edition with fancy things, it still doesn't top what you used to get. Thick manuals with history lessons just demonstrating a passion for the subject of the game that you don't find anymore. Dragon age just released with a 0 day pay for DLC and a fucking character in game telling you how to buy it. Talk about immersion breaking.

This year people are getting rid of dedicated servers in their game. Why do we never move beyond the 64 player server? Where is the tech to do it? Some rare exceptions, but the amount of players per game seems to be getting smaller, not larger. Why isn't there a company out there (maybe MAG now? ) trying to figure out how to make an interesting gameplay experience, via tech and gameplay, for a huge amount of players in an action game?

So trust me, I like the eye candy now a days, and I still love gaming in general, and there are still games that make me go "oooooooo", but so many of the games now a days are well done rehashes of the same thing that came out 3 years ago, it is pretty hard to feel like I've played anything new.

I think if I stepped back I'd be pretty mad at the industry in general too...but when you think about it, it is just nature of success. Everything becomes generalized because generalized sells best, and generalized is easier to mass produce and generalized makes more money, period. All entertainment mediums are like this, books, tv, movies, music, whatever.

So, it sucks. We can find the variety we want with 'indie games', but we are spoiled by big budget production values so we miss them when they are gone.

Anyway, don't worry, eventually all the new gamers now are going to grow up and get sick of the same ol shit...except there are a lot more of those old fogies then us old fogies, so the market will have to respond... I hope :)

battlenet maintenance?

[Satanboy]

I wonder what will happen when battlenet is overloaded like warcraft was.

Will they resort to Tuesday maintenance days as well?

And what about extended maintenance?

Oh, sorry!
You can't play your game until we get these databases compacted!
See you Wednesday!