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Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time
Stoobalou writes "Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle. His company — which is responsible for one of the biggest video games of all time, the addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release StarCraft 2 on July 27, and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes that have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late. StarCraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection."
The second link confirms that there still will be no LAN support - the 'offline' mode is for the single-player only. Any networked game, including on a LAN, has to go through Battle.net 2.
What exactly are you talking about?
It's a single online activation. It would not surprise me if they release a patch sometime in the future to remove even that, especially if they take down the auth server. Blizzard has done similar things in the past, although on a small scale. You are not, since 1.15, required to have a CD in your CD drive to play Starcraft or Broodwars.
I don't mind that they are trying to protect the single player part of the game from casual copying. That multipalyer is forced to be on battle.net only is slightly annoying, but I had not intended to play anywhere else anyways.
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int 21h
They released no-CD patches for Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, and Starcraft 1, you know. They have a good track record here.
Bonus -- if you like LAN play, you get sued. Add Warden to the mix, and I hate Blizzard with a passion. "No onerous DRM?" Can't play on a LAN without access to your servers. Spyware monitoring your computer's memory every 15 seconds for an EULA violation. What are these? Pictures of cute little kittens?
Put identity in the browser.