"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy." (Emphasis mine.)
LAN play is no less of a "quality" multiplayer experience than... the exact same thing plus authentication over battle.net before the game begins, which is what they want us to do, so their first statement is marketing BS.
That leaves us with "we're leaving out LAN play to safeguard against piracy."
I wonder, what statistics do they have that show them LAN play increased piracy in the original?
Oh, right. Starcraft encouraged people to play together without everyone owning a copy, because Blizzard provided spawn copies.
"As mentioned by Rob Pardo in interviews, piracy is a serious problem and often times tie in closely with LAN."
"We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better. Don’t be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations." (Emphasis mine.)
So... they're blaming piracy problems largely on LAN support. Oh, and if you want LAN support, you're a leech to society and innovation.
LotR was never marketed as just one movie telling the whole story; SC2, however, was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns.
LotR was three movies for convenience and manageability; logistically, it's near impossible to make a 12-hour movie because nobody wants to sit through a 12-hour movie.
SC2 was split into three so they could make more money; there's no logistical reason it can't be one game, because games by nature are long and can be saved and resumed as desired. It was purely a financial decision.
The reason they broke it up isn't that they were trying to "give you less" in some way, it was that the three stories they wanted to tell were too big to fit into one box.
Exactly - that's true of Lord of the Rings.
But that's not true of Starcraft 2. See, there is no "box". It's all just data.
They could have postponed the game more, and finished all three campaigns, and released it as one game. It's not like they would lose sales (in terms of quantity).
They'd lose revenue, because they'd be selling one game, not three.
That's what all this is about, and that's my complaint. The only reason they're splitting it is that they want more money. It has absolutely nothing to do with "fitting in one box".
It was an understandable misconception about LAN play that caused you to want to boycott it, and now that blizzard basically crushed every one of your arguments -- you should go buy the game.
And which arguments were those? My complaint that I would need to have an internet connection to play with a bunch of people in the same room as me?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
My complaint that I they're calling anyone who wants LAN play a pirate?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
My complaint that I feel like they're unnecessarily money-grubbing with their split into three games?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
Any anger about lack of isolated from the internet play is rooted in fallacy and misconception
Fallacy and misconception, eh? I guess I'll tell my cousin, who regularly gathers a large group of people at an internet-less local church gymnasium to play Starcraft on an ad-hoc LAN, that you say they'll be able to play Starcraft 2 perfectly fine at their gatherings - clearly that's what you're saying, because according to you, any opinions to the contrary are based on fallacy and misconception.
So, according to you, it's fallacy and misconception to think you might have a hard time authenticating on Battle.net when you don't have an internet connection.
Get back to me when you figure out how a large group of people can authenticate on Battle.net without an internet connection, and I'll buy the game.
And presumably new units for all three sides will be added with each expansion.
... Of course meaning that if you want to keep playing multiplayer after the second game comes out, you're going to have to buy it. And then it'll happen again when the third game comes out.
See, for example, the ghost town that is non-Brood-War StarCraft 1 on Battle.net.
But since Starcraft 2 isn't complete without all three games, I don't even get the whole story unless I shell out the money for all three! At least with Starcraft 1, you got a full self-contained story spread across three campaigns, and with Brood War, you got another self-contained continuation of that story, spread across three more campaigns.
With Starcraft 2, you're going to get one-third of the story, with only one faction's side of the story. Part of what made Starcraft 1 great is that you got the story from three points of view, one for each faction. With SC2, you're going to have to wait an unspecified amount of time between getting the Zerg and Protoss segments of the story.
It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series, stripping out every chapter that's Perrin's point of view, and selling them as separate add-ons, without lowering the price of the original books. Sure, you'd still get basically the same story without the Perrin chapters, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that you're not getting ripped off.
I'm not saying they can't continue the story in a sequel. I'm saying it's freakishly annoying to only give you one-third of the same story per game.
It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series and stripping out every chapter that's written from Perrin's point of view and selling it as a separate add-on series, without lowering the cost of the original books.
The reality is that you will buy this game like everyone else and enjoy it.
And that's why Blizzard won't bother adding in LAN play. They feel the same as you - they think nobody will follow through on their intentions.
Well, you'd be right about most people. For example, the day Modern Warfare 2 was released, the "in-game players" list on the "Boycott MW2" Steam Group page was full of people playing MW2.
And it sickened me.
You're welcome to assume I won't follow through on my intention to not buy the game; you're obviously not going to believe I'm sincere regardless of what I say.
you will wake the moronic decision to not play a game because the company that makes it wants a return on their investment.
You're seriously going to claim that adding LAN play would screw up their ROI?
That's my whole point - adding LAN play wouldn't screw up their ROI! That's why I'm not going to buy it unless they add it in - because it's not that much more effort to do it, certainly not compared to the effort of getting battle.net to work, and especially not since what you say is true:
BTW on a lan SC2 will still use local data transfer
Obviously the capability for LAN play is there, they just need to add in a local lobby rather than making you set up games through Battle.net. It's a relatively minor addition to the UI, it's not a fundamental architecture change.
In any case, if you think "it doesn't do what I want" is not a valid reason to vote with my wallet, then what would be a valid reason?
My main point is just this: Blizzard is omitting a feature I consider to be essential in RTS games. I also feel they're deliberately mistreating an important segment of their target audience (by calling them pirates for wanting LAN play). As a result, I will not buy the game unless they rectify the situation.
It only got preachy and exaggerated because people thought those reasons were lame; yet those are the best reasons anyone could ever have for not buying any product (it doesn't do what I want, and they're not treating me right).
Actually I'll be missing it because they've opted to exclude LAN play, which is a feature I deem essential for RTS games (since that's the primary use to which I put my RTS games). That's hardly a "false anti-Blizzard rant"; it's neither false nor a rant, and it's technically not even anti-Blizzard.
Sure, Blizzard has indicated that they'll price the second and third installments for what they're worth. But what Blizzard thinks they're worth and what *I* think they're worth may not be the same thing, so I'm going to vote with my wallet.
It still boggles me how many people think I'm stupid for voting with my wallet.
Uh... no. Those situations aren't even remotely comparable.
See, Tolkien did not sell the Hobbit, then say "hey, I'm writing a sequel", then when it became clear it would take more than three years to write, split it into three parts to be more profitable.
He just wrote a story.
The fact that it was first published in three volumes is largely irrelevant; had Tolkien's preference been deemed of utmost importance, I'm sure he would have opted to have it published as one volume, because that's how he thought of the story.
That's not the case with Blizzard. Blizzard is both writer and publisher. They control both the story and its published form. They decided to split it into three specifically so it would be more profitable.
Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be all three campaigns in one game. That was never the case with LotR.
If Blizzard had said from the start that it would be three games, I'd be less irritated. I realize that they're entitled to change their mind, but I'm just as entitled to be irritated when they do.
*sigh* I never claimed my friends and I are representative of the universe as a whole.
I merely claimed that my friends and I are representative of more of the universe than Blizzard apparently believes -- and that is clearly true, since Blizzard thinks (according to their public statements) only pirates really want LAN play, yet I can point at a dozen people who are not pirates but really want LAN play... and if I can point at a dozen, then surely there more people of like mind beyond my little corner of the world.
"Always-on" internet is not always on. Furthermore, there will inevitably be maintenance downtime on battle.net. Suppose I want to play Starcraft 2 with my wife, but b.net is taken offline for maintenance, or my neighbor got a little crazy with his backhoe, or a crazed teenager blew up the ISP's local junction box. Suddenly, we can't play together, even though we're sitting in the same room!
Steam solves this by allowing you to run Steam in "offline mode". Even if you can't reach Steam's servers, you can still pull up Steam and play your games.
But Starcraft 2's multiplayer won't be like that. If you can't authenticate, you can't play, even if the person you want to play with is sitting in the same room as you.
At any rate, those are just the problems that I see with the situation. You're right as far as your comments go; Blizzard doesn't care that "always on" doesn't really mean "always on". It doesn't hurt their bottom line if gamers have to wait until tomorrow to play with their roommate because their ISP went kaput.
What this really means is that Blizzard no longer cares about creating the best gaming experience like they used to; they care about earning money. While I understand that from a business perspective, it's disappointing from a fan-of-Blizzard perspective, because they used to care, and now they don't.
Sorry, but while clever, SCI was not fantabulious because you could play all three race's stories on release day.
Starcraft 1 was fantastic largely due to its LAN play support (and, related to it, its ability to spawn multiplayer copies of the game for your friends), which not only let us play with our friends in large, internet-less groups, but introduced people to the game who later bought the game because they had a chance to play it for free. I'm one of those people who bought it thanks to a spawn copy (in fact I bought two copies of the game).
Starcraft 2 lacks both of these things.
Starcraft 1 also told a fairly compelling story between its three campaigns, and the campaigns were paced well enough to keep you interested without letting you get bored with the factions.
It's possible Starcraft 2 will be able to keep us entertained through 30 or more missions playing the same faction. It's possible the storyline will remain compelling and feel somewhat complete, even though we'll be missing two-thirds of the storyline.
Starcraft's multiplayer was great. But when Brood War came out, non-expansion Battle.net became a ghost town (and for good reason; BW was better). But BW only cost $20, and it contained three more campaigns to boot.
With Starcraft 2, this won't happen once, it'll happen twice - and if you believe they'll only charge $20 per installment, you're being deliberately naive. Sure, they claim the installments "will be expansions and priced as such", but that could mean anything. All it really means is that they're tentatively planning on charging something less than the full price of the first installment. I will not be surprised one bit if they forget their statements and charge full price anyway.
Then there's Blizzard's whole attitude toward gamers. Rather than doing their best to get the game out there, to expose it to as many people as possible (which was the purpose of multiplayer spawn copies), they're doing their best to force everyone who wants to play to pay up front.
That is, they're treating everyone as pirates until proven otherwise. It's an attitude that I find repugnant. The fact that it is the prevalent attitude in the game industry as a whole doesn't soften the blow at all.
They've claimed on multiple occasions that only pirates want LAN play. I'm not a pirate, yet I want LAN play. What does that reveal about their attitude toward me? It reveals that they're not interested in my money.
Well, if they want to sneer at my money, I see no reason to give it to them.
If you fault me for that, you're a moron.
Would you care if they took 3x as long in development, then released a truly MASSIVE amount of content in one installment, charging 3x as much?
They've taken long enough to develop the game as it is. Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe that's the whole reason they're splitting it into three releases in the first place?
The difference is, nobody ever marketed Fellowship of the Ring as if it were a full sequel to The Hobbit.
They're trying to pretend Starcraft 2's first episode (or whatever you want to call it) is a "full sequel". It's not - the full sequel includes all three campaigns.
Let me put it this way: if you want the full story that Blizzard originally set out to tell in Starcraft 2 before the split it into three games, you have to buy all three games.
One less whiny fanboi that I don't have to listen to
I don't think you understand what the word "fanboi" means.
I refuse to buy something that is missing what I consider to be an essential feature. How does that make me a "fanboi" of any sort?
A fanboy is someone who blindly and vigorously supports (or, for anti-fanboys, defames) some product or company, regardless of the soundness of their position.
For example, a Linux fanboy is someone who insists Linux is the best OS and that nobody should ever need anything else, and anyone who thinks they need Windows is just wrong no matter what.
I fully agree that Starcraft 2 will likely be an excellent game, such as it is; however, that in and of itself is not sufficient to gain access to my wallet.
Linux is decent, as far as it goes; however, I can't play Star Trek Online without magic voodoo in Wine (which, incidentally, I can't get to compile). Thus, I won't use it regularly. By your logic, that makes me some sort of "whiny fanboi"... though of what, I doubt anyone could say.
You're probably right about... pretty much everything.
I do realize I'll be missing out on what will most likely be a great game. However, months ago I said I would boycott the game if it didn't include LAN play, and I feel that if I say I'm going to do something, I'd better follow through, or my word means nothing.
Nothing angered me more than all the PC gamers who joined the "Boycott MW2 until it gets Dedicated Servers" group on Steam, only to jump into the game the moment it was released. There are screenshots out there of the MW2 "online players" list where 50% of them are in-game in MW2...
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's not what I want from the game, and if they're going to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play, well, they get to lose my sale.
I'm just voting with my wallet. You don't have to agree with me.
Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one.
I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.
Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.
For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.
Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?
Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it
"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.
The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.
But let's say you're right - let's say all the people complaining are just going to go buy it anyway. Doesn't Blizzard claim to love its gamers? Doesn't Blizzard love fostering good will among its fans?
I would wager that Blizzard could hammer out solid LAN support for Starcraft II by throwing a five-man programming team at it for a month, maybe two. Are they really so desperate to pinch pennies that they can't spare the effort? If they actually cared about their fans, and about providing the best gaming experience, they would do it, even if it earned them no more money, because so many of their fans want it.
No, TikiTDO, the real reason they don't want to do it has nothing to do with the actual cost to implement it. It's because their corporate overlords have convinced them that only pirates want LAN play, and that pirates have to be attacked at any and all costs. This is a trend we're seeing in the gaming industry as a whole, not just in any particular company. See also, Invasive DRM.
You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.
I've given a rough guess above. Obviously I don't have market research with which to "prove" anything. All I can really do is vote with my wallet, and that's what I'm going to do.
In any case, my boycott is only partially based on their refusal to include LAN play. My objections extend to include their attitude toward those of us who really want the feature. If they want to treat me like a pirate, well, they're going to get the same income they'd get if I were a pirate - which is sad, because I'm not.
SC2 "Episode 1" has as much content as the original.
What does "as much content" mean?
The original let me install spawn copies of the game on multiple computers, so I could play multiplayer with my friends even if they didn't own the game. That's a lot of "content" that SC2 won't have, in my view.
If they had announced it as three full games, I'd still be irritated: it's the same effect.
SC2 doesn't have "as much content" (in the sense of missions) because it's only showing 1/3 of the storyline. We only get the Terran viewpoint.
That was the great thing about the original game. You got three races' stories as they related to a central storyline. We won't be getting that with SC2 until all three games are out.
So to get the same experience, in that sense at least, we have to buy three full games.
I'm sure SC2 will have some large number of missions that by mission count makes it "equal" to SC1. But we're still only getting 1/3 of the story, and that's very disappointing to me.
It doesn't really matter whether Blizzard even notices. See, some of us have these things called "principles" and "values", and we stand up for them even if nobody else cares.
Blizzard wants to shove a LAN-less multiplayer game at us. That's fine, but I'm not going to buy it because I like LAN games.
It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.
Heck, Blizzard even provided spawn copies of Starcraft you could use for multiplayer games, so you could play with your friends even if they didn't have their own copies of the game. Do you think they'll be doing that with SC2? Of course not.
My decision to refuse to buy Starcraft 2 has as much to do with Blizzard's attitude as it has to do with the game itself.
I was about to ask why I got modded Troll, and then I realized that it was probably just someone modding me "-1 Disagree".
Note to moderators: You may like Starcraft 2. Heck, I'm sure I would like Starcraft 2. But I'm willing to forgo its potential awesomeness, because Blizzard has made some choices with which I strongly disagree. This is called "voting with your wallet", and I am in no way saying you're wrong for buying the game; I'm simply saying I'm upset about it. This isn't trolling, it's simply an explanation of why I won't be buying the game.
Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.
They've obviously also not done any market research on how big that percentage of the population might be, and I doubt you have either.
Out of me and the dozen friends that play Starcraft, exactly zero of us play on Battle.net if we don't have to. During high school, all of us regularly played without access to an internet connection - one still regularly gets a group together in a local church gymnasium to play Starcraft LAN games, and there's definitely no internet access there. I guess they'll stick with the original even after the sequel comes out, because they won't be able to play the sequel together.
The "small percentage" is a lot larger than you think it is. Starcraft II will not be nearly as popular if it prevents playing multiplayer without internet access.
According to 1up, Blizzard is promising between 26-30 missions per game. If so, that puts each game at 2/3 the size of SC1 (at least in terms of missions). But do you think they'll be charging 2/3 the price? Of course not. Do you have a reliable source where blizzard promises 40 missions per game?
The other potential issue I see is that once the second game comes out, anyone who plays multiplayer is going to have to buy the second game too if they want to keep playing multiplayer (as happened with SC1 and Brood War).
They've said they won't do that, that anyone with the first game will be able to play multiplayer with the other two, but unless they actually patch the first game with new units from the second and third games I see it as extremely unlikely, and I also see it as unlikely that they would release two more games without adding new units to the factions.
They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too.
They have given no indication the second and third games will be priced as expansions. In fact, given their claims about campaign lengths, they're indicating that they will be priced as full games, not as expansions.
Slashdot Mirror
Where are the public statements about only pirates wanting LAN play, by the way?
Here's one:
"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy." (Emphasis mine.)
LAN play is no less of a "quality" multiplayer experience than... the exact same thing plus authentication over battle.net before the game begins, which is what they want us to do, so their first statement is marketing BS.
That leaves us with "we're leaving out LAN play to safeguard against piracy."
I wonder, what statistics do they have that show them LAN play increased piracy in the original?
Oh, right. Starcraft encouraged people to play together without everyone owning a copy, because Blizzard provided spawn copies.
Or how about this one:
"As mentioned by Rob Pardo in interviews, piracy is a serious problem and often times tie in closely with LAN."
"We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better. Don’t be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations." (Emphasis mine.)
So... they're blaming piracy problems largely on LAN support. Oh, and if you want LAN support, you're a leech to society and innovation.
It's that sort of attitude that I find repugnant.
LotR was never marketed as just one movie telling the whole story; SC2, however, was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns.
LotR was three movies for convenience and manageability; logistically, it's near impossible to make a 12-hour movie because nobody wants to sit through a 12-hour movie.
SC2 was split into three so they could make more money; there's no logistical reason it can't be one game, because games by nature are long and can be saved and resumed as desired. It was purely a financial decision.
The reason they broke it up isn't that they were trying to "give you less" in some way, it was that the three stories they wanted to tell were too big to fit into one box.
Exactly - that's true of Lord of the Rings.
But that's not true of Starcraft 2. See, there is no "box". It's all just data.
They could have postponed the game more, and finished all three campaigns, and released it as one game. It's not like they would lose sales (in terms of quantity).
They'd lose revenue, because they'd be selling one game, not three.
That's what all this is about, and that's my complaint. The only reason they're splitting it is that they want more money. It has absolutely nothing to do with "fitting in one box".
Blizzard already said they would work on sending private workable copies to people who legitimately cannot get internet
Source?
It was an understandable misconception about LAN play that caused you to want to boycott it, and now that blizzard basically crushed every one of your arguments -- you should go buy the game.
And which arguments were those? My complaint that I would need to have an internet connection to play with a bunch of people in the same room as me?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
My complaint that I they're calling anyone who wants LAN play a pirate?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
My complaint that I feel like they're unnecessarily money-grubbing with their split into three games?
Oh wait, no, that's still an issue.
Any anger about lack of isolated from the internet play is rooted in fallacy and misconception
Fallacy and misconception, eh? I guess I'll tell my cousin, who regularly gathers a large group of people at an internet-less local church gymnasium to play Starcraft on an ad-hoc LAN, that you say they'll be able to play Starcraft 2 perfectly fine at their gatherings - clearly that's what you're saying, because according to you, any opinions to the contrary are based on fallacy and misconception.
So, according to you, it's fallacy and misconception to think you might have a hard time authenticating on Battle.net when you don't have an internet connection.
Get back to me when you figure out how a large group of people can authenticate on Battle.net without an internet connection, and I'll buy the game.
And presumably new units for all three sides will be added with each expansion.
... Of course meaning that if you want to keep playing multiplayer after the second game comes out, you're going to have to buy it. And then it'll happen again when the third game comes out.
See, for example, the ghost town that is non-Brood-War StarCraft 1 on Battle.net.
But since Starcraft 2 isn't complete without all three games, I don't even get the whole story unless I shell out the money for all three! At least with Starcraft 1, you got a full self-contained story spread across three campaigns, and with Brood War, you got another self-contained continuation of that story, spread across three more campaigns.
With Starcraft 2, you're going to get one-third of the story, with only one faction's side of the story. Part of what made Starcraft 1 great is that you got the story from three points of view, one for each faction. With SC2, you're going to have to wait an unspecified amount of time between getting the Zerg and Protoss segments of the story.
It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series, stripping out every chapter that's Perrin's point of view, and selling them as separate add-ons, without lowering the price of the original books. Sure, you'd still get basically the same story without the Perrin chapters, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that you're not getting ripped off.
I'm not saying they can't continue the story in a sequel. I'm saying it's freakishly annoying to only give you one-third of the same story per game.
It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series and stripping out every chapter that's written from Perrin's point of view and selling it as a separate add-on series, without lowering the cost of the original books.
The reality is that you will buy this game like everyone else and enjoy it.
And that's why Blizzard won't bother adding in LAN play. They feel the same as you - they think nobody will follow through on their intentions.
Well, you'd be right about most people. For example, the day Modern Warfare 2 was released, the "in-game players" list on the "Boycott MW2" Steam Group page was full of people playing MW2.
And it sickened me.
You're welcome to assume I won't follow through on my intention to not buy the game; you're obviously not going to believe I'm sincere regardless of what I say.
you will wake the moronic decision to not play a game because the company that makes it wants a return on their investment.
You're seriously going to claim that adding LAN play would screw up their ROI?
That's my whole point - adding LAN play wouldn't screw up their ROI! That's why I'm not going to buy it unless they add it in - because it's not that much more effort to do it, certainly not compared to the effort of getting battle.net to work, and especially not since what you say is true:
BTW on a lan SC2 will still use local data transfer
Obviously the capability for LAN play is there, they just need to add in a local lobby rather than making you set up games through Battle.net. It's a relatively minor addition to the UI, it's not a fundamental architecture change.
In any case, if you think "it doesn't do what I want" is not a valid reason to vote with my wallet, then what would be a valid reason?
My main point is just this: Blizzard is omitting a feature I consider to be essential in RTS games. I also feel they're deliberately mistreating an important segment of their target audience (by calling them pirates for wanting LAN play). As a result, I will not buy the game unless they rectify the situation.
It only got preachy and exaggerated because people thought those reasons were lame; yet those are the best reasons anyone could ever have for not buying any product (it doesn't do what I want, and they're not treating me right).
Actually I'll be missing it because they've opted to exclude LAN play, which is a feature I deem essential for RTS games (since that's the primary use to which I put my RTS games). That's hardly a "false anti-Blizzard rant"; it's neither false nor a rant, and it's technically not even anti-Blizzard.
Sure, Blizzard has indicated that they'll price the second and third installments for what they're worth. But what Blizzard thinks they're worth and what *I* think they're worth may not be the same thing, so I'm going to vote with my wallet.
It still boggles me how many people think I'm stupid for voting with my wallet.
Uh... no. Those situations aren't even remotely comparable.
See, Tolkien did not sell the Hobbit, then say "hey, I'm writing a sequel", then when it became clear it would take more than three years to write, split it into three parts to be more profitable.
He just wrote a story.
The fact that it was first published in three volumes is largely irrelevant; had Tolkien's preference been deemed of utmost importance, I'm sure he would have opted to have it published as one volume, because that's how he thought of the story.
That's not the case with Blizzard. Blizzard is both writer and publisher. They control both the story and its published form. They decided to split it into three specifically so it would be more profitable.
Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be all three campaigns in one game. That was never the case with LotR.
If Blizzard had said from the start that it would be three games, I'd be less irritated. I realize that they're entitled to change their mind, but I'm just as entitled to be irritated when they do.
So you're saying I should abandon my stated purpose merely because it will have no visible effect on Blizzard's bottom line?
*sigh* I never claimed my friends and I are representative of the universe as a whole.
I merely claimed that my friends and I are representative of more of the universe than Blizzard apparently believes -- and that is clearly true, since Blizzard thinks (according to their public statements) only pirates really want LAN play, yet I can point at a dozen people who are not pirates but really want LAN play... and if I can point at a dozen, then surely there more people of like mind beyond my little corner of the world.
"Always-on" internet is not always on. Furthermore, there will inevitably be maintenance downtime on battle.net. Suppose I want to play Starcraft 2 with my wife, but b.net is taken offline for maintenance, or my neighbor got a little crazy with his backhoe, or a crazed teenager blew up the ISP's local junction box. Suddenly, we can't play together, even though we're sitting in the same room!
Steam solves this by allowing you to run Steam in "offline mode". Even if you can't reach Steam's servers, you can still pull up Steam and play your games.
But Starcraft 2's multiplayer won't be like that. If you can't authenticate, you can't play, even if the person you want to play with is sitting in the same room as you.
At any rate, those are just the problems that I see with the situation. You're right as far as your comments go; Blizzard doesn't care that "always on" doesn't really mean "always on". It doesn't hurt their bottom line if gamers have to wait until tomorrow to play with their roommate because their ISP went kaput.
What this really means is that Blizzard no longer cares about creating the best gaming experience like they used to; they care about earning money. While I understand that from a business perspective, it's disappointing from a fan-of-Blizzard perspective, because they used to care, and now they don't.
Sorry, but while clever, SCI was not fantabulious because you could play all three race's stories on release day.
Starcraft 1 was fantastic largely due to its LAN play support (and, related to it, its ability to spawn multiplayer copies of the game for your friends), which not only let us play with our friends in large, internet-less groups, but introduced people to the game who later bought the game because they had a chance to play it for free. I'm one of those people who bought it thanks to a spawn copy (in fact I bought two copies of the game).
Starcraft 2 lacks both of these things.
Starcraft 1 also told a fairly compelling story between its three campaigns, and the campaigns were paced well enough to keep you interested without letting you get bored with the factions.
It's possible Starcraft 2 will be able to keep us entertained through 30 or more missions playing the same faction. It's possible the storyline will remain compelling and feel somewhat complete, even though we'll be missing two-thirds of the storyline.
Starcraft's multiplayer was great. But when Brood War came out, non-expansion Battle.net became a ghost town (and for good reason; BW was better). But BW only cost $20, and it contained three more campaigns to boot.
With Starcraft 2, this won't happen once, it'll happen twice - and if you believe they'll only charge $20 per installment, you're being deliberately naive. Sure, they claim the installments "will be expansions and priced as such", but that could mean anything. All it really means is that they're tentatively planning on charging something less than the full price of the first installment. I will not be surprised one bit if they forget their statements and charge full price anyway.
Then there's Blizzard's whole attitude toward gamers. Rather than doing their best to get the game out there, to expose it to as many people as possible (which was the purpose of multiplayer spawn copies), they're doing their best to force everyone who wants to play to pay up front.
That is, they're treating everyone as pirates until proven otherwise. It's an attitude that I find repugnant. The fact that it is the prevalent attitude in the game industry as a whole doesn't soften the blow at all.
They've claimed on multiple occasions that only pirates want LAN play. I'm not a pirate, yet I want LAN play. What does that reveal about their attitude toward me? It reveals that they're not interested in my money.
Well, if they want to sneer at my money, I see no reason to give it to them.
If you fault me for that, you're a moron.
Would you care if they took 3x as long in development, then released a truly MASSIVE amount of content in one installment, charging 3x as much?
They've taken long enough to develop the game as it is. Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe that's the whole reason they're splitting it into three releases in the first place?
The difference is, nobody ever marketed Fellowship of the Ring as if it were a full sequel to The Hobbit.
They're trying to pretend Starcraft 2's first episode (or whatever you want to call it) is a "full sequel". It's not - the full sequel includes all three campaigns.
Let me put it this way: if you want the full story that Blizzard originally set out to tell in Starcraft 2 before the split it into three games, you have to buy all three games.
One less whiny fanboi that I don't have to listen to
I don't think you understand what the word "fanboi" means.
I refuse to buy something that is missing what I consider to be an essential feature. How does that make me a "fanboi" of any sort?
A fanboy is someone who blindly and vigorously supports (or, for anti-fanboys, defames) some product or company, regardless of the soundness of their position.
For example, a Linux fanboy is someone who insists Linux is the best OS and that nobody should ever need anything else, and anyone who thinks they need Windows is just wrong no matter what.
I fully agree that Starcraft 2 will likely be an excellent game, such as it is; however, that in and of itself is not sufficient to gain access to my wallet.
Linux is decent, as far as it goes; however, I can't play Star Trek Online without magic voodoo in Wine (which, incidentally, I can't get to compile). Thus, I won't use it regularly. By your logic, that makes me some sort of "whiny fanboi"... though of what, I doubt anyone could say.
I didn't say it's too little content for the money. I said it's not the content that I want for the money.
All I'm saying is that I'm voting with my wallet. Why is it so hard for you people to accept that?
You're probably right about... pretty much everything.
I do realize I'll be missing out on what will most likely be a great game. However, months ago I said I would boycott the game if it didn't include LAN play, and I feel that if I say I'm going to do something, I'd better follow through, or my word means nothing.
Nothing angered me more than all the PC gamers who joined the "Boycott MW2 until it gets Dedicated Servers" group on Steam, only to jump into the game the moment it was released. There are screenshots out there of the MW2 "online players" list where 50% of them are in-game in MW2...
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's not what I want from the game, and if they're going to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play, well, they get to lose my sale.
I'm just voting with my wallet. You don't have to agree with me.
Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one.
I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.
Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.
For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.
Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?
Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it
"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.
The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.
But let's say you're right - let's say all the people complaining are just going to go buy it anyway. Doesn't Blizzard claim to love its gamers? Doesn't Blizzard love fostering good will among its fans?
I would wager that Blizzard could hammer out solid LAN support for Starcraft II by throwing a five-man programming team at it for a month, maybe two. Are they really so desperate to pinch pennies that they can't spare the effort? If they actually cared about their fans, and about providing the best gaming experience, they would do it, even if it earned them no more money, because so many of their fans want it.
No, TikiTDO, the real reason they don't want to do it has nothing to do with the actual cost to implement it. It's because their corporate overlords have convinced them that only pirates want LAN play, and that pirates have to be attacked at any and all costs. This is a trend we're seeing in the gaming industry as a whole, not just in any particular company. See also, Invasive DRM.
You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.
I've given a rough guess above. Obviously I don't have market research with which to "prove" anything. All I can really do is vote with my wallet, and that's what I'm going to do.
In any case, my boycott is only partially based on their refusal to include LAN play. My objections extend to include their attitude toward those of us who really want the feature. If they want to treat me like a pirate, well, they're going to get the same income they'd get if I were a pirate - which is sad, because I'm not.
SC2 "Episode 1" has as much content as the original.
What does "as much content" mean?
The original let me install spawn copies of the game on multiple computers, so I could play multiplayer with my friends even if they didn't own the game. That's a lot of "content" that SC2 won't have, in my view.
If they had announced it as three full games, I'd still be irritated: it's the same effect.
SC2 doesn't have "as much content" (in the sense of missions) because it's only showing 1/3 of the storyline. We only get the Terran viewpoint.
That was the great thing about the original game. You got three races' stories as they related to a central storyline. We won't be getting that with SC2 until all three games are out.
So to get the same experience, in that sense at least, we have to buy three full games.
I'm sure SC2 will have some large number of missions that by mission count makes it "equal" to SC1. But we're still only getting 1/3 of the story, and that's very disappointing to me.
It doesn't really matter whether Blizzard even notices. See, some of us have these things called "principles" and "values", and we stand up for them even if nobody else cares.
Blizzard wants to shove a LAN-less multiplayer game at us. That's fine, but I'm not going to buy it because I like LAN games.
It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.
Heck, Blizzard even provided spawn copies of Starcraft you could use for multiplayer games, so you could play with your friends even if they didn't have their own copies of the game. Do you think they'll be doing that with SC2? Of course not.
My decision to refuse to buy Starcraft 2 has as much to do with Blizzard's attitude as it has to do with the game itself.
I was about to ask why I got modded Troll, and then I realized that it was probably just someone modding me "-1 Disagree".
Note to moderators: You may like Starcraft 2. Heck, I'm sure I would like Starcraft 2. But I'm willing to forgo its potential awesomeness, because Blizzard has made some choices with which I strongly disagree. This is called "voting with your wallet", and I am in no way saying you're wrong for buying the game; I'm simply saying I'm upset about it. This isn't trolling, it's simply an explanation of why I won't be buying the game.
Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.
They've obviously also not done any market research on how big that percentage of the population might be, and I doubt you have either.
Out of me and the dozen friends that play Starcraft, exactly zero of us play on Battle.net if we don't have to. During high school, all of us regularly played without access to an internet connection - one still regularly gets a group together in a local church gymnasium to play Starcraft LAN games, and there's definitely no internet access there. I guess they'll stick with the original even after the sequel comes out, because they won't be able to play the sequel together.
The "small percentage" is a lot larger than you think it is. Starcraft II will not be nearly as popular if it prevents playing multiplayer without internet access.
Not if you want to fire it up... with Terrans, it's Supply Depots.
According to 1up, Blizzard is promising between 26-30 missions per game. If so, that puts each game at 2/3 the size of SC1 (at least in terms of missions). But do you think they'll be charging 2/3 the price? Of course not. Do you have a reliable source where blizzard promises 40 missions per game?
The other potential issue I see is that once the second game comes out, anyone who plays multiplayer is going to have to buy the second game too if they want to keep playing multiplayer (as happened with SC1 and Brood War).
They've said they won't do that, that anyone with the first game will be able to play multiplayer with the other two, but unless they actually patch the first game with new units from the second and third games I see it as extremely unlikely, and I also see it as unlikely that they would release two more games without adding new units to the factions.
They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too.
They have given no indication the second and third games will be priced as expansions. In fact, given their claims about campaign lengths, they're indicating that they will be priced as full games, not as expansions.