"so i can play the game that i bought from them, on my own lan with friends?"
Actually, I believe the whole reason that services like BNETD haven't been shut down before now. In the aspect of acting as a LAN server, they weren't allowing the product to do anything that it couldn't already do.. they just did it a different way (IP vs IPX.)
However, when support for WarCraft III Beta was added that changed. Currently, the WC3 Beta is only playable over B.Net. There is no LAN or Single Player support. Additionally, there is no CD-Key checking.. so anyone with a copy of the War3 ISO that is floating around the Net can play.
The real problem is that one of my fellow Beta testers (yes, I am a War3 Beta tester) broke the EULA that came with our CD, and chose to distribute the an ISO of the Beta CD on the Net. And quite frankly that urked me off quite a bit.
So now, Blizzard is left with no options. They can't magically make all the copies of the Beta CD go away, so they have to shut down the servers that allow people to use their illegal copies of their software.
Do I like Blizzard having to take this course of action? No. I think it's a real crappy deal for all involved. I don't honestly think Blizzard wanted to do this either, but they have been basically left with no other choice if they want to protect what is legally theirs.
Anywho, that's my $0.02 on the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, it's a crummy deal. However, it's also a hazard of open source as you're aware.
"so i can play the game that i bought from them, on my own lan with friends?" Actually, I believe the whole reason that services like BNETD haven't been shut down before now. In the aspect of acting as a LAN server, they weren't allowing the product to do anything that it couldn't already do.. they just did it a different way (IP vs IPX.) However, when support for WarCraft III Beta was added that changed. Currently, the WC3 Beta is only playable over B.Net. There is no LAN or Single Player support. Additionally, there is no CD-Key checking.. so anyone with a copy of the War3 ISO that is floating around the Net can play. The real problem is that one of my fellow Beta testers (yes, I am a War3 Beta tester) broke the EULA that came with our CD, and chose to distribute the an ISO of the Beta CD on the Net. And quite frankly that urked me off quite a bit. So now, Blizzard is left with no options. They can't magically make all the copies of the Beta CD go away, so they have to shut down the servers that allow people to use their illegal copies of their software. Do I like Blizzard having to take this course of action? No. I think it's a real crappy deal for all involved. I don't honestly think Blizzard wanted to do this either, but they have been basically left with no other choice if they want to protect what is legally theirs. Anywho, that's my $0.02 on the issue.