StarCraft II: Blizzard responds to lack of LAN support

I don't think this means battle.net won't be free anymore. They just will just use battle.net as an activation service. So you can't pirate it and so they can get a cut of play at gaming parties/installations. And so they can sell DLC through it.

For example, look at the license that Valve put on CounterStrike. The one that said that if you rent access to their game to play it, they got a cut. StarCraft gaming is huge in Korea (among other places), Blizzard is just looking for a piece of the action.

Which is very annoying. First they break the game into 3 parts, sold separately, now they are working to take even more after-the-fact money from players.

Screw Blizzard this is the gayest move ever.

I won't be surprised if they will be charging for Battle.net 2.0 or whatever the new one is.

Horrible at least we have valve not acting to dumb.
Well for some people if you just forget the Left 4 Dead 2thing than your good.

Wait so... even if you're right next to each other you have to deal with online lag?

The pros are probably going to stick to Starcraft 1, jeez.

Hackers of the world, start your engines! People still play PC games? ;)

Take this situation for example.
One person holds a LAN party at his place. He has a weak 3Mbit connection, but 8 people that wanna play SC2 together. How the hell is that going to work?
Is the server still going to communicate locally or is it all going to go through battlenet?
I mean, is it possible to have battlenet only as an authentication system?
Something like what the original Half Life had (although it was only for online games)?

All of these questions are valid, and Blizzard seems to be taking the piss since the Activision merger...

I don't get it: couldn't they just require the LAN-connected PCs to authenticate first with BattleNet, but then perform the game communications locally on the LAN thereafter? If piracy is the issue, such a scheme would address that concern, I would think. Maybe I'm missing something, and the inclusion of such a scheme still wouldn't mitigate piracy.

First of all, I find it highly unlikely that b.net would ever go pay-to-play. I don't think blizzard is quite dumb enough to alienate their player base like that. Secondly, the removal of LAN play is rather meaningless. There have been battle.net emulators in existence since the early days of the original Starcraft, and I'm willing to bet they'll still be around for SC2.

Like all companies that make decisions in an attempt to curb piracy, all Blizzard will do by removing LAN play is save themselves a few man hours and inconvenience a few thousand legit customers.

Why the hell are so many people up in arms about this? Just buy the game and play with your real life friends on Battle.Net, it's not that damn hard, jeeze.

Oh blizzard. LAN is a fundamental component of any multilayer game.. especially for an RTS. LAN is needed b/c why sure everyone nearly has the internet, imagine.. 6-12 guys wanting to play Starcraft II at a lan... Ok great we have to use Bnet and use the internet. Someone has to bust out a switch so everyone can play while enjoying a lag-fest just so we can lan and enjoy the game together in the same room(s) drinking bawls. And the internet isn't fast for everyone! Not everyone pays for high-speed yet and some college connections have horrible ping etc. I can't tell you how many times I've gone and held a lan on campus in the past year. (that and WC3) Also BNET will lag at times, crash, go slow, w/e and we have to deal with it. This was not a hard decision... Blizzard just wanted to pull a gay like EA with drm. They want to ensure people are paying for the game so they cut out LAN for their convenience. Blizzard has been more focused on gaining profits then pleasing the player in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, Starcraft II will be great, but without lan it's just going to be less great and a bit annoying. Wait for the Koreans to create an unofficial lan patch

Well, guess I'll keep playing the original Starcraft then.

*spawns more overlords*

Dear Blizzard,

I fully intended on purchasing Startcraft II upon release date, as I love LAN gaming with the original. I have paid for every game you have released for PC except for WoW, because I just don't have the time for that (although I did beta test it for you). I still have all my disks in mint condition, all the way up from Warcraft: Orcs and Humans!!! However, now I feel betrayed. The reason I loved your RTS games so much was that they were great LAN titles. Newbies could pick up on them quickly, and generally anyone attending a LAN party knows how to play WC3 and SC. You've removed the whole reason I wanted to purchase this game. Thanks, but I think this will be the first Blizzard title that I don't pay for. I'm sure I can find a pirated copy that will be good enough... If I'm going to have to run illegal 3rd party apps just to play with my friends, I might as well just pirate the whole title...

Yours truly,
~ 1 lost sale

Have they told South Korea yet?

@hairyghoul

You have a valid point. "Piracy can not be singlehandedly tackled by any one."
At the sametime...you can't sit back and accept it either. I think that is what Blizzard/Activision might be trying to do.....I'm not saying it is right..but to sit back and just let it happen is not viable either.
This could be a trial and error kind of thing as well. Not sure how one goes about tackling the issue of piracy....but until a solution is found...things like this are inevitable from game developers.

@aristokrat

Not sure they are targeting me or not. However to say piracy doesn't effect the bottomline is a bit naive as well.
You are right...in business you are constantly trying to add to the bottomline. Always.
I never understood why paying how much a MONTH for World of Warcraft?? And there are people who aren't happy with that. Xbox Live is how much a year?? There are people who aren't happy about that.
See part of the problem is we as the gamer want as much as we can for free. I know I do. Things come at a price though..and I am aware of that as well. I have played on Sony's free online gaming...and it sucks. Plus no one is on there. I have Xbox Live and enjoy it for the most part...but I had to pay to get that better experience.
Same thing with Starcraft 2. I know I am going to have to pay to get the better experience. And I am willing to do such.
That is the business model set forth like I said. We as gamers are going to get nickeled and dimed. Hate to say it but it is true. Whether it be for maps, weapons, uniforms, abilities...etc. This is the new face of gaming.
Having no LAN will suck for some Starcraft players...but is this any different than what the makers of Resident Evil 5 did?? They had to pay for multiplayer feature.....is that what Blizzard/Activision should do...make those pay for the right to have LAN??? Imagine the war that will occur with type of proposition.....

F U C K . T H I S . S H I T

They are blaming piracy? oh fuck off blizzard with this bullshit.. they are just being greedy and its a perfect way of targeting users.

quite bloody obvious they didn't plan LAN play in the first place when they can force plebs to have to run and use another shitty platform service just to get into a fucking game!..

I'm not buying any games using any shit platform like steam at all, ever again. You should not have to run crap like that just to play game..

"quality multiplayer experience "

having to run some other shit before you can even get into a game and play singleplayer/multiplayer game is not a fucking quality experience fools.

"advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service"

optional crap .. this should be optional for users who want that!!! ie OPT IN!

They can blame there own anti piracy bullshit and crap game updates now.

Well Fuck you to Blizztard! -bunch of assholes

I'm not interesting in running another steaming shit platform (battle.shitenet) just to play a game.

another steaming shit platform to have to run before you can play the sodding game.. screw you blizztard!

the more I see and hear of SC2 the less interested I become. No LAN support is taking the piss now, its not a huge feature which is exactly why I expect it to be there. Why play through a crappy internet connection if the people you are gonna play against are in your own fecking house or wherever you're having a LAN party. -idiots

Well I no longer care about this game. It's clear they're going to charge for the "new and improved" Battle.Net service and forcing all multiplay to be through THEIR servers gives them complete control of every person playing, and ensures there will be no LAN parties where everyone shared a CD key.

Apparently Blizzard hasn't milked enough with World of Warcraft, character transfers, the new faction switches (which we now will cost $$), and name changes.

Er... isn't Battle.net free? Why all the crying?

Funny, now I'm tempted to pirate it. And here I was all prepped and ready to buy it.

Screw Activision. Their yearly installments of games have screwed over Call of Duty 3 (and all the Call of Duty spinoffs), Call of Duty 5, and now Call of Duty 6 can't even be called Call of Duty!

Infinity Ward needs to take their game to a different publisher, or ditch it with Activision and make a new franchise. Anyone who can tell the difference between Call of Duty 2 and 3 will follow.

Well looks like I'm not buying this game. Kinda stupid when anyone with a brain can play B.net on the original starcraft if its pirated in the right way.

For me, there's no reason to get a RTS without LAN play. So, looks like I'll pass on this one.

DIAF Blizzard.

Don't worry, once the game is released and gets pirated and cracked, to hell and back, then blizzard will see how STUPID this decision is.

Or once Korea starts to threat them with dropping a terran nuke on their HQ if they don't add LAN support.

"Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II"

encouraging ancouraging more like forcing it down our throats i mean since there going to charge for there service there going to charge anyone who want to play the mp section a fee even if they would nvr use it over the internet

ive yet to play red alert 3 outside of a lan party and we all have legit copies

and to those who are saying that going and downloading a copy that allows you to play lan only proves there point your so wrong

starcraft is a high grade RTS with a huge following most of the people that are saying they will go and download the lan copy would have been buying the game but when you take out a key feature of the multiplayer and get charged to play the others that include stuff that people either wont use or dont care about i only see this as blizzard pushing towards piracy not preventing it

id still have no problem with sumthing that requires a quick online validation of all computers copies before allowing a single lan match to start without needing to run over the internet its DRM but it gives me my lan and it would change my decision back to a purchase but while LAN is missing i have no wish to purchase this game

well apparently you havent played dawn of war 2 since it actually uses 2 of those game certification things it must be installed into steam (which has its own achievments and servers and what not) but then everthing must run throught games for windows live so that your achievments can be added to your 360 gamercard

i have no real love or hate of steam i have nvr had any problems or ridiculous hoops that i have had from windows live and whatnot

only annoying thing is when i buy the hard copy of the game 2 days early and because the steam servers havent had the access keys enabled yet i cant install it but hey maybe i should yell at the shop that sold it to me early(well i did :P)

Can't help but hope that Starcraft II is pirated exponentially more in response to these idiotic measures.

I won't be downloading - I can't say I'm eager to buy it, but I won't pirate it.

I just hope that somebody figures out a way to add 3rd party LAN support and then rubs it in Blizzard's face.

A new battle.net emulator will be developed. The blizzard chumps with their fat cats and numbskull suits will have their new little shiny business strategy, and the pirates will get their battle.net LANs setup all nice and pretty.

This just makes me sad. Blizzard kills the most sacred party known to man.

The moment Activision-Blizzard is gonna charge anything for Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 to play on Battle.net their games will die.

And who says that those 2 games will continue the hype anyway? What if they gonna suck?

People are waiting for 10 years now and are awaiting something BIG... the games will be not much more then a Grafics update... and Diablo 3 will look to much like WoW anyway.

WAHHHH NO LAN!!!!

just get a job so you don't have to pirate the game you cheap greasebags

"This Christmas I LAN'd WC3/DOTA. Also, Titan Quest.

I'll be doing the exact same thing, except with Demigod, around the 25th of July for about a week." - Twice a year. Yes, that totally justify a function to be put into a game. Granted with LAN support, I really don't think it's too much work and could be implemented easily. (I don't even know why LAN play is different from net play. I have always thought they are pretty much interchangeable systems up until I heard this news)

"I do direct IP games all the time with my college buddy :P"
Which you wouldn't have to do if it has normal internet play. You ARE playing online--and SC2 does support online mode. Just not LAN.

"I don't play JRPG's or Racers or MMO's or quite a few other game genres.

They shouldn't exist because I am the only person who could possibly have an opinion that matters here."
Knee-jerk much?
----------------------------------
I never say close proximity multiplayer function should not exist in some fashion. What I said was, and I quote:
"I guess there are some LAN parties out there too--be you can still connect the hub to the net and play that way."
CONNECT TO DAMN HUB YOU USED TO LAN TO THE NET, AND HAVE EVERYONE GET ONLINE THAT WAY!

Fact of the matter is, they're Blizzard. They really probably could get away with murder. They could put out any piece of crap and people will buy it since it bears their name.

27K+ signatures on the petition sounds like a lot to me, but I'm still not sure it'll budge Blizzard to LAN up sc2.

And video killed the radio star.

Why does everyone think Diablo III and Starcraft II are going to be pay to play? They've said nothing of the sort. They're already making mountains of cash with World of Warcraft, I don't see a reason to alienate their fanbases by doing that. I welcome an improved Battle.Net if they can also crack down on the cheaters and the dupers.

As far as the LAN thing goes, it is somewhat depressing yet understandable. My childhood slowly dies...

Battle.net 2.0 isn't going to cost money...at all. They never said it will, and they have said that it won't several times.

Battle.Net 2.0 will serve just fine as wireless LAN. This is a non issue.

hmmm, i think i have found out why Blizzard is taking out LAN. It has nothing todo with piracy…well not in the way most of us are thinking about it. I applogise if this is old news but it just clicked for me a few momments ago.

StarCraft is huge in korea. Just take a peak at this vid. They have huge tournaments that get broadcasted.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6648934043675888354

In any case it seems that Blizzard is upset because their product Starcraft is being used on TV without their permission and they are not getting a slice of the action, no royalty….So how do they make sure that they can regain control with their next release of starcraft?…thats right take LAN out and force everyone to play via B.Net then Blizzard can control things again and force broadcasters to share the profit…pay or we cut your connection. They can also goes as far as to try and become the E-sports organisers them selfs taking the whole pie for them selfs.

Read more about it here: http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft/news/10265-blizzard-vs-kespa-the-ultimate-fight