More on StarCraft II's Lack of LAN Support

YG_Bot · 06-30-2009, 10:39 PM

Commenting on the lack of LAN support in StarCraft II, Blizzard Entertainment's Bob Colayco explained to Joystiq that they made this decision to encourage players to fully utilize their upgraded Battle.net service and fight off piracy, a growing concern in the industry:

Quote:

"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.

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. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future."

Once again, we can thank pirates for ruining a good thing. :(

Read entire article: http://www.yougamers.com/news/24857_...of_lan_support

akse · 06-30-2009, 10:41 PM

Meh, I still think they would really sell a lot even with lan support :)

But I don't care I always used battle.net anyways :P

terrannova · 06-30-2009, 10:50 PM

I'm gonna miss TCP/IP LAN, this marks the death of a great standard.

TCP/IP WAN is here to stay.

I guess this pretty much rules out dial-up modem to modem support too...

Mantis · 06-30-2009, 11:19 PM

GG pcgaming as we knew it. No LAN, just internet with proprietary multiplayer service. No addons or goty packs but pay to play "DLC" crap. Whats next?

Dr_BenD_over · 07-01-2009, 12:07 AM

And no doubt the game willl still be widely pirated. People BUY games for their features, not a lack of them.

demi · 07-01-2009, 07:24 AM

I can't really see this as a bad thing - when was the last time you setup a lan party where there was absolutely no internet access? Setting up one machine to share the internet connection to everyone is trivial, and you'd want to do it even if the games you play did not require it.

Presumably, all the net connection is required for is to authenticate your copy of the game, so even if you're setting up a party in the middle of a desert, you can use a tethered cell phone to provide an internet connection for you and your buddies.

Jehdin · 07-01-2009, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demi

I can't really see this as a bad thing - when was the last time you setup a lan party where there was absolutely no internet access? Setting up one machine to share the internet connection to everyone is trivial, and you'd want to do it even if the games you play did not require it.

Presumably, all the net connection is required for is to authenticate your copy of the game, so even if you're setting up a party in the middle of a desert, you can use a tethered cell phone to provide an internet connection for you and your buddies.

You presume too much, authentication for LAN play is one thing, not supporting LAN play at all is another. So, it's pretty safe to say everything will be going through battle.net, meaning WAN speeds for LAN play. Unless they're truly stupid and are actually doing as you say, causing all of this "OMG NO LAN!!!!!!111" chaos for nothing.

Quote:

Once again, we can thank pirates for ruining a good thing. :(

No, once again you can thank corporate dipshits for thinking they can stop people from pirating.

bkkkk · 07-01-2009, 11:09 AM

I wonder how long it will take for someone to come up with a patch for this?! Similar to the Singleplayer coop LAN patch that is out for RA3 I suppose this will be harder to do since there is no LAN code at all. Time will tell, but yeah this is stupid.

DRM doesn't stop piracy, it only punishes the users and drives people to piracy. There isn't a single game you CAN'T download.

snowcrash512 · 07-01-2009, 06:37 PM

I still call BS, anybody who was really interested in the game was going to buy it anyway, pirate copies cant play on bnet which is still the biggest part of multiplayer, I refuse to believe LAN support would instantly cause the game to loose all profits to pirating.

tomatomanz · 07-01-2009, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowcrash512

I still call BS, anybody who was really interested in the game was going to buy it anyway, pirate copies cant play on bnet which is still the biggest part of multiplayer, I refuse to believe LAN support would instantly cause the game to loose all profits to pirating.

Agreed, as most have said it before.. at the end.. it hurt the paid customers instead

..