LAN In My Starcraft II? It’s Less Likely Than You Think.
Can’t wait for Starcraft II? Me either. However one of my favorite features, the option to LAN a game, won’t be supported. Blizzard tells IncGamers that “we will not support it.” Joystiq got a bit more of an explination from Blizzard PR man Bob Colayco.
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.
So there you have it. Blizzard decided to remove the LAN capability from the game to combat piracy and get more people to use their online service. That’s right, Battle.net will be the ONLY way to play multiplayer Starcraft II. Considering last year they announced they were going to “monetize battle.net”, now is the time where I for one, start to worry. I hate that Blizzard felt the need to remove LAN support, because a lot of fun in the original game was playing with your friends in a basement while eating Dominoes pizza and drinking Bawls. I wonder how long it will take for people to create a Starcraft II boycott group and whine about it. Oh, wait, this isn’t steam.
It is a drag. I like the irony of they are building a stronger community with this…they already have a strong community.
Given that 99% of all Korean Starcraft tournaments take place using LAN this could wind up being one of the biggest and most expensive mistakes in the history of gaming.
This just sucks… remembering hot summer putting some tables together in the living room of a coleague and playing starcraft 1 a whole week. Problem on this; In this region where my parents and still some of my colleagues live is no boradband internet connection available only very expensive over Sat. or the old 56k Modem ;>
Did I say “this sucks…” ?
Even I with my 20M Internet line can only say “This Sucks hard”…
I understand why some people are mad, but I personally don’t care whether LAN is in or out. I have fond memories of playing SC for hours on end via LAN, but that was 10 years ago, when I had the free time to do so.
Piracy has also changed a lot since then as well. More people are playing games than are paying for them, and many developers are seeing legitimate damages from software piracy. And while the solutions to this are sometimes damaging to the community, there are few options left for developers.
“Dominoes pizza and bawls.” lol.
This is a load of crap. Blizzard is taking one of the most beloved features of Starcraft and throwing it down the drain.
Why is this a big deal? Isn’t battle.net free for people who buy the game in the first place? My friends and I do play with UPD, but thats because its at school, and none of us still remembered our online accounts. I fully intend to buy Starcraft II, so I don’t think it really affects me. The only people this is going to affect is people who got the game illegally, a.k.a people who don’t deserve to play the game online. And forgetful people. Then again, what is a forgetful person doing playing Starcraft?
@Hawkeyed One:
Or people with bad internet connectivity.
Or tournament gamers who don’t want lag.
Or people who want to play on a secure network where the outgoing internet port for Starcraft would be blocked.
Or…
Not everybody have a broadband internet connection with flatrate @home. Also for Offline Tournaments like bigger lan partys it is difficulty to get a hughe internet line for all attendees.
@Hawkeyed One: It’s easy to not care about LAN support when you only have E-friends and play online exclusively.
Is there some sort of rule I’m missing that states you can’t use battle.net to play with people five feet from you? I didn’t say I didn’t care about no LAN. I’m saying that you’re still gonna have the multiplayer, despite what form it takes. I know battle.net isn’t as high quality as UPD, but still, you’re gonna be able to have “LAN Parties”… they’ll just be “Battle.net Parties” or something.
1) This is bullshit, most medium sized lan partys 100-300 ppl. do not have the neccesary bandwidth. Plz. tell me how to do a “Battle.net Party” without a sufficient internet connection ?
2) Even at home at some of my colleagues they only have a slow internet line. We used to spent whole summer weekends in his cellar but for SC2 this won`t happen because the existing internet connection is barley enough for one so impossible to sitting 5 feets besides eachother and playing over a sucking internet line. This is just stupid.
@solariz:
Think about it for a minute though. Blizzard aren’t dumbasses. Their ENTIRE company is based around multi-player gameplay. They wouldn’t just take out the biggest feature to their most popular game for no good reason. I think its fair to say that there are going to be some changes to Battle.net. Also, to say that UPD and other forms of LAN are more reliable is bullshit. When I play with my friends at school, it takes about 10 minutes for all of us to file into a game because the games just don’t show up for some of us. How is that reliable?
[i]I hate that Blizzard felt the need to remove LAN support, because a lot of fun in the original game was playing with your friends in a basement while eating Dominoes pizza and drinking Bawls.[/i]
Are you all fucking idiots? You do realize you can still have a “LAN” right? The only difference is that now every machine will have to have a connection to the internet, which isn’t exactly hard if you have the gear to hook that many PCs together.
The only people who are complaining about this are people who were going to pirate the game, and those dumb enough to buy into the pirate’s bullshit. :P
Also to people complaining about bandwidth, my friend sometimes plays WoW with one of those rocket sticks. Obviously since this is using his mobile’s data bandwidth he monitors what he uses. He’ll play for a whole evening and only use about 20MB of bandwidth. I don’t see Starcraft being that much more intensive tbh.
As for people who are going on about blocked ports and secure networks, they were designed that way because you aren’t supposed to play games on them. Quit bitching because your free ride has ended. :P
@ScottyGrayskull: What if I don’t have an internet connection at the house I’m at?
derp.
I’m complaining about it, and not only am I going to buy the game, I’m going to buy a whole new goddamn laptop for the game, because mine wouldn’t run it all that great. So please do me a favor, and think about what you say before you say it.
Then go to someone else’s house to play multiplayer. Or leech off of a neighbor’s wireless. Or, oh I don’t know, get an internet connection. This isn’t rocket science here. If you’re bound and determined to play lan at your house, then take the necessary steps.
Considering you say you’re going to buy a new laptop for the game, the fact that you’re harping over something as trivial as needing to have an internet connection is… well, pretty stupid.
Removing a core functionality of all RTS games is not trivial. Not to me, or the thousands of other gamers who are annoyed by this. It’s not about the internet connection, it’s about removing the OPTION to use a Local Area Network.
The only thing the removed is the option in the menu that says “LAN”. You’re still going to be able to get together with friends and play, you’ll just need to be able to connect to the internet to do it.
Honestly, unless this game is a hog on bandwidth (which I don’t believe it will be) I don’t see this being a problem. People are getting bent out of shape over something which is really a moot point for the vast majority of us.
As was pointed out in countless ways, there are times when getting onto the net is difficult, or impossible, where a LAN would work a thousand times better. I understand your majority point, but the point is, there are still people who want to use LAN, and I am one of them.
Just to be clear, I was never against LAN. I like using LAN. I’m just saying, taking away LAN isn’t going to ruin the online experience or make it impossible. Hell, Blizzard might come out and say “Herp derp, you can now connect to Battle.net using LAN lol” or something. No, I don’t know how that would work.