Blizzard Declares LAN Will Be a "Footnote" in History

[TheCameraman]

Meh, was trying to be excited for this release, but these news and the news about the "episodic gaming" really put me off. Some of my best times with StarCraft and Warcraft 3 has been on LANs.

Ah well, wasn't all that hyped anyway.

 

[crooked_ferret]

Blizzard doesn't want lan, they can't profit the way they are used to without their charge by the month centralized server idealism.
Lan is a bad thing to them, I have no doubt they want lan to go away.
It defies their entire business model.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I think a good part of this probably relates to help stop piracy of the game. With online activation and play, Blizzard can "try" to curb the amount of people who pirate the game, and they have the right to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if some hackers put together a LAN package for the game though.

I agree that it will harm the LAN party though.

The trouble is it will curb nothing by going to the extreme you push more potential customers away.

I am not sure if they are going to push more "potential" customers away. It might push away current customers. With the growth of SecuROM on more and more titles, people I hate to say it, are getting used to having some sort of software installed or having to go online to activate / play their game. Granted the PC versions are most likely a fraction of the overall sales. The fact is the games are still selling tons of copies.

I am not sure if there is a solution to that though.

The only solution I can see is breaking the law, buy the game if you must and crack it, fck the DMCA its far to one sided and made that way by the media industry that bought it, hell you can't even make a legit DVD film copier buy the CSS/CCS license making it legit and not be sued into oblivion by the same industry that seems to ignore media devices and blu ray burners....good lord repeal the DMCA put a tax on net/media devices and PC hardware of 10% and give us our rights back.....

/rant
/B

 

[Samman]

You do realize its easier to soft mod a 360 and copy 360 games than wait and deal with PC DRM? For every 1 PC game there's a dozen 360 and wii titles....ya piracy matters.... only if you are snorting the bottom line....

Yeah DRM sucks and it's by no means the solution to the problem. But it's only here in the first place because of how rampant piracy is.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

You do realize its easier to soft mod a 360 and copy 360 games than wait and deal with PC DRM? For every 1 PC game there's a dozen 360 and wii titles....ya piracy matters.... only if you are snorting the bottom line....

Yeah DRM sucks and it's by no means the solution to the problem. But it's only here in the first place because of how rampant piracy is.

No its there because of the perception of piracy if the suits were not snorting the bottom line being abstractly OCD with everything but their own pay...and bonuses.... and avoiding wrangling mismanagement issues they would scoff at it like they do console piracy.

It also dose not help the big boys like sony had a DRM division so they can get money from other games and other such services leech from who ever they can get their hooks into and wind up not offering half of what they were billed for....

gaaa I am ranting ><

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Wow, you'd think that of all people THEY would know the importance of LAN. I don't LAN, but I know half a dozen people who do. And I don't know anyone, so that's saying something.

A footnote in history like DOS? That's kinda putting it down. If it wasn't for LAN do you think we'd even have multiplayer such that it is today?

Without dos you would not have windose....oh wait!!!1111

 

[fix-the-spade]

Well that's SC2 off the buy list. Seriously, LAN support? What's the point in multpilayer anything if you can't reach out ans slap your opponent. My guess is they don't want people doing the LAN party pass around.

It seems dumb to cut local multiplayer from the sequel of one of the most LAN'd games in history.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well that's SC2 off the buy list. Seriously, LAN support? What's the point in multpilayer anything if you can't reach out ans slap your opponent. My guess is they don't want people doing the LAN party pass around.

It seems dumb to cut local multiplayer from the sequel of one of the most LAN'd games in history.

Well they pretty much cut the single player greatness out of halo(2 and above), so anything for the bottom line!

 

[hansari]

Well good for them for staying the course of action planned. Honestly i would have respected them less if they had folded to what the masses were crying about. I respect sheer stubborness at times.

Key word being, "at times". [http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=3223]

 

[fix-the-spade]

Yeah DRM sucks and it's by no means the solution to the problem. But it's only here in the first place because of how rampant piracy is.

It exists because companies are stupid (for want of a better word). It's proven ineffective time and again yet they persist with it. They'd be better off just writing off the pirated copies (a pirated copy does not necessarily mean a lost sale) and focusing on people who actually pay for the games.

It would save them and us both a shed load of trouble and money.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

More ranting from a moron...but here I go anyway...

You don't fight piracy directly its a losing battle, instead you make a better product you advertise the shit out of it if you can and if make it for PC have single player work fully offline, then you can get online support(no patches,ect without online activation) and play by signing up and putting your key in again. A mix of steams account and IDs passive key check system on D3 and Q4 would do as much if not more for you than OTT DRM schemes that only really benefit the DRM companies and the suits looking good to the witless board's and shareholders............

edit

I had some very interesting conversations with 2Kelizabeth on the 2K forms mod though try as they might they still don't quit get it they see it as a default bottom line issue and the consensuses(people not buying) are dismissed as issues revolving solely around piracy, not product quality issues.

 

[Coldsnap]

That's not really a fair comparison. DOS got replaced with systems that did everything it could do and better.

LAN and b-net fulfill different multiplayer functions. LAN is for those without internet access, slow internet access or just want to play with people in the same room and not have to go through the internet.

 

[Samman]

Well that's SC2 off the buy list. Seriously, LAN support? What's the point in multpilayer anything if you can't reach out ans slap your opponent. My guess is they don't want people doing the LAN party pass around.

It seems dumb to cut local multiplayer from the sequel of one of the most LAN'd games in history.

Or you could both buy the game, sit next to eachother, and log into BNET.

Yeah DRM sucks and it's by no means the solution to the problem. But it's only here in the first place because of how rampant piracy is.

It exists because companies are stupid (for want of a better word). It's proven ineffective time and again yet they persist with it. They'd be better off just writing off the pirated copies (a pirated copy does not necessarily mean a lost sale) and focusing on people who actually pay for the games.

It would save them and us both a shed load of trouble and money.

And once again, it's only here in the first place because of piracy. Whether it works or not is beside the point. Rampant piracy came before the failed solution to it. If it weren't for greedy slobs stealing everything rather than shelling out the cash this wouldn't be a problem, would it?

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

People can still just hold LAN parties and play private games I guess...

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

That's not really a fair comparison. DOS got replaced with systems that did everything it could do and better.

LAN and b-net fulfill different multiplayer functions. LAN is for those without internet access, slow internet access or just want to play with people in the same room and not have to go through the internet.

But without DOS there would be no win3.1 there would be no win 95, you'd have mac as the dominate OS and a smaller computer market as a result.

 

[Amnestic]

Or you could both buy the game, sit next to eachother, and log into BNET.

And enjoying watching your internet connection slow to a crawl and get mega lag.

Fun.

 

[Clashero]

Meh, I suppose you could still simulate LAN over something like Hamachi, right?

Use Hamachi, everybody wins.

Do that, and the only people that really win are the pirates. A real LAN party wouldn't be able to happen because everybody would be on the same internet connection, resulting in what would most likely be horrendous, unplayable LAG. Hamachi enables people to play with replicated CD keys, it doesn't remove the need for the internet.

EDIT: also, hamachi is a relatively simple program, which won't allow a game with no LAN support to facilitate a LAN game.

Concerning your edit, I was just thinking that. If they have their own servers as well, there isn't any legitimate way around this is there? Or if you buy one copy and acquire >_> <_< another, that could balance it out? I mean cap'n hook wins either way, right?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but in answer to the question I think you're asking, piracy with a view to playing on Battle.net 2.0 sounds like a very, very difficult thing to do. Maybe impossible, my knowledge of CD keys and such is not extensive enough for me to really answer that. If you have a legit key, you can play online. If you have a duplicated one, only the first person to use it can.

What might be interesting would be LAN with the same sort of check. E.g. you can LAN but the game is incompatible with identicle CD keys. If that were possible, and piracy were ruled out, that would be a really interesting development, and I wonder if (Activision-)Blizzard would then impliment LAN capabilities. That depends, I suppose, on their motivation for the lack of LAN. If it's not piracy, then that wouldn't help.

It would not be that hard to have it check the keys and such but then you break that protection and you can lan without restriction. IMO they are focusing unreasonably on a natural occurrence in software, almost more natural than people buying it.

True. As long as I can play the game, I can pirate it. They can make it difficult, time-consuming or expensive to pirate the game, but as long as the game is in my computer, I can break the protective code and play, even if it means rewriting code from the ground up. Not even OnLive can stop a really determined pirate.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well that's SC2 off the buy list. Seriously, LAN support? What's the point in multpilayer anything if you can't reach out ans slap your opponent. My guess is they don't want people doing the LAN party pass around.

It seems dumb to cut local multiplayer from the sequel of one of the most LAN'd games in history.

Or you could both buy the game, sit next to eachother, and log into BNET.

Yeah DRM sucks and it's by no means the solution to the problem. But it's only here in the first place because of how rampant piracy is.

It exists because companies are stupid (for want of a better word). It's proven ineffective time and again yet they persist with it. They'd be better off just writing off the pirated copies (a pirated copy does not necessarily mean a lost sale) and focusing on people who actually pay for the games.

It would save them and us both a shed load of trouble and money.

And once again, it's only here in the first place because of piracy. Whether it works or not is beside the point. Rampant piracy came before the failed solution to it. If it weren't for greedy slobs stealing everything rather than shelling out the cash this wouldn't be a problem, would it?

And once again its only there because of politics and perception of witless and non real world living suits.

 

[Lord Thodin]

Well the same company that has created the most popular game out there right now and the one game that makes them billions; decides that they dont wont LAN probably knows what they're doin.