Blizzard Declares LAN Will Be a "Footnote" in History

[Grampy_bone]

They want to force people to use Battle.net so they can earn more advertising revenue and nickel & dime people to death with microtransactions. The core Battle.net will be free, but how much and how free it will be remains to be seen.

Host a game? Five dollars. Add more than two players? Two bucks a slot. Want to use custom maps? Gotta download em from us first, eight dollars each...

Cutting out LAN support will trash their returns with teenagers (restricted net access) and college kids (those college networks are all gaming all the time). They are betting the twenty-something males with no wife and lots of disposable income will make up for it.

I don't know what is worse, that Blizzard is cheerfully ass-boning their fans or that people are actually defending them for it.

 

[Amnestic]

Good riddance. LAN is unnecessary and would take development focus away from things that matter.

A number of posts in this thread have detailed exactly why LAN is necessary. The same way online multiplayer is necessary, anyway.

Plus, I'm fairly sure they already had a build of SC2 with LAN in at some point and then they took it out, which means that a fair bit of the 'development time' has already been used.

Yeah. And I want my new cellphone to have support for smoke signals.

That's a failure of an analogy if I ever saw one. LAN isn't obsolete in the slightest. How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?

LAN will never be obsolete. Not while people still have friends.

 

[samsonguy920]

LAN is a foot note? Really?

Blizzard act like they are trend setting or something?

That's where the smell of Activision comes in.

All i want to know is... Diablo 3 is LAN right?...RIGHT!?

Cause im gonna shoot me some Blizzard workers if i hear otherwise

Why should Blizz make the effort to put LAN into Diablo 3 when they arent for Starcraft 2? As they said, LAN is just a footnote. A footnote to what, I don't know. It is not a footnote to the internet, that's apples to orchards. If it's a footnote to something, is those things people use to play together on that companies don't make money off of. Legally.
We wouldn't want to have that around these days, now would we?

*bonks head on desk some more...and more and more and more...*

 

[Nuke_em_05]

You know, it's weird. There are quite a few saying that they never LAN, or haven't in a while. Am I one of the few whose main experience with multiplayer is in person? I only started online gaming when I moved away from most of my friends, but we still LAN if we're in the same town. People still do it.

All the talk of LAN being dead seems to only propigate the idea of gamers being loners in their bedrooms playing games with total strangers. I mean, Blizzard seems to be making this assumption. "No one meets in person anymore, right? It's a thing of the past, why bother developing it?" I won't make up statistics, but I can verify at least... ten people that I know in person, and apparently 100,000+ from that petition. If they are suggesting that people can still meet together in a LAN over battle net... with just four players, that's four clients going in and out on one connection when they're all right next to each other. That's highly innefficient, and unless it's a really really good connection and no one else is online, it'll be lag city.

Though something tells me they don't really think that LAN is a thing of the past. They probably think the only LAN players are pirates. Way to be hostile to your consumers. Maybe they don't, but maybe they think that enough pirates use LAN to make a difference. Way to punish everyone for the sins of few.

I guess my main point is, if they don't want to include LAN, at least be honest about why.

 

[Byers]

Good riddance. LAN is unnecessary and would take development focus away from things that matter.

A number of posts in this thread have detailed exactly why LAN is necessary. The same way online multiplayer is necessary, anyway.

Plus, I'm fairly sure they already had a build of SC2 with LAN in at some point and then they took it out, which means that a fair bit of the 'development time' has already been used.

Yeah. And I want my new cellphone to have support for smoke signals.

Apparently you does not have a whole lot of friends you like to play games with in the same room with you. Because that is why we like LAN play Byers. We like to drink beer/pop, eat pizza, and play games in the same room as our buddies. It is FUN. Talking smack and laughing. You know, being social while playing games. Playing on-line will never be the same, ever. LAN play is not outdated. It will never be outdated. Blizzard Activision is just making a huge money grab. They want to use the subject of piracy as an excuse to force people to use BattleNet so they have to pay cash to play StarCraft 2 with other people. It is mean and greedy!

Blizzard is mean for deciding which services they want their game to utilize? If you disagree with their design choices, don't buy their game.
Currently, online play is the number one platform for multiplayer gaming by a ridiculous margin. Claiming Blizzard owes it to you to keep some outdated features only to appease a couple yearly LAN party die hards is preposterous.

And yes, I like to do other things while I enjoy my beer, without the need to carry my computer with me. Clearly I'm weird.

 

[Byers]

Good riddance. LAN is unnecessary and would take development focus away from things that matter.

A number of posts in this thread have detailed exactly why LAN is necessary. The same way online multiplayer is necessary, anyway.

Plus, I'm fairly sure they already had a build of SC2 with LAN in at some point and then they took it out, which means that a fair bit of the 'development time' has already been used.

Yeah. And I want my new cellphone to have support for smoke signals.

That's a failure of an analogy if I ever saw one. LAN isn't obsolete in the slightest. How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?

LAN will never be obsolete. Not while people still have friends.

Welcome to 2009, where the majority of households in the civilized world have an internet connection, and most people wouldn't know a LAN cable from a mobile phone charger.

 

[Amnestic]

Good riddance. LAN is unnecessary and would take development focus away from things that matter.

A number of posts in this thread have detailed exactly why LAN is necessary. The same way online multiplayer is necessary, anyway.

Plus, I'm fairly sure they already had a build of SC2 with LAN in at some point and then they took it out, which means that a fair bit of the 'development time' has already been used.

Yeah. And I want my new cellphone to have support for smoke signals.

That's a failure of an analogy if I ever saw one. LAN isn't obsolete in the slightest. How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?

LAN will never be obsolete. Not while people still have friends.

Welcome to 2009, where the majority of households in the civilized world have an internet connection, and most people wouldn't know a LAN cable from a mobile phone charger.

You didn't answer my question. I'll reiterate it for you: "How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?"

Furthermore, why remove old technology simply because it's old? That's a foolish idea if I ever heard one. Shall we stop eating sandwiches because they were invented years ago and everyone else is eating paninis these days? That seems to be your major logic point here.

[sub]Hint: The answer is 'no'.[/sub]

 

[axia777]

Blizzard is mean for deciding which services they want their game to utilize? If you disagree with their design choices, don't buy their game.
Currently, online play is the number one platform for multiplayer gaming by a ridiculous margin. Claiming Blizzard owes it to you to keep some outdated features only to appease a couple yearly LAN party die hards is preposterous.

And yes, I like to do other things while I enjoy my beer, without the need to carry my computer with me. Clearly I'm weird.

You have clearly missed the point. Willfully so I might add.

 

[Byers]

Good riddance. LAN is unnecessary and would take development focus away from things that matter.

A number of posts in this thread have detailed exactly why LAN is necessary. The same way online multiplayer is necessary, anyway.

Plus, I'm fairly sure they already had a build of SC2 with LAN in at some point and then they took it out, which means that a fair bit of the 'development time' has already been used.

Yeah. And I want my new cellphone to have support for smoke signals.

That's a failure of an analogy if I ever saw one. LAN isn't obsolete in the slightest. How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?

LAN will never be obsolete. Not while people still have friends.

Welcome to 2009, where the majority of households in the civilized world have an internet connection, and most people wouldn't know a LAN cable from a mobile phone charger.

You didn't answer my question. I'll reiterate it for you: "How is it logical to have to access a server thousands of miles away to play with a guy sat within arms reach?"

Furthermore, why remove old technology simply because it's old? That's a foolish idea if I ever heard one. Shall we stop eating sandwiches because they were invented years ago and everyone else is eating paninis these days? That seems to be your major logic point here.

[sub]Hint: The answer is 'no'.[/sub]

A sandwich is food, not technology. For someone who likes to criticize analogies, you sure make some dumb ones.

And to answer your question, it makes perfect sense, if that's how Blizzard chooses to support the multiplayer portion of their game, with stat tracking and so forth. It also makes sense in the way that an online connection is the one thing a PC gamer is most likely to have available to him. I've played PC games since they came on floppy disks, and I don't know if I have a network cable anywhere in my apartment. I know for a fact that I haven't used one since Windows 98 and would have to look up online how to even adjust my network settings in order to use such a thing. While going online takes zero effort or know-how. And I'm pretty sure I'm representative of the majority on this.

 

[Byers]

Blizzard is mean for deciding which services they want their game to utilize? If you disagree with their design choices, don't buy their game.
Currently, online play is the number one platform for multiplayer gaming by a ridiculous margin. Claiming Blizzard owes it to you to keep some outdated features only to appease a couple yearly LAN party die hards is preposterous.

And yes, I like to do other things while I enjoy my beer, without the need to carry my computer with me. Clearly I'm weird.

You have clearly missed the point. Willfully so I might add.

Developers will release their games for the platforms that are most commonly used. Concerning multiplayer, it made sense for LAN support for Blizzard's older games, where the internet connection of choice was dial up and online gaming hadn't exploded like it has in recent years. Adding LAN support now would just be catering to a relatively small group of people. If you fail to see that, I'm fairly certain you're the one missing the point, in your outrage of not being able to play the game in exactly the manner of your choosing.

 

[Destal]

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.

You make it sound like the Catholic church.

In the end, I personally still don't care. I'll be buying it. I hope that in the end it helps them out. They make really good games.

They made good games at one point, then they made World of Warcraft and its expansions.

You're right, they made a game that has 11 million subscribers, obviously they make terrible games now. Just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that 11 million other people do.

 

[Pendragon9]

Well, this just cemented Starcraft 2's position right under the first. Without LAN, it just won't get the love Starcraft gets. Next up I expect them to break SC2's episodes into little minisodes, just to piss off the fans.

 

[Destal]

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.

You make it sound like the Catholic church.

In the end, I personally still don't care. I'll be buying it. I hope that in the end it helps them out. They make really good games.

They made good games at one point, then they made World of Warcraft and its expansions.

You're right, they made a game that has 11 million subscribers, obviously they make terrible games now. Just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that 11 million other people do.

SALES = QUALITY

HOLY SHIT TRANSFORMERS 2 IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!

Except it's subscribers, not sales here. Also, it happens to be the standard all MMO's attempt to measure up to now.

 

[Destal]

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.

You make it sound like the Catholic church.

In the end, I personally still don't care. I'll be buying it. I hope that in the end it helps them out. They make really good games.

They made good games at one point, then they made World of Warcraft and its expansions.

You're right, they made a game that has 11 million subscribers, obviously they make terrible games now. Just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that 11 million other people do.

SALES = QUALITY

HOLY SHIT TRANSFORMERS 2 IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!

Except it's subscribers, not sales here. Also, it happens to be the standard all MMO's attempt to measure up to now.

Same idea applies. Just because something panders to the masses doesn't make it high quality.

And because it is the standard that everyone attempts to measure up to we will never see an original idea ever again, how unfortunate.

I have to point out once again that you don't happen to be the one who measures whether or not everything is good or bad quality of the universe. If you can't even admit that WoW did quite a few things right that other MMORPG's had failed then there is no point in arguing. If WoW isn't such a good game why isn't anyone playing game X in masses in its place because it is superior? If Warhammer had made the rival factions like WoW did it probably would still be worth playing. Plus, they still have Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 coming out.

 

[Destal]

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.

You make it sound like the Catholic church.

In the end, I personally still don't care. I'll be buying it. I hope that in the end it helps them out. They make really good games.

They made good games at one point, then they made World of Warcraft and its expansions.

You're right, they made a game that has 11 million subscribers, obviously they make terrible games now. Just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that 11 million other people do.

SALES = QUALITY

HOLY SHIT TRANSFORMERS 2 IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!

Except it's subscribers, not sales here. Also, it happens to be the standard all MMO's attempt to measure up to now.

Same idea applies. Just because something panders to the masses doesn't make it high quality.

And because it is the standard that everyone attempts to measure up to we will never see an original idea ever again, how unfortunate.

I have to point out once again that you don't happen to be the one who measures whether or not everything is good or bad quality of the universe. If you can't even admit that WoW did quite a few things right that other MMORPG's had failed then there is no point in arguing. If WoW isn't such a good game why isn't anyone playing game X in masses in its place because it is superior? If Warhammer had made the rival factions like WoW did it probably would still be worth playing. Plus, they still have Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 coming out.

Except that I do happen to be the one who decides what I like.

Or do I?

This presents an interesting philosophical conundrum.

Well, considering you didn't refute any of my other points, I'm going to say no. Nice try though.

 

[WillItWork]

The lack of LAN isn't what lost my interest in Starcraft 2, the episodal gaming is. I usually play single player, but this strikes me as a Windows-oriented gaming decision. So are they not going to develop Mac anymore?