Blizzard: Lack of StarCraft LAN "No Big Deal"

[Faeanor]

I really don't think they understand what the problem is. You know, I probably won't ever play Starcraft 2 LAN, but they're choosing to make an inferior, less functional product, which is so worryingly against Blizzard's previous policy and that's what annoys me.

Exactly, that's what been really irritating me that I keep forgetting to post about. For so long Blizzard has really shown to care about its customers and provide them the most compatibility they can. What I'm specifically referring to is that from the beginning they have had full support for the Mac OS. I was raised on macs and if it weren't for Blizzard, Ambrosia Software would have been my only gaming company. I have no idea how long I spent playing Starcraft, whether by myself or on the LAN, and it's still one of my favorite games by far. It really feels like this ActiBlizz is an unholy alliance that is corrupting the goodness that Blizzard had. So when are they going to remove Mac support? P)

 

[SharedProphet]

Singleplayer will have an offline mode, they confirmed it at BlizzCon.

How often will the game be required to phone home to authenticate Battle.net without shutting off, I wonder? Also, offline should still let you get the "achievements" as you can on Xbox Live; Google tells me they will be disabled in SC2 offline.

And Kotick has no say in the pricing. I'd say 30-40 for the expansions - which is what they are officially referring to them as.

How can that be? The president and CEO of Activision Blizzard, parent company of Activision (now publisher of all Blizzard games) and Blizzard Entertainment, has no say in pricing for Blizzard-developed games that Activision publishes? I don't believe it.

Modern Warfare, and Infinity Ward games in general, are lucrative for ActiBlizz. We see how Modern Warfare 2 is getting a markup as a result. But Blizzard is ActiBlizz's crown jewel; how could they pass up the opportunity to milk Blizzard customers, who are greater in number than those of Infinity Ward? I expect a minimum of $55 for the base version of the first SC2 game, and wouldn't be surprised to see $65 or higher. Then they'll act like they're giving you a gift by making the expansions "only" $40-$50.

Assuming, of course, that Kotick and much of the ActiBlizz business direction is still around by the time SC2 comes out. There is a limit to how much even hardcore gamers will put up with being exploited.

 

[Credge]

With Blizzard track record as of late, for me, I'm incredibly disappointed. WoW is, probably, one of my least favorite MMO's I've ever played while Starcraft and Diablo (both of them) are two of my favorite games of all time, along with WC2.

Blizzard, for me, has missed the mark big time lately.

First, major focus on WoW. K, fine. It makes them money. Great.

Second, they merged with Activision. I still don't understand why.

Third, super-delayed SC2. This is almost to the point of D2 epic-delay.

Fourth, initial art design of D3. It looked awful. Going back and watching Blizzcon from last year still makes me sigh. I'm glad they've revamped it subtlety to fit the art style, which was good, with the design of Diablo.

Fifth, lack of LAN.

Despite what they think, LAN is a big deal to me. I don't WANT to connect through their service no matter how awesome they think it is. BNet down for the day? Well, it looks like I won't be playing my character that day or playing with any of my friends. What if I'm sitting right there next to the guy? It's so much simpler to just say "Hey, lets LAN" and then get a ping of 5 instead of having to, again, run through them.

It's about convenience to the consumer, and Blizzard has really jumped the shark. When you build franchises around these ideas, you develop insanely well designed and convenient methods to use LAN in a legal manner, and then you say "Lolnomoresorry" it's a slap in the face.

Blizzard would be wise to do what Valve has done. I can make a LAN game of any one of their multiplayer games that I want but I have to actually own the copy because I have to do a biweekly online check if I play in offline mode.

I mean, the reality is simple. I use LAN for games like Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, Red Alert, Titan Quest, etc. because it is better. Pings are lower 100% of the time with a program like Hamachi because it has fewer places to go through. With a LAN it's just you directly to the other person, and so far, there has yet to be a system that does this that requires that you use it to play online.

The real reason is that they feel it will cut down on piracy. Too bad both SC2 and D3 will be the most pirated games of all time while being in the top selling games of all time to boot.

 

[John Funk]

How can that be? The president and CEO of Activision Blizzard, parent company of Activision (now publisher of all Blizzard games) and Blizzard Entertainment, has no say in pricing for Blizzard-developed games that Activision publishes? I don't believe it.

Modern Warfare, and Infinity Ward games in general, are lucrative for ActiBlizz. We see how Modern Warfare 2 is getting a markup as a result. But Blizzard is ActiBlizz's crown jewel; how could they pass up the opportunity to milk Blizzard customers, who are greater in number than those of Infinity Ward? I expect a minimum of $55 for the base version of the first SC2 game, and wouldn't be surprised to see $65 or higher. Then they'll act like they're giving you a gift by making the expansions "only" $40-$50.

Assuming, of course, that Kotick and much of the ActiBlizz business direction is still around by the time SC2 comes out. There is a limit to how much even hardcore gamers will put up with being exploited.

Activision does not publish Blizzard's games. Look at WotLK - Activision's logo is nowhere on the packaging. Blizzard is - and for the foreseeable future, will remain - a self-publishing company.

ActiBlizz does not own Blizzard. Vivendi Games owns Blizzard, and acquired Activision. Vivendi leaves Blizzard alone.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I feel like I'm watching Blizzard decide whether or not to break up with its girlfriend.

I feel like Blizzard have already decided for me and are telling her that I was always saying bad things about her.

I like this analogy.

Honey, I know this is going to be hard to understand but LAN and I have decided to get a divorce. We just aren't compatible anymore. Battlenet is fast, has commercials, and will make it so Blizzard can invade your privacy legally and study everything about you. LAN is just...he's gotten old honey. You'll understand when you're older.

 

[triorph]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm sick of people assuming for me that everyone has great internet for playing games and people who this will affect are a rarity. Also just because YOU do not have LANs very often doesn't mean that nobody else does.

Stop seeing things only from your own perspective guys, this IS a big deal and for a significant percent of their potential customers it is a game breaker. Perhaps we could pull a spore and spam bad reviews on amazon?

 

[hansari]

Pardo is probably right in that it won't be a deal-breaker for the vast majority of gamers (really, when was the last time any of us had a genuine LAN party? This is an office full of gamers, and we couldn't find anyone who's LANned recently) but even so, time will be the only judge of this.

Are you for real? But this site is all about gaming?

Hell, me and my friends organize a LAN for all gamers on campus every week...its never a bad turnout...

 

[Byers]

Blizzard: Lack of StarCraft LAN "No Big Deal"

Blizzard is all too aware of the outrage sparked from its controversial decision to omit LAN support from StarCraft 2, but VP of Game Design Rob Pardo thinks that once the game is out, people will realize that the omission is really "no big deal."

Speaking with Kotaku's Mike Fahey this weekend at BlizzCon [http://kotaku.com/5343640/blizzard-lack-of-starcraft-lan-is-no-big-deal], Blizzard's executive vice president of game design, Rob Pardo, was asked to comment on the community outrage erupting from the lack of LAN support in the upcoming StarCraft 2 - an outrage that has spawned a 100,000-signature-strong petition.

Pardo indicated that the PC developer was very aware of the issue, joking that they were only continuing to get flack "[F]rom you guys. Only from the press. Everyone else has accepted it." Turning serious, Pardo acknowledged that the flack would likely continue until the game was released, but said that he believed that time and history would be on Blizzard's side - once people actually got their hands on the game and the new Battle.net, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

[blockquote]Everyone is going to give us flack until it's out. None of us is going to know how big a deal it is until it's out. We believe that it's really not that big of a deal - that most people are not really going to notice that it's missing. There's a lot of people out there I think that are just afraid that they're suddenly not going to be able to connect to the internet tonight and they won't be able to play. I actually think that case is extremely rare, and I think we're going to be okay.[/blockquote]

"Extremely rare"? Well yeah, that's something that I can agree with - but doesn't that mean that such a case will exist?

Wait, what's this? Hang on a minute, don't break out the tar and feathers just yet. What about those few "extremely rare" cases where direct connectivity will be problematic, if not impossible? Pardo says that the company won't leave them out in the cold:

"There's a few legitimate cases that we're going to try and address over time. Location-based tournaments, or let's say I'm in a dorm with a firewall or something like that, hopefully there's a way to determine that and maybe start a peer-to-peer game."

This leaves me wondering what the SC2 machines on the BlizzCon floor were running on. When I mopped the floor with Keane, I didn't notice so much as the tiniest bit of latency - so if the game was running via Battle.net, then that'd be a good thing. If it was running on a LAN, then... well, I have no idea what exactly that would indicate, but it'd sure as hell be confusing.

Either way, neither we nor Blizzard have any way of knowing how the dropping of LAN functionality will affect the game until it comes out. Pardo is probably right in that it won't be a deal-breaker for the vast majority of gamers (really, when was the last time any of us had a genuine LAN party? This is an office full of gamers, and we couldn't find anyone who's LANned recently) but even so, time will be the only judge of this.

In any case, it's almost becoming overkill for this poor dead horse. Can we go back to complaining about the colors in Diablo III already?

Permalink

It's spelled "Flak".

Flack is something else.

Anyway, I'm sure hacking groups will have the game ready for private servers and bypassing battle.net in a variety of ways the same week the game is released, so I'm sure all the crying is redundant with a little mental cunning from the community's part.

 

[SharedProphet]

Activision does not publish Blizzard's games. Look at WotLK - Activision's logo is nowhere on the packaging. Blizzard is - and for the foreseeable future, will remain - a self-publishing company.

ActiBlizz does not own Blizzard. Vivendi Games owns Blizzard, and acquired Activision. Vivendi leaves Blizzard alone.

According to Wikipedia it seems that Activision Blizzard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard] is owned by Vivendi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi], and is the entity which consists of the merged assets of Vivendi Games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi_Games] and Activision [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision]--neither of which exists independently of the other anymore. I see that Blizzard Entertainment [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_entertainment] does publish its own games. However, it appears that ActiBlizz (owned by Vivendi) does own Blizzard Entertainment. I still seriously doubt Kotick has no say in the goings on of a company owned by ActiBlizz.

 

[paketep]

Oh, it's definitely going to have an impact on the game: namely, I'm not buying it. And many other people.

As for my last LAN party, it was in mid-july. And the next one will be in a couple of weeks. We'll play StarCraft and remember when Blizzard cared about us and didn't see us as walking money.

Well, obviously. No matter how much they complain, people aren't going to choose to not buy this game because of the absence of LAN. No matter how much they hate the fact that it's not there, SC2 will still probably end up being one of the biggest-selling PC games of all time. It's like the Star Wars fans who complain about the changes made in the Special Editions: they go on and on about how much they hate them, and yet they buy them all anyway. Much the same thing will happen here, I have no doubt. The 100 000 people who've signed that petition aren't going to boycott SC2.

Not true.

And BTW, the prequels and the Special Editions are shit. After those horrors, I will never ever ever give any more money to Lucas. My old VHS tapes will suffice.

 

[AceDiamond]

Activision does not publish Blizzard's games. Look at WotLK - Activision's logo is nowhere on the packaging. Blizzard is - and for the foreseeable future, will remain - a self-publishing company.

ActiBlizz does not own Blizzard. Vivendi Games owns Blizzard, and acquired Activision. Vivendi leaves Blizzard alone.

According to Wikipedia it seems that Activision Blizzard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard] is owned by Vivendi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi], and is the entity which consists of the merged assets of Vivendi Games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi_Games] and Activision [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision]--neither of which exists independently of the other anymore. I see that Blizzard Entertainment [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_entertainment] does publish its own games. However, it appears that ActiBlizz (owned by Vivendi) does own Blizzard Entertainment. I still seriously doubt Kotick has no say in the goings on of a company owned by ActiBlizz.

Except that, as I recently found out, Blizzard was granted total creative autonomy from Activision. This makes Kotick getting a say very unlikely. Hell it's right on their site ( http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/activision-faq.html )

And now the soul-crushing version of this: Hey guys guess what, Blizzard's not a saint.

 

[SharedProphet]

Except that, as I recently found out, Blizzard was granted total creative autonomy from Activision. This makes Kotic getting a say very unlikely.

And now the soul-crushing version of this: Hey guys guess what, Blizzard's not a saint.

He may not have any say on creative matters... but yes, as you point out, it is possible that these ridiculous decisions are actually coming from within Blizzard. Still, funny how they didn't seem to exhibit this attitude towards their customers before the merger.

 

[AceDiamond]

Except that, as I recently found out, Blizzard was granted total creative autonomy from Activision. This makes Kotic getting a say very unlikely.

And now the soul-crushing version of this: Hey guys guess what, Blizzard's not a saint.

He may not have any say on creative matters... but yes, as you point out, it is possible that these ridiculous decisions are actually coming from within Blizzard. Still, funny how they didn't seem to exhibit this attitude towards their customers before the merger.

Oh really? [http://attrition.org/errata/company/blizzard01.html]

The Internet is a wealth of information on controversy, don't you know [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratagus]

this too [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spyware]

(Note: I am on neither side of any of these arguments, I'm just pointing out that nobody is perfect)

 

[SharedProphet]

Oh really? [http://attrition.org/errata/company/blizzard01.html]

The Internet is a wealth of information on controversy, don't you know [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratagus]

this too [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spyware]

(Note: I am on neither side of any of these arguments, I'm just pointing out that nobody is perfect)

That's all? The privacy stuff and attempts to protect their IP are pretty much expected; Valve similarly watches everything you do while you play on Steam, if I'm not mistaken. It's understandable that they want to try to prevent cheating in WoW, etc. Of course no one is perfect and I certainly don't think Blizzard is. What I mean by the attitude they're now taking towards customers is that they are thinking of us as wallets to be harvested [http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/the-destruction-of-blizzard/] rather than people to be served. It's an incredibly shortsighted point of view for a company not to realize that everything depends on the customers.

One of the reasons StarCraft was such a popular game in general was because it was a popular LAN game; LAN sells copies. And a main reason it was such a popular LAN game was the idea of "spawn [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft#Multiplayer]" installations [http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/treat-paying-customers-better-than-potential-customers/]. This meant people who had the game would give it to their friends so they could play with them, and then their friends would end up buying the game as well. It seems pretty obvious that this idea must have come from a very different mindset than what they are exhibiting now...

 

[SonofSeth]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm sick of people assuming for me that everyone has great internet for playing games and people who this will affect are a rarity. Also just because YOU do not have LANs very often doesn't mean that nobody else does.

Stop seeing things only from your own perspective guys, this IS a big deal and for a significant percent of their potential customers it is a game breaker. Perhaps we could pull a spore and spam bad reviews on amazon?

You can QQ all you want, you're still just a small niche. Also, you're acting like a baby.

 

[Craftybonds]

i still go to lan parties all the time, with different groups of people. not having lan probably won't kill their sales too much (i'll still buy it), but i still think it's bullshit that it's not included. I'm more than sure that within the same week of it's release, someone will develop a cracked version of the game with lan, but still...their consumer base shouldn't have to go through that much trouble to use lan.

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

I won't be buying SC2 then, me and my friend use LAN all the time to play different RTS games together, Heck we still play Diablo II on occasion I'll only be buying Diablo III lets hope they don't turn this into "Good Blizzard games are a footnote in history".

 

[brunothepig]

Hmmm. I don't know a lot about the Starcraft 2 system, so if I'm wrong let me know.
No LAN. If I wanna play this game with a few friends at a LAN party we have to all connect to the internet. Which is quite difficult unless we use a wireless, which means I would probably have to take my wireless router. Then, we would probably have massive lag from having at least six people on the same connection. Even then, can you set up a private game, or is it just that random match-making battle.net thing? Which I also think doesn't work so well, I'm with Shamus, but I won't get into that.