Fans Petition For StarCraft II LAN, Blizzard Responds

[LewsTherin]

Because, you know, Internet Petitions always work out so well.

 

[TheKaiserEcho]

I remember throwing the multiplayer spawn of SC onto every comp in my parents house so we could have insane lan parties, even with people who couldn't play at home. What am I supposed to do now, tell all my friends who don't have a PC to run it that they're gonna have to buy a copy of SC2 to play it together come lan night?

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

OK looks like the LAN = piracy thing makes a little more sense (it's pretty much copying the disc and giving it to your friend) - but what I don't understand, is how big is this? How big is this casual piracy? Enough to take out a basic yet huge feature as LAN?

 

[jonnosferatu]

It seems that they very specifically do not want this game to go professional, then. I can't see KESPA switching over if they have no guarantee of lagless play.

...so actually, I'm in full support of no LAN. Lulz.

 

[Dogstile]

you know, the petition up to 27'146 at time of writing, that's double of the article

 

[Lord Krunk]

Removing LAN is just another experimental anti-piracy measure (like DRM)... which just might work.

Although that is a serious issue for us legit gamers; I play my RTSs primarily over LAN.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

I hope they don't pull that for diablo 3 as well, bnet is slow enough as it is, its gonna be a lot worse if every starcraft 2 player has to play online

Too late. That was another thing announced early on in the Diablo III news lifetime, and it's another thing for me to hate Activision for...

 

[Eruanno]

It's still a hard sell, and many remain unconvinced. Those in despair over the change may still have some hope, though - when one poster on the StarCraft forums pointed out that it would be perfectly possible to enable LAN play through Battle.net verification, Karune answered, "I will be sure to forward ideas in regards to LAN as described. I too have many fond memories of LAN parties."

This sounds something like the offline mode in Steam, which would be a pretty good idea if they get rid of LAN play.

Or they could take the easy way, and you know, just add LAN play.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I hope they don't pull that for diablo 3 as well, bnet is slow enough as it is, its gonna be a lot worse if every starcraft 2 player has to play online

Too late. That was another thing announced early on in the Diablo III news lifetime, and it's another thing for me to hate Activision for...

Damm it even with broadband D2 lags far too much So I never play it online D3 is gonna be worse if they force even more people to use b.net

 

[Geamo]

Isn't one of the main points of Starcraft the much-hailed LAN parties?

That's like having a big cake with sprinkles on, and then taking out the sprinkles. When questioning this, the baker points out that the cake has got strawberries inside that are much better.
Some people liked the sprinkles, some liked the strawberries. They're counting on people all eventually liking strawberries.

Ugh, terrible analogy. Someone take it out back and shoot it.

 

[Zeldadudes]

No way you spin it, it's a no-win situation for them.

Either they include it and face the expected piracy with the fans happy or they cut lan and lose the enthusiastic basement fans for a little more money. I think if they actually cut it they might see an even stronger rise in piracy with people downloading modded versions of the game that include off-line lan.

It boils down to this: Removing lan from the sequel of the poster-child of lan parties is always stupid.

And the prize goes to you sir.
There is always a way around it and i know that a game like Starcraft will definitely be hacked within seconds.
Oh the day on my first mini mac on Starcraft
Those were the daaaayyyysss!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Give me a break Blizzard. Piracy is going to happen no matter what you do. In fact the harder you make it to pirate your stuff, the more likely it is that it'll be pirated. It's like throwing down the gauntlet. And even it you don't include LAN support, someone with likely develop a mod that'll allow it. The question you have to ask yourselves is do you want your fans to hate you or not.

 

[Jumplion]

*whistles*

Damn, nearly 40,000 people signed the petition right now. Hopefully this does something, Blizzard does at least pay attention to what some fans want, though I find it hilarious to read some "HOT NAKED STRIPPERS!#!#$!#%" in some of the signatures

 

[Borrowed Time]

Hopefully if Blizz does in fact go through with this it will in essence backfire on them. In practice on the other hand, I doubt it's truly going to hurt their sales and they'll just make millions more. Though they've shown that they can actually listen to their customer base, aka the changes that have been introduced in WoW, they tend to want to try things their way first. Eventually they may reconsider, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Syntax Error]

No way you spin it, it's a no-win situation for them.

Either they include it and face the expected piracy with the fans happy or they cut lan and lose the enthusiastic basement fans for a little more money. I think if they actually cut it they might see an even stronger rise in piracy with people downloading modded versions of the game that include off-line lan.

It boils down to this: Removing lan from the sequel of the poster-child of lan parties is always stupid.

They're force-feeding Battle.Net in their customers' throats. Whatever happened to the good old days of CD Key verification to play online?

 

[Specter_]

Give it a month or two after SC2 comes out, someone somewhere will figure out how to hack the code and add in LAN support. After that its only a matter of time before said person makes it available to the public.

Well, it *does* come down to functionality. If B.net - a free service - can provide a better gaming experience than a LAN can, why use a LAN? Of course, that's a big *if*.

Because you can't have 20+ people connect via a DSL-line at the same time just so they can play together even tho they sit in the same room.

Back in the day, when I went to LANs, I didn't care about any online-play, I wanted to match myself against the people I could throw bottles at when they pissed me off.