Starcraft II will feature no LAN support to combat piracy.

Someones probably gonna find a way to get around this BEFORE it comes out.

It's impossible to solve piracy, and every method to stop it only hurts the people who actually bought the game legally.

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]

Meh... good idea from a buisness perspective. Why should a lan center be able to milk unlimited computers off one 1 game purchase? How many lan parties today have a setup so crappy, that there isn't enough internet bandwidth to spread around?

The people effected, versus the hype behind this game renders this news rather insignificant.

Trinners

since lan is the most popular way of playing SC this news is insignificant ok :roll:

Did that look like a very serious post to begin with? :|Juggernaut140

You're avoiding a very simple question. :| You expressed interest in the issue, then held up a game that suffers from the very same issue. I was curious behind that reasoning, joking or not.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]

Meh... good idea from a buisness perspective. Why should a lan center be able to milk unlimited computers off one 1 game purchase? How many lan parties today have a setup so crappy, that there isn't enough internet bandwidth to spread around?

The people effected, versus the hype behind this game renders this news rather insignificant.

SquatsAreAwesom

since lan is the most popular way of playing SC this news is insignificant ok :roll:

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

This applies to WC3 also. More people play LAN on wc3 than b.net. Just look at garena gaming, it has more people playing dota (wc3 custom map) on it worldwide than on bnet across all realms and that's only ONE service.

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

Trinners

Anecdotal evidence is not proof, especially when a large number of those players play online in Internet cafes.

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"][QUOTE="Trinners"]

since lan is the most popular way of playing SC this news is insignificant ok :roll:

Trinners

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

This applies to WC3 also. More people play LAN on wc3 than b.net. Just look at garena gaming, it has more people playing dota on it worldwide than on bnet across all realms and that's only ONE service.

The way I see it, the only people losing out are thieves, and the very small minority of players who don't have internet access.

I don't care.... I never play LAN anyway.

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

[QUOTE="Juggernaut140"]Did that look like a very serious post to begin with? :|Juggernaut140

You're avoiding a very simple question. :| You expressed interest in the issue, then held up a game that suffers from the very same issue. I was curious behind that reasoning, joking or not.

Hey, no need to get angry at me. I called you out on something you said, and now you seem to be on the defensive. If you were truly trying to make a joke, I sure as hell didn't get it and I'd advise you not to quit your day job.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

Redmoonxl2

Anecdotal evidence is not proof, especially when a large number of those players play online in Internet cafes.

no they don't just visit the asia realm of b.net it's almost empty. They use garena or another service. The only roadblock that b.net has is cd-keys.

This is a complete non-issue, especially considering how robust battle.net is going to be. :lol: at the people that say this is going to make it flop. :lol: at the people that say that they won't buy it now.

Wait so what's going to happen to competitive StarCraft?

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

Trinners

Anecdotal evidence is not proof, especially when a large number of those players play online in Internet cafes.

no they don't just visit the asia realm of b.net it's almost empty. They use garena or another service. The only roadblock that b.net has is cd-keys.

The fact that they use another online service still points to people playing online as opposed to LAN.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"] Proof? More people lan then play on Bnet.... I call bull.SquatsAreAwesom

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

This applies to WC3 also. More people play LAN on wc3 than b.net. Just look at garena gaming, it has more people playing dota on it worldwide than on bnet across all realms and that's only ONE service.

The way I see it, the only people losing out are thieves, and the very small minority of players who don't have internet access.

well blizzard can say goodbye to 90% of their userbase in oriental asia. Which make up the majority of the userbase of SC and WC3.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

Anecdotal evidence is not proof, especially when a large number of those players play online in Internet cafes.

Redmoonxl2

no they don't just visit the asia realm of b.net it's almost empty. They use garena or another service. The only roadblock that b.net has is cd-keys.

The fact that they use another online service still points to people playing online as opposed to LAN.

to use that service the game needs LAN support in the first place ;)

Wait so what's going to happen to competitive StarCraft?

RobisGodly

to use that service the game needs LAN support in the first place ;)

Trinners

Which means cutting out the LAN will fill the Asian division of Bnet that was empty to begin with, am I right? I mean, as you stated, there was no need to go to Bnet Asia because it was completely empty, right?

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

visit an internet cafe in singapore, korea, taiwan, japan, phillipines.

This applies to WC3 also. More people play LAN on wc3 than b.net. Just look at garena gaming, it has more people playing dota on it worldwide than on bnet across all realms and that's only ONE service.

The way I see it, the only people losing out are thieves, and the very small minority of players who don't have internet access.

well blizzard can say goodbye to 90% of their userbase in oriental asia. Which make up the majority of the userbase of SC and WC3.

This shouldn't really be news to anyone, after all Blizzard did say quite a while ago battlenet was their answer to piracy.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

to use that service the game needs LAN support in the first place ;)

Redmoonxl2

Which means cutting out the LAN will fill the Asian division of Bnet that was empty to begin with, am I right? I mean, as you stated, there was no need to go to Bnet Asia because it was completely empty, right?

they use the service to by-pass the cd-key authentication of b.net allowing them to play with others around the world using the same service.

Upon further thinking, If Blizz chooses not to support LAN i believe they will jsut find a way to change the realmlist of SC2 and link them to garena anyway. It will still affect SC2 sales in oriental asia though if lan support is not included.

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

to use that service the game needs LAN support in the first place ;)

Trinners

Which means cutting out the LAN will fill the Asian division of Bnet that was empty to begin with, am I right? I mean, as you stated, there was no need to go to Bnet Asia because it was completely empty, right?

they use the service to by-pass the cd-key authentication of b.net allowing them to play with others around the world using the same service.

Upon further thinking, If Blizz chooses not to support LAN i believe they will jsut find a way to change the realmlist of SC2 and link them to garena anyway. It will still affect SC2 sales in oriental asia though if lan support is not included.

The point I'm trying to get across is this: Say there are 5 net cafes in a city and Starcraft 2 was released. Under the previous setup, only 5 copies amongst the net cafes would be bought. Doesn't make sense, right? There you have very few people participating in the service Blizzard put forth, which is why the Asian servers were empty.

Now, in order to support the game release, each cafe will have to pay multiple times more just to support their consumer base. What was only 5 copies is now 100, if we are to assume that each cafe has 20 PCs each. Blizzard is trying to sell their product, not hand them out. If Blizzard loses out in Asia, that would imply Asia wasn't interested in the game to begin with if it wasn't handed to them, which is not true. People in the Asian markets will buy the game regardless, much like how Starcraft 1 was bought more in Asia than America.

Blizzard is in no trouble with the Asian markets. If there is an issue, it will be with the net cafe industry. Either way, you cannot attempt to imply that the majority Starcraft copies bought in Asia was through net cafes.

Onto the second point, for sure someone will find a way to crack Starcraft 2 to work outside of Bnet. It will be underground, however, since Blizzard will crack down on net cafes who widely use such cracks.

Blizzard will probably implament enough party features in BattleNet 2.0 that Lan wouldn't be missed. Or some sort of Lan setting used withen BattleNet 2.0 itself.

First they break up the game into several games, now they cut LAN... Looks like Activision has influenced Blizzard's view on making games for the customer than vice-versa. santoron

1. Expansion packs existed in PC games long before Starcraft 2. See Through the Dark Portal, Brood War, Lord of Destruction, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King.
2. Activision and Blizzard are partner companies, not one entity. Activision has no say on Blizzard activities, in vice versa. Both are owned by Vivendi.
3. Cutting LAN affects very few people to begin with, and if it were an issue, recent RTS games wouldn't be selling a single copy at all. Cutting LAN is not new, and has been happening in recent RTS games for a few years now.

[QUOTE="santoron"]First they break up the game into several games, now they cut LAN... Looks like Activision has influenced Blizzard's view on making games for the customer than vice-versa. Redmoonxl2

1. Expansion packs existed in PC games long before Starcraft 2. See Through the Dark Portal, Brood War, Lord of Destruction, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King.
2. Activision and Blizzard are partner companies, not one entity. Activision has no say on Blizzard activities, in vice versa. Both are owned by Vivendi.
3. Cutting LAN affects very few people to begin with, and if it were an issue, recent RTS games wouldn't be selling a single copy at all. Cutting LAN is not new, and has been happening in recent RTS games for a few years now.

it's a huge problem for internet cafes. They only buy 1 copy of a game and install them on all the computers, they don't buy multiple copies of the game.

Trinners

which is btw illiegal

The honest gamers suffer because of the pirates actions, GG Blizzard.

Rob-Belmont

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

Which means cutting out the LAN will fill the Asian division of Bnet that was empty to begin with, am I right? I mean, as you stated, there was no need to go to Bnet Asia because it was completely empty, right?

Redmoonxl2

they use the service to by-pass the cd-key authentication of b.net allowing them to play with others around the world using the same service.

Upon further thinking, If Blizz chooses not to support LAN i believe they will jsut find a way to change the realmlist of SC2 and link them to garena anyway. It will still affect SC2 sales in oriental asia though if lan support is not included.

The point I'm trying to get across is this: Say there are 5 net cafes in a city and Starcraft 2 was released. Under the previous setup, only 5 copies amongst the net cafes would be bought. Doesn't make sense, right? There you have very few people participating in the service Blizzard put forth, which is why the Asian servers were empty.

Now, in order to support the game release, each cafe will have to pay multiple times more just to support their consumer base. What was only 5 copies is now 100, if we are to assume that each cafe has 20 PCs each. Blizzard is trying to sell their product, not hand them out. If Blizzard loses out in Asia, that would imply Asia wasn't interested in the game to begin with if it wasn't handed to them, which is not true. People in the Asian markets will buy the game regardless, much like how Starcraft 1 was bought more in Asia than America.

Blizzard is in no trouble with the Asian markets. If there is an issue, it will be with the net cafe industry. Either way, you cannot attempt to imply that the majority Starcraft copies bought in Asia was through net cafes.

Onto the second point, for sure someone will find a way to crack Starcraft 2 to work outside of Bnet. It will be underground, however, since Blizzard will crack down on net cafes who widely use such cracks.

[QUOTE="Trinners"]

it's a huge problem for internet cafes. They only buy 1 copy of a game and install them on all the computers, they don't buy multiple copies of the game.

Enosh88

which is btw illiegal

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

[QUOTE="santoron"]First they break up the game into several games, now they cut LAN... Looks like Activision has influenced Blizzard's view on making games for the customer than vice-versa. Phazevariance

1. Expansion packs existed in PC games long before Starcraft 2. See Through the Dark Portal, Brood War, Lord of Destruction, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King.
2. Activision and Blizzard are partner companies, not one entity. Activision has no say on Blizzard activities, in vice versa. Both are owned by Vivendi.
3. Cutting LAN affects very few people to begin with, and if it were an issue, recent RTS games wouldn't be selling a single copy at all. Cutting LAN is not new, and has been happening in recent RTS games for a few years now.

The Starcraft 2 expansions are separate expansion packs. Each entry is one self contained story with the other additions expanding on that story arc, much like how Starcraft had a self contained story expanded upon by way of Brood War. Wings of Liberty will have everything that a full packaged game will have, with no cuts from the multiplayer.

Let me ask you this; Are the DoW and CoH games not full games because there are no SP campaigns for every faction? I didn't hear any complaints about DoW2 only having a Space marine campaign since Relic promised an epic campaign. We're being promised more with Starcraft 2 in terms of campaign and yet there is an issue.

Also, a "right" is subjective in the case to video games because you have no rights whatsoever. Either you buy the game or don't. Blizzard is doing what they feel is right for their product. People seem to be used to a certain way with how things were done, and think that they have a right to have things remain the way they were. However, Starcraft 1 is not Starcraft 2. What you got in Starcraft 1 is not an requirement for Starcraft 2. Blizzard is trying to push a service through their product (Bnet 2.0) as well as selling as many copies as possible. LAN gets in the way of that. Solution? Get rid of LAN to not only push their service, but maximize their sales. If you disagree with that approach, don't buy. However, don't think for a second that you have the right to certain things in a game they are taking the time to make, because that is simply an asinine idea. If you rely on LAN to play with friends, then this game may not be for you. If you have no internet on your PC (which the chances are insanely low), then this game may not be for you if you want it as a MP game. Its as simple as that.

just to bump in, legal cybercafes have sponsors to take care of their game expenses. Like in malaysia, microsoft and intel sponsor the legal cybercafes there. So blizzard doesnt really get ripped off. there are certainly more illegal cafes in the south east asian region than legal ones but the number of legal cafes are increasing as competitive gaming is getting popular in the region with WCG organised events promoting competitive gaming.exiledsnake

Blizzard sells more copies with this method than the previous, which is the point. Everything in life is business, which is no different with Blizzard. Its all about the $$$.

Ok... Because everyone here is so ignorant.

Blizzard said that the reason LAN was dropped, was primarily because of features that the new Battle.net has... What this means is that it will almost certainly be identical to Steam, in that you can host a local match, but only by first verifying the copies of the game through the service...

Also, they wouldn't remove LAN without having a suitable replacement. The tournament scene in Korea is way too big of a priority for them to risk alienating it(they are sponsoring GOM and working on getting a sponsorship with KESPA)...

As for the couple ignorant people claiming that they are setting up for announcing subscription fees for Battle.net...

The first 4 pillars are ALL being made better.

1) Development time for StarCraft II have far exceeded the original StarCraft in both the standard of quality and duration, to ensure the highest in quality RTS experience we can possibly create.

2) Not only is it free to play online for people who purchase the game, Battle.net 2.0 is designed with the new generation of online community and eSports in mind.

3) As long as there are people playing our games, we will continue to support them, and we have continued with this tradition with our legacy titles like the original StarCraft.

4) StarCraft II was created with eSports as a cornerstone in design philosophy. StarCraft evolved into an eSport.

5) Map Editor will be better than any we have ever released.

and:

6) ??? - will have to wait and see :)

For me personally- I loved LAN parties, but the direction in which Battle.net is headed, I would always choose to play on Battle.net 99% of the time and even if for whatever reason I did decide to lug my computer to a friend's house in this day of age, I would still be playing with them on Battle.net against others at their place.

Karune

So lets get this straight, directly from Blizzard.

Battle.net 2.0 will absolutely be 100% free.

And, the features of Battle.net make LAN obsolete/not desirable.

Not to mention, LAN or something with similar structure is crucial to eSports. So, the fact that they have an entire division of the company devoted to eSports in Starcraft 2 should give you an idea of how they have certain things in mind with their networking...

[QUOTE="Redmoonxl2"]

[QUOTE="santoron"]First they break up the game into several games, now they cut LAN... Looks like Activision has influenced Blizzard's view on making games for the customer than vice-versa. Phazevariance

1. Expansion packs existed in PC games long before Starcraft 2. See Through the Dark Portal, Brood War, Lord of Destruction, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King.
2. Activision and Blizzard are partner companies, not one entity. Activision has no say on Blizzard activities, in vice versa. Both are owned by Vivendi.
3. Cutting LAN affects very few people to begin with, and if it were an issue, recent RTS games wouldn't be selling a single copy at all. Cutting LAN is not new, and has been happening in recent RTS games for a few years now.

The backlash on this will be stupider than the L4D2 boycott.

Blizzard has already said that there is a feature in battle.net 2.0 that makes up for this.

Good, remove LAN from all PC games. No Im not joking. its just a "PIRATE ME" option. get a router and play the damn thing online in the same room, not hard. As for no internet? stfu lamest excuse ever, I bet that demography spreads to a total of 0.01% who actually play these games anyway.Birdy09

And what if Blizzard goes under Phazevariance

:lol:

it's like saiyng what if sudenly north korea nukes blizzard HQs