It was recently announced that Starcraft II will not have LAN support and the internet has been a buzz ever since! Blizzards' Bob Colayco has made an official announcement about why LAN support won't make it into SC2.
Here is what Bob Colayco had to say:
"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.
Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future."
There's obvious benefits to something being hosted entirely by Blizzard, and probably gives them flexibility for things they want to achieve with the game in the future, but lots of gamers are upset that they'll lose the ability to LAN, especially in places like Korea where the game is a televised sport.
Comments
And, lets be honest, the pirate community will find a way around the "connect to battlenet" thing within a month. Stuff like this is a challenge for them. Most likely, they'll manage to emulate a battle.net server on one computer, which the other then can connect too. So... stopping piracy. Not going to work, and they know it. They're not morons after all.
So, what does that leave us at? In my eyes, its a way to monitor more players, manage to display adds to them, and data mine them. All things they couldn't do if they were playing trough Battle.net.
It's not as laggy as you think.
Crappy connections occur, yes, but the prevailing number of people that play online games are on cable+ connection. I'd like to think the world could come together and make a game thats perfect for everyone, but its not. Having no LAN is not something that makes blizzard horribad.
And as much as having no LAN sucks.... It is sortof true that most people have decent enough connections anyway. too bad I can't just ditch the internet and play with my brothers that sit in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL!
Or
B) It's all part of Blizzards' plan to make people pay for B.Net.
My guess is leaning more toward B.
No LAN is 100% the same thing as EAs required login to play the game. Period. Saying this is anything other than an extended DRM is false. Blizzard can take this decision to not have LAN game play and shove it where it counts.
I for one am appalled at this and will personally not be buying SC2 because of it. LAN play made Starcraft. Taking it away is just plain wrong.
Cry all you want, point is that LaN was not necessary, if you do want it that bad just hop on B.Net and play together in a private game.
Btw i am sad that there is no lan as well, but youall act like this is the end of the world. Just like how blizzard stated SC2 was going to be 3 games instead of 1. Wow, what if WoW was like that? Oh wait. It is.
Quote from: Bashiok (Source)
Mike mentioned it in an Activision Blizzard investor meeting [paraphrased] "A player that buys Starcraft 2 at retail will have the ability to play on Battle.net with no additional fee."
I'll point out that this is a very carefully worded statement.
In otherwords, there could very well be a free for B.net. However, if you but SC2, you will not have to pay for B.net.
I believe it is worded carefully because D3 may require you to pay. (I do believe that if you have SC2, you will not need to pay for D3.
Is my source btw, you can also go to the actual forum, but this shows the blue posts only. To continue a bit, Bashiok says "One pay-for idea that specifically relates to Diablo that I thought was kind of interesting was the chance to resurrect a fallen hardcore character. "
- So it may not be pay per month.
Bleh! need to sleep ;p