Starcraft II jettisons LAN support
Summary: Much to the disappointment of many Starcraft fans, Blizzard has decided not to include a local area network multiplayer option in its upcoming release of Starcraft II.
So much for Starcraft II LAN parties...
Blizzard today confirmed for GameSpot that LAN functionality will be absent from Starcraft II's multiplayer component, as both a piracy prevention mechanism and a quality-assurance initiative.
"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," a Blizzard representative said in a statement. "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," the statement continued. "We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for Starcraft II in the near future."
Speaking with GameSpot during BlizzCon 2008, Blizzard Entertainment cofounder Frank Pearce noted that piracy was a concern for the developer and that Battle.net would play a role in helping to counteract theft of the game.
"We're definitely talking about ways with Battle.net that we can provide the best online experience for our customers so that there's not an incentive to pirate the product but instead an incentive to be part of that community of gamers playing that game and they'd want to be part of that social experience on top of the single-player experience," he said.
Blizzard expects to begin closed beta for Starcraft II sometime this summer and is currently taking sign-ups for the testing phase through the official Battle.net Web site. For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Starcraft II.
This article was originally posted on GameSpot.
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Talkback
This will last all of two months
That's a novel idea
Ruin it for the people that pay for it so they spoil it for the people that don't.
Woow, they are geniuses!!
Maybe if they stop making the program no-one will pirate it!!!
Why so angry?
What's the issue?
The last time I played over LAN was back in college when I had to use Kali (simulated LAN over the internet) to play online.
With the ubiquity of broadband LAN support is not necessary.
Yes you are right... humm.. nope, you forgot to mention the LAG
lag?
I just hope B.net doesn't go down for maintenance often at all, I've experienced that a few times in wc3 and LAN kept me happy during my DotA days.
No, you need to say more
You missed the point.
matches by originating the game over
battle.net. What that means is that everyone
on your LAN connects to battle.net to start the
game rather than listening on the LAN. Once
the game begins, all the major game traffic is
sent within the LAN. That's what a local
private match is. The only difference now is
that you will have to verify that your copy is
legitimate by originating the game on
battle.net first. Minor game information may
still be forwarded to battle.net for the
purposes of other battle.net users wanting to
view the game in progress or see real-time
stats, but it should not and most likely will
not cause the game to lag since it is not time-
sensitive.
So, after understanding how that works, how
does your lag issue change at all from any
local starcraft 1 game? The answer is, it
doesn't. There's just the minor incovnenience
of having to have a live internet connection to
connect to battle.net to begin the game.
Blizzard is making the right move. Steam, Xbox
Live and Windows Live paved the way for this
type of DRM. It's non-invasive and effective
at MITIGATING piracy (certainly not
eliminating).
I am not quite sure about it.
But even when a hosted game is managed by a personal server, you can't bet sure that the packages will not go through the gateway (WAN)
For example and depending the configuration of the next, if you host a webpage, lets say with a real ip as :200.20.30.1 => www.mypage.com, then you locally (and even in the same server) can't ping to this address but you can't access to the webpage because its point outside instead of inside,but you can access the page directly locally (such 127.0.0.1 => localhost).
Anyways, discarding the lag problem then you can count firewall, proxy and the infrastructure where you want to connect,in the case that you want to lan party on school, or in a lan party convention (usually with a crappy internet connection if any) or in work :-/
Confusing...
"[i]So You can authenticate the game without needing to identify every time you start a game. Authenticating once is enough, so i don't think this measure is only for fight against piracy.[/i]"
I'm betting you will not have to connect to battle.net each time you want to play single player. I don't know though. Games that use Windows Live log you in for single player, but I don't know if Starcraft 2/Diablo 3 will do that. With that being said, your CD-KEY will need to authenticate against the server each time you want to play multiplayer. This is because one-time client-side verification is not strong enough. A malicious user could mess with that.
"[i]But even when a hosted game is managed by a personal server, you can't bet sure that the packages will not go through the gateway (WAN)[/i]"
Are you referring to a personal, hypothetical server? In a hypothetical LAN game, you can be sure that your packets are not going out to the gateway because they're routed with internal IPs. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.
"[i]For example and depending the configuration of the next, if you host a webpage, lets say with a real ip as :200.20.30.1 => www.mypage.com, then you locally (and even in the same server) can't ping to this address but you can't access to the webpage because its point outside instead of inside,but you can access the page directly locally (such 127.0.0.1 => localhost).[/i]"
That's simply incorrect. If you are seeing that behavior somewhere, then it's certainly a configuration issue probably with your firewall. Pings don't always work in general because the server on the other end can refuse to reply.
But, yes, firewalls and proxies and all that will be an issue for users to grapple with in order to connect. UPnP will help. But I'm sure Blizzard support will provide instructions for users on how to configure their firewalls for battle.net and what not.
And after all that, I'm not sure what your point was.
I refuse to drink that Kool-aid
Sorry, I host LAN parties and WOW kills us every time. We run with a 512K up stream and if we host more than 4 gamers, our webbynet is hosed. Then you have the steam gamers and such we spend more time trying to "Authenticate" than to play the actual game.
I remember when EA came out with Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142. Both of those games had so much DRM that they wouldn't even play without being cracked on my system. This was after I purchased a legitimate copy of both. I spent more time loading the game, patching the game than playing the game.
Blizzard was awesome with Starcraft. The expansion should have allowed spawns as well, but this spreading it out over 3 games, I could handle. Dropping LAN play altogether, that's a shame.
Considering how many copies of Star Craft/War Craft/Diablo that I own, this is disappointing and most likely a loss of income from me.
RE: Starcraft II jettisons LAN support
fun for a lot of players. The same goes for WoW's PVP
tournaments... End of discussion for me
Agreed
I, for one, am all for it. As a hard-core gamer of days past, I can personally atest to how devstating this 'hobby' is to ones social life. Since I quit MMOs, I've gotten in shape, reconnected with my family and friends, have advances significantly in the professional field, and overall things are better. I realize that there are many out there that can balance these things, but I simply was not one of them and games like WoW have ruined lives for people like myself. A trend away from systems that bait hard-core gaming behavior is probably the best thing that can happen for the industry. There is a difference between being a hardcore gamer by choice and having it imposed on you (such as if you wanted to see any end-game content of WoW). If I pay for a game, I expect to be able to experience all aspects of it without dedicating 6hours a day to it.
Sorry for getting off topic there at the end and thanks for reading if you got this far.
Cheers!
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
AMEN
Nice change of pace.
pace to the typical childish backlash on many
other sites regarding this issue.
It is very likely that battle.net 2.0 will
include the ability for players to make private
local matches all by meeting up on battle.net
first. This means that a high speed connection
is not required, but certainly preferred. LAN
players could share a 56k modem to create the
private battle.net local match. I fail to see
how this minor inconvenience is such a big
deal.
So, I think you're right. The majority of the
backlash must be from people that are upset
that they won't be able to easily pirate this
game.
I don't see this as likely
First they split the game into 3 volumes so they could get more money, now this. Next we will have to pay them to host a game.
What about the LAN Party hosts
I pay for a game, but I spend more time applying cracks to the game so that I can play the game. Then you make the game more difficult by requiring online authentication every time I play? I think I will throw in the towel there. I can't host a LAN where 100 plus people are trying to authenticate through what is basically a glorified home cable connection.
Gaming is evolving out from under you
general is dying. And that supports Blizzard's
decision not to waste valuable man hours
implementing a feature that is only going to
help people violate their license agreement.
The time of lugging your computer to your
friend's house to play in LAN games is over.
There is broadband now. You can all play in
big games from the comfort of your own home.
Zod forbid you have to go over to your friend's
house and socialize without the comfort of
video games.
It's time to adapt.
Thank you for encouraging sloth.
We have been focusing on other aspects of gaming, but apparently your need to drain every last dollar out of the gamer is more important to Blizzard as a company.
Bnet 2.0 is supposed to be your answer then great. I would wish you guys well, but I can't support your decision. You have shunned a number of your fans by doing this. Now whether not this will hurt Blizzard remains to be seen. I know where my stance is, I have my line and will not cross it, so I leave the option up to you to cave.
RE: Starcraft II jettisons LAN support
From Blizzard
Lol. Blizzard is LONG past the point where they care if they alienate a few fringe users. And honestly, you can say all you want, but 9 times out of 10, the folks on these boards saying they are gonna boycott the game already ahve it preordered and are gonna play it anyway. I mean lets be real - these games are awesome even JUST for the single player - and you are getting full-scale multiplayer for FREE. Blizz makes blockbusters and they expect, very rightfuly so, to be paid. Period.
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."