Jozrael

Will this affect anyone's decision to purchase?

They said that something similar to LAN functionality will be implemented in BNet 2.0.

They're doing this to combat piracy.

YaWhateva

How do they mean something similar? I used to love LAN games of SC. I hope whatever they do works out.

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Baraka_Guru

LAN gaming is for nerds. (j/k)

It won't affect my decision. If the game is good, I might get it. (I admit to not playing SC though. Is that bad?)

You'd think there would be some kind of workaround. How hard is it to have it work through LAN?

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Esoteric

Diablo 3 won't have LAN either iirc. It won't affect my purchase one bit though. I still plan on buying both games.

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Leto

is it just me? I have no idea what SC2 is.

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Jozrael

SC2 is StarCraft 2. Going to be the next thing in RTS gaming, and usercreated content. See: DotA.

As for workarounds, I'm fairly certain it will NOT be as useful as LAN, but be slightly less intrusive compared to steam, which is well received by the gaming community in general.

That being said, most of the situations I used LAN in were ones in which it would've been either possible to get an internet connection, or was used for piracy (me and some relatives, me and some friends at college using the same copy of the game). Not gonna lie, there hasn't been a great deal of legitimate uses of the game that I will no longer be able to do.

Lasereth

Pretty much the only people complaining about this are the ones who want to pirate it and play for free. I have no problem with this. This isn't 1999 anymore -- everyone has the Internet.

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tcp

Futile, game will be pirated anyway with online play on private servers and LAN ply will probably also be hacked in. It's a popular game, played by Asians, therefore its guaranteed to be hacked.

MSD

I probably won't be buying it anyway after Blizzard's bullshit with unprovoked mass bannings of D2 accounts to get people to give up and switch to WoW.

As usual, the people who want to pirate it will find a way, and it will end up inconveniencing everyone else. Locks are great at keeping honest people out of your stuff.

japhyryder

I always thought the LAN play was mostly designed for contests back in the day. Now it is pretty unneeded. Enjoyed Diablo more then Starcraft so won't affect my decision.

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IdeoFunk

When's this coming out already??? We've only had to wait, what like 10 years?

Cynthetiq

last i read the other day said that it's probably going to be pushed to 2010 release.

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Willravel

I have fond memories of SC LAN parties. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll miss this feature.

Jozrael

@phamtc: Agreed, but they have to do something. Evidently they're putting a lot of thought into this bnet 2.0 to make pirating it undesirable as an alternative.

MSD: They mass banned accounts that used 3rd party programs (hacks) all at once, after ignoring it for several years. While you could argue that not doing anything for years at a time leads to tacit acceptance, they only banned for things explicitly not allowed in the EULA. It's not to get people to move to WoW. Thousands of us gamers cheer when they do mass bannings of wc3 keys that were caught maphacking, etc. They should do it more often, in my opinion.

I'm not sure if it'll get pushed to a 2010 release. Blizz hasn't released any word about the final release, but beta will be -soon-. They said summer, and it's July. I'd expect latest to be Blizzcon, or the week or 2 after that.

A summer beta does suggest that they are pushing for a holiday release. If they INTEND on doing that and just miss it, perhaps they will make a late Jan/feb release. If they're NOT intending this and truly preparing for an epic development cycle, then good money is on either March 31st or June 6th to commemorate previous releases.

@Willravel: LAN parties of a sort will still be totally functional. If every1 logs on to bnet 2.0, they will still have the ridiculously low delay times that are lovely for a LAN party, and they may even be able to disconnect from bnet after the initial setup.

SecretMethod70

Blizzard has a history of sucking as a company. They're nowhere near as evil as EA, but I still remember the whole fiasco when Blizzard what shutting down private BNet servers "to combat piracy."

As others have said, most pirates will still find a way to pirate the game, and Blizzard will only end up truly screwing over the paying customers.

StarCraft 2 is one of the few games I would truly consider paying for, but the main reason for that is because of how much fun I have had playing StarCraft over...well, you guessed it: LAN. The bigger irony is that while I now own a legal copy of StarCraft, I was introduced to the game after pirating it to play with some friends over... what's it called? LAN.

Fewer people will be introduced to StarCraft 2, because they won't be able to play it with their friends at LAN parties. Then again, maybe kids these days don't have LAN parties; I don't know. My friends and I still do every now and then though, so this is kind of annoying.

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Gebbinn

Actually, no LAN functionality will stop me from buying. period. I have 4 computers in my house, 2 of which do not connect to the internet, but are connected to my LAN. My daughters and I frequently play LAN games such as Diablo, Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege, Command and Conquer and other such games. We thoroughly enjoy these times, and especially enjoy the RTS games that we can play. Heck I dont play ANY of those games online, never have and never will. I think I may have spent 20 minutes playing Diablo online, and never went back online after. There is entirely too many hackers and cheaters online for my taste. So, when I buy a game, one of my top 3 aspects of the game is LAN capability. No LAN, I dont buy.

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Jozrael

@SecretMethod: I've always loved Blizzard as a company; hardcore fanboy here. Private BNET servers -is- piracy. It's getting around the whole 'need a unique cd key to play' rule. Which is there...to stop piracy. What reason is there to not play on bnet when you are legally playing it? I think they have a fantastic reputation as a company for releasing quality games and -supporting them even a decade later-.

This isn't 'DRM', EA's stupid-tarded method of combating piracy. They said they intend to introduce LAN-like functionality into BNet 2.0.

Now, you bring up a valid point that they will lose customers that would want to pirate first, play later. However, they have such market share with StarCraft that I don't think this is too big a concern. Tens of millions (although almost half of that from South Korea xD) will probably buy SC2 without LAN functionality. LAN parties are still around...but the thing is, MOST of those LAN parties have access to the internet. Which means you can still play SC2 at them.


@Gebbing: Your situation is one that will absolutely work with SC2. Just because you don't want to play it online doesn't mean you can't use one of the computers to connect your LAN to BNet 2.0 and get yourselves up and running. Obviously, I'm not entirely sure of the implementation of this, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to play it as you want. I agree that there are too many hackers and cheaters online, but I find the enhanced gameplay to be worth it. There are many pieces of the game that are hackerfree. (Go DotA with your antihack!)

Lasereth

Yeah come on, what LAN party nowadays doesn't have Internet. Our LANs almost 10 years ago had shared Internet for everyone.

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Gebbinn

My setup.. My wife and I keep our computers in our Great-room. These computers are connected directly to the internet via a DSL gateway. My daughters each have their own computers, which are kept in their bedroom. We have a wired/wireless router, to which all the computers are connected, but it is not connected to the internet. We do this in order to prevent the girls from accessing the internet in their rooms, if they need the internet, they must use one of mine or my wife's computers, where we can watch everything they do. The downside of this, is that their computers are unable to connect to BNet to access an internet game. I could possibly connect the main computer (mine) to BNet to start a game, but I don't see any way that the girl's computers could connect to the game without the internet connection. Unless there is some freaky new technology that would allow me to start a LAN game, but have to register it with the live BNet servers, I don't see how that would be possible.

I have absolutely no intention of connecting internet to the girl's computers, its not an option. Therefore I return to my previous statement, LAN capability is a top 3 factor for me when buying a game. I also do not see why I should have to buy a different $50 game for each computer, when I am only playing on my own network, so games such as NWN, that require a unique game key for each computer, will never see my money either. The software companies have a right to design their games and charge in whatever way they see fit, I support that right wholeheartedly, but on the flip side, I refuse to give them my money when they don't support what I want and need in their game.

Sorry to get off topic, but it still relates to the OP, because the question is about LAN capability.

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Jozrael

Well, that is a point. Blizz seems to have decided that if you want to play SC2, each computer in the game must have its own copy. They might reinstitute 'spawning', though, which is a limited form of play that let's you test it out, as the original did.

Vaultboy

I own a legal copy of Warcraft 3, but I play on a private server, simply because it is fast and games have less lag than on 0fficial servers.

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Jozrael

Fair enough. However, they will be changing around the delay (the kind of lag you mentioned) in bnet 2.0. I personally use third party progs that provide me no ingame advantage. These allow me to reduce the delay (lag you mentioned) when I host to less than the private servers for every player in my game. Technically, I could be banned for them, but everytime Blizzard has had mass bannings of accounts using third party progs, me and my friends that just use these hosting aids are spared. It makes me think that maybe they've decided certain 3rd party progs that are just to patch inadequacies in their game are acceptable.

SecretMethod70

The EFF site on the case of Blizzard vs BnetD sums up the issue. Obviously, I agree with the EFF here and that the court ruling was incorrect. The Cornell Law Review has a relatively short description of the negative impact of the case as well.

I remember what Bnet was like during the days of BnetD. I played (more accurately, tried to play) Diablo on Bnet and it was a terrible experience: cheaters, lag, disconnects. I don't doubt that it's better now, with more ubiquitous high speed internet, and what I understand to be Blizzard's increasingly tight grip on the service, but that doesn't make up for their actions. BnetD wasn't created as a tool for piracy, it was created as an alternative for people who purchased a Blizzard game to play online if they did not like the experience connecting to blizzard's Battle.net servers. Attacking BnetD because it also makes it easier for pirates is like attacking the entire bittorrent protocol because most of its use is for piracy. That bittorrent is primarily used by pirates has nothing to do with whether or not it is a valid, useful, and legal protocol, and the fact that BnetD allowed pirates to play online is irrelevant to whether or not individuals are legally allowed to make free programs that inter-operate with commercial programs.

And if that's not enough, the BnetD developers offered to work with Blizzard to add CD key checking into BnetD, but Blizzard refused. It wasn't merely that they wanted to fight piracy, they wanted to remove competition in serving online Blizzard games.

I said Blizzard is nowhere near as evil as EA, and I'll say it again: EA is in a whole other galaxy when it comes to bad corporate practices. Blizzard is simply on the level of most major technology companies out there right now... abusing the law to fight independent development and fair use while they try to figure out new business models in the changing technological landscape.

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Jozrael

I suppose I'll have to agree to disagree on this one. While I am a big supporter of the open source community, I think there are certain interactions with commercial programs that are ethical and those that are not. BnetD pulled Blizzard's consumers off Bnet and lost potential revenue that way (by providing an avenue to piracy, lost adspace, etc.). I fully support (nonhacking) third party progs that supplement Blizzard's games. And, you'll notice, Blizz hasn't pursued the makers of those programs. Nor is it even banning keys for the use of them.

And I think there's a bit of spin on the way you're portraying competition. Monopolys are big and evil and all, but I don't think blizzard is out of line in wanting to be the only server of its online games. They created the product, created an avenue to use it online (that's free, no less), I think there's nothing wrong with expecting that to be the end of the line. Competition among other games, sure. They're not creating a monopoly in their field (videogames at large), but their specific product, which I think is correct. It's like one juice vendor taking a competitor's product, pouring it into its bottle, and selling it as its own.

tcp

Someone should ask Blizzard if they will continue to use LAN games during development.

Zeraph

I think it's messed up. There are plenty of legit uses for LAN, more than not. It's not going to stop pirated online play. I'm not even a hacker and I can already think of a work around. As far as playing or not it would have mattered when I was younger, and my friends and I would get together for LAN parties, but I'm older now and don't have the luxury/need. But I feel bad for the younger generations if LAN is going to go out of style.

Jozrael

I just think times have changed. Any time a LAN party worth it's salt is hosted anymore, they're going to have an internet connection. About the only use I can think is if you're like...camping or something, and want to have a game. Which is probably not that high on their priority list to support :P.

Zeraph

Not if your 13 and don't have internet access or don't want to ask your parents to set it up. Trust me I've been there. Nothing less cool than saying "hey let me just get my mom to..." when I was a kid.

Cynthetiq

I'm going to go with a different reason than that of Piracy.... but the simple long short of it development costs.

They don't have to develop the simple LAN access part. It simple to think that it was cut because the rest of the budget is so great.

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Jozrael

Um, I can 100% assure you that's not the case. SC2 has almost literally unlimited budget. As in they have the funds available from WoW to finance 20 normal games. Also, they won't not put in a feature because it will increase the development cycle. Their motto is 'its ready when its ready', and this has been in production since 2003. (Announced in 2007). They're taking their sweet time about it. The sole reason not to include LAN is to A: combot piracy, and B: they think that whatever Bnet 2.0 is capable of, it'll be a satisfactory replacement for LAN.

Cynthetiq

Umm... but at the end... you state exactly what I'm stating, "The sole reason not to include LAN is to A: combot piracy, and B: they think that whatever Bnet 2.0 is capable of, it'll be a satisfactory replacement for LAN."

There's still a cost associated with doing it, if there's a satisfactory solution, why add complexity to the process both development and use if it's simpler and easier to funnel everyone into one simple system. Development costs isn't just about money, it's about time and resources as well.

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YaWhateva

I specifically remember we would disconnect the LAN parties from the internet because when there's internet people would always just get online and play games with people online. It ruined the whole LAN portion of the party.

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SecretMethod70

Yup, or whoever isn't playing at any given time slows down the connection by using the internet instead.

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Jozrael

@Yawhateva: That's a really valid point! I hadn't thought of that. All the LAN parties I've been to had that fatal flaw (still fun though).

@SecretMethod: I'm not sure that happens though. I'm pretty sure our LANs are robust enough to handle both. I mean, they can handle like 6k connections (diff subnets, but still).

SecretMethod70

I don't know what kind of LAN parties you go to, but the ones I'm at are always at a friend's place, with a basic home connection. Semi-professional LAN parties don't count.

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Nisses

I don't think a LAN connectivity module would be that much trouble. They need need to make it anyway to afterwards build on it to make the connection to BNet.

It's all about "combatting piracy" and getting more info on the people that play the game.

I always liked BattleNet, so I'm not really all that much against it, but I can't see any good reason to not include it apart from the piracy-idea and the fact that it will let them gather information on the players (as a whole - statisticswise)

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Frosstbyte

I cannot believe that this is a point of contention at this point in our technological progress. Internet connections are not what they were when SC came out. Computers are not what they were when SC came out. The number of people that this will really stop from playing SC 2 the way that they want to is so infinitesimally small as to be irrelevant, which is precisely why it's not supported. The LAN party as a concept lives on and lives on strong (as someone who does it rather often WoW). The LAN party as necessitating an actual LAN was slaughtered by fast, stable internet connections.

If you LAN with people who download terabytes of torrents and fuck your ping while they're not playing or people who play with randoms from battle.net during a LAN, you need new friends, not for blizzard to support an outdated playstyle. If you want to play by yourself with your own friends, make private, password protected games. Seriously, come on.

This is not some ridiculous DRM that horribly inconveniences the trustworthy to ineffectually inconvenience the people who will try to steal it anyway. This is a company who has provided (relatively) stable online play to millions of individuals and made untold millions of dollars doing so over the past five years. I think they felt confident they could provide a robust and stable system for everyone who wants to play SC2, too, without needing to add extra code to support old school geeks who want to have traditional LAN parties just to have traditional LAN parties.

Jozrael

No, I have LANs at my college. But even at home, anyone hosting a LAN party should have a router with as many connections as there are attendees. Especially if it's a regular event. Don't have one? $50 bucks at RadioShack, WalMart. Done.

Flinx

Your missing a big part of the traditional lan party, the social part. Being in the same room or house as the people you are playing with. I "host" a traditional lan party at times because I happen to have the equipment needed on hand. 2 routers ( 1 on cable 1 on DSL), both get hooked to a freebsd box used as NAT/Firewall/DHCP. The freebsd box is hooked to a 3Com SuperStack II hub (10/100 24 port).
Overkill?
Nope, had all 24 ports filled with friends and friends of friends once or twice.
Fun?
OH HELL YEAH. We are not always paying the same game at the same time and at times some people will sit out an just watch or kibitz maybe trade some files amongst themselves.
Maybe show a buddy how to do that really hard spot in Half Life 2 EP3 (example) by firing up HL2 and playing it for a bit. Sometimes a little one on one with the rest crowded around cheering or talking some trash happens too, usually after a hard multiplayer battle...
Don't know about you but I don't buy all the games that come out, but when you get 15 or so gamers in the same room you get a very wide selection of whats available. Good time to maybe try that game you've been thinking about? Same goes with hardware since everyone brings their own system.
Need a bit of help computer related? Again, that many "old school geeks" in one place there is bound to be a few programing gurus or a hardcore hardware fan that could quite possibly know just what you need.
In other words if you have never been to a traditional style lan party man you've missed out on a lot of fun, even if it is just a homebrew one.

Frosstbyte

You missed my point. All I meant is that having to literally use a LAN to have a "LAN party" is outdated technologically given the speed of home computers and Internet connections. I think you will be able to still have big groups of gamers crammed into basements together to play and can do the hosting over battle.net. The only difference is where the game host is, not that you won't be able to have a LAN party.