101 replies to this topic

[KiraSama]

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/190/St...persInterviewed

Quote

Will StarCraft II be available on consoles, or over LAN?

We got quite different answers about local area networking (LAN), where both Dustin or Sigaty said they were still discussing it, however, Pardo knew immediately: "we don't have any plans to support LAN," he said and clarified "we will not support it." The only multiplayer available will be on Battle.net.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot

[Wizard]

Not being a "lanner" I really can't say whether or not this is an issue. It sounds to me like they've made a decision to cut costs by targetting what they think is their market base of online gamers. How many people really lan these days?

[TheDR]

I remember reading somewhere of of a rumor saying they might get people to subscribe to Battle.net, so you would have to pay to play online.

They have also taken Lan out of Diablo 3, so you might also have to pay for online on that as well. This is all just speculation tho.

[KiraSama]

Wizard, on 29 Jun 2009, 17:52, said:

How many people really lan these days?

er....
People who use Hamachi
People who go to Lan parties
Koreans in tournaments

I think there is more....but talking about starcraft the last group is really important, specially in a game very based about micro and clicks per second

[Wizard]

By that I meant how many recent releases support lan gaming. I really am no expert but I haven't bought a game recently (except BF2) that supports it.

[BillyChaka]

Shit, man. I have friends who're gonna rage about this. Like, LAN is the only way me and my buddies play. Very, VERY bad idea.

Edited by BillyChaka, 29 June 2009 - 16:20.

[KiraSama]

Wizard, on 29 Jun 2009, 18:03, said:

By that I meant how many recent releases support lan gaming. I really am no expert but I haven't bought a game recently (except BF2) that supports it.

as far as i know pretty much any game with some sort of multiplayer element supports lan


@TheDR
Battle.net is going to be free, but microtransactions seems to going to be strong...or at least rumors say that

[TheDR]

KiraSama, on 29 Jun 2009, 17:20, said:

Wizard, on 29 Jun 2009, 18:03, said:

By that I meant how many recent releases support lan gaming. I really am no expert but I haven't bought a game recently (except BF2) that supports it.

as far as i know pretty much any game with some sort of multiplayer element supports lan


@TheDR
Battle.net is going to be free, but microtransactions seems to going to be strong...or at least rumors say that

Thats good, i could never bring myself to subscribe to online play.

[Stalker]

The reason is pretty simple to me: Having no LAN will cause small trouble to buyers and big trouble to pirates.

It just means that you need to buy the game to play in multiplayer.

For Diablo 3 there is another problem: Modding.

Why bother modding a game if you can only play your mods in singleplayer

[Golan]

[insert Big No here]

That's really a shame. Even though most people are able to simulate Lan games by logging in to a BNet game, there's still those who can't or won't (and also legally own the game) for various reasons. I still enjoy the occasional round of CoD4, SC, Q3A and CS (yeah, I'm an old sucker) over LAN, especially when having my laptop with you. Especially in the light of SC (and other Blizz games of that time IIRC) having the brilliant feature of spawned versions (allowing up to 8 players to play with the same CD), this really is a let down.

Then again, it is SCII, so I'll be buying it anyways (yes, all three of those moneysuckingbitchwhoringcapitalismextreme packages).

[Sgt. Rho]

I'm not gonna buy it then.

[Dr. Knickers]

I'm still gonna get the game, but I'm definitely not happy with this. I pretty much avoided BNet with StarCraft and just played with my friends over LAN.

[Teron]

I think, the reason why Blizzard made this step is, because many people would just pirate the game and play it over hamachi. So the only persons who get "hurt" are those who pirate games.

Also, an internet connection has become something normal like radio or tv. So I don't see a problem with this. Seriously, when was the last time your internet connection failed, hm?

Besides, you will still be able to play Starcraft 2 over "LAN", because even now when you play a game over battlenet (e.g. Warcraft 3), you'll get directly connected to these persons computer.
I might even say, you can take all your friend's computers, wire them together via a router, login (with each) to battlenet and join a selfmade custom game. After joining your game, you can cut the internet connection, because all are playing in the same network in which the router does all the routing. So no problem here (= no lag at all)

PLUS: The new battlenet 2.0 is coming and I'm sure will be adapted to the new anti-pirate system.

[Sharpnessism]

Quote

I think, the reason why Blizzard made this step is, because many people would just pirate the game and play it over hamachi. So the only persons who get "hurt" are those who pirate games.

Pretty much. There are ~200k people at peak time on Garena (better version of hamachi) for War3, the majority of those people didn't pay at all for it. Not to mention the people who play on hamachi. Same with SC, I don't know anyone that legally owns the game but I could list dozens of people who have DL'd it (despite the fact that War3/SC is available almost everywhere for a cheap price).

Quote

er....
People who use Hamachi
People who go to Lan parties
Koreans in tournaments

I think there is more....but talking about starcraft the last group is really important, specially in a game very based about micro and clicks per second

The last group for them it won't matter. There's multiple programs that emulate LAN conditions on B.net for War3 so there'll be programs for SCII as well, I won't be surprised if Blizzard themselves release such a program or if Blizzard upgrades B.net so there'll be no use for such a program.

As well, I don't know anyone that uses hamachi for SC or War3 that has legally owns the game. Since SC/War3 have many UMS maps on B.net, there's no incentive to play on hamachi. Plus unlike Gamespy, I haven't seen any problems with B.net, never met or seen a person who had problems getting onto B.net and playing with people.

Still, personally I would have preferred LAN support so I would be able to play the game over Garena :l

Edited by Sharpnessism, 29 June 2009 - 19:16.

[General]

Bad thing is they will eventually stop their support for Online and noone will able to play it again, and game will be short-lived, thats a stupid decision, unless they plan to pay to servers ' forever '. People may want to play this game 10 years later with their friends as nostalgia and they will not able to do because they will ' eventually ' stop servers.
Oh I talk as a person who doesn't know a shit about Starcraft, so its actually don't bother me.

[Golan]

I seriously doubt that the Battle.Net/Battle.Net2 will be closed anytime soon or that games won't be supported. The current Battle.Net still supports WCII, D1 and SC, which were released in '95, '96 and '99.

[RaiDK]

LOL.

On the one hand, this is a brilliant anti piracy movie.

On the other hand, they're taking out a core part of the game.

But hey, it's Blizzard. People will worship them for it either way.

[deltaepsilon]

I'll still be playing ShockWave over Hamachi

[TehKiller]

Teron, on 29 Jun 2009, 19:13, said:

I think, the reason why Blizzard made this step is, because many people would just pirate the game and play it over hamachi. So the only persons who get "hurt" are those who pirate games.

And LAN centres, Internet caffe's, LAN parties....I can give you a whole load of other examples

[Dauth]

Not to mention it will only take some people a couple of hours to figure out how to fool the game into thinking its online when its really only on a LAN.

[CodeCat]

So in that sense, it actually promotes piracy since it's just giving people more of a reason to circumvent the game's limitations.

[TehKiller]

Hmmm never thought about that. Actually after thinking about it I actually agree with that statement

[KiraSama]

CodeCat, on 30 Jun 2009, 11:57, said:

So in that sense, it actually promotes piracy since it's just giving people more of a reason to circumvent the game's limitations.

Basically, hell, its that hard to do it like in steam? you need to be conected online to battle.net but can play lan after conecting to it

[Ion Cannon!]

CodeCat, on 30 Jun 2009, 10:57, said:

So in that sense, it actually promotes piracy since it's just giving people more of a reason to circumvent the game's limitations.

Even if the game only cost £5 and had zero limitations people would still pirate it. They seem to think its their right somewhat.

[RaiDK]

With piracy people seem to think that there's this weird inbetween degree of quality where a game is good enough to play, but not good enough to get legitimately.

That being said, Starcraft II will most likely not fall into this category and will be pirated anyway.