Print
The petition may already be having fond, nostalgic memories of the time it was at 100,000 signatures, but Blizzard’s decision to keep StarCraft II LAN-free remains set in stone. So, one might wonder, is Blizzard an unfeeling, out-of-touch monster? Does it even care what its fans think? Blizzard’s Rob Pardo was taken to task with such a question, and he fired back with this little number:
“Of course we care, but it’s not like we’re surprised that there’s a petition about LAN in Star II. It’s not like we went, ‘D’oh. People care about that?’ Clearly, we knew, it was a very tough decision, and I’d say we’d been talking about it back and forth for well over a year before we finally decided that this is more the direction for the future for us, and actually for the industry.”
“If you look at LAN, that goes back to the War II days, with Cali and stuff like that. I think LAN will be a great footnote in our history, just like DOS was. It’s just something that, with broadband and with the connections and the things that we can do on Battle.net, and having to support LAN in addition to that… It’s the sort of decision we have to make that has to be the lowest common denominator for both. I don’t necessarily think [LAN’s] going to be the way of the future. And that’s going to be the best thing for Star II and our future games.”
So there you have it. Blizzard thinks history is all well and good, but the future’s where it’s at. And we imagine Blizzard knows a thing or two about the future. After all, the company did birth one of the greatest futuristic sci-fi gaming series of all time. And that concludes this week’s installment of Flawless Logic Theater.
Comments are closed on this article
quantumnerd
August 20, 2009 at 12:00pm
Blizzard thinks that this will stop piracy by forcing everyone to use their special accounts.
However, it would be better to make online play check for legitness (maybe not even with a battle.net acc) and not local play. Let people pirate the game like hell, but keep online away from them unles they want to pay for a legit copy. The way they're going now, people will just hax the game, circumvent copy protection, and give them the middle finger.
Taking LAN away would make (at least partial) sense if internet was EVERYWHERE and INSTANTANEOUS. Let me say that again. If internet was EVERYWHERE and INSTANTANEOUS. Which it's not. LAN is local. Internet is not.
Spider-Mom
August 19, 2009 at 10:57pm
LAN IS OFFICIALLY DEAD! Just look what I got in the mail today
http://lanfest.intel.com/?page=event&eventid=1345
that proves it! Lan is history!
johnny3144
August 18, 2009 at 7:07pm
well, can't blame blizzard for trying...
but you gotta say, this is much smarter than securRom BS. and blizzard prob will make extra care to not let you have LAN eaisly.
johnny3144
August 18, 2009 at 4:41pm
is this some way of copy protecting SC2? so people are forced to use battle.net with accounts and stuff...
it does sound fairly reasonable blizzard want to do this, i mean just think about how many copy of starcraft is being pirated right now. and now think how many of it would be pirated if there is no Lan or cracked battle.net.
i personally dont' hate blizzard for this. they are making the game, so they got the right to decide what to put in the game, and what not. if you really cant accept no LAN feature which you gonna use less than 10 time a year, don't play or buy the game. i mean how many of you really gonna have 6 people playing every day in the same room?
nekollx
August 18, 2009 at 4:42pm
you can quote me on this.
Within a month there will be a crack for SC2 for lan plan
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
sreesesr
August 18, 2009 at 3:51pm
Thanks Blizzard, you just screwed a couple 100,000 soldiers over here in Iraq and Afghanistan who do nothing but look forward to a break so we can play SC and WC on LAN. Internet sucks too bad over here for everyone to have to connect to a lame server somewhere just to get away from all the war for a few hours. In fact, where we go after this, there is NO INTERNET access. We carry wireless routers with us for some competition.
Don't worry, looks like we will be saving some money to buy new routers for next deployment instead of SCII.
U.S. Army Sergeant
nekollx
August 18, 2009 at 4:10pm
No offense Sarge butI've never really understood why warriors in wartime choose to play a wargame between deployments...seems like a warrior would want a break from war now and again.
Mind enlighteneing me?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
sreesesr
August 18, 2009 at 4:27pm
Oh, that's simple, it's fun and you are not getting shot at by real bullets or getting blown up by real bombs. The guys I play with keep all their limbs too.
U.S. Army Sergeant
chris.peplin
August 18, 2009 at 11:12am
Sorry, but I don't buy the "LAN will be a great footnote in our history" line. I understand phasing out technologies if it would take extra effort (ie. development time) to retain them, but in the case of LAN support, it takes more work to disable it.
The online component will surely use TCP/IP, so "enabling" LAN support is a trivial matter of allowing you to specify a local server IP.
nekollx
August 18, 2009 at 10:14am
*waves 50 bucks at Blizard*
*turns*
*walks away*
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
AntiHero
August 18, 2009 at 9:54am
I know people will indeed find a workaround, however they shouldn't have to. All RTS and Shooter games should have a LAN feature, period. Some people still game in the Dial Up connection zone, not many, but some, I know at least one, and he is pretty displeased with this ruling by Blizzard. LAN Play was the main thing about their games. Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo all relied on LAN play for a good while until broadband became the normal thing. I still go to LAN's, why do you think I got a gaming laptop? Half my reasoning behind it was the fact that I woul have a lightweight and easily packed up machine for LAN's, having SC2 in mind as well on that decision. Hell, every fps I've seen recently has a LAN function unless it was a downloaded MMO game, which then of course it requires a login server to gather your player data. All in all, it's making me go from "I'm so buying that in special edition..." to "I'll get it if more than 2 of my friends do." Great job Blizzard, you lost me and my friends on World of Warcraft, and now Starcraft II. You'll see the errors here if you do something this stupid with Diablo III...I hope a Blizzard employee reads this, feel free to contact me and ream me out if you think you're up to the challenge.
I don't like Microsoft, I associate with it.
habuza
August 18, 2009 at 9:07am
Alienating your long time fans. I'm not buying SCII because of the "lan is a dinosaur blah blah blah" speak. The only reason I will buy Diablo 3 is because I only play singleplayer to avoid the hacking / exploiting ass-hattery. GG Blizz.
1337Goose
August 18, 2009 at 8:09am
LAN was the cornerstone of SC.
So here's what gets me. If five of my buddies are over, and we want to have an SC game in the same room (so that we can scream at each other in person), do ALL of us have to connect to a blizzard server over my 5Mb connection and send packets over the internet, even though we're in the same room?
Screw upgrading to SC2. SC is still good, I still play it all the time. I can't believe blizzard would do this.
samduhman
August 18, 2009 at 8:52am
I agree. This online attitude for all mulitplayer gameplay is really starting to piss me off. If thats the future its pathetic.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with good ol' LAN play. The need to connect to some fricking server is out of control. It's getting to the point where every game has to connect to same damn server even if you buy the retail copy such as Warhammer II and Empire: Total War and just want to play single player
LAN PLAY DESTROYS ONLINE PLAY
Muerte
August 18, 2009 at 6:54am
Well, looks like game utilities like Kali will become relevant again.
For those of you to young to remember Kali fooled games that only worked on LANs to work on the internet. I imagine its not to hard to make the reverse possible.
Bad move Blizzard.
zerokool
August 18, 2009 at 5:49am
I personally haven used LAN in a while so playing online is cool with me. However, if people want to play on LAN it shouldnt even need to be on their battle.net service nor should it require you to connect to the internet. Think of all the extra bandwidth that would be aleviated by not having people playing LAN games using battle.net. Its clearly an Anti Piracy measure to ensure that gamers have paid for the game and arnSheett giving it to their friends to play. The argument in this case is that Blizzard could be losing potential customers. If noone ever played the origional StarCraft and they went to a friendSheets house/LAN party and noticed how awesome the game was then theymay decide to purchase it. Ive sold my friend son several games that support LAN and they went on Steam and got it right away. But hey, Blizzard can do what they want and not care about its customer base and their needs. People will still go buy StarCraft 2 and the sun will still come up in the mornings. Just putting in my two cents. Not that Blizzard even cares, whatever...
People should know when they have been conquired!
urdead4g
August 18, 2009 at 5:14am
Doesn't really matter much for those who pirate, its going to happen anywanys. There's gonna b a LAN enabled crack pirated copy and we're just going to use that for LAN parties.
Aparently Blizzard knows about the past? pft, LAN is one of the PC's most important features in gaming.
Stuff like this only hurts the honest gamers and even teaches the honest gamers to find ways to get around it, by being not so honest..
I used to defend Blizzard cause at least they had your back with content and LAN and true gaming values.
Does this mean that Blizzards future means "We dont have your back, and if you really want something, do it yourself. And all you honest gamers, go fk yourselfs!"
zioburosky13
August 18, 2009 at 3:42am
Hey Blizzard, not everyone owns a stable and big fat bandwidth internet connection. No body wants to login to an online app. just to play a LAN game. And not everyone gives a shit about your e-penis I mean in-game achievements.
Blizzard is losing itself in the sea of money.
Stry8993
August 18, 2009 at 1:42am
And to be honest, I don't care how fast anyones connection is, if 8 people are gaming it up for a LAN Party, thats really going to take out of the host's connection, and thats if he can support 8 PEOPLE ON HIS/HER ROUTER!!! I mean, 30ms, 20ms, I don't care how fast your damn Battle.net is, nothing beats the speed of LAN, hands down. And nothing you do, can, will, or want to persue is going to stop piracy. The world has opressed many things, but they always, eventually, find a way.
We all remember what happened to spore when EA tried to stick it's fingers up our @$$'s with its DRM. WE are who buys the game, WE pay your paycheque, WE employ you to make US games. Its not about what YOU want, or what YOU WANT to do.
Really Blizzard, you can only herd people so much, until they just get sick of it. And I'm really tired of grinding 1000+ Hours a Month for items/badges, only for you to release more, so that I have to spend another 15.00 + 1000+ Hours of Time.
Glad to see Blizz is doing it's part for the Pro-Gaming Scene... sad day. Viva la Quake Forever, For Always!
Spider-Mom
August 18, 2009 at 12:13am
At least now theyve got a list of the first 100,000 to be pirateing this game. Fk them 4 this. I dont give a shit what they think the future holds or what their past was. these fk tards are out of touch as any one who has spent a sleepless night under the black lights at a lan fest can tell you.
Their logic is fking retarded as well. When have games EVER needed LAN capabilities since at least the 90s? Its always been an amenity.
They are either incredibly stupid or outright dishonest. Either way, fk these guys.
Crazybillybob
August 17, 2009 at 9:50pm
I'm not sure What Blizzard is thinking with this one... I'm sure someone will work out a way to play this on a LAN... The have with WOW....
If they think this will limit piracy, they haven't looked around at the "real World", someone will find away around it (SPORE) and it will be in the wild for free.... It feels more like Apple's walled garden thinking to me... force everyone to use our servers so we can control your experiance... which can be good and bad. If they start limiting what we can see or do it will be bad, if it helps in making download, patch, and try to join a server ritual a thing of the past (ala steam) it will be a good thing.
I'm willing to wait and see.... but the no LAN is a dumb move!!
Velcrow
August 17, 2009 at 9:34pm
Ya know, I'd almost agree with them, except I was at Quakecon this last weekend... and all Internet games except QuakeLive was completely unplayable. In fact, I take that back. I don't almost agree with them. Almost every gaming household uses a small network, so even in the event of losing Internet to the outside world (which still happens, but apparantly not in the future) friends and/or family could still play. This decision reeks of alterior motive. The most apparent would be to push the new Battle.Net. Other's may be piracy and cost savings.
But another poster is right, it'll be hacked regardless. Apparently Blizzard can't see into the future far enough to know how to prevent that.
nmanguy
August 17, 2009 at 9:32pm
Just the other day I hung out with about 7 others and had a great LAN with CS:S and TF2. With CS:S, I had more fun than any online round I ever played, and TF2 was on-par with some of the best online I've had. There's just something about playing with other poeple that you know, who aren't dicks, and who enjoy the game as much as you do. I wasn't planning on ever playing SC2, but now I know that if a company doesn't give their game as much love as Valve does, then their game will probably end up being something like Fallout 3 or Spore: A game that is good, but the company tries to lock down your game (to a point though, after all, look at the F3 mods and theSpore creature-sharing) and then nickel-and-dime you for micro-expansions.
By the way, when will the comments be compatible with firefox's spell check.
rseding91
August 17, 2009 at 9:26pm
Even though some games don't have lan support you can almost always trick the game into working on a lan.
Such as creating a "favorite" server and useing a local IP.
There will always be a workaround. Someone will find a way to make it work on LAN.
foamcup
August 17, 2009 at 9:22pm
How is this going to work for tourneys or LAN parties? One would think that LAN play is preferable in these situations, you know, no lag.
