StarCraft II LAN Dropped Thanks to Piracy

[deathblooms2k1]

Evidently Blizzard didn't get the memo. Piracy is dead. thepiratebay lost its case, everyone's going to jail, the copyright company's will get richer so they can end world hunger, etc.

Flash back to reality, Piracy is still alive and kicking with or without TPB, and it turns out removing features from a title is just as futile in preventing piracy as shutting down a torrent search engine.

I buy my games these days, I wait for reviews or play demos before I buy them but I spend the $ nevertheless (company's that make good games deserve to be rewarded for them). So I won't be pirating SC2. That said I know many people will. What really amuses me is this argument I had with my friend. Blizzard has made a ton off of WoW, my friend is a Die hard D2 fan and cannot wait for D3 to come out. My argument to him is that since WoW was so successful that D3 will now become Pay to Play, he's adamant that it won't because blizzard is so cool and cares about their customers. It seems as the release date gets closer it's seeming more and more realistic that blizzard will charge monthly fees for battle.net accounts. Anyone familiar with the sony station pass business model?

 

[eccentric909]

[citation][nom]The_Blood_Raven[/nom]All I ever do with Starcraft is play it on the LAN. Starcraft 2 without LAN will not be a game I will be buying.All I can say is this will INCREASE the amount of pirating of this game, I might pirate it to get through the campaign just to make a point.[/citation]

And what point is this? If you don't want to support Blizzard's stance on this, then don't buy the game and don't download it. By downloading it, you're just solidifying their position and "stated" reasoning of why they decided not to include LAN in the first place.

That is what I don't get about this stance. I agree, with the general feeling of not including LAN to be a giant slap in the face to the fans of the series. I was a teenager when Starcraft came out and I bought it up right away, played via LAN and over 14.4/28.8 modems for 2 player multi-player.

However, I don't understand the.. "Well, since you're not including LAN, I think I might just pirate it now." It is a childish response to a childish action the company itself is taking. Two wrongs don't make a right. If you truly are angry at Blizzard/Activision for removing the LAN feature to where you will not buy the game, then FFS do not download it either. Every downloaded/pirated copy just solidifies their position and leads to more games and game companies turning off the LAN feature to "stop piracy".

Talk with your wallet, don't be a hypocrite about it. If you're truly boycotting the game, then don't download it. Downloading/pirating it is not boycotting it. You're still supporting them by playing the damn game, whether you purchase it or not. You buy it, you support them. You download it, you're helping to support their decision to remove LAN to prevent pirating... which will in-turn end up making them and other game companies even more aggressive when it comes to copy protection.

 

[Quitoman]

You people are absolutely pathetic. Not buying a game because it doesn't support LAN.

If you want to play at a buddy's house just play over b.net. Moreover, if this game ever gets to the point where "Blizzard goes down" or "the servers aren't supported in the future" (and I doubt either will likely happen in the next 10-20 years) then it isn't like Blizzard can't add LAN support over a new patch or download down the road.

You all are every bit as bad as the L4D2 boycott bitches.

 

[lowguppy]

WTF, I'm just going to buy it for single player.

 

[Phosters]

I will still purchase the game, however I wouldn't doubt that some LAN support will be added due to a demand from esports of some kind. I can't see competitive gamers wanting to rely on blizznet, no matter how good it is.

 

[ZEPd3Z]

pirates aren't pirates at all, they're more like Communist, Most Pirates aren't pirating games for the money (at least it would seem that way since they release them on torrent sites so its "free") I think they just Like The challenge these "anti piracy measures" being thrown at them, and if that is the case, then Blizzard Just gave them a Treat, another puzzle to solve. maybe lower Prices can solve this piracy problem.

 

[ZEPd3Z]

I just want to add that why get it illegally when you can get all the support plus the goods that comes with the legit game. and if the game's cheap if you don't like it it's not a waste of money that could have gone to your second or third GPU.

 

[Guest]

Heck, many old games even had a lan-mode where you could install the game on multiple machines for _free_ and play a lan-match.

Like Total Annihilation. And bet what these companies made less bucks back then and still did the customer a favor with thick printed manuals, great boxes, additional cards etc.

So what can you do? Vote with your wallet, you may not be able to play some great games but at least you do not support a move where you only "rent" (copy protection that allows limited installation, servers that can go off, etc.) your games.

 

[zengrath]

I normally do not post on these types of articles, but i'm concerned at the fact of how well these battle.net servers will hold up. considering every single game i buy lately the online servers lag so bad it's unplayable.. Last one being the newer Sacred game... totally unplayable online, however fine in singleplayer.. If they do not do not spend every drop of money on making sure their servers run perfectly, and there is no lan option. They are going to fall really really really hard. I have a very bad feeling about this release now. Because i seriously doubt they are going to be prepared for the onslaught of people wanting to play early on, and i'm sorry. I will not purchase a game that i cannot play for weeks or months because they cannot handle the amount of players on their servers.

also they better have servers everywhere. if they put their server is me other country like most games do now. you can fully count me out in buying this. I'm not paying with a 200-300 ping. now way. Judging how WoW was for me, the ping was well over 300 at all times, yet i can hop on CoD or CS and have 30-50 ping and still get owned by those under me.

 

[Horhe]

I don't think that an unofficial mod/patch will appear that will add LAN to SC2, because it's nearly impossible to do this when you don't have access to the source code, so I say that there's no reason to wait for such a mod. There are 2 options regarding SC2 in multiplayer:
1. Buy the game and play on Battle.net.
2. Pirate the game and play on unofficial servers, which will be a pain, because the lag will be terrible.

 

[rooket]

LMAO @ me getting -6 for not supporting piracy of this product! I didn't say that I wouldn't download zerg and protoss from the internet, will this give me +6?

 

[fargom]

Just about every one of you is forgetting one important part of the article, I'm sure you are just ignoring it because it doesn't fit your rabid blizzard hate speach.

There will be achievements and stat tracking, so playing the game via battlenet will be by far the most enjoyable and prefered way to play. Be honest with yourself, what would stop you from going to a LAN party, then just connecting to Bnet?

I'm positive blizzard will be giving Bnet a facelift, they aren't going to screw up on something as important as SC2. So, post all you want, but I don't believe your crap. You ARE going to buy it, regardless of lan support. Stop being drama queens.

 

[doomgaze3]

What Blizzard

 

[doomgaze3]

The real moronic thing that all software companies seem to forget is that inside one month of release someone will already have a hacked battle.net server available for download... Making LAN play even easier. Ooops!

 

[jfortier]

The reason is obvious battle.net will begin charging at some point. They are addicted to the Wow income. It will probably be a monthly fee to play any game on blizzard game battle.net except for Wow (which will continue at its own rate). Don't expect it right at release but after they have sold a majority copies of the game. They will sight costs etc of maintaining the servers. This will hook you into the blizzard brand , if I am already coughing up 5 or 6 dollars a month to play on battle.net I will probably buy another game I can play on there. This will happen.

 

[dheadley]

I don't really think this is a consumer friendly move on their part. But then while I am a fan of blizzard games, I have never considered them a consumer friendly company to begin with. What I find crazy are some peoples almost rabid devotion to Blizzard.

I have all their games, played WoW from pre-release until this year when it finally became so boring I couldn't take it anymore. But I would never speak of Blizzard in all that time as being good to the consumer.

I find it really funny when I read articles about other games and people use blizzard as a example of the right way to do things. New MMO's come out and they suck because they have bugs or no content, too bad they didn't do it like Blizzard. Like WoW wasn't a pile a steaming poo for the first couple of months it was out and launch zones weren't still getting their content a year+ after release.

They are probably the only company that could get away with still keeping the price of Diabllo and StarCraft sets at $40.00 so many years later. Any other game maker of the same type of games would be have filtered them down to the 9.99-19.99 range for the whole "gold" or "platinum" set long ago.

They have always been greedy and people love them for it.

So anyway, the people saying, just have your LAN parties on-line are not very intelligent. A great deal of the LAN parties are conducted in places where no or limited internet connection is available. If you have dial-up there is no way that everyone can share the connection to B-Net. Even with a base DSL connection it would not work for more than a few players and doing it from different locations through B-Net makes it just like WoW and anyone that has ever played that game knows the frustration of grouping with people who are on slower connections. It a non-arguement.

 

[FloKid]

HAHAHA what some people would do for money... Dam no more friends coming over to heat up a battle on five laptops with fake keys. LOL. Funny. Wait 3v2? I meant 4 players 2v2... Oh well. Hehe. Peace.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Lan is a common port on things like garena to have multiplayer piracy. Depends on the quality of service of the newer b.net it's been quite easy to reduce lag down to nothing in rts games with correct coding so as a person who doesn't do lan parties i don't mind as long as the newer b.net isn't a pay service. But as a person that see lan promotions as a good way to get the game out there it is sad. Really the people saying fuck you over no lan are over reacting like children things have always been bypassed esp things like their b.net service is easily re routed to other servers in the past.

 

[doomsdaydave11]

[citation][nom]velocityg4[/nom]Well that is just ridiculous. What happens when Blizzard no longer runs compatible Battle.net servers? Or if Blizzard goes under.I won't buy this just like any MMORPG.If I buy a game I enjoy. I expect to be able to play it any time in the future. Assuming I can find and want to assemble still functioning compatible equipment 20+ years from now.Mostly I play single player games. However, the few games I enjoy multiplayer on need to allow LAN play. Such as Age of Empires.[/citation]
Dude I still have AoE2 LAN parties!! It's a staple! Hey, we suck at it, but it's awesome!

This sucks. It really does. Although hopefully we'll still be able to play an "LAN" using Battle.net and all joining one game... although somehow I doubt it.

This Piracy thing is bull. Just require people to register their key online first. Do the same thing as Company of Heroes... that works...

 

[mrsandoo]

What is the big deal with no LAN support? Clearly, if you can post on this thread and have the computer to run the game, you can play with your friends on battlenet.

People that say they will buy it if it had LAN is full of BS. If SC2 had LAN, why the hell would you buy it? You would simply DOWNLOAD IT like everyone I know does with AOE2 and SC I.

 

[stridervm]

*Sigh*

CD-Keys are already enough to frustrate pirates before. (No online is a HUGE plus.) Why bother changing now with the HUGE risk of fan backlash?

 

[dheadley]

That is one of the common and stupid remarks that fill this thread. Having an internet connection does not equal you can play the game just fine.

When I used to play Starcraft on LAN I was in the US NAVY living in the enlisted barracks complex. At the time we had no internet connections except the telephone, which went through a PBX system that would let you connect to dial-up accounts but only at very limited speeds and kicked you off after a short time. The rooms were layed out in a group of 4 two man rooms with a common area in the middle and we were constantly playing any LAN game we could get.

A lot of people that play LAN games are in military quarters, school dorms, etc. that do not allow internet connections or only allow one choice for connection and its a limiting one. Also many people from countries that have prohibitively high internet charges play via LAN parties.

Blizzard themselves have milked the Asian countries for years with Starcraft competitions and marketing building up the starcraft LAN capabilities.

As to your other comment, also a common and even dumber remark. I have never ripped off a single game in all the time i have played computer games, and that started way back when 386 machines were brand new and DOS was the OS of choice. Not one person I have ever gamed with has ever to my knowledge ripped one off either.

The first 15 years of my gaming life were mostly in the US Navy and even though we were making crap wages living in the barracks my friends and I actually bought every game we played. Currently I have over 120 games on my Steam account alone. My son has over 100 on his and most are the same as mine, so we could have saved the trouble and just traded off logging into games. Not to mention we have had copies of allot of those same games on disks but repurchased them on steam for the convienience of not worrying about lost disks or activation codes. We also have over 200 games on disk atm going back maybe 10 years and periodically go through them and get rid of older stuff or duplicates we picked up on steam, which i give to my brother and his kids to play (all legal as they have the disks and the key and they are only installed on their computer).

The people on this site and most others through out the everyone is a pirate card way, way , way more than the real number is. it seams to be the pat response for people with nothing more intelligent to say and that goes for both sides of the story. I'd say a great number of people that threaten to pirate on this site are blow smoke and don't actually do it like they say they do. I call it the wanna-be hakzers and piratz syndrome.

 

[4colyte]

Since when was this company run by a bunch of greedy control freaks. It is exactly this kind of behavior that encourages piracy. I was willing to spend $50 for this game, but after hearing this, I'd rather spend it on someone who can hack this game into LAN playable.
Let's see to it that those greedy pigs don't see a dime from this game.

 

[kartu]

[citation][nom]mrsandoo[/nom]If SC2 had LAN, why the hell would you buy it? You would simply DOWNLOAD IT like everyone I know does with AOE2 and SC I.[/citation]
Yep, hackers will fail to hack SII into lan, right, they've failed to do it with much more demanding Wolrd of Warcraft, didn't they?

 

[unlicensedhitman]

I honestly think that's a great idea! If they drop LAN, there will be more StarCraft 2 players on battle.net. There will be more new maps being developed!