Blizzard have revealed, by way of an interview with
incgamers.com, that the hotly anticipated StarCraft 2 won't support multiplayer over local network, only via their battle.net online service.
The reason given for this from Blizzard VP Rob Pardo was a vague "because of the planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net". Obviously this doesn't mean people on a LAN won't be able to play against each other, just that they'll need to have internet connectivity and login to battle.net in order to do so.
Perhaps it's not such a huge deal these days, as most anywhere you'd be playing on LAN would have Internet access. Still, we can't help but feel a little stung. It's arguable that much of the original StarCraft's popularity is owed to it's strong local network component and WarCraft 3 was well supported on LAN as well, so why the sudden lack? Will Diablo 3 suffer the same fate?
Posted 09:30am 30/6/09
Posted 09:33am 30/6/09
Posted 09:37am 30/6/09
Aside from making more moneys there doesn't seem to be any need to just hack out the LAN multi and reduce the game's multiplayer surface? I wonder if we'll see a B.Net subscription as well? No doubt Vivactivision love the s*** out of pay to play with all the blow and whores their fat wow stacks buys them.
last edited by Hogfather at 09:37:22 30/Jun/09
Posted 09:38am 30/6/09
Posted 09:39am 30/6/09
I blame trog and his anti-qgl lan stance.
Actually I should blame myself, I used to run a 20-30 person lan every few months and then just got lazy.
Posted 09:41am 30/6/09
Posted 09:50am 30/6/09
Posted 09:51am 30/6/09
Posted 09:56am 30/6/09
I still play Broodwar over LAN :(
Goddamnit, this is going to be more frustrating then trying to install Orange Box without an internet connection.
Posted 10:00am 30/6/09
Blizzcon in late August, will probably announce the release date for Starcraft2 then. Hopefully Diablo 3 as well but doubtful. The big news will probably be the details about their new MMO or another Wow expansion
Posted 10:01am 30/6/09
I still agree it's totally lame, but realistically I can't figure it interfering with that many people's games.
Posted 10:04am 30/6/09
10-20 people on someones home internet connection (often ADSL1) is a complete failure.
Posted 10:07am 30/6/09
I hadn't even really heard of it untill I was getting my ass handed to me in a LAN game with a mates Key. I guess these days Blizzard doesn't need the same sort of exposure because everyone knows their Name/Games and I can totally see why they would goto a bNet only system.
I really should stop spending money on the Jeep for a little while so I can afford to get a system that can play the new Blizzard games :/
Posted 10:08am 30/6/09
Posted 10:11am 30/6/09
It just sounds like a little bit more fart arsing around. It also ensures that 10-20 people have purchased the game and not just copied it from their mates at the LAN. ... until a B.Net emulator for SC2 arrives anyway, at which point Blizzard have most of their sales and don't care.
Posted 10:18am 30/6/09
Posted 10:28am 30/6/09
I hope as trog said, the Battle.Net authentication will be enough to play LAN games through and Starcraft II's netcode will be smart enough to figure the machines are on a LAN and swap packets with each other rather then out via a router.
Otherwise we'll be in strife at LanSmas** :P
Posted 10:58am 30/6/09
Posted 11:02am 30/6/09
yeah im sure it would be too. Im just envisioning when 10-20 guys are all setup and the internet goes down for some reason and everyone sits around being pissed off.
Posted 11:27am 30/6/09
Posted 11:33am 30/6/09
Posted 11:39am 30/6/09
Im sure they will still let you play for free online but will probably make a "premium" service, with extra features, which are basically normal features that they take out and call premium.
Posted 11:43am 30/6/09
Posted 11:53am 30/6/09
You know - way back when, Warcraft 2 used to have a "Install Spawn" option, same with diablo 1 i think. You'd install the full game and it could host 3(?) other people on its network. The idea was at a LAN you could still play with your mates as long as one of you owned a copy. Just needed one legit version for every 3 spawns or something..
Not that i think they'd bring it back. But could kind of work. Tied in "spawn" style bnet login restricted to joining your friends LAN game only.
Posted 12:47pm 30/6/09
Posted 01:11pm 30/6/09
But this, combined with the consolidation of Battle.net and WoW authentication / account systems screams a new subscription revenue service for SC2 multiplayer. I can totally see a subscription for BN that includes a bunch of s*** that should be free (like Spawning to mates for example), with some sort of all-access system for multiple games.
It all just reeks of someone in the accounting / financial department who is in love with the monthly pile of cash from warcraft wanting to leverage a subscription for the new game somehow.
After all the e-rage millions of people will open their wallets too, and I guess I'll probably be one of them.
Posted 01:24pm 30/6/09
Posted 01:31pm 30/6/09
Posted 02:01pm 30/6/09
I suspect you will need to login to b.net to authenticate, but if you host a game with all local people on the LAN, then it will probably only run locally. So essentially there is no LAN option, but it will act like a LAN game with LAN ping times etc. Well that's what I hope, and it makes sense when you think about the tournaments running locally.
Posted 03:14pm 30/6/09
Posted 03:16pm 30/6/09
I wonder if you could sell 2 of the three keys that i would assume come with the 3 single versions.
Posted 05:15pm 30/6/09
Posted 05:53pm 30/6/09
Posted 06:01pm 30/6/09
You can play CoH on LAN without internet, if you can't authenticate with Relic it checks for a DVD (Assuming you don't have the Steam version).
Posted 06:38pm 30/6/09
Posted 06:50pm 30/6/09
Doesn't sound like that's the case though :( Surely they must realise people will definitely buy this masterpiece?
Posted 06:54pm 30/6/09
Posted 07:37pm 30/6/09
I can't see you guys caring about that problem, and surely you'll be buying the game anyway. No big deal IMO.
Posted 04:01am 01/7/09
Posted 09:42am 01/7/09
No doubt there, half of the reason I'll get this game is because there is likely to be a million tower defenses and DotA style maps. When bored of getting beat up by Koreans, it will be nice to fall back to one of the million user generated maps.
Posted 06:10pm 01/7/09
Money, Money Money
I for one won't be playing on no paid battlenet, roll on the new Star Wars MMO so Blizz will be loosing my sub
Posted 06:56pm 01/7/09
Posted 07:10pm 01/7/09
Posted 08:17am 02/7/09
Wait what? Bnet is paid for? Or do you mean you disagree for paying for games in general? Like you don't want to pay for starcraft the game just because you have to authenticate on bnet before playing lan?
Posted 10:48pm 06/7/09
Posted 06:40am 07/7/09
A crack for it will follow within 1-5 days.
People won't be able to play online with a pirated version, not until someone comes up with a B.Net emulator that works for SC2. However, by that time Blizzard have made a large percentage of their sales so they don't really care after that.
Posted 04:59am 02/8/09
At the monent MMORPG's are the only game that do this at a cost,
I can see it now,
"welcome heres your free battle net account" wow cool
log on to starcraft2
"Sorry it appers your battlenet account does not have a SC2 cd key would you like to purchase now" :(
Posted 05:46am 02/8/09
They are providing the computers and internet connectivity, not a license of every game you want to play.
Posted 07:28am 02/8/09
Posted 07:39am 02/8/09
Posted 01:48pm 14/8/09
Posted 01:52pm 14/8/09
But what people will want, is the ability to log into their starcraft 2 linked battle.net account because it contains their ranking and other important information that's stored against their account.
You can make pretty straight forward assumption that battle net will contain a lot more useful account bound information, in the efforts to make sure people purchase an account. Think of it like WoW. Who cares if you copy the client? The trick is to make all the useful and fun multiplayer stuff bound to an online service, hence its impossible to pirate if you want to play multiplayer.