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Blizzard Holds Ground - No LAN For SC2

Posted on July 1, 2009

 

Yesterday, Blizzard made the announcement that LAN would not be an included feature in StarCraft 2.  Not even 24 hours later, 7,000 gamers have signed a petition to negate this decision, and Blizzard responded.  A couple of posts from community managers and organizers on the Blizzard forums makes thing quite clear: There will be NO LAN for StarCraft 2.  Why?  Read more...

 

Fearing nothing other than Pirates, Blizzard has decided that LAN is a supporter of piracy more than local gaming.  Blizzard said,

 

As mentioned by Rob Pardo in interviews, piracy is a serious problem and often times tie in closely with LAN. At the end of the day, we want the best for the community and fans that support our games, and having chunk of the community pirate the game actually hurts the community.

1) Pirated servers splinter the community instead of consolidating all players who love to play the game. Battle.net will bring players together in skirmishes, ladder play, custom games, and allow everyone the opportunity to share a common experience.

2) More people on Battle.net means more even more resources devoted to evolving this online platform to cater to further community building and new ways to enjoy the game online. World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that has evolved beyond anyone’s imagination since their Day 1 and will continue to do so to better the player experience for as long as players support the title. The original StarCraft is an even better example of how 11 years later, players still love and play this title, and we will continue to support and evolve it with patches.

We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.

If I were to buy StarCraft II or any other title, I know the money I spent would be going to supporting that title. Personally, I would be upset that others were freeloading while others are legitimately supporting a title that has great potential and goals of making this title have ‘long legs.’

If you like a song a lot, buy it, and that artist will only come out with more awesome songs for you. If you like a game, buy it, and we will promise to constantly work to make the player experience better at every corner we can.

Support the causes you believe in (This is applicable to all things, not just gaming).
Don’t be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations.

If an artist releases a CD that you decide to actually buy, and that CD doesn't play on computers, only on CD players, is this a legitimate way to combat piracy, or just a di** move on the part of the artist?  How about lag?  LAN reduces lag, and at large gaming events and proleagues, the absence of LAN means that "Lan Parties" and "Lan Tournaments" will require large amounts of bandwidth to run all players simultaneously, or even at all.  Blizzard responds to latency & lan party concerns with the following quote (after a user questioned what would happen if the internet crashed):

Dreamhack is often referenced as the largest LAN party in the world… but in today’s age, that LAN is also connected to the internet.

I definitely hear your concern about the internet going out, which would be a huge, huge bummer! But as equally as unlikely, the power could go out…

Really, equally unlikely?  It doesn't take much for a router to fail, or even to accidentally get unplugged in a deciding game.  Sure, the power probably won't go out, but many of us are all-too-familiar with router problems, and it doesn't take much to throw a game completely with one crash.

GossipGamers asked the Blizzard Rep, "Karune, you know as well as I do that anti-piracy and LAN are not mutually exclusive.
Step 1: Connect to Battle.Net
Step 2: Authentication
Step 3: Access LAN games thereafter
There you go. Authenticated LAN play. Low latency. LAN parties. Happy customers."

I will be sure to forward ideas in regards to LAN as described. I too have many fond memories of LAN parties.

So there you have it folks, no LAN.  I hope Blizzard realizes that a large portion of the pirating community would not buy the game otherwise, and that no one will even pirate SC2 since it is the most anticipated game in a decade.  Keep an eye out for SC2 news!