No LAN in my StarCraft 2

[MetalCraze]

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/190 ... lopersTalk

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.

OK this is getting ridiculous. At least they think that consoles are pieces of shit.

Regarding consoles, it looks dark for anyone wanting to try out the RTS on anything but PC. We asked how large chance it is to see StarCraft II on consoles and Pardo replied simply: "Zero percent."

Blizzard tries to approach each game, and see what platform it should be on. "In our opinion we just don't feel like we will deliver the type of RTS game that we've been creating [on consoles]."

"We have tried in the past, we actually tried the original StarCraft on Nintendo 64. It works, it's playable, it's just such a different playability gameplay experience than on PC and we really don't want to have it be that different."

StarCraft was for Nintendo 64? Was it ever released? I must see it to believe.

 

[Kaiserin]

No LAN support? Good fucking grief that's ridiculous...

 

[SimpleComplexity]

No LAN? WTF BLIZZARD LOL BLASPHEMY, GTFO!

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

No LAN? That's the only way I ever enjoyed Scraft.

Also there are going to be a lot of angry Koreans. Tournaments won't work too well with no LAN, right?

 

[Kaiserin]

In before an apologist's explanation for how the new and improved battle.net will support tournament play.

 

[OSK]

Nintendo 64 version

In 2000, StarCraft 64 was released for the Nintendo 64, co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Mass Media Interactive Entertainment. The game featured all of the missions from both StarCraft and the expansion Brood War, as well as some exclusive missions, such as two different tutorials and a new secret mission, Resurrection IV.[58] Resurrection IV is set after the conclusion of Brood War, and follows Jim Raynor embarking on a mission to rescue the Brood War character Alexei Stukov, a vice admiral from Earth who has been captured by the Zerg. The Brood War missions required the use of a Nintendo 64 memory Expansion Pak to run.[59] In addition, StarCraft 64 features a split screen cooperative mode, allowing two players to control one force in-game.[60] StarCraft 64 was not as popular as the PC version, and lacked the online multiplayer capabilities and speech in mission briefings. In addition, cut scenes were shortened.[58] Blizzard Entertainment had previously considered a PlayStation port of the game, but it was decided that the game would instead be released on the Nintendo 64.[61]

 

[Avu]

That sucks. All we need now is that the new battlenet to be laggy or worse and we're set...

 

[shihonage]

They're doing this to minimize piracy, I guess.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Likely it's a pseudo-DRM scheme. So you can't pirate it and still play multiplayer. They'll probably have some "local Battle.net" option though, just to stave off the Korean backlash.

This "DRM" is pretty much useless anyway. If I would play some Scraft with people, we'd often need a few additional players, and we'd just give the game to a few people. They were only going to play one or two games and wouldn't have bought the game just for that. It's stupid, and I'm sure someone will make a LAN mod.

 

[Jim Cojones]

In before an apologist's explanation for how the new and improved battle.net will support tournament play.

But...but...it's to protect from piracy and if you don't support Blizzard decision you're a thief! (while the cracked version with LAN option added will be on tpb right after the première)

Also, what Edward said. Most of my time spent with Starcraft was playing with my brother.

 

[Major_Boobage]

Yes it sucks bigtime. I also only play on Lan.

However you shouldnt have trouble with lag because of the fact that you only need to log in to battlenet to start a game and normally the game itself should be only local in data transfer. I had this discussion with a friend and he said data exchange protocols have evolved enough so that they can detect they you are on the same lan and send data over that lan instead of via the internet connection. So it should still play on lan.

 

[Raapys]

Not exactly a big surprise. Few new games have LAN because of Hamachi and similar services.

 

[shihonage]

This "DRM" is pretty much useless anyway. If I would play some Scraft with people, we'd often need a few additional players, and we'd just give the game to a few people. They were only going to play one or two games and wouldn't have bought the game just for that. It's stupid, and I'm sure someone will make a LAN mod.

That didn't work with Diablo2 and it won't work with SC2. You can't connect to Blizzard's BNET servers with two copies of the same account at once.

As for LAN mod, it is not likely to surface anytime soon, and when it does, it will be some buggy shit. Because the hax0rz will have to reverse-engineer the new Battle.net protocol, and then write a wrapper for it. It's a monstrous job.

However you shouldnt have trouble with lag because of the fact that you only need to log in to battlenet to start a game and normally the game itself should be only local in data transfer. I had this discussion with a friend and he said data exchange protocols have evolved enough so that they can detect they you are on the same lan and send data over that lan instead of via the internet connection. So it should still play on lan.

Maybe this will work with Open Battle.Net (if it is still offered with Starcraft 2, which is unlikely), but it definitely will not work with Closed Battle.Net because of its server-based nature.

Even so, I think SC2 will work just fine over a 28k connection with 4 players. I'm hardly a Blizzard apologist, but really LAG will not be an issue here.

Closed BNET will be server-based, but the game will still operate on peer-to-peer protocol. From a central distributing point. It's a hybrid, of sorts.

 

[MetalCraze]

Well there are some pirate emulators of B.net for SC1 exist (and work nice btw). I hope there will be some for this one, because I can't imagine not having LAN games of SC2.

Also there is a speculation or a rumour that B.net will allow some kind of local games except with the call home every 2 or so minutes to check CD-keys - if it will find that the games are running on pirated/same CD-keys it will insta-kick those players.
Even if it isn't true what we have now is still ridiculous. It isn't like StarCraft needed DRM to be successful, considering that it sells 11 years after original release.

I've also heard D3 won't have LAN too

 

[1eyedking]

You know, there was a time when Blizzard made Diablo 1 and StarCraft 1...

...what ever happened?

 

[Raapys]

They evolved to the next generation.

 

[Major_Boobage]

I've also heard D3 won't have LAN too

Thats how it started Skyway. D3 wont have lan.

 

[MetalCraze]

Blizzard certainly stuffs a huge pole down their butt with this. With most of SC/Diablo games going over LAN.

 

[kingcomrade]

Yeah this is pretty much an anti-Hamachi decision.
Kind of sucks, but hey.

 

[kingcomrade]

I'm still shitting myself over the balls they have to ask $150 for a game. They certainly know their fanbase.

 

[Major_Boobage]

I'm still shitting myself over the balls they have to ask $150 for a game. They certainly know their fanbase.

They smelled the money man from the ultimate money shitting machine WOW.

Now we are all screwed.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Don't look at me when you say that we're all screwed.

I simply refuse to take part in such a farce and won't touch the game.

 

[Jim Cojones]

However you shouldnt have trouble with lag because of the fact that you only need to log in to battlenet to start a game and normally the game itself should be only local in data transfer. I had this discussion with a friend and he said data exchange protocols have evolved enough so that they can detect they you are on the same lan and send data over that lan instead of via the internet connection. So it should still play on lan.

How do I play Starcraft in multiplayer: I go to my brother's home with laptop, take network cable, connect both computers directly. None of the computers are connected to the Internet while playing. To play this way I not only would have to buy a router (not a big problem although it is ridiculous idea to buy it to play only one game no more than once a month) but also pay for Internet connection that wouldn't be available only for my brother's network card MAC address. I don't care much about Starcraft 2 LAN because it won't work on my laptop but just want to show that there are situations in which you can't play multiplayer being connected to battlenet.

 

[NiM82]

/moves game from "do want" list to "do not want" list

Guess this means D3 won't have LAN either? Epic fail.

 

[JarlFrank]

I used to play Warcraft 3 during the long hours of free time in school with friends on netbooks. Of course, there was no internet connection there so we played, naturally, over LAN. Just as we do when we make LAN-parties, or when I want to play a game with someone who happens to be in the same house as I. It would be fucking ridiculous if you couldn't play a quick multiplayer match without internet connection. Heck, most places where I go for LAN parties don't even *have* internet connection.

This is a bad decision by Blizzard and might negatively affect their sales. Not really going to do anything against piracy, but will surely make some potential buyers think twice about buying it.