That's easier done than said.

Yes, but no matter how easy it is the majority of Blizzard's userbase is undeniably fucking stupid. So they won't know that they can play LAN on a virtual server or use a crack, so they will play over Battle.net like Blizzard wants everyone to. If they include everything into Battle.net that they can, tournaments, ladders, clans, clan wars, quick-matchfinder, etc., I won't have any reason not to use it myself, even if I'm going to be LAN'ing at college.

The only goal is that this won't be true in other countries and Blizzard won't get ripped out of a ton of money from their games.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 6 2009, 7:36 pm by FaZ-.

FaZ has a very good point; the extra sales that this will generate won't be downloads but not-so-computer-inclined people just installing the game on another computer for a LAN party. Downloaded versions will all have LAN enabled.
Of course, it's a compromise of functionality against piracy. Trying to get a very slightly higher number of people to buy it while slightly annoying everyone (and greatly annoying a few) is a call that you can only make so many times before everyone gets very annoyed. Most people would agree that Blizzard used to be a company that would never make that compromise, and even though this supports that they clearly are now, SC2 still might be a good game. It's taken them long enough x.x
In reality, just the negative publicity this got alone probably wouldn't have made it worth it for them.. even though this personally doesn't affect me because I don't ever use LAN, my reaction was just that it was dumb to incite so many people who do play LAN for such a tiny benefit (since DRM doesn't stop anything), especially in a sequel to a game which had such a strong LAN support and core.
But honestly, settle the argument a little! Battlenet will be free, and there really aren't that many people who want to play games for free that don't know how to download them. They are just hoping there are less people like yoshi out there who do have legitimate concerns than there are people who will buy the game now that wouldn't have otherwise, and having to deal with bad PR is just a (imo bad) decision. And even if their concerns weren't legitimate, all that matters is that they think they are, and they just lost or delayed a sale.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 8 2009, 2:28 am by fritfrat.

This only really makes sense as far as an anti-piracy measure if it will take a while for there to be a Battle.net 2.0 compatible server for use with SC2.

From the looks of SC2 and BNet2.0, you basically have to be online to play StarCraft (including Single Player campaigns), hence the removal of LAN. I dunno if I approve of this, but the new Battle.net (aside from the removal of channels) looks incredible.

EDIT:
And here's a quote from a new Kotaku article on the subject:
- http://kotaku.com/5343640/blizzard-lack-of-starcraft-lan-is-no-big-deal

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 23 2009, 6:41 pm by DevliN.

... tada. People need to stop bitching just for the sake of bitching, before you're sure it's not going to work.

Blizzard is doing what they can to allow playing over a local network, if you're connected to Battle.net in the first place.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 30 2009, 11:05 pm by FaZ-.

Jesus Christ faz you make me sick
Oh yes faz of course! Because blizzard will totally just take it upon them selves to implement lan if we never complain to them about it!

Where you even reading the same article? He basically just brushed it off and said that everyone is ok with it except for the media like game journalist like they are some kind of political pundits trying to stir up drama.

ONLY when he is asked directly if there will EVER be lan for the extreme cases does he say they may "try" to deal with. Basically they are just going to give e-sports lan.

They've been saying the same thing when asked about it in every interview for the past 6 months, you can refer to all of my previous posts in the thread. Obviously they're aware of the potential problems long before they make that decision and there was a huge deal of complaining when they announced the feature (or lack thereof). The point is that most of the complaining here isn't even remotely reasonable, because they didn't look into what was said and what the goals are. The potential gains (which are huge, even if the LAN through B-Net doesn't come and nullify the single disadvantage) should be more than enough for people to look at the big picture and the point of doing something that's stirred so much flak.

Highly competitive e-sports next venue: the dorm room LAN.

At BlizzCon I played SC2 in the "Community Tournament" area and it was all over LAN, so I assume there's some LAN feature after you connect to Battle.net.

I am also wondering if Bnet2 will be a unilateral server.

4:00-4:35 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM2R8wPyP7k

You can also read more on the Battle.net with the links to the next two videos in the sidebar, seems like it's going to be an awesome system for fair play and competitive gaming.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 31 2009, 8:09 pm by FaZ-.

Yeah, that's the video from BlizzCon. Thanks for pointing out that timeframe; that's what I've been looking for as reference when I say you can't play SC single player without connecting (unless you play as a guest).

I've got a funny feeling "guests" can't save their progress in the campaign.

I agree that they shouldn't take out LAN. I am sure that with enough complaints, Blizzard will just make it possible.
People complain about companies like EA or blizzard WoW being cash cows who are greedy folks stealing money. Lets be real, our lack of financial responsibilities and social life is what keeps them alive (no, its not the patriots)

I don't really care about LAN as long as connecting to Battle.net stays free (Which it will.)

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. They've already said you get no achievements for offline play and essentially have to start over in that respect, so I assume that would suggest a lack of saved offline progress as well.

Actually, I don't think so. As for people who played dow40k2, you can play campaign without being logged on to windowgames live- and save progress.

Right, but this isn't DoW2.

It seems weird that you could save and not get achievements, though. I suppose if they do let you save, you'd still have to start over when you connect to BNet. So it doesn't really matter either way.

Thats probably part of an elaborate plan to get more customers. I usually want to buy a game AFTER pirating it- for some odd reason.

I'm going to laugh when you have to connect to BattleNet to do anything and the Warden still disconnects everyone every 7 minutes.