No Lan in SC2

Yes it is laughable! Absolutely hilarious! Actually its ridiculous...

As one Blizzard blue poster recently mentioned (cant quote directly):
'We are doing our best to inputting all our effort into making the SCII multiplayer a pinnacle of gaming experience and all we want in return is the price of the starcraft II box.'

Now here you come and criticize Blizzard for not allowing you and your family to leach on the weakness of Starcraft that allows you to still enjoy the full multiplayer experience while paying only for yourself. Dont get me wrong Id love to be able to play LAN with my friend with only one copy but its simply not fair. You want your brother to try it out, feel free to lend him your account and try out multiplayer himself. You want to play with you brother - your brother is going to have to buy the game. Its fair.

I am disappointed because there are many valid arguments against the decision to remove LAN (and as you know I advice against hasty panic and uproar at the moment since we still lack the necessary information and weve been told we are going to get it soon.) but condemning Blizzard for not allowing a sort of legal pirating of their game is not one of them.

I agree with you that very likely some cracks will pop out in time although as Blizzard mentioned a lot of the multiplayer features are in the battle.net 2.0 itself hence even cracked LAN will likely lack behind and in the end you will have to buy the game anyways if you want real multiplayer experience.


Oh and "just for that feature" is just a spit in the face.

(I would say 'no offence', you seem like an intelligent and nice guy, you must be if you became a moderator, but if this is truly what you believe in and you stand behind it then yes, I still mean it.)

 

@ Furrer;

Although it's been back and forth...and possibly still not concrete on the p2p for B.net - I'm still going to foolishly state they will not do this. I have no true proof and I'm simply going by their responses to that infamous question...as well as seeing no incentive for them to make p2p unless B.net offers something phenomenal such as play/download previous games of Blizzard under a B.net account. (that's notby any means a good example, but one I'm going to use for now) Though I hope you get the general idea what I mean...less it offers ground breaking changes and universal unity from all previous B.net games; thus offering a reason for a charge as it superiority rewards you for that value of you're paying. (sigh* I can hardly understand the way I put that...yet stumped for how to word it)

As for your concerns over whether or not they will be able to offer the benefits of LAN(without the feature itself)- you perhaps have a vast amount of knowledge over me of how that all works...so I guess you win there. I can only go by blind hope that it will work out.

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@ItzaHexgor

Makes more sense now what you were trying to imply. Though it was a simple sentence hence easy for me to misread; however, unless you where showing how it can be miss-read or viewed in a different light...you lost me at:

As in I have no clue what to make of that, whether it's opinion or just you showing how your sentence can be miss-understood.

As cruel as this may be...and quite honestly that's what it will come across as because, I can see it no other way, but... ...The whole siblings argument doesn't have anything I can view from Blizzard's stand point nor as a non-SC 2 customer(What I mean is referencing to a person not interested in playing SC 2 yet reading your argument) can truly justify keeping such a option available to players; example, your argument over having to spend money to enjoy a feature of a game.

As wonderful as the feature was...it seems you can't understand why Blizzard would rather it not be in SC 2. I can throw out a few reasons, such as blending all of the community into a way that Blizzard can better keep things in their control. As well as getting more profit by having those that would otherwise play it for free with friends/siblings, and now have to ether find another means to pirate or bite the bullet and purchase the game.

=====upgrading issue========
About your issue with upgrading your Computer or other sources of technology to play a game you would much like to play; on one hand(not regarding your point, but first part of your topic) it seems your just in denial there, and clearly have never played a game till now that has forced your hand to do such to your computer.(Games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion, and Empire Total War have made me a victim of upgrading - and these don't come without penalty on my financial circumstances)
You seem to want your point as, "Why force their customers to upgrade their computer's and/or internet to play this new game."
Now, I'm not too much of a technical guy...but hasn't blizzard openly said, as well shown in the past they don't over-push that option of putting a product out that is it out of reach of a vast amount of their target group?
And of course a rare few will get caught in the cross over where they cannot keep up with new games for what ever reason. It's always easier said out loud then enduring it....and I'm not sure where you are on that subject.

----===piracy===----
So.... what you're saying is before your siblings could play a SC game with you, with out the product...and now they have to find a new means to do this rather then the easy LAN option.

You sure you can't see the issue there? Sure people that want something for free will strive for that option if it's there...but there are a good sum of people similar to your/their situation that will actually consider buying the product rather then deal with having look/deal with other methods to play for free.

You're not making a good point by claiming;

Yah...so that's in my honest opinion a load of BS for a game company to take that into account and not try to prevent this. However small a chance they have at making a dent in cheating/piracy prevention, then they will continue to do what they can, and I agree with that train of thought.

This results in events such as LAN being taken away from us due to people abusing it rather then using it for what it was most desired for.


I can see why it's a touchy subject, even if I can't truly put my self in those such as you or your brother's situation with money or preferences in game mechanics.


EDIT: @ Higgs Boson - I agree with you on that subject, just couldn't find the proper way to word it.
EDIT 2: If there is any misunderstanding - I wish to make it clear by stating I agree on Higgs on the grounds of it being fair that you must purchase a game box to enjoy ANY features the game offers, anything more you interpret from his text differs from what I got from it ^_^

 

I know this will not happen.

But the solution could have been this:

You log into B.Net through SC2 and it checks each time you log in to validate your serial number. And once you're in you could choose to play your game online or via LAN. That way Blizz would still have it's anti-piracy measures and everyone would still get their LAN. it's just mean you'd need net access to access the LAN option. But at least for the duration of the game it's be pretty much lag free. And would also be good for the Pro SC2 tournaments which we all will happen one day.

I don't think a no net option is really viable for multiplayer. But for single player or vs. AI I think there should not be net needed. Maybe just a once only serial validation. I know people will say everyone has the net these days so it's not an issue. But that little portion of the public without net, could be at a holiday home or some other reason I dunno. Best to cater to everyone I think. It is more sales in the end.

 

Yes thats a solution they would go for to combat piracy, but bnet 2.0 is much more than that.

Its an attempt to recreate WoWs success by giving such an overwhelmingly good online space that people will choose it as they will experience it giving its money's worth.

I believe this since this is exactly what i went through with WoW. I started out in a private server as i had no chance to get a credit card and official servers were far away in the US, and I didn't have enough money to buy original games.

Now pirate servers are fun and all, but once you go legit, you realize you've been playing 50% of the game. I'm talking not only about smoothness and lack of bugs and downtime, its also the community and the updates.

My theory is that they are trying to make Bnet 2.0 so kickass that all these pirated communities that exist besides the true league, will simply poof and vanish as original service is so superior that its not really SC2 you are playing without it.

Eliminating LAN is entirely within that line... I see that as a good thing since it will really force them to make Bnet 2.0 godlike.

In Bliz we trust eh?

 

They said its going to be something completely different just wate and see guys let blizzard work its magic.

Even then what if the lan is cut is it really going to hinder thing that much more look at how many people play wow.

Besides you will find a way to play online the reason sc had lan is because 10 years ago the internet wasen"t as prevelant as it is today.

out of the mouth of kuran
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.
Its not like battle net is going to cost anything.

 

Hmm I'm not sure how to respond to that. I completely agree with the whole whining getting old, BUT:
Everyone who I know (in real life that is) that plays Starcraft use LAN mode to game regularly. Regularly meaning once a week. That's why I'm hoping for LAN functionality POST-Battle.net Serial Authentication. It really does make a noticeable difference lag-wise. In reality I agree with you, but I'm just playing Devil's Advocate in saying that there ARE people out there who do use it. I'm still not concerned about it though, Blizzard has yet to disappoint.

As Bthammer45 said, we really don't know anything about it or B.net 2.0 at all for that matter. And Blizzard said a lot of B.net 2.0's functionality wouldn't be available even in the beta! So give it time, lets see what they give us. There are a number of workaround to the LAN issue.

And as for the whole it-wont-stop-piracy thing. You're right in that it won't entirely eliminated the problem - nothing will - but look at WoW. In the long run, it simply wasn't an issue. As others have said, they are probably looking to recreate that sort of superior community.

 

@ Higgs. You're forgetting that by having a copy on StarCraft2 under the one roof, my brother already has access to everything. Single player campaigns, multiplayer campaigns, the editor, etc. He's got access to everything that someone who's actually bought it has access to, because everything I can access, he can access to. The one thing that he doesn't have, however, is the ability to play against me. In order to do that, he has to pay three hundred dollars. And yes, it is just for that feature. He can do everything otherwise, and the only gain from buying another copy is the ability to play against me. Three hundred dollars, one feature, and paying three hundred dollars for a single feature is not fair.

And if you consider playing against siblings without buying an extra copy of the game as being piracy, what do you consider his ability to do everything else to be?

The multiplayer features in Battle.Net 2.0 are most likely just ladder, the casual gaming channel, etc. They're not going to actually change how multiplayer games are played on Battle.Net, so from what I can gather, playing a multiplayer on a cracked version would be no different to playing multiplayer on an official version, apart from the fact that the cracked version would have access to LAN.

@ RationalThought. About that quote, don't worry about it. It was in the context of the previous quote, where I was showing the reasoning for my assumption. I added that second bit to show what my reasoning wasn't, but how it could still be interpretted that way.

I'm not sure I did that great a job of explaining it, but it really doesn't matter.

Basically, the siblings argument is that these people have access to everything anyway, so forcing siblings to buy an extra copy is just the same as charging three hundred dollars exclusively for siblings to play against each other. I mean even Steam, which is like some ultimate weapon against piracy, provides for siblings to be able to play against one another on the one account.

I'm aware of Blizzard's intentions, but the fact remains that pirates are going to pirate it. As for keeping a control over the community, what control really needs to be kept? I can understand their need to moderate and maintain Battle.Net, but there's no reason for them to be concerned over a game between me and my bro.

As for getting more money than they otherwise would, I really don't see it as being that black and white. Friends who would buy single copies between them, provided they aren't living under the same roof, are obviously pirates, though it's different with siblings. Three hundred bucks for one feature is unreasonable, and I fail to see many siblings going out to buy additional copies.

With the upgrading issue, I definitely have been through it before, and several times at that. My desktop's from 2001, and I don't have a lappy, and if StarCraft2's system specs are over that, I'm more that willing to buy a better computer, and I'm actually planning on buying a good lappy after Christmas despite, from what I've heard, StarCraft2's minimum requirements falling within that of this comp. To give an example, when I upgraded my graphics card recently to be able to run Portal due to the fact that my previous graphics card had absolutely no pixel shader capabilities, I didn't have any problems with it. Well, I did have problems with physically doing it, but I didn't object to having to buy a new graphics card. However, if Valve had intentionally put in shaders purely for the sake of assuming that everyone has sufficient pixel shader capabilities, then I would object to buying a new card. Similarly, when I upgraded my RAM when I played World of WarCraft, I didn't have a problem with it, however, if Blizzard intentionally made people require more RAM purely because they assumed that everyone had enough, then I would.

In summation, Blizzard shouldn't be assuming that everyone has a good enough connection to play on Battle.Net 2.0, and it definitely shouldn't be a reason to take out LAN.

About piracy, not really. I'm saying removing LAN will, in some cases, do more harm than good. It's not as though pirates are going to be thinking, 'well I can't play over LAN so I guess I'm going to have to go out and spend three hundred dollars on the real thing'. Pirates will pirate, and in my opinion, forcing people who are living under the same roof to pay so much for the ability to play each other will simply lead them to piracy.

And I'm definitely not claiming that companies should not take measures against piracy. It's like crime. The government should definitely take measures to prevent both crime and the actions of criminals, but the general population should not be at a disadvantage because of it. Particularly, in the case of StarCraft2, when a pirated copy may end up looking more attractive than an official copy.

@ Sueco. Your theory doesn't include any reason to remove LAN. If Battle.Net 2.0 truly is so innovative that it will break up piracy rings, then there's no harm in keeping the ability to play via LAN, and is, in fact, a reason to keep it, to remove any other possible reasons for wanting to own a pirated copy. Basically, if Battle.Net 2.0 is so great that everyone will want access to it, there's no need to worry about people abusing LAN.

 

Itza where do you get the price tag of 300$ from? Also, here is a nice simple solution for your complaint Itza. Assuming the keys are now tied to accounts now instead of computers (which would make sense considering that is the way WoW works and the looks to be the way the new Battle.net accounts will work) allow each account to have 1 or 2 guest accounts on Battle.ent with it, tied to its movements. What I am imagining here is something similar to how Halo 3 allows everyone playing on a given 360 to play on live all under the guise of one account. This would allow households to buy one copy of the game to play casually, but if anyone wants to be serious and have their own account they need to get their own copy of the game.

My suggestion for people who want to play on a LAN game would be to have someone host a "LAN" game on battle.net which would only allow people with a LAN connection to host to join, and then once the game starts everything is done over the LAN network. Put this together with my above suggestion and everybody wins. People can have their siblings play for cheap and can have LAN games. Blizzard gets to use their account based authentication which seems to work nicely for WoW to help prevent piracy.

 

I'm not quite sure I follow. How is allowing a couple of guest accounts per key any different to allowing multiple players per copy? From what I can gather it would allow friends or even just other players to all share one key as well, as opposed to just siblings.

As for the LAN suggestion, it would be fantastic if it was implemented. Basically like hosting it on the more complex connection, then allowing them to drop down to the simplest connection available, though that didn't really turn out to be analogy more than it was simply just stating what would happen.

Again, both work in theory, though I don't fully understand the guest account system, and it would be great if we knew whether they were going to be implemented or not, but that's highly uncertain, and I don't really enjoy simply waiting to see if the new feature they are going to implement will work. I also don't get why it's so necessary for them to keep it unknown, as they've obviously got the system and are intent on using it, and especially seeing as they've already announced that there will be no LAN.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the three hundred dollars is based on the past few new releases I've bought being in the vicinity of a hundred dollars each, and the fact that we haven't been told any prices so it's a fairly round number without having to delve into specifics and estimations.

 

My guess is they are sure they don't want LAN, but aren't exactly sure how everything on B.net is going to work so they don't want to make any promises yet.

As for trying to explain the guest account idea, I think relating it to Halo 3 is the best example I can give. Basicly, each real account can have X (probally between 1-3) number guest accounts traveling with it on B.net (by traveling I mean they Join the games and chennels the main account does, in essence the guests are stuck with the main account). The hiccup would be in trying to temprarly attach a computer to a main account on a different computer but on the same network. The way I am imgining it right now, would be the person with the main account would host some kind of offline room and then people on another computer on the network (with the game installed) would join the host, who would then sign onto to Battle.net.

As for people abusing the guest account system, it would be pretty easy for blizzard to put in some restrictions to it, and/or ban the small number of major offenders.

 

@ItzaHexGor's

"but spending in the proximity of three hundred dollars for a single feature is absolutely ridiculous"

If you go to Disneyland with your 2 siblings,

you have to pay for three tickets for a single feature,

same as going for a movie or else,

I dont see how ridiculous it is.

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However, I am quite against the 'old technology' argument.

Something old does not mean it is not useful. LAN is just something so easy and handy to use. It is not necessary to use something more sophisticated to replace it.

From Gamer's point of view, it is just redundant to use Bnet2 to replace LAN in a game meeting, no matter how sophisticated the Bnet2 is.

I wonder how the game meeting can proceed if there are over 10 persons in one place, what kind of connection power is required.

Removing it is a true loss to gamer.

 

Well the moment StarCraft2 costs twelve fifty you won't hear any more complaints from me about it.

And you're forgetting that these siblings still have access to the game. They have access to absolutely everything, being all the missions in single player, all the benefits of Battle.Net 2.0 and multiplayer, everything in the editor, etc, etc, without having to buy another copy of the game, except the ability to play each other. That comes down to the ability to play with your brother costing three hundred bucks.

To anyone wanting to compare this to Disneyland, or a roller-coaster or movie, you're forgetting that these people have access to the game already. Disneyland is not analogous to StarCraft2. At Disneyland, you can't let everyone experience everything off of one ticket. When going on a roller-coaster, you can't use your brother's ticket as long as you go separately to him. At the movies, buying an extra ticket doesn't solely allow your brother, who got in using your ticket, to share your popcorn with you. They are not analogous.

 

Ok, ItzaHexGor,

I think we can safely whittle this topic down to the siblings/friends having to pay for their own box argument for you - everything else I can understand or agree(not saying I agree with all of it, but a few parts I did) with you on.

Feels safe to say I'm not the only one here who believes it just, and fair to price ANYONE a game box retail price if they choose to partake in any features it offers.

The only issue here is how to word it so ItzaHexGor understands that as legit means for Blizzard to work and that his feelings towards it are not on grounds of fairness to the customer, but on grounds of him believing it should not be that way.

One key comment you like to mention is that you or whom ever is in the house/apartment the time a SCII game is there with you - can at one point or another will get access to everything it offers.

That statement is false - due to the game not offering you all those features in 1 box.
It's other features include multi-player, and in order to have multi-player, you NEED multiple game boxes to be sold.

If I were to take your argument to the extreme - we all pitch in cash to buy 1 game box. Now we all get to play it's single player elements, yet ....wait, now how do we enjoy multi-player?

See what I did there? In order to play multi-player, and enjoy it to the extent it's at....you need more people to access the game - thus more game boxes must be sold.

The only difference your siblings are doing is playing that *feature* for free. So you get to have the single player aspect of the game and share it with whom has access to your game box - but the other feature includes the need for more game boxes.

Not by any means a flawless argument - there is more to cover, such as whether you feel that feature is 'worth' that price - yet a simple response to that is...well, it's an all or nothing package...that's just how this game comes.

 

Firstly, I'm not sure quite what you're getting at when you were talking about the only issue being about how to word it. I'd just like to clarify what you were saying there, as opposed to just leaving it out.

Now, as for the statement about people living in the same house having access to all its features being false, it is only false if absolutely everyone who will play StarCraft2 will be living under the same roof. Multiplayer is still a feature available to both of the siblings sharing a copy, as they can play with or against any of the other StarCraft2 owners. What you said wasn't really what I was getting at, at all, and by the same logic, if I didn't have a brother in the first place, then multiplayer wouldn't be an option. It's a given that there will be a massive community to play against online, and whether or not siblings are able to play the odd game with or against each other does not hinder that.

To clarify, this is the situation. Anyone who has a sibling who plays StarCraft2 living under the same roof as them buys one copy of the game. Immediately, these two people have access to everything the other has. They can both play the single player campaigns, they can both play against the exact same people who have bought StarCraft2 as the other one can, they both have access to the campaign editor, and all the other features Blizzard will include in StarCraft2. As I said before, the only thing that they do not have access to is the ability to play with or against each other. That is where the three hundred bucks for a single feature comes from, and that's where it becomes unreasonable.

The ability to play multiplayer isn't dependant on siblings buying several copies. The only thing that is, is the ability to play with each other. It's not multiplayer that they're gaining access to by buying another copy, because by buying a single copy they both have access to it anyway, it's the ability to play with each other. That's it. And while multiplayer itself may genuinely be worth the extra cost, that's not what's being bought. What is being bought is the means to play against siblings.

 

Itza while I still support my guest idea, I would like to point out a flaw in your argument I just noticed. You keep saying that two or more siblings will have access to everything besides the ability to play with each other. The ability to play with each other is really dependent on another thing entirely, the ability to play at the same time. If you only own one copy of the game while each sibling may be able to play online they can't do it at the same time, and depending on how Blizzard codes the game they may not even be able to play offline at the same. The ability for friends and family to play at the same time online is what they are paying for when they buy additional copies of the game, not just the ability to play with each other.

 

Blizzard's moving away from the idea of requiring the disk to be in while playing, so I'd be surprised if they made it a requirement for StarCraft2. They've given instructions for how to play StarCraft1 without the disk, removed the requirement for Diablo2 and the WarCraft3 doesn't require the disk either. Then there's World of WarCraft, which never required anything other than having it installed on the computer to run, though did require an account, of course.

Although, even if StarCraft2 does require a play disk, what I've been saying still applies. Both siblings still have access to every aspect of the game.

 

I am assuming SC2 will be account based like WoW. Anyways, I think you missed my point. I am not denying that both siblings have access to every aspect of the game however your issue with the game is really a broader commonality amongst all RTS games, two people can't play online at the same time without buying two copies of the game. The only difference here is blizzard is removing the ability for people to play the game offline with each other at all. Which means Blizzard is removing one feature of the game (the ability to play with sibilings and friends without buying multiple copies of the game) in exchange for substantially improved antti-piracy protection.

Which brings me full circle to my suggestion a couple of posts ago, because Blizzard is effectively removing a rather common feature in exchange for increased anti-piracy protection they should try and find some way to give it back without removing the increased security so the customer isn't losing anything in Blizzard's drive for increased security.

 

stupid stupid stupid... no reason not to unless battle.net allows you to host through lan... like list checker in wc3.

 

Which is hopefully what they will do Meloku.

 

I'm definitely all for your previous suggestions, provided they actually are implemented, and my only real problem with Blizzard's new LAN-replacing feature at the moment is that, for some reason, they feel it's best to keep us in the dark. They obviously have a specific system in mind, and from what they've said they aren't still tossing up between which system to us, so what's keeping them from telling us? Especially considering that no-one's expecting it to be usable from the very instant they announce it, I can't see any reason for them to announce that they've removed LAN for another system without telling us what that other system achieves.

As for the rest, I don't see how you can deny that both siblings have access to every aspect of the game. If one sibling buys it and installs it, the other siblings can do everything that first sibling can do. Yes, they can't all do it at once, but it's comparable to buying a book to read. You don't need to buy the same number of books as family members are going to want to read it. Distributing play time is hardly the most complicated of challenges, so there's no real need to all play at once, especially when Blizzard is aiming for it to be such a spectator sport.

I don't see piracy protection as being so clear cut, either, and the fact remains that there's still a whopping great cost associated with playing with siblings. That said, the Xbox Live example seems to be a good one, and is comparable to otherwise requiring an Xbox and copy of the game for siblings to be able to play in the same games. In fact, it's beyond what I was hoping for for StarCraft2, as with the Xbox Live system, not only can both siblings play 'online' and against each other, but they can play against each other online with others, as well. So yes, ideally, a system similar to that would be a great solution. I just don't see why Blizzard's not explaining what the new system is.