Rumor: Starcraft 2 Professional Edition with LAN?

http://www.sc2blog.com/2010/06/14/starcraft-ii-professional-edition-with-lan-support/

It looks like we might see a version of Starcraft 2 with LAN after all for progaming purposes. A pro edtition will certainly help any major tournaments. Although that could open a window for theft (as in litteraly stealing that copy, fenix) and piracy.

 

Nice to know. But reading through that list it just begs to be asked: is that what Blizzard wants? Special edition, special account, Blizzard staff present? Is it really worth it? If they included LAN in regular copies it'd not only cut down on all those extra things, but it'd give the incentive to make B.net so good that pirates would actually consider buying SC2.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a pro-LAN flame thread, we already have one. It just looks like a very clumsy solution to what Blizzard's fear causes.

 

Yeah piracy is probably the reason not to give normal clients LAN, but the LAN mentioned there is probably to trusted LAN/tournament organizers, so Blizzard has weighted for and against, and found that it will be too easy to pirate if it is in all clients, but that the proscene will hurt too much without LAN, if servers for example go down.
My opinion, tell me yours about the LAN problem, that many threads, whines and QQ´s have gone to.

(And of course a couple of balanced and wellthought threads, but they are losing to the mass QQ, so please, give reasons.)

 

Elaborate: how is this solution "clumsy"? Blizzard claim to be committed to promoting E-sports, and this solution should help pros play their best (at least, theoretically). The fact that Blizzard staff is required will only solidify Blizzard's position as a leader in the E-sports community, and re-iterate the fact that they are wholly committed to their games.

 

It's clumsy because of all the requirements I listed in my post and how easily all this could be solved by including LAN in all copies. Plus they'll need to draw the line where certain competitions are deemed serious enough to warrant the "pro version" and the staff while the rest are not. It will promote segregation because Blizzard will not issue the copies and staff to every tournament and so competitions will just turn into e-***** races whether you have Blizzard's endorsement or not.

Simply put, the amount of frustration no LAN causes outweighs the benefits of the possible increase in income.

 

It's a 'fix', for pro players. I think the problem here is that there are a LOT of regular players whom would like to play LAN games - in their friends appartment, in their local 'gamesshop' (how do you call these things? internet cafés?) etc.

Requiring this special copy and a Blizzard representative would be cool, but I doubt they (Blizzard) will show up at your house 'Wanna play LAN?'. The solution seems to be a bit far fedged in my opinion and I'm sure there are easier / more efficient solutions - for both pro and casual player.

 

I doubt I'd have mah SC2 pirated even if there were LAN options.
Just .. come on! Have some LAN.. besides somebody's gonna make a "private server" for SC2 anyways.. it's inevitable!

 

Considering all the extra accounts they will be getting due to lack of piracy, yes, it is worth it. Or at least the guys at Blizzard are certain it's worth it, or they wouldn't be doing it this way.

Paying $60 for the game is worth it. But if the game were free and B.net cost $60, that would not be worth it if you could just play on a free pirate server instead. There's no way they can make B.net so good that it's worth $60 by itself.

Big deal. The smaller tournaments that don't get endorsement can still run through B.net. Just look at the HDH and how successful that was.[/QUOTE]

Play over B.net. Blizzard has done an amazing job making B.net almost completely lag-free, so I don't see how you can complain about lag, especially in that sort of casual setting. Also, I'm sure Blizzard will make sure the B.net almost never goes completely down for maintenance so no worries there either.

Of course, if it's an issue of "how are my friends supposed to play if they don't have an account?" and they are looking for a way to play the game for free, that is called piracy and Blizzard has made their stance on that very clear.

 

If PC gamers didn't pirate everything that moves, I'd agree.

Well, let's see: if you're endorsed by some sponsor, and/or you play in a league, guess what? you're pro! And this is how the game has been played since... 2000! Problem solved.

And in order to have more inclusive tournaments, Blizzard could periodically hold events in which more casual players can participate.

Based on the reaction here, I'd suggest any frustration is on the part of *certain* fans, not Blizard.

 

The issues this presents shows that it is a solution centered on generating income, which is understandable but at the same time shows that their commitment is in making the most money over providing the best service.

I think blizzard needs to understand that not everybody out there is looking to pirate their stupid games

 

You and I are both ethical gamers that don't pirate. However, what YOU need to understand is that piracy is a problem for companies such as Blizzard; just because you, me, and our grandmothers won't pirate the game doesn't mean that 2 million other people won't. And it's those 2 million other people that Blizzard are concerned about. Yes, it sucks, but what would you have Blizzard do?

 

"Yes, it sucks, but what would you have Blizzard do?"

I would have them take a look at their own company history. This is the first time they are putting on such strict restrictions on a game so that means that if piracy was a huge deal then earlier releases would have done poorly financially due to the extreme piracy- owaitaminute..... Blizzard has always made a crap ton of money because they made good games!

It isnt about the money, its about more money.

 

i'm assuming that the "pro" version will not have b.net access, and no single-player campaign. is it really that bad if it's pirated? think about it:
- you can steal the game, and not be able to play single-player campaign.
- you can play locally with your friends... and only your friends. for any real multiplayer you're pretty much forced to make appointments with real-life friends instead of just logging in to B.net for a quick game against strangers.

this is the thing about piracy: the grand majority of pirates do it because it's convenient. sometimes, the pirated material is even better than the paid product (see: DRM) but for games that rely heavily on multiplayer, the paid product can easily offer a service that a pirated product can't.

 

This sounds like they're going to be employing a team of security guards to keep a permanent watchful eye over their lan enabled discs and installed systems to make sure they don't go out of sight for a second.

But this whole article does sounds rather pushy of tournaments. The game isn't even out yet, and they don't really know how the world will receive the game, yet they're already organizing tournaments. There's being prepared, and there's being over confident.

 

There are some companies for whom I have no sympathy when it comes to piracy. Take for example Ubisoft, with their ultra-strict DRM policy. Or Crytek, who claimed that for every copy of Crysis that they sold, 20 pirate copies were made; I have no doubt that the 20:1 figure is hyperbole, but even so, Crytek conveniently ignored the fact that most people pirated the game just to see if their computer could run the bloody thing... not to actually play it.

You pointed out that Blizzard's games have sold well, despite piracy issues. The fact of the matter is, I have never claimed that piracy cripples a game's sales --because it doesn't. I do strongly believe that 1) companies have the right to make profit from their games, and 2) pirates cut into those profit figures. Now, Blizzard have never cried, unlike Crytek, that their sales were deeply affected by piracy. So you're correct to claim that Blizzard wants to make more money --and that's their right. But you're wrong to maintain that Blizzard are offering us a second-rate product simply because a rather esoteric feature --LAN-- is not included. While there may be a few hicks with BN 2.0, I have no doubt that Blizzard will do their outmost in order to deliver a quality product, and that they will faithfully support this product for all of their LEGITIMATE clients. And that's something that cannot be said of either Crytek or Ubisoft --companies that habitually abandon support after a few patches, and that are deaf to their customers' suggestions.

I think we're all from wealthier countries, and we certainly all have regular access to the internet; the absence of LAN will be a minor inconvenience. I have played StarCraft since 1998, and not once have I used LAN. LAN is a relic of the 90s, and if its removal will mitigate piracy and put a few million more in to Blizzard's pockets, I fully endorse their choice.

 

you were aware of the beta that happened the last few months, right? many pro gamers had SC2 beta keys, and there have already been several SC2 tournaments involving pro players.

they know the game is tournament-worthy. they know they already have a huge fanbase.

 

Sure, call Blizzard greedy. That's the point of a company: to make the most money. Blizzard is NOT out to give favors to people, especially pirates. All they are doing is ensuring that they get the money they deserve for this great game.

 

There are many reasons this grudging LAN support is insufficient. It fails to support people who don't have Internet, or who pay by the megabyte for Internet access (which constitutes pretty much the entire developing world, as well as any isolated location with poor infrastructure). It fails to support people who live in regions that don't have a large enough Starcraft community to justify a local Battle.Net server. It also doesn't support playing behind firewalls that filter outgoing traffic, which are becoming increasingly common in many settings. Finally, this simply won't deter the pirates, who won't have any trouble setting up a "fake" Battle.Net server of their own.

Every copy should have LAN support - it's the best move for Blizzard and for everybody in the long term. That said, this concession will at least allow them to avoid horrible, horrible damage to their reputation.

 

It is a big deal. Just look at the HDH and how hard it was to organise... B.net is not, in its current state, at all easy to use and does not consider things like organising events. Serious tournaments (how serious it is depends on the participants and not whether Blizzard endorses it with special copies and staff[??]) cannot run through B.net, period.

 

Erm, I don't know if you missed it but Husky made a 30 minute long video talking about Bnet and how painful it was for them to make that tourmanent happen.

Withought the chatrooms he had to send emails to everybody and the whole process took way more time than it needed to.


EDIT: Oh kuvasz already told ya.'

Not true asdf, if the have LAN in SC2 there will be an ICCUP for that too. And with an ICCUP you wouldn't need the battlenet. You'll still be able to play vs other people.