Starcraft 2 was delayed for a year by WoW, new video and no LAN play

:< but i want to zerg

 

If LAN is not included would that prevent third party programs that create simulated LAN on WarCraft 3 such as Listchecker and Garena from working?  If so then it is kind of a big deal, as those programs allow players from across the world to play in LAN-like environments with reduced lag over the internet.

 

Yeah, no Hamachi or anything will be available. Will probably cut the piracy down a little.

 

It will cut it down by a lot, most people that didn't play online just pirated it to play with friends.

 

Actually there's quite a few people who play through Garena, have a legit copy of the game (which is required by Garena) and play through it to have reduced lag environments.

 

I'm sure there is, it doesn't change the obvious fact that more people pirate the game than use that with a legit copy.

 

I play on Garena and I got a legit copy. There's a **** load of people on Garena, about
100 000 right now on server one JUST for WC3 rpgs. Quality of DotA players is a bit higher than your regular bnet pug and people are rated, plus there's less lag.

So removing these kind of programs from SC2 is something bad, yes.

 

There will be a ranking system on the Bnet servers most likely so playing against quality players won't be an issue I'm sure of it. I'd rather have everyone on Bnet. Garena is great for DotA but you don't need it for SC2.

Either way, this will stop a lot of pirating and I'm sure this won't change your mind from buying the game.

 

Oh I didn't plan on buying sc2. RTS are too hard for me, I can barely hold 55% win ratio on wc3 ladder. Saving for either Aion (if it actually turns out to be good, I learned my lesson from pre-ordering WAR) or Diablo III

(edit) So why do I care?, well I think if there's a good modding community for SC2 it could turn agaisnt it. Custom BNET games are just bad, laggy and non-rated.

 

no lan? What a joke. 8 player serial cable was the best.

 

By eliminating LAN, it effectively makes sure that everyone playing has an actual copy of the game.

 

Not if they only play single player.

 

Yeah, I doubt many are playing Starcraft 2 for only the single player though. That's like someone pirating Halo for the single player

 

It's going to suck not being able to play SC2 at LAN parties then.

 

You still can, just need every player to log in through Battle.net.

 

oh well. Someone will probably find a way around it anyway.

 

Lame. I hope there is a dedicated server option or at least an "upgraded" SC2 you can buy that has support for 2-4 "non Bnet" copies, then at least a few people would have to buy it.

 

Tell your buddies to get a job then if they can't afford the game.

 

It's not about getting the money for it, it's about having to connect to Bnet before a game can take place. Some LANs don't have internet access because of the venue used (the ones I go to that my friends host don't) so we wouldn't be able to play SC2 by default.

 

Tell your buddies to get a job then if they can't afford internet at their LAN.

 

I don't think they really want to put down the few thousand dollars to run cable to the church and throw down on an internet subscription that will be used at most 4 times a year. Get a clue or troll elsewhere

 

Haha, who the **** LANs at churches? Sorry, I doubt Blizzard will give a **** about the few poor retards going to LANs without internet connections. It's the year 2009, buddy.

Oh and

Tell your buddies to get a job then if they can't afford setting up/going to a real LAN.

 

The only place in town that will let us set up, tear down, and run unsupervised FOR FREE is the church one of the guys works at. This is LANing old school, not a bunch of rich kids bringing the rigs their daddies built them to one of their houses or a designated LAN center. I don't think there could be a better deal than FREE for 50+ people, including lodging and 2 meals. EVERY OTHER GAME (including WoW to an extent) can be played in a connectionless LAN environment, why should SC2 be a special snowflake?

Oh and

All of my buddies have jobs, wives, kids, and lives. The 4+hour drive and scheduling weekends off is hard enough

 

Rofl, are you ******* 12 years old or what? Get a ******* job then maybe you could set up a real LAN.

Starcraft 2 is the special snowflake because Blizzard knows how much their past games have been pirated and they are sick of it.

No, you don't get to play on your DotA servers with SC2, you don't ******* need to, SC2 will actually have a ranking system most likely so you aren't pubbing with random retards all day.

No, you don't get to play at your ****ty ass LANs with no internet connection, get a ******* job, go to/set up a real LAN.

No, you don't get to be a cheap bastard anymore, every person that wants to play is going to have to cough up some cash. Free ride is over, ***** all you want, Blizzard won't change this and you will still buy the game.

 

This "get a job" argument is pretty stupid.  I don't see how having outside internet is a "real lan".  For those of us that have been lanning before you were even playing MMOs, a "real lan" rarely ever had outside internet and sometimes at best maybe a dial up connection.

 

It's the year 2009 now, real LANs do have internet connections. If you can't afford going to/setting up a LAN with an actual internet connection then you do need to get a job or stop serving fries at McDonalds.

Did you all ***** when TV switched to digital?

 

Maybe the "lives, wives, kids" thing is a bit beyond you. You'd have to get a girl to come home first I guess. First, whatever "ranking" system they come up with won't be nearly as complete or robust as it needs to be since it's the first time they're doing something like that. Second, you have no idea the kind of experience a connectionless LAN offers as far as bonding and brotherhood. You live in the age where you can ride in a car with 4 other people and not have to say a word because you are buried in texting. And lastly, I DID plan to actually purchase this game (as I have for every other Blizz title) so it's not a matter of piracy either, I was merely suggesting that one could purchase the ability to set up a local server or host other players (thus giving Blizz MORE money).

PS: Thanks Slap.

 

Warcraft 3's ranking system was fine, so will most likely SC2's. Never said you can't have your little bonding time at your LANs, it's the year 2009 and you need to set up/go to a real LAN with an internet connection. If you don't want to upgrade your **** as time goes by, then you shouldn't be playing a new game anyway, enjoy SC1.

Lol, purchase the ability to allow others to pirate the game? If there was such a thing, you would need to connect to the internet in the first place.

 

WC3 doesn't rank by map or gamestyle, so you won't know if the people in your pub are good at WC3 or good at DotA or Footies or whathaveyou. Also, "need" is relative friend, once you realize that you can take your internet LAN and **** yourself with it. I've been in a LAN center before, where everyone has their own computer and they never so much as look at their neighbor for fear they might get ganked or wipe the raid. That **** "needs" to end. Also, I upgrade my PC just fine, I'm not going to throw down money to rent a building and their internet connection so my buddies all have room to connect together. We bring 99% of the equipment (tables and chairs not included), why should we have to pay so each of the 50+ of us can use 1/50th of a 3mb connection?

Oh sorry, didn't realize how dense trolls were, sorry to interrupt your night.

 

You're the most retarded mother****** of a blizzard **** sucker that is even remotely imaginable. You support this moneywhoring all the way down your throat. Are you really that delusional to believe they won't crack that ****? Are they honestly that delusional? It's silly because SC2 in Lan will happen anyway with some kind of crack and SC2 will be pirated and played on unofficial servers just like in EVERY other game. If you haven't been to a local lan with your buddies where internet connection is kinda hard to organize because it's somekind of a party room or something your life is ******* sad.

 

Sorry, never been to a **** ass LAN with retards where setting up an internet connection for everyone's comp was hard.

What game that doesn't allow LAN was cracked? Everything isn't crackable. Look at the PS3 for example, you still can't pirate games for that system. Stop being a cheap ass and buy the game and only play with others willing to buy the game, oh wait you don't have a choice.

This won't affect MOST people who actually planned on buying the game/playing with others that bought the game.

 

PC games are just a complete different story buddy.
Just imagine how you in the age of let's say 16 want to have a lan with your buddies with 20 people. You always the 20 slot switch and if you don't have those you need smaller switches. Now as you might know 16 year old kids normally don't like, have an MIT major in networking, so they are, yes you guess it right, ******. That seems unfamiliar with you, considering you never seem to have more than 1 friend, which was your mom.


 I really hope they support some serious spectating (10k+ people) for every game if they shot down every possibility for awesome tools like waaghTV to be used by the community.

 

Step 1: Have internet.
Step 2: Buy a Router
Step 3: Have a computer/laptop that can connect wirelessly to the Router.
Step 4: If your computer/laptop is incapable of connecting to a router wirelessly, it's most likely an old piece of **** that can't even play SC2 in the first place.

HOLY **** THATS SO HARD. If you aren't inviting your entire inbred family of 20 to the LAN, then you don't even need to wirelessly connect everyone.

It's the year 2009, if you are incapable of having a real LAN, keep playing SC1. This is the best way to prevent piracy without ******* over non-retarded/non-poor people. Sorry, Blizzard is done letting people play for free at LANs. Have fun waiting for a crack if it's even possible.

 

Do you realize the cost of a a wireless router that can reasonably support 20+ on a LAN with out of network traffic?

 

Do you realize that Starcraft 2 isn't a 20 player game? You can also buy multiple routers.

The only people that will be affected by no LAN for Starcraft 2 are either the minority or people that wanted to pirate the game with friends.

Like you said "With the spread of the internet however is it really all that big of deal?" It isn't a big deal. It's very easy to get internet access to multiple computers in the same room. If you can't do it, then too ******* bad, go back to playing SC1, a game much more suited for you since you are still living in 1998.

 

Your complete blizzard ball washing is pretty much bypassing the key point here.  This is going to cost people who LAN a good chunk of change if they want to play to SC2 on top of the game's cost already. 

This no LAN issue does little to stem the tide of piracy and to think so is pretty much stupid.  Does WoW's subscriber fees prevent piracy?  Um no... Does Steam authentication prevent people from playing online, um no.

Pirates are going to play the game online regardless.  This disproportionately affects legit users just like stupid DRM tactics.

Is it a big deal to most people?  Obviously not, but this series is rooted in LAN history and this is a big "**** you" to a lot of those other people.

 

Well said.

 

Here's a quote from you: "Virtually every game now days requires some sort of legit authentication to play online."

Now you say: "Pirates are going to play the game online regardless." You know that most people that pirated games like Warcraft 3/Starcraft aren't really labeled as "pirates" because most usually don't pirate games?

Funny stuff, funny stuff.

People who LAN should have access to the internet, how ******* hard is that? Find a room with internet, then you all can chip in buying a router.

This no LAN thing will be huge against the piracy of Starcraft 2. Yeah, it will affect legit users too ******* poor to afford having internet and a router.

Yeah, Blizzard is saying "**** you" for playing at LANs with pirated copies of their older games. This is nothing like DRM, they aren't treating you like pirates, if you want to play with others, you just have to use Bnet servers, not a big deal, like you said YOURSELF. Are you really this ******* stupid to argue with me when you said in the blog that is isn't a big deal? Went from not being a big deal to "omg! Blizzard is saying '**** YOU' to their loyal legit game playing fans, how terrible of them!"

Crying about Starcraft 2 requiring Internet to play with others is the equivelant to crying about having to upgrade an old computer in order to handle playing Starcraft 2 in the first place. "Upgrading Starcraft's graphics is a big '**** you' to those who were able to play Starcraft 1 on piece of **** comps" You act like having an internet connection and a router is ONLY useful for playing Starcraft 2.

You talking about WoW being pirated is hilarious. Private servers are ****ty as ****(half the **** doesn;t work ingame.) and aren't anywhere near the equivalent of playing the game on live servers. If removing LAN forces players to resort to having to play with buggy ass servers with most of the **** not working properly, then that will be enough to make most people not pirate the game.

This was a smart decision for Blizzard which will prevent a **** load of piracy. With your logic, PC games shouldn't even have a CD key because if they want to pirate the game, they will! Upgrade your **** and quit crying.

 

Im hoping one of these days before you disappear from around here that you get your head completely unstuck from your ass.

My two quotes were not mutually inclusive.  It is obvious to anyone who is a complete ******* idiot that the first quote was me stating "play online legitimately".  Clearly a lot of people choose to not go this route however and that is why these games are played online regardless. 

Maybe you need a refresher on what DRM is, Ill copy and paste for you as linking over to wiki may be too complicated:

"access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices."

Sorry, but this no LAN thing is definitely a limitation on digital content especially when you consider that it was in the original game.  This is exactly what DRM is.  This is a limitation on the use of this new game.

Crying about Starcraft 2 requiring Internet to play with others is the
equivelant to crying about having to upgrade an old computer in order
to handle playing Starcraft 2 in the first place.

Another fail statement, welcome to logic 101.  A sequel after 10 plus years is expected to have upgraded graphics.  A game that is still being played regularly this to this day over LAN isn't expected to ditch a common means of gameplay.  This would be the equivalent of requiring online activation for single player.  Any game that forces such bull**** always gets hammered by gamers and the press alike.

Considering in-game content isn't hosted on battlenet and is hosted locally for Starcraft, there is very little reason to think that playing pirated SC2 online will be difficult or buggy.

which will prevent a **** load of piracy

Another full of **** statement that you have no facts to support.  CD keys in general do jack **** to prevent piracy.  The algorithms are weak and are often cracked before a game's retail release.  Now CD keys like SC2s with a battlenet authentication should be enough and that alone is reason enough to not ditch loyal fans that play via LAN. 

If anyone's crying it is you.  I am playing devils advocate and you continue to get pissy over this.  I don't even play SC multiplayer so personally I don't give two ****s. 

 

Actually, it was pretty clear that your quote was in direct defense towards me talking about pirating but you just happen to be on the opposite side of the fence now, so you change your mind about what you actually meant.

The game does not require online activation for Single Player. You can install/play the game on any computer you want to. The game just requires you to play on their servers if you want to play with others. WoW is the same way, they don't allow you to play WoW anywhere other than THEIR server.

Like you said, logic 101, 10 plus years from 1998 and Blizzard is expecting everyone to have access to the internet. You can still play SC2 at LAN parties, that's what makes the game fun, but it's the year 2009 now so it's expected that your LAN actually has access to internet, which MOST do. **** load of people pirate SC1/Warcraft 3 because of offline LANs, it's TOO easy to do, by eliminating offline LANs, they prevent a **** load of piracy unless of course a crack is found, even then, not EVERYONE goes as far as others to pirate games, waiting for the crack alone is enough to gain sales from people that planned on pirating to play at LANs shortly after the release.

Alright, so you are saying that all PC games should then have no CD keys then. If you don't think that would result in more piracy, you are the biggest moron I have ever met. Not everyone goes out of their way to pirate games, the easier it is to do though results in more people doing it. Poor loyal fans with no internet connection with a router, poor them.

So are you saying that you bought SC for the single player alone?

 

Find a room with internet, then you all can chip in buying a router.

Yeah let's chip in FOUR THOUSAND DOLLAR for a 20 slot, ******* moron... Even if you go with a 20 slot switch and an old pc als server you are still around good 400 bucks and a ****ton of work and networking.

 

20 people can play in a Starcraft 2 game at once? News to me. Who said anything about 20 slots, ever heard of wireless? You can also buy multiple routers.

 

Ok, my last try. I try to be nice this time

A good chunk of lanparties over here in germany(about 60%) are held at parish halls, school gyms or universities. The size of these LANs are around 10 to 150 people and my dad was some kind of popstar at my school because he would borrow us 2 24 slot hubs (he works for xerox and they have expensive **** lying around untouched everywhere :P) a few years ago, equipment for about 7 thousand dollar with all cables etc. It always took almost a day to get all the **** done with the networking etc. Now imagine you had to give internet to all these people. Wireless for me is no option because this singlehandly erases the purpose of a lan, outside the obvious social aspect. The average university has wireless for everyone so this should be rather easy. Schoolgyms rarely have internet access, so do parish halls. And yes you have more than 20 people playing SC at the same time, they don't neccessarily have to be in the same game. You do tournaments or just play some funmaps etc. The problem I see is that really only professionally organized LANs will be vaibe to host SC2 Lans. RTS was generally a very popular type of game for school gym lans because teachers would not allow games over 16 (no CS for example) to ensure that everybody in the gym is allowed to play. (RTS are generally for 12+ year olds over here)
It just complicates the whole procedure while really bringing nothing to the table. It will be cracked just like every other PC game has been to date, but it's sad to see that a company like blizzard turn into money horse since the launch of WoW, while all their pre-WoW games all felt like they had the intention to please players because of superfun content and easy accessability to ensure maximum enjoyment. (ie. they opened their policy towards 3rd party proccs in wc3 to allow the community to produce great tools like waaghTV and G-arena) I might be wrong and I really hope I am and they will have HL-TV like features implented in the game, but it wouldn't surprise me if these weren't free. Blizzard is progressively evolving into EA and most oldschoolers don't like it.

 

How does wireless ruin the purpose of LAN? Stand in the same room as everyone, instead of being wired, you are wireless. Every computer there was capable of internet access, I'm sure of it, just have the main routers have internet while everyone wirelessly or wire connect to the internet. Log in through Bnet, there you go, LAN party.

 

Because wireless ping is ****. Have you ever been a room with 40 wireless cards? You have 2 sec laggs all the time. There is a reason why lans like Dreamhack still count on cable. Also terrabytes are being exchanged and cable still outperforms wireless in this category since wireless routers whi can buffer so much data start at 7 thousand dollar. The best you can probably do is have a wireless router and run around with a wireless stick, let everybody log in one by one and play games. Or do you need battle.net to connect to the LANhost each and everytime?

 

On top of that, 20 people required online at all times if they are playing via battlenet is a sizable draw on any internet connection costing significant money on that connect front.  Thats assuming you can get all the all the wireless routers needed cost wise, and have minimal wireless problems and lag.

Direct connection via LAN play just makes more sense.

 

Don't bother feeding the troll, just speak with those minus and plus buttons.

 

No LAN!!   Those ******* *****!!!  I'm going to **** them up!!   ****!!!!

 

"That certainly demonstrates the versatility of the word."

 

I played starcraft 2 quite a bit this past weekend at the blizzard regional finals in germany. The game is extremely well polished and according to all the blizz staff there it has been for a while at this point. I played probably 15-20 games total and it was the best video game I have ever had the pleasure of touching. I can't wait for beta to get my hands back on the game; nevertheless, Blizzard is known for never releasing a bad game, and I think all they are doing at this point is trying new things for each race. There are some needed balance changes on a few abilities also in my opinion, which I am sure will be addressed in the near future.