[MattSC]

I'm kind of blown away that Blizzard is removing the LAN feature from Starcraft. I don't care how upgraded Battlenet is, we're not yet at an age where latency isn't an issue over the internet. Being in the same room, on the same wifi network doesn't mean jack as far as potential lag goes with online gaming.

According to GiantBomb.com, they contacted Blizzard who had this to say:

We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

What do you guys think? Step in the right direction, or crippling mistake?

[Hirashirou]

It's a step in the right direction. Piracy would be the biggest issue here, since people are cracking games like shell-less pistachios. As much as we'd like to hide from it, Blizzard is still a company and money is still a factor. What will this do to iccup is my question.

[MattSC]

Yeah I thought about ICCUP as well. Maybe Blizzard will build something similar into the new Battlenet? I can understand about working against piracy for sure, but what about "spawn installs" (i think that's what they called it) as with the original? Where you can install a version of the game that only works over LAN, all from one copy of the disk. To me, this actually prevents piracy, because you don't have to all own a copy to play multiplayer.

[Dark747]

Its rediculous. I regularly play lan SC so im probably going to play the same amount with SC2 but if they remove it then im fucked because lagg will always be there.

[Blackmamba]

NO! How will we play Starcraft II on LAN parties ??? Piracy cannot be stopped though ... some master hacker dudes will find a way to play it for free anyways ... removing LAN is not good, for me at least ...

This post has been edited by Blackmamba: Jun 30 2009, 07:39 PM

[Death Dragon]

I hope there's still a way to play with my brothers ...

[Hirashirou]

Well I'm almost certain that when Wings of Liberty comes out, it will in fact be cracked and available pretty easily. I don't think theres anything anyone can do about that, unless you have to log on to your bnet account to access the campaign missions (which would be retarded). Like a lot of pirated games today, the single player is playable but online play remains protected. :o

[Blackmamba]

well, i just hope Blizz won't remove LAN ...

[MattSC]

well, i just hope Blizz won't remove LAN ...

Unfortunately that's what this post is about. They confirmed there is no LAN, and no plans to add it. :S

[Revo]

I highly doubt that they'll remove LAN capability altogether. Chances are, they're only removing the LAN screen. I speculate that in order to play in the same room as someone else, you'll need to login to their Battle.net server first. From there, you can connect to another computer in the same room - also known as LAN.

In short: I doubt that LAN is disappearing completely.

This post has been edited by Revolutionary: Jul 1 2009, 01:05 AM

[MageKirby]

OMG NO LAN?!?! D:! That's terrible =/

[FrozenPulse]

NOOOOOOOO!!

I LOVE LAN AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE IT!

I really hope Blizz doesn't remove lan completely...

And oh ya piracy... I think people would find ways of creating private servers anyways.

[protoss_111]

If Blizzard was really smart they would charge $20 for the SC2 CD with LAN play and charge a one time fee of $30 for online play to set up an account.

Not that many people will use private servers. Most like online play.

This post has been edited by protoss_111: Jul 1 2009, 11:49 AM

[hsp!]

Another game has made that fatal mistake in the past... It was Hellgate London. A whole different genre and stuff but still... I mean it's not like the Battle.Net servers are going to be down in 6 months or something, but still it would be ridiculously annoying to not have a LAN mode. At least they should try to make it somewhat like STEAM and include some sort of offline-mode.

[C3nsuRED_cz]

Not including LAN is the biggest mistake blizzard made imo. I grew up on LAN parties, the need of having internet connection to play LAN is ridiculous(like 95% of LAN parties here are without internet connection)

[protoss_111]

Potential Workaround

I don't know too much about computers, but I'm thinking that if you can program software to trick Starcraft 2 into thinking that your computer is a Bnet server, LAN play is possible.

Call it a "server emulator" if you may, but I think that might work.

This post has been edited by protoss_111: Jul 1 2009, 01:25 PM

[hsp!]

Well, let's face it. With a community as large as starcraft's, sooner or later someone is gonna find out how to emulate a private bnet gateway. Happened in BW and it will happen in SC2 again

[Shykhandero]

They can't completely get rid of LAN play because it would guarantee the death of pro starcraft. Imagine an OSL finals with lag or a possibility of disconnection. More likely, as someone suggested before, there might be a forced login to BNET before you can get to the LAN options. It won't take too long before somebody hacks up a BNET2 emulator server so that LAN parties can still play with no internet networks.

[WC8]

Everyone is seriously overreacting to this.

I mean, this is BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT ffs. The people who spawned a game that launched professional eSports to the top.

They aren't stupid enough to remove LAN without having a better alternative. This is merely a way to avoid piracy and places like Iccup starting. Iccup is a major issue for Blizzard, and they don't want it to pop up again.

Basically: We will be fine.

[MattSC]

The only way I would agree with WC8, is if Shykhandero is right, and they still do have LAN, but it's done "through" B.net. That would make sense. Login to B.net, then go to the LAN section and join/create games. But there's nothing about them "changing LAN." All the press is about them completely removing the functionality, and nothing from Blizzard has shown it to be any different.