For all you StarCraft players ....................

[Kalros]

I'm sure anyone who follows gaming news has seen today's biggest story:

http://kotaku.com/5304113/no-lan-play-for-starcraft-ii

This is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard, from a company I've always respected ................... until now. I was really afraid that the association with Activi$ion was going to change the way that Blizzard did their business (despite claims by the company themselves that it would not), and it looks like my fears were true.

I accepted the whole "3 Seperate Games" announcement, even found some positives in it. But removing any LAN play?! No freaking way! That is the ONLY way I've played the original since around 2000. And if they stick with this statement, I will NOT be buying a copy.

Anyone who cares, please hop over and sign the petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html

[Malekyth]

You're losing your respect for a company over the discontinuation of a single feature? I can see how this would affect the LAN party culture, but can't see how it'll break the game for anyone. It's just a different way of playing. With voice and headsets, who cares?

How can you put this down to association with Activision? Development and maintenance resources are not infinite, and you hardly ever have as much time or as many people to throw at a task as you want or need. Doubtless, someone looked at the data and decided their available resources would not be well-spent on LAN play, especially when they have Battle.net.

Sorry, online petitions don't work. They are the equivalent of saying, "yes, you're really good at this job, and you couldn't be responsible for the hit games you've already got under your belt if you weren't in the disciplined habit of thinking very hard about every decision you make ... but there are more of us, so DO WHAT WE SAY!" The day Blizzard submits to an online petition, is the day after hell freezes over.

[mawdudi]

"safeguard against piracy"

Like this will make LAN pirates buy the game lol. It's actually the opposite, I bought the original SC back in 1998 after I played it on a LAN party. If I had not played it on LAN, I probably would have never bought it.

The only thing removing LAN option does is that it annoys LAN people and makes Blizzard lose few sales...removing LAN option to prevent piracy is one of the stupidest ideas I have heard for awhile.

[mmcookies]

You're losing your respect for a company over the discontinuation of a single feature? I can see how this would affect the LAN party culture, but can't see how it'll break the game for anyone. It's just a different way of playing. With voice and headsets, who cares? How can you put this down to association with Activision? Development and maintenance resources are not infinite, and you hardly ever have as much time or as many people to throw at a task as you want or need. Doubtless, someone looked at the data and decided their available resources would not be well-spent on LAN play, especially when they have Battle.net. Sorry, online petitions don't work. They are the equivalent of saying, "yes, you're really good at this job, and you couldn't be responsible for the hit games you've already got under your belt if you weren't in the disciplined habit of thinking very hard about every decision you make ... but there are more of us, so DO WHAT WE SAY!" The day Blizzard submits to an online petition, is the day after hell freezes over.

You'd be surprised. Activizzard is quite good at listening/manipulating their consumers when there's money to be made.

The main problem with LAN play is that Blizzard isn't making any money off of the feature, and this ain't the 1990's. The success of MMOs and distro networks like Steam have proven that centralized gaming works like a charm. There seems to be scarce demand for a LAN feature, and worse it might compete with the new battle.net portal.

So yes, petition away. Maybe there IS a significant demand for LAN play and Blizzard isn't seeing it in their marketing data, but it'd better be one hell of a demand to compete with the masterplan of beefing up bnet to be one of the world's leading gaming networks.

[Kalros]

It's just a different way of playing. With voice and headsets, who cares?

Well, its up to 7500. I've watched it grow by 2000 in the last hour or so. So almost 10,000 who know of the petition care, and I'm sure there are more.

[algol]

Real reason: DRM and attempt at further profitization.

I don't enjoy playing with random 12 year olds online, while I do enjoy playing with family and friends on the LAN. Therefore I may not even be buying this now if it turns out to be true.

[Lax]

Well, I have to say, I'm not all that excited about being required to purchase 2 copies of the game to play it against the person sitting next to me, on another machine that I own, at my own house. The original Diablo had a "spawn mode" specifically so that you wouldn't have to purchase 2 copies of the game to play together. Other games would "let" you pass the CD after loading to get the game going, etc. That's not called stealing (assuming you purchased the game) or piracy (unless they are able to make the argument that they are leasing you StarCraft II service for life based on your initial purchase price plus $0 per any length of time, and then put it in their Terms of Service that it's prohibited), that's called fair use. It's obviously more about money (they clearly need bigger profit margins) than about a quality experience (and battle.net has always included ads), although the "anti-piracy" bit is a passable argument if not misguided. Pirates will still play through the single player game, and then spam the internet for a "multiplayer fix" until someone outside the range of DMCA provides one.

Anyway, not a deal breaker for me as far as buying the game, but to be honest it probably wont make me purchase that second copy of the game just to play against my wife. We will probably just have less fun playing the game than we would have otherwise.

[heyaz]

I will NOT be buying a copy.

Just like all the people who canceled and quit wow forever because of the will of the forsaken nerf

I don't believe you

[heyaz]

What's silly about many DRM implementations and things like this that are supposed to safeguard against piracy, is that there is one major flaw with their statistics (like the BSA's crap about xxx billion lost per year due to piracy) - most people who pirate software were not buyers anyway.

[Redbeard]

Just wanted to throw out (even though this is a SC thread) that theyre doing the same for Diablo 3.

Im fine with it as long as they dont charge for B.net.

We'll see what happens.

I love internet dramatics though. "A petition is being drafted!!" =P Oh noes.