No LAN for you: StarCraft II won't have local support

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Home Blizzard

12:00 PM on 06.29.2009, Brad Nicholson

72 comments | 15030 views

No LAN for you: StarCraft II won't have local support photo

#Blizzard #PC

StarCraft II will not have LAN support.

Speaking with IncGamers, Blizzard’s vice president of game design Rob Pardo made it spectacularly clear that players won’t be able to play against each other the old way -- without the Internet. Instead, players will have to use the revolutionary Battle dot Net service to host, create and join matches.

“We don’t have plans to support LAN,” Pardo said shortly before putting the statement in stone with, “we will not support it.”

This, of course, comes with a caveat: IncGamers was speaking with a panel, and the other two guys, producer Chris Sigaty and lead designer Dustin Browder, weren’t so sure. They said Blizzard was still discussing it before Pardo answered.

Despite the disagreement within the panel, we’re sure StarCraft II won’t support LAN for a couple of reasons. First, Pardo knows. Second, this is the year 2009. This thing called the Internet lets people do all sorts of wild things like look at porn and play RTS games over it. Pretty hip, really.

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next 50 comments

71 comments | showing # 1 to 50

Midgetsnowman

Yeah..lack of Lan is sorta dealbreaker for someone like me who honestly couldnt give a shit about any sort of multiplayer except with my irl buddies.

Jawmuncher

Well than looks like it will be up to the fans to find a way for lan to work.
And considering how many starcraft fanms they are they should figure something out.

Since dont you have to pay for battle.net now?

Chronic Logic

It's a conspiracy to curb piracy I tell you! I'm not crazy!

darknil

LAN support is good tough, most tournaments work on LAN..

Timdabrat

This is absolutely ridiculous. Do they not pay attention to anything anymore? LAN parties ALWAYS have a starcraft section. This game is going to the dogs.

Arch649

Starcraft was a huge LAN staple. Fuck Blizzard.

RAB

What the fuck. Then LAN cafes are just shit outta luck?
What about the huge LAN tournaments they have in Korea and shit?

This is a fucking stupid-ass call. They better have some good fucking reasons for this shit.

ROMaster2

Fucking christ, even today some people don't have internet, and even still no one wants no god damn lag. Thanks Blizzard.

Lally Monkey

I give it a month before a LAN program is out.

tsunamikitsune

Super lame. I just recently started to enjoy playing PC games over LAN now that I have enough friends with laptops (or the drive to bring their towers over). It's awesome because I can just install my copy of Starcraft on everybody else's computer so not everyone has to own it.

LAN also helps when the internet is down or you have a slow connection. I'd rather not have eight players on my crappy DSL connection when I could just play over LAN.

Zantetsuken

I called it, not only are they making you pay three times for the full game Blizzard wont even include LAN.

Doomsday Forte

Wow, that's pretty bad as far as decisions go, especially considering how absolutely rampant the original game is. Sure, people got to play without buying the game, but they're really putting the knife to the customer's throat now.

@Jawmuncher: You never had to pay for battle.net as far as I know. Please don't tell me I'm gonna have to add "UNTIL NOW!!!" to the end of that. D:

Camui

wtf? I think this is their way of trying to discourage people pirating the game to be honest. Since if you want to play multiplayer you can't just get hamchi or whatever that was called and go play on lan instead of B.net.

amirite?

ChronosWing

Disappointing? Yes. Deal Breaker? Not really.

The game will still kick huge amounts of ass and sell like hotcakes so I doubt Blizzard is to worried about not including LAN. Plus I give it maybe a month at the most after release before either Blizzard caves and adds LAN in a patch or someone creates a 3rd Part LAN program for it.

FinnE

I don't get why you as a developer would not include LAN support. Traditional knowledge of competitive gaming suggests that LAN suppport is paramount, since LAN based tournaments that pit the best players against each other are what turn a competitive game into a spectator e-sport. If there is no LAN support, there's no reason for players to travel to LAN tournaments, effectively killing the spectator side of the e-sport.

Crock23A

3 letters...

D
R
M

In Warcraft III, I can share a CD with everyone at a LAN party and use the same activation codes. To get on Battle.net, everyone needs their own CD and activation key.

Havoc Fang

Well, thats that sorted. No LAN, no Starcraft. G'Bye.

hermes

Ok, that is a deal breaker for me. Until pirates get a hand to it...

Goooo, Pirates!!

DaedHead8

I'm mostly worried about what this means for whenever battle.net shuts down. When that happens, if there isn't LAN support, multiplayer will be totally dead.

Shadowiii

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. While Starcraft 1 didn't invent the LAN parties it certainly is a staple in literally EVERY SINGLE LAN PARTY I'VE EVER BEEN TO IN MY LIFE (And I've been to quite a few).
They are killing themselves here. Idiotic.

wolflive

Wow, with all the money going to Blizzard these days, you'd think they would come up with a way for legit copies of the game to be able to LAN.

Zantetsuken

@Crock23A
If that's the reason why then this is a total dick move.

SunKing

One word: piracy.

That Guy 85

Stupidest decision as far as I'm concerned. I was so excited about this game even though the are making it into 3 games (which is also really dumb if you ask me) but no LAN like are you trying to make people hate you or are you just dumber than sh!t? This whole no LAN thing makes me seriously consider not buying this game and just sticking to the first Starcraft. Whats next are they going to make you pay for battle.net? If that happens then you might as well just call it World of Starcraft for sh!t sakes!!1!

macbrazel

Here's a petition, if you're into that sort of thing:

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

Jawmuncher

@Doomsday Forte

I believe the Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are bringing a new battle.net which requires you to pay to play online.

I could have sworn I read that somewhere.

Though it might still just be a rumor, though with activision I could see it happening since they would still make good money off of it

Mekanikles

I'm so saddened by the games industy these days. Nothing but investors and suits trying to make the most profitable product anyway possible. And if they can't deliver a good enough product that people want to buy then, sure enough, they cut their own arms off trying to fight piracy. When are we going to stop buying products from companys that loathe their clientel? What happened to just trying to deliver the best product possible? Was there ever such a thing as customers first?

Guagloves

What?! I am so confused by this. Half the fun I had with Starcraft was playing with friends.

Rockvillian

I agree with Chronic Logic's conspiracy theory and continue to ring the bell of the "making internet slow on purpose and focusing everyone's attention on it in order to charge for different speeds of internet service" theory.

Just watch. It'll be like the sucky version of fireworks.

Gten

UH wtf. As a kid the first pc game I ever played was starcraft and there was no inet in my town (1997) lan was the only way to go multyplayer. Nice way to fuckit up Blizzard..

Dexter345

This seems like sort of a silly thing not to include.

Velt

So I will have to set up a pirate server to play the game on LAN? WTF?!?
People still like to get together and this is a game that a good laptop can handle... I see no reason for not adding it, its just a couple more lines of code.

If this is true, then is absolutely stupid.

Resonance

What the... in NZ where connections are slow and we pay for our damned data, allowing people at a lan party to access the internet is gonna cost money! Fuck that shit I grew up carting comps and cables to my mates garages and that shit isn't going to stop for one game needing internet. I will never pay for SC2 as long as this battle.net requirement remains. Fuck at least steam has offline mode.

Magnalon

I think this is to eliminate pirated copies of the game just LANing it up.

I'm glad I'm out of college, though. We used to exclusively play LAN games, because our University blocked the bnet ports needed. That's going to suck hard for a lot of other people in that situation.

Wintersocks

"You little rascal Blizzard. That Activision boy is a bad influence. i'm calling his mother."
"But moooom"
"No buts."

On a more serious note:

[url]http://static.pyzam.com/img/funnypics/0/pyzamOmgWtf.jpg[/img]

The White Light

Is it really that hard to add LAN support? I just...don't understand how that could really be difficult.

Wintersocks

Damn Bbcode

Let's try that again:

http://static.pyzam.com/img/funnypics/0/pyzamOmgWtf.jpg

Jon B

Wait, what? How will contests have really low latency if they have to be routed through the internet?

Okay, I'll admit, it does reduce piracy by preventing multiplayer at all without a legit copy, but that's just a ridiculous measure.

Velt

Piracy with Starcraft 2? They are going to sell millions anyway, pirates or not pirates Iam going to buy it.
I dont get it, not even piracy is a factor here.

Cowboy TTop

What a dick move. Why would you ditch LAN? Its not a very complex thing to set up, surely.

Perhaps this is their trick to get everyone online, so they can brag about how many users they have online. They want the stats, to please the suits and share holders, just like with WoW.

Well, should be interesting to see those S.Korean sales of Star Craft 2. It probably won't stop them, mind. This game series is like crack out there, and ActiBliz will enjoy pushing it.

Doomsday Forte

@Jawmuncher: Really? Man, I hope that's not true. BNet's big draw was that it was always free. And it was pretty decent as far as free service goes. Hmm...

So let me get some things straight. SC2 is split into three games, one for each race's single player mode, and you can do MP from the box with it, but only on BNet? When most people think of LAN parties, the first things that come to mind are almost always Counterstrike and StarCraft first. It's too bad they're going to really alienate the fans this way, but anything to combat piracy, I guess. *shrugs*

Archwright

@Timdabrat. Good news! All of your favorite LAN parties will continue to have a StarCraft section. Y'know the original StarCraft.

DigitalD562

This move instantly alienates half of all potential SC2 players.All televised SC matches in Korea are played exclusively on LAN. Without LAN support none of the major networks/leagues will pick up SC2. Nobody is gonna take a chance on lag or dropped games on live TV with a $40,000 match on the line. This could kill the game in Korea before day one. Blizzard has a dedicated e-sports team working to make sure shit like this doesn't happen. I think I'll write an in depth blog about this later...

GG Blizzard

pedrovay2003

This honestly might be the deciding factor that makes me skip out on buying the game.

RWarrior1CO

This design decision is nearly as retarded as forcing the player to select only twelve units at a time, and they'll probably do THAT again, too.

How could such a successful company make such arbitrary and utterly stupid decisions?

killias2

This is ridiculous. It won't stop me from getting it, but I'm not happy at all.

Velt

I dont know how they are going to do the GIANT LAN tournaments... of course blizzard will create a server just for them to play local but... the rest of us?
Its nonsense.

Velt

I dont know how they are going to do the GIANT LAN tournaments... of course blizzard will create a server just for them to play local... but what about the rest of us?

mix

HAhahahah fuck this game in the face.

My buddies were stoked about this and I was going to pick it up to play along but this is shitty ass news.

mix

Should have added that creating a room online usually means bad lag especially being in Canada. Too many games with crappy Ping levels, lan games are just sweet.

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