About Lan

[Statharas]

Guys, i never thought about this, but now... Lan was used by people, in the past, when NOT so many had even 56kb connections! You know, maybe this is a whole new start... Blizzard saying, Internet or gtfo. Before Wc2 (bnet edition), it was like... No irl friends, no play. If Wc2 had lan at least. Maybe we should all give up on the LAN, and live in the future...





That's just my opinion.

 

[Lich_king2]

Hmm? Nope.

 

[redmarine]

I'm all for it.

If I want to play LAN I can simply just download a hacked LAN circumvented client 3 months after release.

 

[Tleno]

Well I never actually used lan so much, I used to play in internet with random people ussually...

 

[Aeroblyctos]

I play very often LAN games and I'm not giving up with that. Even if I have 110 mb internet and I can download like 5000 kt/sec the LAN is still faster. And it's also easier to play with IRL friends.

I want LAN, LAN, LAN!

 

[Agarwa3n]

Internet or gtfo. .

Indeed, but we are not there yet. Besides their true motive is to fight piracy. I'd like to have an the option to choose if my game will be hosted to bnet or by me. This way you might be able to play some maps with arrow keys or fps system without the retarted 1 sec delay (if it's a connectivity problem though).

 

[gT.ReD]

I dont think that most Mod makers like this idea because they have to load the map to Blizz, in whatever state it might be in, to test out Multiplayer functions.

Can't say why the masses are angry, I dont really care either way.

A group of people working on anything within the Galaxy Editor should own SC2, so aside from the Map issue, hosting a private match within Bnet 2.0 is easily doable.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

I never cared about LAN. There ppl who did and it was the base in Korea for example, that's why I've mentioned it. Unlike Bnet 1, Bnet 2 has no delay. In war3 you get 1 second late click. That's why war3 was better off in Garena and still is, pointless to play Bnet like since 2007. Ahh yes for maps maybe, but for Dota and melee - much better garena. So since Bnet 2 has no delay, no need of lan and garena. It's not an issue but we will see when someone gets disced on a final for example, what players will say about it. They need to make steel hard bnet to not have lan.

 

[PurplePoot]

I play very often LAN games and I'm not giving up with that. Even if I have 110 mb internet and I can download like 5000 kt/sec the LAN is still faster. And it's also easier to play with IRL friends.

I want LAN, LAN, LAN!

Confirmation bias, since LAN on Warcraft 3 is not in fact faster than playing inhouse with people on the same internet connection.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

personally i use a lot of lan play. if starcraft 2 doesnt get lan i will be unable to test out the map with my friends. i have actually played several games over lan the past few days.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Confirmation bias, since LAN on Warcraft 3 is not in fact faster than playing inhouse with people on the same internet connection.

I'm not just talking about wc3.

 

[Rainbow Evil]

If Blizzard can reduce lag to minimum and if there wont be frequent discon problem, I will gladly hug Bnet 2 and put LAN away. But as Agarwa3n said, their tru motive is fighting piracy.

If u make a game and everyone downloads it and plays it for free, then you should be pissed off. If they want players to buy their game, they need to offer them something, online gameing in this case. But Blizzard does have tons of money from WoW and Im sure many will atempt to make LAN client or something.

Personally ( but hypocritic ) I think this way of piracy should be stopped ( although pretty much impossible ).

 

[PurplePoot]

I'm not just talking about wc3.

LAN is not better on any game with local hosting.

 

[Dr Super Good]

LAN is only faster for communicating with people on the LAN network. This however can happen at the same time as communicating with people through the internet due to the way the internet protocoles work.

Eg in WC3 if I hosted a map my brother would download even 8 MB maps in 1-2 seconds cause of the LAN between us. Other people joining, be it from the US or Australia would take many minutes cause of the shit UL rate my internet has.

I am not too sure how SC2 hosting works and I am sure it has atleast got rid of half the advantage of online play with a friend on LAN but instead there are no slow map DLs (battlenet does that) and people can always join your games.

In WC3 using the LAN hosting system via fowarding to packets to a WAN was faster only because LAN hosting used lower latency values than battlenet games. This however has since been killed off completly by host bots who can set the latency to even lower values making LAN hosting potentially worse.

LAN play will always be faster than internet play for atleast most of the world however that speed boost only extends to local computers connected to a physical LAN network. If you extend your LAN to connect to other people's LAN networks via the internet then all speed advantage is lost and it is basically the same as playing via the internet.

 

[PurplePoot]

Indeed, but we are not there yet. Besides their true motive is to fight piracy. I'd like to have an the option to choose if my game will be hosted to bnet or by me. This way you might be able to play some maps with arrow keys or fps system without the retarted 1 sec delay (if it's a connectivity problem though).

Actually, it's almost certain that their true intentions have absolutely nothing to do with fighting piracy.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Maybe they'll add it as a surprise after its release (haven't lost my hopes yet)

 

[Agarwa3n]

Actually, it's almost certain that their true intentions have absolutely nothing to do with fighting piracy.

Actually they said it themselves. They were looking for the best way to keep the crowd satisfied and fighting piracy. If the outcome is good is irrelevant. Really, I dont suppose you believe they dream to make the ideal online-super-gaming environment, and they just do it.

 

[Hiruty]

well lan was good for playing with friends yes. BUT DONT YOU NEED THE I.N.T.E.R.N.E.T to register your game befor you install. lol so i dont see the point of having no lan cause 1. its 2 big to download ( gunna be like 5- 12 gb big ) 2. YOU CANT USE online or galazy editor. 3. srysly theres gunna be a spam on forums saying BRING THE FCKING LAN OPTION BACK WE LOVED IT IN YOUR OLDER GAMES. 4.its better for rpgs ( as in defainces orpg got to max lvl playing on lan on my wherewolf, crusader, ring master, defender, healer, ect ) so i dont see why they havnt already anounced that they will have it and they wont have it in beta so they just dont dl the beta client.

 

[PurplePoot]

Actually they said it themselves. They were looking for the best way to keep the crowd satisfied and fighting piracy. If the outcome is good is irrelevant. Really, I dont suppose you believe they dream to make the ideal online-super-gaming environment, and they just do it.

Regardless of what they said (and I don't recall them saying such a thing; a quote would be nice), based on their actions and ToS it seems like the removal of LAN is a move to try to gain more control over eSports.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

the removal of LAN harms lots of players that play the game legally. i for example only go online to either play with friends that are far away or to play with more than a local friend. i use LAN to test maps with local friends. so if starcraft 2 doesnt get LAN i will be unable to test my maps with my friends. however since starcraft 2 is online only it would have to be simulated LAN through the guest mode.

 

[redmarine]

the removal of LAN harms lots of players that play the game legally. i for example only go online to either play with friends that are far away or to play with more than a local friend. i use LAN to test maps with local friends. so if starcraft 2 doesnt get LAN i will be unable to test my maps with my friends. however since starcraft 2 is online only it would have to be simulated LAN through the guest mode.

Or you guys could buy an account each. It's not that costly.

 

[PurplePoot]

the removal of LAN harms lots of players that play the game legally. i for example only go online to either play with friends that are far away or to play with more than a local friend. i use LAN to test maps with local friends. so if starcraft 2 doesnt get LAN i will be unable to test my maps with my friends. however since starcraft 2 is online only it would have to be simulated LAN through the guest mode.

If your local friends have an account then playing on BNet is easy.

If they don't, then it isn't harming lots of players that play the game legally.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The removal of LAN is because gamers like me and my brother only played online after buying the game despite having LAN between us. The result was the LAN feature being abused as illegal pirate WAN more than for a group of players to play locally. Also all professional events will have axcess to a LAN version of SC2 and thus they do not have any problem with it being removed from the main game.

The only people complaining are people who have cheapskate friends (who lack the hardware / key to play the game online at the same time), people who for some strange reason have poor internet axcess or pirates who can no longer play online without buying the game.

 

[Omgpielol]

The removal of LAN is because gamers like me and my brother only played online after buying the game despite having LAN between us. The result was the LAN feature being abused as illegal pirate WAN more than for a group of players to play locally. Also all professional events will have axcess to a LAN version of SC2 and thus they do not have any problem with it being removed from the main game.

The only people complaining are people who have cheapskate friends (who lack the hardware / key to play the game online at the same time), people who for some strange reason have poor internet axcess or pirates who can no longer play online without buying the game.

Actually LAN was removed from regular sc2 to force any sort of league to have to involve blizzard to operate, now blizzard makes profits from every sc2 tournament, as opposed to before where they made no profit. Well, thats the most likely reason anyway, piracy probably doesn't affect blizzard much.

 

[Hiruty]

lol NO MATTER WHAT theyll add lan even if it requires sc2 to log in cause some1 will add a modded sc2 so you can play lan so yah....

 

[mrzwach]

A private server like Garena wouldn't exactly be able to hide behind the ruse of "lol our users are totally not all (mostly) pirates" if it requires a hacked SC2 to play. (oh, and yes, I realize that not every person who plays on Garena is a pirate, but if you have a legit CD key and do, you are in the minority).

Regardless, I doubt that Blizz is planning on letting private servers, hackers, etc be nearly as prevalent as they were for SC1, WC3, and D2. Likewise, they are moving towards systems which allow them to regulate and control their game. Also, controlling eSports is probably a big part, though that is fully within their right as it is their game.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

i prefer to play games on LAN. i lost 3 reputation points for discussing pirated software so i wont discuss that.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

It may be even connected with these Kespa vs Blizzard conflicts they have, since in Korea they profit from Blizzard's SC1, and they cant do it here in SC2. Im not into these, but I remember that fact.

 

[mrzwach]

i prefer to play games on LAN. i lost 3 reputation points for discussing pirated software so i wont discuss that.

With their new system (where CD Keys are linked to accounts, not installations) it should be easy to get a group of people to play together, as anyone can log on any computer which has SC2 installed. Unless, of course, your friends don't even have SC2, in which case that would be illegal.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

in order to play multiplayer people need to log into battle.net with a battle.net account. games released before world of warcraft didnt use the cd-key for LAN. as a result a single cd-key was enough to play a maximum player game on LAN. in starcraft 2 however each player need their own cd-key. that means that only people that have purchased the game can play it muliplayer.

 

[KaboomMaster]

I still find it funny how people think removing LAN stops piracy in any way.

Regardless I imagine that the removal of LAN also has to do with the (completely F***ing stupid, in my opinion) new features such as premium maps which Blizzard has added since if you weren't logged into B.net then there wouldn't be anything to stop distribution of premium maps.

 

[Statharas]

Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to start Premium Maps anyway.

OT: The girl in your avatar.. Where is it from?

 

[PurplePoot]

I still find it funny how people think removing LAN stops piracy in any way.

It does.

However, that's beside the point because the removal of LAN is more likely for eSports reasons.

 

[KaboomMaster]

Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to start Premium Maps anyway.

OT: The girl in your avatar.. Where is it from?

She is Konata from Lucky Star

It does.

Actually it doesn't since quite a few people pirate games entirely for the single player and even then it won't be long before b.net registry check bypasses and lan emulators are avilable. I mean look at WoW an entirely online game which also has had multiple private servers in the past. If a game is popular enough than nothing is gonna stop good coders from wanting to hack it for pirating.

 

[PurplePoot]

And quite a few people hand the game out to all their friends and play on LAN.

 

[Kilkakon]

Here's how I enjoy a PC game:
1. I play it for about a week or two and then gets old (typically I beat the campaigns).
2. Make my own map/mod for it.
3. All my friends come over and we play the modded version together.
4. I make balance changes and improvements to the mod.
5. Back to step 3.

As this is not possible with Starcraft 2, it's not worth my money.

 

[PurplePoot]

So basically since your friends can't all pirate the game it isn't worth your money?

No sympathy.

 

[Kilkakon]

Not normally. If I'm serious about a mod I'll buy copies of the host game for my friends or keep pressuring them to get copies themselves. Especially if I release it, I would never do that on a pirated game.

 

[PurplePoot]

Then you can do this on SC2.

 

[Kilkakon]

My friends and I don't like playing online though (if I had the game I would play as guest). My LAN room doesn't even have an internet connection as it's a seperate building 50m away from the house (it's really comfortable though!). Even if it did, my friends typically play on my PCs, which means I would have to buy a copy for each machine.

 

[PurplePoot]

It's not one-install-per-purchase; it's one-account (person logged in at once)-per-purchase.

 

[Kilkakon]

Exactly. To have a friend at every machine, I would have to buy an account for each machine.

 

[thisruoy]

Then tell them to buy it, or tough luck. What is so hard about this? If they enjoy playing the game, they should buy it.

 

[Kilkakon]

The point is that they never will. As soon as I told them that they wasn't LAN available, they all lost interest as quickly as I did. It's a shame really.

 

[LordDz]

Sorry man, but.. Why should they get to play for free?

 

[thisruoy]

The point is that they never will. As soon as I told them that they wasn't LAN available, they all lost interest as quickly as I did. It's a shame really.

Ahh I see what the problem is. They are not connected to the internet.

 

[Kilkakon]

Well let's put it this way... every other company is generous enough to allow LAN games to happen. Because of this, we'll be playing Warcraft 3 and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade for our LANs, rather than Starcraft 2.

Blizzard's stance is somewhat self-contradictory. If they say that LAN parties are a thing of the past and diminishing, then removing the feature seems pointless as it only causes mass agro for little gain. Of course there are other reasons that people have figured out (private servers etc.) but it wasn't the reason that Blizzard gave.

What I would do if I was running a games company is have two versions of a game. The first would be a full version that would have all the standard anti-piracy stuff like online validation and whatever. The second would have LAN ability only. People wanting to play online or single player would need their own copy. I believe that's a fair way to do things -- it's generous and it's advertising. When people get to try out a game, and they enjoy it, they are likely to want to get it themselves (exactly what happened with Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Red Alert 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, etc.).

EDIT: And yeah you are right thisruoy it is kinda academic as the LAN room is about 50m away from an internet connection.

 

[mrzwach]

Because of this, we'll be playing Warcraft 3 and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade for our LANs, rather than Starcraft 2.

Key phrase: for our LAN. Clearly it isn't a big enough deal to affect Blizzard's sales in the least - the only difference here is that people don't get to play for free. It's kinda hard to sympathize with people complaining about not getting to play games that other people pay for for free.

 

[Dr Super Good]

If you have enough computers capable of running SC2 to have a LAN party, I am pretty sure you can afford to have them all networked to the internet to play SC2 on all of them at once.

The problem with a LAN only version like you would make is that it does internet (via packet fowarding) and LAN. The result is that fewer people will buy the full multiplayer version and most of the multiplayer will be via LAN packet fowarding rather than over your multiplayer system. As there is no pircy checks, you will also get a lot of people playing the game multiplayer on the internet via LAN who did not buy the game.

Once again, I will conclude with the argument of... If you can aford enough PCs that are capable of running SC2 to have a LAN party, why can you not afford to add even a basic internet connection to the network so all of them can axcess the internet and play SC2...

 

[andreasaspenberg]

each player need a valid starcraft 2 license. that means that each player need to buy the game.