Bnet 2.0 replacing LAN - Page 3

On May 02 2010 18:30 CowGoMoo wrote:

its expensive probably. lower latency = more bandwidth

SC1 LAN is 100 Latency btw.
SC2 Bnet latency has been reduced down to 125 per one of the recent interviews.

On May 02 2010 23:15 palanq wrote:
I believe there's an easy fix here: require login to bnet, but then have an option to host/join local games once you are logged in!

-And what about the situation where you have a tournament where everyone is on one DSL line? Internet play would be impossible there - there was a "pseudo-LAN" solution mentioned where you'd be connected directly as long as there was some sort of internet connection, is that still in the cards?

I believe so. We're still looking at tournament solutions, we don't know what our final set of solutions will be, but we're actively looking for something that will allow that situation to be a lot more positive experience. We've gotten a ton of feedback, we've heard that even that solution that you mentioned isn't enough, I don't know what the final form will look like, how that will finally shake out - but we're really aware of the problem, and we've heard the feedback, and we're trying to deal with it.

-How do you think that the removal of LAN play will affect the game's popularity, especially in tournament situations where you can't have 50 people on one DSL connection, or less-developed areas where broadband is restricted?

The question really is, for us... I feel like broadband is available in a lot of places. Most of our users are already able to connect via broadband, and if you don't have broadband your online gaming experience is probably suffering on its own already. We're trying to create a stronger internet community, to encourage people to play on the internet, which is how it's meant to be played: With achievements, with the matchmaker, with your friends - you can see them if you're logged on wherever you are in the world.

We've found that certainly for us, StarCraft is a vastly superior experience when playing against someone of equal skill as you, and that might not be your friends. It's much, much more fun when you're being matchmade against someone with your skill level, and believe me, that's something we've been working on perfecting in StarCraft II. In the beta, we're still ironing out all the kinks but you almost always feel like you should be matched against somebody of your skill level, who can play at the level you can play at. In StarCraft, if you're playing someone who is better or worse than you, it really loses some of its teeth.

Sure, there'll always be someone who likes beating up on noobs, who likes pulling wings off butterflies, but that's not a fun experience. But by building a huge Battle.net community and bringing it together, we want to get them to play together. That was our goal from the beginning: to have everybody all on the same server, playing as one huge community.

I certainly hear the concerns about it, but it's something we're going to try and see how it goes, first.

On May 02 2010 23:20 Mrfred wrote:



Even that is not as good as a real LAN connection like in WC3 or Broodwar. Before you were able to buy a copy of the game and then if your friends came over you could play with them. Now even if you own the game, you have to own a copy for everyone that you want to play it with. I find this outrageous, though I will still buy it.