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Hi, I was watching the TLO vs NaDa game ealier and I noticed that there was a disconnect in the first match they played.
Ofcourse, it's always been an issue ever since the announcement of not having a LAN function in SC2. And people have frowned upon this, but not only people. Tournament hosts and organisations are probably getting hit the hardest from not having the LAN function. Cause they rely on external servers which they cannot control, and although Blizzard probably has good maintenance on these servers, there is a possibility of crashed occuring.
Now, I get that Blizzard doesn't want to implement a LAN function because of piracy. I can relate, if I put my money and effort into creating a game for a couple of years I wouldn't want half of the people playing it to be playing without me getting anything in return for it. It's a company, and like most companies, they are not charities and aim to make profit. This way they can continue creating games that pleasure us for over 12 years.
But I feel that we cannot deny that not having a LAN function hurts... deeply.
I think everyone has had a little LAN event with some friends where you just want to play eachother. So why would you do this over the internet. I'm not an expert at this (even though I sorta study for it) but if you're on the connection and both computers sending and receiving alot of packages at the same time will cause higher pings to occur. This whilst your probably sitting in the same room. Well, I feel that the same problem occured in the TLO vs NaDa showmatch.
Now, I thought about this long and hard. Actually... no, for about 5 minutes. But I believe I've found the solution for this problem without the nasty piracy issues.
So now I'll start with my "what if?" part.
What if, Blizzard introduced a patch for SC2 totally remodeling the game with minor interface adjustments and such, but mostly so that it HAS a LAN function. I've seen this happen with another game, in particular with HoN. They did a patch and the interface and all changed completely after without changing the gameplay however.
So, this patch will be autodownloaded AFTER loging in to B.Net, after is the key word in this sentence. This will avoid most piracy threats. However, people can share accounts for a small amount of time to download this onto all the computers they own and so install the patch. So, it's not waterproof. However, if people who want to use this LAN fuction had to login to B.Net first? You will have to need an internet connection for this ofcourse, so in a way the whole purpose of having a LAN function in the game is completely demolished.
But not entirely. Because when you're playing on a LAN, you'll no longer be depedent on external servers for you're connection. You'll nulify the laggs almost, if not entirely. And so, great events such as IEM can continue without having the technical difficulties that it had and programs such as ICCup and Garena can also start endorsing SC2.
I know probably some, if not alot of people with not agree with me and will find this a ridiculous idea. So please comment below whether or like or dislike the idea and don't forget to mention why exactly.
I apologize for any possible spelling mistakes that I've made, english is not my mother tongue  .
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I thought a out of game client could work for this.
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Blizzard would have thought of this and had it included if they wanted to. I think what they really want to do is to be able to control the tournaments and make money off of it. If you just give LAN to anyone, anyone can run tournaments, but if Blizzard releases special LAN games to specific organizations then Blizzard can control it.
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Blizzard,, Im sorry, Activision does not like LAN, and do you really want LAN? (lol)
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I think your really missing the point here. Blizzard didn't include LAN with SC2 for the main reason to try and stop people pirating the game. The secondary reason they did not include LAN was to prevent KeSPA from using Starcraft 2 without Blizzards permission (there is nothing to stop Blizzard simply cutting them off or banning them etc.).
The big problem with this though is the following.
1. You can't stop piracy. Its been tried and its failed so many times I have lost count. The guys cracking the stuff are much smarter than the guys trying to stop them. You can't stop it so there is no point in trying. SC2 has already been cracked for multiplayer play and it hasn't even been released for a month. - Case and point right there. If someone wants to steal software, they are gonna.
2. It hurts not just eSports, but everyone. It really damages Blizzard themselves because battlenet 2.0 is so unstable, if it worked as advertised then it wouldn't be a problem, but as IEM demonstrated you cannot rely on battlenet 2.0, if that changes then having no LAN might be less of a problem.
What is the real solution to the problem?
Simply use the cracked LAN version for tournaments and tell Blizzard to fuck off if they say anything about it.
Like DJ Wheat said recently "I cannot believe someone actually sits there and thinks this is a good idea". That sentence basically applies to everything Blizzard do at the moment, almost nothing they have done in the last few months has ever worked out well, and it just begs the questions as to who is actually making the decisions at Blizzard.
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you wont get lan sooner than pirates figure out server emulation... so, most likely never 
now, do you really want chat channels?
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On August 24 2010 00:50 Uhh Negative wrote:
Blizzard would have thought of this and had it included if they wanted to. I think what they really want to do is to be able to control the tournaments and make money off of it. If you just give LAN to anyone, anyone can run tournaments, but if Blizzard releases special LAN games to specific organizations then Blizzard can control it.
Yes, I think you make a valid point. And if this IS the case, than I think we direct our fingers towards KeSPA for not following the rules that Blizzard has set up for BW and taking control of the scene.
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You underestimate hackers badly.
If there's any form of LAN at all in SC2 it will be hacked and people will be able to download starcraft 2and play LAN with each other without paying.
But what blizzard are missing is... Who cares? Honestly if anything the addition of LAN will make pirates more likely to buy the game after seeing how awesome multiplayer is. Currently people will pirate the single player and never be able to try multiplayer at all.
Instead of games company's thinking "How can we stop the pirates", they should be thinking "how can we make the pirates want to buy our game"
edit: And someone above mentioned, I think the main reason for not including LAN isn't piracy, it's to stop 3rd party servers like iccup and to stop people running unauthorized tournaments (If someone tries they can just cut their battle.net connection)
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I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this?
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On August 24 2010 00:55 shawabawa wrote:
You underestimate hackers badly.
As do you, apparently. It's only a matter of time before someone comes up with a way to play LAN, Blizzard's intentions be damned.
Trying to blame KeSPA for something that's so obviously a Blizzard power-grab is foolish. It would be all but impossible for Korea to hide the fact that they were using LAN to hold unsanctioned tournaments. The game was already cracked and the entire campaign playable the day of release. In many cases, it was out before the official retail version was out. So again, the argument that they did this to stop piracy is also a joke.
It's a power-grab, plain and simple.
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Someone will definitely come up with server emulation. Its only a matter of time and effort.
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It isn't necessarily that the people who are trying to crack the game are smarter than blizzard employees. It's that there is a lot more of them than there are of blizzard. The game crackers outnumber the people trying to stop this. I can understand blizzard not wanting to give LAN upon release, but I'll be expecting some sort of LAN patch sometime in the future or I'll have lost all faith in blizzard as a company
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Sc2 was still pirateable on day one of release, so the prevention of piracy argument is gone.
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On August 24 2010 01:05 nihoh wrote:
Someone will definitely come up with server emulation. Its only a matter of time and effort.
how long it took for bw, and bw had lan... by that point sc2 will be well established as blizzard controlled esport (or dead)
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On August 24 2010 01:01 ta2 wrote:
I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this?
This is entirely wrong. Blizzard hosts every game, even custom games. There is no p2p system in sc2.
I'm one of the Aussies who has 500ms to the SEA server. I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't also get 500ms to every custom game as well. I even get 500ms to my own host.
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If someone comes out with a 3rd party LAN "hack" and people use it or tournaments use it, can Blizzard take any sort of legal action against them? If so, what justification would they use?
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If this were 1999 maybe even in the early 2000s, you might have a case that a game releasing without lan support hurts the players.
95%+ (just an imagined stat just to say "most" but so someone doesn't come back to me saying that well alot of players still need lan) will go thru an entire year of this game without feeling the incline or need for lan support or go to an event that doesn't have some Net support over the Lan.
Technical difficulties and server problems happen even with Lan support, and while the odds of having problems with connecting to a Battle.net server are higher than say a power outage or a network node going out (and these things have happened, check Flash Vs Jaedong at one of last years events) in 2010, the odds are well in the tolerable range, and getting closer and closer to the odds of hardware failure.
On the subject of live events and lag... It can become an issue, but at the same time the odds of these issues are quickly becoming lower and lower (in scale they are getting closer to the odds of Hardware issues) and if it helps them slow down or discourage piracy, I'm all for it...
Why? Because the next possible step in the evolution of Bnet, is to start charging for usage of the servers. Which obviously would meet many objections, but if Battle.net and starcraft as a whole becomes too expensive to run because of piracy or because they to hire to many moderators for the chat channels to keep the game profitable... They might have their hand forced, and I'd rather they just not get to that point and be happy with all the cool stuff they give me just for the entry fee.
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I for one, think Blizzard will end up giving a private server to tournament organizers, so they can mount it at every tourney and host the games themselves.
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On August 24 2010 00:53 Necrosjef wrote: SC2 has already been cracked for multiplayer play and it hasn't even been released for a month. - Case and point right there. If someone wants to steal software, they are gonna.
source?
First time I heard mp is cracked - or did you mean sp?
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Simply require the user to log on b.net before each LAN game would solve the problem, no?
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On August 24 2010 01:23 generic88 wrote:
If someone comes out with a 3rd party LAN "hack" and people use it or tournaments use it, can Blizzard take any sort of legal action against them? If so, what justification would they use?
They could likely take legal actions against you just for making a tournament with cash prizes or sponsors involved and wasn't sanctionned by Blizzard, however at the moment, for Blizzards legal team to go after these guys would be silly considering that most of them are free advertising for the game.
Not saying someone should make such a hack, but they wouldn't be lacking in legal grounds to get at you if you decided to start showboating that you did.
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If they would add this cracked versions with lan would appear after max few days.
There is no cracked lan yet because of two reasons:
- making battle.net emulator need a lot of hard work because it needs lot of package analysis and also rewriting server from scratch
- the most promising groups that have been showing off too much an actually were on the good way to make working emulator were sued by blizzard
If the lan would be included just unlocking it would be much easier (downloadable as patch , update or preincluded or even accessible only through battle.net ... doesn't matter at all)
Don't forget that lan could also allow cross region play and Activizzard would not like it cause lack of cross region gives them more money.
And seriously, things like no cross region play , lack of ability to resell game ( when you decide that you don't like it or just it don't work for you), letting more ppl use hacks by not banning from the beginning ...
none of those helps in preventing piracy nor make game better. It's all about taking as much money as possible from every customer and for less....
We even actually don't get game , just ability to play on poor battlenet 2.0 servers that can be taken from us anytime.
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On August 24 2010 01:13 Jarvs wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 01:01 ta2 wrote:
I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this? This is entirely wrong. Blizzard hosts every game, even custom games. There is no p2p system in sc2. I'm one of the Aussies who has 500ms to the SEA server. I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't also get 500ms to every custom game as well. I even get 500ms to my own host.
If you are running into 500+ ms playing on the SEA servers, you might want to check with your local network settings or your ISP... Custom games being P2P I guess would cut the lag to you, but everyone else in the game you would have been hosting would be lagging fairly badly.
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On August 24 2010 01:27 Furycrab wrote:
If this were 1999 maybe even in the early 2000s, you might have a case that a game releasing without lan support hurts the players.
95%+ (just an imagined stat just to say "most" but so someone doesn't come back to me saying that well alot of players still need lan) will go thru an entire year of this game without feeling the incline or need for lan support or go to an event that doesn't have some Net support over the Lan.
Technical difficulties and server problems happen even with Lan support, and while the odds of having problems with connecting to a Battle.net server are higher than say a power outage or a network node going out (and these things have happened, check Flash Vs Jaedong at one of last years events) in 2010, the odds are well in the tolerable range, and getting closer and closer to the odds of hardware failure.
On the subject of live events and lag... It can become an issue, but at the same time the odds of these issues are quickly becoming lower and lower (in scale they are getting closer to the odds of Hardware issues) and if it helps them slow down or discourage piracy, I'm all for it...
Why? Because the next possible step in the evolution of Bnet, is to start charging for usage of the servers. Which obviously would meet many objections, but if Battle.net and starcraft as a whole becomes too expensive to run because of piracy or because they to hire to many moderators for the chat channels to keep the game profitable... They might have their hand forced, and I'd rather they just not get to that point and be happy with all the cool stuff they give me just for the entry fee.
AS mentioned, if people want something cracked, unfortunately it gets done.
Battle.net is nothing evolutionary, it's actually pretty dumbed down from Wc3 BNET imo. There's so little control given to the user.
I think the problem with having a LAN system were you log in is that you'd still have to be connected to the internet for them to check that you're online. I don't know for sure because I don't have much experience with network coding 
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Saw the word HoN, stopped reading.
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I think it should automatically save the game when someone's is disconecting, this way you could at least continue the game, it super easy to do and i dont know what is the reason of this not being at the lauch of the game.
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On August 24 2010 01:33 Glacierz wrote:
Simply require the user to log on b.net before each LAN game would solve the problem, no?
That's why I'm stating actually.
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If they implement LAN mode that requires bnet login it would be very very easy to use emulated bnet servers for multiplayer games.
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Don't forget that lan could also allow cross region play and Activizzard would not like it cause lack of cross region gives them more money.
And seriously, things like no cross region play , lack of ability to resell game ( when you decide that you don't like it or just it don't work for you), letting more ppl use hacks by not banning from the beginning ...
none of those helps in preventing piracy nor make game better. It's all about taking as much money as possible from every customer and for less....
We even actually don't get game , just ability to play on poor battlenet 2.0 servers that can be taken from us anytime.
Sky is falling much? Breathe a little.
You are right on the first part, emulating blizzards server is difficult, and having the resources to do so will likely get you sued. Unlocking LAN takes away all that work and makes it possible to emulate entire pirated Bnet servers.
On X regions... Ever play a 4v4 game for fun (or even 3v3) with one guy who has a computer that clearly can't support the game? It lags, alot... Now explode that problem to the tenth power by making it so that everyone can jump into any server. Add language barriers which further increase the amount of insulting and people spamming LAGGGG in various languages... and eventually the random matchmaking just stops being fun anymore.
Sure with the Xregion barriers they make a little more money with players who decide to play on multiple servers, but this little extra money is a drop of water in what is Blizzard, the only reason those barriers are up are to keep the majority of games civil and lag free.
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On August 24 2010 01:49 Furycrab wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 01:13 Jarvs wrote:On August 24 2010 01:01 ta2 wrote:
I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this? This is entirely wrong. Blizzard hosts every game, even custom games. There is no p2p system in sc2. I'm one of the Aussies who has 500ms to the SEA server. I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't also get 500ms to every custom game as well. I even get 500ms to my own host. If you are running into 500+ ms playing on the SEA servers, you might want to check with your local network settings or your ISP... Custom games being P2P I guess would cut the lag to you, but everyone else in the game you would have been hosting would be lagging fairly badly.
Custom games are most definitely not p2p.
The only exception is when you play by yourself, but that can't exactly be p2p anyway, since there's no other peer(s).
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i just think how bad it would be if blizzard decide to publish some patch while some major tourney is going... Like you go 5 rax reaper, boom, they removed reaper in patch, cya, gg.
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In my opinion, it doesn't sound the issue for Blizzard is so much how to implement LAN play while preventing pirates from cracking the game for multiplayer. Sure, sounds like a nice idea to implement LAN capabilities with the safeguard of needing a bnet account to use it, but regardless how it's done, LAN play will only take away from Blizzard's control over SC2 as someone mentioned before.
Now I don't really know what to make of the new Activision Blizzard, but the fact is Blizzard is still a company at heart, and maintaining profits dictates the direction to take. Maybe if the lack of LAN play driving away most of the playerbase might force Blizzard's hand, but at the moment it looks almost all people are still willing to deal with a LAN-less SC2, assuming they even care. Implementing LAN on the other hand would allow more private control over the multiplayer aspect of the game, denying possible profit opportunities for Blizzard, such as from tournaments. Hosting everything from their severs just gives the ability to call pretty much all the shots. And even if they figure out the proper safeguards, once LAN has been implemented, pirates will have a heck of an easier time cracking SC2 as mentioned before, as they wouldn't need to completely emulate bnet on a private server...they can simply figure out how to bypass any checks to unlock LAN play...which I imagine would be harder for Blizzard to deal with.
Still...LAN would definitely be nice.
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On August 24 2010 01:32 unAimed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 00:53 Necrosjef wrote: SC2 has already been cracked for multiplayer play and it hasn't even been released for a month. - Case and point right there. If someone wants to steal software, they are gonna. source? First time I heard mp is cracked - or did you mean sp?
No MP is cracked. It is circulating now on members only pirating sites, just a matter of time though before it reaches warez bb or something similar and everyone has it.
Not really comfortable giving sources on TL as I would rather not be banned so I guess you will just need to trust me that it has been cracked.
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On August 24 2010 01:57 EffectS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 01:33 Glacierz wrote:
Simply require the user to log on b.net before each LAN game would solve the problem, no? That's why I'm stating actually.
It makes no difference to hackers, they skip the login check anyway.
The obvious example showing this is that you got to log on battle.net at least once before you can play single player and the single player was cracked on release day.
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No LAN for controlling tournaments is a great idea. They can just boot KESPA off of their servers if KESPA tries to host tournies without permission. If KESPA tries to use a cracked LAN... well they are using an illegal product and will get shut down even harder.
Also note that Blizzard didn't go crazy on their protection or anything. It is certainly possible to lock pirates out of a game, but at a large price to performance and functionality. For example, Starforce locked pirates out of cracking Splinter Cell for 424 days according to wikipedia. That's probably more than the effective lifetime of the game (ie everyone who was going to buy it already bought it).
Personally I havn't had a problem without LAN, BNET could use more control over the interface (too simple IMO) and I am grateful that blizzard didn't go overboard on protection and screw a bunch of legitimate customers from being able to play the game.
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On August 24 2010 02:06 Furycrab wrote:Show nested quote +Don't forget that lan could also allow cross region play and Activizzard would not like it cause lack of cross region gives them more money.
And seriously, things like no cross region play , lack of ability to resell game ( when you decide that you don't like it or just it don't work for you), letting more ppl use hacks by not banning from the beginning ...
none of those helps in preventing piracy nor make game better. It's all about taking as much money as possible from every customer and for less....
We even actually don't get game , just ability to play on poor battlenet 2.0 servers that can be taken from us anytime. Sky is falling much? Breathe a little. You are right on the first part, emulating blizzards server is difficult, and having the resources to do so will likely get you sued. Unlocking LAN takes away all that work and makes it possible to emulate entire pirated Bnet servers. On X regions... Ever play a 4v4 game for fun (or even 3v3) with one guy who has a computer that clearly can't support the game? It lags, alot... Now explode that problem to the tenth power by making it so that everyone can jump into any server. Add language barriers which further increase the amount of insulting and people spamming LAGGGG in various languages... and eventually the random matchmaking just stops being fun anymore. Sure with the Xregion barriers they make a little more money with players who decide to play on multiple servers, but this little extra money is a drop of water in what is Blizzard, the only reason those barriers are up are to keep the majority of games civil and lag free.
You are so wrong, if I want to , I can play any server and lag anywhere I want. The only thing is that i need to pay for every single region.
So basically not take ability to play anywhere you want but make you pay more if you want to play in more than one region.
Simple solution would be not allowing players with too big lag to play some games ( for example ladder or ability to block high ping players to your custom game) or simply block them from logging to server ( if its not region that they bought).
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On August 24 2010 01:49 Furycrab wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 01:13 Jarvs wrote:On August 24 2010 01:01 ta2 wrote:
I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this? This is entirely wrong. Blizzard hosts every game, even custom games. There is no p2p system in sc2. I'm one of the Aussies who has 500ms to the SEA server. I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't also get 500ms to every custom game as well. I even get 500ms to my own host. If you are running into 500+ ms playing on the SEA servers, you might want to check with your local network settings or your ISP... Custom games being P2P I guess would cut the lag to you, but everyone else in the game you would have been hosting would be lagging fairly badly.
There is nothing wrong with my internet connection. I'm just one of the unfortunate people with an ISP that routes through North America before hitting SEA giving me an absurb ping. If hosting games were P2P then I'd be able to host comfortably for other Aussies and NZ players but people residing in SEA would still suffer the 500ms. If another Australian were to host with a good connection to the SEA server, then everyone would be happy. I'd get a low ping to the host and the SEA person would get a (slighly higher but albeit) low ping to the host as well. As it currently stands this is not possible.
Dead are the days of a neutral host.
To get back on track a little. If my housemate and I wanted to practice, we'd get 500ms to our games as Bnet2.0 hosts. The only way for me to practice/compete for a tournament is to either change ISP or play at some other location.
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On August 24 2010 00:53 Necrosjef wrote:
The guys cracking the stuff are much smarter than the guys trying to stop them.
Not really. It's just easier to destroy than it is to create.
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What i was thinking about... making pvpgn (or any other, non-blizzard server program) able to run sc2 too?
I think sc2 CAN be legally modded to join my server, not battle.net (2.0). So no problem? Or im too optimist? Legally i meant like modify my internet trafic, so if the program wants to reach X, it will reach Y, which acts like bnet. I dont think Blizz forbids this in eula to alter MY trafic...
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On August 24 2010 01:13 Jarvs wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 01:01 ta2 wrote:
I thought that once two players had been matched, the game is based on a p2p system. Surely it should be a simple job of packet sniffing the matchmaking process, and building an external client to facilitate this? This is entirely wrong. Blizzard hosts every game, even custom games. There is no p2p system in sc2. I'm one of the Aussies who has 500ms to the SEA server. I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't also get 500ms to every custom game as well. I even get 500ms to my own host.
No you are actually "entirely wrong". The Blizzard server acts as a middle-man, that's it - it's hilariously lame. In fact middle-man is maybe giving too much credit, all it does is route all the data through the server to the other player(s). This is to protect the privacy (IP address) of each player, but aside from that it doesn't really do anything.
I'm not sure about custom games, but I'd have no clue why they'd be different from melee.
I think it should automatically save the game when someone's is disconnecting, this way you could at least continue the game, it super easy to do and I don't know what is the reason of this not being at the lauch of the game. Yes, I've always wanted the same thing even in Starcraft 2. I think it's ridiculous that things like this don't get implemented in competitive games, since it's so useful. Hell, even just a reconnect feature at all would be good.
With regards to saving, obviously it's pretty difficult to force a player to play a game where they were their opponent disconnected (why would you want to continue a game you won?), but in many cases it would still be desirable (tournaments, friends playing)
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What I can't figure out is why Blizzard hasn't shown a solution for their own showcase match / tournaments yet. It would be so simple. They just need to build a couple of standalone b.net servers that they attach to an isolated LAN with the gaming stations and they're done. The client machines think they are talking to b.net (because they are ... just a portable single server version). No patching, no cracking, no new technology required at all.
Personally, I could care less about LAN games at my house. But I think that seeing lag screens at Blizzcon and IEM is just ridiculous.
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Starcraft 2 LAN DLC available.
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LAST 5000 SET, GRAB IT NOW
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On August 24 2010 02:22 nanokwark wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 02:06 Furycrab wrote:Don't forget that lan could also allow cross region play and Activizzard would not like it cause lack of cross region gives them more money.
And seriously, things like no cross region play , lack of ability to resell game ( when you decide that you don't like it or just it don't work for you), letting more ppl use hacks by not banning from the beginning ...
none of those helps in preventing piracy nor make game better. It's all about taking as much money as possible from every customer and for less....
We even actually don't get game , just ability to play on poor battlenet 2.0 servers that can be taken from us anytime. Sky is falling much? Breathe a little. You are right on the first part, emulating blizzards server is difficult, and having the resources to do so will likely get you sued. Unlocking LAN takes away all that work and makes it possible to emulate entire pirated Bnet servers. On X regions... Ever play a 4v4 game for fun (or even 3v3) with one guy who has a computer that clearly can't support the game? It lags, alot... Now explode that problem to the tenth power by making it so that everyone can jump into any server. Add language barriers which further increase the amount of insulting and people spamming LAGGGG in various languages... and eventually the random matchmaking just stops being fun anymore. Sure with the Xregion barriers they make a little more money with players who decide to play on multiple servers, but this little extra money is a drop of water in what is Blizzard, the only reason those barriers are up are to keep the majority of games civil and lag free. You are so wrong, if I want to , I can play any server and lag anywhere I want. The only thing is that i need to pay for every single region. So basically not take ability to play anywhere you want but make you pay more if you want to play in more than one region. Simple solution would be not allowing players with too big lag to play some games ( for example ladder or ability to block high ping players to your custom game) or simply block them from logging to server ( if its not region that they bought).
Yes you can, but your Brick and Mortar will be selling you the one that lags the least for you and buying it digitally will get you the least laggy version for you. So instead of playing with say the whole world going around lagging, I only have a very minuscule chance of running into players who are not playing on the server they should be.
(Brick and Mortar= Retail store near you)
So by putting cross regional barriers, they limit lag, and sure they make a bit more money from mostly pro-gamers who decide to play in tournaments world wide, but this is a minuscule amount of money compared to the sales of everyone just happy with playing in their region.
As for the P2P custom game comment that someone replied to me. I know there isn't any. I was refering to a guy from Australia who said he had 500ms on the SEA server (the one that should be the closest to him) and would love to be able to play custom games with LANish or P2P support, and that's why I replied to him that he should likely check his network settings or ISP and that P2P or LAN wouldn't do anything for him anyways, except that he might lag less if he hosts the game, but everyone else in his games would lag just as bad.
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On August 24 2010 02:38 Jonray wrote:
What I can't figure out is why Blizzard hasn't shown a solution for their own showcase match / tournaments yet. It would be so simple. They just need to build a couple of standalone b.net servers that they attach to an isolated LAN with the gaming stations and they're done. The client machines think they are talking to b.net (because they are ... just a portable single server version). No patching, no cracking, no new technology required at all.
Personally, I could care less about LAN games at my house. But I think that seeing lag screens at Blizzcon and IEM is just ridiculous.
If it didn't actually change the outcome of any of the matches, what would they be showcasing exactly? Easier to crack/emulate code?
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As soon as a lan switch is available people can pirate it so that the game always uses that instead of the normal game. Also you can log into battle net for free without an account using the guest system. Also you would require the bnet servers to be working in order to use lan this would only fix lag and maybe dsync issues however would allow pirates to play over lan.
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They are creating a Tournament edition of SC2 that has LAN. That is the rumor but I hope it's bogus. At the very least I would just want a meta patch to add LAN support.
Pirates are a non-issue if Blizzard still makes you initially validate your copy of StarCraft II through the internet before each match of a LAN. The main problem LAN solves is the intermittent delay and ping that is caused.
What if you want to play a LAN 4v4? 5v5? All that is still sent and received through your internet connection. It's horrible.
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On August 24 2010 03:02 Furycrab wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2010 02:38 Jonray wrote:
What I can't figure out is why Blizzard hasn't shown a solution for their own showcase match / tournaments yet. It would be so simple. They just need to build a couple of standalone b.net servers that they attach to an isolated LAN with the gaming stations and they're done. The client machines think they are talking to b.net (because they are ... just a portable single server version). No patching, no cracking, no new technology required at all.
Personally, I could care less about LAN games at my house. But I think that seeing lag screens at Blizzcon and IEM is just ridiculous.
If it didn't actually change the outcome of any of the matches, what would they be showcasing exactly? Easier to crack/emulate code?
The solution I'm talking about for a Blizzard sanctioned event isn't about showcasing anything. It's really about avoiding airing their dirty laundry on a world stage.
To me, having to have a couple of top players @ IEM wait for several minutes while the battle.net server lag subsided should have had heads rolling @ Blizzard. If I were in charge of marketing a multiplayer online game like Starcraft II, I would do everything I could to give the impression that the servers are rock solid and lightning fast.
The easiest solution for Blizzard would be to have a "mobile Battle.Net" setup that they could take with them to various events. Given that they should know all that they need to about the code, the architecture, the servers, etc. it isn't rocket science to do and doesn't require that any programming changes have to be made anywhere.
It's just a bit beyond me why they haven't already done it. Again, if I were in charge, there would be no way I'd be going to Blizzcon or Gamescom and trying to show my game, trusting in the Internet connection at some convention center that I had no control over.
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On August 24 2010 02:25 Jarvs wrote:
There is nothing wrong with my internet connection. I'm just one of the unfortunate people with an ISP that routes through North America before hitting SEA giving me an absurb ping. If hosting games were P2P then I'd be able to host comfortably for other Aussies and NZ players but people residing in SEA would still suffer the 500ms. If another Australian were to host with a good connection to the SEA server, then everyone would be happy. I'd get a low ping to the host and the SEA person would get a (slighly higher but albeit) low ping to the host as well. As it currently stands this is not possible.
Dead are the days of a neutral host.
To get back on track a little. If my housemate and I wanted to practice, we'd get 500ms to our games as Bnet2.0 hosts. The only way for me to practice/compete for a tournament is to either change ISP or play at some other location.
This is fairly unacceptable imo
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Hopefully Blizzard folks are well aware that this issue is not to be taken lightly and is 100% detrimental to esports from a player's AND a spectators' point of view.
But I'm somehow confident that eventually Blizzard will bring forth solutions to lag and connexion issues. I'm sure that they have thought of a few ways to enhance tournament and competitive play, not to forget that bnet is still very young so blizzard definitely have room for improvement.
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On August 24 2010 00:53 Necrosjef wrote:
1. You can't stop piracy. Its been tried and its failed so many times I have lost count. The guys cracking the stuff are much smarter than the guys trying to stop them. You can't stop it so there is no point in trying. SC2 has already been cracked for multiplayer play and it hasn't even been released for a month. - Case and point right there. If someone wants to steal software, they are gonna.
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How much do you know about pirated software anyway? i'm sad to admit that in Indonesia most of my friends have gotten their hands on a pirated copy of SC2, so yes you're right, if they want to steal it they're going to. But none of them have access to multiplayer. Like I've discussed with them many times, the only way they're going to play multiplayer is if they're not on Blizzard's own servers. Say they did get cracked codes to make accounts on the real bnet, don't you think it'll be real easy for Blizz to sniff them out? And if they did play on some private Indonesian server well.. that'd suck because I wouldn't want to play with them, they'd all maphack and such, they're not a community of honest gamers..
On topic, I wish this idea would work, it sounds like a great one, but I think having the option, or the possibility of LAN play available at all will still allow people to somehow implement it into their pirated, cracked versions despite having to go online first.
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It would be nice if they did something like Quakelive does, in which a mini authentication/LAN server is provided for the tournament. The tourney has to be recognized as a fairly big/official one though.
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There is a problem to add lan in sc2,because piracy is taken so seriously. But i think they could have solved the problem by requiring the user to be logged into Bnet while using LAN and if the user disconnects from Bnet then they will be disconnected from a LAN game as well. Because they had so much time to implement LAN but still didn't, I doubt they will implement LAN in the future. Not having LAN really hurts though, i hope they change their mind.
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yeah lan would be great. no doubt about it.
BUT
I must say blizz has done such a good job on the speed and stability of the current servers that I am slowly buying into their idea. Yeah SC2 doesn't have LAN but I still had many SC2 "LAN" parties with my friends. No slowdowns no problems. Good job blizz.
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On August 24 2010 01:33 Glacierz wrote:
Simply require the user to log on b.net before each LAN game would solve the problem, no?
then making a fake authentication server is much easier than the WHOLE thing, and i believe this part has already been done
http://diablo3x.com/starcraft-2-lan-server/
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ALLEYCAT BLUES50600 Posts
maybe you could have a Blizzard authenticator for LAN play(like the thing they have for WoW).The physical copy for X amount and free for those who can use it online on their battlenet account to create(generate) a random number which when typed in lets you play LAN until you log out and to play again you have to create(generate) a new one.
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blizzard plans to release lan mode AFTER all the games are out and the initial buzz has died down. 99% sure about this. They want to maximize profits while they can before they stop giving a shit about the game and release lan and all the other basic features that were removed.
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"long and hard" lulz
Its a pitty that there is no LAN-support but I think it's ok as it is now besides chat channels etc.
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The anti piracy argument is null and void, if you want to ladder you'll have to go through Bnet, if you want to play single player you can probably already download a hacked version of the game. So what blizzard would actually be doing is hamper the development of SC2 as an esports due to the lack of lan latency games hosted locally so they don't miss out on a bunch of casuals wanting to play the single player (which already failed).
So the anti piracy argument is bogus, so it comes down to control.
It's not like Bnet has terrible, terrible lag, but I can imagine that if you play with 500 apm you might notice some delay.
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EPT
