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On June 23 2011 07:27 branflakes14 wrote:
That's a poor excuse for no LAN, especially when games like League of Legends and Quake Live ARE available for free. And remember Brood War? How did that game even sell a single copy when it had LAN!?
Because they make their money in different ways and because Brood War was released before broadband was widely available and intenet speeds were so slow it was far less effort to just buy the game, but even then sales would have been lost to people copying the cds (I was the only one of my friends to own a legit copy, everyone else got pirated copies from a dude who basically made a living copying games, music abums and movies).
It sucks, but that's just the way things are going to be, its why we have such intrusive DRM and why so many games now need connections to servers to work (though I suspect that's more to do with the pre-owned games market).
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not giving the players and fans what they want is a bad business decision no matter the circumstances. Theres ways around of excluding lan all together. I find this excuse to be old and tired. Why is it so terrible to log into a paid and authenticated account and then play lan? Its not as if many people run with no internet connection at all..
its silly and downright ignorant to exclude an important part of the multiplayer gaming experience because of an exploitable issue. Remember games before cd-keys? lol
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On June 23 2011 07:45 thesundowners wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 07:39 n0ise wrote:
Anyway. From S2's pov, a small company trying to make it out there, I understand it. From Blizzard's, who at this point would lose almost nothing compared to what they made, there's no excuse for not bringing out LAN. -At LEAST- as a special client, privileged for major competitions (GSL, DH, MLG, etc).
Having LAN in your game in this day and age is basically encouraging piracy, no matter how big you are it does not look good to shareholders. I know we all want game developers to be benevolent beings who exist only to make us happy, but in the end making money is what it's about and making decisions that will only lose you money isn't exactly a good idea
The problem with this statement is the belief that all sharing is 100% bad and no sharing can ever be beneficial to the company. I know it's a different industry, but just look at what Trent Reznor has done with Nine Inch Nails by embracing sharing.
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On June 23 2011 07:19 Eury wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 07:17 DeltruS wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Hackers could fairly easily remove all safeguards like a log-in requirement. Fairly easy = couple of hours.
Well they got pirated SC2 campaign working...
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I think they should give companies like MLG,GSL, Dreamhack etc lan copies for their big tournaments.
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On June 23 2011 07:40 SKC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 07:36 travis wrote:On June 23 2011 07:19 Eury wrote:On June 23 2011 07:17 DeltruS wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Hackers could fairly easily remove all safeguards like a log-in requirement. Fairly easy = couple of hours. I am no computer genius but it seems to me that what's needed for tournaments is network play. Games could still be setup through battle.net. The problems occur during the actual game when the information is sent through the battle.net servers rather than peer to peer. Will hackers still be able to "remove all safeguards" when the game is programmed so that you have to be on bnet 2.0 to connect to each other? I am also no computer genius, but I do believe that this way would be crackeable. Maybe not in a couple of hours, but probally wouldn't take too long.
it seems like it would be crackable in the same way someone could make their own "lan bnet 2.0" already if they really really wanted to.
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Give the man some credit. At least he's honest! The thing that pisses me off the most with Blizzard's "customer communication" is that they're - blatantly obviously - lying about their motives for why they insist on doing what they're doing as if it's somehow better than what they used to do.
"The technology isnt there yet".
"We hope Battle.net 2.0 will be so good that you won't even need LAN".
Christ. They're insulting our intelligence on a level that's below a DotA-forumgoers average post. This man says something I could actually believe. I think he's wrong or at least inaccurate. But I can see where he's coming from.
On June 23 2011 07:37 Parnage wrote:
Well, the goodnews is I'll never have to wonder if maybe I should try out HoN. I know I won't now with the kind of attitude they have.
You treat customers like criminals and surprise surprise they will either not buy it or be the criminal you see them to be. I don't pirate games, most people don't pirate games and those who pirate them are unlikely to actually buy them(moral exceptions of course) So you don't actually loose out on them.
When you start putting in DRM, removing key features, putting in DLC content that should be apart of the game in the first place that's when you start seeing people who would of bought it, just pirate it.
Count me as someone who will never play HoN because of this childish stubborn argument. I can't tolerate nor will I support people who remove features and blame it on the pirates and not themselves. I am completely offended and disgusted.
And people like this is exactly why Blizzard will keep insulting our intelligence - because there are those (and a lot of "those") that eat their BS up raw. Do you actually think Blizzard, or any DRM-happy company thats not including basic once-mandatory assets - like, say, LAN in SC2 - do it for your sake? And not for the sake of their sales? Really?
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On June 23 2011 07:39 n0ise wrote:
Goodwill is nice to have but it doesn't pay the bills and any gaming company out there is out there to make money first and make good games second
Even if you believe it or not, the person who said this paragraph in a public interview should be banned from public speaking, fired and completely dissociated with the company. I understand and even (kinda) agree with his point, but wow.
A child can see its the truth. You'd prefer them to spout obvious lies?
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On June 23 2011 07:45 Destro wrote:
not giving the players and fans what they want is a bad business decision no matter the circumstances. Theres ways around of excluding lan all together. I find this excuse to be old and tired. Why is it so terrible to log into a paid and authenticated account and then play lan? Its not as if many people run with no internet connection at all..
Because that's FAR easier to crack than requiring people to play over bnet all the time.
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they can set a mode to async check w/ b.net and the game itself stay on a p2p connection.
Ridiculous force a region like LA, with a small comunity can only play with lag, cos servers stay in NA.
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On June 23 2011 07:46 asdfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 07:19 Eury wrote:On June 23 2011 07:17 DeltruS wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Hackers could fairly easily remove all safeguards like a log-in requirement. Fairly easy = couple of hours. Well they got pirated SC2 campaign working...
Because the SC2 campaign works offline, even without an internet connection.
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On June 23 2011 07:45 Destro wrote:
not giving the players and fans what they want is a bad business decision no matter the circumstances. Theres ways around of excluding lan all together. I find this excuse to be old and tired. Why is it so terrible to log into a paid and authenticated account and then play lan? Its not as if many people run with no internet connection at all..
its silly and downright ignorant to exclude an important part of the multiplayer gaming experience because of an exploitable issue. Remember games before cd-keys? lol
Just having to be connected to battle.net doesn't prevent pirates from cracking it. Just look at Assassin's Creed 2 which required a constant connection to play it, withing a month there was a crack out that made it possible to play it offline. The only reason Battle.net hasn't been cracked yet is because everything goes through it, if you only need to get a message that says that you're connected pirates can just fake it so the client thinks it's connected to battle.net.
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Any kind of DRM is more hurtful to a paying consumer than a pirate. Why? The consumer actually paid for the product..
I wish i had LAN, I paid for the product, why must i suffer for someone that wouldn't?
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As much as I understand the need for some kind of DRM to protect developers and publishers investments if the method of DRM means that major game features need to be cut then that is not a good situation to be in. I have no idea how LAN could be added while maintaining some form of DRM, I'm not a dev  What we really need is some breakthrough in DRM methods that lets them protect the game without cutting features. Even if it means authenticating every LAN session (bnet authenticator?) it would be a better situation than now imo.
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On June 23 2011 07:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
it definitely makes sense for them, i would want as much money as I can get!
Now, for sc2, all that needs to happen is for Activision to get better netcoding and servers, so that we don't have 0.4 second delay and lag all the time. And so that we can play cross region.
Which unfortunately will be unlikely for a long long time, since Activision doesn't view SC2 as a priority since it's a buy once play free forever game >.>
i don't know about you, but i for one am super happy about the delay.
the units react really fast and i don't feel any delay at all.
last week i played 2-3 wc3 tft games on battle.net.
holy shit now that's delay, units need 1-2 seconds to respond.
it's beyond me how that was playable.
sc2 latency is great imo.
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On June 23 2011 07:47 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 07:40 SKC wrote:On June 23 2011 07:36 travis wrote:On June 23 2011 07:19 Eury wrote:On June 23 2011 07:17 DeltruS wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Hackers could fairly easily remove all safeguards like a log-in requirement. Fairly easy = couple of hours. I am no computer genius but it seems to me that what's needed for tournaments is network play. Games could still be setup through battle.net. The problems occur during the actual game when the information is sent through the battle.net servers rather than peer to peer. Will hackers still be able to "remove all safeguards" when the game is programmed so that you have to be on bnet 2.0 to connect to each other? I am also no computer genius, but I do believe that this way would be crackeable. Maybe not in a couple of hours, but probally wouldn't take too long. it seems like it would be crackable in the same way someone could make their own "lan bnet 2.0" already if they really really wanted to.
They already did. Some Chinese people made a server that enabled LAN or something. It also took a lot of effort to connect to it though.
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I think those kinds of arguments are only for the rts genre and its hardly an argument, sc2 was still pirated even without multiplayer. Releasing a fps without lan or dedicated server support is suicide unless your title is called COD. And activision expects you to pay a subscription fee for stat tracking in cod so the company is already a bit crazy and will probably kill the franchise.
That said if lan does come to sc2 I dont want any of that silly DRM crap on it.
The last game I bought was splinter cell conviction and that had online play and lan but the fucking drm always interfered and I couldnt play it. Supposedly there is a fix for it by cracking the game but cracking and removing the drm to play my legitimate game is kind of silly..
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Piracy is a big issue regardless, whether you take an ethical stance or economic stance. Majority of the pirates would probably not buy the game, however this would still effect sales regardless. There are rational consumers with disposable incomes that would prefer not to buy a game, or even to test it out first - THIS AFFECTS SALES. There are also other forms of social and media pressures to try out a game, but some of these may choose to pirate instead of otherwise buying.
Cracking the online aspect of a game has been happening all the time. I've known people who used a crack on WC3: FT with a bnet bypass (I don't know the details of it) which allowed online access. There are services like Garina or Hamachi which allow online play by creating a virtual network.
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i can understand why blizzard, specifically for SC2, is not putting out LAN. games sell heavily frontloaded, and they have 2 more expansions to sell which they intend to make additional game sales out of.
however, if your game has been out well over a year, and your game is a popular competitive esport, and you are making more money off of that scene than you will by the sporadic individual buys, but you are still refusing to give that scene LAN support, that has nothing to do with piracy. that has to do with developers being morons.
people who are willing to wait THAT long to play your game for free were never going to buy your game without pirating it first, and people who have been playing that long deserve some fairly straightforward features that any development team worth their salt is capable of providing. the amount of sales you will lose is trivial at most, but by delaying LAN and suddenly allowing a new market of people who weren't going to play your game until now into the fold, it is reasonable to expect more sales than normal. it's this kind of logic that i haven't seen refuted ever, that makes me convinced that as long as you don't put LAN in during a hype train for the game, it is not a big deal.
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Am I being completely idiotic to suggest that they give a version with lan enabled to the likes of MLG, GSL and Dreamhack etc while witholding it from sale to the general public?
edit: read the thread, people have already suggested the same thing. soz.
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EPT
