The arguments in this thread against having LAN support are very silly. Yes, most of the time people are going to play online and not use LAN, but people would like to have LAN support to play without lag against friends, either in small groups, in medium-sized LANs, large LANs, or at tournaments. Its pretty stupid that I can't take my laptop to a friends place and play him without the data literally going halfway around the world when I'm a couple of meters away from him. Likewise, those who host LANs with friends (I used to go to them every other weekend a few years ago) don't have the option of LAN gaming.
Added to this fact is that medium-sized LANs are often at venues which don't have easily accessible internet, so that essentially means you can't play at all. And then you have the giant tournaments like MLG which clearly suffer from latency issues through no fault of their own.
There is simply no convincing argument for a lack of LAN support outside of piracy. None whatsoever. LAN support adds options for gamers, and is the absolutely best way to run a tournament. That's not even debatable, even if the servers were in a building a block away. I can respect Blizzard's choice to not support LAN for piracy reasons, but lets not pretend its for any other reason at all. "Delivering the best multiplayer experience" includes LAN support without a doubt.
Are there seriously ppl who think that Blizzard didnt add LAN support cuz they didnt know how to do it or cuz it would have been too much work?^^
Blizzard made the decision - hopefully after having thought about it for a long long time - to not add it and I guess they wont change their mind... (if they do, it would be almost as stupid as making the decision in the first place, cuz it means that they didnt really think about that they wanted to achieve with their decision)
And still, every eSports fan should ofc wanna want the addition of LAN support, cuz not having it is obv total bullshit for the sport.
At least now Blizzard has no excuse for not having LAN. Not that their excuse was valid in the first place.
You're right. Preventing people all over the world from paying nothing for using your product you worked on for 5+ years is not a valid reason at all. I don't get why they don't just let people directly download games for free off of the developers website, it's not like those people need money, right?
Because Blizzard has removed LAN, and people have developed a LAN hack, it means that those who are less willing to pay with their money will have a greater product than the customer... That is so retarded.
Not really, they won't have good dedicated matchmaking or access to most maps, they'll just have LAN hosted on small, laggy servers or LAN with a couple of friends at LAN parties, anything big (as big as iCCup) will be immediately taken down by blizzard.
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
What kind of a 11 year old post is this? Go to any of the LR threads for "LAN" tournaments, you think any professional wants to play in a lagged out environment and have to even re-game because of DCs? - Tyler/PainUser, Jinro/TT1, Dimaga/MVP, Huk/Idra.
You mean the same pros who were earning 50 bucks in a LAN tourney before SC2 came along, who now have the chance to win upto 50K .No one still haven't had anyone support their argument by naming the players.
I must say I have a very hard time understanding what point you're trying to make, maybe I'm stupid. So because they have a chance of winning 50k (which happens at a live event with no need for online play at all) there is no reason to have LAN, or what?
I understand your argument for Pro Tourneys to have LAN. The problem is if Blizzard developed a separate version it would be stolen and released within days, movies are hacked and released weeks before their official release.
Improving the DND in BNET will help with lag spikes where the player is spammed. Most tourneys now use dedicated accounts to get around this problem anyways.
Long term it is better that all the games and community stay with BNET. Its the focal point for ladder play, its reasonably hack free.
Don't forget Blizzard need to make money to support this game (£100 million to develop and create it?) and maintain the servers patching etc.
PC gaming is dying a death due to pirating . Steam and BNET etc are the only way game companies will stay with the PC format. Do you really want to see SC2 on XBOX only . Square Enix tried that with Supreme Commander and it was a disaster.
I hope this explains how i feel. Its not some random rant
Go look at a game like Galactic Civilizations II, which was produced by a small studio and sold very well despite the fact that it had almost no anti-piracy measures (by design of the developers; had no disc protection, didn't need the disc to play, and you only needed the CD-key to get updates). Sure, piracy doesn't help game developers, but what hurts game developers more is the number of truly terrible games that are produced and sold at exorbitant prices. iTunes and Netflix, as well as games like LoL and recently-made-F2P LOTR Online have shown that people are willing to pay for content they like if its reasonably priced, and that the artists/developers can still do very well out of it.
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
What kind of a 11 year old post is this? Go to any of the LR threads for "LAN" tournaments, you think any professional wants to play in a lagged out environment and have to even re-game because of DCs? - Tyler/PainUser, Jinro/TT1, Dimaga/MVP, Huk/Idra.
You mean the same pros who were earning 50 bucks in a LAN tourney before SC2 came along, who now have the chance to win upto 50K .No one still haven't had anyone support their argument by naming the players.
I must say I have a very hard time understanding what point you're trying to make, maybe I'm stupid. So because they have a chance of winning 50k (which happens at a live event with no need for online play at all) there is no reason to have LAN, or what?
I understand your argument for Pro Tourneys to have LAN. The problem is if Blizzard developed a separate version it would be stolen and released within days, movies are hacked and released weeks before their official release.
Improving the DND in BNET will help with lag spikes where the player is spammed. Most tourneys now use dedicated accounts to get around this problem anyways.
Long term it is better that all the games and community stay with BNET. Its the focal point for ladder play, its reasonably hack free.
Don't forget Blizzard need to make money to support this game (£100 million to develop and create it?) and maintain the servers patching etc.
PC gaming is dying a death due to pirating . Steam and BNET etc are the only way game companies will stay with the PC format. Do you really want to see SC2 on XBOX only . Square Enix tried that with Supreme Commander and it was a disaster.
I hope this explains how i feel. Its not some random rant
pc gaming is certainly not dying due to pirating. lol you can pirate console games too, you can pirate sc2 too (just with no online support).
i had a hacked xbox for a long time, it didn't change the fact that i bought games (that had online support and worth buying). most of the other games i just tried them out to see if i liked it and that's about it.
friend owns a hacked 360 too, so he can't activate xbox live with it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't buy games -- in fact he has another nonhacked 360 that he uses to play the games that he wants to play online/netflix/etc...
big deal. those people can't play online, if they want to just play the game with a few friends, i don't see the problem actually.
Really? Did you miss out on Starcraft 1, where Starcraft was huge in Korea, except about 5% of the players actually bought legitimate copies? Not a big deal.
Piracy is huge in Asia. They didn't refuse to add LAN because a couple of kids in the west would pirate it while 95% of the people would still just buy the game.
There was already a thread about this. No tournament will use it for fear that Blizzard would intervene. There has been a working Chinese Lan Hack for 6-7 months now, and no one uses it. That's not going to change and we have to wait until 2 expansions are out, and sales drop.
big deal. those people can't play online, if they want to just play the game with a few friends, i don't see the problem actually.
Really? Did you miss out on Starcraft 1, where Starcraft was huge in Korea, except about 5% of the players actually bought legitimate copies? Not a big deal.
Piracy is huge in Asia. They didn't refuse to add LAN because a couple of kids in the west would pirate it while 95% of the people would still just buy the game.
ya and without all those kids playing the game across LAN, the sc2 scene wouldn't even exist.
i would venture to say the starcraft would only enjoy a fraction of its current popularity because of that.
big deal. those people can't play online, if they want to just play the game with a few friends, i don't see the problem actually.
Really? Did you miss out on Starcraft 1, where Starcraft was huge in Korea, except about 5% of the players actually bought legitimate copies? Not a big deal.
Piracy is huge in Asia. They didn't refuse to add LAN because a couple of kids in the west would pirate it while 95% of the people would still just buy the game.
Eh, I think most SC players in Korea played via PC Cafes, where I would imagine piracy is less of an issue.
Also, SC1 sold the most copies in Korea........ The 5% sounds way more like China than Korea.
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
What kind of a 11 year old post is this? Go to any of the LR threads for "LAN" tournaments, you think any professional wants to play in a lagged out environment and have to even re-game because of DCs? - Tyler/PainUser, Jinro/TT1, Dimaga/MVP, Huk/Idra.
You mean the same pros who were earning 50 bucks in a LAN tourney before SC2 came along, who now have the chance to win upto 50K .No one still haven't had anyone support their argument by naming the players.
I must say I have a very hard time understanding what point you're trying to make, maybe I'm stupid. So because they have a chance of winning 50k (which happens at a live event with no need for online play at all) there is no reason to have LAN, or what?
I understand your argument for Pro Tourneys to have LAN. The problem is if Blizzard developed a separate version it would be stolen and released within days, movies are hacked and released weeks before their official release.
Improving the DND in BNET will help with lag spikes where the player is spammed. Most tourneys now use dedicated accounts to get around this problem anyways.
Long term it is better that all the games and community stay with BNET. Its the focal point for ladder play, its reasonably hack free.
Don't forget Blizzard need to make money to support this game (£100 million to develop and create it?) and maintain the servers patching etc.
PC gaming is dying a death due to pirating . Steam and BNET etc are the only way game companies will stay with the PC format. Do you really want to see SC2 on XBOX only . Square Enix tried that with Supreme Commander and it was a disaster.
I hope this explains how i feel. Its not some random rant
pc gaming is certainly not dying due to pirating. lol you can pirate console games too, you can pirate sc2 too (just with no online support).
i had a hacked xbox for a long time, it didn't change the fact that i bought games (that had online support and worth buying). most of the other games i just tried them out to see if i liked it and that's about it.
friend owns a hacked 360 too, so he can't activate xbox live with it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't buy games -- in fact he has another nonhacked 360 that he uses to play the games that he wants to play online/netflix/etc...
There's a huge barrier of entry for console pirating in that you need to mod your console (often costing nearly 100$+), on the PC anyone can pirate a game easily without anything extra.
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
What kind of a 11 year old post is this? Go to any of the LR threads for "LAN" tournaments, you think any professional wants to play in a lagged out environment and have to even re-game because of DCs? - Tyler/PainUser, Jinro/TT1, Dimaga/MVP, Huk/Idra.
You mean the same pros who were earning 50 bucks in a LAN tourney before SC2 came along, who now have the chance to win upto 50K .No one still haven't had anyone support their argument by naming the players.
I must say I have a very hard time understanding what point you're trying to make, maybe I'm stupid. So because they have a chance of winning 50k (which happens at a live event with no need for online play at all) there is no reason to have LAN, or what?
I understand your argument for Pro Tourneys to have LAN. The problem is if Blizzard developed a separate version it would be stolen and released within days, movies are hacked and released weeks before their official release.
Improving the DND in BNET will help with lag spikes where the player is spammed. Most tourneys now use dedicated accounts to get around this problem anyways.
Long term it is better that all the games and community stay with BNET. Its the focal point for ladder play, its reasonably hack free.
Don't forget Blizzard need to make money to support this game (£100 million to develop and create it?) and maintain the servers patching etc.
PC gaming is dying a death due to pirating . Steam and BNET etc are the only way game companies will stay with the PC format. Do you really want to see SC2 on XBOX only . Square Enix tried that with Supreme Commander and it was a disaster.
I hope this explains how i feel. Its not some random rant
pc gaming is certainly not dying due to pirating. lol you can pirate console games too, you can pirate sc2 too (just with no online support).
i had a hacked xbox for a long time, it didn't change the fact that i bought games (that had online support and worth buying). most of the other games i just tried them out to see if i liked it and that's about it.
friend owns a hacked 360 too, so he can't activate xbox live with it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't buy games -- in fact he has another nonhacked 360 that he uses to play the games that he wants to play online/netflix/etc...
There's a huge barrier of entry for console pirating in that you need to mod your console (often costing nearly 100$+), on the PC anyone can pirate a game easily without anything extra.
more like 30 dollars and the ability to follow simple instructions online. in fact pirating your console opens up way more options than pirate a PC game, since you can effectively turn your console into a mini computer/entertainment center.
On August 15 2011 02:45 UniversalMind wrote: Hopefully blizzard shuts this down and sues the people before any real damage is done, there are reasons why blizzard has not released Lan and its a valid reason
Its not blizzards fault people like to steal, if people didn't steal you think we wouldn't have Lan? blame the thieves not blizzard
There's no stealing if you already have the game...? You merely don't connect to the blizzard server, but directly to someone else.
Random ppl can't really message you either...or it does make it much harder...
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
What kind of a 11 year old post is this? Go to any of the LR threads for "LAN" tournaments, you think any professional wants to play in a lagged out environment and have to even re-game because of DCs? - Tyler/PainUser, Jinro/TT1, Dimaga/MVP, Huk/Idra.
You mean the same pros who were earning 50 bucks in a LAN tourney before SC2 came along, who now have the chance to win upto 50K .No one still haven't had anyone support their argument by naming the players.
I must say I have a very hard time understanding what point you're trying to make, maybe I'm stupid. So because they have a chance of winning 50k (which happens at a live event with no need for online play at all) there is no reason to have LAN, or what?
I understand your argument for Pro Tourneys to have LAN. The problem is if Blizzard developed a separate version it would be stolen and released within days, movies are hacked and released weeks before their official release.
Improving the DND in BNET will help with lag spikes where the player is spammed. Most tourneys now use dedicated accounts to get around this problem anyways.
Long term it is better that all the games and community stay with BNET. Its the focal point for ladder play, its reasonably hack free.
Don't forget Blizzard need to make money to support this game (£100 million to develop and create it?) and maintain the servers patching etc.
PC gaming is dying a death due to pirating . Steam and BNET etc are the only way game companies will stay with the PC format. Do you really want to see SC2 on XBOX only . Square Enix tried that with Supreme Commander and it was a disaster.
I hope this explains how i feel. Its not some random rant
pc gaming is certainly not dying due to pirating. lol you can pirate console games too, you can pirate sc2 too (just with no online support).
i had a hacked xbox for a long time, it didn't change the fact that i bought games (that had online support and worth buying). most of the other games i just tried them out to see if i liked it and that's about it.
friend owns a hacked 360 too, so he can't activate xbox live with it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't buy games -- in fact he has another nonhacked 360 that he uses to play the games that he wants to play online/netflix/etc...
There's a huge barrier of entry for console pirating in that you need to mod your console (often costing nearly 100$+), on the PC anyone can pirate a game easily without anything extra.
more like 30 dollars and the ability to follow simple instructions online
Definitely depends, Wii is pretty easy, but for Xbox and PS3 it gets complicated fast, I saw 15 page Tutorials for an Xbox Crack with schematics and shit, but maybe that's outdated now
Eh, I think most SC players in Korea played via PC Cafes, where I would imagine piracy is less of an issue.
Actually, PC Bangs were one of the major issues. Tons of people could play Starcraft there, where the PC Bang would mostly purchase none (or, at most, 1) copy of the game.
Their refusal to add LAN is about what happened between Blizzard and KESPA as well, the way SC2 is currently set up allows Blizzard direct control to who plays and who doesn't. If you could play through a LAN, a second KESPA could happen, where they refuse to pay Blizzard broadcasting rights and just completely ignore Blizzard on the issue.
From a business perspective, it makes 0 sense to add LAN for Blizzard, so they won't. 99% of the people won't use it ever. So yes, games in tournaments will be played with 50ms instead of 2ms, and 1 in 500 tournament games will drop because of battle.net connection. That's, at best, an inconvenience, and just not enough of a reason to add LAN.
On August 15 2011 03:02 Topdoller wrote: I dont see pros moaning about it,
A lot of them actually wish there was LAN at big events. Especially since there were disconnects in the GSL and in Blizzcon
Name them. prove you point !! or you are just talking crap
Forgive me for I have not read the entire thread but I just couldn't stand it anymore. There no need to name them as it's probably close to 90% of the pros that are missing the lan function. Have you even meet one of them? Don't think so. Otherwise you'd not say such a stupid and very ignorant statement. On topic, while I understand why they don't want to support the LAN function due to piracy I just fail to see why they don't want to allow it on live tournaments. Really is that too much to ask?
The thing is that people buy games that lack LAN support. Thus it isn't a feature the developer needs to care about. If people didn't buy them, then they would care. Does anybody have actual figures of people not buying SC2 due to it not having LAN? I would assume the figure isn't very high, thus it is a feature that from a short term view has no benefit. Long term they want to create a cross game experience. So they have that covered as well, they just need for that experience to be good enough to offset the long term ill will ignoring a subset of your customers generates.
I honestly don't care about any of the Blizzard products that are slated for release in the near future, so I can't affect their sales.
I think eventually, blizz will have to make a lan service
the main argument against it is piracy
simply use bnet auth system, normally every lan have internet access, everyone can login in bnet and host a game over local network... this is not rocket science
Lan game is definitively a good method to "democratizes" the game... who didnt played a multiplayer demo of a game (could be sc starter...) in a school computer lab? who didnt bring their PC @ friends house for a lan weekend? war2 and spawn cd make me bough the game back then
the only issue I can think of is blizz would loss their so precious total control over the game... wich is seem to be already the case anyway
Reminds me a bit of the interview coL.CatZ had with Dustin Browder. Basically the impression I got was that Blizzard isn't making this game for the competitive scene but still catering to the general public re: ladder maps. The same can be said for LAN. LAN in general is a huge demand for the competitive scene in order to have latency-free play, but in the end Blizzard isn't going to bend for those who play competitively; it's more concerned with the general public who would exploit LAN.
As for myself, I believe that if Blizzard wants this game to have the longevity and devotion that was fostered for Brood War, they should move towards catering to the competitive scene. Nobody plays pee wee American football without being inspired by the NFL. The general public needs to have the professional scene to inspire them to continue to play the game.
hack sounds so bad, crack sounds better but even if he keeps going and blizzard doesnt release it couldnt they just wtfpwn their whole project with a lawsuit?
It really boils down to control. Blizzard adds LAN and they'll lose control over the game. Not necessarily just to pirates but to potential KESPAs etc.
It sucks but from a business point of view I think Blizzard is willing to accept the hate it gets/lost business/whatever to mitigate the risk of losing control over the game. Now whether them losing control over the game will result in real loss in revenue or not is really a different discussion. They believe it will and so either you have to convince them otherwise if you want them to release LAN.
It sucks for the community but they're not a charitable organization and they haven't gotten this far as a company being complete morons. Community feedback is important but gaming communities need to accept they will not change a business' mind on certain things by simply saying we want it this way.
There needs to be real analysis/studies presented to make a case for LAN. Simply saying "it lagged at so and so tournament" will not convince them. There needs to be a real case presented where it shows quantifiable value even if it is based on good faith. e.g. 1. Add LAN 2. Results in more stability during tournaments ... n. Leads to higher profit
Moment that kind of case is made and each step can be demonstrated in a business setting to be true either through historical precedent or whatever, they'll probably add LAN. No company wants to be the guinea pig with this kind of money on the line. At the moment they're willing to accept revenue losses from the lack of LAN than risking adding it.
I personally don't fully buy piracy is the sole reason but it doesn't matter. As a community we need to present reasons that benefit them to add LAN, not "I want to be able to play at my cottage where there is no internet" or "It lagged at so and so tournament". Because internally they'll say people playing in non internet situations this day and age is a small % of potential customers and they'll accept a 1 in 500 (random number I pulled out of my ass) case of where LAN would have prevented a bad situation in a tournament.
edit: Also for those that will say longevity of the game. I agree but how do you prove it. There are games some with LAN and some without that last a long time. In their minds (don't know for sure, could be wrong) LAN has nothing to do with the potential success/longevity of the game.
EPT
