Blizzard Responds to No LAN SupportThis is a featured page

It is official. Starcraft 2 will have no LAN support and gamers are pissed.

Hundreds of negative comments are found nearly anywhere the LAN news has been posted, petitions are launching, and some long-time Starcraft gamers are even considering a boycott despite their desire to play the highly-anticipated and long-time coming sequel.

Why would Blizzard do this considering that people are still playing the original in a multi-player LAN setting over a decade after its release in 1998? Blizzard claims it is to safeguard against piracy.

What still is not clear is what this will do to the South Korean market where Starcraft is a televised professional sport.		Starcraft 2 LAN
Photo credit: teamliquid.net
Here is Blizzard's Official Response to the Fan Outcry:

Bob Colayco"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future." said Bob Colayco at Blizzard PR		Here's the original statement that spurred the outcry:

No LAN Support - StarCraft 2"We don't have any plans to support LAN" said VP of game design Rob Pardo in an IncGamers interview.




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dustpaint What is Blizzard up to? 2 Aug 24 2010, 2:00 AM EDT by sg_hariharan
Thread started: Jun 30 2009, 7:04 PM EDT  Watch
Why do you suppose Blizzard isn't including LAN. Do you really think it is just about piracy? Is it a control thing, or are they trying to make more money?

Though stat tracking is nice, I'd be okay with no fancy stats for LAN games.
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TACCLAN Boycott 0 Friday, 8:28 PM EDT by TACCLAN
Thread started: Friday, 8:28 PM EDT  Watch
Greetings from the Tactical Operations Clan. We wish, as a group, to make a public statement. After playing the original StarCraft to its furthest ends for many years, we had highly anticipated the release of the sequel. However, after its release, and after having nothing but problems with the installer, and the inability to play the game unless you connect to battle.net, the clan has decided to boycott the game.

We may further boycott Blizzard games all together, depending on the release of Diablo 3. If it is in the same fashion, such that it cannot be played in any mode without connecting to Battle.net we will completely boycott Blizzard all together.

Its a tragedy to see Blizzard/Activision take the highest selling game of all time and pervert the second version so badly. In fact many of our members feel the play action is almost identical to Brood Wars, which was a complete flop.

Anyone want to buy StarCraft II disks? Only played a few times, never dropped. $40.
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Baluds The Reason why Games tend to be pirated. 0 Aug 12 2010, 1:12 PM EDT by Baluds
Thread started: Aug 12 2010, 1:12 PM EDT  Watch
This is one of the reasons why games tend to be pirated due to selfishness and greed for money. The game is damn expensive then you can't even share it even at home. I'd rather buy the pirated version if I can't even play with my kids...
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Cainchild OMFG ARRG! 0 Jul 28 2010, 4:26 PM EDT by Cainchild
Thread started: Jul 28 2010, 4:26 PM EDT  Watch
Dude. I have to buy 2 copies to play with my wife? WTF? Dust, you gotta make a big ole fatazz faq so that I guys like me can get all the aggravation in one big dose. SC2 officially blows.
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