[kingarthur]

Well they just lost another sale!

[AnubisIV]

I have to say that I am a bit disappointed. My friends and I have had so many issues trying to host games on BNet for WC3 that LANing was the only simple option, especially so since we all have laptops and move between our houses. When the choice came down to either redoing port routing on each wireless router or just start up a LAN game, the choice was clear. I guess that won't be an option any longer.
Then again, my brother's friends LAN far more often than my friends do, and I know that it's not at all uncommon for some of them to show up at a LAN party without a computer, mooch one off of another friend for a computer, and then borrow someone else's copy of WC3 to install on that mooched computer. I suppose this might be aimed at combatting that...

[Penzi]

I am disappointed, after all the crap going on in the economy, that a company is still attempting to increase the revenue generating capabilities of their product by hindering the users and selling them as a product to advertisers.
I am even MORE disappointed that it is Blizzard involved in this. Since the original Warcraft I have been a huge fan of theirs and have purchased several of their products. They were responsible, fantastic (imagine - only releasing games that are finished?! And simultaneously for Windows AND Mac, back when that was a really big deal?!) and really interesting games. Now, I'm no fan of online gaming (I know that puts me in the VAST minority of gamers) but I have been known to enjoy a LAN party or two. I game with friends, that's just my style - and if it is NOT in Starcraft 2, then I am not buying Starcraft 2. Simple equation, really. I have never used, and see no reason to start using, Battle.net.
Thanks for reading my rant...

[nimbusthegreat]

count me out too. i wouldn't buy this without lan support. and blizzard, perhaps you shouldn't treat your paying customers, especially those like myself that have bough almost every single release you've ever put out, like theives. shame on you. maybe i'll spend my money on something besides starcraft and diablo from now on.

[shadedream]

How about instead of just complaining here, people contact Blizzard and express your concern and dismay at this decision.
I'm just as disappointed in the decision, but I've also made my disappointment known to them and I hope others will do the same.

[Steve_S]

Wizardling said:

This is outrageous.

Yeah, that's probably and understatement. We all realize piracy (bootlegging is probably a more appropriate term) is a problem. It's more than frustrating when companies treat legitimate customers as criminals. It's bad enough that we have to deal with DRM and other related nonsense, but when we start losing key features like LAN networking for a game like StarCraft, the appeal of purchasing this game is greatly diminished. At this point, I don't know if I even plan to purchase the game when it comes out.

I have no doubt Starcraft 2 will sell very well. However, it would be nice if Blizzard was sent a message letting them know taking away key features for the sake of preventing piracy will have a similar negative affect on sales.

[sigma8]

I don't like this decision, but I'm not up in arms about it. I think it's ironic that the original Starcraft allowed you to make several "spawns" of the install, so that you wouldn't even have to pirate the game. One copy would let you do LAN play for I think up to 8 people. There was not even a reason to pirate the game for LAN parties.
So, yeah, if there is a groundswell, I'd jump on the boycott bandwagon for philosophical reasons, but truth be told I don't do many LAN parties these days.
Also, this just means people will be busting their butts really hard to make a fake Battle.net server that you can run locally.

[sigma8]

wgood said:

This is not good news. I really hope Blizzard reevaluates the situation, and looks at how many people use the game when out of reach of the internet.

If you want them to keep LAN play in, you might not want them to do that research :P I'm pretty confident the vast majority of non-tournament players play over Battle.net.

Seriously though... I hope that this restriction leads to crappy pings and tournaments just drop it as a title.

[jedi228]

Ugghh. The best part about StarCraft is the ability to have parties at someone's house. The lack of LAN support makes people have to stay at home at their own computers. I have barely enough bandwidth for one player at full speed. I certainly don't have the bandwidth for 8 players at my house if all 8 have to connect into Blizzard.
I'm willing to pay the money. How about if the players have to connect to central server to get validated, but can then play locally?

The claim regarding quality seems rather specious. I want the quality of a local connection. How is a slow line that drops out every now and then ensuring quality?

[bastion]

scralpha said:

Exactly my point. Companies should be looking to add value for paying customers, not remove it because of a few hardcore pirates who would never pay anyway.

That's not who they're removing it for. In general, no company that lasts more than a year is going to go out of their way with insanely obtrusive protection mechanisms to prevent the professional pirates from copying. It's a waste of resources, and they all know that. The much more serious issue are the people who are, for lack of a better term, pirates of opportunity. They copy for themselves because they can. They would buy it otherwise because it does have value to them, but if they can easily find a way to not pay for something they will. Thus you have people who will spend an hour or more of their time hunting down license codes for a $5 utility for which the primary purpose is to save them time. As sad and unfortunate as it is, inconveniencing people a little is known to maximize licenses. The tricky part, of course, is figuring out where the limit of "a little" lies.

[AjMED]

This is quite unfortunate. I have been playing Starcraft with my brother-in-law, nephew, son and daughter for many years now. Whenever we go visit, we usually get a LAN game going. We have purchased (6) copies of Starcraft and BroodWar to accomplish this. It has been a blast and we have enjoyed the great design of gameplay in Starcraft, its ability to easily play networked between Macs and Windows machines and the low system requirements. We even play on a 2000-era G3 iMac with OSX Panther!

We have been watching in eager anticipation for Starcraft 2 which has been rumored and promised for quite some time. Now that screenshots and gameplay videos are available we were even more excited for its eventual release and couldn't wait to got out and get it.

Then this article showed up. I hope it is a mistake. I hope Blizzard thinks differently and changes their mind. Unfortuantely, if LAN multiplayer is removed, that will be (6) copies of Starcraft 2 that Blizzard will miss out on. And no, we will NOT be doing any gaming ofver Battle.net for many reasons. We like/need local network stability and speed. Please Blizzard, rethink this decision.

[Bimmered]

+1 I also think they lost me too.
If they will still release a single player i would most definitely get a pirated copy. Before people may start to flame, i just have to say that i don't have all the time a proper internet connection to play it so that would mean for me money trashed away.
Moreover if they implement the monthly Battlenet fee subscription...well that's another reason to stay away. That would be a total rip-off.