Starcraft 2: No LAN Support Summary

I know this is old news already. But let me post a compilation of what has been said by Blizzard and how the community reacted.

The Announcement

StarCraft II will not have LAN support.

Speaking with IncGamers, Blizzard’s vice president of game design Rob Pardo made it spectacularly clear that players won’t be able to play against each other the old way -- without the Internet. Instead, players will have to use the revolutionary Battle dot Net service to host, create and join matches.

“We don’t have plans to support LAN,” Pardo said shortly before putting the statement in stone with, “we will not support it.”

- Brad Nicholson

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Blizzard defends Starcraft II's Lack of LAN Support

Yesterday, it was revealed that long-awaited RTS Starcraft II would not have LAN support, sending a number of PC gamers into a frenzy, despite the fact that they had the Internet so it shouldn't really be a problem. Blizzard has naturally responded to the nerd rage, defending its position and making sure to mention piracy as a contributing factor. "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," confirms a Blizzard rep. "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."So, an equal mix of piracy and Blizzard pushing its own gaming platform are to blame. Still, hardcore traditionalists who don't like change will likely be unsatisfied by this and shall continue to get all stroppy. You know what they should do? They should boycott it. I hear that's the cool thing to do!

-Jim Sterling

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Starcraft II Gets LAN Petition

Oh, Internet, you and your silly petitions that nobody will ever bother actually reading. Hot off the back of Blizzard revealing that StarCraft II would not support LAN, a bunch of hardcore StarCraft fans have banded together to petition the studio and demand that the feature be reinstalled.

The petition is at least respectful, imploring Blizzard to bring LAN back, and pointing out that Internet connections aren't always available and that it was LAN that cemented StarCraft's popularity in the first place. The petition currently has 25101 signatures, so it's not quite a Left 4 Dead 2 boycott yet, but it's early days.

That said, do these petititons really ever work? Only when they're a marketing stunt, and I have a feeling that Blizzard isn't yoinking out LAN simply for publicity. We'll see if the democratic process wins out this time, but it's highly doubtful that Blizzard will reconsider because of an Internet petition.

-Jim Sterling

Source

Over 100,000 Nerds Sign Starcraft II LAN Petition

When Blizzard announced that Starcraft II would be ditching LAN support, people got upset. Local play has been a staple of Starcraft for centuries, and it was quite shocking to see that the sequel would not allow for that most ancient and noble of nerd traditions, the LAN party. Naturally, an online petition started up.

Futile as I may find online petitions, I still admire the willingness of gamers to make their voices heard, especially as they're usually a ludicrously apathetic bunch. The petition has broken the 100,000 signature mark, making for quite a loud voice indeed. Seems that, despite having the Internet, there's no substitute in many peoples' minds for good ol' fashioned human interaction.

Of course, with Blizzard being the right arm of evil publisher Activision, this collective outcry could fall on deaf ears. Blizzard is keen on pushing Battle.net with all its might, and if that means sacrificing the happiness of a mere 100,000 people, then so be it.

-Jim Sterling

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