LAN would be nice...

[Luckycharm]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games

[Thebeezitron]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games

from what I've heard, they've disabled LAN because of how much pirating goes on these days. Imo, not a bad decision. Theoretically, if everyone owns the game there should be no problem playing in a LAN setting using Battle.net. If you crai and say that you want to play it at LANs without paying for the game, then you are the exact people blizzard is trying to stop.

[Messana]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games

And LAN would help them test how?

Use that thing in your skull.

[Wyndrunner]

I really do hope in the retail game I can play on a LAN/Single Player when they're doing server maintenance. I'm not surprised in a beta, but I'm going to be really upset if we can't play single player/LAN if the server is down.

[Strimen]

LAN would be great, but how about the ability to just play a fricken AI right about now? Basically offline play whether LAN, single player, or skirmish is key. Not being able to do so in the release product is crap(understandable in the beta of course). If my internet goes down due to bad weather, stupid people digging, or animals bitting my lines, I still want to be able to play my fricken games. I have four PCs in the house, LAN/offline play would be nice. BNet only is a horrible idea. Almost as bad as MW2 matchmaking and no dedicated servers (which I boycotted for that reason, haha).

[Mindless]

with severs down u can play AI or single player or use map editor.

Lan no longer exists in the gaming industry.

[Strimen]

ummm I work in the gaming industry as a programmer. LAN exists, its just destroyed by the large publishers like MS and Sony. We even have our games playing cross platform across LAN, but there is no way MS/Sony/Nintendo will allow that to ever ship because they just want the control via LIVE and other crap proprietary systems to milk the end users and keep them on their systems only.

*Edit for spelling*

[Yaji]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games

lawl.. I wondered how many people would say this when it went down.. I have to admit I kind of thought it to myself.. Cmon, at least an offline mode for single player mode? puh-weeze...

...

I know you wont.. :p

[Strimen]

with severs down u can play AI or single player or use map editor.

Lan no longer exists in the gaming industry.


Oh and btw I can't play against the AI right now. Can you? If you can please tell me how, because I am failing to make my way past the warning that b-net is down and can't log me into the game to play anything.

[Frame]

Singleplayer will be available in offlinemode once you authenticate yourself on the battle.net (as they said it somewhere). LAN? Never will be there. Deal with it.

[Yaji]

Singleplayer will be available in offlinemode once you authenticate yourself on the battle.net (as they said it somewhere). LAN? Never will be there. Deal with it.

meh, as long as there is some type of offline mode (like steam has) to keep us entertained in these types of situations, I'll be pretty suprised/happy.

[Sutekh]

Easy fix to the scare of people pirating the game. (well not sure how easy it is! I'm sure it's probably expensive and extensive)

Make Login severs and battle.net servers two separate entities.

So you're forced to produce account info to access the game, when you log on you can either A.) Lan B.) Single player, or C.) (Assuming the servers aren't down) play multiplayer.

[Stets]

I remember back in the day my friends and I would all haul our computers over to one person's house to play Starcraft over lan. Lots of good memories, funny memories, and profanities coming from two rooms over as I recalled a load of reavers on top of someone's minerals. Good times. And for the record every one of us owned a legit copy of the game, in some cases 2 or 3. It bothers me that we won't be able to do this with SC2.

[Tornare]

Online only is fine with me for games like WoW. Onine only is not fine with me for games that have single player, that should have LAN abilitys as well. As i said in another forum, SC2 will be cracked by pirates. Every game known to man has been cracked, so why would SC2 which will be very very popular be any different. Buying the game will have its advantages even so. Most SC2 players want to know they can log in battlenet, instead of just single player and LAN games. They will want to log in and find countless games they can play at any time, i know i will. Blizzard games are games that even most pirates will go out and buy because of this.

Leaving LAN out and forcing online for single player will only hurt paying customers, just like many other forms of DRM.

Feel free to tell me if you think that i am wrong.

[Tornare]

Singleplayer will be available in offlinemode once you authenticate yourself on the battle.net (as they said it somewhere). LAN? Never will be there. Deal with it.

I did not realize the singleplayer will be available offline after you authenticate it when i typed my last post. They should do the same with LAN then.

[Acosnil]

There'll probably be an off-line mode for SC2 when it's in it's full version but ATM the point of the beta is for testing.

Hard to do that when there's no way to collect data.


And yes, whether Blizzard says it directly or not is another matter entirely but the dirty little secret of LANs is that pirating is prevalent, and there's no reasonable way to track it. It's been a few years since I went to it, but the LAN my university hosts every year attracts a fairly small crowd (the engineering college next town over has all the nerds) but even then when me and my roommates went they got their hands on an SNES ROM, peggle, and a handful of other games just because file sharing was turned on.

Plus, there is merit to what Blizzard says. Demanding online connectivity delivers a more personalized gaming experience when you actually have to give 2 craps about your account. It's not as convenient as saying that there's always another key to be generated like with SC1 where you find B.net clogged with spam bots. Getting banned actually carries some penalties with it.

[Wolf]

I too recall bringing my computer over to a friends and many hours of fun playing Starcraft, and I too owned 2 or 3 copies myself (still own) so that other's could play with me. :) I'm sure they will have some form of offline play, and while it would be nice to have LAN enabled, I will enjoy whatever they offer.

I hope the servers come back up soon, I only played 4 games since downloading it today. :)

[Michael]

Even if having no LAN stops supposed it stop pirating; hackers will just make a B.net 2.0 emulated servers which will allow pirates anyways.

[Toridas]

lan gaming was nice for back when everyone was on dialup, but those days have passed. unless you're tim buckley, lan parties today all have broadband connections anyway.

[Strimen]

Yes we know most people have access to broadband. That isn't the issue. The issue is most people will have outages in their broadband service/game hosting service. And when that happens it would be nice to play a fricken game still. I used to play SC on a laptop while the power was out. Can't do that in the current incarnation of BNet 2.0 always on BS. That is the issue. Not so much the removale of LAN.

[Dustin]

Unless they corrected it, they stated that LAN will be available once you authenticate your account.

[Toridas]

That's because the "current incarnation" of b.net is a online-only beta. The final product will surely have offline single player, I don't think blizzard has turned into ubisoft quite yet.

[Toridas]

Unless they corrected it, they stated that LAN will be available once you authenticate your account.

They've stated many times that LAN is out, where did they say they changed their minds?

[Dustin]

They've stated many times that LAN is out, where did they say they changed their minds?

I must have missed that, last I heard you had to log into battle.net before LAN was enabled.

[Toridas]

I must have missed that, last I heard you had to log into battle.net before LAN was enabled.

Being able to play while logged into battle.net, yes. Your previous post said "once you authenticate" made it sound like you were talking about offline LAN play.

[Acosnil]

They've stated many times that LAN is out, where did they say they changed their minds?

If it's anything like the old battle.net then so long as you have an internet connection if multiple people connect to it through the same said connection, and join the same game B.net works intelligently and basically makes it so that it functions almost identically to a LAN.

[Eloderung]

Less piracy > LAN capabilities.

[Bloodyiron]

Less piracy > LAN capabilities.

SC1 was not hurt for sales.

[Strimen]

SC1 was not hurt for sales.

Quoted for truth.

[Jon]

Leaving features out that your paying customers are asking for will not reduce piracy.

My big concern is also a LAN party one; I'm already planning a release party for all the old crowd that used to LAN up and play SC. I'm concerned that my DSL connection won't handle multiple games since they will all be hooking out to b.net.

I also think that there should be one word that begins and ends this argument; millitary. If ever there was a group of people without consistent internet access that could make use of locally hosted multiplayer, they are it.

[William]

SC1 was not hurt for sales.
SC1 had a nifty feature that let you install "Spawn" copies - versions of the game that could only play LAN games. Each CD Key was good for 8 Spawn Installations.

The whole reason I bought SC1 was because of those Spawn installations. I originally didn't have much interest in the game, but one of my friends essentially forced our friend group into coming over for a big Starcraft LAN. By the end of that week every one of us had gone out and purchased our own copies, me included.


To go from supporting Spawn Installations to having no direct LANing is a major change for the worse for Blizzard's customers, and I dont' believe it'll have any real impact on piracy numbers. Most people who pirate games - most of the pirates I know, anyway - will purchase a game if they feel it deserves it. Removing long-time genre-standard features is not a good way to convince potential customers your game deserves to be supported.

I'm afraid to see LANing being removed from any games, lest it become a widespread practice. I know the countless LANs my friends and I had in highschool would not have been possible if we were required to sign into some remote server before we could play, as there was usually no internet connection in the basement. I imagine there are a lot of people in a situation similar to that, but they will have the misfortune of being in a time period where "LANing" means either being on the internet in the same room as someone else or having Minesweeper races.

[Silent]

That's because the "current incarnation" of b.net is a online-only beta. The final product will surely have offline single player, I don't think blizzard has turned into ubisoft quite yet.

I don't want to sound like an ass (but I probably will nonetheless), but why do I get the feeling not many people kept up with SC2 info?

In regards to offline single player, they've already confirmed (probably numerous times by now) that you WILL be able to play SP offline, but not with your "online" account - meaning that any achievements you would've earned won't be earned to that account; instead, you'd "log in" as a Guest account to play SP offline.

Concerning LAN: yes, there is a vocal crowd who want it, but somehow it just doesn't seem like it's as big as it was 10 years ago. To cater to this (arguably) minuscule crowd at the cost of more rampant piracy (than we all know will occur anyway) probably isn't worth it to them. It's just in their best interest to try and fight piracy as much as possible - hence why we even have things like CD-keys (shouldn't they now be called DVD- or Digital-Keys? or are they now?) for most online PC games.

You can say that Blizzard, or any other company, that implements methods to reduce piracy are just hurting the "true/real" fans by making not want to (or will actually choose not to) buy the final product; but what if they did implement LAN or have less DRM-like security methods? Sure you have more of those on-the-fence fans buying it, but then you have an even greater number simply pirating it - especially internet cafes (and countries where such things are a highly popular choice still). For them, why buy 30-50 copies of the game when they could have just "bought" 1 and then installed it on all the other comps?

[Eloderung]

SC1 was not hurt for sales.

So that makes it alright if, say, 20% of sales that would have happened were stolen by pirates instead?

I, for one, want to support blizzard to make more amazing games in the future by not pirating their software. If more people like you were around, SC2 would not even exist.

[Bloodyiron]

So that makes it alright if, say, 20% of sales that would have happened were stolen by pirates instead?

I, for one, want to support blizzard to make more amazing games in the future by not pirating their software. If more people like you were around, SC2 would not even exist.

1) software piracy is copyright infringement, not theft. learn the difference please. (the difference is copying software does not remove something from someone else, whereas theft does)

2) you can't prove that people who pirate a game will not buy it ever, or that it was even a guaranteed sale to begin with. there are people i know who do pirate a game then buy it. where's your accounting for that? huh mr professor?

[Toridas]

it's still theft of a service. no different than walking into a movie theater without buying a ticket.

[Joeorange]

LAN in the beta would just open the door for hackers.

Though I do think it would be nice to allow users to view replays while the servers are down. More educated testers will help them better :)

[Juggerrnaut]

yea for me personally i would rather prefer there to be an offline mode just incase servers do go down and we are stuck without internet and then we cant play the game at all?!...even if that does happen, dont forget about galaxy editor ima be all over that! w00t for galaxy editor!!

[Strimen]

yea for me personally i would rather prefer there to be an offline mode just incase servers do go down and we are stuck without internet and then we cant play the game at all?!...even if that does happen, dont forget about galaxy editor ima be all over that! w00t for galaxy editor!!


See that's another issue right there. To run a custom game you have to connect to BNet yet again, which means you can't even play any cool 1 player campaign/maps you made with the galazy editor while traveling (in car/train/airplane without wifi), sipping coffee at a restaurant, etc. Basically you are not buying the game anymore. You are buying the ability to log into BNet and play stuff they let you and nothing else at any other time than when you are connected.

The menu doesn't even show the greyed out buttons that say you will be able to do anything other than check your options or login without an internet connection at the moment. It would be sort of silly to ram in a whole bunch of new untested menus and put them on the release disc. We have already found various bugs in the menus they have now, so that would just be asking for troube. So in the end I don't think you are gonna be able to do much without a BNet connection with your SC2 disc other than using it as a frisbee.

[Joeorange]

See that's another issue right there. To run a custom game you have to connect to BNet yet again, which means you can't even play any cool 1 player campaign/maps you made with the galazy editor while traveling (in car/train/airplane without wifi), sipping coffee at a restaurant, etc. Basically you are not buying the game anymore. You are buying the ability to log into BNet and play stuff they let you and nothing else at any other time than when you are connected.

The menu doesn't even show the greyed out buttons that say you will be able to do anything other than check your options or login without an internet connection at the moment. It would be sort of silly to ram in a whole bunch of new untested menus and put them on the release disc. We have already found various bugs in the menus they have now, so that would just be asking for troube. So in the end I don't think you are gonna be able to do much without a BNet connection with your SC2 disc other than using it as a frisbee.

Really?!? Is that the way that the game that is currently in beta will work on final release? Amazing!

Seriously, this is beta guys. The only thing this beta is for is testing (balance). You have no idea how a lack of connection to battle.net will effect your single player experience. Anything anyone says (that doesn't have Blue text) is just guessing.

[Olcatt]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games


ingrate

[Strimen]

Really?!? Is that the way that the game that is currently in beta will work on final release? Amazing!

Seriously, this is beta guys. The only thing this beta is for is testing (balance). You have no idea how a lack of connection to battle.net will effect your single player experience. Anything anyone says (that doesn't have Blue text) is just guessing.


Correct, that's why we are collecting the facts as we see them. To show what is currently possible and appears to be what will be in the final game. Should a Blue step forward and set us all straight or give us extra information on these concerns then that would be much appreciated. But until then all we have to go on are the facts as presented by Blue's comments and what we see ingame.

And you are flat out wrong by the way about your point on 'The only thing this beta is for is testing(balance).' If that were true their wouldn't be a feedback forum and a bug forum. There would simply be a 'Balance' forum. This is a beta test and like all beta tests that Blizz has done before (and I've been in all accept original SC for PC, because at the time I had a mac and there was no mac beta) it's about finding bugs, issues, and other concens about the game and getting them all cleaned up before release. If you don't like the disscussion about this issue than just walk away and let the rest of us address it with the facts we have and the issues we have encountered so far in the beta that have made our experiences sub-par. Example: no replays offline, no custom maps offline, no AI skirmishes offline.

*Edit: Spelling*

[Strimen]

Less piracy > LAN capabilities.

As a paying customer actually it goes like this for me:

Offline capabilities >>> Less Piracy

Also, to see how well removal of user functionality is not at all hampering hackers (which will always find away given time) check the thread about how ppl have already setup a fake BNet 2.0 system. I don't want to provide links or anything because that post might get taken down, but its just an example of how pointless it is to hurt your paying customer base to try and stop a non-paying group of individuals.

Unless of course thats not the real reason Bnet is so tightly tied to SC2, as I already pointed out Sony and MS both do this with their services and games on purpose to tie the user into their systems to exploit you for further gain and loss to the compitition(DLC, Monthly fees, etc). Which is funny because that is something Blizz doesn't need to worry about. Blizz has one of the biggest fan bases ever, they don't need to try and take over every aspect of our online play to try and squeeze more cash out of us. Most of us will auto-buy the next Bliz game simply because it's from them. Thats the quality level they have acheived and faith the community has in them and thats what they should be working on continuing by giving us the features to enjoy their games at all times, not just when hooked to the internet. I'm sure their will be a way to play single player offline and not get pointless achievements and other such non-sense that your online account would get, but we'd also like to be able to watch replays, play custom single player maps, test our own maps, play against AI in skirmishes, and play with other friends in a closed or secure computer environment using our individually owned copies of the game.

[Pedosmiley]

Yay, more misinformation.

As someone who's been closely following this game since announcement, let me clear things up for you.

While online, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play multiplayer
Play custom games with other people
Earn achievements

While offline, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play custom games by yourself

While offline, you can't:
Do anything that involves another person
Earn achievements


Clear enough? This stuff about not being able to play at all if not online is just frankly bullshit. Learn the facts before you cry wolf.

[Joeorange]

Yay, more misinformation.

As someone who's been closely following this game since announcement, let me clear things up for you.

While online, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play multiplayer
Play custom games with other people
Earn achievements

While offline, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play custom games by yourself

While offline, you can't:
Do anything that involves another person
Earn achievements


Clear enough? This stuff about not being able to play at all if not online is just frankly bullshit. Learn the facts before you cry wolf.

This pretty much sums it up. I think this thread should be killed. The guy complaining there is obviously a troll.

[Strimen]

I'm not trolling simply stating what was available and not in the FAQ or a Blue post. If the above is all true great, most people are just commenting on the fact that the current interface doesn't support what you are saying. AND that we could watch replays without being connected online, but they patched that last night which blocked this ability... So that also doesn't support what you are saying is fact. Blue will clear it all up eventually we just need to wait and the mean time this is how it stands. No functionality when you are not online, as seen in the game's interface and testing.


It would be different if we saw the greyed buttons that let us do all of these wonderful things you say are possible while not connected, but that just was not the case when the servers went down. Once they went down all you could do was watch replays, change your game settings and try to connect. Then they patched it and you could no longer watch replays offline either, which was either an issue where the patch made the replays useless or they did it on purpose to shut out that offline feature.

We aren't asking for features to be added to beta just, making sure that Blizz is aware that we would like these features in release as a large section of people have a use for offline abilities AND not having it doesn't stop hackig if thats what the goal of removing it was to stop.

[Pedosmiley]

I'm not trolling simply stating what was available and not in the FAQ or a Blue post. If the above is all true great, most people are just commenting on the fact that the current interface doesn't support what you are saying. AND that we could watch replays without being connected online, but they patched that last night which blocked this ability... So that also doesn't support what you are saying is fact. Blue will clear it all up eventually we just need to wait and the mean time this is how it stands. No functionality when you are not online, as seen in the game's interface and testing.


It would be different if we saw the greyed buttons that let us do all of these wonderful things you say are possible while not connected, but that just was not the case when the servers went down. Once they went down all you could do was watch replays, change your game settings and try to connect. Then they patched it and you could no longer watch replays offline either, which was either an issue where the patch made the replays useless or they did it on purpose to shut out that offline feature.

We aren't asking for features to be added to beta just, making sure that Blizz is aware that we would like these features in release as a large section of people have a use for offline abilities AND not having it doesn't stop hackig if thats what the goal of removing it was to stop.

If they said they will be in the game (multiple times), it's likely they will be.

I expect they'll add the interface options later. It's not like Battle.net is an impossible to edit program.

For example, the channel interface is there but disabled.

[Deej]

definitely need lan play. competitive games need to be lag free

[Strimen]

If they said they will be in the game (multiple times), it's likely they will be.

I expect they'll add the interface options later. It's not like Battle.net is an impossible to edit program.

For example, the channel interface is there but disabled.

Hey if they said it somewhere (multiple times) that would be great. I just don't see that confirmed anywhere by Blue. Could you please point us concerned players to these valuable resources? Otherwise all we have to go on is what we see ingame.

Thanks.

[Toridas]

http://kotaku.com/5344013/starcraft-ii-can-be-played-offline

There's a quote from Rob Pardo, one of the biggest blues there is, saying that there will be offline play.

"You don't technically have to (login), but you'll want to. You can play in offline mode if you want - I just don't think you're going to want to. You'll be giving up lots and lots of features, and why would you want to be giving up features?"

[Eliyah]

since the servers are down.


Just another example of why LAN is essential for RTS games

Read forums, post feedback, read up on strats...
Always things to do.

[Nexu]

Hey if they said it somewhere (multiple times) that would be great. I just don't see that confirmed anywhere by Blue. Could you please point us concerned players to these valuable resources? Otherwise all we have to go on is what we see ingame.

Thanks.
It'sÂ*notÂ*"confirmed"Â*byÂ*anyone,Â*it'sÂ*justÂ*inÂ*theÂ*gameÂ*dataÂ*fi les.Â*WhichÂ*meansÂ*that,Â*theoretically,Â*theyÂ*c ouldÂ*decideÂ*otherwiseÂ*andÂ*decideÂ*notÂ*toÂ*put Â*itÂ*in.Â*ButÂ*chancesÂ*areÂ*it'sÂ*inÂ*theÂ*works Â*forÂ*furtherÂ*downÂ*theÂ*road.

[Ricedream]

rofl. this will never happen.
we are in the age of accounts. if you cant log in.. you cant play. nevermind the fact that you paid for it. you dont own SC2. you lease server time from them.

[Eloderung]

Yay, more misinformation.

As someone who's been closely following this game since announcement, let me clear things up for you.

While online, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play multiplayer
Play custom games with other people
Earn achievements

While offline, you can:
Play single player
Play skirmish matches by yourself against AI
Play custom games by yourself

While offline, you can't:
Do anything that involves another person
Earn achievements


Clear enough? This stuff about not being able to play at all if not online is just frankly Learn the facts before you cry wolf.

Quoting because so many beta folk never even cared to research this game beforehand.

definitely need lan play. competitive games need to be lag free

Or they could just remove the innate 250ms or so latency tacked onto ladder games or at least allow it to be toggled off in custom games. Using third party programs, you can get very near to LAN latencies while playing War3 on battle.net custom games.