Well, this is very disapointing.
On the plus side:
You think the only way to acquire a working CD-key is to buy the game? There are people who have hundreds of illicit but working CD-keys for various games. You need some level of sophistication to do this, which is why for most games it's not worth your time. Currently, the vast majority of the people who are acquiring CD-keys illigitimately are gold-farmers and botters who get banned regularly and need plenty of CD-keys to support their continued activities. The last thing I want to see is mainstream gamers actually getting involved with that filth.
It will be cracked, and when it is it won't just be pirates who patronize this service, but otherwise legitimate players seeking LAN gaming. Congratulations Blizzard, you've just brought the mainstream gamer and the pirate into the same fold. This is the ultimate irony and idiocy of trying to combat piracy by taking away features from a legitimate user.
First 3 "partitions" of the game and now no LAN. Sorry guys- you just got aboard the fail boat.Dr.GonzoPS: Im not modding a game for what should come out of the box. More and more it just looks like Starcraft with gloss-- some new unit abilities-- Im not putting up with this nonsense to replay something I played in high school.
"Cracking" is really the wrong word. A normal "crack" is meant to remove something. Like a DRM scheme. The rest of the game is still running with the "cracked" part skipped over or stripped out.
Like if Blizzard actually has LAN play in the .exe and just disabled outside of special tournament builds, a crack could re-enable it. But if its not there at all, putting it in isn't a crack. It's either adding a whole new game mode, or (far more likely) emulating Battle.net and redirecting the game to it.
Both are totally doable, but a much more monumental effort then a crack. Most DRM is only even meant to work for a week or two to get initial sales free of pirates. If Blizzard gets 3 months before a fully functional bnetd 2 is out there, then it'd be hailed as a monumental success by industry standards.
I mean, I hate this decision quite a lot. But it's not going to be undone in a week like a DRM scheme.
(Funny thing is that the retail version of Demigod didn't have LAN either. The very first patch enabled it.)
Obviously you completely missed my previous post #42 providing several problems with a connecting to B.net only option. Please try and examine the world outside of the box of your life.
While a monthly fee is a possibility, I think you'll find the truth about the 'lucrative cash cow' was already announced and written up last December 2008, when Activision (Blizzard) and Microsoft (Massive) did a press release for their in-game and exclusive advertising deal designed to run on Battle.net. Oh, and it doesn't stop at ad placement. Blizzard, after Activision botched the announcement and hinted of a possbility of advertising within the pay2play MMO WoW, stated that they'd not allow in-game ads. But for the past weeks, I see a lot of folks signing on to the Mtn Dew site to get their in-game battle-bot pet. Then sign on every day to get a pack of Mtn Dew "Game Fuel" to power the battle-bot. So, even if you're not actively going through the web ad content to get your bot and fuel, you still get to see it all in game and say things like, Hey how do I get that cool battle-bot. And other players tell you to go to the Mtn Dew site. See? Blizzard didn't lie. Massive didn't advertise in WoW. But I digress...
Anyway, be sure to buy that Mtn Dew you saw while playing one of the 3 copies of SC2 you had to buy if you wanted all the content. Cash cow? I think they've found it. LAN support? Nah. Not until they figure out how to feed ads to your private network.
oh, btw, in case it wasn't clear: Massive is a Microsoft subsidiary. They're an ad placement firm, specializing (xclusively?) on in-game advertising. "Massive: Put your brand in play"
Actually Gerry, I pretty much played every single title Blizzard released, all the way back to the original Warcraft.
And I did not say their games suck, though whether SC2 will be a shiny AAA rehash of things already seen or something actually new an original, remains to be seen.
Personally, although I love the works of Blizzard's CGI artists, cinematic movies do not define content for me. An intriguing storyline, interesting gameplay, those things are important. And as I said, they better have a whoopkickarse story and gameplay going on to justify splintering the races into three parts - otherwise its just a cheap way to make more money by selling the same cow three times.
IF B-net 2 makes it possible to actually link up computers in a physical lan, provided that some sort of server authentication takes place without requiring people to connect to a hub, then I see no problem with that.
Though if that is the case, then its also a waste of money because if the networking code exists, then hackers and pirates can just strip out the authentication part.
I was just using the amount of cinematics as a means of showing the effort being put behind the single player, I'm not even a fan of rts single player games. I find it's not the greatest means of story telling.
It all comes down to "wait and see" basically. They said they have features up their sleeve to one up LAN so who knows.
I really doubt this will do anything to stem the flow of pirates, for any more than a week.
I beleive that this whole no-lan thing is nonsense. Two years ago at Gencon in Indianapolis, blizzard was there with StarCraft 2 and you were able to play a 2 on 2 game via LAN for 15 minutes as part as a demo. That was two years ago that i did that, the game was so much fun my buddies and I kept getting back in line for more. At that time the zerg werent available yet, but dear god it was so much fun as the protoss and terran. Ive been a huge fan of blizzard games since warcraft I, the demo of SC2 i got to play has made me want to play it ever since, it is really addictingly fun! So the fact that they had Lan then and not now is making me think that something is up since the recent merger with activision.
I'm sorry, the only reason that you can see why LAN is a desired feature is for pirates? Why was LAN an included feature in the original game? Yes, internet access and it's speed has increased dramatically since Starcraft was released, however when you attend a major LAN event, you'll notice the miles and miles of network cables running to switches to connect everyone via the Network. Why? Because LAN enables social interaction between gamers - while the internet has enabled us to play our favourite games at home and against millions of players online, anyone who's traversed their local LAN scene will tell you nothing compares to a great LAN event. Piracy, while a factor in Blizzards thinking, is the not reason for the disgust being expressed by Starcraft fans; it's the fact that now, to enjoy Blizzards game at LAN events, we need to pirate the game.
Not to be rude, but that is certainly not the experience I've seen during my time at LAN events. The internet was available at only a handful of them; you came prepared for all situations or you simply didn't play. Latest, legit updates were required for all games - pirates were not welcome. This is doubly true for the 'offical' organised events. While there might have been people trading games at a few of them across the network, the only comp. multiplayer that was played were legit games. Why would I go to a LAN to play over the internet? It's completely backwards thinking. Thats like going to a lan to play World of Warcraft.
We NEVER had access to the internet at our LAN parties. Mostly because we choose a location that is isolated, so our noise won't annoy anyone. And we go to a LAN partie to play together, not to sit in the same room while playing. But may be i my scoial life is not messd up enough to understand that...
And who had the silly idea that the majority has a fast internet access? That is not even in the industry nations the case.
Leave your desk just for a few seconds and you will notice the world outside looks much grimmer than your pampered minds can imagine.
What I find surprising is that a lot of people who don't have a clue about Blizzard numbers seem to know what is right or wrong for them. I bet Blizzard know how their game is played, how their game is pirated and they are trying the best for their game, so if they took this decission you can think:
- n00bs, they don't have a clue what they are doing.
- they did the math and they will earn more/lose less money this way.
On the topic of LAN parties, I completely agree. We rarely, if ever, had a stable connection. We tended to have some kind of basic connection for the use of IM's and the like, but other than that.. nothing you could play a game on.
This somewhat ties into my loathing of how later Diablo II patches and Hellgate handled things. Play in a LAN or Offline, and you only get half the game, forcing you to play on their servers to get the full experience. But I guess that's another topic.
When I was in the Air Force I was stuck living in a dorm type setting with no broadband. My friend would bring over his computer so we could play Warcraft 3 together... online and we had zero bandwidth or ping issues. We even ran THREE people off a single 56k connection and it worked fine.
I think people are dramatically overestimating the type of connection needed for an RTS. I love DG and all, and no offense to SD or GPG, but b.net blows any multiplayer functionality I've see from any game with even vaguely RTS based gameplay. Command and Conquer 3 had mind blowingly bad connectivity, but WC3 had it nearly flawless IN BETA a good seven years ago. I assume SC2 will be better.
There will be mass suicide in South Korea.
It's not as a dramatic a reason as "preventing piracy" but I still say the reason you're going to be forced to use Battle.net for any multiplayer is due primarily to the in-game advertising deal. That's where the money is at, not piracy prevention (hahahaha).
Honestly though I'm not sure it's a bad thing. There's been a number of ad-sponsored games in Asia and Blizz had initially considered launching WoW as one of them but decided against it because they thought it would disenfranchise American gamers... At some point in time we as consumers need to come to terms with the fact that stuff just isn't free, and whether you use it or not the lifetime b.net ticket that comes in your SC2 box (if you buy it the old fashioned way or at all) has strings attached.
All internet industries (and no shortage of tradionally offline industries, like journalism) are evolving to remain or become profitable and ad revenue is a logical source of income. You're not really picking a winning battle by opposing it.
Now, that LAN support for SC2 is gone. I can see a lot of people not getting
it when it is released. I know piracy is the main reason they are not supporting
it.
Blizzard needs to register keys during the install phase of the game. Basically
you'll need internet access and a valid email address. The game should also
be able to access the main server at Blizzard every time you run it. So, keys
can be checked and if their is any patches. I lot of people wouldn't like this,
but if this what it takes to get LAN support back I'm all for it.
Bottom line ... Blizzard needs to inforce these type of rules. Even if they do go
this route. Someone will find a way to pirate it. They also, need to release at
a good price too. I figure a price tag of $39.95 ...
Now it a waiting game ... I plan on getting it ... when it released ... I have 4
windows systems ... and family members I play games with over the net ..
So, I hope its release this year ... so I can get it for them on xmas ...
You clearly know nothing. Don't you know Bnet is flawless? Just go to the DemiGod forums and you will see it posted all the time.
I dunno why people see that as a big deal, though. Diablo 1 and Starcraft both had ads in the battle.net lobby. Most of them were ads for other Blizzard stuff, but not all of them. Nobody really much cared.
Ads... yeah, I can buy that (excuse the bad pun). But I don't buy the "anti-piracy measure" argument, because its just dumb.
But I guess it doesn't sound as bad as someone from Blizzard saying "yeah, we would like to force everyone to connect via Battlenet because it makes us richer." Though it would be somewhat cool to see someone with an in-your-face attitude like that instead of various PR stunt-monkeys crucifying poor pirates on a daily basis and using them basically as a cover for the get rich/er schemes.
I don't know... I think there's a lot of things that will arise from this that haven't been voiced yet:
What about the patch that comes out that makes balance changes which myself and my friends do not like? If I was playing on a LAN we would have the choice to avoid that patch and play the game WE wanted to play. Forcing us to connect to BNet to play will also force us to install said patch, would it not?
What about when the BNet servers are down due to scheduled maintenance or what-have-you?
I don't know.. I don't like this at all. I play LAN almost exclusively; almost never online. The reason is this: I suck at competitive play. I am a casual gamer and the online world, in my opinion, gets very elitist with any given game very quickly. Within a month of any given game's release I will lose an online game 99% of the time. And my frinds and I are neither sore losers or winners as we all win or lose a comparable amount. Online, when I do win that 1 game out of 100, according to my opponent it MUST be a map hack and he disconnects from me. When I lose, I'm a noob that has no business playing the game. It's just no damn fun.
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