No LAN Play For Starcraft II


Recommended Posts

That's a little disappointing. Most of my family (meaning my brothers etc.) loved playing Starcraft via LAN in my house being we are all connected to the same network.

Now I have to deal with Battle .NET just to get a game in. With that said they better fix the 1 person per network on Battle .NET issue that plagued the first Starcraft.

I suppose we can thank all the pirates for this. Abusing Hamachi, Garena and other LAN-over-Internet software for internet play with pirated copies.

And how will this thwart piracy? They'll crack battle.net authentication out of the product alongside any copy protection, quickly develop a server emulator and whoosh they'll be playing just like they were before. Poor excuse is a poor excuse.

The only people who will be butt-funked here will be the legit owners who now have to resort to dubious hacked servers/software to allow LAN gaming. Hooray for that.

Seriously, it's 2009. There's Internet everywhere, or well, if there's a place without Internet there probably won't be Starcraft 2 either anyway.

What happens if battle.net goes down during a tournament? What if the customers ISP goes down? What if Blizzzard decides to ban you from their battle.net? What if..

Yes, there are several reasons why having a non-auth-LAN-only gameplay is a good idea and having 0 ping vs your opponent is a good reason if any.

If it was really that easy to just hack LAN gameplay in to a game we'd see more games with that kind of hacks, but we don't. Besides, Blizzard will most likely supply tournaments (the big ones with cash prizes etc) with special LAN enabled copies of the game, like they have those WoW Arena things used at tournaments.

Now I have to deal with Battle .NET just to get a game in. With that said they better fix the 1 person per network on Battle .NET issue that plagued the first Starcraft.

The old battle.net was 4 connections per IP (network, that is), I had no problem playing online (Starcraft or Diablo II) with me and 2 friends being on the same IP. If we tried launching more clients, 4 would connect fine, 5 would cause 1 client to randomly disconnect.

Ok to clear up a few misconceptions in this thread...

Battle.Net 2.0 is working in the same way Battle.Net 1.0 is, its P2P. So, if all players are on the same network.. then players will send the information over LAN, not the internet.. The same it did in the original starcraft.

The only thing that has changed, is that there is no direct LAN option.. You are required to login to Battle.NET first for authentication and thats it. So you can still get LAN speeds, without disconnects.. As long as you have a intnernet connection.

Ok to clear up a few misconceptions in this thread...

Battle.Net 2.0 is working in the same way Battle.Net 1.0 is, its P2P. So, if all players are on the same network.. then players will send the information over LAN, not the internet.. The same it did in the original starcraft.

The only thing that has changed, is that there is no direct LAN option.. You are required to login to Battle.NET first for authentication and thats it. So you can still get LAN speeds, without disconnects.. As long as you have a intnernet connection.

Still, what if your internet is down or b.net is down? It's pretty shoddy if you ask me :/.

Edited by Guest
Still, what if your internet is down or b.net is down? It's pretty shoddy if you ask me :/.

It's like MMOs, if the servers are down or your net is, you don't play. But Blizzard tend to have fairly good uptime on the servers, leaving downtime to a minimum.

Wonder if single player is gonna demand you to be logged in too.

but I thought SC2 battle.net was supposed to be free? or at least for the basic gameplay modes?

AFAIK, there will be no charge for playing SC2 on Battle.net (there wasn't, and still isn't, for the original SC (now SC Anthology) on BattleNet today).

Has AB said differently?

I don't really think this is a "money hungry" gimmick. Blizzard has stated many times before that Battle.Net will always remain free. It's certainly not about stopping piracy, because the game still has a single player mode, and although Blizzard's spawn technology was incredible back in the day, it's just not practical anymore.

Blizzard wants to capture as much of a 'community' feel as it possibly can with the new Battle.net, because it promotes striving for goals, which boosts the replay factor. It's purely about stat tracking...

I don't really think this is a "money hungry" gimmick. Blizzard has stated many times before that Battle.Net will always remain free. It's certainly not about stopping piracy, because the game still has a single player mode, and although Blizzard's spawn technology was incredible back in the day, it's just not practical anymore.

Blizzard wants to capture as much of a 'community' feel as it possibly can with the new Battle.net, because it promotes striving for goals, which boosts the replay factor. It's purely about stat tracking...

But they also said that there may be some paid services, like creating custom leagues/tournaments and stuff related to pro gaming.

hmm well the game data would only travel between the clients, it shouldn't route through bnet. So the pings for a LAN game should still be 1ms, I hope

I don't think so. Without any LAN play, you're forced to log into Battle.net to play against other users. That means any online activity will be carried out with that service. Essentially, you won't get the same reduction in latency as you would in a LAN game.

On the plus side, this will mean more players on Battle.net at any given point in time. And more players means Blizzard will put more money and resources into powering Battle.net. Hopefully, this will translate into better ping, features, etc.

Thankfully, Real-Time Strategy games aren't 'sensitive' to ping times as much as other games, like First Person Shooters. Yes of course you'd want smooth gameplay and that you will have, even by going through Battle.net when in a LAN "environment".

Indeed. Unfortunately, the side effect is quite daunting. For example: If Player A joins with a ping of 200ms and plays, he'll slow down Players B, C, and D. Fortunately, there's an option to drop a "laggy" player from the game.

It could be an issue with a regular game over Battle.net, but I don't think that'll be an issue with pseudo-LAN games. Why? Well, think of it this way: If you're with a bunch of friends who want to play some StarCraft II, then chances are you'll be playing from the same Internet connection. Logically, one would assume that each person's ping would be similar.

I think battle.net will be free, as long as you pay for the game.

Its like this, my teacher who got me to play SC(yes a teacher, 7th grade social studies) hooked us on SC becuase 1 day close to summer we were done and had old school macbooks(yes ibooks) haha and he had 1 copy but installed it on all 10 lappys.

He wasnt pirating or anything since he installed a "spawn" i think its called and we played local.

But I dont play blizzard becuase I know a few people who lately passed around 1 copy between 15 people to install it and play and its working just fine.

I have a legal copy so im fine. But I undersatnd what there doing. Now if they truly DO make battle.net paid service like WOW is, then **** that. I dont need SC that bad.

Then they will put a bad taste in 1/2 of the SC Fan Group.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • This seems backwards. You should have to explicitly authorize files for outside use. It shouldn't be the default.
    • Wow you are right, I never even noticed this until you said it! (870E Aorus Master) Before testing this card I had a TP-Link tx401 10GbE PCIe card in that slot (now using XikeStor 310 Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter).
    • Lack of 5.1 makes this a no sale. What I really wish creative would make would be a USB version that supports 5.1 analog audio for speakers, can switch to headphone mode, and matches the specs of their top tier cards. The current X870E AMD motherboards dont have a great option for adding a PCIE x1 card without cutting down pcie lanes to the graphics card.
    • The Microsoft Office feature that time forgot by Usama Jawad I have been actively using Microsoft Word for the past couple of decades in academic, professional, and personal capacities. Although I used it through the perpetual version of Office apps at the start, I have been an active subscriber of Microsoft 365 Family subscription for over five years now. This means that my Word installation is regularly updated with new features, some of which I don't really like, but that's beside the point. As new features get continuously added, old ones that used to be a staple of Word have started to take a backseat. While I was reminiscing over my Windows experiences from my childhood today, I suddenly remember one such capability that I heavily used in my younger years but have not really touched in over a decade, and haven't seen in documents created by others either. That feature is WordArt. Just to clarify, WordArt is not a Microsoft product specific to Word, and is included in other Office apps like PowerPoint and Excel too. However, Microsoft Word is the app that I used Word Art in heavily, while making assignments or other deliverables for school. If you're unaware, WordArt offers a collection of styling techniques for text, introducing 3D effects like shadows and reflections in the text. It used to be one of the coolest things ever when I was at school and me and my classmates would often compete to ensure that our assignment's title in WordArt was truly the best and stood out above the rest. See some examples of WordArt, still present in the latest versions of Word below: Although WordArt is undeniably cool, it has taken a bit of a backseat, and has been relegated from the Home tab to the Insert toolbar, along with a bunch of other utilities, making it very easy to miss. This isn't exactly surprising because WordArt doesn't really have a place in academic and professional documents anymore, and while I have seen some creatives using it while developing promo material, even that sector has gravitated more towards dedicated graphic designing tools in the past years. For the vast majority of us, WordArt doesn't really exist, and that's alright. At least, it's still an option that can allow us to reminisce our childhood or even make some quick text stylization, if we really need it. Perhaps its usage has waned over time or the novelty has worn off, but I haven't even seen children use it in their academic assignments anymore. In fact, many don't even know that it exists. Maybe that's the fate of every beloved feature. What once felt cutting edge eventually becomes a relic, quietly tucked away as tastes, trends, and technology move on. WordArt may no longer dominate school assignments or decorate the covers of classroom projects, but for those of us who grew up with it, it remains a colorful reminder of a time when making text glow, bend, and cast giant shadows felt like the height of creativity. Hidden behind a few clicks in modern Word, it still survives not as a productivity tool, but as a small piece of computing nostalgia that refuses to disappear.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      DrWankel earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      DrWankel earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      158
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      88
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!