sucks =\

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Someone in Southeast Asia will hack it to work over LAN.

Blizzard will release a 4th version with LAN capabilities in the fall of 2017.

Maybe they could release a LAN version of each game.

This is very likely if plans continue to have no LAN.

The internet petitions have already started all over the place for them to include it...but as current and former WoW players know, Blizzard doesn't give two shits about fans opinions on what features should/shouldn't be added in a game until they implement them 4 years down the road and act like it was their own genius idea.

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I get such a giggle out of you guys and your loathing for all things Blizzard when we both know you'll be lined up to buy the game along with everyone else, not only that but it'll be one of the better games you'll have played in some time.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

In 3 parts for 100 bucks extra....but cheer up you get Scooby The Dancing Zerg as an in game pet to cheer on your forces! *Sponsored by Mt Dew*

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

And I laugh at your hyperbole. I've always liked Blizzard's games. It's possible to disagree with their business model while appreciating their games. I doubt I'll buy any of the Starcrafts, though. I never even played the original (until much later, but I couldn't get into it).

I am the opposite. I appreciate the business model, and have zero interest in the game.

Besides, who the fuck LANs anymore? A $5 hub fixes this problem.

It may be easy to get around, but that won't fix the problem for the masses. Most will still simply want to LAN. Seems like a stupid idea to me since the piracy from it will be minimal at best, and they'll still sell an absolute shitload. Even if this news doesn't result in a massive net loss in sales, which it won't, it's still a bad idea to needlessly alienate customers.

Of the minuscule percentage of people who still use LANs, a large portion are on university campuses which negates the primary argument about battle net strangling people's connections when they all want to play in the same room.

As for the business model, can we recap how an initial release plus two expansions is so game breaking?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Add in a few million people who have spotty connections to that number beyond just battle.net strangling connections.

If we should have learned ANYTHING about humanity, it is the lack of willingness to move to anything different or new. Consider how many people were STILL using analog sets in 2009. For that reason alone this is a stupid move and the amount of piracy they'll stop is massively negligible.

Lots of people still do LAN parties. The idea that you can't play against someone sitting across the table from you without adding a ton of latency sending your game to the nearest blizzard server and then back to where you're playing.

Apparently you are also going to need to buy one of those blizzard authenticators to play online. So have fun with that.

Yea, doesn't make a lot of sense.

Authenticators? Wow... I actually have one already, but that's still a horrible idea. I can only hope they'll package one in or make them more readily available - hell, they were sold out a few weeks ago IIRC.

Who the fuck still uses a LAN? The Masses? You really just wrote that?

I didn't buy Warcraft 3. I didn't buy Starcraft 1. The only Blizzard games I've bought are WoW and Diablo. I have zero plans to buy this piece of shit. I played this RTS game. 7 years ago. I drew the line after watching Diablo 2 with the same bowshot audio file ripped straight from Diablo 1.

Where did you read this?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

He read "Blizzard Authentication Server" which is another fancy way of saying "Battle.net". You will just tie SC2 into your master account like you can do every other game they have.

This has nothing to do with the dongle beyond that.

I do. The bi-annual LAN party we do (30-36 people usually) is in a lodge we rent for next to nothing but there is no high speed internet there. Obviously it's not practical to do it in someones house and hotel congress area cost too much to rent for a whole weekend for the number we are.

We do other smallish lans often in the years (8 people) in those cases there shouldn't be any problem with a router tho. I still won't buy it, i'll just copy it and use a bnet emulator if they make one compatible for SC2 like PvPGN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PvPGN for SC1.

So it seems as though the people who take issue with their choice aren't even customers.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Excluding the obvious with university campuses, anyone with a connection beyond something like 50-70 ms(a human with faster reaction time is still possible here) would have a reason to LAN. While many people do have access to broadband, not all do, and there are plenty of cases where people are simply too far from their hub to maintain those kinds of speeds.

Not to even mention people with spikey connections and other connection issues beyond simple ping times.

So basically, yea, quite a few. Go visit the plethora of LAN gaming sites still around =) And read what I said about analog TV sets!

I assume you wouldn't mean me. I own every Blizzard game to date minus Warcraft 1, and I cancelled my pre-order over this decision.

I didn't read it anywhere publicly accessible. It was directly from a blizzard employee. They posted a picture of said dongle when they mentioned it would be required. If there is any confusion it's not on my part.

Then it will come in the box. No worries.

If you are implying that you have to buy the Starcraft 2 box, then turn around and order a dongle, then that is the most retarded shit I have ever heard.

Yeah because softwares using dongles are not crackable... The only time a dongle work is when the software in question is very uncommon and nobody bothered to make a crack. If there's something we can agree it's that Starcraft 2 will not be like that.

iPhone authenticator app = win.

Plenty of people.

There are still a shit ton of people playing ps2 on their analog TV's too.

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