Games without LAN, Dead online communities.

hideinlight

hideinlight

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Ever since Blizzard decided to drop LAN and go online only, many have followed suit. Yet just about all of them have failed when it comes to player numbers. Isn't this a kinda a wake up call that if you don't have a massive budget to implement the "perfect" online feature filled platform with social structs (or whatever the hell you call them),

that it's just better to include LAN, which would guarantee more people playing your game because of it's rarity these days, then to compete in an overly saturated market where the top games will remain top for quite some time and where no one will bother setting up and maintain the servers?

The LAN gamers of today is the online gamers of tomorrow...
If LAN is suppose to be dead, then why is so many online only games also dead.
 
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Honestly i cannot see any game developer bothering with a LAN only function ever again. The ends just doesnt justify it.

With everything today being online and even the work place moving more and more online it was just natural that gaming would have moved over to an online only base.

If South Africa had half the Internet connection that Korea had i promise you not a single person would have given 2 shits about LAN funcitons in games.
 
fridgevr said:
Honestly i cannot see any game developer bothering with a LAN only function ever again. The ends just doesnt justify it.

With everything today being online and even the work place moving more and more online it was just natural that gaming would have moved over to an online only base.

If South Africa had half the Internet connection that Korea had i promise you not a single person would have given 2 shits about LAN funcitons in games.
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As you grow older, maybe but what about the current younger generation who may not have sufficient internet connections yet?
Online gaming has become more of a popularity contest where only the most popular game wins and things are becoming more and more anti-social. It's like playing against AI that swears the whole time.

Why is Rage so popular anyways? And that event in Signapore which I can't recall atm, but unlike South Africa Signapore has one of the best internet connections in the world.
 
I still LAN a lot with my friends and clan mates but we always have an internet connection. LANs are still a big thing but they have to catch up with the times. I refuse to attend any LAN is SA that has no internet. I will not play COD 4 and Dota again and there isnt enough alcohol to keep me interested unfortunately.
 
What games are you referring to that have "dead on-line communities" due to their being no LAN.
 
I know I wish there were more active SA players in Left 4 Dead 2 - that game does have LAN though. However, I hate packing up my PC for LANs these days. Prefer the comfort and ease of gaming from home; luckily I have a good internet connection to make this feasible.
 
Well that was kind of my goal with the whole multiplayer club. Will see if I can poke more people and get them to join. Steam groups need a bit of an overhaul, they need to make it easier to access and see what is happening the the groups.
 
James said:
I know I wish there were more active SA players in Left 4 Dead 2 - that game does have LAN though. However, I hate packing up my PC for LANs these days. Prefer the comfort and ease of gaming from home; luckily I have a good internet connection to make this feasible.
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Let's all go visit James @ home and play there. Address please?
 
MOnk said:
What games are you referring to that have "dead on-line communities" due to their being no LAN.
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Well just about every game on GFWL and games that didn't use steam and even if the used steam they still doing poorly.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Games with LAN at least use to last longer than a year...

The first game that made the mistake of being only online was probably dark messiah. I mean who here managed to play that game 's multiplayer?
And how many would of tried it, if there was LAN.
 
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Okay, so this is a bit of a necropost but I think it's an interesting subject. Dunno how I missed it.

LAN is still big, yes. But no LAN option killing MP? I don't think so. A lot of games have dead online communities because the games simply have no staying power. People are naturally always busy and not everyone has the entire day to spend playing games, therefore a lesser MP game is always going to lose out against a better game. It might be fun for the first two months or so, but then people generally tend to move on simply because they have better games to play.

If anything, a lack of LAN functionality is killing LANs, not online communities.
 
To be honest, online only multiplayer is horrid unless its already an online only game (since its expected). Single player online games are even worse - since the games will still be pirated, just takes a little longer.

LAN was and is a very important feature. My gf and I would LAN every day of the week if our games allowed for it. It's illogical for us to play co-op story or against bots online only if we're sitting right next to each other. Plus it frees up the line for other stuff :D

Not to forget, a number of servers block multiple instances of the same IP when sharing a router. Luckily we have concurrent conns allowed with our ISP but most don't if uncapped.

When hosting a good sized LAN event, you're limiting venues if you need a conn and it's almost guaranteed that older LAN capable games will always be played whether there's a conn or not.

Back in the day, games were complete with good stories, good LAN and good online. Now they're incomplete with bad stories, no LAN and laggy online.
Besides, if a group of friends rent a place for a week or travel, there's no guarantee you'll have an open or accessible connection and then without LAN you're screwed. Most places are locked down and offer super expensive net rates so that pretty much kills online play.

There should really just always be LAN. We should at least have a choice :D
 
I don't have an issue with online only. I couldn't be bothered with moving my pc, and what Diablo 3 did was force most of my friends to sort out their internet connections, and we now play way more often than we use to. We use to only play co-op games when we lanned, but now its a couple times a week. I also recently formatted my pc, no need to keep save files, I could just pick up were I left off once I re-installed with no hassle.

And I also, I think for companies its a much easier way to make sure someone actually buys the product instead of pirating.

Also your statements about games with lan use to last longer than a year. How do you know it isn't just the shear number of games that come out now? Maybe games were better? Battlefield 3 seems to still be going strong in SA, yet it is online only.
 
Finally the LAN/Online game I've been waiting for! Even though it's unofficial...
Heroes of Newerth


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KgRnwiJh6hU
PS, I made that map

The ability to host your own dedicated server or just to host a listen server also died along with LAN, well in HoN both are possible thx to some genius programmer. The most surprising thing is that the client can connect from within the game via another player or console, with the only requirement being the map.

All this while being logged into the official servers. Most games that does has LAN always completely seperated it from the online component like war3, this is kinda different. Someone actually hosted a server which worked on a fist come, first serve basis where people like me who can't port forward, could connect to the server and host which ever map I wanted to. When the map was done, someone else could take over the server temporary by just connecting to it.

This is kinda the direction I wish games took, for obvious reasons if you watch the vid.
 
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Gir said:
I don't have an issue with online only. I couldn't be bothered with moving my pc, and what Diablo 3 did was force most of my friends to sort out their internet connections, and we now play way more often than we use to. We use to only play co-op games when we lanned, but now its a couple times a week. I also recently formatted my pc, no need to keep save files, I could just pick up were I left off once I re-installed with no hassle.
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Haha, last year me and my friends would have LANs at one friend's house, and we'd actually just host online servers and play on it, even when LAN was available. It didn't bother us at all.
 
hideinlight said:
The ability to host your own dedicated server or just to host a listen server also died along with LAN, well in HoN both are possible thx to some genius programmer. The most surprising thing is that the client can connect from within the game via another player or console, with the only requirement being the map.
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Now that is an idea! If we can at the very least host our own servers that'll be great. The more options the better :D

Don't see why developers don't just provide LAN support of their own volition and love of their games. I'm a developer myself and every system or app I make I do my best to make as complete as possible because it's the fruit of my labours. They've already got client-server architectures so dumbing one down to LAN level is not a major effort at all. Sure piracy is scary and the main reason for online connectivity in the first place but once they've made their money they can easily just release a LAN server and expand their functionality.

I can tell you that if Blizzard had the guts to release a LAN server and stop forcing my to play online only I would play SC II to death with my buddies and might forgive them for the errors of their ways :D

Random fact: Telkom is SHITE and I've recently moved into a new development and all the new places coming up can't get ADSL because the exchanges are 'full'. If we're lucky we might get ADSL this year but I won't expect it. LAN support would make things a LOT easier for the bunch of us here.
 
Graal said:
Haha, last year me and my friends would have LANs at one friend's house, and we'd actually just host online servers and play on it, even when LAN was available. It didn't bother us at all.
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Lol, come to think of it, the last time we lanned we played borderlands 2, 4 player co-op, everyone over the same internet line.
 
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