Yesterday Blizzard announced that it would be releasing Star Craft 2 with no LAN support. Many gamers have expressed outrage at the decision from the developer. The move will make it impossible to play Star Craft 2 at LAN parties and LAN events.
Blizzard has come forward and explained why it is deciding to go ahead without LAN support. Bob Colayco from Blizzard PR explained to Joystiq that LAN support is not being included because Blizzard wants to make sure that Battle.net is a central hub for Star Craft 2 players. Colayco also stated that the exclusion of LAN support will deter pirates.
“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.
Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.” – Blizzard PR Bob Calayco
It is unfortunate that players will not be able to LAN Star Craft 2, however, the explanation given seems fairly reasonable.
It still remains to be seen if Blizzard will be able to prevent people from developing cracked Battle.net servers, in which case, the lack of official LAN support may become irrelevant.
Star Craft 2 currently has no release date, but Blizzard is aiming to have it out by the end of 2009.
Discuss lack of Star Craft 2 LAN in the forums
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