No LAN for Diablo III Too?
Looks as though Blizzard is sticking to its guns in regards to making Battle.net the multiplayer destination for all of its games.
Recently Blizzard revealed that StarCraft II will not offer LAN support when the first installment hits the market by the end of the year. Although the company cited piracy and security problems, Blizzard's overall plan is to make Battle.net the multiplayer destination for all of its games. With that said, the news that Diablo III may not offer LAN support should not be quite as shocking. In fact, gamers should count on Blizzard not supporting LAN from now on.
Strangely enough, the comments made by Blizzard Community Manager "Bashiok" in regards to LAN support were deleted from the Blizzard forums. However, this website managed to grab the discussion before mysterious forces magically eradicated the topic. His response was actually sparked by one commenter complaining that removing LAN support only hurts legitimate buyers. After all, pirates will take the time to reverse engineer the game and enable LAN support anyway. Bashiok didn't seem to agree.
"More so than overbearing/invasive anti-piracy measures that would affect everyone who buys the game regardless of how they're going to play it instead of just those that may want a LAN feature?" Bashiok responded. "I would doubt it. I don't know a lot about it, Diablo III isn't really facing the brunt of the Battle.net 2.0 features just yet, but I think that removing LAN in an attempt to avoid more severe anti-piracy measures is pretty cool. We're saying 'Hey, we're pretty sure you're going to love our game. The multiplayer is really the best part though. In order to get in on that that we'd just like to make sure you bought the game. Cool?'"
While LAN is highly unlikely, Activision Blizzard made it perfectly clear that consumers who purchase StarCraft II (and more than likely Diablo III) will have the ability to play on Battle.net with no additional fee. Although Diablo and Diablo II offered LAN support, consumers who purchased either title could play multiplayer games online via Battle.net free without an additional fee.
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Yeah that sounds great for countries with an even remotely respectable internet connection available... More than i can say for here (New Zealand)
And south Africa.. sheesh, we have really shitty pricey damn Internet connections. FFS.. Hope some genius out there creates a LAN patch or something.. for Diablo 3 and Starcraft.
And south Africa.. sheesh, we have really shitty pricey damn Internet connections. FFS.. Hope some genius out there creates a LAN patch or something.. for Diablo 3 and Starcraft.
one day, every far from now, poor South Africa will have a new comer who will take on Telkom and bring better tel services to RSA. Real petty that cross across the border you can get line of sight satilite internet services with good speeds!!!
Lan parties where 4 friends are forced to share an internet connection as opposed to a gigabit switch? Fail.
Fair enough. I guess they can do without my money then. Any co-op game that can't be played on a LAN without a net connection is off my list. I would much rather have just had online registration of the game, then the ability to play offline.
Some of my favourite gaming moments have been on an offline LAN. Internet play just isn't the same.
DRM by any other name. Easy fix don't buy the game. Email them and tell them why.
Fair enough. I guess they can do without my money then. Any co-op game that can't be played on a LAN without a net connection is off my list. I would much rather have just had online registration of the game, then the ability to play offline.Some of my favourite gaming moments have been on an offline LAN. Internet play just isn't the same.
im sure they are crying in despair from their lack of your $49.99.
I wounder why they think that battle.net will solve there problem, the server side software for mmos have easily been riped off the server and created into custom servers. The same will just happen to battle.net if the pirates can't get LAN to work.
Personally I'm not into the Diablo games so I wouldn't be getting this anyway, and Starcraft II hasn't do anything to make me want it over Supreme Commander 2.
im sure they are crying in despair from their lack of your $49.99.
I'm not alone. A lot of people still play games on LANs. Most LAN parties I've been to don't allow net access, because you get a hundred people swamping the line downloading porn or whatever.
Blizzard's initial popularity was built on LAN gaming with Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, and they've just decided to take a dump on their own roots.
Internet gaming is all well and good, but nothing beats gaming in person with other people. Being able to hurl abuse across the room, and have a drink with someone straight after giving them a sound thrashing. Playing over the net is faceless and bland by comparison.
I see what you guys are saying, but conversely, internet gaming is much more popular now than they were when the prior releases of these games were released. People have much faster internet connections (in general) than they did 10 years ago. And I'm sure that they weighed both sides of excluding LAN, and like it or now, in their big selling areas, Korea and the US, people have fast internet. Its business. You cant make everyone happy.
This is not about whether we have fast internet. It's about nixing a feature that isn't difficult for them to cater for, and talking bull about piracy. More likely it's a way of preventing resale of games. If you register a copy online, are they going to let you unregister and sell the game? What happens in 10 years when most likely they no longer support the activation, or the online servers?