Re: Starcraft2 won't have LAN support?!?

Ross Ridge <rridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The only anti-piracy measure that works on the PC is only letting one CD
key play online on the Internet at a time. By forcing LAN games on to
Battle.net it should be an effective anti-pirary measure, at least until
someone comes up with a fake Battle.net server. Even then that'll be
a pain enough to use that most would be pirates looking to play online
will still be detered. It's hard to blame them really, it's not 1997
anymore, everyone has Internet access and LAN play would so little used
(by legitimate players) that it would be hard to justify the development
and QA time necessary to implement it anyways.

Doug Jacobs <djacobs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From my memories from the first Starcraft, CD key generators were already
a problem with people trying to register their legitimate CDs only to be
told their CD key had already been taken. Then comes the adversarial call to
tech support wherein the customer had to convince Blizzard he wasn't a
pirate. I can't see how this online-only system addresses this problem.

Better key generation seems to have largely solved that problem.
It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to make difficult enough so
"causual" pirates find it easier to just buy the game.

Yeah, it's not 1997 anymore, and internet access is more ubiquitious than
ever, but some folks are still doing the LAN-party thing. Even then,
there are still instances where it'd be nice to have a LAN game,
especially since certain places, like colleges, restrict certain types
of internet traffic.

I'm not sure why colleges residences would be restricting access to
Battle.net. Unlike P2P networks, games take up very little bandwith.
On a office LAN, where they'd restrict access so people don't play
games instead work, sure it'll get restricted, but offices are also a
hotbed of piracy so I'm not sure it's going to make much difference to
legitimate users.

Maybe so, but it was still a terrific way to help sell the game, and
treated the customers like responsible adults, instead of the normal
"guilty of piracy until proven innocent" mentality that's become all too
common in the PC game industry.

Well, so long as playing the single player campaign doesn't also require
Battle.net, I don't think it really going to make much difference to
people. CD check for offline play, CD-keys for online play has been
the standard in PC games for a long time now.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //
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