Forums | MacLife
You are not logged in.
#1 2009-06-29 6:22 pm
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
Eurogamer reveals that StarCraft II's development was held up by one year due to World of Warcraft.
While Blizzard began work on StarCraft II back in 2003, and a "legitimately playable build" was finished in late 2005/early 2006, the game is only now beginning to see the light of day due in part to a 1-year delay so members of the StarCraft II dev team could help finish World of Warcraft. Explains Rob Pardo: "One of the reasons that StarCraft II had some delays very early on in development is because a fair amount of the design team went onto World of Warcraft for a year to really help finish that game off."
Despite the delay, StarCraft II is the first project where Blizzard didn't have to make major changes to the game:
"This may be the first game in our recent few games that we haven't done that major reboot with.
It's been a long project for sure, but if you look at say World of Warcraft, or Warcraft III - or even the original StarCraft - there was a halfway point where we took a dramatic left turn and took a different direction. We haven't done that with Starcraft II. That said, it's certainly taken a long time to get to where it's at, for a variety of reasons."
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=21814
In a wide ranging interview posted on IncGamers, Blizzard's Rob Pardo confirmed that Blizzard has no plans to support StarCraft II gaming over LAN. The game's only multiplayer component will be Blizzard's battle.net service. In a follow-up interview Pardo says that LAN isn't supported "because of the planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net."
In a surprising move, Pardo also confirmed Blizzard has no plans to port StarCraft II over to consoles:
"In our opinion we just don't feel like we will deliver the type of RTS game that we've been creating [on consoles]."
"We have tried in the past, we actually tried the original StarCraft on Nintendo 64. It works, it's playable, it's just such a different playability gameplay experience than on PC and we really don't want to have it be that different."
Kudos to Blizzard for bucking the trend of porting popular PC franchises to consoles in a quick cash grab. (Spotted on Blues News)
Thumbs up for that and all, but the latter isn't news. IIRC they said that when it was first announced and since.
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=21813
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
#3 2009-06-30 1:51 am
- dv
- Negusa Negest
- Moderator
- From: Minneapolis, MN
- Registered: 1999-08-30
- Posts: 18085
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
~Coxy wrote:
I'm really pissed off at the lack of LAN support. I know it sounds a bit hollow, but I won't be buying SC2 due to it.
I know enough people with sat. internet that couldn't really use battle.net (what with 1.2 second pings and all) that no LAN support is pretty damned lame.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
Offline
#4 2009-06-30 11:18 am
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
I wonder if LAN support will be added in later with a patch?
It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.
- Oscar Wilde
Offline
#5 2009-06-30 6:13 pm
- Booksley
- Zombie Genocidest
- From: Toronto, Ontario
- Registered: 2001-02-16
- Posts: 5037
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
Good method of copy protection... I guess we won't be seeing spawn copy installs with SC2...
Offline
#6 2009-06-30 11:29 pm
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
Booksley wrote:
Good method of copy protection... I guess we won't be seeing spawn copy installs with SC2...
It doesn't really matter with copy protection: if you were that worried about it, you could have the copy running the server check the CD keys of the other games connected. Sure, you can have it be stronger on battle.net, but it would prevent casual copying.
Lack of LAN is indeed lame. I can imagine it being a show stopper for LAN parties as well: if you have a lot of people connected on a switch to the same router, then you're funneling everybody's connection through one pipe to the battle.net server, while at the same time consumer upload speeds tend to suck. (at least in the US) I could see that being pretty bad for lag... Considering how big the original Star Craft was for LAN parties, I can see this hurting their sales.
Offline
#7 2009-07-01 3:52 am
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
robco wrote:
I wonder if LAN support will be added in later with a patch?
I very much doubt it. If they wanted that feature, best to build it in from the get-go. Sounds like they're doing what they can to force all MP play to be over BNet.
Releasing the game in 3 parts isn't making for good will/good sales, either. Even tho it has reportedly grown since the announce and looks very promising, I'm still pissed at MS pricing H3: ODST like a full game, rather like the NPD analyst who thinks Win7 pricing, tho less than Vista's, is still too high.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
#8 2009-07-01 12:09 pm
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
Blizz does cite piracy as one reason, actually.
Blizzard cites piracy as one of the reasons to nix LAN support
With the upcoming release of Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 still causing some gamers to froth at the mouth, the latest announcement from another of gaming's darling developers Blizzard is sure to cause a fresh batch to bubble forth. After enduring the ire of loyal fans by splitting the sequel into a trilogy, Blizzard dropped the second proverbial Terran Nuke when it announced StarCraft II will not support LAN play, with multiplayer being exclusive to Blizzard's updated Battle.net service.
"We don't have any plans to support LAN," VP of game design Rob Pardo told IncGamers in an interview Sunday. This was later confirmed with a statement from Blizzard PR rep Bob Colayco:
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.
Users of pirated copies of games will often utilize LAN-over-VPN programs or services, such as Hamachi, in order to form ad-hoc gaming communities. By removing the ability for LAN play, Blizzard hopes to nip this in the bud and bring more gamers to their revamped Battle.net service.
Thankfully, the rumors about Battle.net becoming a paid service are untrue for the moment; at least if you live in North America or the European Union. Pardo hinted that due to Asia being "a little different how they do things" some features might require microtransactions, similar to the ability to pay additional money to transfer servers in World of Warcraft.
The LAN-Party is Over, StarCraft II to Officially Lack LAN Support
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
#10 2009-07-01 4:02 pm
- sturner
- Royal High Poobah
- Moderator
- From: Carrollton, TX USA
- Registered: 2000-01-31
- Posts: 13775
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
What???? Buffalo?
I'm not dead yet.
There are 3 types of people, those who can count and those who can't.
"There are few things graven in stone, excepting your date of death."
Online
#11 2009-07-01 4:30 pm
- elpato84
- is Heavy Weapons Guy
- From: red team
- Registered: 2002-05-25
- Posts: 3306
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
I don't blame them too much. Internet is everywhere, so is wireless, so is piracy.
"I personally think that with the budget they've planned, Halo [the movie] will be a failure. I think Halo will not make the money back in the end."
-Uwe Boll (made the films: Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, Far Cry, Postal)
Offline
#12 2009-07-02 3:04 am
- NightCougar_37
- For Gallia!!
- From: The back of my Twilight Drake
- Registered: 2001-07-22
- Posts: 9140
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
They just want to force people to buy more than one copy for multiple machines. Think i'm gonna pull a L4D2 and boycott SCII 
.
Well, I don't really plan to buy it anyways. Never got into SCI and i'm just not in an RTS mood these days 
.
Offline
#13 2009-07-02 3:17 am
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: SC II dev delayed a year by WoW; no LAN support
Maybe 'when it's ready' really means 'when we think we have this really locked down, too hard for 99% of teh gamerz to spoof/bypass.'
Hmm, no patch, but... bets on how long before Blizz' anti-LAN tech is cracked? 
(Hmm... 2 copies times three games in the series equals...
$$$$
$$$$)
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
