StarCraft II NDA Lifted, Details Unleashed

DRM? Nice..... Arent there people who do not buy games just because of DRM, or am i thinking of something else?

Depends on the DRM. Although with a game of this hype, DRM isn't going to scare off too many people.

Having DRM on that game pretty much kills what little incentive I had for buying it. I thought it might be interesting, but I'm not gonna put up with DRM for that over hyped game. I won't be playing that one.

DRM!!......Hmm... is internet access going to be "REQUIRED" for playing SCII?.... even just for the single player mode?

I like SC... but... no LAN... DRM...

hmmm... where is the Blizzard I used to know?.... now the only thing left for me to recognize it is just the "you never know when" type of release date.

With these many of ceazy stuffs... SCII better to be "GREAT" if not "instant classic" when is finally released (sometime NEXT year?... I hope)...

Well.. I'm sure the pirated version won't have DRM.

Unique CD keys seem to work for most games authenticating to a central server, like battle.net. Maybe they'll add in SecureROM so it can authenticate elsewhere and restrict installs.

Another I'll skip. GG.

Blizz was lost the day they got Vivendi as parent. Gone are the days of putting their gamers first.

Now it's all about the cash and how fast it can be made.

Starcraft 2 will have DLC. I hope the DLC will only be for the single player campaign.

If they release DLC that will affect multiplayer games, such as new units, then everyone who likes to compete on the ladder will have to buy that DLC just to keep up.

Let's say you have a 1900 rating, then blizzard releases new corsairs, devourers and valkyries units as DLC. If I don't buy that particular DLC, I'll be stuck playing with a smaller player pool.

I hope new multiplayer units will be limited to the expansions. They had add the quests and DLC fluff they want for single player, just as long as it doesn't affect multiplayer ladders.

DRM prevents some from buying games. However Valve made DRM friendly through steam (at least with first party games). Virtually all games have DRM in some shape or form. Internet access is also required with most valve games as well. I have not heard to many complaints their. Prolly cause valve is seen as a hip company.

DRM, Must be connected to battlenet, no co-op, no lan...

Sounds like another winner to me!

DRM?! More details please!

Wasn't going to buy the game anyways unless they budged on the LAN. Not at all interested in the game anymore.

they must be doing the lack of lan because they know people are going to pirate it to protest the DRM; a real starcraft fan (everyone) would buy the game if it is anything close to the old one (Ive bought 5 or 6 copies over the years). Get your S**t together blizzard.

Would have been nice if DRM was even slightly explained in this article.

wow, talk about a downer, was there any GOOD news to come out of the lifting of the NDA?

Hmmm, according to the DRM link in the article, online activation (sounds like SecuROM) AND a battle.net account will be required to install the game.

I probably won't be buying this game until the price goes down to or under $20, which is what I did with BioShock and Mass Effect. The original StarCraft doesn't even have copy protection, let alone online activation, although they did add copy protection to WarCraft III.

Am i the only one who doesn't know what NDA is? Define your abbreviations, please!

It's OK Blizzard....we'll just punish you by not buying your DRM games....

Let me see, 3 part game now with downloadable content as well and even smaller items to buy from battle-net to please all the kiddies and suck them dry of their cash, is what I think I read. Can you (Blizzard) think of any other way to try and milk us for as much cash as possible. I know subscription fees for battle-net now.
No SC2 for me until a year or two when I can pick it all up in some type of game of the year release or something to that nature.

i too did not know what nda stood for

I do not purchase games with DRM. Ever. If the future of gaming is bloated with nothing but DRM-only games, then I will quit gaming. I enjoy gaming, hell, I love gaming. I have been playing games for a long time, but I refuse to support DRM. It sucks that companies feel they have a right to force their customers into DRM use, but I am not a customer that will be told what to do.

Almost every game in the world has some form of DRM. DRM is a necessary evil, as the world thinks everything should be free. I don't necessarily agree with all the directions that Blizzard has taken, but if you say you were going to buy a game or not because of DRM, you were probably never going to buy the game. You were very likely going to download it because you knew it would be readily available.

Stardock's Demigod is an interesting case. The game shipped without DRM. 100,000+ downloads within a week caused the servers to shutdown and crash constantly, because they forgot to properly block people even trying to access the servers. A company goes the way of supporting non-DRM methods and ends up paying dearly for it with an unplayable game for those who went out and purchased legitimate copies of the game.

If you go on a LAN tunneling type service, such as Garena or Gameranger, there are thousands upon thousands (maybe a million across all different games and services) that have illegally downloaded the game and play it on these workarounds. If you think about it, perhaps as much as 50% of a game's audience may be people who have downloaded the game illegitimately, and I'm pretty sure any game company is willing to sacrifice the so-stating 5% of people who absolutely refuse to buy a game because of DRM.

My hope is that the DRM that loads up with Starcraft is a simple, smart system. I personally love Steam, as it doesn't require me to keep a bunch of crappy space-wasting disks or remember obscure passwords and logins or have CD-keys written on scraps of paper.

lol surprise surprise, its just like I said. lol

@kslghost and demonhorde665: True, but more DRM is going in the way of SecuRom,etc than the way of Valve.

THIS game deserves hype, and promises to be an instant classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohNzHWL7FI

Not this starcraft 2 tripe. Sequls are almost never innovative. Thats why they are sequels... Wasn't starcraft a play on the title "Warcraft"?

I'll throw in the obligatory "I won't be buying this game" comment. ...Not that i ever said i would be buying it, but i thought about it for a few. But all the evil, I just can't take. Commenter "Zoonie" speaks the absolute truth. Games are going downhill because not enough people are catching on to this fundamental behavioral shift in the industry. Vote with your dollars! It's the only thing they listen to!

By the way, there will be piracy, and there WILL be LAN play*! It's going to be on fricking sourceforge ffs!!!

This is just another case of Idiot Company implementing draconian restrictions cuz tech-ignorant bean-counters and managers believe too much in technology and moral righteousness. They don't realize the force they are up against when it comes to crackers/hackers. That the power to create ("copy protection", "DRM" and evil s*** like that) is the power to destroy ("copy protection", "DRM" and evil s*** like that). We're talking about ppl who are too busy to waste time to posting on this board, because they are ... right now .... hacking! For fun! How can those who simply do it for money EVER prevail against those who do it for fun/love/challenge? Crunch THOSE numbers much?!

(*It may not be perfect, but it will exist. IMO Multi-Theft Auto pretty much removed any remaining doubts about what aftermarket hacking can introduce to a game. Bless their little hearts, the ppl who work on this kind of stuff, cuz you know they work 10x as hard on their product and care 10x as much for it to be awesome. I laugh at you, Vivendi-Blizzard, and await the inevitable.)

@ Matt87_50: well, why u think it was NDA'ed this long?!?! Damage control, ofc.

DRM are not helping the industry, using Games for Windows Live is not helping the industry, using Battlenet over anything else is not helping the industry, not allowing lan games are not helping the industry...

I wonder lately if Blizzard is actually making a game or an anti-piracy software...

Star craft has bee the neglected way too long and i get the feeling that it is not going to live up to the hype. As To Valve DRM I had to literally hack my registry to remove steam after i installed half life 2. I could uninstall the game from ADD Remove programs but i could not remove steam the same way. That's the way virus makers create software to behave not legit companies I WILL never buy another valve game.

Give me DRM or take away LAN. I can deal with one, but doing both is pushing it.

All I have to say about this is

MEH.