geez...and i was looking so forward to this game...

guess it's a pass for me....

i think this is a worthy reason to boycott a game rather than bullshit about some other recently announced game

*cough**cough**L4d2**cough*

Well that is just ridiculous. What happens when Blizzard no longer runs compatible Battle.net servers? Or if Blizzard goes under.

I won't buy this just like any MMORPG.

If I buy a game I enjoy. I expect to be able to play it any time in the future. Assuming I can find and want to assemble still functioning compatible equipment 20+ years from now.

Mostly I play single player games. However, the few games I enjoy multiplayer on need to allow LAN play. Such as Age of Empires.

Correction: Instead of "LAN dropped thanks to piracy", you should have titled this article "LAN dropped thanks to Blizzard's ineptitude".
Asserting that Piracy is the direct cause to LAN being dropped is about the same as saying Time Warner Cable's decision to not upgrade its network is a direct consequence of the uproar caused by the introduction of its tiered service. It is neither a logical nor an appropriate response.
There are many ways Blizzard can prevent their games for being pirated, and this is a rather silly one.
What is going to happen is someone is going to create a pirate patch to implement LAN whether Blizzard is ok with that or not, and then Blizzard will scramble to implement LAN in an official patch.
Pitiful.

Why are people crying about this so much?? Blizz is spending years making this game and people are crying that they have to use the interwebz to play it??? Jesus. It is called a business model. They are requiring people to use Bnet now for sever reasons, 2 of which are piracy and $ from ads.

StarCraft 1 was so popular on LAN because basically only 56k was around back then and internet use was not as common. Get over it people. If you are not buying this game because you can't LAN it up with your kid sister downstairs then you got issues.

If friends want to have a LAN party with SC2 they can, just on private Bnet games... and those friends should all have a copy of the game anyways... so who cares?

"StarCraft II LAN Dropped Thanks to Piracy"

Moar liek "StarCraft II LAN Dropped Thanks to a Company That Doesn't Care About its Customers and Uses Pirates as a Scapegoat" amirite?

I'll admit, I'm not really into all this 'LAN Gaming' deal so the fact Starcraft II lacks LAN support doesn't really bother me however I do recognise LAN gaming and LAN parties has been an integral aspect of PC gaming for over a decade now and this really is a sad to see.

Also by not supporting it you will only encourage other publishers to follow suit and this will risk killing a whole micro industry that generates money and employment.

As for piracy................some how I don't think the directors of Blizzard are to concerned about piracy when they go and collect their wages in wheelbarrows from the mountain of cash they earn every month from World of Warcraft subscriptions.

Yeah well Starcraft II dropped due to lack of LAN! Fuck you blizzard.

Called It. The issue is and will be piracy. Blizzard is the new EA. Rather than provide those customers who did pay for Starcraft with a quality product that they can use long after Battle.net servers go offline, Blizzard decided to make it slightly more difficult for those who wouldve stolen the game anyway to get their own servers. Its not like people who pirate games can crack activation and set up their own servers that mimic Battle.net. *cough* WoW *cough*

All this does is make it less enjoyable for actual customers.

Look at the newer age games. None of them work on a LAN and their servers are going down all the time. That always pisses me off. What happens when it is no longer cost effective to keep the servers going because the game doesnt sell anymore?

Lack of LAN due to Piracy? This only hurts us that actually will pay 50 dollars for every game in this trilogy. So not only will I pay $150 Dollars, but lets subtract LAN option as well. Damn smart move blizzard, you dumbasses!

this is uncharacteristic of blizzard....probably the decision came from high rank executives knowing the potential revenue from asian countries.
yet, i am sure someone will and can create software that will enable it.

Well, it's a little shocking because I think the community would consider the term "RTS" to go hand-in-hand with the term "LAN", but I can't say this would affect me personally as I am not much of a LAN gamer.

As for the folks citing the questionable future of Battle.Net, are you honestly concerned that Blizzard might just up and disconnect it? They've had these servers up and running since Starcraft launched many years ago. Forcing everyone to use Battle.Net might make Battle.Net itself much more entertaining. After all, what fun is a multiplayer game if there aren't too many people playing it?

Still, I do offer my condolences to those who thrive on LAN-gaming. You would pretty much expect something like this from any company but Blizzard. I will anxiously await to see the effects this has. They are usually pretty smart with how they go about things. Maybe they've got something else in mind other than what they are sharing with the community.

I wonder how much of a hand Activision had in this decision... the most lucrative gaming company name in the industry pulling the "piracy" card is lame.

They've just shot themselves in the foot... with the amount of backlash from this, they just increased by a HUGE margin the number of people that'll just straight torrent it, play the campaign and delete it.

Pull that shit on D3 as well and watch your bottom line take a hit, more than you will expect.

Yeah, that's gonna stop people from pirating that game. Right.

Anyway, running games like that on a lan is cool for lan parties and stuff so I can see why that would turn away potential customers. I seriously don't think that preventing piracy is a good excuse since hackers/crackers will find a way.

Haha, the tears of the crying kids too stupid/lazy to get a paying job sustain me!

Go out and work for a living and buy it, or gtfo.

In other news:

Starcraft II pirated due to lack of LAN!

I was going to buy it anyways, so I don't really see how this harms me at all lol. My friends always buy these types of games too for the online play. Just hoping the price won't be real high on the game is all. If it is $29.99 that'd be fine.

This will also force people to buy 2 copies if they want to play with a friend. The original Starcraft had a 'Spawn' copy you could install for multiplayer only. I guess I won't be playing Starcraft II with my kids. )=

I have a feeling there will be another way to get LAN through a program or something even if Blizzard don't implement it. >.

This was done because Blizzard wants you to pay for your Battle.net account every month, like a WoW account.

The top executives have realized how much of a cash cow a monthly subscription-required game is, and they are making sure all the games they release in the future will require a monthly subscription, so they can keep their profit structure.

People can whine about it all they like, but truth be told: the pirates are the cause. Yes, this decision will hurt end-users. Do think about it from blizzards perspective though: why should they get stuck footing the bill from people who pirate the game? As pissed off as you all are about the lack of a lan option, they are just as upset about people who pirate games. In either case, someone will lose. It just happens that most of the time the pirates win out. In those cases all we hear is yarr matey foolish idicrasies. People honestly need to stop thinking about only themselves when passing judgement.

The lack of lan capability from the start does not mean that it can not be included in the future. If blizzard feels it would be beneficial and if enough people purchase the games (instead of pirating) the function could be restored with a patch. In any case, how often is lanplay utilized in a non lanparty situation? Most of my time was spent on battle.net on sc with only a few lan-skirmishes. Figure in that most people have high speed connections, even if you must split a fast connection 3 ways, it is more than sufficient to play an rts from the same household.

If they see that they have loose a significant number of potential customers they can always release a patch that adds LAN support and if the games sells well like it is.. well then it wasn't such a bad idea. It's their product and their decision.

Blizzard is no longer in control of what they can and cannot do ever since the takeover was completed in July of 2008 by Activision, no matter how much Blizzard likes to deny that they still call the shots.

Oh god, it'll be easy to bypass as it is... but I would never play LAN anyway, gotta pwn the n00bs online! Then tease them as they lose... tease them even more if you lose!

I still say "big deal". If all the people that are saying "I'm going to pirate it now" have a fast enough inet connection to download the damn game, then why can't they connect to battle.net?

The fact is that this is still going to be a fantastic game that lives up to Blizzard standards and I am just as excited about it even with the battle.net requirement.

I've heard complaints about lag. I've heard complaints about "b...b...but my LAN parties... waaaah!". I've heard complaints about requiring an internet connection. And all I have to say is "sorry, but you won't be missed".

The lag is a non-issue. If you're playing on a LAN, the majority of the game traffic is going to stay within the network. Only a minimum amount of data is sent to battle.net to allow for things like others tracking games and watching them or whatever. So, there is no lag in gameplay with that model.

The LAN party complaints are boring. People will adapt and connect their LAN to the internet. It will be harder, sure, but not that much harder that it justifies such an outrageous backlash.

And the not having a broadband connection complaint is really the only valid complaint. But it only affects a minority of people. So, why should the majority of people that don't play in LAN parties and have a fast internet connection be stricken with more delays for a feature that they don't even need?

This game will no doubt be reviewed at one star on Amazon by the masses of grammar-handicapped children of the internet despite being a top quality game. Just take a look at Dawn of War 2.

blizzard has been a sellout and money hungry company ever since WoW... we'll probably never see another WC RTS, and starcraft 2 will probably be riddled with sequels u will have to pay for...

What blizzard should of done is limit the gameplay. If you download the game, you won't get cd-key, lan, and multiplayer. But if you do buy the game, you get cd-key, fully multiplayer and lan. CD-key is only for the multiplayer. Doing keygen won't work like other games. That should reduce the piracy. If there piracy then the game is too expensive for poor people. Companies need to change their rule of busniess. Start capping the game, reduce the game price even though, I think 50 dollars is best price tag. no more. Less the better.

what im saying is they will make the game in a bunch of pieces requiring u to buy multiple sequels in order to finish one story line... I'm sorry but blizzard has been making a TON of $ with its WoW sequels and WoW in its entirety I highly doubt they really care about piracy... its a scapegoat...

Opps, I forgot to fix the grammar for my comment above. my bad.