Blizzard confirms no LAN support in Starcraft II
- Thread starter fitz
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can anyone say $$$
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i would call you a manky scots twat - but you ain't a scot 😀
N
Not Bman
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Yea it does suck, that is how I play it, LAN. 🙁
vern: actually, no - that's not LAN play. That's still internet play since you are still connecting through Battle.Net servers in order to play. Ergo: not LAN but internet based multiplayer instaed of locally hosted multiplayer.
The more people you have at a "LAN" party trying to play this all sharing the same internet pipe to play together will basically result in a non-playable game. What about during tournaments where LAN play is basically the rule to eliminate the possibilities of lag or drops that still persist in internet play no matter how big the pipe is.
As ubiquitous as internet access is, there have been times when I've gotten together to play some games in places that did not have internet access. We would not be able to play SC2 at such times.
While I understand and sympathize with their piracy concerns.. this is, in my opinion, a bad move on their part.
The more people you have at a "LAN" party trying to play this all sharing the same internet pipe to play together will basically result in a non-playable game. What about during tournaments where LAN play is basically the rule to eliminate the possibilities of lag or drops that still persist in internet play no matter how big the pipe is.
As ubiquitous as internet access is, there have been times when I've gotten together to play some games in places that did not have internet access. We would not be able to play SC2 at such times.
While I understand and sympathize with their piracy concerns.. this is, in my opinion, a bad move on their part.
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@fitz ... it is LAN because the connections once the game is started is peer to peer. You are not going out to the internet except to authenticate with Blizzard servers. PC Gamer Magazine had a discussion about this on their podcast. You set up games on B.net, but you can also create local custom games as you would be able to in previous Blizzard games. Once the game is started, everything is peer to peer ... nothing goes out of your local network.
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It is the case. You need to be connected to B.net only for authentication purposes. That is all. Just because you need to be authenticated to B.net doesn't mean the multiplayer game itself doesn't connect to each other peer to peer like a lot of other games out there already do even though remote servers do matchmaking and authentication. Look at Xbox Live ... the majority of games are peer to peer. Look at Steam. Making all this hubbub about it now without any details of what the Blizzard is doing with LAN is jumping to conclusions at this point. The only thing that would probably make people angry is if they got a lot of their friends together and they didn't have an internet connection to set up matches on B.net.
i'm not sure how this would really work unless the machines were directly connected to the internet with routable addresses. When a computer behind a firewall connects to the battle.net servers, I'm assuming it would be sending it's public IP to the b.net servers not a private 192.168.x.x or a 10.x.x.x address.. and when it sets up a public game over the internet, wouldn't it have to send the public IP addresses so all communication between the two "lan" machines would be over the public IP since it very well can't send a private IP to the b.net servers and expect someone to setup a game over an internet connection using a non-routable private RFC address.
Now, I may be mistaken but I just don't see how it is possible for it to be the way you describe.
edit: from the second post on this thread:
Seems to indicate that with those games, it is still going out over the same internet connection even though you are on the same game. Granted, those are older games and they do mention that WC3 can host multiple games over the same internet connection - but that's not really the same thing.
As I mentioned, these are older games so I'm hoping maybe they made it a little closer to what you said vern with some of the newer games.. but I still don't really see how it is possible to setup a multi-player game over using public IP's to setup the connection only to somehow auto-magically have the local computers realize they are on the same network and switch over to only sending data over the local private IPs.
Now, I may be mistaken but I just don't see how it is possible for it to be the way you describe.
edit: from the second post on this thread:
Seems to indicate that with those games, it is still going out over the same internet connection even though you are on the same game. Granted, those are older games and they do mention that WC3 can host multiple games over the same internet connection - but that's not really the same thing.
As I mentioned, these are older games so I'm hoping maybe they made it a little closer to what you said vern with some of the newer games.. but I still don't really see how it is possible to setup a multi-player game over using public IP's to setup the connection only to somehow auto-magically have the local computers realize they are on the same network and switch over to only sending data over the local private IPs.
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its not lan - its WAN/Inet, if you are using their servers, by the very definition LAN = LOCAL area network, something wan and inet is certainly not. They may still class it as network play but they are just being semantic
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epk
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i dont know if this is gonna be how vern describes it or not... but i know some programs use a server to auth and then establish connections peer 2 peer between clients, which, in case they're both on the same local area network, ends up as a lan connection
some i can remember right now are windows live messenger and skype
later i can try with diablo 2 to see if it works (also on b.net), just gotta check my bro still has it installed
some i can remember right now are windows live messenger and skype
later i can try with diablo 2 to see if it works (also on b.net), just gotta check my bro still has it installed
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I don't know how this is so hard to understand and comprehend that authentication can go through the internet, but gameplay packets don't have to go out of your network. In fact by the relatively simple fact of how routers work, packets that are bound for another client on the network would NEVER be routed outside that network. Have you ever played Valve games? Games such as CS: Source? There is LAN play ... yet you are connected to Steam. If you are authenticated through B.Net ... why would B.Net care what your external IP address is and your internal IP address is? How hard is it for a program to find out what your local IP address is on your LAN? If Blizzard needed help somehow designing a program to figure that out, how much harder is it for them to make a checkbox that asks "On same network".
The text in the link you provided is irrelevant since it doesn't apply to Starcraft 2 or Battle.Net 2.0 which is why I stated in the first place that you seem like you are jumping to conclusions when all logical design and practicallity in regards of how much infrastructure they would have to build and maintain if the games were not P2P ... all point to games being peer to peer. That logical conclusion has already been backed up by pretty much every gaming blog, journal, critic, etc. that has even cared to comment about this move. But who knows, Blizzard might just be out of their minds. But yeah, with Blizzard's track record, I have a little faith that they will do the right thing.
@epk, it probably won't work on Diablo 2 since those games had LAN play built in without authentication and it doesn't use Battle.Net 2.0. File transfers and video however like they use in Messenger or Skype are technically the same thing since both are peer to peer.
The text in the link you provided is irrelevant since it doesn't apply to Starcraft 2 or Battle.Net 2.0 which is why I stated in the first place that you seem like you are jumping to conclusions when all logical design and practicallity in regards of how much infrastructure they would have to build and maintain if the games were not P2P ... all point to games being peer to peer. That logical conclusion has already been backed up by pretty much every gaming blog, journal, critic, etc. that has even cared to comment about this move. But who knows, Blizzard might just be out of their minds. But yeah, with Blizzard's track record, I have a little faith that they will do the right thing.
@epk, it probably won't work on Diablo 2 since those games had LAN play built in without authentication and it doesn't use Battle.Net 2.0. File transfers and video however like they use in Messenger or Skype are technically the same thing since both are peer to peer.
assclown
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When other people can see and join your game, its not just local. And why else would they announce you HAVE to use battle net as LAN will not work. Are you Blizzard vern? Do they answer to you? Their games before had battle.net as well as LAN. and Battle.net chugged when we had 6 people playing, two of which were not in our LAN because it was online. Also, note the "Quality Assurance" plug in there. How would they be able to monitor your games if they are not actually online? Alien Technology?
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epk
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yeah, vern, you're right.. d2 doesnt work like that, i guess we just gotta wait for sc2
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@assclown ... you obviously DO NOT understand what I am posting. It is senseless to keep posting the same thing again and again when people insist on letting out their e-rage instead of understanding what is logical for Blizzard to do and what is ALREADY BEING DONE by many many games yet people keep comparing their experience with B.Net today using games that have been out for years ... games that would easily run on dial-up. Please refresh your knowledge on server/client/peer to peer and understand that they clients don't have to be exclusively client/server or peer to peer.
If you must insist that what you say is right, then stay with that thinking. Blizzard must be dumb enough to not have thought this out when every game they have ever sold is a best seller. They must not have thought about how big Starcraft and Warcraft 3 are in tournament play. They must not have thought about how big Starcraft is in Korea. Please continue with your e-rage. We can come back to this discussion when Starcraft 2 is released.
If you must insist that what you say is right, then stay with that thinking. Blizzard must be dumb enough to not have thought this out when every game they have ever sold is a best seller. They must not have thought about how big Starcraft and Warcraft 3 are in tournament play. They must not have thought about how big Starcraft is in Korea. Please continue with your e-rage. We can come back to this discussion when Starcraft 2 is released.
vern & assclown: it's try to keep it somewhat civil.. discussion/disagreement is fine - just do it politely without the name calling..
vern: The LAN-like play is being done with Steam/etc.. it's still not fully the same as LAN play even with their implementations because of what I posted regarding public/private IP addressing I mentioned before. The only IP that the b.net servers receive and send out for setting up games is the public IP, multiple computers behind that firewall sharing that IP all report to the b.net servers with the same IP.
Now, that's now as big an issue now as it once was since you will still setup the game with the same IP (assuming you have a fairly modern router/firewall device. The traffic flow goes from one computer, through the switch, to the external interface on the router, and then back in to the other computer you have at your local network. Not quite local, but the lag and the latency would be fairly minimal. For most people, since they use the firewall/router as their switch also, it's not a big deal even though the integrated switches in those devices aren't often the best quality. At larger LAN parties or at schools where there can be multiple router hops before things go out. This can cause some issues since the traffic goes through two or more hops over shared pipes and back down. A true LAN party generally uses dedicated switches and doesn't have to go through any NAT traversal.
I've actually heard and read both sides of this where b.net 2.0 will work more closer to this peer-to-peer/LAN-like play.. but b.net 1.0 was not built this way and I'm not really aware of any current b.net games that work in this way. Since b.net 2.0 isn't really fully out yet, none of this info, as far as I can tell, has really been confirmed by Blizzard at this point although I would suspect that is how things will play out. I've decided to hold off on any judgement until they release more details when 2.0 really rolls out with SC2. Until then, everything is really hear say. I'll hold some faith in Blizzard to make things fairly workable.
It still doesn't address the fundamental issue that LAN play isn't supported. The fact that you require internet access to setup a multiplayer game at all is still a FAIL in my opinion. As fairly widespread as internet access is in many countries, there are still many countries where Blizzard markets their games and even many areas of the United States for that matter where internet access is not always consistent or even readily available.
There have been many times in the past where I've gone on trips for work and for fun where a bunch of us will have our laptops with games like Diablo, WarCraft 2, StarCraft/etc.. and in the off hours at night would hook up a little switch and play some games. Many of those places did not have free internet access and some places, like the times we've rented cabins in the woods, that did not have internet access at all. With the removal of pure LAN play, for us, playing SC2 is not an option at all at those times. These are the the times I have issues with the removal of LAN play. Mutliplayer for those situations is still a FAIL.
vern: The LAN-like play is being done with Steam/etc.. it's still not fully the same as LAN play even with their implementations because of what I posted regarding public/private IP addressing I mentioned before. The only IP that the b.net servers receive and send out for setting up games is the public IP, multiple computers behind that firewall sharing that IP all report to the b.net servers with the same IP.
Now, that's now as big an issue now as it once was since you will still setup the game with the same IP (assuming you have a fairly modern router/firewall device. The traffic flow goes from one computer, through the switch, to the external interface on the router, and then back in to the other computer you have at your local network. Not quite local, but the lag and the latency would be fairly minimal. For most people, since they use the firewall/router as their switch also, it's not a big deal even though the integrated switches in those devices aren't often the best quality. At larger LAN parties or at schools where there can be multiple router hops before things go out. This can cause some issues since the traffic goes through two or more hops over shared pipes and back down. A true LAN party generally uses dedicated switches and doesn't have to go through any NAT traversal.
I've actually heard and read both sides of this where b.net 2.0 will work more closer to this peer-to-peer/LAN-like play.. but b.net 1.0 was not built this way and I'm not really aware of any current b.net games that work in this way. Since b.net 2.0 isn't really fully out yet, none of this info, as far as I can tell, has really been confirmed by Blizzard at this point although I would suspect that is how things will play out. I've decided to hold off on any judgement until they release more details when 2.0 really rolls out with SC2. Until then, everything is really hear say. I'll hold some faith in Blizzard to make things fairly workable.
It still doesn't address the fundamental issue that LAN play isn't supported. The fact that you require internet access to setup a multiplayer game at all is still a FAIL in my opinion. As fairly widespread as internet access is in many countries, there are still many countries where Blizzard markets their games and even many areas of the United States for that matter where internet access is not always consistent or even readily available.
There have been many times in the past where I've gone on trips for work and for fun where a bunch of us will have our laptops with games like Diablo, WarCraft 2, StarCraft/etc.. and in the off hours at night would hook up a little switch and play some games. Many of those places did not have free internet access and some places, like the times we've rented cabins in the woods, that did not have internet access at all. With the removal of pure LAN play, for us, playing SC2 is not an option at all at those times. These are the the times I have issues with the removal of LAN play. Mutliplayer for those situations is still a FAIL.
