The Debate - Starcraft 2 and LAN

Starcraft 2 and LAN's

One of the hottest Starcraft 2 related topics at this stage of development is the announcement by Blizzard that Starcraft 2 will not have LAN support. To anyone that has ever enjoyed playing Starcraft Brood War on a LAN with friends or at a tournament, this has been an extremely disappointing announcement.

From Blizzard's Public Relations department on the subject:

"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."

Since Blizzard's LAN statement the 'net has been ablaze with petitions and calls for a boycott on buying Starcraft 2 unless LAN support is added. Others have argued that Blizzard's new Battle.net service will be able to easily fill the role that LAN players are used to with a bevy of new features, and that Blizzard always delivers the goods. Starcraft 2 will be playable offline, but you must be connected to the internet to install the game.

Either way you look at it, only time will tell if Blizzard project leads eventually yield to the angry masses, or if they do plan on migrating everyone to the new and improved Battle.net to get their fix for all things competitive in Starcraft 2.