Boycotting Starcraft 2

Also, Blizzard will not be releasing SC2 packages and Collectors Editions in S.K.

Downloads only.




So, that makes me a bit mad, since I'm paying $60 for a download.
 
24e5jtf.jpg
 
My gamestore called me today, telling me they have no information on collector's edition, only the regular version (which by the way is as pricey as a collector's edition of another game). I hope that doesn't mean it's not coming out in Hong Kong.
 
Don't want to waste 20+ min video.
how about some word description?
 
B. Net 2 has no chat room, apparent reason is due to spam. This causes problems when it comes to creating tournaments, clan chat etc.

B. Net 2 has no lan.

You cannot name your game room. For example, you can't call it "Protoss only" if you want specific types of match.

Some serious privacy issue, something about everyone knowing your email and battle.net account name or whatever.

No cross regional whatever. If your account is signed up to Asia, you need to buy another account to play in America.

Activision has no direct influence on Blizzard games, but they all answer to the same stakeholders. The stakeholders apparently said they want to make even more money out of video games (they want to charge more than 60$ US), and they claimed they want to squeeze as much money out of SC2 as possible. Also, seems like Blizzard has been enforced with a deadline to SC2.

The Activison effect is taking it's toll on Blizzard. The beta was short, and the lack of implementation of important features of the game was probably due to time limit. Blizzard has been the Valve of RPGs and RTS. I'm hoping they won't be driven to the ground by Activision.
 
Tbh, I'm not all that interested in SC2 anymore. I suppose nothing can really fill the shoes of SC1.
 
Valve should buy the Blizzard portion of Activison and have Steam consume Battle.net.
 
I hadn't been following SC2 too closely since it's not my thing, but hearing this now just weeks (right?) before it's launch is really disheartening. Blizzard has always been a company who put quality above all else (not to say they didn't think about the bottom line, but they obviously cared about what they were putting out there), and to think that they've fallen so far in such a short period of time just fills me with disappointment. If they had botched SC2 somehow, that'd be one thing, but ****ing up their entire multiplayer frontend has much more far reaching implications. What if they don't change this shit for Diablo 3? It seems an odd thing to imagine, but I can honestly see myself giving it a miss were I forced to play through this abortion of a system.

More than that, it boggles the mind how they can even bring themselves to label this "2.0" without breaking into hysterics. It's not only backwards in terms of PC gaming, it's behind console standards. The guy in the video mentions someone who worked on Xbox Live helped design this, which at first seems like an easy place to point the blame, until you realise that XBL has most of these features. Chat rooms? Party chat. Private games? The majority of console games have some kind of option for this (granted custom settings vary wildly). LAN? System link provides a fraction of this functionality - but a fraction more than bnet 2.0 nonetheless. Xbox is by no means as open a platform as the PC, but to think that it's still miles ahead of a system designed by Blizzard, creators of some of the most prolific online titles of all time... it makes my brain itch just thinking about it.

The point I struggle with the most is the chat rooms. No chat because of spammers? Are you ****ing kidding me? That's a bit like if they were to stop airing the World Cup because of ****ing vuvuzelas. Not only are these excuses pathetically transparent, it's not even readily apparent what they hope to gain by some of this. I understand the business sense in building an online system into a PC game and making it necessary to play - Activision learned this with Modern Warfare 2 and charging for map packs - but why have they gone the extra mile to restrict their player base? And not just any players - one of the most loyal fanbases in the world. Where's the sense in that? If I go to my favourite restaurant one day and they've instituted a policy whereby you have to eat blindfolded with tongs duct taped to your elbows, I'm probably not going to order extra.

****ing hell. I hope to christ they realise how retarded this is a week in and hotfix it. Matter of fact, I mightn't even be surprised if they've already coded these features and are just withholding them to gauge the reaction. Anyway, now I'm just creating phantoms to rage at...

Edit: Oh ****ing christ, it just dawned on me.

Remember our good pal Bobby talking about monetizing PC games through online platforms? I'm sure you can see where this is going, but if not just soak in these three (well four) simple words and let your mind do the rest:

Battle.net 2.0 Premium.

emot-smithicide.gif
 
Times are changing. If people are willing to pay for Xbox Live Gold when PSN is free to play online, and people pay for DLC like the £11-odd MW2 stimulus pack which pretty much only had levels from MW, then people WILL pay for any premium membership B. Net will have.

And the insane amount of SC fans will be buying SC2 regardless. Its too big of a release to ignore.

Theyve taken out LAN kind of understandably. Who doesnt have broadband these days? Its a bit of a weird decision, but the piracy issue is worth noting. However you just know B. Net will crash a lot, which is retarded.

They HAVE to have a calculated decision as to why they took out LAN.

[Edit] Seeing as Blizzard must know how big of a game this will be, Im betting theyre releasing all these details deliberately to make us feel so down about their decisions, and then just before release they pull away the covers and we see it was all a lie, then run around like little girls screaming with excitement.
 
Dynasty said:
Theyve taken out LAN kind of understandably. Who doesnt have broadband these days?
Click to expand...
Most people. Not everyone has a broadband connection that can support every single player who's attending a LAN party though. Like you said, there is the piracy issue. Like all the people who will pirate it in order to play LAN games once someone finds a hack/fix to make LAN play possible with pirated version.
 
I think the issue here is lack of time.

As stated in the vid and from countless sources, Blizzard is now answering to stakeholders that follow the concept of quantity over quality.

The lack of lan could be due to money reasons, but lack of chatrooms and other important features will most likely be due to their rushed released date. The game itself will be more important than B.Net 2, so I could understand if they exerted more time and effort on the game.
 
Edit: ^ Sorry, but Starcraft 2 has been in development how long? Yeah, I'm sure complying to a release date prevented them from including the mind-numbingly basic things that were already in their existing system.

Dynasty said:
[Edit] Seeing as Blizzard must know how big of a game this will be, Im betting theyre releasing all these details deliberately to make us feel so down about their decisions, and then just before release they pull away the covers and we see it was all a lie, then run around like little girls screaming with excitement.
Click to expand...
Truly, the marketing department were earning their keep that day.

ríomhaire said:
Most people. Not everyone has a broadband connection that can support every single player who's attending a LAN party though. Like you said, there is the piracy issue. Like all the people who will pirate it in order to play LAN games once someone finds a hack/fix to make LAN play possible with pirated version.
Click to expand...
Yep, it's only a matter of time before someone creates reverse-Hamachi and then it's all back to square one. Once again, dumb decisions made by old men afraid of internet hackers have necessitated the very thing they were trying to prevent.
 
Blizzard is finished. Starcraft II may still be okay (after patches?). But this certainly spell the toll for Diablo 3. :(
 
15357 said:
Also, Blizzard will not be releasing SC2 packages and Collectors Editions in S.K.

Downloads only.




So, that makes me a bit mad, since I'm paying $60 for a download.
Click to expand...

Or you could just buy WoW and never play it, and cancel before the free month is up.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/06/28/starcraft-2-free-for-wow-players-in-south-korea/

Dynasty said:
Times are changing. If people are willing to pay for Xbox Live Gold when PSN is free to play online, and people pay for DLC like the £11-odd MW2 stimulus pack which pretty much only had levels from MW, then people WILL pay for any premium membership B. Net will have.
Click to expand...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/e3/7832242/E3-2010-Sony-launches-PSN-Plus.html
 
For someone like me, the only game changer is no LAN, as we used to take our laptops around and create networks and play from essentially anywhere. But now that wifi is essentially, ya know, everywhere on campus, this isn't really a hit. Chat rooms? I avoided them like the plague in the original bnet. Not being able to name custom games is silly, granted, but I never really played custom games either.
 
Bad^Hat said:
Yep, it's only a matter of time before someone creates reverse-Hamachi and then it's all back to square one. Once again, dumb decisions made by old men afraid of internet hackers have necessitated the very thing they were trying to prevent.
Click to expand...

Short-sighted money grubbers in shooting-themselves-in-the-foot shocker!
 
None of this is remotely fresh news and that video was posted months ago :upstare: On a happier note, kittens! :D

I'm not happy about any of this either but LETS FACE IT YALL once it comes out we'll all be too busy playing it and having a ****in' blast to have time to whine about it.
 
I never got into Starcraft, and now I am satisfied with my decision.
 
Interesting. If they fix these issues, I'll probably buy.
 
If anything it'll be more than worth the price of entry to play the custom maps people are making with the editor.
 
Man that sounds rough. Didn't you also have to pay for the campaigns? Terran Zerg and Protos sepretly? Im suprised at myself for remembering the names.
 
How the hell does he talk for 25 minutes about this crap? Yes, chat channels are needed, and Blizzard has said they'll be in at some point. The new identifier system sounds a little funky (random 3 letters or numbers... something like that), but it should work out. The custom games system and interface that we've seen has been so obviously a work-in-progress that it shouldn't really be anything to complain about, and the LAN crying is just retarded.

I had so much fun in the beta, I wouldn't even care if what we got was even WORSE that what he had before. SO MANY BABIES!

I mean the matchmaking alone is just fantastic... so many good games.
 
Ennui said:
None of this is remotely fresh news and that video was posted months ago :upstare: On a happier note, kittens! :D

I'm not happy about any of this either but LETS FACE IT YALL once it comes out we'll all be too busy playing it and having a ****in' blast to have time to whine about it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Old as hell video that has already had a few things addressed by Blizzard themselves. It's going to be damn near impossible to dig through the information to find the blue posts on this, but let's just say you guys are freaking out over nothing.

Ah, read through this.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=129457

Now sure, not EVERYTHING is fixed and there still are some things that are off, but as Ennui said....you should be too busy playing it to care.

It's like the L4D2 or MW2 boycott...we saw how that worked.
 
I'm sure that there will be some sort of localized network gameplay in SC2.

But that's old news. A Starcraft 2 boycott will go just as good as the L4D2 boycott went. (Whiny Butthurt Idiots)
 
LAN play will be at tournaments, as they will have people on site with a server to connect into. That's no problem. It's the people who want to play with friends or when neither of them have internet is where the shaft comes in. Granted, you can do offline single player just like you do with Steam. First log in for authenticating then after that you can do offline mode.
 
Ok I really really REALLY do not all of this anger about Battlenet. I haven't read all of the posts here, but if they're anything like what everyone's been crying about for months then I'm sure I can speak with relevance.

First of all the LAN issue.

Who the hell is still playing LAN games? I can't remember the time I did that. I'm sure it was at a LAN party which - unless you're in to traveling a lot - won't occur more than once a month. Also, who plays a fairly slow paced low participant game at a lan party? I didn't even once play the original SC on a LAN. Anyone who does online gaming these days has an internet connection. No one is going to miss a LAN despite it not existing.

Chat: no one cares. No one said anything of worth in Battle.net chat as it stands. This is not even worth talking about.

I'm sure since Starcraft is essentially the originator of RTS tournaments and Blizzard loves tournaments these days, they will have plenty of tournament play available. I can't imagine they'd abanadon something of that nature when they pretty much molded it in to every recent game they've made.

Anyways, have fun boycotting a great game for stupid reasons everyone. The rest of us will be out there playing it and having fun. Then a month or so from now when this fringe minority gets bored and joins in on the fun... we will welcome them. This will be just like the L4D2 boycott... pointless and forgotten.
 
StarBob said:
Ok I really really REALLY do not all of this anger about Battlenet. I haven't read all of the posts here, but if they're anything like what everyone's been crying about for months then I'm sure I can speak with relevance.

First of all the LAN issue.

Who the hell is still playing LAN games? I can't remember the time I did that. I'm sure it was at a LAN party which - unless you're in to traveling a lot - won't occur more than once a month. Also, who plays a fairly slow paced low participant game at a lan party? I didn't even once play the original SC on a LAN. Anyone who does online gaming these days has an internet connection. No one is going to miss a LAN despite it not existing.

Chat: no one cares. No one said anything of worth in Battle.net chat as it stands. This is not even worth talking about.

I'm sure since Starcraft is essentially the originator of RTS tournaments and Blizzard loves tournaments these days, they will have plenty of tournament play available. I can't imagine they'd abanadon something of that nature when they pretty much molded it in to every recent game they've made.

Anyways, have fun boycotting a great game for stupid reasons everyone. The rest of us will be out there playing it and having fun. Then a month or so from now when this fringe minority gets bored and joins in on the fun... we will welcome them. This will be just like the L4D2 boycott... pointless and forgotten.
Click to expand...

Hey, hey, hold on a second. People like me play SC1 LAN every week. Heck, I think one of the reasons it was so popular here was because of the LAN.
 
Don't care about SC2 but sounds like Activision can go **** themselves.
 
15357 said:
Hey, hey, hold on a second. People like me play SC1 LAN every week. Heck, I think one of the reasons it was so popular here was because of the LAN.
Click to expand...

So in Korea - the country with the most broadband connections per capita of any country in the world - no one can connect to the internet? That's a scary thought.
 
StarBob said:
Anyways, have fun boycotting a great game for stupid reasons everyone. The rest of us will be out there playing it and having fun. Then a month or so from now when this fringe minority gets bored and joins in on the fun... we will welcome them. This will be just like the L4D2 boycott... pointless and forgotten.
Click to expand...

Personally, I think L4D2 boycot is a success as I have never bought L4D2.
 
bbson john said:
Personally, I think L4D2 boycot is a success as I have never bought L4D2.
Click to expand...

lol...

It's like one of those protests where there are like three people standing outside with signs and everyone is walking/driving by ignoring them. I guess a personal victory is still a victory... somehow...
 
StarBob said:
So in Korea - the country with the most broadband connections per capita of any country in the world - no one can connect to the internet? That's a scary thought.
Click to expand...

Noooo, because LAN is way easy to come by, and we find LAN to be way less laggy and more secure than battlenet.
 
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