Starcraft II LAN petition gets 100,000 sigs

By Ellie Gibson Published 17 August, 2009

Quite a few people not keen on Battle.net.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition campaigning for a LAN option to be included in StarCraft II.

Blizzard has previously stated you'll only be able to enjoy multiplayer SCII via Battle.net, which has left some fans unhappy.

"We understand you will be adding amazing new features to Battle.net that you can't talk about yet," wrote the authors of the petition.

"But regardless of any features you might add online, we would still like to be able to play in a traditional network where no internet connection is needed. For an internet connection might not always be available." Alas.

"There is no harm in allowing LAN play as well, and it does bring further depth and life to what will probably become the top RTS of the next decade."

At the time of writing, the number of people who have signed the petition stands at 105091. No wait 105092. No wait 1050h forget it.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #1 3 years ago

    were these the same people that boycotted Diablo 3 for being 'too pritty' or Left for Dead 2...

    They will buy the game regraudless not to be 'left out of the hype'

  • zozart #2 3 years ago

    @Kremlik On the other hand, this petition actually makes sense. If it's true that you can't LAN game without connecting to the Internet first, that's quite rubbish. It's not just about the Internet requirement but probably concerning the ports that need to opened up too. If you wanted to play at work (say, during lunch hour), you'd be at the mercy of your work's firewall setup.

    In any case, it sounds to me like a silly omission, perhaps there to hinder piracy. Which in itself is silly, because everyone knows Starcraft II is going to sell like hot pies, no matter how many people pirate it.

  • matrim83 #3 3 years ago

    Doesn't matter how many signatures are there and whether the petition actually has a point or not (it does).

    Blizzard don't care. No LAN option will help them sell more copies. Simple as.

  • SleepyDeathFred #4 3 years ago

    Getting rid of the LAN option altogether makes little sense. [Edit, unless it completely prohibits piracy, which seems to me doubtful] Especially for a game that's going to sell so well anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/09 @ 10:00

  • MyPointIs #5 3 years ago

    Plus many places with rubbish internet connections can have lag-free LAN games.

  • davisorle #6 3 years ago

    I'm sorry but you SERIOUSLY can't be telling me that no LAN makes no sence. And to think im a persont hat I already know that I wont bother to buy tihs from Blizzard for multiplwe reasons, you guys SERIOUSLY state in here that no lan is fine? I'll give you a simple example. Here in Greece places like the ones I used to work at, net-cafes, are counting on games like those to work and make money. DOTA, Starcraft any kind of strategy etc LAN based games fill the places up cause INDEED there is nothing better than seeing thme all 10 friends moving in and bringing down the place for their mini tournaments.

    So, you SERIOUSLY think its OK to have no LAN option? I'll just tell you the verdict already if that happens even if noonecares about Greece. Starcraft will fail here and I could bet my house on it :p And by fail I mean that its rep will go down by MUCH instead of all the hype with the expecting it so badly and the game being constant talk of the past month.

    Peace :p

  • SleepyDeathFred #7 3 years ago

    Doesn't really matter about its reputation if it still sells in the first place...

    Although maybe the next two won't I guess.

  • Trikk #8 3 years ago

    There won't be LAN in SC2 and Diablo 3 and any other future Blizzard titles, because they want to force as many as possible to register battle.net accounts. This has nothing to do with piracy as there will surely be cracks that allow you to host your own server and thus play LAN if you pirate the game. No LAN feature will only affect those who buy legal copies of the game, and who knows why they are so desperate for battle.net accounts but I'm betting my left foot it has something to do with a subscription or other payment models that you'll eventually be forced to use to play Blizzard games in multiplayer.

    Whatever, I'm not gonna buy their games. I'll pirate them, so I can play on LAN.

  • mazerius1st #9 3 years ago

    BY not including Lan in SC2 they have already lost millions of sales not just the 100K of people that signed the petition. When I spoke last time with some of my Korean friends, they told me that almost everybody there is pissed with Blizzard after the said no LAN, down there they live to play SC in lan mode.

  • Freek #10 3 years ago

    The weird thing is, you can have LAN and online verification with stat tracking.
    It's how Battlefield works. You log-in to your EA account and after that the game runs locally.
    Why not do the same with SC2?

  • Toothball #11 3 years ago

    It seems that some developers are forgetting that people might want to play multiplayer games with people in real life, not just at the other end of an internet connection. Not such a great trend as they go.

  • Apaar #12 3 years ago

    Blizzard can do whatever they want, and I will nevertheless always buy their games full price, day one, with a wide smile on my face. They are, by far, THE best game studio on this Earth. :)

  • Spekingur #13 3 years ago

    Well, one could point out that SC1 wouldn't have been so popular if it wasn't for the massive piracy that happened with that game. Piracy can directly affect popularity.

  • kangarootoo #14 3 years ago

    Of all the boycott and petition type talk of late, this one makes sense. There is no game reason to exclude LAN support. And I am not a fan of curbing game functionality for business reasons.

  • Spekingur #15 3 years ago

    Well, this in SC2 and the single-player 'must be online' campaign in CnC4 just sound like uneccessary additions. What happens then if battle.net is down (for maintance maybe)? You won't be able to play any type of multiplayer. Same with CnC4, when EA servers for that are shut down - EA servers haven't really been superb either. I just think it is silly and shortsighted, in both cases, forcing something upon a customer. I guess some modder/hacker will find a way around it eventually though.

  • paketep #16 3 years ago

    @Apaar:

    They WERE, by far, THE best game studio on this Earth. :)

    Fixed that for you.

  • Bazfrag #17 3 years ago

    If you want a petition to sign that will make a huge difference, go here: http://www.petit iononline.com/SaveGC Many thanks in advance.

  • Nephirion #18 3 years ago

    Blizzard don't want pirates having fun with their hard work on a private lan so that's why there won't be any, I mean it's pretty obvious that piracy is the only reason you are forced to autenticate your copy each time through Battlenet ^^

  • Vixremento #19 3 years ago

    As people have stated before - it's the only way they'll get people to actually use battle.net (well let's just say more people).

    Frankly I don't care about being ranked or tied into some group...I'd use it purely to play LAN games with the odd game with some people I know personally (perhaps battle.net will be okay for that).

    Also, if the speed of the current battle.net site is anything to judge by (I know it probably isn't...or at least I hope...) then we're screwed already and they haven't even started with it in full swing...there's gonna be WoW'ers and the dungeon crawlers (I also can't wait for D3...again a pity about the no LAN but I spent more time in the SP anyway).

    I guess it would be a little better if we knew that we had multiple servers to use (our country will probably never get one...but if we had one then we could also maybe switch to an EU server if ours was down)...but what about our internet (it goes down more often than you think...since we only have 1 national fixed line provider).

    Ah well...I'll still buy it but like many others I'll be watching for that LAN patch!