Starcraft in a Blizzard

Starcraft 2 is the one of the most anticipated games that will possibly come out by the end of 2009. However, even at this point, several news reports is making me think twice about buying it once it comes out.

A year back, there was an initial announcement that Starcraft 2 would be split into 3. The single player missions would be totally separated. My initial reaction to that is it's Blizzard's attempt to really milk the franchise and since Blizzard games have always been good - people will still buy all three. After some thinking, I changed my mind. If it will get the game out earlier, then that's a good would be better than waiting another 3 years. I also thought that probably the news didn't come out right - they could have said that 2 expansions would follow up the original Starcraft 2 which continues the story.

Recently (well not so recently), a new piece of news have made me think twice again of Starcraft 2. There would be no LAN multiplayer and only Battle.net would be for multiplayer. I initially read something like LAN would still be available but would require people to still login over to Battle.net in order to play. If that was the case then I'm fine. Logging on to an online account to play a LAN game may be a hassle but it serves its purpose as an anti piracy tool and maybe have some battle statistics recorded over one Battle.net account. However, Blizzard has never really stated that - all it stated that there will be no LAN completely. I looked over at several sites...yup no real mention of the possibility of LAN that required a Battle.net entry.

Not having LAN just kills LAN parties and what started Starcraft in the first place. Aren't Koreans playing the game in computer shops linked by LAN? So people would have to connect to the internet and play in lag against another player a couple of feet away from you? It also makes imitation Battle.net servers home to more pirated compies. Not everyone in the world has high speed internet and Battle.net even when playing Warcraft 3 gets a bit laggy sometimes. If that was a decision to prevent piracy then Blizzard is just doing it all wrong, pirates will always have a work around. It would even be really bad for Blizzard if pirates manage to patch the game to allow LAN gaming.

Also if there won't be LAN, can Battle.net really handle all the new players without crashing or slowing down? Well I guess Blizzard probably has so many servers to spare with WoW still getting bigger.

Wonder what's next for Blizzard? Securom? Starforce? Limited activations? Why won't Blizzard make it work like Steam does? Is this Blizzard talking or has Activision managed to finally take control of Blizzard and turn it to a mindless zombie cash cow?

For anyone wanting to sign a petition for Starcraft 2 LAN, go HERE.