Huh. Darn. I was actually going to buy it for the specific purpose of LAN play... I'm not much of an internet gamer, but I've played countless hours of Starcraft on LAN with my brothers and friends. Without that feature, it'd feel a bit pointless for me to buy the sequel.

If I don't get to do a sweaty zerg rush with my friends and a few wires I'm going to be outraged.

Why are people complaining so much? It's this or DRM people! I see 2 practical uses for LAN play..

1. Spawn installs with friends, even though in my opinion that's cheating Blizzard out of honest money

2. Online if you don't have internet/have bad internet

Good things coming out of this

1. NO DRM

Good enough for me, having fine internet. It's not that bad, I've heard people complain Blizzard is just forcing us to use Battle Net, but considering that it is an excellent online service, it's like forcing you to eat a cookie to play online. You can still play with all of your friends, you just have to not be lazy and pick up a copy of the disk. What is the real problem here?

The real problem is is that

A) this is DRM, i can guarantee that it will validate your copy discreetly when you join battle net.
B) this removes the ability to play against other people in areas without internet, such as in rural areas.
C) Increases lag amount.
D) Ads Ads Ads.

SafeGuard against piracy? Really?
Like people aren't going to download them anyway.

Now all my planned LAN parties at work are bloody ruined due to the simple fact that Blizzard have proven to be lazy once again.

Gamers take it up the butt again. Yay Gamers!

I don't compare about multi anyway, as I've only ever played single player. But please, disabling a feature on purpose? Obviously the gamer will get screwed in the end. Or maybe battle.net will cost money at some point. Either way, Blizzard's obviously just trying to make a buck with this move.

Radu889:
Now all my planned LAN parties at work are bloody ruined due to the simple fact that Blizzard have proven to be lazy once again.

Same here, I was really looking forward to crushing my friends bases again, only in new kind of way, I know we can fight over the internet, but its just not the same, ah well the life must go on...

No LAN? In another RTS game I could only play LAN. Hmmm and I thought SC2 was supposed to be awesome. Oh well, I hope there are more options than Battle.Net.

SC2 Menu-Multiplayer-Battle.Net Duhn Duhn Duhn
This seems like Microsoft with slowly forcing people into buying Vista.
Blizzard, I hate you enough but why this?

Ah, such a greedy move; I mean, come on, one could think that Blizzard, after Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Wow had the cash to, at least, pull of a lousy Lan connection.

Oh well I guess you have to privatise games on Battlenet
damn

Well they have proven that MONEY from WoW has made them very very lazy, damn, maybe moders will do something, i doubt it but maybe

What the hell? LAN with your buddies has always been my biggest draw towards RTS games and the Warcraft and Starcraft games lent themselves to this so well... I don't see why they couldn't just include the functionality.

I think this is an attempt to defend against piracy.... greedy dicks have enough money to buy a country.

I give it a month before someone releases a LAN crack for it. Barring that, I will not purchase StarCraft II. Why, DasMark, you may cry, you dangerously sexy Canadian mastodon, would you ever say that?

Because, gentle friends and neighbours, I would rather play with seven pals who I am very good friends with and have fun than lose in ten seconds to some dude who does this for a living.

Simple Answer: Blizzard is a full fledged corporation. Since they know that Sc has a massive fanbase, they can pretty much do anything they want to the game knowing that their trusting fanboys will buy it either way.
The obvious reason for the lack of LAN is to make people even more dependent on Battle.net, which WILL cost money, despite what Blizzard says.
The really sad thing is, from what I've seen in the Battle Report 3 video, my suspicions of it being a "leet gamer" only game have been confirmed. Unless you're really good at Starcraft, you won't be able to enjoy the subtle balances that have been added, and Starcraft 2 will seem like just another average RTS.

You know, hating a popular game is a lot less fun when the game actually starts to suck before its release.
Maybe I'll switch to Halo instead...... :))

Oh man, does this sound disastrous or not? I mean, if for every multiplayer game you have to connect to Battlenet, I dread to think what will happen to the launch period when everyone and his dog start connecting to the Battlenet. Massive lag! I still have very bad memories of Diablo's 2 launch period and witnessing the deaths of hardcore characters thanks to the power of the lag. Bad move, Blizzard. (Or should that be Activision-Blizzard?)

Eh, it'll probably be okay.

They just killed Lan parties

awwww.. blizzard turning into a corporate ninny..

sigh

ah well.. I guess it's not the worst possible outcome

I suppose this is so as to combat piracy or something (?)

I think a pirated version can't play through battle.net

I intended to get the original anyways... Irony is I'll probably not really play much multi

This is one of those things that is obvious to everyone who is going to play but the devs just don't freaking get it...

I give it 6 months before the strain of all the free users forces them to make it pay to play or free users get handicapped features........ either way it seems blizzard has sold out as well as anyone could.

I want to go buy a half gallon of vanilla ice cream now and eat it all at once so I'll feel better. The concept of my nostalgic idol blizzard from the original SC days doing something like this... ugh.

I played it sparingly at best on LAN and was a Bnet person but I ran into quite a few people who wouldn't have played it at all if they hadn't played it at a LAN party. The fact is it opened up many people's eyes to the game itself.

But for SC 2 I would like LAN since I now own a laptop and am around places where people do set up LAN parties. While I don't think this decision will honestly affect sales, it is kind of a slap in the face to LAN gamers. And I care about my fellow gamer.

It will be hacked in less than a year and lan will be enabled sooner rather than later, Blizzard just shot themselves in the foot, not to mention once Koera gets ahold of it.....

Starcraft without lan is heresy....

WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!!

Does this mean that the Battle Reports were not done in LAN?

EDIT:
This means no impromptu duels between friends where the day's lunch (or other arbitrary reward) is at stake. Sad.

From what I understand the idea is if you're close enough to be having a LAN then your ping will be the same as your friend/roomie and hosting a game will essentially be the same as a LAN. If that's the case then to be honest it's not that big a deal for me. It's just like going battle.net > Host LAN as opposed to choosing between them.