Have you lost your marbles? Let's just base it on this- how many people on this forum are complaining about the loss of LAN? How many daily post about their experiences on LAN? How many create threads daily about starting over again on LAN? Hardly any.
Let's look at the opposition- How many people are not complaining about the loss of LAN? How many people are posting daily about their experiences on Battle.net? How many create threads daily about starting over again on Battle.net?
If you ignore this or even try to claim it as invalid you have nothing to back up your argument.
You're very observant. Battle.net players use the Internet more than LAN players? HOW AMAZING! You are proving my point. LAN players prefer the personal interaction with one another. I have far more in-person friends who play SC over LAN than Battle.net buddies. I'm not so naive to think that LAN players are a majority, but the numbers are much bigger than you make them out to be. How about the thousands of tournaments that go on in South Korea? Those competitions are LAN-based. Sorry.
Many people do not get involved with forums, discussions, etc. They attend LAN parties and then go on with their real lives. Again, the LAN population is difficult to see when you spend more of your time on the Internet.
Quote from "Seth" »
Do you, in all honesty, even believe for one second even a majority of the people on that list are not going to buy SCII because of this?
These figures will certainly be more accurate than any speculations regarding LAN-based piracy and hacking. Personally, if I were making this game, I'd put up with the hackers over having a growing pile of upset fans.
Quote from "Seth" »
I'll hold you to it. In fact, I'll put it in my signature.
What are you waiting for? Shall I start linking you? 1UP's article? Kotaku's? Battle.net forums? They're popping up everywhere.
I think you're confusing LAN supporters with people who hate Battle.net. This whole issue has nothing to do with Battle.net or online play in any form. Battle.net is fantastic. It's a great service. No one disputes its existence. However, people just want a way to play the game without depending on an Internet connection.
two guys are up in northern minnesota. where you dont get cellphone service and terrible internet connection, these guys are in a cabin or house. they wanna play sc2. but no internet to go onto battle.net.
this is the problem without lan. and actually if you were living where i am. this is a very possible situation
There's not even a point to trying to debate anything with you. You're set in your ways and no matter what I bring up you'll throw out all manner of irrelevant "facts" and thrust more words in my mouth. I'm done with you. Wallow in your ignorance.
I wouldn't be surprised if their decision on this was reversed at some point, it's a bad, bad, idea to not have LAN. necronergal is 100% dead on right, not to mention those who still have slow links and may not be able to get a good gaming connection to bnet. Nothing sucks worse to be the poor sap with the highest TTL latency in the party.
This is just strange. I can understand why Blizzard did this, and from their perspective it's great. I sertiously doubt they're going to looe anything substantial by removing LAN.
But for the customer, the value of the product will go down, even though he'll still by the game. Because whenever a LAN party is to be thrown and the games to play decided upon, Starcraft 2 won't be included. It won't be one of those games you pull out, because you can't play it.
I'll still buy it, and most others will. Thus it's the best move for Blizzard, since people will have to buy it to play multiplayer. But it's not the best for me.
Right about now someone is going to tell me that companies exist to make money; that's their top priority. While that is true, there are other aspects of a company that are worth considering, such as offering solid products to your customers and making sure your customers are happy with what they're getting, even if they don't generate an income in themselves.
Quote from "Seth" »
Have you lost your marbles? Let's just base it on this- how many people on this forum are complaining about the loss of LAN? How many daily post about their experiences on LAN? How many create threads daily about starting over again on LAN? Hardly any.
Assuming that everyone always compalins if they are unhappy with something, otherwise we don't know how many are actually disappointed.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
It's an unfortunate truth regarding this situation.
While I know for a fact that there are more LAN players than Battle.net fanboys want to believe, there still is not enough of us to make Blizzard change its mind or ruin sales at all. It's not like I suddenly want Blizzard to go bankrupt. I have simply come to the realization that Blizzard's interests no longer coincide with mine.
It's been fun, Blizzard, but I'm onto other things.
I think once the new Bnet is revealed a lot of nay-sayers will be singing a different tune.
Despite the LAN cult following, LAN gaming is becoming a relic. More and more companies are moving to strictly online services. Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Steam, PlayOnline, OnLive, and dozens more. I forget what the EA one is called, but they have one too. This is the emerging trend that is pushing forward. Internet play. Account-specific doorway to a company's gaming library. I rarely install a new game these days without having to install some online service.
This is where multiplayer gaming is laying it's brick and mortar. It's about time you pack it in and get used to it.
You said 'so long blizzard', you're going elsewhere. I wonder, in another 5 years, where will you go?
It's an indication of bad times and loss of freedom when citizens are told by a company to go "pack it in and get used to it". We don't choose what companies do anymore, they choose what we do, don't they? I say that's fucked up.
Internet play. "I have a check on your computer play".
I think once the new Bnet is revealed a lot of nay-sayers will be singing a different tune.
I'll buy D3 regardless of the LAN feature but I will play single player mode 99.999% of the time. The only thing bnet will provide me is updates or whatever they feel they need to pump at me. As far as me playing on bnet, it will be very rare, I won't sing a different tune because I really have little interest in playing with others outside of those in the same room as me.
If that is the way I have to play a LAN game when the time comes, I'll try it but if there is any hassle setting it up beyond what I would normally have to do to set up a LAN game bnet will is going to have about 30 seconds of my attention span to make good first impression else it will written off faster than annoying relative.
Blizzard is going to need to tread carefully here with it's customers, if they nag screen, expect too many answers, the outcry will massive. Just because they are big doesn't mean they can't hose it, a lot big companies screw up stuff like this, it's happened so much over the years people tend to view these announcements with an eye of skepticism and resentment.
It's an indication of bad times and loss of freedom when citizens are told by a company to go "pack it in and get used to it". We don't choose what companies do anymore, they choose what we do, don't they? I say that's fucked up.
This has been truth since the beginning of capitalism.
Have you ever seen behind the scenes of a marketing company? Their entire work is based on the premise that they're not showing us what we might want, they're telling us what we want.
It's not an indication of bad times. Bad times started a long time ago, our society is built upon bad times. Most people don't notice or don't care. So I guess it's more like, welcome to gazing upon the world for the first time?
It's ok, most of us will fall in line anyway. We're sheep that like to be led because leading is scary and uncertain. A petition to add LAN support to SC2 and D3 is a nice, anonymous, safe, and cowardice way of telling Blizzard they're not happy. Most of the people who signed that petition, after not having received what they were after when the game releases (read: No LAN support) will buckle up and buy the game(s) anyway.
This has been truth since the beginning of capitalism.
Not in this industry. The gaming industry started off well but now it's going in the same direction that everything else is.
Except unlike you, most will disagree so I don't know why you're saying all that. Most people here think everything is being fine. I don't want people to think this is fine and accept it and come across with all this fatalism.
I'm so out of line you have no idea. You have no freaking idea how "out there" I am. And, yes, it's scary.
I signed no petitions.
I would find it amusing if Diablo III will result in a bad game due to the overconveyorism of Blizzard.
1. Put in lan (tiny amount of development time): more people pirate the game. How many of those people would have, or wouldn't have bought the game?
vs.
2. No lan. A lot of SP players pirate the game anyway. Some people will be lost due to not having LAN (out of necessity or out of principle). Some will buy the game to have access to Battle.net closed games to replace LAN. Unhappiness effect.
I suppose Blizzard bet their money on #2 for some reason. But in the long run, I think the significance approaches 0... in either case...
I'm not sure why they opted this course either because they could put a huge kink in piracy with product key activation, reinforced with disk signature tracking. Make all updates and future mods, require authentication. It would be even tighter if updates were integrated into D3 and it auto checked daily for new updates so D3 would authenticate every time the computer was connected. You can pirate the game and even suppress updates but you won't get any updates at all. They could go one step further, each update breaks the LAN game so people who do LAN gaming MUST be on the same game version, now if they want to pirate the game and have updates they will need to pirate the game again for each update.
This would be of little consequence to anyone with a legal copy because D3 would be auto-updating in the background so most would have no issues with playing LAN.
Doing that usually means the person with the pirated copy will have to jump through ugly hoops to update their pirated copy (assuming someone bothers to pirate each updated version), sometimes having to uninstall the game entirely just to get the new version. Often in these situations they break the game altogether if they get one pirated copy and try to use someone else's hack to move up to the next level. Often the steps involved are such a royal pain it ceases to be worth the trouble at all such as having to replace files, get a key gen, add/mod a registry key etc. This is also assuming the hacker makes good documentation to walk the end user of the pirated software can follow. Now piracy becomes such a pain it's not worth it for most people. There is a good anti-piracy deterrent and you could still have your LAN and eat it too.
Yeah but Blizzard removed the LAN piece of the game to supposedly reduce piracy, given that, my above example is a better method of stopping piracy than removing a wanted part of the game.
I'm not sure why they opted this course either because they could put a huge kink in piracy with product key activation, reinforced with disk signature tracking. Make all updates and future mods, require authentication. It would be even tighter if updates were integrated into D3 and it auto checked daily for new updates so D3 would authenticate every time the computer was connected.
Quote from "VegasRage" »
There is a good anti-piracy deterrent and you could still have your LAN and eat it too.
Incorrect. That's a good pro-piracy measure over there. Who the hell wants their game, or even computer, monitored all the freaking time? SP/LAN players will have 0 motivation to buy the game in this case. They need neither your bnet nor the latest patch, and they certainly don't need to be updated that often nor monitored.
Disk signature tracking? How many of those we had so far? 20?
Blizzard doesn't support mods, to add. The requirement to update the game for a mod can be cracked.
I will say this again. If you can't prevent piracy without fucking over your CUSTOMERS, don't do it at all, all it will do is piss customers off and have pirates laugh at you. Long ago, when I had some hopes for Blizzard, they said bnet is their anti-piracy measure. What happened to that?
Quote from "VegasRage" »
people who do LAN gaming MUST be on the same game version
That has been true for ages. But at least pirates will have LAN, official customers probably won't, since Blizzard will see the hacked in LAN and tell them they're bad people for buying their game.
Quote from "VegasRage" »
Doing that usually means the person with the pirated copy will have to jump through ugly hoops to update their pirated copy (assuming someone bothers to pirate each updated version), sometimes having to uninstall the game entirely just to get the new version.
May I ask how will this be implemented?
I think Blizzard is the one who'll have to jump through ugly hoops to implement this in such a way that the customer wouldn't want to bang their head on the keyboard when updating (or not being able to update) Diablo III.
Incorrect. That's a good pro-piracy measure over there. Who the hell wants their game, or even computer, monitored all the freaking time? SP/LAN players will have 0 motivation to buy the game in this case. They need neither your bnet nor the latest patch, and they certainly don't need to be updated that often nor monitored.
No it's good anti-piracy measure, it's just not a measure that makes customers happy, but then again taking out the LAN feature isn't either. Not many want it that way but welcome to the new world order a number of companies have implemented these measures and have increased their stringency on licensing. It completely hoses anyone who wants to pirate the software for resale purposes and makes it aggravating for people who want to get a free copy, especially as new expansion packs come out and updates, and there will be at lest a half dozen of updates, there always is.
Quote from "Equinox" »
Disk signature tracking? How many of those we had so far? 20?
Blizzard doesn't support mods, to add. The requirement to update the game for a mod can be cracked.
No there are quite a few software companies that have implemented these self-serving features with enterprise to desktop applications. (OK, granted the enterprise apps are far more expensive) Doesn't support mods? Sorry I meant expansion pack, to me it's a mod.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I will say this again. If you can't prevent piracy without fucking over your CUSTOMERS, don't do it at all, all it will do is piss customers off and have pirates laugh at you. Long ago, when I had some hopes for Blizzard, they said bnet is their anti-piracy measure. What happened to that?
Yeah I got tired of bitching about that ten years ago and my headaches in this area have been worse than any gamers who doesn't work in a systems engineering postion. I have to deal with product activation and mass deployment over the network and still make sure all the pushed applications licenses get activated, Adobe software for years was a royal pain in the ass to deploy but they have gotten a lot better and easier. Your only safe haven left now is Linux and it's app base, hence why I use Linux a lot more these days.
Quote from "Equinox" »
That has been true for ages. But at least pirates will have LAN, official customers probably won't, since Blizzard will see the hacked in LAN and tell them they're bad people for buying their game. May I ask how will this be implemented?
Do you think anyone will be able to sell a game they can't update or buy an expansion pack for? They'll have to lie to those they sell it to and in the end they person who paid for it will be pissed they can't. If your software has to do check in authentication for updates then piracy has been for the most part been successfully detered because a hacked copy won't be able to do that, it's really the only way to put a kink in piracy. For those who fork up the bread for a real copy what do they care? They don't, they own a real copy, only those who have bogus copies will yell about it.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I think Blizzard is the one who'll have to jump through ugly hoops to implement this in such a way that the customer wouldn't want to bang their head on the keyboard when updating (or not being able to update) Diablo III.
Microsoft, Adobe (two of the largest software co's) and a host of others already do this and it works fairly well. You place your product key in, activate, and the rest is fairly transparent. Mirosoft has even started forcing activation for it's volume licensing now, you get 28 activations before you have to justify to Microsoft why. That puts a huge kink in pirates who want to burn a copy and sell it again and again. Froma customer standpoint though it is of little consequence, over 3 to 5 year period the odds of you reinstalling an OS more than 5 or 6 times in a corporate environment is very small.
Personally I would take product activation over LAN removal.
"...wants to pirate the software for resale purposes..."
Wait, are we talking about something different here? I didn't think selling of pirated goods even exists anymore. It's completely illogical and irrational for any American who has an internet connection to actually buy a pirated copy when he can get it for free.
"Do you think anyone will be able to sell a game they can't update or buy an expansion pack for?" Who's talking about SELLING?
What resale are you seriously talking about? Pirates share, they don't sell. Except Russia and other places where internet is not as widespread.
I think resale of products is cut down by the activation key. As I said, Blizzard's best protection is battle.net.
"makes it aggravating for people who want to get a free copy" I don't see this. At all. I have yet to see a product that was not cracked at some point or another. Some pirated copies are even cleaner than legal ones. I don't understand where you get the aggravation. How is reinstalling games or fixing registries any more aggravating than having some stupid updater who has you remember all your keys and passwords or have your CD in the drive all the time?
"Personally I would take product activation over LAN removal." - I do not believe that a compromise is feasible here.
Yes they still sell pirated software all the time, you get the spam ultra-low specials on [enter name here] software? It's rampant. Plus a number try to sell NFR copies as well.
Quote from "Equinox" »
"I have yet to see a product that was not cracked at some point or another. Some pirated copies are even cleaner than legal ones.
Maybe if all you have cracked up to this point is games, but have you ever installed a cracked versions of Microsoft or Adobe software? I've played with a few to see what the process is, often you have to install the application and select just the exact options given in the instructions (screw it up you get to start over), you have replace certain files with hacked ones to suppress the activation process and auto-update features, you have to run a KeyGen to recognize the product key you enter, and then you can finally use it.
But then when there is an update you can't update it because you can't authenticate your software to get it. If by some chance you do get the update, the update oftens breaks the authentication suppression over writing the files you had to replace. If you don't update sometimes (like with Windows XP or W2K3 server) the activate your software feature just kicks back on for who knows what reason and requires a reboot to make it go away.
It's a major headache, I know I wouldn't waste my time on such things beyond curiosity sake.
Even if they don't include LAN, I'll buy both games, but I'll be really disappointed...
Here's a boring personnal story about why I love LAN in blizzard games :
About 2 years ago, when I moved in my new appartment, I've been stuck WITHOUT internet for about 3weeks.(thanks to an error in my service provider's address files...)
Being a RPG gamer more than anything else, and knowing nobody in my new town since I just moved in, my roommates and I reinstalled EVERY old games we commonly had, playing a few hours in LAN with the ones we could... After 4-5 days, we were bored of every games we could play together without internet.
And then, we thought of starting some Diablo 2 toons, in a LAN game. 10mins later, we were on an awesome streak of gaming! For 2 weeks, we played Diablo2:LOD for several hours a day, even though we all reached Diablo2 end game years ago on multiple toons over Battle.Net. We had so much fun, that the 3 of us had the time to get at least 3 toons to lvl 90+, and also had a lot of fun in MF runs.
Diablo2 over LAN probably saved the 3 of us from a certain death of boredom(yeah, right... lol), so please don't remove this awesome feature from SC2 or D3...
Sorry for the boring story and broken english(I'm not native english), but I wanted to share my love for D2 LAN gaming. ^^
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you can't amaze people with your intelligence, confuse them with your bullshit.
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You're very observant. Battle.net players use the Internet more than LAN players? HOW AMAZING! You are proving my point. LAN players prefer the personal interaction with one another. I have far more in-person friends who play SC over LAN than Battle.net buddies. I'm not so naive to think that LAN players are a majority, but the numbers are much bigger than you make them out to be. How about the thousands of tournaments that go on in South Korea? Those competitions are LAN-based. Sorry.
Many people do not get involved with forums, discussions, etc. They attend LAN parties and then go on with their real lives. Again, the LAN population is difficult to see when you spend more of your time on the Internet.
These figures will certainly be more accurate than any speculations regarding LAN-based piracy and hacking. Personally, if I were making this game, I'd put up with the hackers over having a growing pile of upset fans.
What are you waiting for? Shall I start linking you? 1UP's article? Kotaku's? Battle.net forums? They're popping up everywhere.
I think you're confusing LAN supporters with people who hate Battle.net. This whole issue has nothing to do with Battle.net or online play in any form. Battle.net is fantastic. It's a great service. No one disputes its existence. However, people just want a way to play the game without depending on an Internet connection.
http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html
two guys are up in northern minnesota. where you dont get cellphone service and terrible internet connection, these guys are in a cabin or house. they wanna play sc2. but no internet to go onto battle.net.
this is the problem without lan. and actually if you were living where i am. this is a very possible situation
But for the customer, the value of the product will go down, even though he'll still by the game. Because whenever a LAN party is to be thrown and the games to play decided upon, Starcraft 2 won't be included. It won't be one of those games you pull out, because you can't play it.
I'll still buy it, and most others will. Thus it's the best move for Blizzard, since people will have to buy it to play multiplayer. But it's not the best for me.
Right about now someone is going to tell me that companies exist to make money; that's their top priority. While that is true, there are other aspects of a company that are worth considering, such as offering solid products to your customers and making sure your customers are happy with what they're getting, even if they don't generate an income in themselves.
Assuming that everyone always compalins if they are unhappy with something, otherwise we don't know how many are actually disappointed.
You are probably right, but those of us care lose out but they know die hards will buy it anyways despite that.
While I know for a fact that there are more LAN players than Battle.net fanboys want to believe, there still is not enough of us to make Blizzard change its mind or ruin sales at all. It's not like I suddenly want Blizzard to go bankrupt. I have simply come to the realization that Blizzard's interests no longer coincide with mine.
It's been fun, Blizzard, but I'm onto other things.
http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html
Despite the LAN cult following, LAN gaming is becoming a relic. More and more companies are moving to strictly online services. Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Steam, PlayOnline, OnLive, and dozens more. I forget what the EA one is called, but they have one too. This is the emerging trend that is pushing forward. Internet play. Account-specific doorway to a company's gaming library. I rarely install a new game these days without having to install some online service.
This is where multiplayer gaming is laying it's brick and mortar. It's about time you pack it in and get used to it.
You said 'so long blizzard', you're going elsewhere. I wonder, in another 5 years, where will you go?
Internet play. "I have a check on your computer play".
I'll buy D3 regardless of the LAN feature but I will play single player mode 99.999% of the time. The only thing bnet will provide me is updates or whatever they feel they need to pump at me. As far as me playing on bnet, it will be very rare, I won't sing a different tune because I really have little interest in playing with others outside of those in the same room as me.
If that is the way I have to play a LAN game when the time comes, I'll try it but if there is any hassle setting it up beyond what I would normally have to do to set up a LAN game bnet will is going to have about 30 seconds of my attention span to make good first impression else it will written off faster than annoying relative.
Blizzard is going to need to tread carefully here with it's customers, if they nag screen, expect too many answers, the outcry will massive. Just because they are big doesn't mean they can't hose it, a lot big companies screw up stuff like this, it's happened so much over the years people tend to view these announcements with an eye of skepticism and resentment.
This has been truth since the beginning of capitalism.
Have you ever seen behind the scenes of a marketing company? Their entire work is based on the premise that they're not showing us what we might want, they're telling us what we want.
It's not an indication of bad times. Bad times started a long time ago, our society is built upon bad times. Most people don't notice or don't care. So I guess it's more like, welcome to gazing upon the world for the first time?
It's ok, most of us will fall in line anyway. We're sheep that like to be led because leading is scary and uncertain. A petition to add LAN support to SC2 and D3 is a nice, anonymous, safe, and cowardice way of telling Blizzard they're not happy. Most of the people who signed that petition, after not having received what they were after when the game releases (read: No LAN support) will buckle up and buy the game(s) anyway.
Except unlike you, most will disagree so I don't know why you're saying all that. Most people here think everything is being fine. I don't want people to think this is fine and accept it and come across with all this fatalism.
I'm so out of line you have no idea. You have no freaking idea how "out there" I am. And, yes, it's scary.
I signed no petitions.
I would find it amusing if Diablo III will result in a bad game due to the overconveyorism of Blizzard.
vs.
2. No lan. A lot of SP players pirate the game anyway. Some people will be lost due to not having LAN (out of necessity or out of principle). Some will buy the game to have access to Battle.net closed games to replace LAN. Unhappiness effect.
I suppose Blizzard bet their money on #2 for some reason. But in the long run, I think the significance approaches 0... in either case...
This would be of little consequence to anyone with a legal copy because D3 would be auto-updating in the background so most would have no issues with playing LAN.
Doing that usually means the person with the pirated copy will have to jump through ugly hoops to update their pirated copy (assuming someone bothers to pirate each updated version), sometimes having to uninstall the game entirely just to get the new version. Often in these situations they break the game altogether if they get one pirated copy and try to use someone else's hack to move up to the next level. Often the steps involved are such a royal pain it ceases to be worth the trouble at all such as having to replace files, get a key gen, add/mod a registry key etc. This is also assuming the hacker makes good documentation to walk the end user of the pirated software can follow. Now piracy becomes such a pain it's not worth it for most people. There is a good anti-piracy deterrent and you could still have your LAN and eat it too.
Disk signature tracking? How many of those we had so far? 20?
Blizzard doesn't support mods, to add. The requirement to update the game for a mod can be cracked.
I will say this again. If you can't prevent piracy without fucking over your CUSTOMERS, don't do it at all, all it will do is piss customers off and have pirates laugh at you. Long ago, when I had some hopes for Blizzard, they said bnet is their anti-piracy measure. What happened to that?
That has been true for ages. But at least pirates will have LAN, official customers probably won't, since Blizzard will see the hacked in LAN and tell them they're bad people for buying their game.
May I ask how will this be implemented?
I think Blizzard is the one who'll have to jump through ugly hoops to implement this in such a way that the customer wouldn't want to bang their head on the keyboard when updating (or not being able to update) Diablo III.
No it's good anti-piracy measure, it's just not a measure that makes customers happy, but then again taking out the LAN feature isn't either. Not many want it that way but welcome to the new world order a number of companies have implemented these measures and have increased their stringency on licensing. It completely hoses anyone who wants to pirate the software for resale purposes and makes it aggravating for people who want to get a free copy, especially as new expansion packs come out and updates, and there will be at lest a half dozen of updates, there always is.
No there are quite a few software companies that have implemented these self-serving features with enterprise to desktop applications. (OK, granted the enterprise apps are far more expensive) Doesn't support mods? Sorry I meant expansion pack, to me it's a mod.
Yeah I got tired of bitching about that ten years ago and my headaches in this area have been worse than any gamers who doesn't work in a systems engineering postion. I have to deal with product activation and mass deployment over the network and still make sure all the pushed applications licenses get activated, Adobe software for years was a royal pain in the ass to deploy but they have gotten a lot better and easier. Your only safe haven left now is Linux and it's app base, hence why I use Linux a lot more these days.
Do you think anyone will be able to sell a game they can't update or buy an expansion pack for? They'll have to lie to those they sell it to and in the end they person who paid for it will be pissed they can't. If your software has to do check in authentication for updates then piracy has been for the most part been successfully detered because a hacked copy won't be able to do that, it's really the only way to put a kink in piracy. For those who fork up the bread for a real copy what do they care? They don't, they own a real copy, only those who have bogus copies will yell about it.
Microsoft, Adobe (two of the largest software co's) and a host of others already do this and it works fairly well. You place your product key in, activate, and the rest is fairly transparent. Mirosoft has even started forcing activation for it's volume licensing now, you get 28 activations before you have to justify to Microsoft why. That puts a huge kink in pirates who want to burn a copy and sell it again and again. Froma customer standpoint though it is of little consequence, over 3 to 5 year period the odds of you reinstalling an OS more than 5 or 6 times in a corporate environment is very small.
Personally I would take product activation over LAN removal.
Wait, are we talking about something different here? I didn't think selling of pirated goods even exists anymore. It's completely illogical and irrational for any American who has an internet connection to actually buy a pirated copy when he can get it for free.
"Do you think anyone will be able to sell a game they can't update or buy an expansion pack for?" Who's talking about SELLING?
What resale are you seriously talking about? Pirates share, they don't sell. Except Russia and other places where internet is not as widespread.
I think resale of products is cut down by the activation key. As I said, Blizzard's best protection is battle.net.
"makes it aggravating for people who want to get a free copy" I don't see this. At all. I have yet to see a product that was not cracked at some point or another. Some pirated copies are even cleaner than legal ones. I don't understand where you get the aggravation. How is reinstalling games or fixing registries any more aggravating than having some stupid updater who has you remember all your keys and passwords or have your CD in the drive all the time?
"Personally I would take product activation over LAN removal." - I do not believe that a compromise is feasible here.
Maybe if all you have cracked up to this point is games, but have you ever installed a cracked versions of Microsoft or Adobe software? I've played with a few to see what the process is, often you have to install the application and select just the exact options given in the instructions (screw it up you get to start over), you have replace certain files with hacked ones to suppress the activation process and auto-update features, you have to run a KeyGen to recognize the product key you enter, and then you can finally use it.
But then when there is an update you can't update it because you can't authenticate your software to get it. If by some chance you do get the update, the update oftens breaks the authentication suppression over writing the files you had to replace. If you don't update sometimes (like with Windows XP or W2K3 server) the activate your software feature just kicks back on for who knows what reason and requires a reboot to make it go away.
It's a major headache, I know I wouldn't waste my time on such things beyond curiosity sake.
Here's a boring personnal story about why I love LAN in blizzard games :
About 2 years ago, when I moved in my new appartment, I've been stuck WITHOUT internet for about 3weeks.(thanks to an error in my service provider's address files...)
Being a RPG gamer more than anything else, and knowing nobody in my new town since I just moved in, my roommates and I reinstalled EVERY old games we commonly had, playing a few hours in LAN with the ones we could... After 4-5 days, we were bored of every games we could play together without internet.
And then, we thought of starting some Diablo 2 toons, in a LAN game. 10mins later, we were on an awesome streak of gaming! For 2 weeks, we played Diablo2:LOD for several hours a day, even though we all reached Diablo2 end game years ago on multiple toons over Battle.Net. We had so much fun, that the 3 of us had the time to get at least 3 toons to lvl 90+, and also had a lot of fun in MF runs.
Diablo2 over LAN probably saved the 3 of us from a certain death of boredom(yeah, right... lol), so please don't remove this awesome feature from SC2 or D3...
Sorry for the boring story and broken english(I'm not native english), but I wanted to share my love for D2 LAN gaming. ^^