I think that LAN support still needs to be included in this game. Why? Because without LAN support I can’t play Starcraft II with a friend of mine without an internet connection. That is very bad news. And if Blizzard thinks that will be no piracy if they drop LAN support, they will be disappointed. A good example is exactly World of Warcraft. There are many pirated WOW servers that runs pirated versions of WOW. My intention is to buy Starcraft II because is still play Starcrfat and I think that all their efforts and hard work deserve compensation. I hope that LAN support will be included all thou I doubt that Blizzard will change their mind.

With out LAN, Starcraft will loose a lot more gamers.

I think that LAN is still th only viable solution for many undeveloped cities, as internet is a scarce resource in these parts. And if you have a network of computers one near another i don't see the reason to use internet Bandwidth without meaning for the games performance. Why use a lagg prone sistem if you have a lag free one??? It's just an atempt to stop the piracy by hurting the ones who can't afford to pay internet bills for good bandwidth:( or don't have acces to it !

this is no suprise, and will probably happen way more in future games.. starcraft will NOT loose a lot of gamers due to this. to the argument with underdeveloped cities, i can guarantee that 90% in thoose cities would have pirated software anyway. this is no major inconvenience for anyone but the pirates. As for playing on a pirated wow-server; that does not give nearly the same user-experience, with lag and shoddy patching. If you want to, of course you can get a pirate-version running, but it will not be nearly as good as the real deal. Cheats cant be controlled, compatibility issues, hard to update.. And if you are willing to set up a fake "server" to play SC2 on LAN then you got issues.

@Vanquish, that is a typical response for a first world elitist. Let me guess, you are probably American. Well I live in South Africa (It is on the southern tip of the second largest continent - Africa - just in case you don't know) and we have very poor and expensive internet connectivity. LAN parties are really big here due to this limitation. Blizzard will exclude the vast majority of the gamers in South Africa from participating in SC2 multi-player with their exclusion of LAN. I for one won't but SC2 because of this decision!

I love all of Blizzard's game and have always been a huge supporter of the company. However, if they are going to FORCE people to suffer the inconsistancy and shared nature of the internet as opposed to having the option of enjoying the assured and private previlages of a LAN to play SC2 with their roommates or friends who stop by, then I can only say one thing. Greed is a terrible thing

I had stated that on several other sites, they should have LAN available for Steam, Direct 2 Drive and other download sites. I think they dropped the ball big time and I will wait until this game hits the bargain bin before buying, if I do it then. I have enough games to take my time up now and there are a ton of others that are coming out. I don’t have to get Starcraft. By the way, this won’t stop piracy…………….

Without LAN mean:
- no LAN play with friends
- no local competition can be helded with fast/no lag
- it's suck people with no internet or slow connection
- arrrg i will have some problem high ping oversea server :(

Blizzard should include LAN, be it for piracy reason or not, we already seen Battle.Net account get cracked in Warcraft 3 days, also if we compared to Steam (Valve) all Valve games get LAN feature

I was really excited about this game. Now that I know there will be no LAN support I will not buy it. Blizzard can go suck a rotten egg, I live in an area where internet service is not guanteed - If I want to play a game with some friends and my internet is down not having LAN is unacceptable.

This LAN exclusion in the game will surely disappoint many fans of SC and will push them away from supporting the game.

If piracy is the only reason why Blizzard exclude LAN feature, then it is non-sense. It may take some time, but surely very smart people will find a way to play SC2 without using Battle.Net server

LAN was the main reason why I'm looking forward to Starcraft 2, without I lost interest in the game... I HATE YOU BLIZZARD-ACTIVISION!!!

As a computer scientist, I can assure you that playing in a local environment on Battle.net will be of hardly any difference. If it's anything like WC3, and I believe it to be, the game runs off making one person a host, and others clients. A TCP connection is established between them. It's not like they're hosting games on Blizzard's servers, thus, lag. In fact, during the game, almost none of it is being processed by Blizz's servers. It's between the host and clients until the end of the game when some information is sent to Blizz (replays for ladder).

And don't go "oh well, we don't have internet", because that's bs and you know it. If you're hooked up to a router, you're one cable in a modem away from having internet.

I'm sorry, but from a technological stand point, I think most of this hype is borderline retarded. Stop the ignorance.

We hold monthly LAN parties up at the cottage. Dialup internet will not support 8 to 20 players and high speed is not an option. Cloud gaming does not replace the LAN party experience!

I guess we're stuck with Broodwars...

Lets face it. The only real reason that everyone wants LAN, like me, is so that gamers only have to buy 1 copy of the game and 8+ people can still play it together. Us gamers are in love with the idea, but Blizzard loses a lot of sales in somewhat of an unfair manner. My opinion on this is that if the game is reasonably priced, then so what? it's worth the extra cost to play a really REALLY freaking awesome top-notch RTS that we've all been waiting for. I would be somewhat disappointed, however, if the game costs you 100+ dollars and THEN you have to buy so many copies. That would be a pain...

SC 2 NEEDS LAN. I live in RSA and for one thing very few people have access to the internet, and the internet is very expencive in South Africa. Very little people that LOVED the first game will be able to play Multiplayer without LAN.
I think Blizzard is making a big mistake...

I will not buy StarCraft II if there is no internet independent LAN support.

I became a Star Craft player after going to one of my friend (Geek LAN parties), after the party I went to the closest Walmart and boat it. what wrong with that? LAN is working very well for Blizzard why are they changing it? If they want to make the game better they should only add to it not take away. Me and my brother love the game star craft but we will not support Blizzard SC2 if LAN is taken out. If Blizzard cares more about it fan then it money whey will reinstate LAN. Blizzard don't let us down!!

OI BLIZZARD! You think just by removing LAN support you're going to safeguard it against piracy?

You're holding the bar of soap too tightly. It's only going to slip away faster.

You're going to lose ALOT of customers.
1. WOW and Starcraft II are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. WOW is an online game, SCII is a RTS.
2. Some people HATE play RTS online BECAUSE IT LAGS.
3. You're going to provoke the pirates to go even further. Look at Sony, they tried to stem piracy by doing all kinds of funny things to the PSP. Custom firmware is now the norm. PSP games are all over the internet.

You're only making the problem bigger, Blizzard. Now people will refuse to buy your game completely and just wait for a cracked LAN compatible version. Either that, or torrent the game and emulate a fake Battle Net in lan.

Either way, they won't buy it JUST because you tried to be smart.

Activision does not actually care what we think. Piracy is a valid concern, but i do not buy this argument that its a big enough deal to scrap LAN play. I believe this is a way to force people to allow activision to monitize thier DLC.

I simply won't buy the game without LAN support! My friends and I have enjoyed many a night gaming but because we can't all connect to the internet in the same house we'll be unable to play on B.net (which is slow, cumbersome, annoying and drops for lag although I a fiber optic connection).

Blizzard, if you wand my money in the future you'd better shape up your act because your starting to go the way of EA games...now a crummy company that tends to anger fans with the latest in annoying and intrusive "anti-piracy" software.

I am tempted to make it my duty to seek out a pirated copy that has an LAN hack included!

Starcraft II without LAN? There's no way in hell I'm buying it now...... BIG mistake.

well this is all crap u wont buy starcraft because no lan support.
lets remember, when warcraft was in the early days there was no lag, but after comunities grow smaller and smaller they increase the latency, so when u connect to battle net u have a 250 ping extra, which is why u get the 1 sec lag.
it is like u send info to server blizzard and then u get response, and then u send info to actual host.

anyway i think this is not a major fall for them, because many games adopt this method against piracy, and it surely does improve sales, because i got a bunch of friends that they only want auto installers and things that can be done by 1 click.

i for one dont know yet if i`m going to buy starcraft, too many new and no old style, most units are changed one way or another, its hard to make a diference between structures and units, maybe after he gets cheaper

With the removal of the LAN option, the people which enjoy LAN party will excess to exist. This will result in people which will insult and whine over the internet with no real social contact, and the emo's will reign and bring havoc to the good people of you and me. Without any LAN party, those subjekts will abbandon there future, socierty and social life, ending up with only the cat , dog and wife, or in the most outrageous situation the right hand. The pracically problem for the Lan community is for eksample the arrangering of a small Lan party with 40 pepople there is arranged in different places everytime. So we can not be sure to have a good connection, if we have it at all. If we do have an internet connection it will in the most cases not have the bandwith to ensure a stable connection to be able to play games online. The way of the LAN community is for getting out of the hovel and having a social time with people with the same intrest. LAN PARTY FOR THE WIN!!!

With the rise of the korean starcraft leagues that are highly publicized on tv in SK, there has been really a great need for the lan function on the first iteration of the game. Now i'm sure a whole lot of the korean gaming community is going to be shocked when they cannot play in a local area network. I'm telling you, its bogus. LAN Parties back in the day used to slave on this game. Blizzard seeks to kill the idea of a lan party all-together. It wont be too long before other online games catch on and then not support Lan capability.

Theyre making a huge mistake.

Unless, this is in response to all the think tanks that were trying to crack the beta.

That's really disappointing. A bunch of friends are not buying the game now. Lan parties are what made pc games so fun.

How the hell can Koreans train in their own training camps now if only tournaments are able to set up LAN games? I'm pretty sure they'd have to play online and deal with the lag. Then when they play online, their timing goes according to the latency. And when they start playing in tournaments where the latency is ultra low, their timing gets messed up. Blizzard, when you sell a copy of the game, GIVE the copy of the game. Don't tie a string. What you people don't understand is that you're being unfair to the people who BUY the game. It's like buying a shoe and having to go to the store to check if it's yours before you can wear it.

By sticking it to the pc gamers youll more likely lose more money than you ever would by those who pirate in the long run. A large percentage of those who pirate wouldnt have purchased your game in the first place, But pissing off legitimate customers by punishing them will only cause resentment towards your company. Why should anyone purchase a game where the server can be shut down at the companies discretion rendering the game useless. NO THANKS!

I want freaking LAN support , there are areas i can't get access to internet, and i want to play with my cousin, my friends. I paid $60 for a game that i can only play with other people is when i am at home ?

"More people on Battle.net means more even more resources devoted to evolving this online platform to cater to further community building and new ways to enjoy the game online "

- translated "more ad revenue for us"