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.