He demands a LAN party! Now! He will bring chips!
Blizzard execs are an odd bunch. To say nothing of the fact that they’re a bunch of grown men who create and play video games all day, every day, there’s also the fact that they are responsible for heading one of the most successful gaming companies in the history of the world.
This would make anyone a little twitchy, but when you add to this mix the fact that most game company execs suffer from both gamer anti-social syndrome (GASS) and promotional anti-specifics syndrome (PASS), a PASS GASS epidemic becomes a real possibility.
What this means is that front-line gamers don’t get the information they want, when they want it, and calls for changes to the game – some necessary, some just frivolous, are often completely ignored by the upper management.
So it was with LAN play. Despite repeated calls from fans to have LAN play included, Blizzard has remained immovable. Starcraft II will feature online play only, with a cap on the number of people that can connect from the same IP address. This has had fans in a froth and we’re sure has put Blizzard into a bit of a panic, as the LAN issue is not the only one threatening the successful launch of Starcraft II.
To stir the pot, we’ve just come across information that indicates that a Blizzard-sponsored tournament will be happening June 24, 2010 in the Gimpo Airport Korean Air Hangar, called the Ongame Net Starcraft 2 League (OSL2). This is a closed event, and will feature VIPs, members of the press and Blizzard executives. It is intended to be an ongoing series of games, with Korean Air stepping in as the sponsor of the first round, thus the locale.
The most important thing to note about the OSL2 is that the version of Starcraft II which is to be used is not the same as the one which was tested on the Beta servers. Instead, it has been dubbed the “Starcraft 2 Professional Edition”, and get this – it supports LAN play.
The hell?
We’re not sure if this is something Blizz was working on and just couldn’t get out before the Beta ended, or if they had it all along and never had any plans of releasing it to fans. Perhaps they intend to do a “professional” version release after the game itself drops on July 27, but that just has “fail” written all over it.
Look, Blizz, here’s a tip from us to you. If you’re going to fight fans every step of the way on a particular technology or feature being included in your game, fine. If you’re going to deny it to them, fine. But don’t for the love of Overmind, deny them, then stick the thing they’ve so desperately wanted into a corporate events version of the game and wave it in their face, all the while yelling “is this what you wanted? Huh? Is it?”
This will not impact your sales numbers well.
We hold out hope that Blizzard is smart enough to just get on the LAN train before its too late. The smartest move here is simply to release the game with LAN functionality built-in, and silence at least some of the more strident critics.
We want Blizzard to LAN here, now…not LAN so far away.
They LAN so far away. Possibly even all night and day.
