We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.
Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

" I had a starcraft lan pary 4 days ago@mrsmiley said:this feature must be in the game!!!"
" This is a horrible idea. Latency is a big issue, especially in the pro scene. It's seems absolutely insane for Blizzard to leave this feature out, although I can understand them doing it to fight piracy. This is going to hurt the pro scene big time, and since pro Starcraft has really only recently started hitting the main stream, it sounds like they will be crippling it before it can even get started. Great move. "I agree with you both. Its an incredibly stupid move on their part. I think it will ultimately affect their sales even more than whatever piracy through hamachi could have. As for achievements they would simply just need to make them unnatainable offline. BUt yes the only time I would multiplayer Starcraft was through LAN and this is a horrible, horrible choice which I hope does not also carry over to Diablo, but here it would be leess of an issue.
" I was only ever planning on playing the singleplayer, so it doesn't affect me too much, but how in the hell is preventing local multiplayer going to do anything about piracy? That makes about as much sense as saying you can pirate Halo 3 by playing split-screen co-op. "The reasoning behind it is that the replay value of starcraft is in the multiplayer, and in fact some people will get the game to play just the multiplayer and the problem occurs with LAN because since it doesn't connect to Battle.Net they can't always authenticate that the game is a real copy. This can be seen in starcraft, I know TONS of people who never bought that game and just pirated it so that they could play the LAN, of course they couldnt play the online matches but the LAN was enough for them, so thats where the concern about piracy comes in. Of course they could use other forms of protection like SecurROM, however these are easily cracked and circumvented, as well as provide not only an inconvienence to the user (such as install limits) but also have a stigma associated with them that can kill a games popularity, having to force someone to connect to Battle.Net to authenticate is more secure. I'm not saying this is the right move though, but I can't think of any other alternatives that wouldn't just be easily circumvented. (Also I assume that the reasoning behind only allowing achievments to be got through online play would be because there will most likely be cheat codes in single play)
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Is This The First Teaser For Kane & Lynch 2?
Do I look like I read German?
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No Doubt Gets Cobain'd, Files Lawsuit Over Band Hero
Band "bitterly disappointed," Activision "believes it is within its legal rights."
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The End of N-Gage
Special interview with the world's leading N-Gage enthusiast inside!
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Go Watch Captain N (Actually, Go Watch Pole Position)
New cartoon site launches with plenty of awful third-tier cartoons for on-demand viewing.
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Netflix PS3 Discs Start Shipping
Watch your e-mail boxes... and then I guess watch your mailboxes, too.
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Namco Working On Tekken 6 Online Patch
Good.
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Garrus Returns! And Other Secrets About Mass Effect 2
Some familiar faces are back in BioWare's sci-fi sequel, but plenty has changed, too. Read more!
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Is This The First Teaser For Kane & Lynch 2?
Do I look like I read German?
|
|
|
The End of N-Gage
Special interview with the world's leading N-Gage enthusiast inside!
|
|
|
No Doubt Gets Cobain'd, Files Lawsuit Over Band Hero
Band "bitterly disappointed," Activision "believes it is within its legal rights."
|
|
|
Go Watch Captain N (Actually, Go Watch Pole Position)
New cartoon site launches with plenty of awful third-tier cartoons for on-demand viewing.
|
|
|
Netflix PS3 Discs Start Shipping
Watch your e-mail boxes... and then I guess watch your mailboxes, too.
|
|
|
Garrus Returns! And Other Secrets About Mass Effect 2
Some familiar faces are back in BioWare's sci-fi sequel, but plenty has changed, too. Read more!
|
|
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Namco Working On Tekken 6 Online Patch
Good.
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Dragon Age: Origins PS3 | X360 | PC - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition PS3 | X360 | PC - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Band Hero X360 | PS2 | WII | PS3 | DS - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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LEGO Rock Band WII | PS3 | X360 | DS - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier PSP | PS2 - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 PS3 | X360 - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Shattered Horizon PC - Nov. 4, 2009 |
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Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron PSP | DS - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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C.O.P. The Recruit DS - Nov. 3, 2009 |
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Star Trek: D-A-C PC - Nov. 6, 2009 |
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on June 30, 2009
Edit: Finally, solid proof that only the honest consumer gets hurt by piracy.