First off... Husky is not a pro, not even close 
  
but i do agree that bnet isnt the be all end all service blizzard was making it out to be. i do think though that the bashing over at TL is bit much...  Im by no means awesome at the game but i love starcraft 2 been playing the beta since feb, probably will be playing the game for years to come. 
 
A lot of the stuff these 'pros' have been complaining about is stuff that should be blizzards priority anyway... they already said theyre looking into a system for groups and clans and will probably release it in a patch post release. 
cross realm play will probably not be a big deal 95% of the people who buy the game, and considering the lag i get when i try to play on my EU account i rather not play on that realm at all. but if theres enough demand im sure they'll patch it in post release or with the next expansion.  
 
what blizzard should be focusing on now is game balancing and bnet stability so people can actually play the game without lag problems and getting dropped... chat channels, cross realm play, etc can be incorporated post release when the game is balanced enough to be considered an e-sport. 
 
oh and as far as lan is concerned, its basically not there for 2 reasons: 
1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players. 
2. piracy..... i mean come one, one of the biggest releases ever and if you can pirate the game and play mp offline so many of these cyber cafes and pirates will have an easier time getting multiplayer to work without purchasing the game.
 
and as far as fb is concerned, it really isnt the reason why bnet is kinda screwed up right now. i actually dont mind it since i have a load of friends on fb who play WoW and will be buying sc2... so if i can just connect to fb through bnet and auto send friend requests in game, it'll be much easier than actually tracking them down and adding each individually by email (i do wish the identifiers come back though, i actually really liked them). 
 
Personally i hope blizzard fixes problems with bnet stability and polishing the sp/mp before worrying about chat channels/ cross realm play. 
 
EDIT: also his comment about xbox live and bnet, controller vs mouse/keyboard made me lol...heh

the lack of chat rooms really is a bummer

no chatrooms makes no sense

" First off... Husky is not a pro, not even close  

" oh and as far as lan is concerned, its basically not there for 2 reasons: 1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players.  "

D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players. 

I saw that video yesterday and I agree that they are removing too many things that I enjoyed about Battle.net back in the day. I do want to get Starcraft II but ever since Blizzard signed up with Activision and how things have changed, I'm losing faith in them. I want my old Blizzard back that took forever to make a game but you know it was going to be something the community would love. 
 
People keep referencing that Blizzard intends to add features down the line but really, it is a step backwards for those who love the game.

@Jeffsekai:   thats exactly it... local has nothing do with online profiles. So you can play over lan all you want, become diamond league material, then log onto bnet throw your games to get into bronze and grief new players. Thats the main reason blizzard gave and i've certainly had those problem before, but honestly, everybody knows that piracy is the only 'real' reason.  Especially if you consider the number of people that will be abusing lan play by pirating the game far out number the people who'll actually be hurt if lan is not included... really sucks that sc2 lan parties will be so hard to organize now that everyone needs to be online, but then for everyone 1 person like me who cares for lan i know 10 people who dont give a crap. :( "

Makes me remember MW2 on PC... 
 
 
But this time it doesn't really matter to me... I don't need the chatrooms, I don't know any people outside of Europe and I won't play in any tournaments...

I am kinda mad that they are taking out features found in the first game.  But they are not deal breakers for me. 

I'm pretty sure Blizz has said that there will be channels in the final release. Can't provide a link unfortunately, but i'm sure if I recall them saying it, it definitely happened.

Note: this comment is based on the article and others' comments, I can't watch the video right now. 
 
After playing around with the beta for a while and getting a feel of the new Battle.Net adding public and clan chat seems like an incredibly easy thing for them to add and I wouldn't put it passed them to have that implemented by release.  
LAN will be sorely missed, some of my most fun SC moments where LANing it up at friends' houses, but some of the most intriguing matches have been online; though, lets face it, the main reason for LAN removal IS piracy. We can hope that Blizzard eventually adds some sort of direct LAN solution that, possibly, won't be available unless activated once on Battle.Net or something, but it seems unlikely. 

wow no chat rooms? blizzard must be really dumb to think any player would actually support that idea. 

I doubt smurfing factored into the decision very much.

I'm really bummed that there won't be any channels or cross-server play. A lot of the guys that I played BW with were from Europe and lag was never an issue. SC2 feels so lifeless without chat channels if you ask me. It's going to be so hard to meet new people to play with and develop the same sense of community that BW had.

" @supergumxp:

I doubt smurfing factored into the decision very much.

I'm really bummed that there won't be any channels or cross-server play. A lot of the guys that I played BW with were from Europe and lag was never an issue. SC2 feels so lifeless without chat channels if you ask me. It's going to be so hard to meet new people to play with and develop the same sense of community that BW had.

"

" @supergumxp said:

@Jeffsekai:   thats exactly it... local has nothing do with online profiles. So you can play over lan all you want, become diamond league material, then log onto bnet throw your games to get into bronze and grief new players. Thats the main reason blizzard gave and i've certainly had those problem before, but honestly, everybody knows that piracy is the only 'real' reason.  Especially if you consider the number of people that will be abusing lan play by pirating the game far out number the people who'll actually be hurt if lan is not included... really sucks that sc2 lan parties will be so hard to organize now that everyone needs to be online, but then for everyone 1 person like me who cares for lan i know 10 people who dont give a crap. :( "

Dude that is the dumbest reasoning ever, seriously.  So they took out a huge feature because they won't want people to get better before they start the game? fucking retarded. oh my god..... seriously dumbest reasoning ever. LAN should be in the game. "

" @Jeffsekai said:

" @supergumxp said:

@Jeffsekai:   thats exactly it... local has nothing do with online profiles. So you can play over lan all you want, become diamond league material, then log onto bnet throw your games to get into bronze and grief new players. Thats the main reason blizzard gave and i've certainly had those problem before, but honestly, everybody knows that piracy is the only 'real' reason.  Especially if you consider the number of people that will be abusing lan play by pirating the game far out number the people who'll actually be hurt if lan is not included... really sucks that sc2 lan parties will be so hard to organize now that everyone needs to be online, but then for everyone 1 person like me who cares for lan i know 10 people who dont give a crap. :( "

Dude that is the dumbest reasoning ever, seriously.  So they took out a huge feature because they won't want people to get better before they start the game? fucking retarded. oh my god..... seriously dumbest reasoning ever. LAN should be in the game. "

Its not about people getting better before they start playing... its about people who are awesome at the game losing their placements on purpose just so they get into bronze and grief the new players... yes and i agree lan should be in the game but looking at it blizzards point of you the sales they "lose" with the ability to play games over lan without buying a copy far out number the people who will be bothered by the exclusion of lan. Especially because its sooo easy to set up pseudo local networks over the net using programs like hamachi.  Again the smurfing reason was given by blizzard and having experienced that even in the beta for sc2 i can agree to an extent but i doubt that out weighs the piracy reason, which companies just dont like to tell the press straight up. "

" @Jeffsekai said:

" @supergumxp said:

@Jeffsekai:   thats exactly it... local has nothing do with online profiles. So you can play over lan all you want, become diamond league material, then log onto bnet throw your games to get into bronze and grief new players. Thats the main reason blizzard gave and i've certainly had those problem before, but honestly, everybody knows that piracy is the only 'real' reason.  Especially if you consider the number of people that will be abusing lan play by pirating the game far out number the people who'll actually be hurt if lan is not included... really sucks that sc2 lan parties will be so hard to organize now that everyone needs to be online, but then for everyone 1 person like me who cares for lan i know 10 people who dont give a crap. :( "

Dude that is the dumbest reasoning ever, seriously.  So they took out a huge feature because they won't want people to get better before they start the game? fucking retarded. oh my god..... seriously dumbest reasoning ever. LAN should be in the game. "

Its not about people getting better before they start playing... its about people who are awesome at the game losing their placements on purpose just so they get into bronze and grief the new players... yes and i agree lan should be in the game but looking at it blizzards point of you the sales they "lose" with the ability to play games over lan without buying a copy far out number the people who will be bothered by the exclusion of lan. Especially because its sooo easy to set up pseudo local networks over the net using programs like hamachi.  Again the smurfing reason was given by blizzard and having experienced that even in the beta for sc2 i can agree to an extent but i doubt that out weighs the piracy reason, which companies just dont like to tell the press straight up. "

The real problem is piracy Lan is not in the game because of piracy, the smurfing thing is probably just an excuse but blizzard isn't truly bothered by it, or at least doesn't make enough of an impact to not include Lan.

supergrumxp, you suck at arguing. Stop. Worst reasoning ever.
 
The Map Marketplace idea is what pisses me off most. I mean, although I really want public chat channels and inter-continental play abilities, I can do without them. Charging for maps, though? Great in theory with their initial press release, but we all know they're going to end-up gouging us for Blizzard releases in the end. Fuckin' Actiblizzion.

" @supergumxp said: 

Its not about people getting better before they start playing... its about people who are awesome at the game losing their placements on purpose just so they get into bronze and grief the new players... yes and i agree lan should be in the game but looking at it blizzards point of you the sales they "lose" with the ability to play games over lan without buying a copy far out number the people who will be bothered by the exclusion of lan. Especially because its sooo easy to set up pseudo local networks over the net using programs like hamachi.  Again the smurfing reason was given by blizzard and having experienced that even in the beta for sc2 i can agree to an extent but i doubt that out weighs the piracy reason, which companies just dont like to tell the press straight up. "

Now your just back peddling, read the bold. "

1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players.

I just think a lot of people, in light of some resent bnet/sc2 news, think blizzard is made up of a bunch of tards who dont know what theyre doing. 
 
I highly doubt thats the case... if bnet doesnt reach your standard i can pretty much guarantee it doesnt reach blizzards standard either. I rather reserve my judgement till the games release when we actually know what the product and its features are going to look like finalized. Blizzard always listens to their fans, to their own detriment even, just look at how WoW has turned out, cross realm transfers, gender changes, faction changes, 10 man dungeons its all after 90% of the people playing the game wanted these things.  
 
All this nerd rage over features that actually dont have anything to do directly with the game it self are getting a bit ridiculous. I dont know why people think the bnet at the game's launch will be the final version of bnet, period... blizzards has always been billing it as a service and they'll keep adding/removing features post sc2 release. I think most of what people are complaining about might just be massive PR disasters. 
 
Blizzard should come out and say that they have to make a street date, the game is done, bnet is not... it wont have all the features at launch but that they'll be working on most them and go back to working on it. 
 
Im not trying to be a blizzard apologist but i think people should chill out a bit till the games release. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion but its not like sc2, its mod community and e-sports in general is going to die if there are no chat channels, cross realm play, lan or good map publishing features at launch.

" @supergumxp said:

1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players.

 
What? ...What?
 
Are you actually suggesting that smurfing was an issue in Brood War and WC3/Frozen Throne because LAN play exists?
 
That notion is so backwards and self-defeating I'm not even going to go into why, because I shouldn't have to. "

" supergrumxp, you suck at arguing. Stop. Worst reasoning ever.  The Map Marketplace idea is what pisses me off most. I mean, although I really want public chat channels and inter-continental play abilities, I can do without them. Charging for maps, though? Great in theory with their initial press release, but we all know they're going to end-up gouging us for Blizzard releases in the end. Fuckin' Actiblizzion. "

All this nerd rage over features that actually dont have anything to do directly with the game it self are getting a bit ridiculous.

They mentioned the smurfing as a reason to lock players to one account. Do you know how long it takes to lose your way from Diamond league to bronze or copper? Smurfing is only a problem when you can immediately reset your stats, like on iccup. It's only a problem in the Beta because they have been resetting the leagues so damn often, giving players tons of chances to sandbag in the placement matches so they can mess around in lower leagues. 2-3 weeks after the full release this won't be a problem. "

" @supergumxp said:

All this nerd rage over features that actually dont have anything to do directly with the game it self are getting a bit ridiculous.

You thinking that LAN play being non-existent is a "feature that actually doesn't have anything to do directly with the game itself" is very ridiculous. 
 
Imagine, if you will, that the next Street Fighter, or any other fighting game comes out, but suddenly in order to play a little 1v1 against your buddy who is sitting right next to you, the game requires that you must use system-link for competitive multiplayer. Mind you, this is for a fighting game that for all intents and purposes, can be played multiplayer by simply plugging in a second controller.
 
Take it one step further. Imagine if the next console comes out with "support" for multiplayer, but only allows one controller to be connected to it, meaning you have to jump through meaningless hoops like having to activate some online account or have multiple consoles networked together in order to play local multiplayer. Thus meaning you have to have a 100% uptime internet connection (Hint: This doesn't exist) or own/pay for multiple consoles in order to play with your friends and family sitting on the couch.
 
The fact that StarCraft II is being shipped deliberately without LAN support is a travesty and there's no reason on God's green earth that people shouldn't find this outright offensive. The fact that they then stand back and start making claims that "DRM hurts the experience, we don't like DRM! They more-often-then-not do more to harm consumers than pirates!  OH AREN'T WE SO NICE TO THE CONSUMER AND LOOKING TO SCORE BROWNIE POINTS?" is so self-contradictory I don't know whether to laugh or cry.   I will say that you at least had two things right when I read some of your posts. StarCraft II will not have LAN for two reasons, and one of them is thinly-veiled DRM. The fact that Blizzard is partnered/merged with Activision should tell you the second. "

" SC2 exists ONLY because of the "pros" that still play the first game (and are now playing the beta like mad men) these changes are alienated the only people who gave a damn about SC all this damn time. Of course having said all this SC2 will still sells bajillions of copies, doesn't make Blizzard right."

" @Amp said:

" @supergumxp said:

1. messes up stat tracking... im sure you know what problems war3 and sc:bw had with smurfing (people creating new accounts to play and demolish new low level players), they dont want that, since you can basically practice like crazy offline and go online to grief new players.

 
What? ...What?
 
Are you actually suggesting that smurfing was an issue in Brood War and WC3/Frozen Throne because LAN play exists?
 
That notion is so backwards and self-defeating I'm not even going to go into why, because I shouldn't have to. "

I agree. 
 
@Cedstick said:

" supergrumxp, you suck at arguing. Stop. Worst reasoning ever.  The Map Marketplace idea is what pisses me off most. I mean, although I really want public chat channels and inter-continental play abilities, I can do without them. Charging for maps, though? Great in theory with their initial press release, but we all know they're going to end-up gouging us for Blizzard releases in the end. Fuckin' Actiblizzion. "

I was thinking about this too, when I was playing SC:BW 90% of the time I wasn't playing 1v1 against other people I was either sitting in a chatroom with my "Clan/friends" or playing a custom map. Now I don't have the chatrooms AND at some point down the road I'm going to have to pay for the new version of EVOLVES that fixes the game breaking bug in the previous version, that  fucking sucks to me and I honestly hope no one uses it. "

" @Jeffsekai said:

" @supergumxp said:

@Jeffsekai:   thats exactly it... local has nothing do with online profiles. So you can play over lan all you want, become diamond league material, then log onto bnet throw your games to get into bronze and grief new players. Thats the main reason blizzard gave and i've certainly had those problem before, but honestly, everybody knows that piracy is the only 'real' reason.  Especially if you consider the number of people that will be abusing lan play by pirating the game far out number the people who'll actually be hurt if lan is not included... really sucks that sc2 lan parties will be so hard to organize now that everyone needs to be online, but then for everyone 1 person like me who cares for lan i know 10 people who dont give a crap. :( "

Dude that is the dumbest reasoning ever, seriously.  So they took out a huge feature because they won't want people to get better before they start the game? fucking retarded. oh my god..... seriously dumbest reasoning ever. LAN should be in the game. "

Its not about people getting better before they start playing... its about people who are awesome at the game losing their placements on purpose just so they get into bronze and grief the new players... yes and i agree lan should be in the game but looking at it blizzards point of you the sales they "lose" with the ability to play games over lan without buying a copy far out number the people who will be bothered by the exclusion of lan. Especially because its sooo easy to set up pseudo local networks over the net using programs like hamachi.  Again the smurfing reason was given by blizzard and having experienced that even in the beta for sc2 i can agree to an extent but i doubt that out weighs the piracy reason, which companies just dont like to tell the press straight up. "

LAN - Really very very understandable reasoning for it not being included, piracy, done. That's the reason there is no LAN support, if you want to play multiplayer, get a legit copy. If LAN play was to be supported Blizzard would have to enable people to host games themselves, ie the client would be able to act as a server which leads to ridiculously easy way for pirates to bypass Battle net completely and forever.
 
Chat rooms - completely valid point, Blizzard really screwed up on this, WTF were they thinking? Spam argument is bullshit, it can be fought and controlled, WoW has done it for years now. 
 
Activision arguments - Sorry but whis whole tangent makes husky look like a whiny bitch that likes to speculate and play guessing games. If Blizzard ever sees and bothers to watch his vid, this tirade about Activision will just make them take him less seriuously. Zomg Activision is evul is not a card you want to play when trying to present a rational argument about, about shortcomings of SC2/Battlenet
 
Regional servers - Yes this is a major bitch, being limited to your specific region sucks ass. People play with others all around the world. This is not an FPS where lag makes a big difference, games published by Blizz before never did this and people played fine together (WoW being exception). The Lag argument is bullshit, let the player see and decide if he wants to play with higher latency players. For tournaments even more so. Really no reason to do this. Completely agree with Husky.

 Regional servers - Yes this is a major bitch, being limited to your specific region sucks ass. People play with others all around the world. This is not an FPS where lag makes a big difference, games published by Blizz before never did this and people played fine together (WoW being exception). The Lag argument is bullshit, let the player see and decide if he wants to play with higher latency players. For tournaments even more so. Really no reason to do this. Completely agree with Husky. "

" @Tennmuerti said:

 Regional servers - Yes this is a major bitch, being limited to your specific region sucks ass. People play with others all around the world. This is not an FPS where lag makes a big difference, games published by Blizz before never did this and people played fine together (WoW being exception). The Lag argument is bullshit, let the player see and decide if he wants to play with higher latency players. For tournaments even more so. Really no reason to do this. Completely agree with Husky. "

Actually I will have to disagree with you there.  The lag argument is very valid.  Especially for the upper level players, when a large battle is occurring having your unit responses delayed by milliseconds will lose you the game.  High level players rely on being able to precisely put units at the right locations to defeat the opponent's army.     

As long as B-net play has no noticeable lag, and as long as the servers have near 100% uptime, not having LAN is irrelevant, period and anyone who argues to the contrary has an ulterior motive.  If you want LAN play, it's more than likely because you want to be able to buy 1 copy of SCII for a lot of people to use.  The only difference between LAN play and playing on B-net in close proximity to all your friends would be that each of you must own a copy of the game and have a bnet account.  
 
Again, this assumes near 0 lag and near 100% service uptime.  The only other possible reason for supporting LAN in the game is because we're used to having LAN.  Things change, it's OK to fear it, we'll get through it.  My logic has destroyed your argument.

" As long as B-net play has no noticeable lag, and as long as the servers have near 100% uptime, not having LAN is irrelevant, period and anyone who argues to the contrary has an ulterior motive.  If you want LAN play, it's more than likely because you want to be able to buy 1 copy of SCII for a lot of people to use.  The only difference between LAN play and playing on B-net in close proximity to all your friends would be that each of you must own a copy of the game and have a bnet account.    Again, this assumes near 0 lag and near 100% service uptime.  The only other possible reason for supporting LAN in the game is because we're used to having LAN.  Things change, it's OK to fear it, we'll get through it.  My logic has destroyed your argument. "

My opinion on this whole thing is that I basically agree with what Husky said as well as @Jeffsekai.  Something is wrong with your decision making skills if your game cannot somehow benefit from being in a lan with several computers, and having the program not take the shortest route possible to minimise data packet routing, making the gameplay as smooth as possible.  
 
The fact that even though two computers are a few metres apart, My data has to go through a router, the ISP, then off to Blizzards servers, verify, then come back in reverse to the same router, then redirect to the second computer, spells FAIL.
 
Smurfing will always happen regardless, however already limited due to locking people to one account, and the only reason no lan and no cross-platform play was decided is one of three bad reasons.  The most likely is that they wish to reduce piracy in general, and that is it.  The second, less likely reason is they wish to make a premium service on Battle.net or even subscription-based.  If you think about it, Blizzard wants to implement a marketplace in Battle.net 2.0, but that means having to deal with different price conversions in different regions, and they might want to make uniform prices.  This seems simple but betting due to legal issues as well as potential influences by activision stockholders, they were probably forced into seperating the regions in order to maximise marketplace prices across the regions.  This is unfounded, but it is my theory. The last reason is very, very unlikely, but I will laugh and die a little inside if it turns out true.
 
The third reason is simply that they actually have Lancode for the game, however it will be in a special version of the game only available to national tournament organisers.  The reasoning behind this wild and unlikely theory is that South Korea is basically a gold mine for Blizzard, however this removal of features may cause a rising tension between the professionals there and the organisers, who then transfer that negative attention to Blizzard, as they are the ones who made this decision.  There may exist a version of SC2 that can be licensed to tournament organisers for a hefty sum, so that they will not require to play online.  They might still need the net just for players to login to their profiles, but once a game starts it can shift to offline code.  But since this is purely speculative, it is probably best to disregard this reason.  But if I wanted to max out profits in the tournament sector and I was Activision with the ability to influence this, I would take this route.

If Star Craft 2 wants to be viable as a tournament game in the long run it needs LAN support and to be region free its that simple. But when Activision steeped in all they saw was a cash cow and decided to milk it dry , without giving a thought to the long term staying power of the franchise. Like they did with Guitar hero and are now doing with Call of Duty.