Fearing the piracy, Blizzard opted to leave out LAN play as part of StarCraft II’s multiplayer. Blizzard is in the middle of launching Battlen.net 2.0 that will funnel every Blizzard game into that service. Some fans were upset at the exclusion of LAN play and started a petition to show support for the LAN play. Now, over 210,000 people have signed the petition since June.
Blizzard has always marched to their own beat and I doubt they will pay too much attention to the petition. However, over 200,000 petitions might make them reconsider some sort of compromise when it comes to LAN play.
Greg Cannessa, the creator of Xbox Live Arcade has stated that Battle.net 2.0 will be feature rich service that builds on various other platforms. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Canessa explained the difference you can expect from Battle.net 2.0.
"That system (Xbox Live), as brilliant as it was, was a platform. And PlayStation Network and Steam, they're also very platform-based," Canessa explained. "The set of online game services we provided over there, whether it was GamerScore or TrueSkill matchmaking or achievements or any of those systems, had to be build with the fact that they were a platform in mind. Call of Duty and Lego Star Wars and Bejeweled all had to sit on that platform."
"We just scratched the surface with Xbox Live of what you could do with achievements," he continued. "Wow, you can earn achievements. Great. But what if you customize those achievements really deeply and build really compelling meta-game scenarios around unlockable rewards, or decals and avatars, and ladders and leagues for StarCraft II?"
"At Blizzard, we're not bound by that constraint. We have a small number of titles we can deeply integrate in and create these kick-ass custom around-the-game features and meta-game services for a small number of games. That is our key distinguisher, and that is something I'm super excited about." While more integration means better features, Canessa has not provided any real specifics about the integration of Battle.net 2.0 and StarCraft 2. We will have to sit and wait for StarCraft 2 to see the true potential of Battle.net 2.0.
Blizzard has finally confirmed that Battle.net 2.0 will be free for the StarCraft 2 players. The overhaul of Battle.net into the version 2.0 has fueled rumors that Battle.net 2.0 will be a paid service for all of the Blizzard games. Also fueling the rumor was the tie in of WOW to Battle.net 2.0. Faced with the speculations, Blizzard has come out and confirmed that StarCraft 2 will be free to play Battle.net and WOW will still cost $15 per month for the subscribers. The fate of Diablo 3 is still unknown as Blizzard has not nailed down any specifics about Diablo 3’s online play.