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Need replacement for StarCraft 2. Any recommendations?
- Thread starter ajbrehm
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No benefit for you is not the same thing as no benefit whatsoever.
For me personally (and I humbly submit, for the vast, vast majority of the gaming community) the ability to play against thousands of geographically disparate opponents outweighs the availability of LAN play, which I would never use.
Your priorities are very different, and fair enough.
On that basis, I have nothing further to offer you as I don't know what games there are out there that support LAN. As such I'll stop cluttering up this thread.
Best of luck!
I still don't care about the money.
If it had LAN support I would probably get a good ten years of fun out of it. I'd pay 400 bucks or more for that. That's not the issue.
Meh, people drop $60+ on an XBOX or PS3 game who dont even have an internet connection just for the, you know, game itself.
I'd be happy with a "game itself" kind of StarCraft 2 that I could play without an Internet connection.
No benefit for you is not the same thing as no benefit whatsoever.
For me personally (and I humbly submit, for the vast, vast majority of the gaming community) the ability to play against thousands of geographically disparate opponents outweighs the availability of LAN play, which I would never use.
So tell me, how is the absence of LAN play a _benefit_ for you?
You are confusing a feature you don't need with a benefit you have. The truth is that generally slower network play for me (because I want LAN speeds) and you (because you don't want BN to be slowed down by players who should use a LAN) is not a benefit for either of us.
So it is "no benefit whatsoever", as I said.
I am sure you'll eventually realise they are really the same. My priority is LAN play for those who want to play against people in the same room. Your priority is a fast Battle.net. Those are really the same thing.
Your comments were useful. Thank you.
So you're not aware of the current trend that all games have some kind of DRM that requires internet-based authentication? This has been gaining ground since 2009.
Please tell me how LAN-based connections between two people and internet-based connections between two people are the same thing.
LAN support is cool. Even some console game still support LAN mode, although it is rare. In fact nowadays when I see that a PS3 / XBOX game supports LAN mode I wonder how many people will actually utilize it. I understand that you don't care for SC2 because of the lack of LAN mode. It's a valid complaint. However, you must understand that the lack of LAN mode is due to the recent trend of forced DRM. Pirating is a problem. Developers / publishers are aware of this. They want to make sure everyone playing their game has paid for it. My guess is that even if/when SC2 supports LAN mode, you will still need to log in to BNet at some point to authenticate your license. I'm guessing you would be cool with this as long as you could play a LAN game with your buddy in the same room with zero lag/latency. A lot of people I know want to do this. They don't care about BNet or ladders or any of that crap, they just want to play the game with their friends, and lag/latency generally ruins that experience.
What people need to understand is that Blizzard doesn't owe anybody anything. I'm not talking about Activision here at all because they are not involved with Blizzard in any way whatsoever. Maybe at the executive level, maybe. But Blizzard made SC2 and Activision is just there looking at is seeing dollar signs. Developers and publishers sink tons of money into these games. Obviously they're not cool with the idea of people being able to download an illegitimate copy of the software they worked so hard on (in this case over a decade of hard work) just so they can play offline with their friends for free. This is why DRM is so prevalent nowadays. Everything must be legit or else they're losing money.
Personally I don't really understand why all multiplayer PC games don't support some kind of LAN mode, but since the rise of DRM and all this other nonsense, I can definitely see LAN mode in most games becoming more and more uncommon, until it is just a distant memory supported by only the indie developers.
I buy maybe one PC/Mac game per year in a store.
I sometimes buy Windows games when Stardock have cheap ones. I don't they Stardock use DRM. Stardock's CEO is very much against DRM.
I also bought a few games from Aspyr Game Agent. They have an activation system but it's only for the installation. The games then work without Internet access (and I think they do support LAN play).
So, no, I was not aware of stricter variations of digital restriction management.
It doesn't make a difference for the game. Once you have implemented a protocol for the game on an upper layer, it doesn't matter what the lower layers are.
I don't think Blizzard changed a whole lot in the actual StarCraft 1 game when network play was switched from IPX to UDP/IP. I still remember when that happened.
The Windows version used IPX and the Mac version used Appletalk (and one could select IPX to play with Windows installations). A third choice was Battle.net. Ultimately UDP/IP appeared and I guess IPX vanished at some point while Appletalk support went away when the OS X native version of StarCraft 1 was released.
Maybe.
In that case I'll buy from indie developers.
If you're after an RTS, I can't reccommend Company of Heroes enough.
It's a WW2 setting, (which I personally dont find as exciting), but the gameplay is second to none. Its the only game I've played, that I keep coming back to years down the line.
in fact, I've installed SC2 to see what it's like, but it's going to have to be pretty impressive to wrestle me away from CoH.
It's a WW2 setting, (which I personally dont find as exciting), but the gameplay is second to none. Its the only game I've played, that I keep coming back to years down the line.
in fact, I've installed SC2 to see what it's like, but it's going to have to be pretty impressive to wrestle me away from CoH.
Yes, StarCraft 1 is the best alternative still. But playing against the computer we are running out of excitement, especially in the second half of each game. The computer just stops fighting. We call it the clean-up phase.We found two solutions, but both are faulty:
1. Put more money on the map, hence extending the first phase of the game.
2. Put lessmoney on the map, hence making the clean-up phase somewhat exciting because we have to find a way to kill all computers without paying for it.
We tried experimenting with insane scripts but that always requires so much work per map and sometimes results in very boring games nonetheless.
True, it's an ancient game, and its not exactly a polished experience, but ill throw in my two cents for homeworld 2. Spaceships and explosions and workers, and a mind-bendingly awesome 3d battlefield
Well what did you expect? In 1998 Starcraft was EASILY the most pirated game on the planet. You literally could burn the disc, give it to your friend and they could install it and play LAN and or campaign.
I too am sad there is no LAN play. BUT I don't blame blizzard, not in the slightest. It is the consumers pure fault that we don't have LAN. Blizzard makes you play online so they can do key checks.
As for server drops. I won 11 games last night in a row in my division without a single hiccup with the servers. You should know that most people lag out because they tried to alt tab the game, or they hit the windows key. If you leave the game it lags you out until you come back.
I would assume your server problems lie within your internet connection. I would give it another try. It is the best game of the year.