...And a not so quiet follow up

With the (rough and crude) formalities out of the way, I feel I must speak my mind.

The recent interview of StarCraft 2's Battle.net 2.0 has left me shocked. In a nutshell, features like chatrooms, LAN capability, online replays and cross-realm play have been omitted. While LAN play has been denied before, what is most mind bending is the lack of cross-realm play.

The implications of lacking cross-realm play are incredible - each region's StarCraft 2 is locked to play with its own region. Essentially, one must purchase the EU version to play with the Europeans, the South-East Asia version to play with Asia (with Oceania bundled in), and the US version to play with the North-Americans. In addition, each copy must register its own Battle.net account, such that there is no universal account that can handle different region versions. Given that StarCraft 2 is a three-piece epic, this implies that to be able to play the full experience with everyone, one must buy the three pieces, for each of three regions. That's nine StarCraft 2's. Now that the popular thing to do is to bump PC games up to $60USD a pop, that's $540USD for the comprehensive (vanilla, not collector's) package. We'd better hope that for that kind of price,  each part is content-packing enough to warrant buying three whole separate times.

Frank Pearce blames internet infrastructures for poor latency, resulting in poor gameplay as reason to cordon off continents. From what I know, this has not stopped any other RTS game in history from allowing cross-ocean connections. If Blizzard is concerned about latency, then they should develop a means to filter out faraway countries like a sane developer. Those with buddies can still connect at their peril, but at least also at their discernment. For a game franchise that is arguably as competitive as it gets, to split continents away from each other is counter-intuitive to too many degrees. What matters is choice, and Blizzard has chosen to remove it in their new infrastructures. This is effectively (i.e. with caveats) region-locking for the PC platform. Nigh unprecedented in history, and introduced, from all people, Blizzard, for a flagship product twelve years in anticipation.

Upon all this is lack of fan-craved online replays, chatrooms and LAN. While I do not play StarCraft competitively (or to any competent degree at all), those who are serious about the game often talk of chatrooms as a crucial point from which clans and groups co-ordinate and form. LAN play is by far the most 'pure' competitive experience, and to disallow such is a worrying trend in too many games. Each of these deserves to be an issue in its own right, but I will spare thee the lengthy prose.

Given what's been presented, I cannot say I have high hopes for the competitive, serious nature of play in StarCraft 2. I am not arguing that the core mechanics of StarCraft 2 is in jeopardy, but rather fear for my resolute brethren who desperately yearn for a unifying competitive RTS experience. Regardless of the outcome it'll be a gangbuster sell - StarCraft by name holds enough water that a hundred holes in the metaphorical bucket can do naught to stop it. Activision is simply a large powerhouse, and if consumers are to blindly buy what they have been marketed, we reward those who do not deserve it. And that of all things, dear reader, is most worrisome.

(P.S. For the piping-hot discussion, Team Liquid is as good a start as any.)