Blizzard Axes LAN Support for Starcraft II [Plus an old SC typo]

Its official: Blizzard has made the decision to completely axe LAN support for Starcraft 2.

We got quite different answers about local area networking (LAN), where both Dustin or Sigaty said they were still discussing it, however, Pardo knew immediately: “we don’t have any plans to support LAN,” he said and clarified “we will not support it.” The only multiplayer available will be on Battle.net. – StarCraft II Developers Talk

Behind the reasons to forgo a geek’s birthright to enjoy LAN parties include limiting piracy and the claim the new Battle.net will be an experience so mind-boggling,  heart-pounding, and tear-jerking,  you’ll forget all about LAN parties and lock yourselves away in your dark room, playing SC for ours on end with your “friends” over a WAN.

I’ m sure Battle.net will have it’s features, but there are limitations to massive gaming over a typical WAN connection (expecially if one isn’t available), so I’m a little apprehensive about how this will change the dynamics of traditional LAN parties or even quick games between a couple of friends. I’ve played SC on numerous occasions when my WAN connection was down, or I was somewhere where there was no Internet connection. Then again, SC2 won’t be laptop friendly, so mobile SC will become decidedly more difficult.

In other news, I came across this a couple years ago. It’s a printed tech tree for Starcraft, pre-Broodwar I believe. Forgive me, I have no scanner:

I bet you didn't know Siege Tanks came with disguises (click for full size)