[Peleus]

Originally Posted by breadfan

Piracy isn't an issue with what I said? If it just allows a locally hosted p2p connection, but you still need to log into b.net to do so, problem solved. That's not a full redesign of architecture, I'm sorry.

Blizzard are a business, and I would stake my left nut on the fact that they would not take what is probably the number 1 community requested feature, and basically shit all over it and put in a "Players on your LAN" chat channel - if it even came up in a design meeting here's how it would go

"How do you think it will be received by the community?"
"..."
"So let's the arcade?"

Piracy is an issue, because you would only need to spoof the initial b.net authentication then you could play offline with full functionality instead of having to constantly remain authenticated. It makes it a huge amount easier for pirates, so it is an issue.

Secondly having p2p hosting is a huge redesign of their architecture, it's going from a centralized system to a distributed system, I can't see how that's even open to debate respectfully. It's like a website download as opposed to bit torrent.

Blizzard have constantly said that the number 1 feature request by the community (LAN) will not be implemented.

Quick Comments

Dox:

there is already a lan hack out there, has been for ages

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

Piracy is an issue, because you would only need to spoof the initial b.net authentication then you could play offline with full functionality instead of having to constantly remain authenticated. It makes it a huge amount easier for pirates, so it is an issue.

Secondly having p2p hosting is a huge redesign of their architecture, it's going from a centralized system to a distributed system, I can't see how that's even open to debate respectfully. It's like a website download as opposed to bit torrent.

Blizzard have constantly said that the number 1 feature request by the community (LAN) will not be implemented.

It's currently P2Blizzard2P (one of the peers hosts, just all connections are trafficked through Blizz servers). What about allowing players to play against players on the same subnet to just skip the Blizzard part of that is a huge redesign?

It's more like going from a remote third-party hosted connection to a direct one (imagine if your p2p file sharing client - not torrents since we're dealing with single holistic source at both ends - sent all files via a gateway that the other person could then access, but then with some sort of wizardry you were able to send data directly to other devices on your network when you didn't want to have the slowness of going over the internet). I too don't see how it's open to debate, respectfully.

Since it's limited this way, and you can currently choose to play as a guest and play against people you know anyway, there is no difference to piracy - they already give this access to you for free. So long as every time you load a campaign mission after whatever cutoff it is, or click on the multiplayer tab it re-authenticates you on b.net, you aren't getting full functionality by spoofing the login once.

[Peleus]

Originally Posted by breadfan

It's currently P2Blizzard2P (one of the peers hosts, just all connections are trafficked through Blizz servers). What about allowing players to play against players on the same subnet to just skip the Blizzard part of that is a huge redesign?

The part where the players are connected directly instead of via battle.net servers??

If you wouldn't call this a major architecture change, what would you classify as a major change?

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

The part where the players are connected directly instead of via battle.net servers??

If you wouldn't call this a major architecture change, what would you classify as a major change?

It's a few lines of code?

if you connect in LAN mode, then resolve IP of custom match opponent and if on the same subnet, connect to host/allow connect

else (meaning ladder, custom games on a different subnet, campaign, etc) resolve ip of battle.net region server, authenticate, and connect to b.net (basically what happens now)

You just have to basically bypass one step for one type of custom match. All the rest have no change

Quick Comments

Dox:

PS3 has been using this technology for years

[Arma]

@spartaz, I agree, clan support would be quite cool :-) (even though I'm clanless). Clan support in games, whether rts, mmo or fps is always handy for communication/organizing clan events.

Quick Comments

Dox:

coming in hots

[ToRSpartaz]

Originally Posted by Arma

@spartaz, I agree, clan support would be quite cool :-) (even though I'm clanless). Clan support in games, whether rts, mmo or fps is always handy for communication/organizing clan events.

I mean its easy to do well not easy... But it requires a lot of hard work and dedication that is for sure!