nagytow: Yeah, LAN parties were fun... like 20 years ago or so ;) On BN you can create private games just for you and your mates so it changes nothing imho.
Ok then, how exactly your bandwidth affects your playing experience? People have reported being able to play with no lags on connection limited to 32Kbps or so. There are even some people who tether their iPhones to their laptops and are still able to play. So yeah, bandwidth is irrelevant.
I'm not sure whether your trolling or being obtuse.
Bandwidth shouldn't affect your playing experience at all beyond the time it takes to load up a map. You pay for more bandwidth so that you don't spend so much time waiting. With something like a multiplayer game you shouldn't be needing data so fast that you can't download quickly enough, even at 1.5mbps or lower speed.
As far as LAN play, of course something has changed and you'd have to be fairly obtuse not to recognize it. With the older LAN option the only way that you could be deprived of the game is if your friends weren't there or your own hardware broke. With Internet only play, there are tons of other things which can break where you're not going to have any control.
What's worse, if somebody steals your CD key, there's the possibility that Blizzard will come down and stop you from playing. Unless, I'm greatly mistaken, that used to be a problem with battlenet back in the '90s when people were using stolen keys to log in.
hedwards: You'd be surprised how many people wouldn't want to play complete strangers over the net, but would want to play people they know. Plus, have you not heard of LAN parties? I see people rationalizing these sorts of dumbass decisions and the fact is that there are people who can't or won't play online with strangers. Not to mention the times like on deployment where you might have access to a LAN, but not the internet.
It's significantly more interesting to beat people you know and see regularly. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Pheace: Uh, no LAN doesn't preclude playing with friends does it?
First off, I assume you mean exclude or prevent. If I'm wrong the rest of this post isn't going to make any sense.
The point is, that you're giving up all of the benefits of using a LAN and gaining all of the downsides of playing online. Yes, I guess you can do your own private games, but by the same token, doing exactly what you would have been doing otherwise with a significantly worse set of options isn't something that I would regard as defensible.
It might make sense for Blizzard, but it's just like the Multiplayer only D3 has precisely zero to do with creating a compelling product and everything to do with Blizzard telling people how and where they can play.
What's more the whole think represents a disincentive to people playing from the same room as now you've got to route all of those people through the same ISP and back, adding latency in the meantime.
Bah, I say bah.
