http://kotaku.com/5342994/upcoming-blizzard-battlenet-feature-draw-from-warcraft-xbox-live-life
See that login page? No, it's not from the Multiplayer menu. It's from the main menu. That's right, THE MAIN MENU. Looks like you'll have to be online to play SP...
EDIT: Also, map-makers will be able to charge for their maps using Blizzard's setup. Whatever happened to community maps being free? Damn you Activision for screwing with Blizzard!
EDIT 2: Crap, I meant C&C 4. Wish I could change that now...
EDIT 3: Check my post below for an update. Short story, there will be an offline mode, though they don't specify if it'll be Steam-style or not.

Damn. Whats next? A batlle.net monthly fee?

Considering Starcraft is national sport of South Korea (they practically singlehandedly funded the patching of SC1), not including the primary sale point of SC1 on SC2 seems pretty counterproductive. :P

Lame.
It's good to see Activision hasn't affected their business policies at all. </sarcasm>
I was going to buy Starcraft II immediately on launch. I'm now considering if I'll buy it at all.

Well, at least this makes the decision on whether or not to buy Starcraft 2 an easy one.

Well, considering how I was going to wait years for all the content (re: campaigns) to be released, and have little to no interest in multiplayer... I didn't really need another reason to skip the game and stick with the first one.

Well that's that. I guess I'll skip Star Craft 2.
Supreme Commander 2 was looking like a better game anyways. :)

I voiced my concern on Kotaku's story, and after it ignited a flame war, someone helpfully responded that at BlizzCon they clarified that it does have an offline mode. I'm not sure if that means it will be Steam style, where you tell the game that you will be offline before going offline, but it will have it. However, I do not need to add yet another community to my list, as I'm already engulfed in Steam, Games for Windows Live, and WeGame. Also, selling community maps is a horrible idea.

At least we can still play singleplayer Diablo 3 without online....
...right? :|

Maybe, more likely not though. D3 is due to release after Star Craft 2 right? If they get away with it on Star Craft, what's to stop them from doing the same thing to Diablo?

I'm saddened right now, it really is horrible what they are doing. It's the same thing with Cell Phones, usefull yes but I don't want everyone to be able to contact me at times. It's like people are afriad to be unconnected for 5 minutes and always have to update their shit. It's why twitter's so fucking popular, so people can always feel intouch and connected to every single other person in the world.

Some people should be isolated on an island for a month. They wouldn't survive 10 minutes, seeing how they couldn't tell people that they just stubbed their toe on a rock and that they found a cool looking leaf.

This article doesn't really seem conclusive to me, but regardless, there is an interview here (posted August 17th) stating that single-player will be offline-capable.
Not that it matters to me personally, since I don't even like Starcraft, but requiring a persistent connection for single-player is patently absurd.

The guy talking about it on the blizzcon stream said that it has a "guest" mode - meaning you basically cannot get any achievements (but savegames and stats will be uploaded the next time you connect).
I'm guessing D3 will have an offline/guest mode as well, similar to the current D2 system where online and offline characters are separate (though that was never actually mentioned).