When the first stories began to spread about StarCraft 2 not supporting LAN play, the Internet began to fight back. Sure, it fought with mostly useless online petitions and griping on various gaming forums, but there was a sense that something big had been taken from us. Why are people so upset about the exclusion of LAN play? It has much to do with nostalgia, and much to do with why so many of us fell in love with StarCraft in the first place.

The issue wasn't just hype, nor was it a misquote. "We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft 2, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft 2 and future Blizzard Entertainment games," Blizzard told Ars when we asked about the problem directly. "While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft 2 and safeguard against piracy."

Blizzard is "encouraging" everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to take advantage of things like the advanced communication options, achievements, and other things such as stat tracking. Playing offline, directly connected to other computers, is simply not part of the plan. Keeping the game safe from pirates trumps our love of gaming in smoky basements filled with too much junk food.

StarCraft was known as one of the most LAN-friendly games on the market when it was first released, giving players the option to install a "spawn" of the game on the other computers using one CD key. This spawned install allowed multiplayer with up to eight players, meaning that if you had one copy of the game, you could invite seven friends over with their systems and no one else needed to buy the game. Will the spawning feature be supported in StarCraft 2, now that LAN play has been removed completely? Our take is the chances are slightly above zero, but not by much.

Blizzard was so loved because it was a gamer-friendly company that gave us more than we asked for, and surprised us with things like a free online service and the spawned installs. Now, if you want to hook up a few computers in your basement without an Internet connection, you may not be able to play against each other at all. The LAN party is a dying thing in the world of built-in voice chat and high-speed Internet connections, but it's not dead yet... especially among those who grew up playing StarCraft.

LAN games, without the worry of hooking everyone up to the Internet (and without the distraction of the same) just aren't seen as important any more. Even Dungeons and Dragons, the table-top game, is using computers for more and more of the role-playing. Us old-timers who want our electronic gaming with less... well, technology, aren't happy with some of these changes.

Luckily for Blizzard, this probably won't affect its bottom line. In a recent poll in Opposable Thumbs we asked the readers what they thought of this news, and with 4,400 respondents we were able to test the waters. Fifty-two percent said that Blizzard has earned some trust, so they're going to wait to see what the final, new version of Battle.net looks like, and 21 percent said they're going to pick the game up without any concern over LAN play or a three-game campaign. Twenty-six percent (1,165 votes) said they're going to pass on the game completely.

We'll see how many of those people break down and buy the game, and we'll see if Blizzard wows us with even better features than LAN play in this new and improved Battle.net. What's clear is that a large part of gaming's past is being de-emphasized. This story isn't over, but for now, LAN gamers are going to angrily shake our canes at the younger gamers and even—amazingly!—Blizzard. And the company used to be so welcome on our lawn.