StarCraft II LAN petition tops 100,000 signatures

Over 100,000 people have signed a ‘LAN in StarCraft II Please’ petition over on PetitionOnline.com.

The petition was started following the announcement that Blizzards much anticipated RTS sequel wouldn’t come with the ability to play across a ‘Local Area Network’ or LAN, which  for many fans of the first game was a staple way to play multiplayer. Instead Blizzard has said it will only be playable online through Battle.net, leaving a large number of fans unhappy about what they see as the loss of a basic feature.

While StarCraft II was originally meant to have been released late this year, Blizzard recently announced that it was delaying the game until 2010, to ensure it launched simultaneously with their re-worked Battle.net, which wasn’t ready to go live. Since that news the activity on the petition actually seems to have increased, with thousands of unhappy fans adding their online signatures to it.

“We, your most loyal fans, implore you to reconsider adding LAN as a network feature to StarCraft II. This is a response to the announcement that the only multiplayer in StarCraft II will be via Battle.net. “say the petitions authors, and in effect, all those who sign up to it. “We understand you will be adding amazing new features to Battle.net that you can’t talk about yet, but regardless of any features you might add online, we would still like to be able to play in a traditional network where no internet connection is needed. For an internet connection might not always be available.”

“The new Battle.net sounds absolutely awesome, ” it goes on to say, ” from the sneak peeks you have given us, and people will most likely be using it exclusively, even if they only play single player. However, there is no harm in allowing LAN play as well, and it does bring further depth and life to what will probably become the top RTS of the next decade.”

The further points in the petition then go on to address some of the concerns that Blizzard has expressed, including many based around piracy, as the reasons for not having LAN in StarCraft II in quite some detail.

It appears to be a fairly well thought out petition, which might account for the large numbers of PC gamers willing to sign up to it.

As of writing the actual number of signatories’ stands at 113854 and counting, but as with many of these things whether it’ll actually make any difference to the state of the final game remains to be seen. At time of posting Blizzard were unavailable for comment.

StarCraft II is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2010.