Though one is obviously dwarfed by the comparison, both figures are impressive in their own right. And both speak to the health of their form of multiplayer gaming. For console games like Modern Warfare 2, multiplayer's meteoric growth is commonly understood. But for LAN parties, still playing games like Counter-Strike, their resilience and persistence are most frequently seen among college-age gamers on campus.

"If anything, I think it's growing" says Nathan Etzell, a senior at Oregon State University, whose 300-member OSU Gaming organization has a prewired, 30-person LAN room at the bottom of a dormitory where at least two large parties are held per term. In January, his club will meet the University of Oregon in the second "Civil War LAN," a gaming tournament named after the schools' football rivalry.

But there is a sense that the PC LAN party — like fraternity parties, all-nighters, streaking, whatever — are something whose time and place comes on a college campus. Out in the cold hard world, PC LAN and direct server support in new titles is dwindling in favor of console multiplayer and proprietary hosting services. Most notably, StarCraft II will not support LAN gaming as it shifts to Blizzard's Battle.net. And dedicated servers are out under Modern Warfare 2, which is now running multiplayer with a combination of Steam and the recently created IW.net for Modern Warfare 2. Both sequels' predecessors had a strong history in dedicated servers and LAN gaming, leaving some gamers feeling betrayed, and some LAN enthusiasts feeling marginalized.

LAN gaming is not gone from the off-campus civilian world. But annual convention hall events with big budgets, entry fees, prizes and sponsorships are different creatures from six people linking up to play Warcraft III. While the former will definitely still happen after you graduate, the latter is less likely. Those six-people sessions are most likely made among fellow gamers, who are likely to find each other in a class, or perusing a bulletin board in a student union.

"Their age group usually involves a lot of what PC gamers are," says Keegan Gormley, whose Big City Gaming in downtown Eugene, Ore. offers constant system-linked gaming and monthly tournaments. "They're mostly college-age students who, in their spare time, enjoy playing a game like Counter-Strike, or another game they've played for a long time."

The players in his $5-an-hour "stadium," — eight consoles connected to high definition, Major League Gaming-standard panel monitors - are largely middle- and high-schoolers, Gormley said. Younger kids are less likely to LAN, he said, because of the accessibility of consoles and the desirability of their most current games.

"There's much more deep-rooting in PC gaming," Gormley said. "Someone who gets into a game on the PC can end up playing it for years," he said. "On consoles, I've seen people drop Halo for Call of Duty, then drop Call of Duty for Flashpoint. For PC gamers, mostly, it's whatever they originally clicked on and killed with."

And that helps explain the persistence of LAN gaming. The standbys of a LAN party are usually real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, or WarCraft III, then shooters such as Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament. TF2 is the most recent of these, releasing in 2007, with others having roots going back to the late 1990s. There's a reason for this.

"It's what people are good at," said Patrick Chinn, one of the University of Oregon organizers for the Civil War LAN, which will be held Jan. 22-23. "One reason people want to play an older game like Counter-Strike is because they've played it a long time and they've gotten good at it. We've done tournaments for games that are brand new, and there'll be some attendance, but they're not as well played."

Plus, by this point, the support histories for the games have either controlled for or patched out of existence most means of cheating. "The tactics in a game like Counter Strike have become so refined that there's no real dick move you can pull," says Dylan Leeds, a senior majoring in digital art at Oregon. And for whatever in-game legislation doesn't cover, LAN gaming offers another control: Being physically in the presence of your opponent. It cuts down on ragequits and unsporting behavior.

"You're more likely to respect someone if you know you're going to see interact with them after the game," he said.

And that speaks to another quality of LAN gaming that, unlike its numbers, can't be replicated or really improved: the human contact of it all.

"If you're playing online by yourself, the hype's really not there," said Josh Bothun, an Oregon senior majoring in computer science and music technology. "It's like you have to intentionally create it for yourself, but you get a completely different experience when people are around you."

LAN parties have an anecdotal culture that just can't be replicated by solitary multiplayer gaming. Often stretching 24 hours or more, they're salted with tales of inside jokes and hyper-caffeination. At major tournaments in the civilian world, bragging about casemods and your rig are their own sideshow, similar to a custom-car show.

"It's more about community," says Gormley, the game store owner. "It's being able to shoulder-shove the person you just killed. It's less about yelling at someone over a mic, and more about actually giving that person the evil eye.

"It gets so elitist online, sometimes," he continued. "It seems like a lot of people don't want to play online console games because they don't get the game in its first week, don't level up their character in time, and then they feel like they can't compete."

It might be easy to assume that anything other than gaming over the Internet, as opposed to a LAN or WAN, is redundant, a relic, or headed for obscurity. But system-linked games bring something to the room that proprietary multiplayer services can't: One's friends.

To use an apt college metaphor: "It's like drinking online versus drinking with friends," Chinn said. "Drinking a couple of beers and IMing with friends is not nearly as much fun as actually drinking with your friends."

You just better have it done by November 11, as Blizzard will be requiring it for WoW players, not to mention future games, like StarCraft II and Diablo III. Better yet, it's easy, free and will net World of Warcraft players a virtual penguin to pal around with in-game. There's even a FAQ!!

Hit up the official site for a brief explanation of why Blizzard considers this switchover a good thing.

World of Warcraft Battle.net Conversion Coming [Blizzard]

Some of our readers were a bit put off by the suggestion that the single player portion of StarCraft II would require logging into Battle.net, as evidenced by some of the comments in the post following the Battle.net panel at BlizzCon this weekend. The next day we followed up on the issue with Blizzard vice president of game design Rob Pardo, who clarified the single player situation for us.

"You don't technically have to (login), but you'll want to. You can play in offline mode if you want - I just don't think you're going to want to. You'll be giving up lots and lots of features, and why would you want to be giving up features?"

We covered the features exhaustively in the original post, but perhaps we didn't draw your attention to the button on the above screenshot labeled "Play As Guest." That button kicks off the game without connecting, so those of you without internet who couldn't possibly be reading this post should be happy, unless they try to set up a LAN.

Day one of BlizzCon actually started with day 0, when we got a peek inside this year's swag bag, revealing its full Space Marine, hand sanitizer glory. Between that and our look at the special merchandise Blizzard is selling at the convention, we were pretty much swagged out in time for the opening ceremonies.

The opening ceremonies were chuck full of news, from the new Monk class for Diablo III to the biggest news of the convention - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - the new expansion for the popular massively-multiplayer game that introduces two new races, a revamp of the existing world, and tons of new features that are sure to keep the game exciting for at least a couple of months after the expansion's release sometime next year.

We took a closer look at the Monk, the Street Fighter character of Diablo III, with low survivability but quick and devastating attacks leaving enemies reeling from the feeling. We also looks at the integration planned for Battle.Net and StarCraft 2 in words and pictures, discovering that Blizzard plans to allow map creators to sell premium content in the StarCraft marketplace.

And let's not forget our massive gallery of custom-painted nOObz Space Marine toys!

The day soon came to an end, but there's still plenty more to tell you folks about, so stay tuned throughout today and well into Monday for more from BlizzCon 2009!

I sat in the Battle.net panel, desperately trying to take crappy shots off of the big screen, and then Blizzard hands me this lovely disc, filled with crystal-clear pictures of Battle.Net, StarCraft 2, and WoW. Think of this gallery as a companion piece to our story on the evolution of Battle.Net.

Rob Pardo came on stage to talk about Battle.Net. Launched in 1996 with Diablo, it was the first matchmaking service integrated completely into games. It's evolved with StarCraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. The service now has more players on it than World of Warcraft - 12 million to WoW's 11.5 million. "Just imagine how big that number will be once StarCraft II comes out."

Rob explained that Warcraft III taught them many important lessons about Battle.net. There was great matchmaking. It made it easy to play with your friends. Random teams were highly successful. On the other hand, chat was disorganized, the single-player experience was disconnected, new players got their asses handed to them, and the ladder system only catered to the very best players. On top of that, custom games outside of Defense of the Ancients were nigh impossible to find.

StarCraft 2's Battle.Net is split into three sections.

First, there's "The Always Connected Experience". StarCraft 2 and Battle.Net are woven into one experience. With the Battle.Net system, your characters and accounts are tied to your email, so you never lose your settings. And much like Steam, you'll always be connected to your friends.

Pardo shows off some screens of the new service in action. In StarCraft 2, you log into the game much like World of Warcraft. There's a launch screen, with news, single player, and multiplayer options. Once you enter the game, you'll always have access to your friends list, even in the single player game. He also showed off the profile page, and StarCraft 2 achievements.

By earning achievement sin the game, you'll unlock avatars and decals you can use in the game, with your custom decals showing up on your units in game.

It's an always-connected experience, he said, one integrated experience, with your friends and your game always close at hand.

The next concept is to make Battle.Net a competitive arena for everyone. This means an improved matchmaking system, which makes it easy for players to find their friends and organize games.

Ladder play is a major focus, making sure that the competitive experience isn't just for the most hardcore players.

How does the new matchmaking service work? After playing for a while, players will compete within colored leagues...think gold, silver, etc. Within each league, players compete against 100 other players of their own skill level.

For casual players, there is a practice league, which slows down the gameplay with anti-rush maps to let them get used to the game.

Parties work much like World of Warcraft, with friends joining to enter into games together. Pretty straightforward.

So there are many different game types to play, it's easy to play and stay with friends, and the ladder is now designed for everyone.

The final concept is "Connecting the Blizzard Community." Blizzard wants to use Battle.Net as a way to keep players informed about all of the Blizzard titles they are playing. Again, making it easy to find and stay connected with your friends is key. To this end, the chat system now features instant messenger-style chat, making it easier to chat between games.

Blizzard wants to connect the players together, both friends who play together offline, and those who play together online. Players enjoy playing together in groups, and Battle.Net will help players stay together when new games come out.

They tackle this by exploring other services and their limitations. They looked at Xbox Live, which has a great friends system, but you quickly lose track of who is who. They looked at MySpace, which handled tracking friends well, but made it hard to find new friends. They even looked at Google Talk, which allows people to change their contact's names.

This all lead to the Battle.Net Real ID, which lets you see and communicate with friends based on how you know them. The service will allow you to communicate with your friends across games, servers, and characters, so no matter what game or character you are playing, you still stay in touch.

They are also implementing an achievement system that spans games and characters as well, removing the necessity of re-doing achievements with each new character you create.

Pardo showed a screen of someone in World of Warcraft chatting with someone playing StarCraft 2. And then came a screen of World of Warcraft's friends list, which will incorporate the same functionality.

The Battle.Net Real ID is a layer on top of the normal friends list, with parental controls and controls in place to make sure that you choose who your friends are.

Finally, Pardo talked custom games. Custom games eventually took over Warcraft III, as the gameplay types and maps developed by the mod community were of high quality. The StarCraft 2 map editor will be even more powerful than the Warcraft III editor. They are also introducing map publishing, allowing players to share maps online, making it easier than ever to share your creations with the community.

Looking into the future, past StarCraft II's launch next year, Blizzard is looking into a StarCraft 2 marketplace, with maps rated by the community. There will be free maps and premium user-made maps, allowing creators to make money on their maps. The whole point is to foster the best mod community possible, creating a much larger selection of content for players while inspiring creativity through the potential to get paid.

When Blizzard revealed that StarCraft 2 would be delayed until next year because of Battle.Net, many weren't quite sure why such a delay was necessary. Hopefully the extensive plans Pardo outlined today make things just a bit more clear.

Blizzard wants to foster the best mod community in existence, and to that ends they've unveiled plans to single out premium custom-created maps for sales on a StarCraft 2 marketplace. Maps will be split into two categories - normal and premium - with the former free and the latter for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the map's creators. Blizzard hopes this will lead to more choice for StarCraft 2 players, and more innovative and creative custom maps fueled by the potential financial rewards.

Said Pardo, "This is really an opportunity for them to share in the rewards of our success."

The feature won't be available at the game's launch, and details are still being ironed out. Blizzard made the announcement today as a way to give modders time to gather teams together and start brainstorming premium content. Mod teams, start your engines!

On top of developing StarCraft II, Diablo III and whatever World of Warcraft expansion(s) the developer is cooking, Blizzard is adding "social networking features, cross-game communication, unified account management" and more to the new Battle.net.

Mike Morhaime, president and a co-founder of Blizzard, says that the revamped Battle.net will let players "connect, communicate and share experiences with each other [...] regardless of which Blizzard games they are playing."

Activision boss Bobby Kotick says the cross-game service will be "similar to Xbox Live," wording that may send a chill down the spine of those wary of plans to monetize Battle.net.

Morhaime says the service will be integrated more tightly with StarCraft II than any previous Blizzard game.

When we were first invited to Blizzard's headquarters, we were going to get our first hands-on experience with StarCraft II's single-player game. We were also supposed to get a look at new Battle.net features. Unfortunately for those of us looking forward to seeing how both of those projects were progressing, those presentations had to be pushed back. Such is the Blizzard way, as clearly no product will go public—or ship—until it's ready.

Disappointing? Maybe a little bit, as I'm looking forward to the campaign more than anything. But this is StarCraft II, people. And we just got another dose.

Last week's multiplayer event was the third time I've gone hands-on with StarCraft II, having played the game's multiplayer at Games Convention in 2008 and at BlizzCon in 2007. This time, however, there were almost no time constraints. I had time to play through to the construction of advance buildings. I played long enough to be crushed by a Zerg swarm of Brood Lords, the flying units that rained down broodlings upon my hapless, under-developed Terran forces. I played on every available map, Blistering Sands, Steppes of War, Kulas Ravine, a re-made Lost Temple, New Antioch and Toxic Wastes.

And while we didn't actually get a chance to go hands-on with some of the new Battle.net features—all still a work in progress, Blizzard cautioned—we got to see some fascinating changes.

Most of those changes to the Battle.net interface will appeal to StarCraft professionals and wanna-be professionals. During the three "shoutcasted" pro-level matches we watched—essentially live Battle Reports with color commentary—it was clear that Blizzard is adding features that will appeal to serious fans. There are a ton of stats to eat up during matches, showing each player's army details, technological progress, buildings constructed, economic growth, and average "actions per minute" or APM. All are good indicators of how a StarCraft II player is doing, but it's the post-game stats that will probably appeal to less hardcore fans looking to improve their game.

Not only can observers watch a full replay of a match, they can fast forward and reverse, letting them review snippets of a battle and rewatch game changing moments. Observers can also review match data in fun graph form or study a player's build order, complete with timestamps that will show the precise second when a winning player built his second Barracks or went all-in with Dark Templars.

The new Battle.net interface—again, not final—looked sharp and polished, something we're unfortunately not allowed to show you.

During our eyes-on and hands-on experiences, we got to see some of the more recent changes to the StarCraft II suite of strategies. New, to me anyway, were destructible rocks. Those rocks can open up new chokepoints. They can also block players from building expansions, so you may need to send in a demolition squad if you want to build a second or third base. Who knows what they might do in the hands of map makers?

And speaking of bases, we got a look at the high-yield mineral fields for the first time. A gold cluster of crystals instead of the standard blue, they'll help players earn more raw materials—but also provide a more obvious location at which to expand.

While much of the early StarCraft II game feels familiar, Blizzard has added another layer of strategy to something as simple as resource gathering. Each faction, Terran, Zerg and Protoss, have ways of boosting their resourcing means.

For the Terrans, it's the experimental Mule, a super-powered SCV that harvests more rapidly than the standard drone, but eventually shuts down. The Zerg have the ability now to spawn additional larvae, thanks to the Queen. Helpful for a quick build when the Hatchery is all tapped out. The Protoss have an ability called the Proton Charge, which simply lets Probes collect materials faster. Protoss players will need to build an Obelisk, a special Pylon, to initiate that boost.

Also new to our StarCraft II experience were units we hadn't had a chance to play with before, like the flame-throwing Hellion—a Vulture replacement, of sorts—and the heavily armored Marauder, two Terran units that complement the standard Marine during the early game. And while we did get a chance to delve slightly into StarCraft II's later game, getting far enough to grow Mutalisks during on Zerg playthrough and sprinting to a Protoss Mothership build, most of what we played was early game stuff.

But that will have to come with time and a little bit of single-player experience. Jumping into the deep end of StarCraft II isn't easy for this rusty StarCraft fan, so it will take some time to get used to the new tech trees and the fleet of new units.

Hopefully, the StarCraft II multiplayer beta is just around the corner, as what we played at Blizzard felt incredibly polished, with fantastic new music adding to the atmosphere and improved visuals that threatened to put a hurt on my old graphics card. Granted, there were still some placeholder buttons in the pre-beta version we played, but if Blizzard can get the public multiplayer test out there, we'll overlook that kind of thing. Gladly.

Relatively quick and painless, the new beta opt-in procedure foregoes the usual uploading of DXDIAG files in favor of a more Blizzard-flavored method of obtaining your system specs. First log into or create a new Battle.net account and head to the beta profiles page. Then download the Blizzard system check utility, which quickly sorts through your computer's innards and uploads the data to Battle.net. Make sure you've got StarCraft II checked, click "Update Preferences", and you're done.

Now all you have to do is hope you get picked among the millions of others also opting in for the beta. Good luck!

The free iPhone app is now available for download through the iTunes App Store, giving World of Warcraft players peace of mind with the power of a unique identifying code. No longer will someone be able to log into your WoW account to see who you're cybering with on your personal time.

It works just like the already-released keychain version, but without the need for unique hardware. All that's required is a simple download and a quick change to your Battle.net account.

If you don't have an iPhone, an iPod Touch with a working wi-fi connection will do. Expect Blizzard to offer a similar Mobile Authenticator for other mobile platforms and providers at some point in the future.

Battle.net Mobile Authenticator Now Available [World of Warcraft]
Battle.net Mobile Authenticator [iTunes]

The single biggest change is that anything and everything to do with Blizzard can now be linked via a single username and password. Online gaming, forums, the Blizzard Store, multiple WoW accounts, the works. Basically, you'll now only need the one set of keys for every lock in the Blizzard house.

There's more to come in the future as well, with Blizzard promising to add "more features, including tools to make it easier for friends to communicate between games and to help bring our community of players closer together".

World of Warcraft players need to take heed of the following:

Currently, creating a Battle.net account and merging World of Warcraft accounts is entirely optional. However, as we continue to build additional functionality into the new Battle.net, we will eventually require all active World of Warcraft accounts to migrate over to Battle.net Accounts in order to continue playing.

As for Blizzard's upcoming titles, "all future Blizzard Entertainment games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III will require Battle.net Accounts".

People still playing Warcraft III, Diablo II and Starcraft should note, however, if you've got an existing Battle.net account you'll need to use your old login details for those games. That or skip the new Battle.net all together, because the older service will still be around, and will now be known as "Battle.net Classic".

You can check out the new setup at the link below.

[Battle.net]

StarCraft and Diablo II Battle.net Ban Policy Update

As part of our continued effort to ensure a fair and fun online experience for all Battle.net players, we have expanded our efforts to remove cheaters from StarCraft and Diablo II. We have identified and closed over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts which were found to be using third-party hacks.

The Diablo II CD keys associated with the closed Diablo II accounts are now restricted from playing on Battle.net for approximately 30 days. Repeat offenders will have their accounts closed and their CD keys permanently banned from Battle.net.

As a reminder, we reserve the right to close the accounts and ban the CD keys of players who are caught cheating on Battle.net. Cheating ruins the game experience for legitimate players, and we will not tolerate it.

Blizzard's "solution" is Battle.net, the service it launched in 1997 to handle its online gaming capabilities.

"If you wanna play online on Battle.net with other players you’re going to have to have a legitimate copy," Pardo said in a BlizzCon interview. Battle.net, he says, has "saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games."

Q&A: Blizzard's Executive Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo [Game|Life]

Battle.net has fallen by the wayside since it's late nineties heyday but when Blizzard spoke to Kotaku back in June they were keen to stress that the new 'n' improved service would be a centerpiece of the Diablo III and StarCraft II experience.

The confirmed list is after the jump, but the rumors include an Achievements system, Accountability (to track cheaters and those who use hacks) and Voice Over IP in-game chat.

Multiplayer has come a long way since the turn of the century, of course. Do we still need something like Battle.net?

Features that DIII have been able to get Blizzard to confirm:

* Excellent Ping
* Channels and Chat in-game
* Ladders and Rankings, secured against cheating.
* Extended stats, with possibility to see who D/C etc
* AMM-type Matchmaking
* Avatars, Images and Icons to represent yourself
* Diablo III Hardcore mode
* Friends/Ignore Lists with advanced management
* Clan Support
* Automated Tournaments

Definite Battle.net 2.0 Features [DIII via Slashdot]