If I am logging onto my account in offline mode, why do I get kicked out with this error screen?
Starcraft II was released last Tuesday. How did it go? It’s almost comical for me how badly it went. Even with my Internet down, all I wanted to do was play Starcraft II’s single player but couldn’t even do that due to the Internet authentication steps the game took. Read on for what I had to go through to play Starcraft II in a time when my Internet was actually not working.
A Tornado in DC
For those that don’t know, some of us living in the DC area got hit by a tornado last Sunday afternoon, which knocked out power for about half a million of people, myself included. I did not receive power until Tuesday night, and even when the power came back, there was no Internet since Comcast apparently suffered a lot from the tornado as well. I would not be playing Starcraft II on launch day because not only did I not have Internet Tuesday night, but I didn’t even have the game yet, as I bought it online at Gamestop and was still waiting for the game to be delivered.
How Much Online Authentication Is Really Necessary to Play Single Player?
Wednesday morning, UPS delivered the Collector’s Edition of Starcraft II to my doorstep. When I got home from work that night, I was eager to get into at least the single player aspect of the game since I figured I could play that while waiting for Comcast to bring my Internet back. It was a no go. After opening up the package and inserting my Starcraft II disc to install, I needed Online Authentication to even install the game.
We’ve started moving into a world of taking being online for granted, and while I never would have thought twice about a game’s single player still requiring you to be online until Wednesday night – when I agonizingly longed to play the game but could not even install it.
As I sat there in front of my computer Wednesday night playing my PS3, I noticed the little icon on the bottom right of my Windows desktop indicating that I was once again connected to the Internet. I reloaded the Starcraft II launcher and sure enough, I was able to get past the initial online authentication and start installing the game!
Less than a minute after that, my Internet access disappeared once again. Ok…so it seemed like Comcast was working on it, but what did that mean to me? After finally finishing the install of Starcraft II, I was eagerly excited to start the application. Once again, another online requirement prevented me from starting: the required online patch updater that ran as soon as I launched Starcraft II. It needed to download 40 megs of data to patch Starcraft II to the latest version before I could even launch the app. Once again, my Internet came back for about 30 seconds, and the patcher was able to get to 16% before I lost Internet again. I ended up going to sleep that night leaving the patch screen open in the hopes that when morning arrived, my Internet would be back and Starcraft II would be finally ready to launch.
I woke up early Thursday morning – 3AM to be exact, eager to see if not only Starcraft II was back, but if I actually had Internet once again. As I turned on the monitor to my computer, I was excited to see that the patcher had actually completed, so I was able to launch Starcraft II. I hit the button and Starcraft II launched!
Getting to the main menu of the application, I was greeted with a battle.net login screen (which I am used to from playing the beta). Unfortunately at that time, my Internet connection was down, and apparently I needed to have activated my Starcraft II account on the battle.net website by adding the CD key to my profile. Considering how I would get Internet for 30 seconds at most every once in a while, I ended up typing the CD-key on a notepad file, copied it, and was ready for my Internet to come back online so I could get it authenticated.
After waiting until about 3:50AM Thursday morning, the Internet was back! I had 30 seconds (or less) to log into battle.net on my browser window and add the game. I was successfully able to do it, and then I alt-tabbed back to my open Starcraft II client and logged in. Yes! I was able to create my account and get into the game. Then my Internet died again and I got kicked out to the main menu. However, now that the authentication was done, I could now play the game at least in offline mode. Those little spurts of 30 second Internet access every 45 minutes or so allowed me to finally get to play it.
The major annoying issue I had was that even when it allowed me to log on and play in offline mode, as soon as I logged on in offline mode I would constantly get prompted with a “Can’t Connect to Battle.net” error message and I would get kicked back out to the login screen. Basically, playing in offline mode won’t work since after the first 5 seconds, if you can’t load up campaign or a custom game, you’ll get booted back to the login. I guess that means I’m stuck playing on a Guest account until my Internet is restored.
Thursday – My Starcraft II Day
I had Thursday off (which is why I didn’t mind messing around at 3AM Thursday with Starcraft II instead of sleeping), and I had devoted the entire day to playing Starcraft II. Even without Internet access, I would still be able to play the campaign, so I was excited about that at least. However, one of the major issues I have now is that the campaign has all sorts of battle.net Achievements tied to playing the campaign, and if I play the game in offline mode, I can’t unlock any Achievements. It’s not like Starcraft II is like Xbox Live where even if you are on your account and not connected to Live, the Achievements get unlocked and update to your profile after you reconnect to Live. PS3 is the same way – you can play offline and when you eventually connect to PSN you can push your unlocked Achievements to your profile.
I was stuck – do I just play with AI all day or play single-player without getting Achievements? Would I really have time to go back and play through it again once I had my Internet fully restored?
Even with how terrible my Internet was, I still tried to play some multiplayer games in. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop myself from trying to play online. I guess I just got sick of playing the AI that day and wanted to try something else besides going up against opponents that did the same early game attack every single game. It was truly a foolish decision to try to play my placement matches when I disconnected so often. I think I ended up going 2 and 3 and got placed in the Silver league for 3v3 RT.
The Rest of the Weekend
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I had to travel out of town with my wife for one of her best friend’s weddings. While I’m happy my wife’s friend getting married, if it were up to me I would have rather stayed home all weekend binging on Starcraft II. In any case, last night was the first time I got to play Starcraft II competitively online with my Internet restored. I’ll be on for sure tonight. Add me on battle.net! [espionage | 701]
I keep finding myself playing campaign then later realizing that none of it is translating into multiplayer because the units are different.
Just a note – no-one outside of USA can add you on battlenet thanks to the fact it’s not only the games that are regionalised, but the friends lists are too. Blizzard: “You’re not allowed friends outside your region!”
good call – well…more like good catch but terrible idea on blizzard’s part. at least with older blizzard games, you could log into the other regions to play with friends there. i guess in the case of sc2, we won’t ever get a chance to play together Remy.
i don’t quite see why we are forced to be region separated – it’s not like i’m already playing with ppl from uk every day when i play call of duty on my 360, so for the pc to regress like this is just flat out disappointing.
yeah it sucks. however, you could always buy the us client off blizz’s website and install that. you would then be able to play with people in america, or visa versa for people in the us.
you would need to buy a whole new copy for that, however.
Yep that’s the only “solution” they’ve offered so far eeyore, and it’s a pretty feeble one. I knew I wouldn’t be able to play other people outside EU on SCII, and had been complaining about it throughout the beta, however I was amazed you can’t even have people on your friends list, view their in-game profiles etc. Even the official forums are strictly separated between EU (where there is no news & seemingly no Blizzard interest) and US which so much better supported. It’s all incredibly frustrating that the wrapper SCII has been delivered in is pretty terrible apart from things like Achievements and matchmaking. (That said, I do consider matchmaking the #1 thing ^_^)