Minecraft Offering LAN support
In the days of yore, before broadband internet really burst onto the scene, you didn’t have too many choices when it came to playing with your friends in games. Some games could support internet play over dial-up modems, but if you wanted anything resembling a fast ping speed you were screwed. In fact, about the only thing that you could do was to get all your friends and their computers into one location and make a big old LAN party out of it.
As broadband speeds have gotten faster over the years, though, and the desire by developers to protect their games from piracy has increased, we’ve seen many games quietly drop LAN support over the years. StarCraft II is quite infamous for its lack of LAN support, where the outcome of tournament matches have been influenced because of disconnections that forced re-dos. That’s why it’s always refreshing to see a game add LAN support to a game, which is what appears to be happening to Minecraft.
In the latest Minecraft screenshot, you’ll find that playing a game via LAN is now an option. While not out for the full version yet, I can’t imagine it being too long until we see it in the standard build. I’ve got a feeling that when I visit some of the big LAN events in the midwest, like IU Gaming’s LAN War or Purdue’s BoilerFrag that I’ll see plenty of Minecraft LAN action going on!
