Uncovering “Guest Mode” and “Offline Mode”

Uncovering “Guest Mode” and “Offline Mode”
When logging into StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, you may have noticed the “Play as Guest” button lurking at the bottom right of your screen. But what does this do? Is it the same as the “Offline” mode you’ve heard about? Can I play without even logging into Battle.net?
 
If you select the “Play as Guest” option you will be asked to choose which of three guest profiles you want to play as, aptly named Guest 1, Guest 2 and Guest 3. While playing as a guest you can:
 
  • - Experience the single player campaign
  • - Test your skills in the single player Challenges
  • - Battle against the AI in custom games
  • - Learn more about the game in the tutorials
  • - Watch your replays
 
 
Any progress you make while playing as a guest will be saved to that specific profile, and thus will be unavailable while playing under any other profile. While you will need to connect to Battle.net to authenticate the game once every 30 days, you will not need to create an online account if you only play using a guest profile. However, while playing as a guest you cannot earn achievements nor play multiplayer.
 
To enjoy the full experience of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, including earning achievements and playing online against other players, you will need to log in to your online profile (using your Battle.net username and password) when you load the game.
 
If you attempt to log in to your online profile but are unable to connect to Battle.net, for example when travelling and without internet access, you will receive a message informing you that StarCraft II has been unable to connect to Battle.net. It is now that you are given the option to “Play Offline”.
 
 
“Playing Offline” is different to playing as a guest as all your progress will still be saved to your online profile. As you are not connected to Battle.net you will not be able to earn any achievements, but don’t forget that you can replay any previous mission through the “Mission Archive” on the Hyperion if you’re chasing after that ever-elusive achievement!
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Comments (98)

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troy #440
troy
21/06/2011
i cant play ofline i forgot my account password to play the game so i need to play ofline or reset my password
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Zultar #181
Zultar
04/06/2011
i cant play offline i need to authorisise my sc2 acount but dont know how please help me
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Chubby #570
Chubby
11/06/2011
@Zultar: same
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Palessan #286
Palessan
14/09/2010
Corporate greed
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Rogue #127
Rogue
13/09/2010
what nonsense i just bought the game installed it online at afriends house played it fot 8 hours and then went home and found out it wont play without internet ,i hate starcraft people for doing this onlin requirement nonsense ,i am a die hard starcraft fan and i am having doubts now wether i will but the expansion packs ,go to hell you greedy blizzard baztards
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HalMeeka #302
HalMeeka
13/09/2010
@Rogue: It is good that suckers like you are eliminating from SC2 community thanks to this great online aspect of the game! Haha!
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Rogue #127
Rogue
14/09/2010
@HalMeeka: dont know whats ure deal man , i aiunt done nothin against youso mind ure own buisness
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Phosphoric #837
Phosphoric
16/09/2010
@Rogue: who the fk dose not have internet nowdays ?
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Runkk #195
Runkk
11/04/2011
@Rogue: It says so explicitly on the box to be honest...

What it didn't say is 'The servers are off-line for maintainance quite often' though.
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UnReAl #960
UnReAl
12/09/2010
ugh yeah i have a problem with playing offline...i have to authenticate the game every time my pc is restarted to play offline not every 30 days as listed above
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TaintedAngel #537
TaintedAngel
10/09/2010
I'm a parent that has two sons that play, but have purchased only two copies. So currently we share accounts so that we can all have a turn at playing together. I would consider a third copy, but if ActiBlizz come out with two more storylines for which I must buy three copies each, I'm afraid that this will become way more expensive than it's worth. Why can't Blizz offer a discount on extra keys if those keys are registered to Battle.Net accounts registered as child accounts of my account?
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VMPDzung #358
VMPDzung
10/09/2010
well , activation , guest account , Battle net , or authentication are all fine , as long as they can use Lan to transfer the data packets during the actual playing time among PCs that are all under the same root. ( lan ) :-\ .
Just like Skype , you need internet to log in , but when you make a call to a PC that 's using the same router to connect to internet , it would be a Lan call :)>
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BlackLight #917
BlackLight
09/09/2010
the only thing making SCII not able to achieve GOD status is no LAN... im praying to the blizzard gods here...
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EroTheJoker #759
EroTheJoker
09/09/2010
...dont post crap tht doesnt work on the front page, complete fail blizz
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Gilles #356
Gilles
09/09/2010
a message is telling me "you need to authenticate your client"
last time i played online was a week ago help!
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Gilles #356
Gilles
09/09/2010
a message is telling me "you need to authenticate your client"
last time i played online was a week ago help!
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TheMajorJR #293
TheMajorJR
09/09/2010
whitout internet conextion i cant play as a guest or whit the offline mode
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Doddi #742
Doddi
08/09/2010
No LAN sucks big time about this game, I played one round through the campaign and haven´t played the game since, and most likely won´t.
Being forced to play multiplayer online sucks nuts, SC1 was a cool game, being able to lan with friends, I for one will not purchase the other 2 episodes of this trilogy, seems pointless since this is pretty much the same as SC1 without the LAN and a tad better graphics!
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CooKieMonstA #617
CooKieMonstA
08/09/2010
Starcraft2 killed my 8800gt
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DrMengeleXXX #779
DrMengeleXXX
08/09/2010
WE WANT LAN, GREEDY BASTARDS!
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Kravyad #791
Kravyad
08/09/2010
i got the message "you need to authenticate your client". anyone can help me? how can i play offline then? ...
@Kravyad: You *should* only need to do this once every 30 days. We are investigating why that doesn't appear to be the case currently.
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Gilles #356
Gilles
09/09/2010
@Wryxian: the same thing happend to me and the last time i played online was on sunday!
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Dudev #537
Dudev
12/09/2010
@Wryxian: It dont work. I`m trying for more than 3 hours. I don`t understand, why it`s so complicated. I`m playing for 2 weeks online.
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Carlos #535
Carlos
08/09/2010
It sucks that you can't have two computers in offline mode and play a LAN game like you could with 'Spawn' thing in SC1. Pleeeeaaaaasssseeeeee add that - even if you restrict it in some way to 1v1 max, 10 LAN games a month whatever.
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EnzoNow #252
EnzoNow
08/09/2010
@Carlos:
I also miss LAN option.
If you want to compete with a friend in the same room, you have to use battlenet (internet). :/
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Nirual #761
Nirual
09/09/2010
@Carlos: FYI the spawn option wasn't in any other game since. Blizzard was the only company that ever offered something like it. They don't do it anymore for whatever reason, but it's not like it was ever a standard that you can expect from a game.
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GeneralLo #125
GeneralLo
08/09/2010
you don't need guests
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GalactOr #525
GalactOr
08/09/2010
@GeneralLo: Of course you do man... What if you;re friend wants to play the game that you have excited him so much and so much as play it but try it... Or when you're electricity is cut , if the game was only online in battlenet and electricity went off its game over.. so that where you need guests !
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Carlos #535
Carlos
08/09/2010
@GalactOr: if there is an electrical fault, you could not power the computer. and a laptop (my macbook for example) only lasts about 2.5 hours playing a game on battery.
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Swedishcow #325
Swedishcow
08/09/2010
The file system of a pc is a bit more easily accessible than the ps3, an achievement hack would be out in days if they allowed syncing with offline profiles.
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Grzhan #751
Grzhan
08/09/2010
@Jimmy: No, you really don't understand. You have to authenticate every 30 days to be able to play offline, if you don't - you simply won't be able to play offline _until you authenticate_. So if you haven't played in 2 years and want to play again - all you have to do is login once and then everything will work again (for 30 days)
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Grimmac #340
Grimmac
08/09/2010
This is just ridiculous, you should be able to play offline, 3 accounts, and then sync the achievements just like ps3. all this only online or off without achievements or guest for campaign only, are ridiculous there is no other adjective. #fail
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Gevurah #473
Gevurah
08/09/2010
They should make it so that all the achievements you should have earned while playing offline are earned in retrospect when you regain access to the internet. Now there really isn't any point playing while you don't have a connection.
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Grzhan #751
Grzhan
08/09/2010
@Gevurah: But then there would be cheats. People would create programs that save achievements to your computer just as if you got them while offline - and then once you reconnect you'll get all the achievements. It can't be prevented on a PC. So if they do that the whole achievement system would be meaningless. If you only get achievements online they can make sure you actually played to get them and didn't cheat
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Uncle #642
Uncle
08/09/2010
Yes, Offline Mode currently does not work. I've played online plenty of times and gotten achievements, etc. but as soon as I load the game client without an internet connection it will not work (the whole must authenticate business).

The sad thing is it worked BEFORE being patched and i actually finished the game in Offline Mode quite happily. This is a known problem though so hopefully they will fix it.
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BlueDiesel #474
BlueDiesel
08/09/2010
LAN party for SC2 i think will do the best trick if allowed!!

just my thot!
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Crom #412
Crom
08/09/2010
I honestly wish they would add LAN mode, thats how SC1 was made into my fav. game !
Playing hours and hours every day whit my friends .
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SAFlag #888
SAFlag
08/09/2010
i had trouble playing offline mode it siad my profile needs authentication but i did do it already
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Palessan #286
Palessan
08/09/2010
Offline/Guest doesn't work for me if there is no connection.
It asks to authorize the game every other time....