i don't know i think it would be better if battle.net 2.0 had every feature of 1.0 : and new improved features... due to the fact that i don't mind if its unwieldy (mostly) as for if its slow or not that would be the only thing i mind... spam features are good... i do however think black would be awesome for the menu. if we could make black the normal color of the screen or even silver omg that would be epic. so yea i think that sc2 could be better than sc1 with new features and every GOOD feature from sc1. (oh and Sixen if your listening i should mention that if blizzard could make it so that the same map couldn't be duplicated over and over... on join games list assuming sc2 was like sc1 with the create games and join games...) what I'm saying is nexus wars wouldn't be spammed about 10 times per page. if Blizzard made the join and create games thing so that only 2 or 1 game could be made per page. so it is possible i think if blizzard tried to do so. but w/e i am glad they actually made Sc2. i just am tired of the awful maps making it to the top. like Nexus Wars Zealot Frenzy and even Sotis. now that i think of it why doesn't blizzard make it so the pages maps like 1-1000 all randomize so that all maps get a chance. no one really wants a popularity contest after all. anyways that's my post... on the subject. sorry if i didn't organize this correctly.
I know that. I was asking which Battle.net he's talking about is which.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
1.WC3's interface and functionality on B-Net 1.0 feels more modern than SC2. That's the root of the problem. 2.Many features were removed for the sake of "visually pleasing" aesthetics. So while 2.0 might look pretty, it has less functionality than its predecessor making it feel antiquated.
1. No. Take someone who has never played wc3 and sc2 and have them compare both interfaces. Starcraft 2 is better. The interface on Wc3 does not feel more modern. This may be a point of opinion, but millions of Starcraft 2 players love this over Wc3. Maybe start a poll on TL or something, but ,yea. Im pretty certain
2.Less is not always a bad thing. Especially if its only for simplicity. Now, again, If someone never played Wc3, they wouldn`t have these thoughts or care whatsoever about missing functionality they do not need. The missing functionality itself is few for players(`clans`, `chat commands` etc, Nothing critical or core).
Its obvious that mappers(and some players) from Wc3 have the biggest problem with B.net 2.0 and have greater preference with B.net 1.0. Its mostly the mappers though.
However, from a USER standpoint, the new system is much more visually better and it does what it needs to do. Simple as that.
The company obviously spent a lot of money on research and development of the interface, with top developers leading it. Its impossible to say Wc3 interface functions/looks better. I cant fathom why anyone would think that. Just impossible.
This is like the Myspace vs Facebook argument. The former had more functionality(You could add music on your page, change its color and all sorts of crazy stuff), but it looked kinda ugly(like the Wc3 chains up/down/up interface). Then Facebook comes in, very SIMPLISTIC, clean and functional only to whats needed(no extra frills etc) and it smashes and destroys Myspace. Simplicity for the masses.
Part of the reason Starcraft 2 is so successful and has a higher retention ratio of players(compared to other strategy games, and their life cycles) is because the interface is great. Maybe not perfect, but far better than Warcraft 3 and other strategy games.
@Everyone
I watched the video. Nothing special. Talking about clans, chatrooms, and tournaments etc. I thought it was way more deeper and insightful into the technical nature of how B.net 1.0 is superior(as some of you guys in this thread have made it out to be), but Husky just mentions some of the stuff he likes/missed in Wc3 B.net. Thats hardly a cause for anti-b.net 2.0 celebration.
Who has ever really used the default chat in bnet1? It's like a random irc channel without a log option, 40 players limit and 99% afk.
Auto tournaments & clans are cool but probably added soon to bnet2 to convince ppl to buy sc2x1 / x2
In the video he actually uses the default clicky interface to switch channels and doesnt comment on the #1 thing missing in bnet 2: Chat commands.
/j channelname is the way to instantly switch channels in bnet1, chat moderation commands, users to see how players are online, who channelname to check who is in some other channel, f m to whisper to all your friends at once and the /o igw /o igpub options.
Custom message filters: I would love to filter all msgs containing the usual post-laddermatch-hate while not blocking all whispers with the /o igw equivalent (some option you get to click).
Bnet2 instead offers a preset filter which doesnt actually filter the complete message but just replaces the filtered word with 6%ยง$% so you still get hate or no whispers at all as the only alternative.
1. No. Take someone who has never played wc3 and sc2 and have them compare both interfaces. Starcraft 2 is better. The interface on Wc3 does not feel more modern. This may be a point of opinion, but millions of Starcraft 2 players love this over Wc3. Maybe start a poll on TL or something, but ,yea. Im pretty certain
2.Less is not always a bad thing. Especially if its only for simplicity. Now, again, If someone never played Wc3, they wouldn`t have these thoughts or care whatsoever about missing functionality they do not need. The missing functionality itself is few for players(`clans`, `chat commands` etc, Nothing critical or core).
Its obvious that mappers(and some players) from Wc3 have the biggest problem with B.net 2.0 and have greater preference with B.net 1.0. Its mostly the mappers though.
However, from a USER standpoint, the new system is much more visually better and it does what it needs to do. Simple as that.
The company obviously spent a lot of money on research and development of the interface, with top developers leading it. Its impossible to say Wc3 interface functions/looks better. I cant fathom why anyone would think that. Just impossible.
This is like the Myspace vs Facebook argument. The former had more functionality(You could add music on your page, change its color and all sorts of crazy stuff), but it looked kinda ugly(like the Wc3 chains up/down/up interface). Then Facebook comes in, very SIMPLISTIC, clean and functional only to whats needed(no extra frills etc) and it smashes and destroys Myspace. Simplicity for the masses.
Part of the reason Starcraft 2 is so successful and has a higher retention ratio of players(compared to other strategy games, and their life cycles) is because the interface is great. Maybe not perfect, but far better than Warcraft 3 and other strategy games.
@Everyone
I watched the video. Nothing special. Talking about clans, chatrooms, and tournaments etc. I thought it was way more deeper and insightful into the technical nature of how B.net 1.0 is superior(as some of you guys in this thread have made it out to be), but Husky just mentions some of the stuff he likes/missed in Wc3 B.net. Thats hardly a cause for anti-b.net 2.0 celebration.
1. My recommendation would be don't suggest TL to support your argument lol. Right now there's a 40 or 50 page thread supporting prozaic and the rest of us :/
2. True, and that player has probably already quit playing because subconsciously the lack of social features (and custom game system) caused it.
3. Did they spent a lot on the interface design? Prozaic do you know on this matter?
4. Can you provide a statistic or evidence of the retention thing? I'm genuinely interested to know how much more players have stayed playing SC2 vs other Blizz RTS's over a period of X time.
Overall I see your arguments, and I guess we'll just have to disagree on bnet 2.0. Most of the reason people are fired up is because a lot of time has passed, and the same thing is happening with D3 now. Husky's vid reminded me of the whole design and the features that I missed.
News: Chat channels are coming in Diablo 3... Bashiok:
Quote:
Soooooo... hey everyone. How's it going? Good? Weather ok? Great... so, right... You know how sometimes you say something that's stupid and wrong and then people very reasonably get upset and create a lot of threads and discussions and demands with some pretty reasonable reasons for the thing you said wouldn't happen but then it turns out that you're stupid and wrong and the things you said are completely the opposite of what's actually true?
Yeah. So that happened. Public chat channels
will
be in Diablo III, barring any catastrophe that requires we remove them, because they're already implemented. In fact they'll be in an upcoming beta patch so you'll get to see and play around with them yourselves.
I'm not sure I can offer any explanation as to the incorrectness of my statements, except that I believed them to be correct when I made them. I apologize, and I'll strive to not be stupid and wrong in the future.
More info on the chat feature, and others, to come in the weeks ahead. Thanks for sticking with it, and me.
Initial Bnet 2.0 was always a big deal for Blizzard infrastructure, not really for gamers. They just made the mistake of marketing it as a better experience. Sometimes you have to get worse before you get better.
Hopefully if people keep making suggestions they will iterate and improve their service.
1. My recommendation would be don't suggest TL to support your argument lol. Right now there's a 40 or 50 page thread supporting prozaic and the rest of us :/
2. True, and that player has probably already quit playing because subconsciously the lack of social features (and custom game system) caused it.
3. Did they spent a lot on the interface design? Prozaic do you know on this matter?
4. Can you provide a statistic or evidence of the retention thing? I'm genuinely interested to know how much more players have stayed playing SC2 vs other Blizz RTS's over a period of X time.
5.Overall I see your arguments, and I guess we'll just have to disagree on bnet 2.0. Most of the reason people are fired up is because a lot of time has passed, and the same thing is happening with D3 now. Husky's vid reminded me of the whole design and the features that I missed.
1. Can you link it to me. So that I may read over it.
2. Those players are irrelevant. If this were an MMO game, it becomes mandatory/high priority to try and retain casuals. Starcraft 2 is only designed as a competitive esports game. Much more than Warcraft 3. Its successful as an esports title. Played nearly everywhere as a major tournament game. It will forcibly die out with the release of Warcraft 4.
Ultimately, everything becomes boring at some point, People that have finished the single-player and dont like ladder too much will eventually quit(until the next expansion). Perhaps better social features and the custom map scene can keep them on for longer. The point is, its just not that of a big deal to the company if they quit because its almost a certainty for people that aren`t die-hard into strategy games and ladder play.
4. Follow the esports scene. Its still very strong and with a huge following of the core players(ladder). This, even before the first expansion. It shows no signs of dying out.
5. Yes, agree tp disagree on B.net 2.0. I just think that if I were at Blizzard, I would follow the same direction they are going in. Esports is the only priority for a game like this. Starcraft 2 is a tournament `Counter-strike` game in that pursuit.
Casual retention and social interaction for a cash cow is the only priority of WoW. And of course, Diablo 3 will be everyone`s single player and multiplayer `fix`.
The different games cater to different groups and company priorities. WoW PVP will never be a competitive esport(lol), and on the flip-side, the custom game scene in Starcraft 2 and social interaction will never be strong enough to really keep people motivated and interested in a strategy game( I mean, c`mon , RTS is niche compared to FPS and other entertainment sources as it is, and there is much better things to play/do than play custom maps o.o)
Now Im not saying it cant be improved. Sure it can. But, it just doesn`t do anything for Blizzard and they have nothing to gain financially by efforts focused on areas like this. Hence whenever they give us what we want(and they have overtime delivered on a lot of what was requested by the community) or improve the editor etc, people should really be grateful.
WC3 hasn't died yet. Nor has SC1. And based on what people have done with SC1 and WC3 they're CLEARLY more than just eSports games now, even if that were the intention before. Blizzard would have that in mind this time around most definitely.
And PLEASE explain to me where I can message random people and/or look up their profile without searching through pages and pages of usernames without finding them in a channel or adding them to your friends list. WC3 had so many features that weren't poking out into your face, SC2 seems to have lost a few. Want to chat with multiple people at a time? You're forced into Party Chat or a channel. Want to talk to your entire friends list at once? Don't think you can do that in SC2.
There was just so much you could do (and still can) in 1.0 that you just can't do in 2.0. It feels like so much was left out for fancy buttons. For instance, channels. BNet 1.0 practically revolved around them. 2.0? They were an afterthought! In 1.0 you could have game names to say what kind of game you wanted, like "Boss Rush". In 2.0, not only can you not specify that, when the lobby fills, the game starts, so you can't even discuss what you're going to do! Something that REALLY irks me though is the new name system. In 1.0, you had that username. You and you alone. There was nobody else called that on the entire server. Plus, if you hated your server, you could go to another one. There was no "Are you the right 'Sandman'?" There was no "character code" to distinguish you from the 300 other people with your same name. There was no "I can't find it!" (It's only on EU.) "That's BS!" You could live in Europe, dump the map in USE, USW, EU, and Asia, and everyone could play it. Tourny? Jump onto that server to play!
Some of it isn't nostalgia - some of it really is poorer design than before.
(Oh, PS: The ladder's system is utter crap. It's had "Favored" on me before and I get slaughtered. "Slightly favored against" means I'm about to get shot through the Internet. "Favored against" means I have better chance than normal. Also, from Season 1 to 2, I was in Bronze season 1, okay? I play that "new placement" match, lose, and it puts me in silver. Lose again...my rank goes up. What IS this stupid BS system thinking?! I SUCK at RTS, I KNOW this, and I won't try denying it. Seriously, if there's a league under Bronze, I'd probably go there. MAYBE only lower-Bronze, and middle-ish Bronze when I'm in practice (perhaps even high bronze when I'm seriously trying), but I'm crap at RTS and this thing just wants to put me up, so I stopped playing ladder. Their system doesn't understand the phrase "I'm crap at this and I know it.")
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
First of all yes a professional made battle.net 2.0.
If you take a look at this job listing: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/3797680511 and others I've been keeping track of for nearly a year you will find that they have not had very much luck finding someone to design the system who isn't... I can only think of the word "Stupid". The guy they hired to make battle.net 2.0 got fired for screwing up horribly. Although I believe this confirms they know the system is bad I dispute their priorites and their ideas of what constitutes a "fix". Adding a front page to the current system (if you say their previews that essentially what they did) is only going to reduce the popularity system to 10 maps instead of 20. And the other stuff will be almost entirely Blizzard maps and it furthermore depends on the same people who have been featuring maps to also do their job here. Given what we've seen of that team's past performance I wouldn't place my bets on Blizzard right now.
Last I heard (months ago) the Battle.net team was working on D3 integration. However, that was only second hand. However their previews shows that they have also been working on the SC2 battle.net. The trouble is that all they've done has A. Not been very much, just adding a front page and messing with fun or not and B. Will not be addressing core fundamental flaws with the whole concept that drives the SC2 custom map search system. And if it took 6 months for them to implement fun or not, then another 6-8 to implement a small thing into HotS that means, rougly, we can expect the system to finally be fixed by the second expansion of Warcraft 4 when they realise that they've been wrong the entire time. I feel its safe to call "too little to late" taking into account their current pace and present awareness level.
Now to respond to EW. Hope I won't light the sc2mapster servers on fire...
Ok EW... For all of your arguments and your extreme dedication to your beliefs and also not a small amount of hard-headedness (I can respect that) can you explain the following:
-Why the majority are saying they liked battle.net 1.0 more than battle.net 2.0.
You see in my mind, perhaps not yours, having a majority liking something has to do with the winner doing something better than the loser. Granted it may all be in appearance but as with presidents usually by year 7 we all know how he really works. If the system didn't fail for 7 years, by American standards, the design was perfect.
If on the other hand the system is proven to fail before it even goes public, and then sells a motherload, the makers are usually calling "suckers".
So lets see, if memory serves, SC1 was 10 million copies, the center of the worldwide diplomacy comunity and a national sport. WC3 sold around 7 million copies, be the first game successful almost entirely off modding, given birth to a whole new game genre and commonly refered to as "the good old days".
To analyze SC2. If memory serves, it sold 10 million copies. There have been complaints and people leaving all over the joint.
Now lets do some math here: If SC2 sold 10 million and it draws from both wc3 and sc1... 10/17 is roughly 59% of the 10 million copies of SC2. That means WC3 makes up 41% of the initial sales. Now taking into account the WC3 melee base and the SC1 custom base, the compairison of custom vs melee are roughly even.
Now lets take an extreme scenario. Say only half of those 10 million were returning customers. That means .41/2 = 21%
21% of 10 million is 2,100,000. Now lets take a likely scenario. Say a 1/3 of them are pissed off at Blizzard and won't be returning until the system is fixed. 33% of 2,100,000 = 693000 people who will not be buying HotS wroldwide.
Now lets say they charge the normal $40 USD for the expansion.
$40.00 * 693000 people means they lose... $27,720,000.00 because they refuse to fix the system. And thats taking the low end.
Now those of you who have experience in the video game industry. Say we cut that number to 20 million dollars. Take into account the amount of time and effort it would take to fix just a portion of the current system.
Does it look like it costs them enough money for it to justify fixing the system to the playerbase's satisfaction before release?
$40.00 * 693000 people means they lose... $27,720,000.00 because they refuse to fix the system. And thats taking the low end.
And this.
Blizzard simply has someone or a group of people making poor design choices, nothing more. They might have the most talented designers in the world, but they are still making poor choices.
Alright, after reading through everything I feel compelled to concede the argument. I can see the other point of view more clearly, and I realize there is a lot of validity to it. I was indeed wrong. Not wholly, but on the `greater part` of my belief and reasoning(Against specific reasons why B.Net 2.0 is considered inferior). I understand the situation more better and can now agree with many of you.
Wonder when they're going to have to call in Boston Group. Sheesh, loosing 2 million subscribers to WoW (not going to calculate the present value of that loss) and turnover in senior design positions, in addition to failing to meet analyst's projected earning, I have a feeling they'll be calling BGC in soon. It's too bad.
2 million WoW people lost? From the $15 monthly alone that's $30mil/mo they just lost.
Not even counting possible expansions (at $60/exp, that's 120mil/exp).
Yes, I will also concede to your point, there are things in BNet 2.0 that are nice. But still, clearly not nice enough, because I have spent more time on WC3 than SC2 since SC2 came out I think. (I've got no exact numbers, but most of what I do on SC2 these days if I even get on is probably attempt another campaign mission on Brutal, and WC3 I'll leave custom maps on overnight to farm something on an rpg.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
I can live with the new ui, the real-id thing, the chat channels and whatever inferior iteration of a feature on Bnet 2.0,
BUT the single thing that really pisses me off is the way custom games are being shown/played/hosted.
I used to have great fun with funmaps on wc3, i probably spent more time on fumaps in warcraft 3 than "normal" games.
That experience did not continue with sc2/Battle.net 2.0.
I dont see how original, well made maps, that still only appeal to a small part of the community will have a chance of being played at all with the current
system, that sorts games by popularity. Who the hell is gonna go to page 32 to then host/join a game that will never fill up??
The current solution seems to be a chat channel for every small map to get a slither of chance to be played. But thats rather a solution outside the
system, the same as gathering people over forums.
The fact that maps have to be published on every server-region seperately doesnt help either.
I dont see how original, well made maps, that still only appeal to a small part of the community will have a chance of being played at all with the current system, that sorts games by popularity. Who the hell is gonna go to page 32 to then host/join a game that will never fill up?? The current solution seems to be a chat channel for every small map to get a slither of chance to be played. But thats rather a solution outside the system, the same as gathering people over forums.
The fact that maps have to be published on every server-region seperately doesnt help either.
Sorting by "popularity" really was a stupid move. It's difficult to get a game knocked from there because who will play anything BUT those? The filters aren't great either.
It's worse than just published on every server/region. You have to get another game license for that server/region before you can publish there too. If the entire thing went up as one network instead of like 8 "regions" really would work better, because now they have to (VERY) slowly put those regions together.
Were some of them drunk and/or high when they thought of some of this? It looks nice, yeah. Does it DO anything? Pretty picture is nice, yeah, as a picture. We wanted a game. We got more "prettiness" than actual functionality. If someone slapped SC2's in-game engine into SC1 and left it on BNet 1.0 I think we might actually have gotten something better. Yes, it'd need a bit more than just having SC1's menus with SC2's in-map-engine, but that kind of blend would most likely have a good shot at being better than what we got.
Another thing I just remembered that was great in WC3 that they had as an afterthought "Oh, you wanted that?" in SC2. Autosaving replays. Which one of them left THAT out of the drawing board?!? (No, it's not the biggest thing ever. But it was nice. You could just look up that game and see the replay without the need to manually save it first. I don't think it even works with custom maps because "the version might change and not work anymore". Old systems were old, but they worked better in some cases. Save something on a computer? WHUPS! Corrupted. You're screwed. WC3 had a lovely thing that you could save stuff in a text file. Portable, safe. It worked.)
Here's what went wrong: they tried fixing what wasn't broken. *sigh* You don't fix what isn't broken.....
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
I totally hate the sc2 b.net. Nothing worse than seeing maps I want to play and ... empty lobby. Tried joining Mad Scientist Wars (played once, wanted to play again..and you guys know the story). Also wanted to try out Honorgarde Valley and Runecraft. Empty lobby -> ragequit.
But after watching Husky's video of the lobby system, I realized the old b.net is fundamentally flawed too. It would work nice, if there aren't many people hosting games. But if you have a hundred people hosting new games a minute, it only gives your lobby a few second visiblity. Granted if there's that many people hosting, a few second might be enough to attract a full lobby. But if the system is overran with hosting bots, then we'll have a total failure too.
That brings back to the early days when pouplarity = games played. Mappers were botting like crazy! Even Rodrigo in his videos mentioned botting to boost his map popularity. No doubt many mappers used bots to boost their maps, and they probably got their fans to bot too. Just saying, under old b.net, hosting bots will probably kill the custom community as much as b.net 2.0.
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@DarkRevenantX: Go
i don't know i think it would be better if battle.net 2.0 had every feature of 1.0 : and new improved features... due to the fact that i don't mind if its unwieldy (mostly) as for if its slow or not that would be the only thing i mind... spam features are good... i do however think black would be awesome for the menu. if we could make black the normal color of the screen or even silver omg that would be epic. so yea i think that sc2 could be better than sc1 with new features and every GOOD feature from sc1. (oh and Sixen if your listening i should mention that if blizzard could make it so that the same map couldn't be duplicated over and over... on join games list assuming sc2 was like sc1 with the create games and join games...) what I'm saying is nexus wars wouldn't be spammed about 10 times per page. if Blizzard made the join and create games thing so that only 2 or 1 game could be made per page. so it is possible i think if blizzard tried to do so. but w/e i am glad they actually made Sc2. i just am tired of the awful maps making it to the top. like Nexus Wars Zealot Frenzy and even Sotis. now that i think of it why doesn't blizzard make it so the pages maps like 1-1000 all randomize so that all maps get a chance. no one really wants a popularity contest after all. anyways that's my post... on the subject. sorry if i didn't organize this correctly.
@Mozared: Go
I know that. I was asking which Battle.net he's talking about is which.
@Sandman366: Go
Ooooooooooooooooooh!
1. No. Take someone who has never played wc3 and sc2 and have them compare both interfaces. Starcraft 2 is better. The interface on Wc3 does not feel more modern. This may be a point of opinion, but millions of Starcraft 2 players love this over Wc3. Maybe start a poll on TL or something, but ,yea. Im pretty certain
2.Less is not always a bad thing. Especially if its only for simplicity. Now, again, If someone never played Wc3, they wouldn`t have these thoughts or care whatsoever about missing functionality they do not need. The missing functionality itself is few for players(`clans`, `chat commands` etc, Nothing critical or core).
Its obvious that mappers(and some players) from Wc3 have the biggest problem with B.net 2.0 and have greater preference with B.net 1.0. Its mostly the mappers though.
However, from a USER standpoint, the new system is much more visually better and it does what it needs to do. Simple as that.
The company obviously spent a lot of money on research and development of the interface, with top developers leading it. Its impossible to say Wc3 interface functions/looks better. I cant fathom why anyone would think that. Just impossible.
This is like the Myspace vs Facebook argument. The former had more functionality(You could add music on your page, change its color and all sorts of crazy stuff), but it looked kinda ugly(like the Wc3 chains up/down/up interface). Then Facebook comes in, very SIMPLISTIC, clean and functional only to whats needed(no extra frills etc) and it smashes and destroys Myspace. Simplicity for the masses.
Part of the reason Starcraft 2 is so successful and has a higher retention ratio of players(compared to other strategy games, and their life cycles) is because the interface is great. Maybe not perfect, but far better than Warcraft 3 and other strategy games.
@Everyone
I watched the video. Nothing special. Talking about clans, chatrooms, and tournaments etc. I thought it was way more deeper and insightful into the technical nature of how B.net 1.0 is superior(as some of you guys in this thread have made it out to be), but Husky just mentions some of the stuff he likes/missed in Wc3 B.net. Thats hardly a cause for anti-b.net 2.0 celebration.
Who has ever really used the default chat in bnet1? It's like a random irc channel without a log option, 40 players limit and 99% afk.
Auto tournaments & clans are cool but probably added soon to bnet2 to convince ppl to buy sc2x1 / x2
In the video he actually uses the default clicky interface to switch channels and doesnt comment on the #1 thing missing in bnet 2: Chat commands.
/j channelname is the way to instantly switch channels in bnet1, chat moderation commands, users to see how players are online, who channelname to check who is in some other channel, f m to whisper to all your friends at once and the /o igw /o igpub options.
Custom message filters: I would love to filter all msgs containing the usual post-laddermatch-hate while not blocking all whispers with the /o igw equivalent (some option you get to click).
Bnet2 instead offers a preset filter which doesnt actually filter the complete message but just replaces the filtered word with 6%ยง$% so you still get hate or no whispers at all as the only alternative.
1. My recommendation would be don't suggest TL to support your argument lol. Right now there's a 40 or 50 page thread supporting prozaic and the rest of us :/
2. True, and that player has probably already quit playing because subconsciously the lack of social features (and custom game system) caused it.
3. Did they spent a lot on the interface design? Prozaic do you know on this matter?
4. Can you provide a statistic or evidence of the retention thing? I'm genuinely interested to know how much more players have stayed playing SC2 vs other Blizz RTS's over a period of X time.
Overall I see your arguments, and I guess we'll just have to disagree on bnet 2.0. Most of the reason people are fired up is because a lot of time has passed, and the same thing is happening with D3 now. Husky's vid reminded me of the whole design and the features that I missed.
I liked SC's battle.net. It was great! It was simple and easy to use.
I liked Diablo II's battle.net It was great and the new look made it fit just right with the diablo theme.
I like WC3's battle.net. It was great! It improved on everything SC's version of b.net had and even put in more features! Simply amazing.
<Intentionally left blank>
I love WoW! PANDAS FTW
News: Chat channels are coming in Diablo 3... Bashiok:
Initial Bnet 2.0 was always a big deal for Blizzard infrastructure, not really for gamers. They just made the mistake of marketing it as a better experience. Sometimes you have to get worse before you get better.
Hopefully if people keep making suggestions they will iterate and improve their service.
1. Can you link it to me. So that I may read over it.
2. Those players are irrelevant. If this were an MMO game, it becomes mandatory/high priority to try and retain casuals. Starcraft 2 is only designed as a competitive esports game. Much more than Warcraft 3. Its successful as an esports title. Played nearly everywhere as a major tournament game. It will forcibly die out with the release of Warcraft 4.
Ultimately, everything becomes boring at some point, People that have finished the single-player and dont like ladder too much will eventually quit(until the next expansion). Perhaps better social features and the custom map scene can keep them on for longer. The point is, its just not that of a big deal to the company if they quit because its almost a certainty for people that aren`t die-hard into strategy games and ladder play.
4. Follow the esports scene. Its still very strong and with a huge following of the core players(ladder). This, even before the first expansion. It shows no signs of dying out.
5. Yes, agree tp disagree on B.net 2.0. I just think that if I were at Blizzard, I would follow the same direction they are going in. Esports is the only priority for a game like this. Starcraft 2 is a tournament `Counter-strike` game in that pursuit.
Casual retention and social interaction for a cash cow is the only priority of WoW. And of course, Diablo 3 will be everyone`s single player and multiplayer `fix`.
The different games cater to different groups and company priorities. WoW PVP will never be a competitive esport(lol), and on the flip-side, the custom game scene in Starcraft 2 and social interaction will never be strong enough to really keep people motivated and interested in a strategy game( I mean, c`mon , RTS is niche compared to FPS and other entertainment sources as it is, and there is much better things to play/do than play custom maps o.o)
Now Im not saying it cant be improved. Sure it can. But, it just doesn`t do anything for Blizzard and they have nothing to gain financially by efforts focused on areas like this. Hence whenever they give us what we want(and they have overtime delivered on a lot of what was requested by the community) or improve the editor etc, people should really be grateful.
@EternalWraith: Go
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=308482
Edit: And I should say that Diablo 3 is faring better in a lot of areas, especially about stats and hopefully channels...
@EternalWraith: Go
WC3 hasn't died yet. Nor has SC1. And based on what people have done with SC1 and WC3 they're CLEARLY more than just eSports games now, even if that were the intention before. Blizzard would have that in mind this time around most definitely.
And PLEASE explain to me where I can message random people and/or look up their profile without searching through pages and pages of usernames without finding them in a channel or adding them to your friends list. WC3 had so many features that weren't poking out into your face, SC2 seems to have lost a few. Want to chat with multiple people at a time? You're forced into Party Chat or a channel. Want to talk to your entire friends list at once? Don't think you can do that in SC2.
There was just so much you could do (and still can) in 1.0 that you just can't do in 2.0. It feels like so much was left out for fancy buttons. For instance, channels. BNet 1.0 practically revolved around them. 2.0? They were an afterthought! In 1.0 you could have game names to say what kind of game you wanted, like "Boss Rush". In 2.0, not only can you not specify that, when the lobby fills, the game starts, so you can't even discuss what you're going to do! Something that REALLY irks me though is the new name system. In 1.0, you had that username. You and you alone. There was nobody else called that on the entire server. Plus, if you hated your server, you could go to another one. There was no "Are you the right 'Sandman'?" There was no "character code" to distinguish you from the 300 other people with your same name. There was no "I can't find it!" (It's only on EU.) "That's BS!" You could live in Europe, dump the map in USE, USW, EU, and Asia, and everyone could play it. Tourny? Jump onto that server to play!
Some of it isn't nostalgia - some of it really is poorer design than before.
(Oh, PS: The ladder's system is utter crap. It's had "Favored" on me before and I get slaughtered. "Slightly favored against" means I'm about to get shot through the Internet. "Favored against" means I have better chance than normal. Also, from Season 1 to 2, I was in Bronze season 1, okay? I play that "new placement" match, lose, and it puts me in silver. Lose again...my rank goes up. What IS this stupid BS system thinking?! I SUCK at RTS, I KNOW this, and I won't try denying it. Seriously, if there's a league under Bronze, I'd probably go there. MAYBE only lower-Bronze, and middle-ish Bronze when I'm in practice (perhaps even high bronze when I'm seriously trying), but I'm crap at RTS and this thing just wants to put me up, so I stopped playing ladder. Their system doesn't understand the phrase "I'm crap at this and I know it.")
Couple of things to correct here...
First of all yes a professional made battle.net 2.0.
If you take a look at this job listing: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/3797680511 and others I've been keeping track of for nearly a year you will find that they have not had very much luck finding someone to design the system who isn't... I can only think of the word "Stupid". The guy they hired to make battle.net 2.0 got fired for screwing up horribly. Although I believe this confirms they know the system is bad I dispute their priorites and their ideas of what constitutes a "fix". Adding a front page to the current system (if you say their previews that essentially what they did) is only going to reduce the popularity system to 10 maps instead of 20. And the other stuff will be almost entirely Blizzard maps and it furthermore depends on the same people who have been featuring maps to also do their job here. Given what we've seen of that team's past performance I wouldn't place my bets on Blizzard right now.
Last I heard (months ago) the Battle.net team was working on D3 integration. However, that was only second hand. However their previews shows that they have also been working on the SC2 battle.net. The trouble is that all they've done has A. Not been very much, just adding a front page and messing with fun or not and B. Will not be addressing core fundamental flaws with the whole concept that drives the SC2 custom map search system. And if it took 6 months for them to implement fun or not, then another 6-8 to implement a small thing into HotS that means, rougly, we can expect the system to finally be fixed by the second expansion of Warcraft 4 when they realise that they've been wrong the entire time. I feel its safe to call "too little to late" taking into account their current pace and present awareness level.
Now to respond to EW. Hope I won't light the sc2mapster servers on fire... Ok EW... For all of your arguments and your extreme dedication to your beliefs and also not a small amount of hard-headedness (I can respect that) can you explain the following: -Why the majority are saying they liked battle.net 1.0 more than battle.net 2.0.
You see in my mind, perhaps not yours, having a majority liking something has to do with the winner doing something better than the loser. Granted it may all be in appearance but as with presidents usually by year 7 we all know how he really works. If the system didn't fail for 7 years, by American standards, the design was perfect.
If on the other hand the system is proven to fail before it even goes public, and then sells a motherload, the makers are usually calling "suckers".
So lets see, if memory serves, SC1 was 10 million copies, the center of the worldwide diplomacy comunity and a national sport. WC3 sold around 7 million copies, be the first game successful almost entirely off modding, given birth to a whole new game genre and commonly refered to as "the good old days".
To analyze SC2. If memory serves, it sold 10 million copies. There have been complaints and people leaving all over the joint.
Now lets do some math here: If SC2 sold 10 million and it draws from both wc3 and sc1... 10/17 is roughly 59% of the 10 million copies of SC2. That means WC3 makes up 41% of the initial sales. Now taking into account the WC3 melee base and the SC1 custom base, the compairison of custom vs melee are roughly even.
Now lets take an extreme scenario. Say only half of those 10 million were returning customers. That means .41/2 = 21%
21% of 10 million is 2,100,000. Now lets take a likely scenario. Say a 1/3 of them are pissed off at Blizzard and won't be returning until the system is fixed. 33% of 2,100,000 = 693000 people who will not be buying HotS wroldwide.
Now lets say they charge the normal $40 USD for the expansion.
$40.00 * 693000 people means they lose... $27,720,000.00 because they refuse to fix the system. And thats taking the low end.
Now those of you who have experience in the video game industry. Say we cut that number to 20 million dollars. Take into account the amount of time and effort it would take to fix just a portion of the current system.
Does it look like it costs them enough money for it to justify fixing the system to the playerbase's satisfaction before release?
This.
And this.
Blizzard simply has someone or a group of people making poor design choices, nothing more. They might have the most talented designers in the world, but they are still making poor choices.
Alright, after reading through everything I feel compelled to concede the argument. I can see the other point of view more clearly, and I realize there is a lot of validity to it. I was indeed wrong. Not wholly, but on the `greater part` of my belief and reasoning(Against specific reasons why B.Net 2.0 is considered inferior). I understand the situation more better and can now agree with many of you.
Wonder when they're going to have to call in Boston Group. Sheesh, loosing 2 million subscribers to WoW (not going to calculate the present value of that loss) and turnover in senior design positions, in addition to failing to meet analyst's projected earning, I have a feeling they'll be calling BGC in soon. It's too bad.
@Yeti434: Go
2 million WoW people lost? From the $15 monthly alone that's $30mil/mo they just lost. Not even counting possible expansions (at $60/exp, that's 120mil/exp).
@EternalWraith: Go
Yes, I will also concede to your point, there are things in BNet 2.0 that are nice. But still, clearly not nice enough, because I have spent more time on WC3 than SC2 since SC2 came out I think. (I've got no exact numbers, but most of what I do on SC2 these days if I even get on is probably attempt another campaign mission on Brutal, and WC3 I'll leave custom maps on overnight to farm something on an rpg.)
In my opinion, the old Battle.net was better.
I can live with the new ui, the real-id thing, the chat channels and whatever inferior iteration of a feature on Bnet 2.0,
BUT the single thing that really pisses me off is the way custom games are being shown/played/hosted.
I used to have great fun with funmaps on wc3, i probably spent more time on fumaps in warcraft 3 than "normal" games.
That experience did not continue with sc2/Battle.net 2.0.
I dont see how original, well made maps, that still only appeal to a small part of the community will have a chance of being played at all with the current
system, that sorts games by popularity. Who the hell is gonna go to page 32 to then host/join a game that will never fill up??
The current solution seems to be a chat channel for every small map to get a slither of chance to be played. But thats rather a solution outside the
system, the same as gathering people over forums.
The fact that maps have to be published on every server-region seperately doesnt help either.
Sorting by "popularity" really was a stupid move. It's difficult to get a game knocked from there because who will play anything BUT those? The filters aren't great either.
It's worse than just published on every server/region. You have to get another game license for that server/region before you can publish there too. If the entire thing went up as one network instead of like 8 "regions" really would work better, because now they have to (VERY) slowly put those regions together.
Were some of them drunk and/or high when they thought of some of this? It looks nice, yeah. Does it DO anything? Pretty picture is nice, yeah, as a picture. We wanted a game. We got more "prettiness" than actual functionality. If someone slapped SC2's in-game engine into SC1 and left it on BNet 1.0 I think we might actually have gotten something better. Yes, it'd need a bit more than just having SC1's menus with SC2's in-map-engine, but that kind of blend would most likely have a good shot at being better than what we got.
Another thing I just remembered that was great in WC3 that they had as an afterthought "Oh, you wanted that?" in SC2. Autosaving replays. Which one of them left THAT out of the drawing board?!? (No, it's not the biggest thing ever. But it was nice. You could just look up that game and see the replay without the need to manually save it first. I don't think it even works with custom maps because "the version might change and not work anymore". Old systems were old, but they worked better in some cases. Save something on a computer? WHUPS! Corrupted. You're screwed. WC3 had a lovely thing that you could save stuff in a text file. Portable, safe. It worked.)
Here's what went wrong: they tried fixing what wasn't broken. *sigh* You don't fix what isn't broken.....
I totally hate the sc2 b.net. Nothing worse than seeing maps I want to play and ... empty lobby. Tried joining Mad Scientist Wars (played once, wanted to play again..and you guys know the story). Also wanted to try out Honorgarde Valley and Runecraft. Empty lobby -> ragequit.
But after watching Husky's video of the lobby system, I realized the old b.net is fundamentally flawed too. It would work nice, if there aren't many people hosting games. But if you have a hundred people hosting new games a minute, it only gives your lobby a few second visiblity. Granted if there's that many people hosting, a few second might be enough to attract a full lobby. But if the system is overran with hosting bots, then we'll have a total failure too.
That brings back to the early days when pouplarity = games played. Mappers were botting like crazy! Even Rodrigo in his videos mentioned botting to boost his map popularity. No doubt many mappers used bots to boost their maps, and they probably got their fans to bot too. Just saying, under old b.net, hosting bots will probably kill the custom community as much as b.net 2.0.