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***Everything stated here is my opinion unless noted and/or cited otherwise. As a progamer for several years now, I have a wealth of personal experience and observation to draw upon. That said, sometimes I have to speculate due to lack of studies/concrete facts.***
This blog will analyze Starcraft's social features and propose solutions for some long term problems.
Initially I wrote an outline of all the social functionality missing from Starcraft 2. As I continued writing and looked into it further, I realized that almost all the social functionality in terms of chat channels and so on is actually in Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 has chat channels with moderation, kicking/banning, custom logos and so on. The primary issues with Starcraft 2's social features are presentation/UI related problems rather than a lack of functionality.
Social features are important for player retention and improving the overall experience. People tend to do what their friends do, whether those are pre-existing friends, or friends made through the game. By improving the social experience, I expect that more people would login to hangout without the express goal of playing.
Out of game social features are more important in Starcraft than in many other popular games for a few reasons. The first is that Starcraft's main gameplay mode, 1v1, is inherently anti-social. Laddering for hours on end is one of the most anti-social experiences I've ever had. There's virtually no time during the games to speak to your opponent, even when playing vs friends, due to the pace of the game. Thus, it's very hard to socialize while actually playing which means the social aspect outside an actual game needs to be stronger to encourage people to stick around before/after ladder sessions.
The second main reason that Starcraft needs social features more than some other games is because the gameplay itself is incredibly stressful and intense. Starting a few minutes into the game, there is basically no downtime to do anything at all until the game ends. Social interaction tends to destress people and would make the whole playing experience more bearable for many.
The experience in Starcraft has always been lonely. Although the addition of groups and chat channels has alleviated that slightly, often logging in to Starcraft feels like being isolated. That said, chat has no place in an actual game of Starcraft 1v1 ladder. There simply isn't enough time or energy to make that happen. So the changes I propose will all be focused on the out of game experience.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, the issue with Starcraft's social features is not their functionality but their presentation and usability. Instead of being thrust into the player's face as one of the primary functions of battle.net as in the original b.net, players must make a specific effort to even engage in the social features.
![[image loading]](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/9/91/Bnet_SC1_Game1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080626210007)
The above screenshot is from Starcraft 1's battle.net. Notice how chat channels cannot be minimized. It is literally impossible to be online without being in some chat channel, even if it's just an empty one that you created. Starcraft 2's approach is similar to being dropped in an MMO in a desert rather than a city. Obviously, the analogy isn't perfect, but the social features should be pushed a bit harder onto the player. If someone doesn't want to use them, that's fine. It's easy enough to close out and put up the social barrier settings, but the majority of people will like being put in a chat channel initially. At least they would know they exist and how they work to some extent.
The hardest part about analyzing all the social features is that they don't appear to be lacking any concrete functionality. Multiple chat windows means you can talk with many people at once easily without being confused no matter what part of the interface you're on. If you could combine multiple chats into a single window that allowed you to tab or /reply or /whisper to decide who specifically you were talking to that might be easier to manage. It's a bit annoying to maintain several low frequency conversations in multiple chat windows.
One of the issues with the chat interface is that here are 3 types of 'chat' things when the functionality could be slightly combined to be simpler. There exist channels, groups and clans. Channels have no moderation or control. Groups have moderation, control, invite/kick/ban etc... Clans have all the same as groups but put a clan tag at the front of your name and you can be in at most 1 clan at a time. The overall experience would be cleaner if channels were merged with groups.
One of the biggest uses for chat channels is forming a hangout spot where people know to return to to find their friends and so on. The problem with regular chat channels is that without moderation, a channel is bound to be overrun by malicious user(s) eventually. It only takes 1 person to ruin a channel. Thus, there is little reason for unmoderated channels to even exist in the first place. An unmoderated chat channel can never be 'home' for long while still allowing for new people to find it and participate. The only unmoderated channels could be the default ones that you are automatically placed in when you log in. Unmoderated channels are throwaway meet up spots.
The group search functionality is really cool. It lets you actually hone in on a specific group without having to know exactly what you're looking for beforehand. The problem is that for a brand new player, they aren't really going to know what to search for. In addition, this functionality is not immediately thrust at them so it may not find some people.
To summarize, Starcraft 2 has virtually all the functionality we could ask for in its social features. The issues have to do with presentation and an abundance of features rather than the functionality itself. New players need to be thrust into the social features more aggressively, because many don't know how to even use them or that they exist. Unmoderated chat channels are not very helpful because they are too vulnerable to malicious users and thus do not easily form a long term meet up spot. Combining chat channels with groups/clans while making the process more omnipresent would help toward making people actually use the features more. Chat channels are important enough that you should be able to join them from any page. Starcraft could benefit from more unified social experience by imposing groups onto players. My parting thought with you is that Starcraft's social features appear to be hard to use and almost hidden within the interface. The fact that I began writing a blog about what features were lacking and ended up realizing part way through that the functionality was not actually lacking can be testament to that.
I had planned this blog for about a week and had mentally written up an outline. I thought I had a good handle on what Starcraft's social features included and what they lacked. Through actually writing down my ideas I realized that Starcraft has basically all the social features we could ask for. Groups and clans do exactly what people want and more. Thus, somewhere in the writing process the blog turned into an analysis of why starcraft still feels so incredibly lonely and isolated which is a harder problem to pin down. Unfortunately, my specialty lies in functionality and more concrete things rather than the presentation and usability.
 
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Are you writing these blogs to refer to on your CV or so?
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Canada11349 Posts
Three years ago? I considered writing on this subject and took two screen shots to illustrate. I don't think I ever wrote on it, but the pictures might be helpful in explaining the issue.
I thought of the UI in terms of a Hub. What is the screen that you go back and forth by default. What is the central room by which you enter all other rooms.
iCCup
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PvXx2Y0.png)
On iCCup chat is the hub. Chat channels are the room by which you must enter all other (multiplayer) rooms. The greatest amount of UI real estate is taken up by people and their chat. To enter any sort of game, you must go back into a room of people (Unless you choose to make your own private channel.) You cannot help but feel that there are people online because you always must pass in and out of the central hub. You need not interact with them, but the UI always places you in a social setting by default. Without even thinking or being intentional you enter a buzzing marketplace or forum of people.
SC2 (Screen shot from Liberty, but I don't think the placement of chat is much different)- if I wasn't feeling lazy, I'd make a new screen shot and write on it in paint...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rtNiu6R.png)
The Hub of SC2 is the menu screen. The Menus screen is the room by which you must enter all other multiplayer rooms. The people are all buried in a tiny corner. You can go from Single Player, to Ladder, to Arcade without seeing a soul beyond your opponent. Rather than passing through a bustling hub, you must intentionally go into a back side office. Or maybe chat is the janitor closet, I don't know. The point is the UI does not revolve around people and chat, it revolves around menus. The architecture of the building is very nice and you can easily get to and from your work, but the building echoes with emptiness. That is unless you go down the side passage to seek out the people.
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I agree with the whole writeup pretty much, but I had a question about this paragraph:
On June 11 2015 00:02 qxc wrote:If you could combine multiple chats into a single window that allowed you to tab or /reply or /whisper to decide who specifically you were talking to that might be easier to manage. It's a bit annoying to maintain several low frequency conversations in multiple chat windows.
Is this design you are proposing similar to the chat in Heroes of the Storm, which is a bit more like WoW's chat and was recently ported to Legacy of the Void beta? If the new chat in LotV/Heroes is not the same as what you proposed, how would you tweak it?
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The problem with Heroes's chat is that there is no option to have multiple windows. What I'm proposing is the ability to consolidate specific chats while maintaining isolation from others. So, I could have a 'personal chat' window where I can hit tab to cycle through all the individuals I'm currently talking with, but there would be no chat channel messages there. Then each chat channel I join would open its own window, that unless specified, maintains only that channel's messages. Hopefully that conveys the idea. It's a bit messy in my head, but that's the jist.
I don't write these for a cv or anything similar. I set a goal for myself when I took a break from Starcraft to maintain weekly blogs. I enjoy writing and discussing topics so I find the whole process enjoyable and by keeping myself to a schedule I actually do them consistently.
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One of the biggest uses for chat channels is forming a hangout spot where people know to return to to find their friends and so on. The problem with regular chat channels is that without moderation, a channel is bound to be overrun by malicious user(s) eventually. It only takes 1 person to ruin a channel. Thus, there is little reason for unmoderated channels to even exist in the first place. An unmoderated chat channel can never be 'home' for long while still allowing for new people to find it and participate. The only unmoderated channels could be the default ones that you are automatically placed in when you log in. Unmoderated channels are throwaway meet up spots.
I take it you never spent any time on U.S. East in )v( or other unmoderated channels?
Unmoderated channels are fine, you can still squelch a malicious user and everything goes on without probs and is definitely the best way for new users to find themselves into groups. The unmoderated channels don't necessarily have to be default ones, those can be moderated.
Overall battle.net 1.0 definitely provides the better social experience and recreating that interface would be so easy and good..
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I definitely agree. I remember on Bnet 1.0 that I often logged in just to discuss with some people who I already know were going to be in the channel. Because they were always there around that time.
Not having a nice social experience is what helped make me stop playing SC2.
I definitely agree that having a preset channel which you join when you start up the game would be a vast improvement to the game.
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On June 11 2015 06:58 qxc wrote:
The problem with Heroes's chat is that there is no option to have multiple windows. What I'm proposing is the ability to consolidate specific chats while maintaining isolation from others. So, I could have a 'personal chat' window where I can hit tab to cycle through all the individuals I'm currently talking with, but there would be no chat channel messages there. Then each chat channel I join would open its own window, that unless specified, maintains only that channel's messages. Hopefully that conveys the idea. It's a bit messy in my head, but that's the jist.
That makes sense, thanks. From what I remember, you can do what you describe in WoW's chat, but it's vastly more configurable than the other games.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
I very much agree. I stopped playing ladder because it was too lonely and hard work.
The only other game I played extensively online was AoE1, which was an intensely social experience and far, far more enjoyable as a result.
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I think the biggest thing that would help the social aspect of sc2 would be near real time public observation games. Allow "delayed" observation for all games played by players ranked in top 8 of every league in a HLTV fashion.
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When I got dragged into playing BW by a friend of mine in 2008, the first thing he told me was to go to a specific bnet channel, where other german noobs were hanging out. It took about 10 minutes to find my first practice partners, I even got coached by a good player over TS that day. All it needed was a simple chat UI, nothing more nothing less.
Chilling in the channel was a huge part of playing BW. You could talk about games, you could hop into a quick custom game, you could ask to observe etc. I know that SC2 also offers those Features, but there are no places to go to.
The chat window is too tiny and due to its size, it's easy to ignore it. In BW, it was impossible to ignore chat, unless you joined an empty channel. The divide between MMR play and custom games is useless. Imho, the whole UI should be unified. ONE big chat window with buttons attached to switch between channels / game modes. The matchmaking Screen may look pretty, but it's basically consisting of a few buttons and lots of nothing.
I don't think we'll ever see a real overhaul of the SC2 interface again. The fact that they've implemented the Heroes chat tells a lot. After the release of LOTV, there'll be some balance patches, and that'll be it. There are so many possiblities, yet None will ever be part of the game. Coaching Features, in-game spectating, a good voice / Video chat plug-in (why no Skype Integration?), etc. SC2 will continue to be a lonely experience, and that's sad.
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On June 11 2015 19:43 eeZe wrote:
I think the biggest thing that would help the social aspect of sc2 would be near real time public observation games. Allow "delayed" observation for all games played by players ranked in top 8 of every league in a HLTV fashion.
So everyone can have a friend obs their game and then know what is going to happen?
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Bisutopia19231 Posts
Having a more ideal chat interface is nice, but that will only be useful to the people currently playing the game. I find it hard to convince any of my gamer friends to jump back into SC2. It's already called "Old" "Same stuff" "Not any different the WoL". How you get people interested in the game again is hard and with the state of LoTV I don't have enough to get people I know re interested.
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The prevalence of seeing (or not seeing) other people chatting, almost regardless of the quality of conversation, makes it FEEL like you're in a hub of activity, rather than a lonely pursuit of ladder grinding... I completely agree with the analyses above 
@BisuDagger, even though chat rooms obviously won't pull anyone back into sc2, the ones you can drag in will be much more likely to feel like the game was 'alive' and has an energy and therefore more likely to stick around (hopefully!)
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On June 11 2015 22:28 Ovid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2015 19:43 eeZe wrote:
I think the biggest thing that would help the social aspect of sc2 would be near real time public observation games. Allow "delayed" observation for all games played by players ranked in top 8 of every league in a HLTV fashion. So everyone can have a friend obs their game and then know what is going to happen?
I think I said delayed.
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Do you REALLY want chat channels ?
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You mention that ladder in 1v1 for hours makes you antisocial? Are you going to go kill some people or what? As far as I know, SC2 isn't violent enough to make anyone antisocial. In fact, there are numerous studies showing how video games dont make people into killers.
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I think you're way too harsh on unmoderated channels.
iirc Blizzard's response to the original criticism when new bnet came out was something like "why would you want to talk to other people?" or at least something like why would you talk to people you don't already know.
And the idea there is that the internet is full of jerkoffs and annoying people who have dumb conversations, and talking to them is a waste of time and maybe you'll spend a whole hour arguing about politics with a troll.
But my answer to that is "so what?" It's not that bad. Yeah, there were channels on old bnet full of spam bots that just make it impossible to talk. And there's always people who are super rude and offensive. But a couple of bad apples doesn't stop people who want to have a good conversation or play the game or whatever from doing it. Making a new channel is dead simple, and for the entire existence of Bnet Blizzard Chat 1 and Public Chat 1 were completely usable.
Original Bnet's moderated channels frequently just became weird and tiny, because no fresh faces are likely to come around. They're alright if you have like 4 people you want to chat with, they're no good long term and you shouldn't only talk to the same 4 people all the time anyway.
I think the real plague of the internet comes out when the chat is secondary to something else, like a video stream or an article. That's when it's all throw aways and no one is there to actually meet people (and you would be crazy to). But for the most part people kind of normalize when they're having a conversation and not just throwing comments into the void.
BNET2 is definitely aggressively trying to protect people from the internet experience. Maybe that helps their PR and maybe it even helps the image of gamers when you can't sign into a gaming portal only to read hate speech as soon as you log in. But at the same time it deprives you of those opportunities to meet people who don't suck as well.
On June 13 2015 01:32 swag_bro wrote:
You mention that ladder in 1v1 for hours makes you antisocial? Are you going to go kill some people or what? As far as I know, SC2 isn't violent enough to make anyone antisocial. In fact, there are numerous studies showing how video games dont make people into killers.
Antisocial != sociopath. Also I think he says that 1v1 sc2 laddering is antisocial, not makes you antisocial.
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Im always auto connected to bunch of channels.
To me its weird that somebody isnt 
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Seriously, add full-screen chat channels back, there's so much wasted real-estate in their current UI.
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So many times I enter a chat channel that's "full" and it's around 80% people who are away, or busy, or who don't want to be disturbed or whatever. I can be in a "full" chat channel that only has half a dozen active people in it, and it seems that chat channels fill up very quickly. Does anyone else get that vibe? It doesn't seem to me like it'd be that hard to drastically increase the maximum limit of players in any given chat channel.
I remember when WOL first came out, people tended to describe the new Battlenet as "sterile." Still a fitting descriptor, I think.
The craziest thing was how Bnet 2.0 was when the game was first released. Remember a time with no chat channels? And as an arcade mapmaker, having a combination of no chat channels and no open games list made it so that the only way to get people to test your game was to enter an existing game and hijack the lobby chat in an attempt to sell your game like a greasy salesman! Crazy. At least that's gotten a bit better.
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Apparently you have not logged onto Broodwar lately...you might change your mind about wanting to be immediately imbued into a chat "experience." It consists mostly of bots that try to get you into clans or some other annoying message, spammed endlessly without remorse. Also, you failed to explain WHY social features would allow the game to succeed more...you state that people would want to "hang out" and not even play the game (is this really what you want?). Does Hearthstone even allow players to interact with each other at all?...yet I consistently see it at the top of Twitch games. Make friends and play 2's, get on skype = all is well.
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United States4883 Posts
On June 11 2015 00:02 qxc wrote:
One of the biggest uses for chat channels is forming a hangout spot where people know to return to to find their friends and so on. The problem with regular chat channels is that without moderation, a channel is bound to be overrun by malicious user(s) eventually. It only takes 1 person to ruin a channel. Thus, there is little reason for unmoderated channels to even exist in the first place. An unmoderated chat channel can never be 'home' for long while still allowing for new people to find it and participate. The only unmoderated channels could be the default ones that you are automatically placed in when you log in. Unmoderated channels are throwaway meet up spots.
I'm onboard with everything you said except for this. I come from a WC3 background, and personally, I had a lot of fun with being able to arbitrarily get into any chat channel I wanted with friends (or to hide from people I didn't want to talk to); the big long-term meet-up spots where public clan channels like Clan Naoc and Clan Rice and such, and those were moderated. To try and make everything moderated limits the amount of chat channels you can actually have, and thereby reduces the freedom of the user. I don't think it's necessary to enforce good behavior in public chat channels, and I'd rather have a system which allows plenty of room for the user to maneuver around toxic users.
Interestingly enough, SC2 avoids all of these problems by making P2P interaction basically nonexistent :p.
P.S. Sidenote on clans: I feel like clans really have no purpose at all in SC2. It just feels like another in-game chat with people I already have added on Skype. It's not like in WC3 where having a clan meant you had your very own moderated chat channel where you could meet up with clan members and friends and enjoy a peaceful setting with your own rules. Again, making all groups moderated would prevent this sort of drive to create clans and make them ever more obsolete than they already are.
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One concept I had was for Blizzard to have a weekly replay contest and to feature this game in the SC2 interface somehow. Like, we all know that Blizzard is not usually capable of doing something like this because the spotlighted arcade and news sections tend to be out of date (afaik), but I think this could easily be near-automated and done reliably. Possibly you could search for other people to watch the replay with together, and there might be a comment section after the replay where people could discuss strategy or complain about balance.
Just little things like this (I know it's a lot of work to implement) would have done wonders for SC2's social experience imo. People might get excited about their games because they could submit them to this contest etc.
This idea is somewhat based on chess servers, where you have a problem-of-the-day or game-of-the-day people can discuss.
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Another concept I want to have in the game is the ability to challenge your opponent after a defeat. I don't usually allow this when playing chess, but sometimes I do and it encourages you to start discussions or interactions with your opponent that might eventually lead to friendship or clan invites and such. Something else which exists on chess servers is a tab dedicated to the top-game being played at the moment, essentially the game by the two highest rated players, with its own chat channel where people can discuss the game. Again, just two examples from what is strictly a 1v1 game where people nevertheless have the option to interact with each other.
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New lotv chat system is just horrible.
You cant copy from the chat.
All chat windows are now in the same window. Its horrible....
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SC1 bnet was just so good and captivating the social experience. The thousands of nights we just spent hanging out chatting or playing are really a big part of my life. I just can't possibly feel the same about the way bnet currently works. I don't think it is nostalgia at all because I don't see any of the young gamers who never used the old bnet have such an experience. We are nearly 20 years later.
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On June 15 2015 22:13 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
SC1 bnet was just so good and captivating the social experience. The thousands of nights we just spent hanging out chatting or playing are really a big part of my life. I just can't possibly feel the same about the way bnet currently works. I don't think it is nostalgia at all because I don't see any of the young gamers who never used the old bnet have such an experience. We are nearly 20 years later.
I think we would make all the same assertion; however, a few people raised a few good points. You join any of the public b.net channels or let's just say logging in. If you aren't using a bot to run your channel or what have you end up in lets say USEAST - 1 and it's all bots spamming. That isn't to say some countries didn't have good hang out spots. Like Chile for example. All those guys were so close nit they usually just hung out in no. 1. So yes it has its perks but most people never knew about channels like rekrul on West, or Toyland or whatever channels you want to add heh.
We could definitely use more tools as well to help navigate prestigious channels/busy ones. Just another good feature to add and I agree with the other guy. Sounds like qxc is trying to get recruited with all these blogs heh.
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Pretty much what I've been saying for years. Not dropping players into chat rooms upon login was Bnet 2.0's biggest mistake.
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I think more emphasis on the social side of this game cannot be a bad thing. Like you said, 1v1 is not conducive to communication. We need something that brings the community together outside of the ladder. Something that rewards community building or (positive) social interaction is sorely needed.
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 15 2015 22:13 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
The thousands of nights we just spent hanging out chatting or playing are really a big part of my life... I don't see any of the young gamers who never used the old bnet have such an experience. We are nearly 20 years later. I relate totally and furthermore have to add that I crave for this to happen again <3 !
Hate to sound my age but kids don't know how easy they have it, It was such a potent experience because the people were different not to mention the times were different. So while I wholeheartedly agree that bnet 1 > bnet 2, I however think the sc2 user base is really treated to a lot for the initial cost.
Blizzard still releases the editor, they opened the arcade and CUSTOMS MAPS are more present than ever before (not present as in a huge amount of people host them, but the tools (what blizz's thing is) are there).
HOSTING has disappeared! That is also a great clue as to what is going on / different from bnet1.
The players are too much in the now, too much privy to their own inadequacies and thriving on avoiding to ever confront them for real.
A community of starcraft 2 will arise like the sc1 did (who's to say who that will comprise right now is moot, I'll be there, I know it! Will YOU be is the relevant thing to ask yourself!). We are not at this point yet (even though the starbow outside ladder says it is possible for it to be "more" happening right now! RIGHT THIS MINUTE).
WE are sc, the fact that you "everything ez for me 2015 kids" let win/lose ratio disappear is the most obvious symptom I guess. WE are the game, we who spent thousands of hours thinking/feeling/living sc.
Please, the $ argumentation is moot, we are the game, and YOU let it escape your grasp because you don't know better.
In a time when windows is offering free stuff, in a time when china stops forbidding its citizen to make kids.. we have no time to lose.
All the tools are there.. so I'd like to say to
..all those bw whiners: sc2bw is here and YOU can add to it, make it crystalin pure! Make it so alive that blizz would feel even more embarrassed by it to the point that they would give us the keys to use their platform.+ Show Spoiler +YOU can make it happen, no petty excuses, just do it.
.. to all those iccup nostalgics: a separate sc2 ladder is do-able TODAY!
.. all sc lovers: never let the turkeys keep you down! sc will prevail!!!
Edit: + Show Spoiler [TLDR] +You kids have it too easy for your own good.
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I totally remember when the BW chat had trivia night or something like that where you had to guess which unit says the certain quote. If you get the right unit, you would win "bnet $" as your score indicator.
Sure, it's fluff, but sometimes, small things like these can really lighten the mood. So, it would be great, if the chat room interface was immediately accessible when you first start up battle.net.
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On June 19 2015 03:33 hansonslee wrote:
I totally remember when the BW chat had trivia night or something like that where you had to guess which unit says the certain quote. If you get the right unit, you would win "bnet $" as your score indicator.
Sure, it's fluff, but sometimes, small things like these can really lighten the mood. So, it would be great, if the chat room interface was immediately accessible when you first start up battle.net.
Nothing that a well rounded third party website linked to a custom mod community map pool on sc2 couldn't fix!
+ Show Spoiler [Rant?] +When I was young, + Show Spoiler [Why spoiler?] + and yes I do spoiler out of habit, people who profess to not reading can then not accuse me of taking too much of their time/forum screen space, from where I am sitting at any rate. we didn't have the luxury of making excuses when it came to computer or lan organization/logistics. In order to have a 24 hour week end of fun on sc or age quake bond footcha'ball etc, we bought extra hardware.. just in case. We had several rooms and threw stuff on the walls when the virtual fights were at their paroxysm.. + Show Spoiler +. The freedom from going from board to code was intoxicating. + Show Spoiler [More] + I can see why my kid would want soon to stop using legos, and that would be too far.. I would not let it get there.
Sculpting a map or using lego to shape a battle field is the same but different, he must do both for different results, but both! But other things were at work, and they seem to still be present to this day... People's inadequacies tend to keep them from what they will eventually get (this is making the callous assumption that everyone concerned or to whom it would "be/feel applicable to" would harbor at least a wish if not a calling)! Sc is an essence of an idea. RTS just like many other challenging things is a weird "medium", because it ultimately is not made to be in just "one" form (one platform, one concept, one game...). C and C, rage of the vam pires, sc .. who cares? The whole idea is that if the player is given all the parameters of the gameplay (all the things like "scourge can't attack ground units") at the start and that this start be deemed "fair", then real time strategy can ensue. Moreover, a series (best of 7 comes to mind) of games would determine skill. This (honestly) due to some cracks in the "unbalanced" and "imbalanced" safety net surrounding the engine. And indeed, besides blizzard's imba defender credo + Show Spoiler +a sad relic that makes all blizz game favor the defender) that is what the sc2 experience manages. Lotv seems less pure than hots (certainly less than sc2bw) while starbow is clearly exposing the gap in fun provided by hots and lotv. No diktat says that is how it should/will be forever, sc will prevail! + Show Spoiler [tldr:] +#Chill!
#No one is in control!
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chat channels made BW community one of the best of all games, because of chat channels we have gosugamers, teamliquid, and all the other great sites that were made by a bunch of friends that loved the game...
most of my best friends irl are people i meet in b.net channels playing bw togheter for years, now after like 12 years we are like a family. Because of that i hate to see what blizzard did with sc2, such a great project, a huge fan base and they fucked it up in less than 4 years...
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Hey Kevin,
I've been working on this aspect of the game a lot. I made this post on teamliquid to about how to improve the interface to better help community interaction and to develop the clan ladder.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/488611-community-development-in-3-key-areas
I agree with you the social aspect is difficult to work with in sc2. The way its designed, the social aspects are off in a corner, while the base game is not really designed for it. I wanted to have a whole tab just dedicated to this aspect of the game. There are a lot of custom pictures in the tab, so take time to see what you like and don't like. I'd really like to hear your opinion.
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EPT
