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I'm a bit ocd about interfaces. I analyze everything from cars, televisions, microwaves, and so on. My brain feeds on trying to make things more efficient, more logical in their use. Things that are distinctly unique and a treat to use are simply satisfying to me.
When SC2 launched, there wasn't anything too special about the UI. It worked for what it needed to do - guide people to the single player, and then relatively quick access to the multiplayer ladder. Indeed, little time wasted with all of two clicks, you could be fighting your way to the top of your ladder.
But not all people played SC2 for the ladder. Some exclusively played custom games, of which SC2 has completely fucked over these players since the game has launch. The game offered players extremely limited control in finding and joining custom games. You could not 'name' a game to attract specific types of players, for example, if you wanted to play vs terran players only in a melee custom, or try to get just new players for a TD game so you don't feel embarrassed, or worst, verbally attacked in the game for not knowing how to play.
Perhaps worst yet was the Popularity system that Blizzard has used, in which only the most played custom games appear at the front a very clunky, multi-page list of sorts, leaving authors of new custom games literally in the dust as players simply do not see the game listed to choose from.
Along comes patch 1.5 in which Blizzard introduces the 'Arcade' system which promises to evolve the SC2 ui.
Recently I tried to find a specific TPW melee map to play on and had to navigate my way around this new UI.
o. m. f. g.
Allow me to nitpick. And I going to fucking nitpick to the point where you will be annoyed. Just warning you from here.
The Launcher
Prior to 1.5, the patcher would run silently prior to launching the actual game to check for updates. Silent, seamless, it just works. With 1.5 comes a new launcher which is anything but.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Bbo5m.jpg)
What exactly was the point of forcing players to launch the game a second time after hitting the icon on their desktop? Sure, 'recent news', I use that term loosely, is displayed on this launcher. Right, do you expect me to read the same 'recent news', which can end up being weeks old news, every god damn time I launch the game? Its so completely frivolous and frustrating for me.
You know, I just installed CS:GO. Many of you have used Steam and are very aware of all the content and potential pop-up windows that Steam can throw at you. But if I want to just play CSGO, I can double click the icon and jump right into the game, no steam bullshit involved (aside from a short auto-login). Like. Seriously blizzard?
The Abyssal Plains
Abyssal plain. No, this is not an Act from Diablo. Its the flat, featureless, and boring part of the ocean first screen you see when you enter SC2.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ktfEw.jpg)
Seriously what the fuck am I looking at here. Why do I need to see this. There is nothing here. This is the most useless piece of shit I've ever seen in a game ui. I don't even.
Maybe for people buying SC2 for the first time, that button in the bottom left is important to them. But then they could also use that ginormous button in the top left too to get the single player. Oh, there's more news here I guess. Great, at least this is the actual recent news. Sitting all by itself in that little fucking window in the middle of fuck nowhere. This thing is embarrassing. Whoever designed this - no, whoever hired the person who designed this needs to be seriously fired, like, right now.
The Clusterfuck of Fuckclustery
So you want to play single player. Alright! But wait, why play single player, when you can also play multiplayer?! And multiplayer custom games. And the multiplayer arcade. What a complete fucking clusterfuck.
Let's just think about this for, you know, even one minute. You give the player the option to jump right into the campaign screen from the welcome screen. You also give the player this option to play the campaign from that big starcraft menu. And the starcraft screen is where you can jump into the multiplayer mode, but there is no button on the welcome screen to jump into the multiplayer mode? The most used part of the game? But there is for the campaign, all of which you may only play a handful of times (for the different difficulty levels)?
Oh, we're on a roll. Let's not stop now.
Remember those poor custom game users? Ah, well, there's the custom games button!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X1uNt.jpg)
Lets go play som- nope. wut. Just seems to be all melee maps. Well okay. I'll play me some wonderful TPW maps.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BGMVz.jpg)
LOL NO SRIES.
Why the fuck is no TPW maps showing up yet this non-blizzard MLG map is there.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qmZD5.jpg)
Where could it be? Nowhere else but the Arcade, off we go!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/49WfI.jpg)
wtf. where are the melee maps?
Maybe if I search ...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ndWz5.jpg)
holy fuck a doodle finally.
In Conclusion
There have many threads in the past, prior to 1.5, criticizing the SC2 UI by comparing it to more modern examples, most notably Dota 2. People offered some pretty nifty alternatives, and the cryout seemed to inspire blizzard to try to do something new with 1.5. Holy. Fuck. How is it humanly possible to regress so far in interface design?
At least they had the heart to include keyboard shortcuts so we don't have to deal with this complete and utter shit.
Some other SC2 UI threads if you haven't seen them:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=321060
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=204977
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=309051
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=357573
Thanks for reading.
 
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Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said...
Doubt they will do anything about it though, until hots, which probably won't be much better.
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I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares.
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First off, you can hotkey menus now so you can go directly to multiplayer for instance, in one click. The arcade features mainly mods, custom games are for normal SC2 play and they have now separated the two better.
I agree that the layouts can suck but the overall useability is much better than before imo
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On August 27 2012 09:18 Jacobe wrote:
I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares.
Blizzard cares so little that they constantly work on SC2. If the reason you don't play sc2 is because of the battle.net interface then you've kinda missed the point of a video game, its about the gameplay. If you left because you thought it was a bad game, then fair enough but there isn't another RTS out there (apart from BW and WC3 ofc) that is a tenth as good as SC2.
So these better games you have gone on to must be in a different genre and thus maybe RTS isn't for you. On a related note, if you've stopped playing then why take the time to post on a Starcraft dedicated forum?
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On August 27 2012 09:23 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 09:18 Jacobe wrote:
I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares. Blizzard cares so little that they constantly work on SC2. If the reason you don't play sc2 is because of the battle.net interface then you've kinda missed the point of a video game, its about the gameplay. If you left because you thought it was a bad game, then fair enough but there isn't another RTS out there (apart from BW and WC3 ofc) that is a tenth as good as SC2. So these better games you have gone on to must be in a different genre and thus maybe RTS isn't for you. On a related note, if you've stopped playing then why take the time to post on a Starcraft dedicated forum?
Because TL is a mature and friendly community. Right?
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United States3304 Posts
On August 27 2012 09:18 Jacobe wrote:
I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares.
So you quit playing the game, not because the gameplay is bad or unsatisfactory, but because you don't think they're taking their UI in the right direction? Hell, I haven't liked a few of the Xbox dashboard UI updates but I'm not about to sell all my games because of it.
To the OP, you're probably right that it's less than satisfactory, but a few notes:
-To casual players, the campaign probably IS the most significant feature of the game, thus the prominent role in the UI. They have a lot of blank space, but that comes from the minimalist approach they seem to have taken with their recent UI's; SC1 had buttons all over the place and a bunch of text on screen, but SC2 and Diablo 3 seem to be trying to cut back on that.
-To less casual players, they should probably figure out pretty quickly that you should navigate menus by F keys, not by buttons. That is, don't click on Starcraft and then select Matchmaking; just hit F2. So the whole "Oh no, it's 2 clicks to get to the Find Match button!" thing isn't all that significant. Ordinarily forcing people to navigate menus with keyboard shortcuts isn't good UI design, but Starcraft players are much more likely to want to do exactly that. No one actually clicks on the menu at top left and then selects "surrender," they just hit F10 + N.
-Blizzard has apparently decided to call private custom games "Custom Games," and call public custom games "Arcade." That'll probably confuse people a little at first, which is bad design, obviously. But once you figure out to actually use the Arcade button instead of the Custom Games interface, the new Arcade interface for custom games is a pretty big improvement. All things considered I'd consider the new UI better for playing custom games, and most people who just want to ladder probably don't care that much.
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@OP
Yep 
Pretty sure most newbies in their first useability class could do better than this.
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The UI seems pretty awesome to me.
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On August 27 2012 09:35 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 09:18 Jacobe wrote:
I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares. So you quit playing the game, not because the gameplay is bad or unsatisfactory, but because you don't think they're taking their UI in the right direction? Hell, I haven't liked a few of the Xbox dashboard UI updates but I'm not about to sell all my games because of it. To the OP, you're probably right that it's less than satisfactory, but a few notes: -To casual players, the campaign probably IS the most significant feature of the game, thus the prominent role in the UI. They have a lot of blank space, but that comes from the minimalist approach they seem to have taken with their recent UI's; SC1 had buttons all over the place and a bunch of text on screen, but SC2 and Diablo 3 seem to be trying to cut back on that. -To less casual players, they should probably figure out pretty quickly that you should navigate menus by F keys, not by buttons. That is, don't click on Starcraft and then select Matchmaking; just hit F2. So the whole "Oh no, it's 2 clicks to get to the Find Match button!" thing isn't all that significant. Ordinarily forcing people to navigate menus with keyboard shortcuts isn't good UI design, but Starcraft players are much more likely to want to do exactly that. No one actually clicks on the menu at top left and then selects "surrender," they just hit F10 + N. -Blizzard has apparently decided to call private custom games "Custom Games," and call public custom games "Arcade." That'll probably confuse people a little at first, which is bad design, obviously. But once you figure out to actually use the Arcade button instead of the Custom Games interface, the new Arcade interface for custom games is a pretty big improvement. All things considered I'd consider the new UI better for playing custom games, and most people who just want to ladder probably don't care that much.
Pretty sure custom games are the most important feature of the game.
UMS was the lifeblood of BW for casual fans.
Problem is that the Bnet UI (old and new) has absolutely destroyed the potential for an active custom map fanbase to grow in SC2.
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United States10342 Posts
should've just made it like a BW styled 
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On August 27 2012 12:23 FlaShFTW wrote:
should've just made BW
that's better.
but in all serious, bw was impossible to navigate for someone that didn't know what they were doing. even this is better.
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United States3304 Posts
On August 27 2012 12:00 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2012 09:35 ChristianS wrote:On August 27 2012 09:18 Jacobe wrote:
I doubt anything will be done about it ever. Thus I've left SC2 for better games where the developer actually cares. So you quit playing the game, not because the gameplay is bad or unsatisfactory, but because you don't think they're taking their UI in the right direction? Hell, I haven't liked a few of the Xbox dashboard UI updates but I'm not about to sell all my games because of it. To the OP, you're probably right that it's less than satisfactory, but a few notes: -To casual players, the campaign probably IS the most significant feature of the game, thus the prominent role in the UI. They have a lot of blank space, but that comes from the minimalist approach they seem to have taken with their recent UI's; SC1 had buttons all over the place and a bunch of text on screen, but SC2 and Diablo 3 seem to be trying to cut back on that. -To less casual players, they should probably figure out pretty quickly that you should navigate menus by F keys, not by buttons. That is, don't click on Starcraft and then select Matchmaking; just hit F2. So the whole "Oh no, it's 2 clicks to get to the Find Match button!" thing isn't all that significant. Ordinarily forcing people to navigate menus with keyboard shortcuts isn't good UI design, but Starcraft players are much more likely to want to do exactly that. No one actually clicks on the menu at top left and then selects "surrender," they just hit F10 + N. -Blizzard has apparently decided to call private custom games "Custom Games," and call public custom games "Arcade." That'll probably confuse people a little at first, which is bad design, obviously. But once you figure out to actually use the Arcade button instead of the Custom Games interface, the new Arcade interface for custom games is a pretty big improvement. All things considered I'd consider the new UI better for playing custom games, and most people who just want to ladder probably don't care that much. Pretty sure custom games are the most important feature of the game. UMS was the lifeblood of BW for casual fans. Problem is that the Bnet UI (old and new) has absolutely destroyed the potential for an active custom map fanbase to grow in SC2.
I don't think custom games are the most important feature by any measure (assuming custom games refers to UMS). Most people still buy their video games first for campaign gameplay, and then for the multiplayer. So casual players will usually buy SC2 and play the campaign, then try some games against computers and/or ladder/practice matches. After that they either a) get motivated to master the game, and ladder a lot, b) get stressed out and move to UMS games because they're more fun/lower pressure, or c) get intimidated and quit playing SC2 entirely. Option a is least common, but those guys tend to play more; option b is more common, but those players are often very casual, and option c is (based on my experience, which is admittedly anecdotal) probably most common of all.
By the way, UMS is by no means dead in SC2. Almost immediately after release I started checking out some of the UMS games available, and there were some good ones. Nexus Wars seemed to have the most popularity and staying potential. Team Monobattles on Megaton was also very popular after a while. Who knows what's popular now; it didn't change very fast because popular games tended to stay popular because they were at the top of the list, but it changed sometimes. And the new UI does make it much easier for new maps to overcome the popularity feedback loop and break into the scene. More importantly, the SC2 mapmaker is a more powerful tool than that of WC3, and WAY more powerful than that of BW.
Blizzard's even talked about introducing a way for mapmakers to charge money for using their UMS maps. I'm not sure how I feel about it as a customer, but as a mapmaker, that will definitely add a lot of attraction to the SC2 UMS scene.
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I whole heartly agree with you OP. The UI seems OKish when I tend to go on ladder grind, but for custom match, it is pain in the ass. Like wtf, why is there a custom match in STARCRAFT section if there are only ladder maps and etc crap maps.They should have named it something else such as "Non-Ranked". That would have fitted better IMO.
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On August 27 2012 13:57 9-BiT wrote:that's better. but in all serious, bw was impossible to navigate for someone that didn't know what they were doing. even this is better.
what in godsname are you talking about? Bw and wc3 had the easiest to navigate UI's ever build.
If you get confused between 'channel', 'friends', 'create', 'join', 'leagues' and 'quit', I don't know what to tell you. lmao
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EPT
