Battle.net has been a key element in Blizzard's past success by keeping a loyal captive market. A free service and a healthy competition environment have been the ideal tools to foster the use and popularity of Battle.net. The two current alternatives have not managed to replace their original ladder. The number of Battle.net users has not grown despite the addition of new games, even if we include South Korea (the largest group of battle.net users) as it should have. The current service of their servers dedicated to StarCraft gives the appearance of lack of care and sloppiness.
When it comes to Blizzard, die fan hard and all, I always tried to stay on the Zen path and let them have it when they merited it but I failed most of the time since I have being at heart a passionate fan of their products and company. I have been for the most part biased even when I delude myself that I am criticizing them. Nevertheless I have been relatively benign for quite a while, so it is time now to stir up the rabble again, and recover the middle path.
So what is up with Battle.net for us StarCraft users? Exactly why do some games made, seem to never disappear for months? Is it a server bug? Or is it a new form of pointless abuse? Why the increasing numbers of "too many server requests" or "latency too high" notices when our numbers have not essentially changed? Why do I get a straight " Go to Jail " trip every time I press the current Battle.net ladder option? Why still no ladder still? Who is in charge of up-keeping Battle.net? Is it a one man team? They are against private servers in general, particularly if they are commercial, and yet every single successful private server has been because it had a successful ladder. They have three choices: to offer a decent ladder at Battle.net with a more aggressive anti-piracy/anti-abuse/cheating stance, or openly allow private servers to run commercially run ladders, and last but not least, perpetuate their current state of stagnation. With the first two they retain their loyal captive market, with the last option they lose it gradually as they have been doing.
How hard can it be to provide us with a decent ladder? We did it and almost on no resources and minimal man power. Why delegate the task to multiple partners all of which have no community support and have failed? The WCG Zone should have worked, but it was launched before it was ready. The initially bugs and initial difficulties turned almost everyone away. It was simply too complicated for many. They are backed by ICM/Smasung, offer decent prize money but somehow they missed the formula. I asked Fifo editor-in-chief why has WCG Zone not become successful in South Korea, his answer was a phlegamitc "no comment."
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their achievements were running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
Most of us have been patient waiting for Blizzard, and in the meanwhile buying most of their games. We complain every now and then but very few actually ever complain in a sensible matter even though if the occasional good points are raised. Check for example this latest rant by PepsiVsCoke, at Battle.net forums. The classic battle.boy angst outburst? Or calculated rude rant in hopes for reaction. No doubt we have been spoiled in that past and a culture of endowment has grown but even after 6 years of asking for a no cheating environment, or something close to it, and a decent ladder, nothing much as changed. I guess we should be content with what we have but it is aspiring for more, that makes us all better. It just kills me to see old games like CS keep growing and growing, that have no private server restrictions, dominating e-Sports outside South Korea. I love Blizzard, there I said it, but I want more, so sue me.
Battle.net is holy ground for Blizzard or at least it should be. It is the main reason, after making top quality games, of their massive success every time the publish a new title. The have a golden captive market that has remained loyal. Who? Battle.net users. The total numbers of Battle.net users, despite the addition of new games, has not grown as it should have. StarCraft specifically in the West has shrunk to a mere 17% (or less) of total StarCraft users (who are generally about a shrinking third of total Battle.net users). It is a free service after all and all its games are enjoyable. Why then the lack of growth?
Battle.net should always be running smoothly and it should be always with a limited and contained amount of abuse. Why? To keep their captive market happy and growing, to keep their games succesful and of course to keep selling their products. At least from a historical perspective but then, then came WoW. WoW has its own servers. Now they have a new captive market, far greater than all its previous games combined. Are we doomed? From a business perspective, and of course as a customer too, I still think it is well worth their money to continue up-keeping and servicing their old games with the same quality they run their newest products.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy, PepsiVsCoke.
Jesus christ, this is like...awesome. <3<3<3 Entropy! :D
Well I finish reading it, and I must say I am 100% with you. It is a shame that they are just not DOING anything against our bad and laggy servers, against hackers, against abuse and more. I really, really, want Blizzard to release a Ladder, where we all can play, to clean up the servers, and to Please, have a good amount of people to take care of our stuff.
I laughed when I saw PepsiVsCoke post, "Veta" tried to play the smart guy on the thread, and came up with some stupid shit..."Play games that take real skill like War3 or D2". Ha..Ha...Ha...Way to make me laugh.
We really, should get organized and invade the fuck out of Battle.net forums so they finally pay attention to us, and to What WE want.
Well Bnet for SC is so old now with no major revisions(The last one being the server split I guess, anyone remember how painful it was to have to log on 20 times back in the day to get on the same server with your friends?)
The lag issue is pretty inexcuseable, could be very easily fixed. I think Blizzard just never really had long term plans for SC being such a popular game and basically anyone who still plays are the ones who suffer for it.
HOWEVER basically no other RTS(That i have played) does it better than SC except for WC3. Its actually pretty sad when a big name RTS comes out and uses Gamespy as its matchmaking service, haaa.
Well, Im just thankful that they still support multiplayer this long. I cant think of another game company that supports their games more than Blizzard. Id like some of the changes you mentioned, but theyre mostly minor annoyances. The functionality of Battle.net is still there.
read somewhere in an old article that battle.net for starcraft/diablo/warcraft, etc, makes "decent" money through their advertising, so it's not like blizzard is putting any extra money in to keep it up
If you compare the support that blizzard gives to its games,it goes like this:
WoW: WC3 D2 LOD . . . . . . . Starcraft.
Like anybody else have said, if we had a ladder type like WC3 has, i believe much of us would be very very content, and the community would grow.
I think the community is dying mainly because there is no ladder to play. There are a lot of events, but they're really for entertainment and do not bring new users to play. People are getting frustrated of not finding games (like myself) constantly. Yes, i know, there are channels like clan x17, op tot), op tl-west blabla, yet if you want to go mass gaming, it is almost impossible, and more over, you are lucky if you find someone about your level.
Most people level are either very good players, or very newb
eh, blizzard still is a business, and they are out to make money. i agree with you and all, but i can definitlely understand why they'd focus on their newer (more people buying) games than they would on the now 8 year old starcraft. plus, it's not like they've forgotten sc.. blizzcon? sandlot?
I don't know what you're complaining about. The amount of money that Blizzard invests into Starcraft right now (something) is far greater than the amount of money that they get out of it currently (nothing). Witness Sandlot and patches 8 years after the game is released. Eight years! How many other companies do that? They do more than should be expected.
Well, after bnet is gone we will at least still have TL.
But even though bnet is a business and they are in it to make money, they still need to maintain their communities as happy as possible, so they would be kept faithful and buy blizzard games. How many of us would buy SC2 as of right now? That is some money in the future they would not want to loose.
On November 25 2006 16:54 azndsh wrote: "The amount of money that Blizzard invests into Starcraft right now (something) is far greater than the amount of money that they get out of it currently (nothing)."
That is not true. When something does not make any more money, you won't see it sold for 20 bucks at Wallmart. You think South Korean pro-gaming industry and TV gaming channels does not pay any copyrights for televising their images, or South Korean business don't pay anything when they sell a bag of potate chips with a battlecruiser stamped on them?
But even if you are misled into thinking they are not making money with it, or deluded into thinking no money is made with advertising of their own games and others - you still missed only reason I claimed was the main reason they should keep Battle.net healthy: that we stay there, keep gaming their games and of course buying their newer games.
On November 25 2006 13:51 Physician wrote: Battle.net & its current state
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their tract history is running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy , PepsiVsCoke.
Do not use TL for your hating against WGT ^^
Beside of that a lot going on with Blizz is true, but it is not that none tried and still try to change that
On November 25 2006 16:54 azndsh wrote: "The amount of money that Blizzard invests into Starcraft right now (something) is far greater than the amount of money that they get out of it currently (nothing)."
That is not true. When something does not make any more money, you won't see it sold for 20 bucks at Wallmart. You think South Korean pro-gaming industry and TV gaming channels does not pay any copyrights for televising their images, or South Korean business don't pay anything when they sell a bag of potate chips with a battlecruiser stamped on them?
But even if you are misled into thinking they are not making money with it, or deluded into thinking no money is made with advertising of their own games and others - you still missed only reason I claimed was the main reason they should keep Battle.net healthy: that we stay there, keep gaming their games and of course buying their newer games.
Well, if you seriously think that they should put some more effort into improving and fixing bnet so that it will affect their current business, or that it will entice gamers to buy their new games, perhaps you could use your business prowess to start your own company and stuff. Because making bnet better will influence more people to buy SC2 when it comes out. You know like 90% of TL will have their hands on SC2 two days within its release.
On November 25 2006 13:51 Physician wrote: Battle.net & its current state
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their tract history is running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy , PepsiVsCoke.
Do not use TL for your hating against WGT ^^
Beside of that a lot going on with Blizz is true, but it is not that none tried and still try to change that
Now he is "using" tl.net to "hate wgtour".. lol.. piss off ilvy. I am glad he posts here. Ordering him to shut up? Seems to me ur proving his point about the staff harrasment. i like every point he made except maybe the one about loving blizzard.
Does SC really matter to Blizzard that much anymore? I mean they must be making millions of WoW, the vast majority of taskforce is dedicated to WoW users and the game. No matter how supportive a company may be for its fans, its first priority will be more money. Let's say SC had absolutely no bugs whatsoever, a working ladder system, et cetera all functioning, causing much more fans to have remained loyal to this point. Thats a (few hundred thousand loyal users + new game buyers) x SC2 and expansion set - development cost and maintenance cost, which probably isn't worth making even with the large amount of users because of WoW, which makes around say $10m USD a month from the subscription fees alone?
We should be content with the fact that they even fixed the hatchery bug and still have Battle.net available to us. I'm suprised Battle.net's SC population was 17%, much more than I thought.
On November 25 2006 13:51 Physician wrote: Battle.net & its current state
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their tract history is running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy , PepsiVsCoke.
Do not use TL for your hating against WGT ^^
Beside of that a lot going on with Blizz is true, but it is not that none tried and still try to change that
Ilvy is right, he's using TL.net to show hatred towards WGTour also. He's trying to use blizzard and slip WGT in there that way everyone can be like I hate WGT to... I'M ON TO YOUR GAME ENTROPY! :O
MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
notice the ^^. consider they might've been joking? calm down. black screen of death? i don't really experience that many problems along those lines. mostly just lots of ums, and not enough melee games to be guaranteed joining one before game starts. starcraft might actually have some potential to still sell more. i think. like that game boasting that rs.tasteless did at wcg. maybe if the game was taken more seriously, like harder to cd crack and crap, and had better advertisement and such, it could grow a little in the west as it's been exploded and maintained in korea. like i mean if they could keep picking up new players and guarantee making 20 bucks every time. and plus, is what you say true entropy? starcraft tournaments pay royalties? another reason to promote the game. and maintain or improve it.
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
yes, this happens a hell of a lot for me. very annoying.
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
yes, this happens a hell of a lot for me. very annoying.
for real
i miss pgt :'( i wish i had pgt......~~~~~ come back please pgt!!!~~~ EDIT: even though i was a D noob
I dont think SC is ignored, they are still trying to patch it, and maybe work with the koreans. But for bnet the people who play on there are either so hardcore that they'll live with anything or blizzard doesn't feel upkeeping it will make people more into sc. It is an old game, the bnet experience is old too, and not fixing bnet wont make a disfavorable impression to too many new users.
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
Go back into your channel, wait 10 seconds, repeat.
The worst part for me is having to do things like /stats anywhere from 1-10 times before I get what I want to see without being told that there are too many server requests. That sort of thing never used to happen.
good read, pretty much sums up the current shitty bnet services. Lately i am also experiencing disc problem (bnet shows i got disconnected but i am still in game and able to finish the game except 70% of the time it doesnt add win/lose to my record) And sadly you are right, nothing much we can do about it..
To be honest, I never have any problems on Bnet I havent had in the 8 or so years I've been playing there.
And I think Entropy raises a valid point about WGT. Maybe his swipe was slightly unwarranted, but what happened with WGT taking over the ladder and is anything ever going to be done about it?
On November 25 2006 18:28 diverse wrote: Does SC really matter to Blizzard that much anymore? I mean they must be making millions of WoW, the vast majority of taskforce is dedicated to WoW users and the game. No matter how supportive a company may be for its fans, its first priority will be more money. Let's say SC had absolutely no bugs whatsoever, a working ladder system, et cetera all functioning, causing much more fans to have remained loyal to this point. Thats a (few hundred thousand loyal users + new game buyers) x SC2 and expansion set - development cost and maintenance cost, which probably isn't worth making even with the large amount of users because of WoW, which makes around say $10m USD a month from the subscription fees alone?
We should be content with the fact that they even fixed the hatchery bug and still have Battle.net available to us. I'm suprised Battle.net's SC population was 17%, much more than I thought.
In marketing there's something called "Brand Loyalty" Of course SC matters because we Loyal fans will continue to buy Blizz games to give it return sales and more. They need us as much as we need them. It's all good ^^
Battle.net is a fickle place. Its a great place to grab maps and play UMS with random players, but theres the offchance theres a hacker among the group if youre playing melee. And its essentially a cesspool when it comes to these random people, which is why its usually better when playing with groups youre familar with already, which is why I think bnet is good only to keep BW alive and for friendlies to congregate.
Maybe they're just priming us for a secret release of SC2? There's NO WAY blizzard doesn't notice the SC fanbase, and they're well aware that they are going to make way way bigger money on SC2 than World of Warcrack.
Yes, PepsivsCoke I feel for you! This is all extremely frustrating! It just seems so hard to understand why just a little time/energy/budget can't be devoted to such a seemingly "popular" game?
Maybe, like a lot of others, my passion is just getting the better of me? Or, maybe the fact that I couldn't locate a single starcraft cd in 2 large local "video gaming" stores is an indication of just how popular we really are. That I was practically laughed out of the store for asking if they carried Starcraft, leaves me to believe that maybe I am just another fanatic in this cyber cult?
While I agree ranting is a sure way to get labeled as fanatics, and pushes us further away from Blizzard, and that I tend to follow the passive Zen philosophy such that Entropy writes, I would agree It's about time these squeaky wheels get some grease!
Regardless..... WE ARE HERE BLIZZARD! WE ARE HERE!
On November 25 2006 23:59 Dexxus wrote: Maybe they're just priming us for a secret release of SC2? There's NO WAY blizzard doesn't notice the SC fanbase, and they're well aware that they are going to make way way bigger money on SC2 than World of Warcrack.
MMORPGs, especially WoW, will bring them tons more money then all the other games combined could hope to. That's what happens when u have a monthly fee;/
Blizzard overlooks us... Oh yes, patch out. We love you Blizzard. Oh no, replay incompatibility. Blizzard doesnt care, Blizzard cares. This is useless so is this thread. You are wasting your time.
On November 25 2006 13:51 Physician wrote: Battle.net & its current state
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their tract history is running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy , PepsiVsCoke.
Do not use TL for your hating against WGT ^^
Beside of that a lot going on with Blizz is true, but it is not that none tried and still try to change that
telling him to shut up without pointing out anything incorrect in what he said doesnt do a whole lot.
dropping my 3 cents... Entropy you know sheet about how Blizzard works, how they keep terms, how they treat organizations they are cooperating with. Nice try, but that's cheap demagogy here, nothing more. Words you wrote won't change anything... you are as helpless as "bad" WGT staff or any1 else using bnet or playing sc.
On November 25 2006 13:51 Physician wrote: Battle.net & its current state
And what about WGTour, the other promise for a ladder alternative in Battle.net? Most know already my opinion on the matter. Why on earth would Blizzard delegate their ladder to amateurs that will invariably run it to the ground, "if" it ever manages to occur? They have a track record of endless staff abuse of their own system and their solution to any problem is almost invariably a site ban with years of clan-mentality harassment by their staff of who ever is foolish enough to complain. Bottom line their tract history is running an almost all manner vision ladder in their early years followed by a failed ladder almost as long as Blizzard's own. Sometimes I believe it was the ultimate Blizzard joke on us. They gave us our own chocolate.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Post dedicated to angst battle.boy , PepsiVsCoke.
Do not use TL for your hating against WGT ^^
Beside of that a lot going on with Blizz is true, but it is not that none tried and still try to change that
telling him to shut up without pointing out anything incorrect in what he said doesnt do a whole lot.
I did not tell him to shut up, he knows what i ment i guess, but i do not want to discuss it in public
Arguing about Entropy's words about WGTour is pointless, Entropy has a grudge against WGTour ever since he got kicked from WGT staff for doing nothing else than being on the admin list, but I guess that was unprofessional of us, too. As much as I respect him as a person, he's way to biased in certain matters and expresses his hatred towards us whenever he's able to. It was a good read, as it was well written, but it had no value at all, at least not to me. Interesting anyway~
And altough WGTour screwed up a lot ladder section-wise, I think we already made it clear that the start of season 14 is not really up to us anymore and it's like this since a few months. The only thing we can be blamed for is poor PR in the matter.
It comes a moment in everyone's life when a very important question arises: should i stay or should i go? I think it's time to move on. The numbers of users on Bnet have changed dramatically over the years. It's going downhill as we speaking now.
I love SC. I've played Sc for a long time, but without the suport from Blizzard the survival of the game will be tough.At the moment the only solution that can come up to my mind would be to pay 15$ a month to get playing in Bnet. That means offcourse that bnet should be updated to make it just like war3 or better. One problem with Sc is that at the moment the players are between 14-20 years average. And everyone knows that at this age u just can't have that much money to spend on.
And let's just be honest with ourselves. Pat and the crew behind pgtour did us all a big favor to sacrifice a bit of their life for our fun. Now it's no more. We all feel bad about it. But in the end i think it's time to move on.
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
you are too impatient o0. when u get kicked/leave/banned or whatever just wait in the lobby for 10 seconds without statsing or clicking anything. the lag goes away in 10 seconds.. if u click something it takes 20 seconds and so on.
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
you are too impatient o0. when u get kicked/leave/banned or whatever just wait in the lobby for 10 seconds without statsing or clicking anything. the lag goes away in 10 seconds.. if u click something it takes 20 seconds and so on.
Awewahwahhwah
Well, I'm way too impatient to wait for 10 secs, and I always click the fuck outta everything, No wonders It takes me so fucking long to find a game -_-;!
you think it is easy to organize a good ladder? are you mad or something? if blizzard did anything anyhow slumpy, you would start whining again and complain how bad blizzard is and how they dont kiss your ass everytime you think about starcraft and all your "great contributions" you did to the community
blizzard currently prepares everything for the new wgt season and you better want their hackprotection and everything else perfectly
"you think it is easy to organize a good ladder? are you mad or something?"
# Mr.SeXpIsToLs With almost no resources, and handful of passionate fans, we ran PGTour: 4 millions games played and for the most part happy guests (cause they weren't even costumers), from one server. I know, cause I was there helping make it happen.
I can't image what we would have done with more resources, let alone the power of a very succesful company behind us, a subsidiary of the largest media content company in the world.
"if blizzard did anything anyhow slumpy, you would start whining again and complain how bad blizzard"
# Mr.SeXpIsToLs To be honest I been whining about the same three issues for years years: fair environment for gameplay in battle.net (no cheating), no ladder (which goes back to the first problem) (third is phuking smurfs). We still don not have a ladder, and hack users are a cyclical disease, we only get a two week lasting immunization every many months of frustration.. I am after all a fog of war worshiper* which is my excuse for whining.. now what is your excuse for your whining?
lol what gets me is the first person to replay says why not play a game that requires skill like W3 and WoW, lol not that the previously games dont require skill but to say starcraft doesnt is pretty retarted.
This is sad. Battle.net should be holy ground indeed. This was the first and ultimately best free service to play games online with.... It's too bad it has come to this...
well, you can still play Diablo these days, i tried sometime ago, my gosh there are still guys in Diablo! seeing the game itself is older then some highscholl kid you know, you made some good points, nevertheless when we look at it whole, i still have to say that blizzard is still at its prime, know why? i think its because they are themselves great strategists compared to their peers in the affair of game making, westwood could, but nah, EA might, but never...who else
i suspect that they are slowly shifting power/resource over (like you said WOW) new born childs and thus having to cut down on their old progenies, although as mentioned Diablo is still playable online! though i suppose you can only see "loyalists" in there.
so the party, the frenzy is over, when everyone has left, there remains the host and its loyalist freinds , that's the lifecycle with any games/entertainment mate, gotta have a sunset, hehe sigh
On November 25 2006 18:58 Ilikestarcraft wrote: MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH on join game list. I join a game and than i get banned/leave/ or if creator leaves i enter join game. Cant see nothing but black than have to wait a few minutes and again the process repeats. How do we solve this annoying blackness.
Go back into your channel, wait 10 seconds, repeat.
Sometimes it solves it. But i had a blank list for minutes before. And when you want a game patience is really hard ^^
I came back to start playing starcraft again and find that I have no ladder to play. Competition is what the game is all about. Now I'd say im pretty loyal to Blizz, playing since realease of sc on an off, buying at least 3 battlechests due to cd wearing down to nothing, and not to mention buying everyother damn game they have released. Give me a bug free, hacker free environment blizzard! WoW 7 million subscribers per month times 15$ = ??? I'm sure theres plently of money in blizz to provide this for a game near a decade old.
On November 25 2006 14:44 Night[Mare] wrote: If you compare the support that blizzard gives to its games,it goes like this:
WoW: WC3 D2 LOD . . . . . . . Starcraft.
Like anybody else have said, if we had a ladder type like WC3 has, i believe much of us would be very very content, and the community would grow.
I think the community is dying mainly because there is no ladder to play. There are a lot of events, but they're really for entertainment and do not bring new users to play. People are getting frustrated of not finding games (like myself) constantly. Yes, i know, there are channels like clan x17, op tot), op tl-west blabla, yet if you want to go mass gaming, it is almost impossible, and more over, you are lucky if you find someone about your level.
Most people level are either very good players, or very newb
Yeah man, you are right. I can't host games so I tried to join pub games. And what do I find? Zero-Clutter-Fastest-Money-20-min-no-rush games. I also find games with weird characters in names (korean guys that are too good). I tried to join a clan so that I can play 4-5 games/ day. But the fact is, I play this game for fun, not competitively. And most of the clans require too much dedication. I only want to play someone of my level...
WCGZone is awsome, but there are no players there, and that is what caused there demise. It was a great place to play once you get used to the setup. But many players did not give it a decent shot because it was a bit complicated to start it off.
Due to it's new anti hack launcher, gamon and the new WCG Icons. That IMP I thik is why it never rose above all.
If you want to check the site out and win some prizes easily check it out at www.wcgzone.com
So, let's summarize. Flame Blizzard. Flame WGTour. Don't know how the situation looks like, but flame anyway because, well... simply because you have to throw shit at WGTour occasionally to remind everyone how much we suck. Anything constructive? No. Still nothing new. The same, old Entropy.
Pat stopped caring already. Don't know about Ashur, but with articles like this you're actually bringing me closer to the same path. And when we all leave, you can write your articles all you wish - it won't change anything for the good. It never has, too.
On November 26 2006 09:40 True_Spike wrote: Arguing about Entropy's words about WGTour is pointless, Entropy has a grudge against WGTour ever since he got kicked from WGT staff for doing nothing else than being on the admin list, but I guess that was unprofessional of us, too. As much as I respect him as a person, he's way to biased in certain matters and expresses his hatred towards us whenever he's able to. It was a good read, as it was well written, but it had no value at all, at least not to me. Interesting anyway~
And altough WGTour screwed up a lot ladder section-wise, I think we already made it clear that the start of season 14 is not really up to us anymore and it's like this since a few months. The only thing we can be blamed for is poor PR in the matter.
On November 30 2006 14:26 Ilintar wrote: So, let's summarize. Flame Blizzard. Flame WGTour. Don't know how the situation looks like, but flame anyway because, well... simply because you have to throw shit at WGTour occasionally to remind everyone how much we suck. Anything constructive? No. Still nothing new. The same, old Entropy.
Pat stopped caring already. Don't know about Ashur, but with articles like this you're actually bringing me closer to the same path. And when we all leave, you can write your articles all you wish - it won't change anything for the good. It never has, too.
This is not a flame.
...but I think it would be a good idea if you kept us up to date on what is going on at least once a month or so. So we know at least some info on the current status of WGTour.
...but I think it would be a good idea if you kept us up to date on what is going on at least once a month or so. So we know at least some info on the current status of WGTour.
I gladly would. The problem is, I don't really know how much I can disclose without breaking some legal agreements that would a) cause problems for Skav and the rest of the WGTour Association members b) break our agreement with Blizzard. This is what happens when you deal with a big company officially - you have to adhere to legal rules, not just "community standards".
What I can disclose, I think, is that we haven't stopped working on WGTour, we have to however update the legal agreements before we can move on in any way. We're finalizing that right now, so hopefully something will move in the following weeks, but since a couple of times before things looked like it too and we're where we are, I won't make any promises nor make any ETAs.
I understand how when you dedicate yourself to a task and only a few appreciate your product as it is can be hard, but you need to understand how the community feels. I'm not saying it's right or wrong to complain or bring issues into the light of day, but it should be important to note why are these complaints here.
As for the battle.net complaints, when was the last time you tried to get a game to see an entire list from weeks prior to? What do gamers do when this happens? What do gamers do when there's no constructive ladder to compete on? Why are these complaints being listed in this thread?
There, I think, is only one important question in that list. And I think the answer is, everyone is afraid that a game that is, for the most part, teetering on the cliff of oblivion might just make it over the edge if these issues aren't resolved.
I guess I'm just hoping to express that while i'm sure every single poster on this site that loads scextension probably scratches their head about the new name, enjoys it's effects tremedously. Just the same as every other tool that's ever been released, but we're all scared, and information so few have is the only salve for our pain ^^
Sorry your stuck between a rock (Blizzard) and a hard place (TL.net's Forum), but I for one appreciate what you do.
No one will move and start-up WGT or even talk about anything let alone inform the community until all legal aspects have been disclosed.
If your dealing with Blizz, associates and investment partners, all legal matters simply have to be covered first. WGTour and Blizz is all about money and company interests now. The community will come in to all this and start playing a small roll again as soon as WGtour starts up again.
until then...... tough shit, start getting use to the fact that things have changed and the old WGtour Community will have to adopt to all the new circumstances!
My prediction is: The new WGTour community that will formate, will not give a shit about the past and play the ladder! And thats all thats important, a working and maintained Ladder!
EDIT: I could also imagine that Blizz is taking its time, because there may be a major change to the old Battle.net to come, but the time is not yet right for it.
Like: - only having 1 major Gateway/Server for SC/BW instead of 4 with 1 Ladder run by Wgtour.
It's only a speculation, but thinkable! who knows?
EPT
(((
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