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BNet 2.0 isn't exactly feature-complete. In fact it's hard to reconcile the resources allegedly devoted to it with the end product: superficially a slick but otherwise workmanlike front-end.
It's tempting to indulge one's inner rage and attribute this kind of thing to incompetence, but that doesn't really add up. I can't imagine taking a tour of Blizzard and, after the amazing art and design and coding departments, being shown the room where they keep a bunch of monitor-licking morons assigned to the core component of the multiplayer experience. That just doesn't sit well with me.
What fits better is to suppose they're doing something difficult, and they're doing it carefully. This is after all supposed to be a platform upon which to knit together all their future titles. That is such a huge undertaking; I mean, I've been writing and designing commercial games for a couple of decades and just the shadow cast by that task is fucking scary. You can't think purely in terms of a feature set to suit SC2; you have to think about what Diablo III players are going to want to do, and WOW players, and remember you're creating a single point of failure for all these massively popular titles.
For me, the best explanation for the current lack of - say - chat channels is not that chat channels are problematic, but that they're trivial. They've been done a thousand times already. You don't set up a beta to test stuff you already know how to do. What needed testing - what could only be tested on a large scale - was the whole practice/placement/matchmaking/ladder system - so that's what they forced all their beta-testers to use.
The same goes for all kinds of features. Custom ladders: clearly they are going to be in there at some point, so groups of friends (guilds) can set up their own private leagues, or TL can set up an invitational pro-league, or whatever. In itself it's an easy feature to implement so the question would seem to be 'why not put it in already?' Ah, but look at the recent BNet 2.0 interface changes. Look at the 'ladder' screen - hey, you can customise the list of ladders displayed there. Isn't that nice? What an elegant way to accommodate custom private ladders in the future, right there in the core interface. I bet you'll be able to drop your Diablo III and WOW PVP ladders right in there, too.
It's so important to keep front-and-centre the fact that a) this is a beta, so what you get given to play with is what most needs testing by a large contingent of beta testers, and b) there is a really, really big picture into which BNet's support of SC2 has to fit. We will get guilds, and with that will come guild chat, guild ladders, guild tournaments with direct invitational support. I fully expect to see support for broadcast of live games, with host-assignable 'caster' status so spectators can listen to their choice of commentary, toggle between their view of the game and the caster's, etc etc. Maybe support for delayed live broadcasts to hamper cheating. I expect to see all these things because I look at what's been achieved in the rest of the product and nothing else makes sense.
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I remember opening up WC3 and the first thing I saw was the "beautiful" intro screen where the screen scrolled down and then the menu's moved around every time i clicked something. A lot of people liked it, but I hated it. In SC i can open the game and navigate to whatever menu I want wether it be replays or getting on iccup within 3 seconds by knowing the hotkeys.
I thought then that WC3 was a step back from SC as far as menus goes. I feel very similar toward b.net 2.0. I feel like everything is being made unnecessarily complicated (difficult to add friends) and features are being totally removed.
I really hope they fix it. Still waiting for some word on crossrealm before I buy the game though. I want to make sure whatever copy of the game I buy will have access to asia realm.
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The OP hit the nail on the head pretty much.
- It is a foundation. i.e. More than meets the eye.
- Beta tests focus on what needs to be tested and removes what may distract from such testing.
Good post.
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A lot of people thought the same as you for a very long time, this is beta and more features are coming but it has become increasingly apparent that come release this is what you get and things will sort off get tacked on for a few years as battle net 2.0 progresses.
Even if you get guilds, where will you recruit from? In wc3, you just entered a channel they inspected you, did some tryout games and 1-2-3 GUILD INVITE *queue Zelda music*
Now you will need to make a web page, or have a TL.net thread, people will spam your battle net account, your email and ultimately be more tedious for the people managing a sort of casual player base guild and i cant see why they would opt not to have chat channels in addition to all these new features come release. It simply boggles my mind that neither chat channels nor the guild features will be there when the game goes live.
cba to go further in debt, your entire thread can be summed down to ITS BETA L2p 1111 and ultimately and you are just another user with a sub 100 post count from rotten asparagus.com that is content in letting blizzard take you from behind.
I’m not going to argue the point but I support the pro ladder and the elite community that comes with it. THEY DESERVE to transfer across realms with their one account to participate in worldwide tournaments; they deserve all the LAN latency you can give them. They also deserve to have a unified top ladder so we can ultimately observe their progress and steal their builds.
Kennigit`s post alone DESERVES more than your beaten wife syndrome, even Husky has voiced that he is not happy with battle net (very constructive and with kittens).
They have along with many others done more for Star craft 2 than you ever will and have totally earned the right to have you backing them up in the matter of LAN, TOURNAMENTS, World Realm server transfers and all the other features they see fit to want implemented.
When you see a brilliant and awesome game, go on the internet and hear people voice out the flaws you don’t go, well its beta they will probably fix it.
YOU should support the more vocal crowd and if the features are announced you should cheer because the game can only grow better when its flaws are fixed instead of opposing them at every turn untill they give up and ultimately things wont be loud enough to reach blizzard.
Blizzard is like a giant oak weathering the wind of a thousand gamers, if its strong the company will break and bend itself to your desire if not well sucks to be us then dosnt it?
or maybe you are just another selfish asshole that wants to play games. 
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I guess if you have a 100+ post count you can act like a douche because you made a smiley at the end so it was all in good humour, funny how it works.
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There are reasons to complain beyond the "beta problems," but I DO agree with the fact that people are complaining too much about it.
What is scary to gamers is the removal of things like LAN, pay-to-play and other things that depend on MONEY. These things won't change because of greedy CEO's and thats why there has to be a bigger rebellion from the community.
However, things like chat channels etc., are IMO, silly to fully complain about. Those things (as far as I know) are not really money dependent. Blizzard will and can improve the functionality of BNET, its the base principles (no LAN) that are not simple to change.
It actually makes me rage of how stupid people are when they don't realize this and just roll along and QQ without thinking beyond the problem. Focus on the real problems.
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Foundation. They will add on features as things go on. To think that they will add clan support and NOT add any way to recruit people into your clan is just stupid. To think that once battle.net2.0 is released that it will never change is also stupid.
The idea of Battle.net 2.0 is to compete with Steam and Xbox Live. If anyone actually used Steam on day 1, you will notice that 90% of the features it has now were NOT included at release.
Battle.net has a long way to go before it has everything. It is ridiculous to demand is has everything on day 1. All they need at SC2 release is a FUNCTIONAL program... everything that goes beyond allowing you to find games with other players is not necessary for Battle.net to be functional. There are a ton of features in Battle.net2.0 that already go beyond functionality, and it is only just the beginning.
Also, for those who didn't know... Steam does not support LAN or Public Chat Channels either... even many many years after release. It supports group chat, which Blizzard has openly stated that it plans to support.
It is like comparing other MMOs to WoW. WoW has been out and perfecting for years, so when a new MMO comes out on the market, everyone complains because WoW is better and has more content... Well yeah, no shit it has more content! It has half a decade head start!
TLDR: Give Battle.net time to expand like it's competitors have.
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On June 10 2010 01:48 Madkipz wrote:A lot of people thought the same as you for a very long time, this is beta and more features are coming but it has become increasingly apparent that come release this is what you get and things will sort off get tacked on for a few years as battle net 2.0 progresses. ... or maybe you are just another selfish asshole that wants to play games.
Seriously, what a bizarre post. You mostly seem to be angry that he said anything slightly contradicting your internet friends.
Really, though, he's saying very reasonable things that don't contradict damn near anybody. He's just asking why everybody is freaking out the way that they are about (e.g.) chat channels. If you think there needs to be more freaking out, then say so -- don't tell the OP what audacity he has coming on the Internet and having an independent perspective.
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Calgary25987 Posts
Put this in the thread about Battlenet 2.0? Why do you need a new thread to basically write your opinion?
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EPT
