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Since day 1 of the beta people have been asking "WTF is up with the new bnet? Why is it missing so much simple stuff?"
It's really inexcusable.
I doubt it's ever going to change sadly. It's deficient by design. I won't go into all the reasons, but ultimately their target audience for games is now very casual people just looking to play for a few weeks, sign on hit the play button, etc. They don't want to confuse or scare these people, they view them as their core audience now. Every single decision made with SC2, WoW, and D3 over the past 3-4 years speaks to this philosophy change.
Blizzard is NOT the same company they were in their glory days of the mid to late 90's and into the early 2000's. Why? Because they aren't the same people. Nobody who is calling the shots over there had anything to do with any of Blizzard's epic. They are sadly very short sided, greedy folks who don't see the big picture.
Oh the idea has always been to make a financially successful game, but not at the cost of game quality. If you could make a truly great, revolutionary, outstanding game in every way that made 100 million dollars or a crap, generic, forgetable game that makes 120 million which would you make?
Old Blizz would make the 100 mil game, because they knew long run that quality is what will keep people coming back and build up a sterling reputation (which it did)
New Blizz would make the 120 mil game, because hey 120 > 100.
What New Blizz doesn't understand is that long term, that strategy is terrible. No matter how big or successful a company is, if they get fat and lazy and begin taking their success for granted and thinkt hey can churn out crap, they will fall.
Remember AOL? Remember MySpace? Both were giants, damn near monopolies in their industry, on top of the world, raking in billions.... look how quickly each of them collapsed.
Activision sadly has a reputation for being short sided, they squeeze whatever blood out of an entity they can, usually killing it in the process.
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Hi,
I can totally agree with the majority that Battle.net 0.2 (because let's be honest, it is in no way an improvement) sucks:
Blizzard always argues that they have casual gamer as a target audience for their game. If this would be the case, then why is the one thing that keeps many casual gamers on board still the worst of the whole game? Of course I am talking about the new - popularity based - custom maps system. I do not play 1on1 at all, all I do play is 2on2 with one of my best friends. In WC3 we could search for a game easily and pick opponents that are equally strong. Now all I can do is either play ladder and loose all the fun because most of the time there is no chance for macro games or I can open a custom and wait for hours and hours and finally give up because no one finds my game which is open on page 1XXX since it is a normal 2on2 map.
I highly doubt it - but hope never dies - that Blizzard will fix anything or change anything of their Bnet since they did the same with WoW and also no one cared about changes there. Over a long time I probably will stop playing, if no changes comes up. But let's all hope that they wake up and get some things done and suprise us all with HoTs Bnet...
greetings
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On February 28 2012 04:51 Shockk wrote:Show nested quote +You don't exactly use the UI for anything.Unless you count custom games which are just fine. That's a comment from the newest thread on the US boards. Sooooo frustrating, because that guy probably hasn't played War3, lacks any form of comparison and thus defends a system he doesn't realize is lacking in most regards. I've tried messaging a number of community figureheads - JP, Husky, TotalBiscuit etc. - and asked whether it'd be possible to feature or spotlight this discussion. So far to no avail. Their videos would reach countless more users than our forum discussions could. Here, we're pretty much just preaching to the choir, but it's the rest of the userbase we have to reach and make understand. If any of you have contacts you can use or time you can spare, try getting in touch with casters, commentators, video creators - you name it. Don't spam, don't pressure - but ask kindly, convey your (our!) passion behind this whole thing, and see if someone has time for us.
Remember that many notable spokespersons cannot address the issue with too strong words as they are affiliated directly or indirectly (through e.g. companies) to Blizzard. At the moment Husky is probably the only notable community figurehead (who also reaches the casual SC2 community) who is independent enough to strongly criticize Battle.net in public. Actually he has already done that several times e.g. by giving a tour to WC3 Battle.net and its' advanced features + the kitten video. I look up to what he has already done!
Many other figureheads also feel that Battle.net is lacking. For example TotalBiscuit made fun of Battle.net when Apollo disconnected during Assembly Winter (ASUS ROG) Finals: "The technology is not there yet". Slasher, DjWheat and SirScoots also agreed that Battle.net could be better on Live on Three couple of weeks ago. Slasher was the most critical of the three.
Good spokespersons regarding the need for improving bnet UI could be the progamers. Yes. They do not care the league/ladder systems that much. Regarding practice they care about the custom game system. Some of them care about statistics. E.g. White-Ra during some IEM event (Kiev?) gave an interview where he criticized heavily why bnet does not provide even simple statistics such as match-up win ratios, win ratios by map, etc. I was little disappointed that community did not write a news story that would highlight White-Ra's need for more statistics. When making new progamer interviews Battle.net related questions could be asked and then highlighted in the news stories. Such questions could be e.g. "What new tools/features you would like Battle.net to offer to support your practice sessions", "Is Battle.net lacking tools/features that you need?"
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On February 28 2012 07:25 korona wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2012 04:51 Shockk wrote:You don't exactly use the UI for anything.Unless you count custom games which are just fine. That's a comment from the newest thread on the US boards. Sooooo frustrating, because that guy probably hasn't played War3, lacks any form of comparison and thus defends a system he doesn't realize is lacking in most regards. I've tried messaging a number of community figureheads - JP, Husky, TotalBiscuit etc. - and asked whether it'd be possible to feature or spotlight this discussion. So far to no avail. Their videos would reach countless more users than our forum discussions could. Here, we're pretty much just preaching to the choir, but it's the rest of the userbase we have to reach and make understand. If any of you have contacts you can use or time you can spare, try getting in touch with casters, commentators, video creators - you name it. Don't spam, don't pressure - but ask kindly, convey your (our!) passion behind this whole thing, and see if someone has time for us. Remember that many notable spokespersons cannot address the issue with too strong words as they are affiliated directly or indirectly (through e.g. companies) to Blizzard. At the moment Husky is probably the only notable community figurehead (who also reaches the casual SC2 community) who is independent enough to strongly criticize Battle.net in public. Actually he has already done that several times e.g. by giving a tour to WC3 Battle.net and its' advanced features + the kitten video. I look up to what he has already done! Many other figureheads also feel that Battle.net is lacking. For example TotalBiscuit made fun of Battle.net when Apollo disconnected during Assembly Winter (ASUS ROG) Finals: "The technology is not there yet". Slasher, DjWheat and SirScoots also agreed that Battle.net could be better on Live on Three couple of weeks ago. Slasher was the most critical of the three. Good spokespersons regarding the need for improving bnet UI could be the progamers. Yes. They do not care the league/ladder systems that much. Regarding practice they care about the custom game system. Some of them care about statistics. E.g. White-Ra during some IEM event (Kiev?) gave an interview where he criticized heavily why bnet does not provide even simple statistics such as match-up win ratios, win ratios by map, etc. I was little disappointed that community did not write a news story that would highlight White-Ra's need for more statistics. When making new progamer interviews Battle.net related questions could be asked and then highlighted in the news stories. Such questions could be e.g. "What new tools/features you would like Battle.net to offer to support your practice sessions", "Is Battle.net lacking tools/features that you need?"
Right, I forgot Husky's kitten video. Great thing, not enough attention though :/.
The thing with progamers is that they're living in their own little microcosmos. They have their community in form of their team mates or training partners; they have fanclubs, PR people, a manager and a trainer, and they're recognized whenever they show up on a stream or on a site. I feel that the major point of "feeling alone on B.Net" doesn't apply to them, because they already have that feeling of community that the rest of us is missing so badly.
That doesn't mean that progamers won't support this - it'd be perfect if we'd get support from one or several - but I'd understand if they wouldn't deem this important due to the reasons I stated.
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Hey shockk, I just wanted to make a post thanking you for all of your efforts to bringing light into this topic. As a former user of wc3 UI, I'm deeply disappointed in Blizzard for making such a shitty UI
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I agree that BNet 2.0 is horribly lacking in almost every way imaginable when compared to the original BNet. Maybe we'll see some improvements when HoS pops out eventually but I'm not too optimistic. I do think that ActiBlizzard needs to stop thinking about raking up the biggest amount of dosh possible with the least amount of effort involved ASAP and really needs to start listening to the people who actually passionately play and follow the games they put out.
Why they can't be bothered to throw us more bones, I cannot fathom.
How can they themselves be this blind to something so stupidly obvious?
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I stopped playing because of bnet 2.0, seriously aside from the moment when I am with my friends on skype, that game feels like a fight against loneliness.
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hehe i would say the biggest problem of this movement is that its mostly just we hate blizzard now posts, because people disliked some features on new games. They mostly drown the true discussion on such topics.
Its funny that they scrapped the whole bnet2 system and remade it and still struggle heavily with it, while bnet 1 just seems so superior.
A simple irc like system, a button to open a giant chatsystem window, like all their other windows opening up with one click. Easy to put into the background if you just want to ladder. I mean alot of people reprogrammed the bnet chat system in their free time, just for fun. So i wonder on what they work currently.
Personally i didn't even used the bnet alot in bw or warcraft, alt tabbed for irc and feeling alone, not so much, friendlist is cramped with people spamming me if i log on. (i know to many playing wow)
But that might just be me being used to the early days before games provided anything like bnet did, so i am used to the external communication and really surprised that people really used bnet chat so much.
Anyway i guess they are right, with not many people want it. I wonder how many here have actually written an email to the blizzard staff about their concerns of feeling alone and with good arguments as well. And especially not written in a way, that will make anyone having to read the email think its just a random rant of someone that just lost their cookie.
A friend missed something due to the staff handling something in a bad way and went afterwards every week asking if they would do it again, they never said no directly and at the end she got another chance. I don't know how many other people asked, but being persistent really helps. And if you have 6 people in the support and every one of them reports every week that people feel alone on the bnet, then its something that makes people think, unlike a small note by one community person, yeah the thread about our UI got bumped again with a random rant.
I personally find it annoying that a few people just have to complain often enough, so something might get changed the majority doesn't like. (balance qq forcing balance chances, i didn't said its only zergs !)
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Hi guys I don't think this has been mentioned yet, sorry if I've missed it.
I came from World of Warcraft (bizarre swop I know MMORPG to RTS) and as many of you will know in WoW you can customise the full UI, if blizzard can do that, why can't they allow something similar in SC2??
So you could modify the main screen to how you'd like it set up, or get a few cool add ons to modify your friends list, the way custom games are displayed etc. even the in game UI could be modded if they wanted to take it that far. (could leave a lot more space open on screen)
Really it saves Blizzard the hard work of designing a new UI etc because all they have to do is allow the coding that enables people to make their own setups and as a community we would do the rest by making our own designs/setups etc etc, what do you guys think about that?
Surely it wouldn't take much effort on their behalf as they know how to set it all up and mod it like they do in WOW to make sure no one is abusing the system. But I'm not to savy on how the coding/ implantation would effect things etc, but surely it's possible??
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Hi guys I don't think this has been mentioned yet, sorry if I've missed it. I came from World of Warcraft (bizarre swop I know MMORPG to RTS) and as many of you will know in WoW you can customise the full UI, if blizzard can do that, why can't they allow something similar in SC2??
So you could modify the main screen to how you'd like it set up, or get a few cool add ons to modify your friends list, the way custom games are displayed etc. even the in game UI could be modded if they wanted to take it that far. (could leave a lot more space open on screen)
Really it saves Blizzard the hard work of designing a new UI etc because all they have to do is allow the coding that enables people to make their own setups and as a community we would do the rest by making our own designs/setups etc etc, what do you guys think about that?
Surely it wouldn't take much effort on their behalf as they know how to set it all up and mod it like they do in WOW to make sure no one is abusing the system. But I'm not to savy on how the coding/ implantation would effect things etc, but surely it's possible??
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I just watched Husky's video on the warcraft 3 interface....I've played warcraft 3 for a really long time, and absolutely LOVE that Husky took the time to show all of those who have never touched warcraft 3 how amazing the battle net was back then.
I mean, yes it had their flaws, but they are really negligable compared to the crap we have right now. Statistics, chat-channels, clan-support, tournaments, ladders, custom games...did I mention statistics? Even though the game is out for one and a half years now, it is still beyond me how such a huge step back was able to occur.
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On February 28 2012 20:02 sleepingdog wrote:
... it is still beyond me how such a huge step back was able to occur.
that's what i don't understand as well
you don't see intel producing worser CPU's then they produced 10 years ago, how come blizzard produced way way way worser UI ...
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you just make me feel bad about SC2... totally =(
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Blizzard got to know that almost every Starcrat player LOVES statistics, it is sad that they don´t even care.
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On February 28 2012 21:01 Art_of_Kill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2012 20:02 sleepingdog wrote:
... it is still beyond me how such a huge step back was able to occur. that's what i don't understand as well you don't see intel producing worser CPU's then they produced 10 years ago, how come blizzard produced way way way worser UI ...
Wanna know why they did such a huge step back? because they treated sc2 like shit, Just like they did with Cataclysm. Rush out everything, make it look cool and expect everyone to like it.
Well...blizz...THIS IS NOT THE CASE NOW AND WE'RE SICK OF YOUR BS. Man up and fix the fucking Bnet, its shamefully bad when it should infact by extremly good, like we waited for, over 2 years. (?)
Shockk has said it all, it's all in the OP. It's brilliant ideas, with pictures explaining the ideas so you can actually understand it because probably you got a big kid factory/monkey factory making your ''ideas'' and changes and whatnot...
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I wonder if focusing on a huge list of problems is the best approach. Instead we could start by pressing Blizzard hard for the couple of things that are the most important... if we could agree on them. For my mind the two biggest issues are the problems caused from lack of LAN, and the premature death of the custom game culture do to the Battle.Net interface.
While there are many awesome ways to fix these issues entirely, I think the chances for actually getting something done here are best if we target the smallest possible bandaids that have the biggest possible impact. In my mind it's this:
1) For the LAN: realize that Blizzard will not give full LAN support. But they could help tournaments a lot if they had shared replays with a 'play game from here button' -- so at least tournaments could resume dropped games. And downloading replays and playing out 'famous battles' with a friend would be a really fun side benefit.
2) For custom games, Blizzard is really reluctant to add custom titles and a list of open games like the WC3 system. But even without custom game titles simply having a tab with a list of the 'waiting for players' games would at least make it possible to play games not on the front page. This fixes probably 70% of the problem. The next step would be that you click on the game on that list and then see a list of individual games of that map with a custom titles but for now, just fixing the first thing would be huge. You could at least pick a map and have a hope of someone joining it.
The key thing is these two changes are fairly minor features compared to LAN support or a CLAN system. It's just shared replays with a 'play from here' button and a list of games-waiting-for-players -- but they would both go a long way to shoring up the worst parts of Battle.Net 2.0
TL;DR -- Let's FOCUS FIRE on the most important issues with the least health...
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Lol dude, we SHOULD press them on everything. Know why? Because we want it all. And they owe it, alot, they gotta pay for this shit by giving us everything, its not like they cant afford it, right? And they wont lose players, they will GAIN ppl...
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On February 29 2012 05:58 JackDT wrote:
I wonder if focusing on a huge list of problems is the best approach. Instead we could start by pressing Blizzard hard for the couple of things that are the most important... if we could agree on them. For my mind the two biggest issues are the problems caused from lack of LAN, and the premature death of the custom game culture do to the Battle.Net interface.
While there are many awesome ways to fix these issues entirely, I think the chances for actually getting something done here are best if we target the smallest possible bandaids that have the biggest possible impact. In my mind it's this:
1) For the LAN: realize that Blizzard will not give full LAN support. But they could help tournaments a lot if they had shared replays with a 'play game from here button' -- so at least tournaments could resume dropped games. And downloading replays and playing out 'famous battles' with a friend would be a really fun side benefit.
2) For custom games, Blizzard is really reluctant to add custom titles and a list of open games like the WC3 system. But even without custom game titles simply having a tab with a list of the 'waiting for players' games would at least make it possible to play games not on the front page. This fixes probably 70% of the problem. The next step would be that you click on the game on that list and then see a list of individual games of that map with a custom titles but for now, just fixing the first thing would be huge. You could at least pick a map and have a hope of someone joining it.
The key thing is these two changes are fairly minor features compared to LAN support or a CLAN system. It's just shared replays with a 'play from here' button and a list of games-waiting-for-players -- but they would both go a long way to shoring up the worst parts of Battle.Net 2.0
TL;DR -- Let's FOCUS FIRE on the most important issues with the least health...
Blizzard has (successfully) ignored "focused" feedback regarding both lack of proper chat and LAN in the past. Oh, we got chat in the end, but it's still a mess and the most half-assed implementation possible. As for LAN, we'll never see that in SC2 for business reasons. And this hasn't just happened once or twice, but constantly over the last two years. Proposing a whole list of ideas instead of just a couple is at least worth a try, even though we'll probably be ignored in the end as well.
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The chat thing does show that a combined force of voices can get through to them. Half-assed chat is a lot better than no chat at all.
When Blizzard says they won't do LAN, I want the people asking them to follow up and ask they then don't work on a different solution for disconnects. The replay option being a pretty elegant one.
When Blizzard says they are working to fix the 'popularity' system but they are afraid of titles for whatever bullshit reason, people need to ask why they just don't show a list of games-waiting-for-players without titles.
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I would love to see Blizzard do something about this.
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EPT
