EPT"We won the battle but not the war!"
UI still sub-par 2 years later. Why don't we care? - Page 87
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
"We won the battle but not the war!" | ||
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Thylacine
Sweden882 Posts
UI FIGHTING!!! xD | ||
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Hertzy
Finland355 Posts
There's an even broader issue; you don't really get any privacy controls. If Blizzard feels that a significant part of the population would want to hide a stat, they patch the stat out of sight, like with losses and MMR. On the other hand, you can't customize your leagues and ladders page to not show your league ranking in 1v1 (might be you need to show only one rank). Actually, I'm not sure what that customize function is supposed to do. | ||
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ColterTV
Argentina163 Posts
On May 09 2012 20:41 Hertzy wrote: There's an even broader issue; you don't really get any privacy controls. So true. Sometimes I wish bnet would have some sort of privacy about the chat system, sometimes I want to appear offline and I can't | ||
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Shockk
Germany2269 Posts
On May 08 2012 23:54 Thylacine wrote: Happy Birthday Shockk! And this is indeed a proud day for us UI fighters!! Hey, thanks. My BD was great, I spent most of it celebrating with friends, BBQ and beer. The changes coming with HotS sound really great, though for me personally it's too late. All of my friends have long since stopped playing SC2 and I haven't logged in for a very long time either. It's nice to see Blizzard finally reacting, but to this day I do not understand their reasoning in not shipping all of these features with release. They've done themselves a major disservice by doing so. I'm curious to see when the next big wave of UI criticism will hit; Diablo 3 launches in less than a week and its B.Net UI is, for the most part, even worse than that of SC2. | ||
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
On May 10 2012 04:47 Shockk wrote: Hey, thanks. My BD was great, I spent most of it celebrating with friends, BBQ and beer. The changes coming with HotS sound really great, though for me personally it's too late. All of my friends have long since stopped playing SC2 and I haven't logged in for a very long time either. It's nice to see Blizzard finally reacting, but to this day I do not understand their reasoning in not shipping all of these features with release. They've done themselves a major disservice by doing so. I'm curious to see when the next big wave of UI criticism will hit; Diablo 3 launches in less than a week and its B.Net UI is, for the most part, even worse than that of SC2. Yeah but I'll be playing the game instead of worrying about the UI! Can't wait for Diablo 3!  | ||
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Shockk
Germany2269 Posts
On May 10 2012 05:35 MNdakota wrote: Yeah but I'll be playing the game instead of worrying about the UI! Can't wait for Diablo 3! Think back two years and how everyone was excited over SC2, how most of us thought Blizzard had a better UI for the release version and how B.Net would live up to its legacy. When HotS hits some time in 2013, we'll be at the same level feature-wise that we were in 1999/2003. Noone will bother with D3's UI during the first week or month. Everyone will be too busy playing and having fun. But at some point, the UI will begin to impact your experience. Just as it did in SC2 for many people. | ||
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
On May 10 2012 07:18 Shockk wrote: Think back two years and how everyone was excited over SC2, how most of us thought Blizzard had a better UI for the release version and how B.Net would live up to its legacy. When HotS hits some time in 2013, we'll be at the same level feature-wise that we were in 1999/2003. Noone will bother with D3's UI during the first week or month. Everyone will be too busy playing and having fun. But at some point, the UI will begin to impact your experience. Just as it did in SC2 for many people. Yeah, it's called smart marketing. If you think about it. It will give more people a reason to purchase Heart of the Swarm. Maybe they did it on purpose? They being Blizzard. | ||
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Atlasy
Hungary229 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [Screen Shots] + | ||
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Happystreet
550 Posts
On May 13 2012 06:28 Atlasy wrote: What do you think about the new UI changes and features? + Show Spoiler [Screen Shots] + Looks good imo. Just hope we get this 2012. | ||
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semantics
10040 Posts
Hon's ui means the chat is always present until the game actually starts and you need to move your hero around, even though just hitting f6 bring up the chat ui in full. It's match making makes sense if you want to play solo you play solo if you want a team you click team and invite them, instead of having to make a party then start match making. Things like stats and dling replays are available because hon is a server side hosted game, also making things like maphacks impossible. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Djnuk.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qWfaY.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hwuMP.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nIDBa.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZUqHZ.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fNwH0.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5adnb.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N8PnL.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TBvOp.jpg) | ||
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BawheidbobSC2
United Kingdom12 Posts
I did not expect DIII to launch with a worse chat interface than SCII at least it has the ability to make Channels. Not even loaded up a game to actually start playing yet and i am majorly disappointed. I had my worries about the loss of the old battle.net and the diablo chat of old but this is TERRIBLE. I have been waiting for a looong time for this game and i am almost at a part where i do not even want to bloody play it. Knowing the that social aspect that i enjoyed so much has been ripped out of the series. | ||
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
On May 16 2012 03:05 BawheidbobSC2 wrote: I saw chat in DII on the old battle.net as a major part of the DII experience - I would spend hours in private and public channels meeting up with old and new friends a like. I did not expect DIII to launch with a worse chat interface than SCII at least it has the ability to make Channels. Not even loaded up a game to actually start playing yet and i am majorly disappointed. I had my worries about the loss of the old battle.net and the diablo chat of old but this is TERRIBLE. I have been waiting for a looong time for this game and i am almost at a part where i do not even want to bloody play it. Knowing the that social aspect that i enjoyed so much has been ripped out of the series. I'll have your game. Thanks! | ||
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Dahlian
Germany37 Posts
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Thylacine
Sweden882 Posts
On May 16 2012 05:46 Dahlian wrote: Battle.net feels soooo damn empty these days. Took them over 3 years to make it that lonely, aren't you proud of their creation? | ||
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tdgs
2 Posts
Hi I am doing my Games Design Msc and I stumbled on this thread while I was doing research for an essay of mine. I thought to register and offer my own opinion on the subject. (Dear mods I don't know if this is the right thread , or there is a more recent one but my understanding is that this is the "main" thread on battle net UI) Now what I am about to say doesn't necessarily mean that are the only reasons for battle net 2.0 "failure". Let's say that you want to play a custom map in War 3. Here is the typical Use Case Scenario: Login --> Get into a channel about that custom map -- > Find a game from the ones advertised by players --> Enter the game's name you wish to enter ---> Play Of course you could always do this Login --> Browse games --> Pick a game from the list --> Play So why get into the trouble of finding a game through a chat channel? Sevaral reasons. a) The list of games never showed you ALL the games being played b) you had better chance to find a game about the map you liked on a specific channel about that map. c) you had better chance to find a good game about the map you liked from that specified channel , than picking a game at random from the list (way better chance) So you used chat rooms to find games. After spending time for a while though on a channel another reason started to emerge d)You started making friendships through that channel. After a while you could even get into that channel just to socialize. Now let's see a typical Use Case Scenario in Battle Net 2.0 Login --> Play Arcade --> Pick a map from the list -- > Ask Blizzard to find me games with this map. If there are no games currently being played Blizzard will create a game from me. As you can see, there is no mention for a chat room anywhere. Why? Well now you don't really have to search games on your own. You can actually ask Blizzard to find them for you. Typically the functionality to perform a Use Case Scenario like War 3 still exists. I can still create a game , advertise it into a chat room then invite players who demonstrate interest. But there is a much, much more convenient way to do that now (just ask Blizzard) so players rarely use that route. So chat lost its main functionality --> Find games. You don't really have a motive any more to hang out in chat rooms. Why? So that I can talk with people I don't really know ? Get to know them , so I can just get to know them?If I want a game I can just click on the game's icon in arcade and blizzard will find one for me. Any digital society must have a "center". It's built around a core. Chat rooms in Battle Net 1 eventually became a place where you could socialize , but in order to get there you needed a reason to make people talk in the chat rooms in the first place. It's like a forum. Try to browse Team Liquids forums. You will find subjects about almost everything. But the "core" of this digital society was pro-games. Nowadays it is also a place where you can socialize and talk about anything, but all this needs to begin from somewhere. Whether this is a common subject (pro gaming ) or a common need (find good games). So chat rooms in Battle net 2.0 lost their primary function. You can still get into chat rooms and talk but nothing really motivates you to do that. But that wasn't enough. Another very basic concept had changed. Blizzard decided to interfere with the popularity of the maps. In War 3 , a map's popularity was , well pretty much an open field. It was an autonomous system. Players themselves decided what was popular and what was not. If a map was popular you saw many games created with this map , people talked about them in forums etc. Actually these two (number of games , talk in the community) were the only ways to understand which map was popular and which wasn't . There was never direct advertising of a map only indirect.You didn't really have anyone waving huge banners saying "PLAY THIS OR THAT MAP". Even if you created a new map if it was good enough, you had a decent shot to become popular. But now Blizzard decided to do exactly that. Add direct advertisement of maps and have a huge megaphone shouting "THIS MAP IS THE MOST POPULAR MAP". This created a positive feedback mechanism which was more cruel than the previous one. Now an already famous map had way more chances to become more popular since the company itself had a say in which maps were popular and which were not,what got promoted and what not. So if you were your average player what would you do? Start looking at forums to find good maps? Nah. Blizzard already provided me with this information easily. I would just go and check the Arcade. Don't get me wrong , yes Blizzard does promotes some maps from time to time, but the data the provides on the Arcade about the popularity of the map are real. It's not that they are lying to us. The problem is that by providing data directly about a map's popularity , you are affecting the popularity itself. As a said it is a very cruel positive feedback mechanism. The more popular you are the more popular you will become. And this does more damage than initially though. Now even if I create a game on my own from ,let's say page 26 from the arcade, I will not be able to find players to join me even if I advertise it on a channel. Players in most cases will "trust" and play games from the first 3 pages. Since the company is telling me that these games are good why trust someone else? Of course there are other reasons as well.For example the chat's interface is very badly designed. Chat windows get into the way. The whole design screams that it was something extra , something they really didn't want to add. And of course this is true. Since chat lost its main functionality why bother? The whole UI also screams about the designer's XBOX related past.It is a good UI for a console since you don't really chat through keyboard in a console anyway but it was a terrible mistake to transfer the same principles to a pc game.And there are other reasons as well many named in this thread. I just wanted to add my own two reasons. I also feel that there was no malicious intent. Blizzard really believed that by finding games for the player's they provided a better experience. And this system does have its advantages. I'm sure pretty much anyone has spent time trying to find a game of their favorite map. This system solves that problem.Now I didn't really have to spend hours and hours in a chat room reading dialogues of the WORST quality while trying to find a game.But at the same time it creates another bigger one , by killing the social factor of the game. I'm pretty sure that they also believed that by telling you the popular maps they thought that they saved you from hours of looking for good maps. Now the casual player could just scroll in an Apple Store-like environment and easily find new maps to play. He easily finds out which maps are popular. That's also true and indeed it solved that problem too.But in the end it destroyed the custom map community. It's quite ironic because both of these design options were initially made to help the casual player. Who didn't really want to spend time looking for maps , or searching for games. And in the end they were the decisions that destroyed the casual player community.... Feel free to criticize | ||
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