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This is a GREAT article by Azzure that explains why playing SC2 feels lonely and boring most of the time, not because the game itself is boring but because of the lack of social interaction.
Compare SC2 to World of Warcraft for example - when I used to play WoW I would be online for hours even just running around chatting to people, while in SC2 I usually play a few games and then log out because it feels like I'm playing a single player game.
Let me preface this by saying that the people who read my articles can attest that I’m quite positive when it comes to talking about Blizzard and their design choices. They are my favorite game developers by far, and I am a big fan of all of their games. This is not an Anti-Blizzard rant, or anything close to that. And also please note that this article is an opinion feature-article, and these are my personal opinions. There is a fundamental problem with Battle.net 2.0, and it has existed since SC2. In fact, I am 100% convinced it played a huge part in SC2′s lack of longevity and lack of success amongst the community. The lack of presence and “Ghost-town Effect” of Battle.net. Like many others, my history with Blizzard games is very long, detailed and grateful. Grateful that Blizzard existed because their games have been the only ones that have been ridiculously fun, long-lasting and satisfying. I started with SC1. Than I played D2 for many years. I even played WC3 for a few years, and of course, WoW for many years. Starcraft 2 was the first Blizzard game that I only played for 1 month. Not because it was too competitive, too difficult or not fun, but because the game had something missing in it. I would find myself only logging on to play a game or two, than logging off. A far cry from previous Blizzard games, where I would log on, chat to people, mess around, talk strategy, experiment, play games with friends and in the mix of that, play the game. Eventually, Starcraft 2 felt like every other non-Blizzard game – dead, finished and pointless to play. Battle.net 2.0 turned SC2 in to a ghost town, and ruined one of the most social RTS games in history. As I write this article, on a Saturday afternoon, there are just 13,000 SC2 games being played right now, Worldwide. At this same time, there are 51,000 games being played in Diablo 2, an 11 year old game. SC2 has no community that compares to what have seen in past Blizzard games, (except for the e-sports community). Why? Because Battle.net 2.0 doesn’t have any kind of social features, and is built from the ground up to prevent communities from ever forming. Before Battle.net 2.0, I didn’t log in just to play the game and log back off. I logged in because it was a part of my every-day entertainment schedule. It was what I did instead of watch TV or play other games. And it was the most satisfying piece of entertainment for me for the last decade. Battle.net 2.0 took away every single part of the Blizzard community, and became a means to an end for them, rather than an epic gaming platform that brought players together and was a social metropolis of entertainment, community and excellent games. Source: http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/battle-net-2-0-threatens-the-success-of-diablo-3-opinion
There's another thread about this with more detail and suggestions on TL, you should check it out:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=308482
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love "ghost town effect" it fully describes the problem. the other problem is blizz who created so many popular games sucks at making them AMAZING games most of the time
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Teams and clan chat and social integration is a huge part of the game. The new development team is too slow to respond and barely listen to any feedback from players and fans. It might be too late to implement anything now, but if they don't for hots... i don't see this game going any further. I spent more time talking to people in channels then playing in sc1 and that lasted three years. I can't see sc2 keeping my interest for this long.
The mentality they go through balancing the game is even worse... if no one is using this unit ... let's remove it from the game.
And since too many people are using this one, let's nerf it enough so no one will again. Look what happen to reapers / thors and now ghosts .. there is no point in making ghost in tvz anymore unless they go infestors.
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Both of the links are broken...
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I don't quite understand what you think blizzard has done wrong. There are team games, there are chat channels, both staple and self-created, you can set up custom obs matches, custom ums games...
What exactly is missing that is needed? You can't compare the gameplay, because an MMO and an RTS aren't even in the same category.
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Sc: BW you log in BOOM giant chat box full of people. Sc2 you log in BOOM empty page of nothing.
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On March 06 2012 01:57 liberal wrote:
I don't quite understand what you think blizzard has done wrong. There are team games, there are chat channels, both staple and self-created, you can set up custom obs matches, custom ums games...
What exactly is missing that is needed? You can't compare the gameplay, because an MMO and an RTS aren't even in the same category.
clans, group replay viewing, not shit UMS hosting/joining, LAN, and those are just things i thought up in 30 seconds
i think you need to take your head out of blizzards ass. they make some good games but they also make some god awful decisions
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This article is 100% accurate with the way i feel ( and have felt ) with SC2 and all Blizzard games in the past
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On March 06 2012 01:58 chip789 wrote:
Sc: BW you log in BOOM giant chat box full of people. Sc2 you log in BOOM empty page of nothing.
I can attest to the fact that this is part of the reason I play SC2 so little, and why I play WC3 so much. Back in WC3 it was so so easy to get a group of people together and play the game as a community, because there was a gigantic plethora of ways to interact with other people. (Huge chat rooms, clans etc)
But in SC2, chat rooms are not inviting at all, they are so small.. I don't understand why they changed the way they did things when it comes to chat rooms and player interaction, but I firmly believe it's a step backwards.
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I don't understand complaints of SC2 being a "ghost town".
In Brood War, I'd log in, get dropped into a USEast chat room, get spammed by bots, see a couple people arguing about something dumb, and jump out of the chat as fast as I could. In SC2, the original outcry when chat channels were left out was unreal. You'd think that when you log on now, you'd see something more than "There are 648 users in public chat rooms".
The entire quote from that article reads, "I had fun playing game X, and now I'm not having fun playing game Y because it feels like a ghost town" with no actual explanation as to why it feels so or how to fix it. This guy is seriously talking about D2? Sure it's social...log on and enjoy your wall of bot spam.
People complained that SC2 wasn't social because there were no chat rooms. Blizz adds them, and now it's generally less than 1000 people in public chats and people still complain that SC2 isn't social.
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Honestly, WoW seems like a pretty bad example of built-in social interaction systems to me and suffers from a similar issue (a ton of players just autopiloting through the game without much communication at all). Needless to say that SC2 is infinitely worse, but if you were looking for examples you'd probably be looking towards something like EVE instead.
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Could not agree more with this article.
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Well that's no big news, Blizzard made a point of honour at denying players what they basically want the most from Bnet 2.0 ....
It's like a giant Trollface from them laughing at all the fanboys playing their games. Fortunately for them their games are awesome in many ways, but it's a tricky game they're playing ...
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Any multiplayer game is more fun with friends. SC2 was only really fun when I played 2v2 and 3v3 with people I knew before they all quit. 1v1 on the ladder gets boring really quickly.
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On March 06 2012 02:03 tenklavir wrote:
I don't understand complaints of SC2 being a "ghost town".
In Brood War, I'd log in, get dropped into a USEast chat room, get spammed by bots, see a couple people arguing about something dumb, and jump out of the chat as fast as I could. In SC2, the original outcry when chat channels were left out was unreal. You'd think that when you log on now, you'd see something more than "There are 648 users in public chat rooms".
The entire quote from that article reads, "I had fun playing game X, and now I'm not having fun playing game Y because it feels like a ghost town" with no actual explanation as to why it feels so or how to fix it. This guy is seriously talking about D2? Sure it's social...log on and enjoy your wall of bot spam.
People complained that SC2 wasn't social because there were no chat rooms. Blizz adds them, and now it's generally less than 1000 people in public chats and people still complain that SC2 isn't social.
Did you play Broodwar only in its final stage... where the community was very small and elitist actually? Because I still remember europe battle.net , fun chats in DEU-1. Strategy chat or overall fun in op ToT). Even hanging out on US.West op ClanBy op D.T- or any other channel, it was always social and even though there could be a time where actually no one would write a word, you were never alone.
I don't think how they introduced chat-channels into Starcraft or implemented them was the right way to do it, but its certainly better than just a friend list..Why can't I have a small editor/console like chat when I'm in battle.net?
Bring back /w /f m etc..
and give me the function to watch replays TOGETHER, PLEASE!
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Fully agree, really the only way to beat the "ghost town effect" is to find some friends or a clan/team that has a ventrillo server set up or make a skype group call. Otherwise you get lonely and go do something else. Luckily I found a good group of friends with all my old VT team mates back in beta, and we were never on sc2 without being on vent together.
BNET 2.0 REALLY needs a clan function and a clan channel would be nice as well. I sincerely hope all these issues are addressed and fully taken care of for HOTS.
I can imagine how difficult it must be for the random newb who purchases the game, has nobody on his friend list, logs in, get BM'd on ladder and then is forced to repeat the process..'
+ Show Spoiler +PLEASE GOD REPLAY VIEWING WITH FRIENDS
Poor newbs 
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I sometimes just randomly chitchat during the boring first 3-4 minutes (if I'm in a good mood and not annoyed in the first place) to spice it up a little. Most people go for it and chat weird stuff with me, but a lot of people just think I'm cheesing because I chat so much nonsense lol
Most of the time I concentrate on playing anyway though, mostly because I can't really come up with new thoughts about everything and anything each game.
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I think a large cause of this is not the chat channels (though they don't help), it's just the god-awful custom game system, and the way it has kept any type of even halfway decent game and interaction through those games down. The primary way I met people playing WC3 was custom games, and I feel SC2 is really lacking in that aspect, and it's not helped by the absolutely tiny chat boxes inside the room, and the general coldness of the menu. Also, I think the type of games that are on top of the popularity are the kind where you can just autopilot through them with little to no interaction, as opposed to the heavily teamwork-reliant and relaxed games in WC3.
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EPT
