On March 06 2012 02:39 TheRabidDeer wrote: The problem is that blizzard saw the awesome forum communities and how popular they were and thought that people would just use them instead of ingame stuff. While it is true that many do use forums.. its just not the same and many people didn't know about them and it is absolutely dead for them online. Chat and a social experience is necessary for a game in modern times. There to is no excuse to not have it.
But there already is chat...
Can someone that agrees with this article explain specifically what it is that they want (since the article does not)? None of this "better chat" nonsense...clear, concise ways that you think improve the social aspects of the game as a whole.
I played both Diablo 2 and WC3 for years, and was never keen on the chat. I never joined a clan in either game. That said, the chat and profile system *felt* social. You logged on and were immediately thrown into a chat full of people, as others have said. You could also check other people's profiles, where you'd find stats and stuff they'd written there, like clan info, interests, randomness. It all made me feel that I was playing within a larger community, even though I hardly ever attempted to interact with it! Importantly the chat was a lobby you could opt out of, whereas in SC2 it's something the particularly interested opt in for. The latter kind maintains and strengthens existing communities, but the former helps create new ones, and aids that curious feeling of a game-wide community.
A second point is the custom games interface. Custom game creation in WC3 (and setting up a game in D2) was a social affair. You named the game, you decided what it would be about. You were constantly evaluating and judging in relation to other, real people who had set them up. Even before entering a game, you were already interacting socially, or felt you were. It was also commonplace to play game after game with the same people, because the game would be re-hosted with either the same name or an intuitive one (baal run hell 2, baal run hell 3 etc.). SC2 has none of this, and as a result even custom games feel cold and lonely compared to WC3's.
I am sure SC2 may suffer from other problems as well; there is no reason to argue that this or that problem is more serious. It is sufficient to recognize that this particular problem is serious. We don't need to find and address "the one true problem", as if that was even possible.
Specifically, I believe the game would benefit greatly from the following features:
- A re-worked default interface that makes the first screen a chat full of people. Base it on the player's country (SWE-1, SWE-2 etc) like in WC3 and D2. Allow players to opt out or change their default chat to custom channels or ones organized by other criteria such as league.
- A custom game system where the players make their own games, with their own custom names. Let Blizzard be the only host, if that's important, but let the players set the games up.
- Allow players to search for profiles by their name. Let a search reveal a list of every player with that name. That way, you can find someone you played with despite not knowing their number (a common problem).
- Let us write messages in our profiles. It makes that guy we just beat/lost to more like a human being and less like a bot.
On March 06 2012 02:39 Zeller wrote: There's got to be some people around here that can actually get this across with some blizzard folks.
How about you and the people alongside you get this into your head.. They're aware of the complaints many SC2 players have and they don't give a shit.
People have got to realize that the blizzard they grew up with, the one they used to love is no longer there. It's gone, it's dead, now we have Actiblizz with their new policies of 1 account pr server, 3 expansionpacks and a whole ordeal of shitty policychanges that only benefits Actiblizz and their need for totalitarian control over anything that goes on.
The social interaction is a large part of most games, but I enjoy the fact that Starcraft and Starcraft 2 are games of skill. I enjoy talking to my friends and meeting new people on the internet (...usually.) but when I'm playing starcraft, I care only about my skill at the game, and I don't mind that there's not as much social interaction. If you want social interaction, in my opinion, that's what facebook is for.
For me, replays with friends is one of the most important features missing from sc2. A lot of my time in BW was spent watching a friend's game, or having a friend watch mine, while we talked about it. I'd log on for "yo dude come check out this awesome game I just played!" and have a fun time showing/watching the replay and chatting about it.
Sending the replay file isn't nearly as exciting, because you have to sync up and then watch the whole game through at the same speed in order to stay synced with your friend.
Honestly, i see complaints about bnet 2.0 all the time and im glad you guys are persistent. The entire bnet system is completely subpar. I wonder if they designed it that way because they were relying on websites like teamliquid and reddit and 4chan to have the community while the game itself is separate. What they really should do is not rely on 3rd party sources and develop their own way of housing a community. When i load up SC2, i do it to play the game. When i load up teamliquid/reddit/4chan, i do it to discuss the game and be a part of the community. It'd be cool if it was like BW or WC3 where i could do both in the same instance (see: bnet 1.0)
On March 06 2012 06:43 Noocta wrote: I tried to join the General Chat channel in Europe. 2 people in there.
._.
You should join the tl channel. Always 100 players. (full) Blizz should allow bigger channels.
TL is always full. :d Talk about disparity.
What IS the TL channel? Is it just TL? Or TL general? I remember there being a thread about it when channels first came out but when I went in them no one was in them...
I don't think the complaints are falling on deaf ears. The posts on the official forums have gotten enough traffic to warrant notice. There will be some changes in the future but I don't think they will come before HotS. I actually have 3 chat channels I automatically log into when I enter SC2 and they give me enough social interaction so that the game doesn't feel dead. My suggestion is to find good practice channels through TL and join them. Or start a thread about a new channel for social reasons based through TL. If you want to have a place where you can talk about how to improve your ZvZ make a ZvZ channel and post a thread here for people to see. Right now, we are going to have to use the system that is currently available and wait for an implementation of some of the social features people are asking for. The game doesn't give you the features right on login but the tools are there.
Which business goal is Blizzard following, that they are not implementing a chat system in their game?
Maybe because of it, it's much harder and more expensive to get useful community feedback out of ingame chat channels, than by the use of the starcraft forums all over the world?
- No storeage costs for chatlogs (prolly not even legal) - Availabilty to search througt petrabytes of infos form users and about them - no expensive 24/7 chat observer jobs - Gigantic market research potential
What else hold them back from implement chat channels?
On March 06 2012 02:10 Erik.TheRed wrote: isn't it silly how you can't even scroll up in chat without getting flipped to the bottom as soon as someone else types something?
isn't it nonsensical how people who are ignoring you are allowed to send you chat messages?
Exaclty. The way blizzard got all those small and easily modificable things wrong makes me wonder if only a single programmer worked on bnet. Reading a chat channel makes me so mad sometimes when it's active.
Try finding something in your match history, it'll always reset the game mode you were looking for a game in to "all", and you'll always have to scroll for ages if what you're looking for is dated. Why do I see my name several times in bnet pages and channels? Seeing my nickname (the one I picked) on the top right is sufficient to remind me of my identity. And I don't want a silly "facebook hurr" popup whenever I want to add someone to my friend list. The home page you get to whenever you login doesn't serve any use but to show us tychus' face and news nobody really cares about.
so basicly you guys want a /trade chat from world of warcraft or a justin tv chat like nasl when you enter sc2 ? wow you guys are plain crazy ... i mean some feature can be upgraded like costum game /w/f m but wanting a public chat that every troll/ rage and god know what more goes to otwn on .. no .. no thx blizzard please no
On March 06 2012 08:32 Diminisherqc wrote: so basicly you guys want a /trade chat from world of warcraft or a justin tv chat like nasl when you enter sc2 ? wow you guys are plain crazy ... i mean some feature can be upgraded like costum game /w/f m but wanting a public chat that every troll/ rage and god know what more goes to otwn on .. no .. no thx blizzard please no
So you never played on the original battlenet via BW I take it.
I agree with this article. I feel like blizzard wanted to create an incomplete game in order to sell the expansions. I don't know whether they lose sales because of this but I do feel lonely when I ladder. Only thing with which I can make it better is playing some stream in the background.
On March 06 2012 08:32 Diminisherqc wrote: so basicly you guys want a /trade chat from world of warcraft or a justin tv chat like nasl when you enter sc2 ? wow you guys are plain crazy ... i mean some feature can be upgraded like costum game /w/f m but wanting a public chat that every troll/ rage and god know what more goes to otwn on .. no .. no thx blizzard please no
All Blizz need to do is have a 'General' chat channel that you auto join when you login and can see off to one side, at all times while you are building up your courage to click that damn 'Find Match' button.
There are a bunch of features that Blizz could add to help, but this is the simple one. If you can see a bunch of activity, even if you're not talking you feel like you're part of a community.
EPT
