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SC2 and the ghost-town effect - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Xalorian
Profile Joined September 2011
Canada433 Posts
March 05 2012 17:24 GMT
#41
I guess than a big part of this will be solved when they implement Clan support. B.Net 0.2 does feel lonely... but, in the end, I don't really care about chatting with random people. Maybe it's just me.

But a Clan chat that open as we log in, instead of, as of now, pretty much a nothing, would be good.
tenklavir
Profile Joined November 2010
Slovakia116 Posts
March 05 2012 17:24 GMT
#42
On March 06 2012 02:17 Type|NarutO wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 06 2012 02:12 tenklavir wrote:
On March 06 2012 02:07 Type|NarutO wrote:
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!


What you're describing then is that the "very small and elitist" group that played bwar then wants the same experience now. By definition your small and elitist group is likely exclusionary of lesser players...how is this "social" or does it give other a sense of community on Bnet? You know you can round up your friends from back then, pick a chat name, and have everyone jump in there when they log on Bnet 2.0.

I do agree with you about replay-together. That is hasn't happened yet is unconscionable.


Only because you stated that you get annoyed by the chat doesn't mean other people are. I bet thousands of random newbies would even like to just be in a chatchannel sitting around, either talking or reading what others write about the game, not even mentioning there might be some very good players around.

Broodwar was small and elitist back then, because it was just insanely old and only a few people still actively played it or were basically playing on iCCup etc. Yet it was still not as cold and lonely as Starcraft 2 is. Nowadays I either have a skype conversation or stream to interact with the people... other than that, yeah... simply sad experience.


That's true, others may not, but nothing stops them from entering chat channels now. It's not hard to find the Chat Channel button and I don't really see thousands of people in chat.

People are lazy

It really requires less effort to make post after post on TL about SC2 not feeling social than it does to enter the chat channels that exist?
caradoc
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Canada3022 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-05 17:28:43
March 05 2012 17:25 GMT
#43
On March 06 2012 02:19 Alacast wrote:
Just because the social interaction doesn't exist within the confines of the game program itself, doesn't mean it's not there. For example, you're on TL, a primarily Starcraft related website with more depth and content than any in-game chat program could ever provide. I have never found public chat channels in any game to be rewarding or fun; more often than not I read them with a sense of terror at the sheer stupidity and ignorance of the human race and eventually fled, never to return.


Fair enough, though that said, couldn't we imagine some imaginary UI that encouraged client-internal interaction a little bit more? Things like tournaments, shared replay watching, clan management, better chat options etc.

On March 06 2012 02:24 tenklavir wrote:


Show nested quote +
People are lazy

It really requires less effort to make post after post on TL about SC2 not feeling social than it does to enter the chat channels that exist?


Well that's just the thing of it. TL is a community. I don't know all of the factors that go into making a place a community, and I do research on stuff like that-- I don't think anyone does. But people DO make post after post on places like TL, and people DONT complain that places like TL dont feel social, in fact the opposite, and people DO complain about battle.net 2.0 UI being isolating-- so although people use words like 'effort' or 'lazy', maybe a better way to frame what you're talking about is something like 'conducive to community building', and TL IS, and the b.net UI is NOT, but perhaps it should be, because we all care about growing the community, and, I dunno, a UI is pretty important in that sense.

Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea...
Lorch
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany3682 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-05 17:27:01
March 05 2012 17:25 GMT
#44
Honestly I feel like a big big thing nowadays is that a lot of those players complaining about this stuff grew up playing all those blizzard games and it's kinda a part of there awesome childhood expirience, so I'd say nostalgia might play a huge factor making these issues sound more serious than they are, I mean how arrogant does one have to be to generally put games made by blizzard above any other company, dissing sc2 by putting it on the same level with non blizzard games. Like really?

Other than that yes obviously we can all agree that the game is lacking central features and a lot of parts of b.net 0.2 are crap. But I hated every single blizzard game I touched before sc 2 (I obviously didn't play bw), and I had a horrible time with any warcraft game, whether thats the RTS or the MMO (though again I didn't play much warcraft 3) and diablo, in my eyes, is one of the worst games I ever played. And yet I love sc2 like almost no game before it, yes it has flaws but the core game itself is pretty good, retardetly unexplored still, but pretty fucking good.
It might just be not caring that much about chat/custom games etc. because I honestly just wanna get better at the game and I can do that through ladder and through custom games without any issues.

And honestly how can you seirously call it an ghost town effect? Well that might be right if you wanna play a custom game thats not on the first page when you click on join game, but has anyone here waited more than 1 minute to find a ladder game yet? No? Well go play some 1.6 nowadays, takes some time to find decent servers if you don't know any, play some halo 2, well guess what you can't anymore, play some shadowrun that game is the most competitive skill orientated 360 shooter of all time, died in about a year. Those games are ghost towns, sc2 is pretty damn vived.
Silidons
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States2813 Posts
March 05 2012 17:28 GMT
#45
i 100% agree. on D2 (which i played religiously back in the day) when i would quit a game and enter chat, BAM bunch of people talking, no not bots, but actual real people.

when i play sc2, i too feel like i'm alone the second i hit "surrender"
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon Bonaparte
ryndaris
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
263 Posts
March 05 2012 17:31 GMT
#46
100% agreed with the article. Perhaps with all the attention this issue has been getting recently Blizzard will actually take action... soon.
R3DT1D3
Profile Joined January 2012
285 Posts
March 05 2012 17:32 GMT
#47
So I'm still confused, are there really that many people who play games like SC2 to be social rather than to just improve and grind some matches? Seriously, if Blizzard had as much social aspects as people wanted, they would be exposed to so much garbage it would be unbelievable. Heck, look at moderated stream chats. They're cesspits for the lowest common denominator and that's exactly what you guys want to open up to?

My social interaction is with my friends on Ventrilo and messaging/talking to people in real life. I play SC2 to play matches, not meet new friends.
[]Phase[]
Profile Joined September 2010
Belgium927 Posts
March 05 2012 17:38 GMT
#48
I agree, if it werent for my irl friends it would feel very ghosttown-y.
TheRabidDeer
Profile Blog Joined May 2003
United States3806 Posts
March 05 2012 17:39 GMT
#49
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.
Zeller
Profile Blog Joined August 2004
United States1109 Posts
March 05 2012 17:39 GMT
#50
There's got to be some people around here that can actually get this across with some blizzard folks.
Last.Epic , Epic[LighT]
turdburgler
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
England6749 Posts
March 05 2012 17:40 GMT
#51
On March 06 2012 02:23 Kimaker wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 06 2012 02:22 DwmC_Foefen wrote:
This plus the fact that the custom games section sucks balls, terrible terrible balls.

This.

I hate the "popularity" system since it means a bunch of really good games are ignored.


popularity...blizzard
TheRabidDeer
Profile Blog Joined May 2003
United States3806 Posts
March 05 2012 17:41 GMT
#52
On March 06 2012 02:32 R3DT1D3 wrote:
So I'm still confused, are there really that many people who play games like SC2 to be social rather than to just improve and grind some matches? Seriously, if Blizzard had as much social aspects as people wanted, they would be exposed to so much garbage it would be unbelievable. Heck, look at moderated stream chats. They're cesspits for the lowest common denominator and that's exactly what you guys want to open up to?

My social interaction is with my friends on Ventrilo and messaging/talking to people in real life. I play SC2 to play matches, not meet new friends.

It is not a matter of social or competition, it is that they want both. Between grinding games they want to chat with friends.
hashaki
Profile Joined March 2011
Norway210 Posts
March 05 2012 17:41 GMT
#53
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.

k?
Life is like animal porn... It's not for everyone
tenklavir
Profile Joined November 2010
Slovakia116 Posts
March 05 2012 17:42 GMT
#54
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.
Charger
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States2405 Posts
March 05 2012 17:42 GMT
#55
On March 06 2012 02:32 R3DT1D3 wrote:
So I'm still confused, are there really that many people who play games like SC2 to be social rather than to just improve and grind some matches? Seriously, if Blizzard had as much social aspects as people wanted, they would be exposed to so much garbage it would be unbelievable. Heck, look at moderated stream chats. They're cesspits for the lowest common denominator and that's exactly what you guys want to open up to?

My social interaction is with my friends on Ventrilo and messaging/talking to people in real life. I play SC2 to play matches, not meet new friends.


It's the same reason I don't like to go play golf by myself, it's just less enjoyable. The game (golf) is the exact same, hell I think I even play better alone but by the end of the afternoon I am basically sprinting to my car to get the fuck out where as if I'm with my buddies having a few cold ones I don't ever want to leave the course. That's how it used to be. For me personally I used to spend hours just idling in chat channels on D2 bnet, doing other things but keeping an eye out for that one trade I needed. It was worth my time to leave the game open because there was a community there. Now, with SC 2, there is absolutely no reason at all to leave the game open after I play a few games.

Some days I feel like you do; I want to just hop on and ladder in peace. But it would be nice to at least have the option of hanging out in a real chat channel or watch a replay with my buddy or whatever. And it's not JUST the chat channels, it's a combination of all of the incredible shortcomings of Bnet that contribute to the lack of community within the game such as no shared replay watching, to clan support, shitty chat channels, etc.

Thank god for TL.
It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.
Thorantham
Profile Joined September 2010
United States221 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-05 17:52:12
March 05 2012 17:43 GMT
#56
I agree with the article. Here's what I'd like to see.

I think clan support and clan ranking would probably make a big difference. In game clan management.

The ability to join a clan and belong to a clan within the UI - not having to install vent or find a clans separate website, etc.
The ability to click a button and get matched in a 1v1 game with other clan members just like ladder but only within the clan.
Ability to click a button and get auto teamed with clan members for 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 against other players not in the clan.
A ranking system and achievements of some type for clans overall so you can see where your clan is and have clan objectives.
Clan specific maps, maybe with custom objectives or other tweaks that make it more than mass up and beat the comp. Maybe maps where you need to have different races in order to complete objectives and win, etc.

There are probably other features too but those are the ones I can think of right off. You can do most of this all on your own but engaging with a clan right now is not easy or effective. You have to sign up on their website or email somebody, you have to add individuals manully to your sc2 friends, they are mixed with all your friends so you don't know who is a clan member and who isn't sometimes, there are no clan objectives/achievements, etc.

What do you think?
ReturnStroke
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United States801 Posts
March 05 2012 17:46 GMT
#57
I haven't been able to get my friends interested in playing SC2. Even my competitive gaming friends... it's so cold...so lonely...
Kira__
Profile Joined April 2011
Sweden2672 Posts
March 05 2012 17:49 GMT
#58
I don't have any friends in sc2, and i cant make any because the only people i meet are the angry nerds on the 1on1 ladder
The truth is, Yagami-kun, I suspect that you may in fact be Kira.
Copymizer
Profile Joined November 2010
Denmark2086 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-05 17:54:55
March 05 2012 17:51 GMT
#59
Personally coming from Diablo2 and WoW over many many years of enjoyment, social interaction, THE reason i play and enjoy games. I couldn't agree more of what Azzure wrote in that blog post. Describes it perfectly.

Entering and playing sc2 feels lonely, you don't actually look forward to login the same way as i did with wow because i had a whole lot of friends enjoying the same as me and being social is the key i think to Blizzard games success. Why would the COMPLETELY demolish that with sc2 and make you feel like playing a SP game etc. I played WoW for 4-5 years until the recent downfall but that was solely because of the key strength lying in social interaction and my friends played it so we could player TOGETHER. That's why it's fun

Blizzard has gone from all to nothing with sc2 compared to all other games they have released. It's stale boring and you feel lonely.

I'm the only one of my friends playing fairly active competitively and those other who does will login play 1-2 games and logout again. It's so cold and lonely.
~~Yo man ! MBCGame HERO Fighting !! Holy check !
Kira__
Profile Joined April 2011
Sweden2672 Posts
March 05 2012 17:51 GMT
#60
On March 06 2012 02:42 tenklavir wrote:
Show nested quote +
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.


the "better chat" is not nonsense, the original battle.net from 98 has better chat support than we got in 2012
The truth is, Yagami-kun, I suspect that you may in fact be Kira.
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