The ready check in lobby will bring up the problem when you don't have a full lobby. afk hosts can't start games with only 2 people which destroys the popularity of a lot of the larger games, and afk players will kill the ready checks.
Maybe implement that people pressing ready will take 5 seconds off the 30 second timer so that it counts down quicker.
You rose 2 points:
1) Starting games with slots still open.
- My answer - Don't allow the game to start until all positions are full. For melee maps, you can set the game type on the right: 4v4. For custom maps, if they don't have the option, they should add the option to set the max number of players.
2) AFK Players preventing the game from starting.
- My answer - Would you rather start a game with AFK players then? Neither sounds ideal. As I envision it, after the game is full the "Ready" option becomes enabled. You then have 30 seconds to click Ready before you are kicked. After the game is full and all players have clicked Ready, then the game counts down from 5 seconds or something.
All that needs to happen with regards to the countdown is that if a player leaves its stopped. At the moment it may as well start the game straight away.
But what about the all too frequent case of AFK players? Especially for Melee and team oriented custom games? You start the game off down 1 guy. In WC3 and several other RTS's it was common practice for the host to ask if everyone was ready before starting the game. This would simply automate it.
I'd like to point out some things that would be welcome on the custom game screen.
(ive put a red dot next to the changes ive made)
0) i'd remove the refresh button. lets be honest, on the custom game screen who has EVER used it?
1) i'd have the name of the filter above each of the filters; needed so that i know what each one is filtering. (if u look at the current system where its got filters, there is three boxes and when they have 'All' 'All' 'All' in them, i'm completely confused about what thing each box is filtering :/)
2) i'd have both the author of the map, and the uploader of the map appear under the map name. if someone in on the NA bnet makes a map, and allows me to upload it on SEA, i think there should be a way to identify who originally made the map (atm. who ever uploaded the map gets their name there, which makes it look like the uploader stole the authors map )
3) remove the 'show more' button, instead have the whole list scrollable from the start. read point 6 for more of an explanation... because getting rid of the show more button can cause server load problems...
4) i'd improve the category filter, as shown in this picture. blizzard could add a few popular categories to the list, and expand it over time. in the map editor, a map creator can choose one of these categories to have their map categorized as... or they can request a new category be added by blizzard.
5) i put horizontal lines in the category list to separate different entries. this is needed because 'Custom maps' is a HUGE amount of maps, whilst 'Bound' results in a relatively TINY amount of maps (ive actually only seen 1 Bound map being made )
6) i'd remove the 'show more' button completly. i'd instead make the custom game screen be able to scroll from top to bottom as soon as you view it.
I saw comments in a thread somewhere explaining that the show more button is needed because it would put alot of strain on the Bnet server if it were to send the whole list to each user when they opened the custom game screen...well, my solution makes the whole list scrollable, but the actual map names are only downloaded once the user scrolls down to view them. (look at picture 1 and picture 3 to understand)
while the map names are being loaded, they appear as '...'.
only maps which are in view are loaded.
when the map names are being loaded, a loading symbol appears in the top right of the screen to show that its loading.
ps. Thank you KratsAU for starting this thread, and bringing CONSTRUCTIVE attention to the topic.
i really hope that we, as a team, can come up with a prototype for this interface (ill gladly implement it in Java so we can all play and make decisions) and make something to present to blizzard and say, 'Hey, youve done an excellent job on sc2, i love it to bits; but i think the popularity system and custom game screen is a little bit flawed, how about this interface?' and then we can show them the interface that weve made, and they can love it to bits.
and then both us mapper, and blizzard win.
Some good ideas there, some of it I already had in mind and wanted to improve including some other things that were suggested on the blizzard forums, just didn't get a chance as yet.
I'm going to wait and see what 1.2 patch brings, hopefully it's not too far away!
if u start a thread/ or add a thread on the blizz forums concerning, this, feel free to use the pics i edited above.
i'd love a decent filter system. it seems that blizzard is already doing something about it (though it doesnt work yet).
here is a screen shot i just took from the custom map lobby.
if u look at the filter, there is Tower Defence and Tug of war in there... thats pretty cool that blizzard is starting to add categories.
i promise you, i did not edit this picture and put those categories in there.
if u look at the maps displayed in the background, the filters dont actually work yet. however its still a good thing to see.
Yeah I noticed they had those, so obviously they planned to use them for something. I would be surprised if 1.2 doesn't bring some changes to the list.
To be honest, I'd be perfectly happy if Blizzard left the system as it is now but added in a screen which had Most Recently Created Games which would obviously have the most recently created rooms on a list and not have more than one of each type of game (to avoid them all being nexus wars or dota). The only real problem I have with the popularity system is that creating a game that's not on the first page means not a single person will join it.
unfortunetly (on SEA anyway) without the popularity system, i dont think there are enough people playing custom maps for ANY maps to fill really quickly =(.
as an example, on NA u know how the first 5ish page of the custom map system have a full popularity bar? well on SEA, only the first page has that; all following pages have very little plays.
not only that, but the number of plays on the first page is about 3k for first map, 1.5 for second, and 1k for the rest on the first page.
then the second page drops down to about 150.
I would like to make few points up for your suggestion
First, I really like the favorite idea, no more comment
Next, I do not like the rating system. Rating system is a bad system to have, or not an useful system at all.
For example, When I buy a product Newegg, I, or many people too, never look the product's number of eggs, where I always look for the NUMBER OF REVIEWs. Lets say, there is a graphic card with 5.0 eggs with 1 or 2 reviews, and one with 3.0 egg with 2000 reviews; I choose the latter one because it is more popular.
Current popularity system takes care of my point over the rating system. But I agree that the popularity system IS broken in terms of it is the ONLY way to sort and view.
For expanding and choosing host, I like the expanding idea, which i've hoped blizzard adds this, to select game mode
But I think choosing by host is not necessary at all.
Current "host" title doesnt mean anything because battle net is the one hosting the game.
Host is a person who can force start the game.
Displaying private game is unnecessary. Throughout all battle.net system, it never displayed private games.
For the solution, I would like to have some button to follow a friend on the expanded list
I think this is all for my opinion for this point
And I would like to say good job on making this thread with good images
Thanks for the feedback. I don't agree on the rating stuff, but each to their own on that.
Regarding the HOST, the main reason I did that is because occasionally you are going to get a host that you simply don't like, or that hosts games and somehow ruins them by leaving all of the time/being abusive or whatever. This allows good hosts to get a repore and you can end up with good groups of players to play with, since they are all looking for the good hosts.
That's the theory anyway, either way it's not really a negative thing if you do show it, even if you don't make use of it (providing there is enough screen real estate etc)
Y'know, frankly, Blizzard should simply take the report system, and apply it to everything. They shouldn't police ANYTHING, whether it be maps, or lobby names. Just put in report functions, if enough people report something, send a blizzard rep to look at it. I mean instead of paying an entire team to actively scour the databases in search for offensive material, just leave it in the hands of the players. If it's offensive, people will report it. If people find maps of porn offensive, they'll report it.
ALL of these problems, ALL of this anger, and ALL of these endless ideas all stem from one, single source. The fact that Blizzard is needlessly controlling our content. They left us well enough alone for over a fucking decade, and there weren't any problems. Now they go sticking their fingers into everything and there's endless bitching since the beta. If they simply gave back control to the players, so many problems would be fixed instantly. :|
Colt,
I have read all your post and as a Blizzard fan since the Warcraft 1 days, like 14 fucking years ago when I started playing in middle school,( i am 30 now)
I agree with you Completely
You are one of the handful of people left who truely understand what made Warcraft Custom gaming so great. From its diversity, to the isolated occurances of beastiality, that brought not only good gameplay, but reasonable humor.
That greatness has now all been lost at the expense of control and greed.
I have been with this game, this company from day 1 and man have they fucked it up.
What angers me most is that a site like this with such a large following actually has the power to motivate Blizzard to change this.
But we do nothing.
Instead we continue to Glorify this broken system by participating in it.
There is no reason they cant use both the warcraft 3 system and the blizzard content nazi's. Here is how, make it so you still have to upload your map to battle.net in order to play it. Then the popularity list should only be to DL maps not to play them. Make a warcraft 3 custom games list. If blizzard is too worried about swear words in server name just force server names to be like this. RailTracer's Sorcerer TD, or BudSMoken's Raynors Party. There is no need for this popularity list. All it does is scare away people who liked custom games in warcraft 3.
My brother wont even play custom games because he knows the popular ones suck. Back in warcraft 3 we would play them all the time. Because the warcraft 3 system worked games filled up there. AND there was thousands of games to play not just the top 20 or 30. A lot more people would be playing the custom games if there was a warcraft 3 system. The popularity system only scares people away. I for one havent loaded up any SC2 custom games in over a month, I have actually been going back to warcraft 3 because it has funner maps and a wider variety. And there is no reason for this SC2 is a better engine a better editor why must we change the delivery system.
I know the nazi content control cant go away, no one wanted to see goatse when they were 13 but war 3 made it happened. And on a side note I don't think it fucked me up in any way it was just an image. If anything it taught me about the world, and the fact that there is sick people out there who make stuff like goatse/tubgirl. If blizzard polices there content its not going to change that fact about the world. And where was blizzard to protect the world from 2 girls 1 cup? That's right they couldn't stop that because now people are going to see this shit regardless because of friends pressuring them to.
Basically to sum this all up, bring back warcraft 3 custom game lists with nazi content control or the only custom games that will exist will be the god awful Tug of War maps.
Also this is just a note for anyone making a map, plz plz use custom units and races, NEXUS WARS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
$10 bucks says that if any blizz people do ever look at sc2mapster.com which im pretty sure they do at some point in time, that this is the one thread they avoid.
Let me start off by saying that some of the ideas in this thread could significantly improve the popularity system. I'm glad that some of you have put the time and effort in to generate them. However, it should be painfully obvious to anyone familiar with Blizzard before SC2 that these are not enough. We will still have an inferior system. But, seeing how they have their heads up their asses...you guys better take what you can get.
Think of it like a swimming pool, they have the kiddy-pool for toddlers,
and the real pool for everyone else. The default popularity system can be the kiddy-pool, for people too lazy/stupid to find a game that's not at the very top of a list. And the free-list can be for those of us who actually fall under the game's rating of T for Teen, and can manage by ourselves.
ALL of these problems, ALL of this anger, and ALL of these endless ideas all stem from one, single source. The fact that Blizzard is needlessly
controlling our content. They left us well enough alone for over a fucking decade, and there weren't any problems.
Blizzard fucked up, and made a shitty system, and the community has to whine, bitch, and argue amongst themselves trying to find ways to fix
it. All the while Blizzard's ignoring everyone. You can have the opinion that Blizzard's perfect, and that those who say otherwise are wrong.
That is exactly what is happening. People with opinions like that have a term just for them, fanboy.
They seriously don't care about any of this thread or serious community,
as long they have community of stupid, fat 10-years old kids who buy
every single thing they produce and overprice.
Seriously: Blizz is morphing into Apple.
Indeed, sad but true. I feel sorry for those who don't realize this. Blizzard used to be a great company, then WoW and Activision happened.
Yeah the automatic popularity calculations are a bit tricky to get
right, and no matter what they do you probably wont stop the boosting
without manual interaction.
A per minute calculation idea isn't bad, but isn't really an accurate
measure of calculation either, it could inflate the popularity of longer
maps - still better than what we currently have.
We can agree to disagree about how easy it is to implement a proper formula. But, unless you're a fanboy you must admit that the current one is simply idiotic.
It seems to me that there is an easy and accurate measure that eliminates boosting. Ironically, the one you discredit. Per player per minute. You say it will inflate longer maps, how so?
Say we have two maps, A and B. A is a 4 player and 30 minute game. B is a 8 player and 60 minute game. Now imagine the audience consists of 8 A fanboys, and 8 B fanboys. Start! Two games of A fill, one game of B fills. Two games of A finish, then two more fill. At the end of the hour, both are equal. Compare this to the current system where A would be leaps and bounds ahead of B.
I have read all your post and as a Blizzard fan since the Warcraft 1
days, like 14 fucking years ago when I started playing in middle
school,( i am 30 now) I agree with you Completely
You are one of the handful of people left who truely understand what
made Warcraft Custom gaming so great. From its diversity, to the
isolated occurances of beastiality, that brought not only good gameplay,
but reasonable humor.
That greatness has now all been lost at the expense of control and
greed.
I have been with this game, this company from day 1 and man have they
fucked it up.
What angers me most is that a site like this with such a large following
actually has the power to motivate Blizzard to change this.
I agree with you on everything, but with one exception. We don't have the power to do anything. That window of opportunity has closed. This site is now but a shadow of what it used to be. This site is the largest one for SC2 modding. See where I'm going?
Also, I just wanted to point out that Colt556 has been a refreshing voice of reason throughout this thread. You could probably infer this based on all the times I've quoted him.
$10 bucks says that if any blizz people do ever look at sc2mapster.com
which im pretty sure they do at some point in time, that this is the one
thread they avoid.
Oh, no doubt about it. If you watch the Blizzcon interviews, you can't help but get the feeling that they not only don't care but also believe that this system is better (marketplace). One may point to the blue poster on forums who said "we know it sucks" but do you always believe what they say? Is it possible that was just an attempt to shut us up, and that were planning to wait it out until the commotion died down (which it has, since a lot of people quit mapping).
Some really great suggestions in this thread, great going everyone. I hope some off you post this on the official blizz site and keep on and on at them, letting them continuously know we are unsatisfied and want a better system. No rest no mercy.
I can't emphasize enough how true this is. I laugh (inside) at people when I witness them offended by the most petty things.
I'm not the sort of person that is offended easily, I've seen my share of dodgey sites and whatever else, but at the end of the day, I understand that not everyone is the same, and just because it doesn't bother me, doesn't mean it wont bother other people.
You can all think that seeing goatse at 13 hasn't effected you and whatever, but the fact is you don't know, you think you are normal, but just reading some of the comments here, hell I don't think some of you are :). But this isn't the point, the point is that none of us have the right to determine what people should and shouldn't get offended by, which is why these systems are necessary.
Systems are often over protective these days, but that's generally because few people tend to abuse them, which effects many.
Even though I don't get offended easily and am very tolerant of this sort of thing, I don't want to be looking at lists of websites, just like I don't want to be spammed with Gold selling chat in whatever MMO I play.
Anyhow, the fact of the matter is, it is possible to have a great system without the need for custom game names, and there are a few ways to achieve this. Blizzard may or may not be able to work it out, it's very common that server lists are the weakest point of games which is unfortunate, but I would be surprised if they weren't well aware of peoples complaints by now, so it just depends what they decide to do about it.
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You rose 2 points:
1) Starting games with slots still open. - My answer - Don't allow the game to start until all positions are full. For melee maps, you can set the game type on the right: 4v4. For custom maps, if they don't have the option, they should add the option to set the max number of players.
2) AFK Players preventing the game from starting. - My answer - Would you rather start a game with AFK players then? Neither sounds ideal. As I envision it, after the game is full the "Ready" option becomes enabled. You then have 30 seconds to click Ready before you are kicked. After the game is full and all players have clicked Ready, then the game counts down from 5 seconds or something.
All that needs to happen with regards to the countdown is that if a player leaves its stopped. At the moment it may as well start the game straight away.
@irok2002: Go
But what about the all too frequent case of AFK players? Especially for Melee and team oriented custom games? You start the game off down 1 guy. In WC3 and several other RTS's it was common practice for the host to ask if everyone was ready before starting the game. This would simply automate it.
People: Before posting new (not the best ) ideas at least read first post.
You do like this: Oh! I see a topic. Let me f* to the back and post something.
I'd like to point out some things that would be welcome on the custom game screen. (ive put a red dot next to the changes ive made)
0) i'd remove the refresh button. lets be honest, on the custom game screen who has EVER used it?
1) i'd have the name of the filter above each of the filters; needed so that i know what each one is filtering. (if u look at the current system where its got filters, there is three boxes and when they have 'All' 'All' 'All' in them, i'm completely confused about what thing each box is filtering :/)
2) i'd have both the author of the map, and the uploader of the map appear under the map name. if someone in on the NA bnet makes a map, and allows me to upload it on SEA, i think there should be a way to identify who originally made the map (atm. who ever uploaded the map gets their name there, which makes it look like the uploader stole the authors map )
3) remove the 'show more' button, instead have the whole list scrollable from the start. read point 6 for more of an explanation... because getting rid of the show more button can cause server load problems...
4) i'd improve the category filter, as shown in this picture. blizzard could add a few popular categories to the list, and expand it over time. in the map editor, a map creator can choose one of these categories to have their map categorized as... or they can request a new category be added by blizzard.
5) i put horizontal lines in the category list to separate different entries. this is needed because 'Custom maps' is a HUGE amount of maps, whilst 'Bound' results in a relatively TINY amount of maps (ive actually only seen 1 Bound map being made )
6) i'd remove the 'show more' button completly. i'd instead make the custom game screen be able to scroll from top to bottom as soon as you view it. I saw comments in a thread somewhere explaining that the show more button is needed because it would put alot of strain on the Bnet server if it were to send the whole list to each user when they opened the custom game screen...well, my solution makes the whole list scrollable, but the actual map names are only downloaded once the user scrolls down to view them. (look at picture 1 and picture 3 to understand) while the map names are being loaded, they appear as '...'. only maps which are in view are loaded. when the map names are being loaded, a loading symbol appears in the top right of the screen to show that its loading.
ps. Thank you KratsAU for starting this thread, and bringing CONSTRUCTIVE attention to the topic. i really hope that we, as a team, can come up with a prototype for this interface (ill gladly implement it in Java so we can all play and make decisions) and make something to present to blizzard and say, 'Hey, youve done an excellent job on sc2, i love it to bits; but i think the popularity system and custom game screen is a little bit flawed, how about this interface?' and then we can show them the interface that weve made, and they can love it to bits. and then both us mapper, and blizzard win.
Some good ideas there, some of it I already had in mind and wanted to improve including some other things that were suggested on the blizzard forums, just didn't get a chance as yet.
I'm going to wait and see what 1.2 patch brings, hopefully it's not too far away!
@KratsAU: Go
if u start a thread/ or add a thread on the blizz forums concerning, this, feel free to use the pics i edited above. i'd love a decent filter system. it seems that blizzard is already doing something about it (though it doesnt work yet).
here is a screen shot i just took from the custom map lobby.
if u look at the filter, there is Tower Defence and Tug of war in there... thats pretty cool that blizzard is starting to add categories. i promise you, i did not edit this picture and put those categories in there.
if u look at the maps displayed in the background, the filters dont actually work yet. however its still a good thing to see.
Yeah I noticed they had those, so obviously they planned to use them for something. I would be surprised if 1.2 doesn't bring some changes to the list.
To be honest, I'd be perfectly happy if Blizzard left the system as it is now but added in a screen which had Most Recently Created Games which would obviously have the most recently created rooms on a list and not have more than one of each type of game (to avoid them all being nexus wars or dota). The only real problem I have with the popularity system is that creating a game that's not on the first page means not a single person will join it.
@Introversity: Go
unfortunetly (on SEA anyway) without the popularity system, i dont think there are enough people playing custom maps for ANY maps to fill really quickly =(.
as an example, on NA u know how the first 5ish page of the custom map system have a full popularity bar? well on SEA, only the first page has that; all following pages have very little plays. not only that, but the number of plays on the first page is about 3k for first map, 1.5 for second, and 1k for the rest on the first page. then the second page drops down to about 150.
I would like to make few points up for your suggestion
First, I really like the favorite idea, no more comment
Next, I do not like the rating system. Rating system is a bad system to have, or not an useful system at all.
For example, When I buy a product Newegg, I, or many people too, never look the product's number of eggs, where I always look for the NUMBER OF REVIEWs. Lets say, there is a graphic card with 5.0 eggs with 1 or 2 reviews, and one with 3.0 egg with 2000 reviews; I choose the latter one because it is more popular.
Current popularity system takes care of my point over the rating system. But I agree that the popularity system IS broken in terms of it is the ONLY way to sort and view.
For expanding and choosing host, I like the expanding idea, which i've hoped blizzard adds this, to select game mode
But I think choosing by host is not necessary at all. Current "host" title doesnt mean anything because battle net is the one hosting the game. Host is a person who can force start the game.
Displaying private game is unnecessary. Throughout all battle.net system, it never displayed private games. For the solution, I would like to have some button to follow a friend on the expanded list
I think this is all for my opinion for this point
And I would like to say good job on making this thread with good images
Thanks for the feedback. I don't agree on the rating stuff, but each to their own on that.
Regarding the HOST, the main reason I did that is because occasionally you are going to get a host that you simply don't like, or that hosts games and somehow ruins them by leaving all of the time/being abusive or whatever. This allows good hosts to get a repore and you can end up with good groups of players to play with, since they are all looking for the good hosts.
That's the theory anyway, either way it's not really a negative thing if you do show it, even if you don't make use of it (providing there is enough screen real estate etc)
I loved this, you guys put all this text and images on the sc2 oficial forums? Blizzard need to make a feedback for this idea
Stickied it so it's more clear to be an "official" location to discuss popularity.
Colt,
I have read all your post and as a Blizzard fan since the Warcraft 1 days, like 14 fucking years ago when I started playing in middle school,( i am 30 now) I agree with you Completely
You are one of the handful of people left who truely understand what made Warcraft Custom gaming so great. From its diversity, to the isolated occurances of beastiality, that brought not only good gameplay, but reasonable humor.
That greatness has now all been lost at the expense of control and greed.
I have been with this game, this company from day 1 and man have they fucked it up.
What angers me most is that a site like this with such a large following actually has the power to motivate Blizzard to change this.
But we do nothing.
Instead we continue to Glorify this broken system by participating in it.
There is no reason they cant use both the warcraft 3 system and the blizzard content nazi's. Here is how, make it so you still have to upload your map to battle.net in order to play it. Then the popularity list should only be to DL maps not to play them. Make a warcraft 3 custom games list. If blizzard is too worried about swear words in server name just force server names to be like this. RailTracer's Sorcerer TD, or BudSMoken's Raynors Party. There is no need for this popularity list. All it does is scare away people who liked custom games in warcraft 3.
My brother wont even play custom games because he knows the popular ones suck. Back in warcraft 3 we would play them all the time. Because the warcraft 3 system worked games filled up there. AND there was thousands of games to play not just the top 20 or 30. A lot more people would be playing the custom games if there was a warcraft 3 system. The popularity system only scares people away. I for one havent loaded up any SC2 custom games in over a month, I have actually been going back to warcraft 3 because it has funner maps and a wider variety. And there is no reason for this SC2 is a better engine a better editor why must we change the delivery system.
I know the nazi content control cant go away, no one wanted to see goatse when they were 13 but war 3 made it happened. And on a side note I don't think it fucked me up in any way it was just an image. If anything it taught me about the world, and the fact that there is sick people out there who make stuff like goatse/tubgirl. If blizzard polices there content its not going to change that fact about the world. And where was blizzard to protect the world from 2 girls 1 cup? That's right they couldn't stop that because now people are going to see this shit regardless because of friends pressuring them to.
Basically to sum this all up, bring back warcraft 3 custom game lists with nazi content control or the only custom games that will exist will be the god awful Tug of War maps.
Also this is just a note for anyone making a map, plz plz use custom units and races, NEXUS WARS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
$10 bucks says that if any blizz people do ever look at sc2mapster.com which im pretty sure they do at some point in time, that this is the one thread they avoid.
Let me start off by saying that some of the ideas in this thread could significantly improve the popularity system. I'm glad that some of you have put the time and effort in to generate them. However, it should be painfully obvious to anyone familiar with Blizzard before SC2 that these are not enough. We will still have an inferior system. But, seeing how they have their heads up their asses...you guys better take what you can get.
I can't emphasize enough how true this is. I laugh (inside) at people when I witness them offended by the most petty things.
That's a nice analogy.
Well said, yet again.
That is exactly what is happening. People with opinions like that have a term just for them, fanboy.
Indeed, sad but true. I feel sorry for those who don't realize this. Blizzard used to be a great company, then WoW and Activision happened.
We can agree to disagree about how easy it is to implement a proper formula. But, unless you're a fanboy you must admit that the current one is simply idiotic.
It seems to me that there is an easy and accurate measure that eliminates boosting. Ironically, the one you discredit. Per player per minute. You say it will inflate longer maps, how so?
Say we have two maps, A and B. A is a 4 player and 30 minute game. B is a 8 player and 60 minute game. Now imagine the audience consists of 8 A fanboys, and 8 B fanboys. Start! Two games of A fill, one game of B fills. Two games of A finish, then two more fill. At the end of the hour, both are equal. Compare this to the current system where A would be leaps and bounds ahead of B.
I agree with you on everything, but with one exception. We don't have the power to do anything. That window of opportunity has closed. This site is now but a shadow of what it used to be. This site is the largest one for SC2 modding. See where I'm going?
Also, I just wanted to point out that Colt556 has been a refreshing voice of reason throughout this thread. You could probably infer this based on all the times I've quoted him.
Oh, no doubt about it. If you watch the Blizzcon interviews, you can't help but get the feeling that they not only don't care but also believe that this system is better (marketplace). One may point to the blue poster on forums who said "we know it sucks" but do you always believe what they say? Is it possible that was just an attempt to shut us up, and that were planning to wait it out until the commotion died down (which it has, since a lot of people quit mapping).
Some really great suggestions in this thread, great going everyone. I hope some off you post this on the official blizz site and keep on and on at them, letting them continuously know we are unsatisfied and want a better system. No rest no mercy.
I'm not the sort of person that is offended easily, I've seen my share of dodgey sites and whatever else, but at the end of the day, I understand that not everyone is the same, and just because it doesn't bother me, doesn't mean it wont bother other people.
You can all think that seeing goatse at 13 hasn't effected you and whatever, but the fact is you don't know, you think you are normal, but just reading some of the comments here, hell I don't think some of you are :). But this isn't the point, the point is that none of us have the right to determine what people should and shouldn't get offended by, which is why these systems are necessary.
Systems are often over protective these days, but that's generally because few people tend to abuse them, which effects many.
Even though I don't get offended easily and am very tolerant of this sort of thing, I don't want to be looking at lists of websites, just like I don't want to be spammed with Gold selling chat in whatever MMO I play.
Anyhow, the fact of the matter is, it is possible to have a great system without the need for custom game names, and there are a few ways to achieve this. Blizzard may or may not be able to work it out, it's very common that server lists are the weakest point of games which is unfortunate, but I would be surprised if they weren't well aware of peoples complaints by now, so it just depends what they decide to do about it.