Yes. zenx1 knows more than foolish Blizzard of course. He should be in charge of designing future systems for every company in the world.
No, wait, Zenx1 is just a silly kid that suffers from nostalgia and a critical lack of understanding.
I`ll finish this conversation tomorrow.
Wc3 and its b.net 1.0 was good back then, but now its thrash. Failsky is probably being a drama queen as usual(nothing better to do) and exaggerating the situation(Haven`t see the vid yet).
WC3's interface and functionality on B-Net 1.0 feels more modern than SC2. That's the root of the problem. Many features were removed for the sake of "visually pleasing" aesthetics. So while 2.0 might look pretty, it has less functionality than its predecessor making it feel antiquated.
Your argument is needlessly hostile without any real reason to be. If you haven't watched the video, you really shouldn't be posting at all. You are horribly misinformed:
People can add you to their friends list without your knowledge and you can't prevent them from seeing when you're online. This directly undermines your reasons for supporting 2.0.
Chat commands created a standard across games. There is a reason why so many "modern" games have this as well. Nearly every MMO and most competitive games have them. Calling it "DOS prompt" really only shows that you don't understand this. Clicking multiple buttons and THEN typing is not faster than Enter > /[SOMETHING] text. I can whisper you 5 or 6 times before you can whisper me once.
If you don't want people to know what you're playing, Real ID only makes this worse. You can't hide yourself on Real ID. Anyone you add to this list can see what you're doing at ALL TIMES. That's exactly the opposite of what you claim to want, yet you think Real ID is a great feature.
Your argument makes it very clear that you don't understand how B-Net 1.0 or 2.0 works. I strongly advise you sit down and look them over more thoroughly before posting in here again. You have contradicted yourself every post in this thread and you admit to not taking the time to view the subject matter.
zenx1 may have a negative perspective, but at least he has taken the time to do his research.
I didn't NEED research. I PLAYED it. I didn't mess around as much with BNet 2.0 yet, but I absolutely loved 1.0.
There was just so much you could do with 1.0. You didn't need to find someone to chat with them, just do /w and you're talking to them. It was just so simple...
Wraith, not having any information to back up your argument can work, but doesn't here. Would you like to meet up on WC3 or SC1 to find out some of the nice things you can do (erm, USED to be able to do...) on Bnet?
(All this talk about WC3.....I'll go play it now.. =D )
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
I actually totally agree with Prozaic's above post, that you EW actually misunderstand the fundamentals of good design ... I have nothing more to say ... just gobsmacked at the total amount of ignorance you have shown.
To be perfectly honest, I sometimes wonder why EternalWraith is a moderator. He seems to generally be very intolerant of views other than his own, and this conversation reveals that he can be very ignorant on occasion. Really, you can't argue about a video's ideas when you haven't yet seen the video for yourself. For all you know, everything you hear about something could be untrue, and the only way to find out what the video says is to actually watch it. In this case, it's not entirely true, but it's very easy to get an accurate view of the situation by watching the video which is right there for you.
Anyway, I completely agree with what Prozaic said, and no, I don't want to get in an argument with EternalWraith over my criticism of him. I'm sorry, but that's just my opinion.
I ran a script on the credits for War3, WoW, and SC2, you guys may find this interesting if nothing else.
Credits comparison between Warcraft 3 (2002), WoW (2004), SC2 (2010)
----------------
The following numbers should be taken as approximations...
Data gathered from credits listings on mobygames.com (most of it is straight from the site, but with the 'thanks to' sections taken out, as well as some company (non person) credits).
----------------
Unique people count in credits:
War3: 314
WoW: 555
Sc2: 3806
176% bigger workforce from war3->WoW
1212% bigger workforce from war3->sc2
----------------
182 matching devs between war3 & WoW
57% of War3 devs worked on WoW
102 matching devs between War3 & Sc2
32% of War3 devs worked on SC2
----------------
Now counting only senior devs (devs who have "executive", "director", or "lead" in their titles... 31 in War3, 35 in WoW, 120 in Sc2)
17 matching 'senior' devs between war3 & WoW
54% of 'senior' War3 devs worked as 'senior' devs in WoW
25 matching 'senior' devs between war3 & Sc2
80% of 'senior' War3 devs worked as 'senior' devs in Sc2
I wasn`t really in a good mood when posting here yesterday. I apologize if I seemed overly hostile. Whenever I see people bring up this topic, it just makes it worse.
I`ll watch the video now and reply to it in detail soon(in a calm manner).
But in all seriousness, the ignorance is still there ... you gotta work on that mate.
I didnt have time to go into detail or explain point for point against the arguments in this thread. It was a rant, and nothing more, because I couldn`t care less at the time(Similar to how I care less about what you think "mate").
I do indeed respect everyone`s view, and I apologize to zenx1 for going off at him like that. Nothing personal. Its widely known that I lose patience whenever Sc2mapster revisits this topic of B.net , the pop system etc. We`ve done this a million times already. Not really an excuse on my part, but this is almost always a pointless and dead end discussion.
Still, my level of "care" has now risen and warranted me to detail B.net 2.0 against B.net 1.0 in a way that I hope can explain the system from the point of view its meant to be seen (From Blizzard). In a thread I`ll soon post up.
The real ID specifically isn't bad at all, afterall you choose whom to give your real name, if not then the regular friends list. I shared mine with teammates that I know for years, nice guys, gamers, so why not.. But yeah as some pppl above pointed out there is what to add to Bnet, Idk why Blizz doesn't even mention about doing it on HotS
I was actually ready to make proper explanation of my toughts with pictures and all, but since its calmed down I dont need to do that. Also from the UI standpoint I do not like bnet 2.0 at all. You can actually resize the windows but even with that its quite bad. You can see the backround of stuff in the chat and it still leaves around 20-40% of useless space. Where in wc3 I think everything was placed correctly and you could still easilly acces everything you needed to. Just the overal structure feels off and unefficient. Do you really need to have melee settings take 50% of the screen?
The custom game UI is also its own world. Why do you need 7 tabs when you can do it with 1 drop down menu (or they could add more specific button to set search filters). I suppose the Fun and not and up & coming tabs could be cool if blizzard would actually fix them...but seems like they will only add the changes to HOTS. But currenly I have to think those tabs are useless since up and coming is always 50% filled with battlecraft with same game variants (and yea the game variants are also one of the biggest fails ever).
At launch the bnet was sooooooooooo bad that its hard to forgive for that. They have fixed some of the issues like (chat channels, countdowns stop, custom game variant removal), but this is hardly something you can expect after wc3.
Even though EternalWraith comes on like a crazed fanatic, this thread requires a devil's advocate. This can't be a one-sided discussion. There ARE a large number of good features in Bnet 2. As he said, he is going to post his ideas on what this is at a future date, so I'm interested in seeing his thoughts.
As for my own thoughts. I do prefer many of the features from Bnet 1 over Bnet 2. At the same time, this video also made me realize that War3 has been seen through a rosy lens of nostalgia, I feel the old Custom map system was terrible also and would be unhappy if they reverted it to this and left it at that. It has 2 positive features (showing active map lobbies and promoting new maps), but for long term popularity I feel it would be plagued with the same repeated maps as the front page of the SC2 page and I believe Blizzard is well on it's way to developing a better system. The problem? The game is 2 years old and everyone who bought it has quit or plays ladder exclusively. This new 'arcade' and purchaseable maps will require a complete shift in Blizzards stance on the custom scene if it's gonna fix anything.
Blizzard has ignored custom maps to the extent that a majority of players playing the game have zero interest in custom maps (99%). A single melee map probably sees a hundred-thousand times more play than the most popular custom map. Blizzard needs to PROMOTE the custom map system, they need to realize that the maps they have created are terrible and that only through driving community initiative, partnering with great community maps and helping spread word, will people be interested in trying this new system they brewed up for HOTS. They need to INCLUDE major mapmakers and mapmaking sites (cough cough mapster), not tell us "I know we never communicate with you, and our attempts at mapmaking have failed in our own system, but this time we're totally on it, so without consulting the custom community about a custom tool or acknowledging it's existance, we're just going to surprise you!" Without an active participation in the community, this fancy new system will fall on it's face when it still only captures the attention of 1% of players.
They need to do spotlights of maps daily, they need to promote popular maps and host tournaments,ladders,etc (we already know you can make these systems automated). They need to make Melee'ers want to try custom maps and nonplayers to try SC and try it's custom maps free. By limiting the trial to poorly received Blizzard-made maps you are just turning them off. They need to value the custom experience as being 50% of the force behind driving game longevity. I'm no expert but it seems like the map forum is unmoderated, the custom map development team is incapable, and whoever is in charge of the editor and custom games is either inept, overworked or powerless(probably this). I mean: i feel that the editor has the detail and features that somewhere in Irvine there are a large number of people who put their time and very heart into making it, they must be as disappointed as us at it's failure. But is this entire division of the game just horribly understaffed and ignored? I mean, the facebook page seems to have more activity and a larger team than a game-component that could attract thousands, if not millions of new players.
Current "attempts" at Featured maps are such a passive route to map promotion it's not even funny. I feel like map designers are all running around with scissors in a dark room and every month or two blizzard throws in a flashlight with dead batteries, yells "we care" and leaves for another few months. Additionally, if they hope Blizzard DOTA and the Arcade will revive custom maps by just throwing it in the mix and forgetting it, they are putting all their eggs in one deformed basket as they have failed in all previous attempts at creating a fun popular map and a popularity system.
/rant
TL:DR Biggest issue with custom maps is Blizzard's complete disregard and lack of communication with the mapmaking community. In other words: this post is way off topic.
get an accountant to write of projections of how much possible money could be made from a working custom games system, in the arcade. If the final number makes you shit bricks, present it to blizzard. If an annual profit margin is not enough for you to retire healthily on tomorrow, trash the idea, because it will never happen.
Only thing I'm going to say on this topic is that I played wc3 and sc2 and therefore seen both battle.nets. One of them causes me to rage on a regular bases due to bugs and bad systems, the other... I can't remember ever having thought of a complaint for that one. I'm not going to argue whether one is better than the other, whether one is archaic or not, or complain about certain features, just this: One regularly pisses me off, the other never has.
Warning: Inquisitive mind at work.
Warning: Insanity is on the horizon.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
A lot of people (but not all...) seem to be forgetting the basics.
I can sum up the biggest shortcoming of the battle.net 2.0 interface. It's not the lack of features or the failed custom games system, it's something much more fundamental.
Battle.net 2.0 is clunky.
It is unwieldy: everything is too large.
It is slow: if you aren't at your monitor's refresh rate you will see a lot of delay on everything from window edge clicking and typing.
It is bland: everything is just a shade of blue (and the occasional green) with the same bland design style; there are few interface elements that look interesting.
It is limited: you can't type as many messages as on WarCraft III (spam filter), you can't view many friends at the same time because each list item is so huge, you can't view many people in the channel for the same reason, you can't expand a channel to fill the whole screen (on my monitor I can get it to 2/3 but not the whole area), you can't see more than like 10 people in a custom game lobby, you can't see more than 8 messages in a custom game lobby (far fewer if the messages are more than a few words long), basic convenience functions don't exist, common tasks take lots of button clicks, etc.
Even if Battle.net 2.0 had every single feature of Battle.net 1.0 as well as the new/improved features, it would STILL BE WORSE because the interface is just bad.
I think you just threw your entire argument out the window.
WC3's interface and functionality on B-Net 1.0 feels more modern than SC2. That's the root of the problem. Many features were removed for the sake of "visually pleasing" aesthetics. So while 2.0 might look pretty, it has less functionality than its predecessor making it feel antiquated.
Your argument is needlessly hostile without any real reason to be. If you haven't watched the video, you really shouldn't be posting at all. You are horribly misinformed:
Your argument makes it very clear that you don't understand how B-Net 1.0 or 2.0 works. I strongly advise you sit down and look them over more thoroughly before posting in here again. You have contradicted yourself every post in this thread and you admit to not taking the time to view the subject matter.
zenx1 may have a negative perspective, but at least he has taken the time to do his research.
I didn't NEED research. I PLAYED it. I didn't mess around as much with BNet 2.0 yet, but I absolutely loved 1.0.
There was just so much you could do with 1.0. You didn't need to find someone to chat with them, just do /w and you're talking to them. It was just so simple...
Wraith, not having any information to back up your argument can work, but doesn't here. Would you like to meet up on WC3 or SC1 to find out some of the nice things you can do (erm, USED to be able to do...) on Bnet?
(All this talk about WC3.....I'll go play it now.. =D )
I actually totally agree with Prozaic's above post, that you EW actually misunderstand the fundamentals of good design ... I have nothing more to say ... just gobsmacked at the total amount of ignorance you have shown.
To be perfectly honest, I sometimes wonder why EternalWraith is a moderator. He seems to generally be very intolerant of views other than his own, and this conversation reveals that he can be very ignorant on occasion. Really, you can't argue about a video's ideas when you haven't yet seen the video for yourself. For all you know, everything you hear about something could be untrue, and the only way to find out what the video says is to actually watch it. In this case, it's not entirely true, but it's very easy to get an accurate view of the situation by watching the video which is right there for you.
Anyway, I completely agree with what Prozaic said, and no, I don't want to get in an argument with EternalWraith over my criticism of him. I'm sorry, but that's just my opinion.
I ran a script on the credits for War3, WoW, and SC2, you guys may find this interesting if nothing else.
Credits comparison between Warcraft 3 (2002), WoW (2004), SC2 (2010)
----------------
The following numbers should be taken as approximations...
Data gathered from credits listings on mobygames.com (most of it is straight from the site, but with the 'thanks to' sections taken out, as well as some company (non person) credits).
----------------
Unique people count in credits:
War3: 314
WoW: 555
Sc2: 3806
176% bigger workforce from war3->WoW
1212% bigger workforce from war3->sc2
----------------
182 matching devs between war3 & WoW
57% of War3 devs worked on WoW
102 matching devs between War3 & Sc2
32% of War3 devs worked on SC2
----------------
Now counting only senior devs (devs who have "executive", "director", or "lead" in their titles... 31 in War3, 35 in WoW, 120 in Sc2)
17 matching 'senior' devs between war3 & WoW
54% of 'senior' War3 devs worked as 'senior' devs in WoW
25 matching 'senior' devs between war3 & Sc2
80% of 'senior' War3 devs worked as 'senior' devs in Sc2
Funny joke;-)
@ProzaicMuze: Go
I wasn`t really in a good mood when posting here yesterday. I apologize if I seemed overly hostile. Whenever I see people bring up this topic, it just makes it worse.
I`ll watch the video now and reply to it in detail soon(in a calm manner).
Interesting...
Anyone who seriously still defends Blizzard on this subject at this point should be raped by both of those yellow objects in the OP's avatar.
@EternalWraith: Go
:P
But in all seriousness, the ignorance is still there ... you gotta work on that mate.
I didnt have time to go into detail or explain point for point against the arguments in this thread. It was a rant, and nothing more, because I couldn`t care less at the time(Similar to how I care less about what you think "mate").
I do indeed respect everyone`s view, and I apologize to zenx1 for going off at him like that. Nothing personal. Its widely known that I lose patience whenever Sc2mapster revisits this topic of B.net , the pop system etc. We`ve done this a million times already. Not really an excuse on my part, but this is almost always a pointless and dead end discussion.
Still, my level of "care" has now risen and warranted me to detail B.net 2.0 against B.net 1.0 in a way that I hope can explain the system from the point of view its meant to be seen (From Blizzard). In a thread I`ll soon post up.
The real ID specifically isn't bad at all, afterall you choose whom to give your real name, if not then the regular friends list. I shared mine with teammates that I know for years, nice guys, gamers, so why not.. But yeah as some pppl above pointed out there is what to add to Bnet, Idk why Blizz doesn't even mention about doing it on HotS
I was actually ready to make proper explanation of my toughts with pictures and all, but since its calmed down I dont need to do that. Also from the UI standpoint I do not like bnet 2.0 at all. You can actually resize the windows but even with that its quite bad. You can see the backround of stuff in the chat and it still leaves around 20-40% of useless space. Where in wc3 I think everything was placed correctly and you could still easilly acces everything you needed to. Just the overal structure feels off and unefficient. Do you really need to have melee settings take 50% of the screen?
The custom game UI is also its own world. Why do you need 7 tabs when you can do it with 1 drop down menu (or they could add more specific button to set search filters). I suppose the Fun and not and up & coming tabs could be cool if blizzard would actually fix them...but seems like they will only add the changes to HOTS. But currenly I have to think those tabs are useless since up and coming is always 50% filled with battlecraft with same game variants (and yea the game variants are also one of the biggest fails ever).
At launch the bnet was sooooooooooo bad that its hard to forgive for that. They have fixed some of the issues like (chat channels, countdowns stop, custom game variant removal), but this is hardly something you can expect after wc3.
Even though EternalWraith comes on like a crazed fanatic, this thread requires a devil's advocate. This can't be a one-sided discussion. There ARE a large number of good features in Bnet 2. As he said, he is going to post his ideas on what this is at a future date, so I'm interested in seeing his thoughts.
As for my own thoughts. I do prefer many of the features from Bnet 1 over Bnet 2. At the same time, this video also made me realize that War3 has been seen through a rosy lens of nostalgia, I feel the old Custom map system was terrible also and would be unhappy if they reverted it to this and left it at that. It has 2 positive features (showing active map lobbies and promoting new maps), but for long term popularity I feel it would be plagued with the same repeated maps as the front page of the SC2 page and I believe Blizzard is well on it's way to developing a better system. The problem? The game is 2 years old and everyone who bought it has quit or plays ladder exclusively. This new 'arcade' and purchaseable maps will require a complete shift in Blizzards stance on the custom scene if it's gonna fix anything.
Blizzard has ignored custom maps to the extent that a majority of players playing the game have zero interest in custom maps (99%). A single melee map probably sees a hundred-thousand times more play than the most popular custom map. Blizzard needs to PROMOTE the custom map system, they need to realize that the maps they have created are terrible and that only through driving community initiative, partnering with great community maps and helping spread word, will people be interested in trying this new system they brewed up for HOTS. They need to INCLUDE major mapmakers and mapmaking sites (cough cough mapster), not tell us "I know we never communicate with you, and our attempts at mapmaking have failed in our own system, but this time we're totally on it, so without consulting the custom community about a custom tool or acknowledging it's existance, we're just going to surprise you!" Without an active participation in the community, this fancy new system will fall on it's face when it still only captures the attention of 1% of players.
They need to do spotlights of maps daily, they need to promote popular maps and host tournaments,ladders,etc (we already know you can make these systems automated). They need to make Melee'ers want to try custom maps and nonplayers to try SC and try it's custom maps free. By limiting the trial to poorly received Blizzard-made maps you are just turning them off. They need to value the custom experience as being 50% of the force behind driving game longevity. I'm no expert but it seems like the map forum is unmoderated, the custom map development team is incapable, and whoever is in charge of the editor and custom games is either inept, overworked or powerless(probably this). I mean: i feel that the editor has the detail and features that somewhere in Irvine there are a large number of people who put their time and very heart into making it, they must be as disappointed as us at it's failure. But is this entire division of the game just horribly understaffed and ignored? I mean, the facebook page seems to have more activity and a larger team than a game-component that could attract thousands, if not millions of new players.
Current "attempts" at Featured maps are such a passive route to map promotion it's not even funny. I feel like map designers are all running around with scissors in a dark room and every month or two blizzard throws in a flashlight with dead batteries, yells "we care" and leaves for another few months. Additionally, if they hope Blizzard DOTA and the Arcade will revive custom maps by just throwing it in the mix and forgetting it, they are putting all their eggs in one deformed basket as they have failed in all previous attempts at creating a fun popular map and a popularity system.
/rant
TL:DR Biggest issue with custom maps is Blizzard's complete disregard and lack of communication with the mapmaking community. In other words: this post is way off topic.
@Aenigma: Go
My name is Mozared and I approve of this post.
get an accountant to write of projections of how much possible money could be made from a working custom games system, in the arcade. If the final number makes you shit bricks, present it to blizzard. If an annual profit margin is not enough for you to retire healthily on tomorrow, trash the idea, because it will never happen.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
That.
Actually, wait. Swap "Mozared" for "TheAlmaity".
Only thing I'm going to say on this topic is that I played wc3 and sc2 and therefore seen both battle.nets. One of them causes me to rage on a regular bases due to bugs and bad systems, the other... I can't remember ever having thought of a complaint for that one. I'm not going to argue whether one is better than the other, whether one is archaic or not, or complain about certain features, just this: One regularly pisses me off, the other never has.
@TheAlmaity: Go
Ah, but which is which?
@Sandman366: Go
I'm Mozared, TheAlmaity is the one with Dr. Who in his avatar.
A lot of people (but not all...) seem to be forgetting the basics.
I can sum up the biggest shortcoming of the battle.net 2.0 interface. It's not the lack of features or the failed custom games system, it's something much more fundamental.
Battle.net 2.0 is clunky.
It is unwieldy: everything is too large.
It is slow: if you aren't at your monitor's refresh rate you will see a lot of delay on everything from window edge clicking and typing.
It is bland: everything is just a shade of blue (and the occasional green) with the same bland design style; there are few interface elements that look interesting.
It is limited: you can't type as many messages as on WarCraft III (spam filter), you can't view many friends at the same time because each list item is so huge, you can't view many people in the channel for the same reason, you can't expand a channel to fill the whole screen (on my monitor I can get it to 2/3 but not the whole area), you can't see more than like 10 people in a custom game lobby, you can't see more than 8 messages in a custom game lobby (far fewer if the messages are more than a few words long), basic convenience functions don't exist, common tasks take lots of button clicks, etc.
Even if Battle.net 2.0 had every single feature of Battle.net 1.0 as well as the new/improved features, it would STILL BE WORSE because the interface is just bad.