i'm presuming that you live in the USA? concerning what you have said about latency issues with Dialup, and most people being on ADSL/ADSL2/Cable now days; that may well be the case in the states, but in other countries its a very different story.
in australia, we've always had a very patchy/broken CAN internet network (coz telstra is lame), up until January of this year, my only internet option was Dialup (coz of telstra saving money, and setting up RIMs/CMUXs instead of installing additional copper into the network).
the copper run from the exchange was 13KM, and 5KM from the RIM...this meant the MAX download speeds i ever got on dialup was 1.2kbs.
the only reason i can get ADSL now is because i moved house.
my old house was 1 hour from the city, within the metro area.
and im not the only one, there is a huge amount of the population under served by decent internet speeds. (some can get dialup, most can get ADSL1, some lucky ones can get ADSL2, only those ppl in the city can get Cable, Fibre networks are pretty much non-existent atm, Wireless is droppy and has huge latency, Satellite has even greater latency <600ping just for signal to travel to the low earth orbit satellite and back to the ground>, telstra no longer allows ISDN connections to be setup on its network)
the govnment has had enough of Telstra not providing decent network access, so they are now forcing telstra to be structurally separated, and a government National Broadband Network to be formed... (FTTH FTW!).
in starcraft 1, my average ping on bnet was 1300, and always full red bars (thats why i had the LAN's all the time).
the best bnet server i could join was US West.
i heard that blizzard was aiming to reduce ping times with bnet 2.0, which was very good news to hear.
they did that by having a bnet server in each region, and then region locking ppl from that region to the server to keep it populated.
i think they will be reluctant to implement a global bnet server, because
1) it would nullify their effort to reduce ping times by region locking
2) it would reduce population on all other servers
3) where to put the server for equal access by everyone? guam maybe? US maybe(already has one)?
since we ppl from SEA have been region unlocked, so we can connect to the NA server, SEA has had WAY WAY less ppl on it.
which makes me sad =(.
i think the solution is not region unlocking, but rather allowing cross server chat (so i can be on SEA, but talk to mates on KR/RU/NA) and
allowing cross server game connections (so if my friend on KR/RU/NA creates a game, then i can join it from SEA) and allowing
cross server map publishing (so if my friend on KR/RU/NA publishes a map to their server, its accessible in all other regions).
this way, all regions are still populated, ping times to people on the same server as you are low, and you have the option to play with others on other regions. and most important of all...all the fantastic maps which are only available on NA/EU are also available on SEA/RU/KR.
@EternelWraith
i agree with ya, bnet 1.0 was very rough around the edges.
If anyone goes and learns about interface/interaction design between humans and computers, you'll see that just about all the problems with bnet 1.0 has been fixed in bnet 2.0. which is pretty nice to see =).
@zenx
nah mate, bnet 1.0 was good for the times, but the lack of filters made finding a map other than dota very hard.
the rest of bnet 1.0 wasnt too bad, but it lacked elegance like eternelwraith has said.
its true bnet 2.0 still is missing some features like chat channels and a better way to filter custom games, but thats what this thread is all about =)
just give them some more time, im sure after WoW is released and out of the way, they will pay some more attention to sc2 again.
@everyone
cheers everyone for the comments. i looked forward to coming back to this thread, and seeing what ppl had said.
I've been looking forward to starcraft 2 ever since primary school, when i used to have a LAN with my best mate like every single weekend to play Starcraft.
the custom maps were so much fun =). one week we even had a 5 day straight Starcraft LAN, it was the best time i've ever had.
So obviously i've idolized Starcraft 2, and always thought it it would be the greatest game to ever be released.
But now its out and about, i played it and was let down.... i knew this would happen coz i idolized the game so much, that it was impossible for it to live up to the standards i set.
There seems to be alot of bugs in the net Bnet, and especially in the custom game system (which is what i care about most).
Thinking about this, it makes sence that so many people on the boards here are upset, and whining about Starcraft 2 being lame. Some of the moderators have pointed out that there is a huge amount of people upset and posting angrily.
However, i watched a video today -
It blew my mind. now i realise that Yes its bugged now, and Yes some things are really annoying... But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope after watching the video above, you will watch this video -
You can see that blizzard is still as much of a caring company now, as they used to be with starcraft 1.
So they will be working on fixing all these problems we have with starcraft 2, we've just got to be patient while they fix the problems.
This message goes out to all those people in these forums who are super pissed at blizzard, or feel betrayed, or just feel that starcraft 2 is geh.
Quit your bitchin, blizzard WILL fix starcraft 2 so it will rock our worlds as much as the first one, just give them some time.
Once starcraft 2 is fixed up some more, i look forward to playing it with my mate again, side by side, for 24 hours straight, eating chips n laughing out heads off pwning noobs n playing custom maps.
if there is one thing you should take away from this thread, make it this: 'starcraft 2 WILL get better over time, just give it time to mature'
It would be cool if some really really good RTS came along, that had a map editor, had a similar setting to starcraft, and was just way way more awesome.
given that kind of competition, im sure Blizzard would have a really good reason to drive further development into starcraft 2.
the 2 next expansions would be epic.
...now all we gotta do is find an RTS as good as the starcraft universe. any suggestions? (note: dont just say warcraft, and the RTS u mention must have a map editor and allow for modding. )
unfortunetly, it only tracks the popularity of USA, Korea and EU. (btw. USA is split into LA and NA bnet servers, do they both come under the USA region? )
So, i figured it was time to update this thread with pics from SEA bnet popularity list (coz SEA isnt tracked at: http://www.sc2mapster.com/popularity/ )
here it is, still piping hottt!
(if u look at the top of each picture for download %, and at the bottom of the screen for the time; my DL speed is hilariously slow today xD)
SEA join custom game screen picture 1
SEA join custom game screen picture 2
SEA join custom game screen picture 3
SEA join custom game screen picture 4
SEA join custom game screen picture 5
i think Blizzard should migrate Maps between servers. So if someone uploads a map to NA or EU, then it be automatically copied to the SEA bnet server aswell. That feature would be awesome-sauce. Awesome maps from everyone =)
could you please implement the SEA region on the BNet name screen...i still cant acuratly give my self a name (ive put TW their atm, but i dont live in taiwan, i live in Australia )
really? OMG that would rock my world if its true. going to check now
edit: =(. no, none of the maps from NA are hostable on SEA.
i went into create custom game, and searched for: Sentry Scramble, MAD, Runling Run, Debates.
Search didnt find any of them, but ive confirmed that those maps are on NA.
grrr, you got my hopes up eternalWrath xD... :'C
@nevjmac: ->
I live in australia. when i log into starcraft 2 i can log onto the SEA region, or the NA region.
when i upload my maps in the map editor, i can only upload my map to the SEA region bnet server.
(there is no options/choices of where to upload... that i could find anyway)
there are a few excuses the blizzard mentioned when they first announced battle.net 2.0
1 was to reduce latency between players, if all players in a map are all from a single country, lag is very minimal.
but if players from all over the world could all connect to the US bnet server, there will almost always be someone from another country in your map with you creating lag... which isnt fun for anyone
i live in australia, we now have access to play on either NA or SEA bnet servers. i have noticed a HUGE increase in Lag when playing on NA servers compared to the SEA ones.
2 is to keep the bnet servers well populated. If all the players in a single country can only play on 1 bnet server, then that server will have alot of ppl.
if players from a region can change to play of different servers, then 1 popular server will have LOTS of players on it, and other bnet servers will be underutilised.
underutilisation is a pretty big problem for networks, and if alot of the players migrate from 1 server A to another server B, blizzard may shutdown server A because there is no financial gain in providing it.
as an example, Here in australia we originally only had access to the SEA bnet server; lots of aussies complained and we now get to choose between the SEA bnet and NA bnet servers.
now most Aussie player play on NA, and SEA is like a ghost town =( (well not completly like a ghost town, there are a few stragglers xD).
which sucks..
one solution i'd really like to see, is for blizzard to keep the region servers they have atm (because it works to keep lag down), BUT make map publishing GLOBAL.
so if i live in Australia, and publish my map to Bnet, i want people in the US/Korea/China/NZ/etc. to be able to play it too.
i feel sad that there are soo many cool and creative maps published on EU and NA, and i read about them on SC2Mapster, but i cant play them because they wernt published on SEA =(.
Koronis, that's not constructive. You have been reported.
QueenGambit, i like the amount of effort your put into making them.
Good job man, its obvious you spent a long time doing this.
when i saw the first picture, i though of diablo 2's menu. ahhh fond memories =).
(i just think its coz i saw Bnet and Lan together...nm)
now to the interface, i like the transparency of the objects/windows; but i don't like the amount of information.
it feels a bit like information overload.
whats the button in the bottom left next to the menu button do?
i would like to see the irc/chat room window in the same colour as the instant messenger chat system in the bottom right.
this change will helps to clarify to the user: which of the windows are for chatting; and which of the windows that are for finding maps to play/forum posts.
on the custom game joining screen, i dont feel their is a strong link between the filter names ('created' 'section list' 'top 100' ) and what they actually do.
perhaps better words would have been 'sort by game names' 'sort by map name' 'show top 100'. These names would require more space, so you'd have to change a few things around.
i feel that if i was a user of this interface, i would get frustrated with windows getting in the way of other windows.
eg. the chat room window if over the top of the join custom game screen window, and i'd have to move it out of the way.
Over all, you've done some excellent work on this interface; I love the detailed editing that you've done in photo shop and it really shows.
Good job
0
@FahqueL
howdy,
i'm presuming that you live in the USA? concerning what you have said about latency issues with Dialup, and most people being on ADSL/ADSL2/Cable now days; that may well be the case in the states, but in other countries its a very different story.
in australia, we've always had a very patchy/broken CAN internet network (coz telstra is lame), up until January of this year, my only internet option was Dialup (coz of telstra saving money, and setting up RIMs/CMUXs instead of installing additional copper into the network). the copper run from the exchange was 13KM, and 5KM from the RIM...this meant the MAX download speeds i ever got on dialup was 1.2kbs. the only reason i can get ADSL now is because i moved house. my old house was 1 hour from the city, within the metro area.
and im not the only one, there is a huge amount of the population under served by decent internet speeds. (some can get dialup, most can get ADSL1, some lucky ones can get ADSL2, only those ppl in the city can get Cable, Fibre networks are pretty much non-existent atm, Wireless is droppy and has huge latency, Satellite has even greater latency <600ping just for signal to travel to the low earth orbit satellite and back to the ground>, telstra no longer allows ISDN connections to be setup on its network)
the govnment has had enough of Telstra not providing decent network access, so they are now forcing telstra to be structurally separated, and a government National Broadband Network to be formed... (FTTH FTW!). in starcraft 1, my average ping on bnet was 1300, and always full red bars (thats why i had the LAN's all the time). the best bnet server i could join was US West.
i heard that blizzard was aiming to reduce ping times with bnet 2.0, which was very good news to hear. they did that by having a bnet server in each region, and then region locking ppl from that region to the server to keep it populated. i think they will be reluctant to implement a global bnet server, because
1) it would nullify their effort to reduce ping times by region locking
2) it would reduce population on all other servers
3) where to put the server for equal access by everyone? guam maybe? US maybe(already has one)?
since we ppl from SEA have been region unlocked, so we can connect to the NA server, SEA has had WAY WAY less ppl on it. which makes me sad =(.
i think the solution is not region unlocking, but rather allowing cross server chat (so i can be on SEA, but talk to mates on KR/RU/NA) and allowing cross server game connections (so if my friend on KR/RU/NA creates a game, then i can join it from SEA) and allowing cross server map publishing (so if my friend on KR/RU/NA publishes a map to their server, its accessible in all other regions).
this way, all regions are still populated, ping times to people on the same server as you are low, and you have the option to play with others on other regions. and most important of all...all the fantastic maps which are only available on NA/EU are also available on SEA/RU/KR.
@EternelWraith
i agree with ya, bnet 1.0 was very rough around the edges. If anyone goes and learns about interface/interaction design between humans and computers, you'll see that just about all the problems with bnet 1.0 has been fixed in bnet 2.0. which is pretty nice to see =).
@zenx
nah mate, bnet 1.0 was good for the times, but the lack of filters made finding a map other than dota very hard. the rest of bnet 1.0 wasnt too bad, but it lacked elegance like eternelwraith has said. its true bnet 2.0 still is missing some features like chat channels and a better way to filter custom games, but thats what this thread is all about =)
just give them some more time, im sure after WoW is released and out of the way, they will pay some more attention to sc2 again.
@everyone
cheers everyone for the comments. i looked forward to coming back to this thread, and seeing what ppl had said.
good day ;p
0
@Rodrigo
hahahahah, yeh. now thats more like it. =)
0
Howdy,
I've been looking forward to starcraft 2 ever since primary school, when i used to have a LAN with my best mate like every single weekend to play Starcraft. the custom maps were so much fun =). one week we even had a 5 day straight Starcraft LAN, it was the best time i've ever had.
So obviously i've idolized Starcraft 2, and always thought it it would be the greatest game to ever be released. But now its out and about, i played it and was let down.... i knew this would happen coz i idolized the game so much, that it was impossible for it to live up to the standards i set.
There seems to be alot of bugs in the net Bnet, and especially in the custom game system (which is what i care about most).
Thinking about this, it makes sence that so many people on the boards here are upset, and whining about Starcraft 2 being lame. Some of the moderators have pointed out that there is a huge amount of people upset and posting angrily. However, i watched a video today -
It blew my mind. now i realise that Yes its bugged now, and Yes some things are really annoying... But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I hope after watching the video above, you will watch this video -
You can see that blizzard is still as much of a caring company now, as they used to be with starcraft 1. So they will be working on fixing all these problems we have with starcraft 2, we've just got to be patient while they fix the problems.
This message goes out to all those people in these forums who are super pissed at blizzard, or feel betrayed, or just feel that starcraft 2 is geh. Quit your bitchin, blizzard WILL fix starcraft 2 so it will rock our worlds as much as the first one, just give them some time.
Once starcraft 2 is fixed up some more, i look forward to playing it with my mate again, side by side, for 24 hours straight, eating chips n laughing out heads off pwning noobs n playing custom maps.
if there is one thing you should take away from this thread, make it this: 'starcraft 2 WILL get better over time, just give it time to mature'
peace =)
0
LIESSS!
Sixen always wears a black top hat. That isnt Sixen.
0
It would be cool if some really really good RTS came along, that had a map editor, had a similar setting to starcraft, and was just way way more awesome.
given that kind of competition, im sure Blizzard would have a really good reason to drive further development into starcraft 2. the 2 next expansions would be epic.
...now all we gotta do is find an RTS as good as the starcraft universe. any suggestions? (note: dont just say warcraft, and the RTS u mention must have a map editor and allow for modding. )
0
..oops. sorry about the first picture. reuploaded. thats the last time i use that lame picture upload site ;p.
Wakeman, you should try pming one of the admins from this site. Just to make sure their aware of the problem.
cheers ppl. enjoy the pics
0
Starcraft Arts and Crafts! =)
good job
0
G'day Everyone. The popularity system has indeed been made implemented on sc2mapster here: http://www.sc2mapster.com/popularity/
unfortunetly, it only tracks the popularity of USA, Korea and EU. (btw. USA is split into LA and NA bnet servers, do they both come under the USA region? )
So, i figured it was time to update this thread with pics from SEA bnet popularity list (coz SEA isnt tracked at: http://www.sc2mapster.com/popularity/ )
here it is, still piping hottt! (if u look at the top of each picture for download %, and at the bottom of the screen for the time; my DL speed is hilariously slow today xD)
SEA join custom game screen picture 1
SEA join custom game screen picture 2
SEA join custom game screen picture 3
SEA join custom game screen picture 4
SEA join custom game screen picture 5
i think Blizzard should migrate Maps between servers. So if someone uploads a map to NA or EU, then it be automatically copied to the SEA bnet server aswell. That feature would be awesome-sauce. Awesome maps from everyone =)
0
could you please implement the SEA region on the BNet name screen...i still cant acuratly give my self a name (ive put TW their atm, but i dont live in taiwan, i live in Australia )
on the popularity list "http://www.sc2mapster.com/popularity/", there is no mention of the SEA or LA region. could you add those please?
thank you almighty sc2mapster overseers
0
@Kueken531: Go
creep =)... mmmm tastes like purple jelly xD
0
@EternalWraith: Go
really? OMG that would rock my world if its true. going to check now
edit: =(. no, none of the maps from NA are hostable on SEA. i went into create custom game, and searched for: Sentry Scramble, MAD, Runling Run, Debates. Search didnt find any of them, but ive confirmed that those maps are on NA. grrr, you got my hopes up eternalWrath xD... :'C
@nevjmac: ->
I live in australia. when i log into starcraft 2 i can log onto the SEA region, or the NA region. when i upload my maps in the map editor, i can only upload my map to the SEA region bnet server. (there is no options/choices of where to upload... that i could find anyway)
0
@nevjmac: Go
huh? i didnt think this was possible.
im on SEA, i can upload your map for you; however i wont be able to do it for another 2.5 weeks time for technical reasons :/.
if u still need someone to upload your map to SEA on or after the 28th of November, then im your man =)
looking forward to hearing from you
0
@Eiviyn: Go
there are a few excuses the blizzard mentioned when they first announced battle.net 2.0
1 was to reduce latency between players, if all players in a map are all from a single country, lag is very minimal. but if players from all over the world could all connect to the US bnet server, there will almost always be someone from another country in your map with you creating lag... which isnt fun for anyone i live in australia, we now have access to play on either NA or SEA bnet servers. i have noticed a HUGE increase in Lag when playing on NA servers compared to the SEA ones.
2 is to keep the bnet servers well populated. If all the players in a single country can only play on 1 bnet server, then that server will have alot of ppl. if players from a region can change to play of different servers, then 1 popular server will have LOTS of players on it, and other bnet servers will be underutilised. underutilisation is a pretty big problem for networks, and if alot of the players migrate from 1 server A to another server B, blizzard may shutdown server A because there is no financial gain in providing it. as an example, Here in australia we originally only had access to the SEA bnet server; lots of aussies complained and we now get to choose between the SEA bnet and NA bnet servers. now most Aussie player play on NA, and SEA is like a ghost town =( (well not completly like a ghost town, there are a few stragglers xD). which sucks..
one solution i'd really like to see, is for blizzard to keep the region servers they have atm (because it works to keep lag down), BUT make map publishing GLOBAL. so if i live in Australia, and publish my map to Bnet, i want people in the US/Korea/China/NZ/etc. to be able to play it too. i feel sad that there are soo many cool and creative maps published on EU and NA, and i read about them on SC2Mapster, but i cant play them because they wernt published on SEA =(.
anywho. Blizzard owns! EternalWrath is cool!
0
QueenGambit, perhaps you could contribute some example interface pics to the thread here: http://forums.sc2mapster.com/general/general-chat/14020-suggestions-for-improving-the-popularity-system-images/
0
Koronis, that's not constructive. You have been reported.
QueenGambit, i like the amount of effort your put into making them. Good job man, its obvious you spent a long time doing this.
when i saw the first picture, i though of diablo 2's menu. ahhh fond memories =). (i just think its coz i saw Bnet and Lan together...nm)
now to the interface, i like the transparency of the objects/windows; but i don't like the amount of information. it feels a bit like information overload.
whats the button in the bottom left next to the menu button do?
i would like to see the irc/chat room window in the same colour as the instant messenger chat system in the bottom right. this change will helps to clarify to the user: which of the windows are for chatting; and which of the windows that are for finding maps to play/forum posts.
on the custom game joining screen, i dont feel their is a strong link between the filter names ('created' 'section list' 'top 100' ) and what they actually do. perhaps better words would have been 'sort by game names' 'sort by map name' 'show top 100'. These names would require more space, so you'd have to change a few things around.
i feel that if i was a user of this interface, i would get frustrated with windows getting in the way of other windows. eg. the chat room window if over the top of the join custom game screen window, and i'd have to move it out of the way.
Over all, you've done some excellent work on this interface; I love the detailed editing that you've done in photo shop and it really shows. Good job