Even now, Battle.net 2.0 > Battle.net Classic

[Joneleth]

Chat or not, I can find appropriate opponents on a wider variety of maps way more quickly than you ever could on Brood War and I don't have to install hacks like ICCup to get a decent Ladder system. ★

Oh and I don't have to juggle Lobby Slots or bother with passwords to make sure only the intended people enter my Custom games.

or have to use map modifications to support Spectators.

and the fact that it leaves less room for endless spoofing retardry is more than worth it by itself alone.



Anyone who whines about this probably couldn't figure out anything else about the gameplay itself to provide feedback on and has to resort to the controversial-non-issue-of-the-week to get some attention.

[Raxus]

the match making is leagues beyond any of their previous games. But I do think in it's current state BNet 2.0 just feels dead. But I'm not jumping to any conclusions about anything since half the features are disabled.

[Alceister]

Revise the layout for game lobbies. The first few times I played custom, I didn't even notice there was a chat box.

Retain the bottom central chat box that was in Wc3 and SC. Perhaps the chat box itself could be moved around or opened up in a separate window while in-game?

[Khanzure]

Chat or not, I can find appropriate opponents on a wider variety of maps way more quickly than you ever could on Brood War and I don't have to install hacks like ICCup to get a decent Ladder system. ★

+1

The new league system and the AMM are really, really good, and will surely be excellent once there are millions of players participating.


Anyone who whines about this probably couldn't figure out anything else about the gameplay itself to provide feedback on and has to resort to the controversial-non-issue-of-the-week to get some attention.

There are some really valid concerns about the social functionality of b.net 2.0.

[Joneleth]

There are some really valid concerns about the social functionality of b.net 2.0.Most of them just blindly ignore all the currently-inactive placeholders like the Social tab, or the Statistics, Match History, Replays and Maps sections of the Player Profiles.

I for one can't wait to make some of my replays and maps publicly available through those. ★

[Kat]

You were unable to join. The game you have selected is not responding. The latency to the game creator is too high.

The fact that I don't see this 9/10 times when trying to join a game is almost enough for me.

There are some features i wish battle.net had:

1.) better chat function
2.) public channels
3.) built in clan UI.
etc.

But i think what he have now is a good concept and a springboard to bigger and better things. There is nothing that says they can't update battle.net with these things...

[Joneleth]

The fact that I don't see this 9/10 times when trying to join a game is almost enough for me.+1

But i think what he have now is a good concept and a springboard to bigger and better things. There is nothing that says they can't update battle.net with these things...+2

Exactly this.

[Eloderung]

Why is everyone comparing battle.net 2.0 to a system released 12 years ago?

You all are forgetting Warcraft III's battle.net, which was superior.

1.) better chat function
2.) public channels

Done in WarIII.

The new league system and the AMM are really, really good, and will surely be excellent once there are millions of players participating.

This system was also found in WarIII. With the exception of leagues which are merely a cosmetic difference. I.e., you play people in leagues above/below you all the time. Which division you're in does not matter. Leagues are just cut-offs for rank, i.e., #1500 in WarIII might start Gold League and you're simply assigned #1 instead of #1500 overall.

If leagues actually had meaning - i.e., I only played against people in my own league - then I might agree with you.

Matchmaking is functionally identical to that found in WarIII and in World of Warcraft.

don't have to install hacks like ICCup

...?

Since when was editing an easily-accessible text file considered a "hack"?

Watch out, people who set their video settings to highest are now hackers!
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h314/kaikulu/leethaxorz.jpg

Most of them just blindly ignore all the currently-inactive placeholders like the Social tab, or the Statistics, Match History, Replays and Maps sections of the Player Profiles.

The social tab has absolutely nothing to do with the inability to /whisper, /profile, add friends easily, whisper people who aren't on your friends list, the huge latency on battle.net 2.0, and many many other features currently wrong with battle.net 2.0.

Battle.net 1.0 with Warcraft III was vastly superior to battle.net 2.0, and many parts of Battle.net 1.0 with Starcraft were vastly superior to battle.net 2.0.

You people really need to stop living under a rock. It's like you haven't played a single game since Starcraft was first released. You're finding features in battle.net 2.0 that have been a cornerstone of any online matchmaking service for the past eight years, and you're treating them as new, novel, and "absolutely amazing@@@!@!".

The fact that battle.net 2.0 can even remotely be comparable to 12-year-old battle.net 1.0 for ANY ONE FEATURE is testament to how bad it is.

[Joneleth]

Since when was editing an easily-accessible text file considered a "hack"?
A hack job. Third-party software to crudely implement features not available in the official product, with half of the functionality residing out-of-app on the website, re: ICCup.

[Eloderung]

A hack job. Third-party software to crudely implement features not available in the official product, with half of the functionality residing out-of-app on the website, re: ICCup.

ICCUP has no features that are not available in the original product.

[Toridas]

Since when was editing an easily-accessible text file considered a "hack"?


ICCUP is a pirate server, no better than a hack.

[Eloderung]

ICCUP is a pirate server, no better than a hack.

Warcraft III Delay Reducer reduces the latency of Warcraft III custom games hosted via battle.net.

Why do "hacks" provide higher-quality and better service than blizzard does? Doesn't it make sense for blizzard to provide the best service available?

Why are you defending lag when it has been proven time and time again that blizzard's delay is 100% artificial and 100% not necessary at the value it is given that its users are no longer running dial-up?

And just because people cannot read and I have to repeat myself a hundred times,

Warcraft III Delay Reducer reduces the latency of Warcraft III custom games hosted via battle.net.
reduces the latency of Warcraft III custom games hosted via battle.net.
reduces the latency of games hosted via battle.net
reduces the latency of battle.net

Until Blizzard starts hosting every single Starcraft game themselves, and is paying for the computers/bandwidth/etc. to host these games, there is absolutely no reason that blizzard should continue to apply this artificial, unnecessary huge delay to their games.

[Toridas]

Delay reducer is a hack. Hacks aren't allowed in blizzard games.

It doesn't reduce latency, it increases the rate at which packets are sent, which in turn will more easily lag people on slow connections as more and more packets get dropped.

[Eloderung]

Delay reducer is a hack. Hacks aren't allowed in blizzard games.

It's not. Any technically-minded person can change the innate built-in latency without using a program. The program just makes it easier for the average folk, and it allows them to do it via Warcraft III chat commands.

And according to your definition of hack, anybody who alters their video settings is a hacker. http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h314/kaikulu/leethaxorz.jpg


[quote]It doesn't reduce latency,

Yes it does.
it increases the rate at which packets are sent,

No it doesn't.

which in turn will more easily lag people on slow connections as more and more packets get dropped.

Only if you're on dial-up.

Starcraft II's minimum requirements are of a Broadband Connection.

Also, ICCUP and WC3DR would not be popular if they had negative side-effects.

[Joneleth]

Wow. As if comparing the installation of ICCup to "editing an easily-accessible text file" wasn't bizarre enough, following it up with ICCUP has no features that are not available in the original product.is just way too much /facepalm and places him/her as little better than one of the baseless alarm-raisers I mentioned in the original post, and that's about as mildly as I can put their attempts at twisting stuff around.

[Toridas]

It's not. Any technically-minded person can change the innate built-in latency without using a program.


No you can't, or you wouldn't be complaining non stop about SC2's.

Also, ICCUP and WC3DR would not be popular if they had negative side-effects.

Besides getting banned because they're against the TOS. You could say the same for maphacks or any other hack.

[Eloderung]

Wow. As if comparing the installation of ICCup to "editing an easily-accessible text file" wasn't bizarre enough, following it up with is just way too much /facepalm and places him/her as little better than one of the baseless alarm-raisers I mentioned in the original post, and that's about as mildly as I can put their attempts at twisting stuff around.

You're the one who thinks that more lag makes for a better game, and more pointless hoops for socializing makes battle.net 2.0 a superior service.

How about we make it so that, before you send a chat message, you must log into your account three times, alt tab out and verify your account by logging into the Blizzard Store, and then tab back in and enter a five-digit code provided by your Blizzard Store login in order to send a message. This process must be repeated for every message you wish to send.

The longer it takes to do something makes it better, right? The fact that it takes longer to send tells in Starcraft 2 than battle.net 1.0 makes it better, right? The fact that it is more difficult to view somebody's profile in battle.net 2.0 makes it better than /profile <name>, right?

Also, a .4 second delay provides a better game experience than a .2 second delay.

Your logic is incredible.


No you can't, or you wouldn't be complaining non stop about SC2's.

See above.

[Lghtningwolf]

Eloderung, please stop being an idiot. Currently, if you did not notice at the top, there are quite a few buttons completely greyed out, and specific chat functions are disabled, why? because Blizzard felt they were not Nessessary in a BETA of starcraft 2, and even though it has access to "B.net 2.0" we are not seeing all we can see in b.net 2.0 so people will focus more on PLAYING starcraft 2, not sit in the chat rooms all day chatting to people. The point im trying to make is, your argueing about what is, or is not a hack, and your wrong, it is a hack and against the ToS, even if it did improve upon Blizzards programming for your computer, but as someone else stated, the aformentioned hack only speeds up packets for your computer, effectively "reducing" any lag you may have, but if your opponent is on a slow computer, they will lag out.

[Nightmare]

I would also like to point out that upon release, you will only be playing people who are in or near your league. Copper players will be playing against Copper players, Platinum against Platinum. Sure, the top Copper players may occasionally play against the lowest Silver players, but the relative skill level should be very close.

Once they have enough profiles (IE, Millions) to allow leagues to function like they should, it'll be...well...leagues better than any other matchmaking system. Warcraft III had a terrible matchmaking system. If I had 10 hands, I wouldn't be able to count on my fingers the number of times I was level 3 and got matched against level 12s, or my AT partner and I were around level 6 and got matched against level 17s just because we went 5-0 in our first 5 AT games.

[Eloderung]

Eloderung, please stop being an idiot. Currently, if you did not notice at the top, there are quite a few buttons completely greyed out, and specific chat functions are disabled, why? because Blizzard felt they were not Nessessary in a BETA of starcraft 2, and even though it has access to "B.net 2.0" we are not seeing all we can see in b.net 2.0 so people will focus more on PLAYING starcraft 2, not sit in the chat rooms all day chatting to people. The point im trying to make is, your argueing about what is, or is not a hack, and your wrong, it is a hack and against the ToS, even if it did improve upon Blizzards programming for your computer, but as someone else stated, the aformentioned hack only speeds up packets for your computer, effectively "reducing" any lag you may have, but if your opponent is on a slow computer, they will lag out.

Adding a social button won't fix any of the problems that exist on all the other tabs in battle.net. If I must use this "social" tab to send whispers to people through a chat interface, then it's already a failure.

Blizzard Employees themselves and directly an explicitly confirmed that a number of heavily-requested features, such as open chat channels, are NOT coming EVER. That means, they are NOT in the social tab.

Also, I suppose the European SC2 beta test is "hacking" as well? Because the European beta servers at this very moment have a built-in delay of only 100ms, while the US beta servers are set at 250ms.

[Rackdude]

I would also like to point out that upon release, you will only be playing people who are in or near your league. Copper players will be playing against Copper players, Platinum against Platinum. Sure, the top Copper players may occasionally play against the lowest Silver players, but the relative skill level should be very close.

Once they have enough profiles (IE, Millions) to allow leagues to function like they should, it'll be...well...leagues better than any other matchmaking system. Warcraft III had a terrible matchmaking system. If I had 10 hands, I wouldn't be able to count on my fingers the number of times I was level 3 and got matched against level 12s, or my AT partner and I were around level 6 and got matched against level 17s just because we went 5-0 in our first 5 AT games.

It wasn't always like that either. At first it was by level. Then they changed it to being by win% because of the people making scrub accounts just for fun. With SC2, they can just go back to matching people by levels.

[Joneleth]

You're the one who thinks that more lag makes for a better game, and more pointless hoops for socializing makes battle.net 2.0 a superior service.

How about we make it so that, before you send a chat message, you must log into your account three times, alt tab out and verify your account by logging into the Blizzard Store, and then tab back in and enter a five-digit code provided by your Blizzard Store login in order to send a message. This process must be repeated for every message you wish to send.

The longer it takes to do something makes it better, right? The fact that it takes longer to send tells in Starcraft 2 than battle.net 1.0 makes it better, right? The fact that it is more difficult to view somebody's profile in battle.net 2.0 makes it better than /profile <name>, right?

You're the one who thinks that more spam in the public chat channels and more gibberish in the Games list makes for a better game, and having to wade through 9000 DoTA or "4v4 BGH CABLE!!!!1" games just to find one custom-Melee on a favorite map, with only one person sitting in the Lobby, makes Battle.net Classic a better service.

Heck, you probably have a few bots online right now advertising your dealership of Viagra or whatever to everyone trying to play Brood War.

How about we use mIRC as the UI for SC2, and provide just 3 commands for launching a game:
/BGH
/compstomp
/DOTA

I'm sure you'd love that. The more name-spoofing and the more hundreds of identical games you can't even get into, the better, right? How about making sure that 5 out of every 10 games you do manage to stay in after they're started, having people that drop out during the first 10 seconds. Oh and don't even bother using the built-in Ladder system for keeping track of player skill.



Isn't straw-manning fun, Eloderung? Mr. Logic.

[Lghtningwolf]

Adding a social button won't fix any of the problems that exist on all the other tabs in battle.net. If I must use this "social" tab to send whispers to people through a chat interface, then it's already a failure.

Blizzard Employees themselves and directly an explicitly confirmed that a number of heavily-requested features, such as open chat channels, are NOT coming EVER. That means, they are NOT in the social tab.

Also, I suppose the European SC2 beta test is "hacking" as well? Because the European beta servers at this very moment have a built-in delay of only 100ms, while the US beta servers are set at 250ms.

Ever think that there 'Might' be more people on the US servers over the Euro servers is the reasoning for the MS difference? or maybe the Euro servers are set up outside of the US and dont have the Mass US Internet latency issue?

And where is these Blizzard employee's stating that there will never be open chat channels? not that I care if there are any, cuz the only people who really used open chat channels were spammers anyway. are you 100% sure they said NOT EVER, and not NOT EVER IN THE BETA? Also they added in the "/r" command recently acessability so you can type /r then use tab to reply to people who messaged you.

There is no /w command then the name while IN a game because if your wasteing your time by typing out their name rather then focusing on your game, or useing the mouse to go click their name in your friends tab, you really want these games for CHAT more then the GAME?

[Keir]

Chat or not, I can find appropriate opponents on a wider variety of maps way more quickly than you ever could on Brood War and I don't have to install hacks like ICCup to get a decent Ladder system. ★

Oh and I don't have to juggle Lobby Slots or bother with passwords to make sure only the intended people enter my Custom games.

or have to use map modifications to support Spectators.



Anyone who whines about this probably couldn't figure out anything else about the gameplay itself to provide feedback on and has to resort to the controversial-non-issue-of-the-week to get some attention.

war3 bnet >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> current bnet2

its not even close

[Dreuel]

Blizzard Employees themselves and directly an explicitly confirmed that a number of heavily-requested features, such as open chat channels, are NOT coming EVER. That means, they are NOT in the social tab.

As you and I have repeatedly discussed in multiple other threads, they've said they're implementing something they think will be different and better, and they haven't said what.

It's disingenuous of you to argue that ALL the features should be better than their previous products and then demand that they implement precisely what was in Warcraft III with no changes. It's not possible to do both.

[Dreuel]

are you 100% sure they said NOT EVER, and not NOT EVER IN THE BETA?

They have said that there would be no open chat channels on two occasions I'm aware of. One was the recent Korean interview by some VP of Online Services whose name escapes me that was published last week or so. Another was the Battle.net 2.0 development lead saying it at Blizzcon '09, although Rob Pardo jumped in immediately to clarify that they were working on features that he wasn't ready yet to describe that would fill the same needs.

Since that presentation included demos of pretty much all the features in the beta battle.net 2.0 right now, I infer that he was talking about additional social features that are not yet in the game.

Edit: Here's the entire Battle.net 2.0 presentation on Youtube. The comment about no chat channels is in (I think) part 12/14, but the entire thing is interesting in that it lays out a roadmap for a lot of the features that aren't in the version we have yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ItZfu9zAc

[Bloodluster]

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23425708841&postId=234233930098&sid=5000#16

Battle.net is terrible until that is fixed.

[Eloderung]

Ever think that there 'Might' be more people on the US servers over the Euro servers is the reasoning for the MS difference? or maybe the Euro servers are set up outside of the US and dont have the Mass US Internet latency issue?

If that is true, then this game will have 2000ms+ built-in latencies when SC2 goes live, given that hundreds of thosuands of people will be online concurrently.

That's completely false. Blizzard does not host any games. The moment you get inside a game, you or one of your opponents are hosting the game. Do you really think every single person in the entire US has no connection faster than 250ms, while every single person in the entire European continent has a connection no faster than 100ms? Really?

And where is these Blizzard employee's stating that there will never be open chat channels? not that I care if there are any, cuz the only people who really used open chat channels were spammers anyway. are you 100% sure they said NOT EVER, and not NOT EVER IN THE BETA? Also they added in the "/r" command recently acessability so you can type /r then use tab to reply to people who messaged you.

See Blizzcon '09, and a Korea interview linked a million times on these forums.

There is no /w command then the name while IN a game because if your wasteing your time by typing out their name rather then focusing on your game, or useing the mouse to go click their name in your friends tab, you really want these games for CHAT more then the GAME?

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I've been able to /w people in SCI, DI, WarII b.net, DII, WarIII, and WoW while playing in games.

Why take away this feature?

We're not all slow. I type at 130 wpm. It's extremely easy and fast to whisper somebody in any of these other games, and it should be no different in Starcraft II.

[Perq]

If that is true, then this game will have 2000ms+ built-in latencies when SC2 goes live, given that hundreds of thosuands of people will be online concurrently.

That's completely false. Blizzard does not host any games. The moment you get inside a game, you or one of your opponents are hosting the game. Do you really think every single person in the entire US has no connection faster than 250ms, while every single person in the entire European continent has a connection no faster than 100ms? Really?


See Blizzcon '09, and a Korea interview linked a million times on these forums.


Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I've been able to /w people in SCI, DI, WarII b.net, DII, WarIII, and WoW while playing in games.

Why take away this feature?

We're not all slow. I type at 130 wpm. It's extremely easy and fast to whisper somebody in any of these other games, and it should be no different in Starcraft II.

Really, read the twitter interview from this week and it says chat channels are coming? Don't be stupid, do some reasearch.

[Perq]

Q. Hi. So many people are complaining about this on the forum... is it true that there will be no chat channels? I hope not!

A. We do have plans for chat channels. Specifically, we want to organize chat channels around users' interests so you know what types of conversations you are going to get into when you join a channel. This feature is not something that will be in for beta. Currently we plan to do this feature in a patch after the game launches.

[Patrickstar]

If leagues actually had meaning - i.e., I only played against people in my own league - then I might agree with you.
I suspect that at release, you will only play people within your league and they have only expanded the matchmaking during the beta for the sake of expediency.