[SC2B] Battle.net - 1 Step Forward, 2.0 Steps Back

Disclaimer: This post is going to be fairly critical, and so I want people to keep in mind that Battle.net 2.0 is currently in Beta, it's not just the game that is being tested. Many features are still locked or not fully available, so please keep that in mind.

The New Battle.net

Much has been said about Battle.net 2.0, how they were going to take what made Battle.net great and build on it. Various announcements (No online replays, No chat channels) throughout development has made me go from optimistic to skeptical, and back again... so now that I've finally gotten to use it, how many of my fears were unfounded and how many weren't?

In short, not nearly enough

Connecting The Community


So, how does Battle.net 2.0 stack up in this regard when compared to the previous incarnations of Battle.net? Upon entering Battle.net 1 for Starcraft 1 or Warcraft 3, pretty much the first thing (okay, for WC3 you see a News screen first) is a channel full of people:


Brood War USA-1 - the starting channel for American SC players.

A WC3 clan channel - I'm too lazy to reinstall WC3 and take a screenshot of the starting screen.. Source

Let's compare this to what you are greeted with upon entering Starcraft 2 (why the hell do I need to first enter my email, click connect and THEN enter my password, by the way?):

Hello? hello...hello... hello. Just an echo

It's sooooooo empty - in between games, if nobody on my friends list is online I literally feel like I'm the last person on Battle.net. This reminds me of a certain other RTS and its beta... namely Dawn of War 2:

Another echo-chamber!
Source


After a quick google search for "Dawn of war 2 no lobby" I found this little Beta Impressions post (truncated for relevance):

Well, I guess emulating Battle.net in this regard doesn't apply anymore. The Blizzard system is slightly better than Games For Windows Live I suppose (though being able to leave offline messages was useful in GFWL), but only just.
As far as I am concerned, removing the chat lobby is about the most stupid decision anyone could ever make - and every time I tell someone about this omission they respond with a "WTF are you serious?". Which is a sentiment I share, so, Blizzard: "WTF, are you serious??"

Next up we have the lovely way they decided to handle chatting! As far as I - and every single person I've asked this question to - am aware, there are no /whisper commands outside of /r. So, if you are in a game and want to send someone a whisper you can't just write /w LiquidNazgul. No, I have to open my friends list tab, select his name, type into the little chatbox that pops up and hit enter.

Yes, after he replies I can now /r back to him, but if someone else messages in-between I have to repeat step 1. Fantastic, really.

No, I think I'm gonna have to hand out a massive "FAIL" stamp for this section. The "future plans" (read: post release) for something "better than chat channels" mentioned at Blizzcon are irrelevant at this point - implementing a basic chat lobby to fill the gap until whatever it is you have planned is ready, would make everyone happier.

It doesn't do your next bulletin point much good when, in considering how to organize events for SC2, the inevitable conclusion is that the only way to reasonably do so is using a 3rd party chat client such as mIRC.

Update:
Apparently, some new information has come to light, courtesy of the people currently reverse engineering the SC2 beta client:

Good news. Very good news even. It seems that their earlier estimate of not having any chat channels at launch, was changed with the delay of the beta (at the time of that comment, the beta was scheduled for 2009).

The Always Connected Experience

That's a fine enough goal, I suppose and until the final game is released I don't think there's much to say about how well they've implemented it (as the beta is multiplayer only).

However, there is one thing that sticks out here - like a white guy at a SC game if you will - and that is the way they've decided to handle replays. Before I continue my rant I want to say that the actual replay watching experience is GREAT! You have over half a dozen different tabs of information at your beck and call (think: BWChart but real time), First Person Camera-view for whichever player you want, as well as the ability to easily see (and utilize) either players hotkeys. And last, but definitely not least - in fact, it might be fair to say that this is about as far from least as you can get - is the ability to seamlessly jump back in time in a replay (you can not jump ahead further than the game has loaded, however).
This takes but a second or two and is a really nice future for when you are trying to catch some early specifics of a build but keep zoning out because hey, those Reapers are so damn pretty when you zoom up close... ooooooh shiny!

But - and this is a big but - you have to watch them alone. While you can invite players to custom games you have created, starting a replay is just you and nobody else - I cannot stress how much this sucks, and I can assure you that I'm not alone in thinking this. Unlike when watching replays.

Oh and come on, let me scroll through the replay folder with my arrow keys - the double click is so damn sensitive that I keep accidentally starting replays when trying to browse.

Note: They have said that this is something they "would like to implement in the future", however please understand that after WC3 has gone 8 years without this feature (and it was requested during the beta), I am a bit skeptical.

Competitive Arena For Everyone

I don't know about you, but this was one of the things I looked forward to the most with SC2. We didn't get much info about the specifics but the promise of a truly organized competitive avenue like this, was rich.

So, what became of that promise? Unlike the previous two bulletin points, I think that it's a bit early to say. I'm not sure how long a season is, or how often the tournaments that the top 8 of a division qualify for are going to be held. I'll have to wait until they reveal their exact plans in this regard before saying too much either way.

However, I'm sorely disappointed in the complete inability to view overall rankings. Being ranked within a division is all well and good, and getting to play some end of season tournaments with those people sounds like it could be fun.... But I don't care that I'm "#8 in Platinum Division 3", I want to know what that makes me server-wide.

Is it top 50? Top 100? Top 200?

Even if, for some reason, Blizzard do not wish to keep this sort of ranking (why? I am playing vs people from every division, from every league, anyway) I should still be able to view all division rankings. Given how excellent Blizzard's statistics tracking was for WC3, I think they will likely have this implemented at some point later on in the beta.

As for the matchmaking, it seems to do its job. I am disappointed that they didn't allow for the option to pick matchups (NOTE: I do not mean to pick your opponents race, I mean to pick YOUR race for each specific matchup - instead of picking T I could pick TvP, TvZ, PvT, TvR) but I wasn't expecting this to be available.

Custom Games
Much has been said about the potential for SC2 and user created maps, but as the beta does not come with a map editor (for its early stages anyway), it's too early to say much about this. Given their track record, I'm fairly confident it will be a success...

What can be said, however, is that the present implementation of Custom Games really sucks.

Completely unable to view any information about the creator, or any otherwise distinguishing features.

If you want to create a custom game, you simply choose create game -> choose a map and then you are taken to a lobby screen. Sounds simple enough, right? Yes, but it leaves much to be desired.

First of all, there are absolutely no distinguishing features when a custom game is created - you can't see who the host is, the game doesn't even have a game name! All that is listed is Map, Speed and Mode.

There is no option to create a password protected game, but games are by default not visible until you choose to make them so. This is not a problem, but only because of the omission of such basic features such as a chat lobby or a competent whispering system. In order to invite someone to your private custom game, you have to first add him to your friend list, and then send him the invite.

The options for observers, referees and so on are solid, but once you have created a game you are unable to switch map. This is quite puzzling, at the very least you should be able to switch map in private games, while still in the game lobby.

Another (minor) annoyance is the countdown timer - for god knows what reason, it is set to 10 seconds. Why? I have no idea.

In conclusion
So, after all this, one might get the impression that I think Battle.net 2.0 is a huge, unfixable piece of shit... but it really isn't. It is - as far as I can tell - already less buggy than the old Battle.net (remember all those black lists? yeah, no more of that bullshit).

The interface is beautiful, without being slowed by needless animations (think: Warcraft 3 chains) and while a good portion of the features (such as the statistics tab) are not available at the moment, they hold a lot of promise.

If just the two major issues above (chat channels and online replays) were fixed, I would be perfectly content to call Battle.net 2.0 a huge improvement over its predecessor... However, given how big these two issues are, I feel like the new Battle.net has taken one step forward and two steps backwards. Which really doesn't get you anywhere

The upside of all this is that - at least as far as chat channels are concerned - it should be easy to fix! Here's to hope