Blizzard:"No plans for "specific" chatrooms, crossrealm play"

[spychi]

what I always can't understand is why they don't base everything on starcraft 1 battle.net and then start adding features? I mean we all had LAN, offline skirmishes and alot of other things...
I fail to see any reasons in what they are doing right now with bn2.0
why not LAN?
why region lock?
why no chatrooms?
why facebook integration on purpose?
why monthly fee for Russia and Brasil?

all what they mentioned as a defence to those decisions doesn't make sense at all

[TWD]

or we can put some pressure on Blizzard by boycotting them

You can waste your energy all you want, but I can promise that it will never change. This isn't a "oh well we didn't think of that" or "well it's just too difficult to do" or even a "we just don't have time". They have explicitly stated that they don't like the idea, and that they don't want it a part of their system. When a developer puts it's foot down like that it's final. It's not going to change any time soon.

Not to mention that the idea of "boycotting" the game over this is just laughable. If people couldn't make a boycott of MW2 to work, then I can promise you're not going to get enough people to boycott StarCraft 2 over no chat. Especially when the StarCraft community as a whole will be better off with IRC anyways.
________
Glass bongs

[Gifted]

what I always can't understand is why they don't base everything on starcraft 1 battle.net and then start adding features? I mean we all had LAN, offline skirmishes and alot of other things...
I fail to see any reasons in what they are doing right now with bn2.0
why not LAN?
why region lock?
why no chatrooms?
why facebook integration on purpose?
why monthly fee for Russia and Brasil?

all what they mentioned as a defence to those decisions doesn't make sense at all

A part of me believes that you know the reasons deep inside but you don't want to believe it or listen to it. (Not insult intended, but when you say things like this, it's as if you are ignoring the plethora of information we've been provided on the subjects for months.

They want to create a central hub for the game. Give it more than enough "pull" to make it so people WANT to be on the central hub. Then, make it so that people who attempt to pirate it can't be on the hub. This means that a pirated version will have less features/worth than the original "full" product. This is what Blizzard has stated.

Why not LAN?

Because it goes against the design decisions regarding battle.net they went forward with. They also want to make it so FUTURE games will not have LAN. They have a vision for eSports (whether it's good or not) and to make it a possibility, they had to remove LAN. The community will agree or disagree with the benefits, but ultimately these are things they've directly told us. The difference is, when you take the scope of the changes to the fact of "years" and not "weeks" then the true results will show.

Either way, they've said now firmly it's a design decision to not have LAN, no need to talk about it more as they've confirmed it will not be added. I'm done personally with the subject.

Region lock.

This one I can't explain well cause they haven't explained well. I _KNOW_ they were looking at a non-region locked game but in development things changed. N00bonicPlague said it perfect in a different thread and I share his thoughts. Why say "always connected to your friends" and limit the ways to connect to them. I can understand latency/gaming limits placed, but it would be nice to be able to communicate with them at least. Only thing I can think of is emulating the WoW infrastructure and serverbeds.

It's also interesting they still mention this one as "not closed" but still looking into it overall.

No specific chatrooms

This is something that Archer was interesting to bring light on. The correct words are no "SPECIFIC" chatrooms and I've updated the title of the thread to cause less confusion. They are still going to have rooms for clans and groups when they are created. Frankly, this is the functionality that people truly want. Think of it this way.. if you can create a group that you guys join a chat on when you join the game... that's what you want. Or to join a clan room. You don't really care to join people on "USWEST CHAT 14" where all the spam happens. This is basically the same as integration "private chatrooms" which is what people really want. Reread the sentence.. you'll see what I mean.. If you also see the Dustin Browder/Chris Sigaty Interview from about a month ago (The video interview) you'll see they answer this more fully there and this interview brings nothing new to light.

Facebook

Regarding Facebook integration, seriously, the amount of code and work to make this feature is miniscule compared to all the things people would rather have. It's a VERY easy investment for a large return for people to get connected. It's a shame to see people complaining about this more.

Weekly fee

Weekly Fee for Russian and Brazil is an OPTION. The reason is that the amount of piracy in those countries are through the roof. Blizzard KNOWS that people will pirate the game if they can't afford it and have almost no reprecussions. This creates a scenario where people won't be able to get in on the battle.net expirience, but wish they could, but frankly can't afford it.

They are providing an additional option at a lower monthly price for people to expirience it while saving to get the full game or whatnot. They haven't REPLACED the full price option, merely added onto it because demand for that service would exist in those regions. The question is.. complaining about this.. does that mean you'd rather see this as an option in Poland that you'd like to see or would you rather see the option removed from those regions? Cause reducing the price of the product would not be a feasible alternative in terms of fiscal responcibilities within a company.

@Spychi specifically.

Spychi, no offense intended, but I've seen you part of these discussion and contributing good levels to many of the conversations (Actually, not regarding chat rooms now that I think of it) I'm guessing you know a lot more about the subjects you bring up than your simple "I don't understand" post suggests. This leads me to believe you are just trying to stir the pot with your comment on some of the points, while holding onto legit concerns with the others.

[Gifted]

You can waste your energy all you want, but I can promise that it will never change. This isn't a "oh well we didn't think of that" or "well it's just too difficult to do" or even a "we just don't have time". They have explicitly stated that they don't like the idea, and that they don't want it a part of their system. When a developer puts it's foot down like that it's final. It's not going to change any time soon.

Not to mention that the idea of "boycotting" the game over this is just laughable. If people couldn't make a boycott of MW2 to work, then I can promise you're not going to get enough people to boycott StarCraft 2 over no chat. Especially when the StarCraft community as a whole will be better off with IRC anyways.

TWD: little note, "no chatroom" is actually "No generic chat rooms" Group chats (aka, Private chatrooms) and clan chatrooms are to be implemented and even referenced in this interview

[ArcherofAiur]

You can waste your energy all you want, but I can promise that it will never change. This isn't a "oh well we didn't think of that" or "well it's just too difficult to do" or even a "we just don't have time". They have explicitly stated that they don't like the idea, and that they don't want it a part of their system. When a developer puts it's foot down like that it's final. It's not going to change any time soon.

Not to mention that the idea of "boycotting" the game over this is just laughable. If people couldn't make a boycott of MW2 to work, then I can promise you're not going to get enough people to boycott StarCraft 2 over no chat. Especially when the StarCraft community as a whole will be better off with IRC anyways.

*cough*

http://www.destructoid.com/spore-cus...e-102807.phtml

[n00bonicPlague]

Regarding the region gaps and how they are planning to "bridge" them, I'm vastly dissatisfied. They don't even remotely mention any effort to make it even just a bit easier for us to play with friends from across the globe. There's no in-game server switching like there was in SC1, and it seems that you can't even get a discount of any sort for downloading a completely new client. Quite frankly, I find that unacceptably sloth on their part.

Now I can understand a few things. Obviously, you can't have the same account for all servers, as that would greatly limit the number of available game names to the entire world and would clog up the servers like crazy, so having to create a new account is fully understandable. Also, being able to download free or even just discounted clients could easily allow people to distribute them online so that everyone could get onto SC2 for cheap, so there would have to be a catch to that system if such a system existed. Even after those obstacles, as I see it, they've got two solutions to this right in front of them.

The first option is that they could re-implement the server switching process from SC1. You would simply log out of the one server and log into another server, with the small hassle of having to create a new account. You still have to purchase your first original copy of SC2, but then after that it's just a matter of switching servers and creating new accounts. This would be the simplest and most straight forward option.

The second solution would be a bit more tedious, but could still work. Downloading the client for any region would be free, but a special catch would come with getting a key for a region. If you already have an SC2 game attached to your account from one region, then you could get your first key for another region for free — no cost whatsoever. The catch would be that key has to be attached to an account that does not have a key for that region in order to stay free, whether that account is yours or someone else's. If an attempt is made to attach it to an account that does not have a copy of SC2 at all or already has a copy of SC2 for the region that key is for, then the full price has to be paid for key activation. (I know, it's a bit of the pain to wrap the mind around, but it would work.)

Now, you might be wondering what would prevent a player from getting that one free account, be it via server switching or the first free key for a new region, and just giving it to someone else, providing a small but present loop-hole for them to get a free account. Well, what would prevent someone from just giving out their account info for their one copy of SC2 in their one region so others could play? Nothing (at least, nothing that wouldn't violate half a ton of privacy laws and agreements). It would really come down to the player asking him/herself this question: "Is it really worth losing my one free chance at playing in another region just so this one friend of mine can play for free?" And even then, one would need to consider that, with these different keys for different regions, the person you give it to would never be able to play against other regions until someone purchased another key. And on top of that, would you really want to risk someone logging onto your main account from your region and screwing up your stats? After such consideration, I believe any risk of people just getting free games would be slim to none — a fraction of a fraction, of possibly even another fraction.

So, if either of these systems (or another system) are not implemented in order to make bridging the region gap free, then I don't have any problem at all viewing Blizzard employees as lazy and greedy, because that's exactly the kind of people it would take to fail to implement such a system.

Feel free to correct me if I said something insane or stupid, but I won't respond all too soon. I gotta fix the A/C here at the house. Plus I got some other issues regarding public and private chat. Also, I haven't read any responses because I've been writing this since the first post, so bear with me plx

[ArcherofAiur]

A part of me believes that you know the reasons deep inside but you don't want to believe it or listen to it. (Not insult intended, but when you say things like this, it's as if you are ignoring the plethora of information we've been provided on the subjects for months.

They want to create a central hub for the game. Give it more than enough "pull" to make it so people WANT to be on the central hub. Then, make it so that people who attempt to pirate it can't be on the hub. This means that a pirated version will have less features/worth than the original "full" product. This is what Blizzard has stated.

Why not LAN?

Because it goes against the design decisions regarding battle.net they went forward with. They also want to make it so FUTURE games will not have LAN. They have a vision for eSports (whether it's good or not) and to make it a possibility, they had to remove LAN. The community will agree or disagree with the benefits, but ultimately these are things they've directly told us. The difference is, when you take the scope of the changes to the fact of "years" and not "weeks" then the true results will show.

Either way, they've said now firmly it's a design decision to not have LAN, no need to talk about it more as they've confirmed it will not be added. I'm done personally with the subject.

Oh I see. So they are intentionally misleading or at worst out right lying to us about the reasons for not including lan.


Thanks for clearing that up.

[Gifted]

Blizzard has always been clear about LAN not being in SC2, D3 and their future MMO (obviously *chuckles*) The vision for eSports is littered throughout the information they've provided in the GOMtv, and the personal letters they've published. There is nothing misleading about it, That's your interpretation, or rather, opinion regarding the matter. The clearing up is merely your perception/opinion changing (Or being reinforced I suspect in this case) based on what I shared. There are many other reasons for no LAN, but it's no simple answer as "NO lan = Piracy" It's a multi-tiered situation that I didn't fully explain.

Such as the "always connected expirience" which isn't looking too great to the community right now. I'll admit, the pull of it is diminished rightnow, but I'll admit after a few content patches could be where I'm happy with it.

Archer, I'm also still amazed at how often you sneak in "us" or other pronouns that involve you speaking for more than yourself. The easiest way to see how your messages TRULY are is to exchange every "us" with "me/I" and suddenly your messages change to the tone you truly are trying to portray good sir

EDIT: Archer: Sorry if changing the title was frustrating btw, The words in the initial post showed that you are rather open minded on the subject (despite your concerns) I don't mean to flame you, the previous comment is in a "matter of fact" voice/observation.

[spychi]

I didn't care about lack of LAN until I played with my neighbour
it's funny how it can get more laggy than playing with other people

region lock, well I want to play for example with Demo, UED_SO and few other guys from the US and I am not willing to pay for another version of the game

if there will be chatrooms for clans than ok

weekly fee, well this is something I didn't know
I thought people from Russia are being forced to pay every week for the game till the end of the game support
so ok

what really annoys me is that they spend soo much time to complete the facebook integration while it's really nothing interesting at all and they could spend that time on other things
I am just really pist off that they killed my hype over this game with the beta, I don't want it to be released in this state and I with a couple of local friends already did cancel our pre-orders

[Skyze]

The chatroom thing doesnt bother me. But the cross realm play IS an issue.

Think about it. If you were a semi-pro or even just competitive SC2 player. You will need to buy NINE (9) copies of the game to be able to play all tournaments. Three copies of each expansion. That is even under the assumption there will be only 3 servers, there may be even 5-6 by the time its released.

Personally, as someone who played 50% on WC3 US East and 50% on Europe in my 3 years of semi-pro WC3 playing.. This is a big issue. I used to play lots of europe tourneys (and WC3L, the mecca of WC3 leagues), but also played US East to play with friends/local tourneys/WCG qualifiers and such, since obviously im in Canada.

Anyways, I am 90% sure I am boycotting SC2 retail, thats my personal decision that is largely swayed by my real life career as a Musician, needing to spend less hours gaming.. but even if that wasn't the case, These are some serious concerns that would make me think twice about buying SC2 retail.