For the love of God fix the countdown system...

[Josue]

I agree with both, the countdown stopping when some idiot leaves, and personal blacklists.
Even more, your account should accumulate statistics about people you play. If the guy disconnects before the game starts, the next time you enter a game with thay guy, you should see that kind of information.
Global reputation-related info, like "disconnected from games x times the last month", or "% games played / disconnected" would be a good idea, also.

Reputation-related info would be a great feature, including such statistics would prevent people from behaving like idiots because they'll see that it's not good and gives them bad reputation.

About the leavers... I don't know about blacklists but I think that auto aborting countdown when someone leaves is a good solution.

[Pandonetho]

I don't think there's anything wrong with personal blacklists at all.

If a Host wants to ban you, it won't matter if he has a blacklist to do it or not.

[Gradius]

I don't think there's anything wrong with personal blacklists at all.

If a Host wants to ban you, it won't matter if he has a blacklist to do it or not.

But then you get those blacklist sites where people are sometimes unjustly added and other people copy/paste those lists.

[Pandonetho]

I think that will be a minor issue.

After all, there are going to be thousands upon thousands of games being hosted daily once SC2 comes out, it won't matter if 100 people have you added.

[Xyvik]

Agreed on both issues!

I've -always- used blacklist features, especially during my stint in SWG: /ignore (player) was my largest friend. There are so many pure idiots running around the internet these days, along with script kiddies and wannabes, that -not- having a blacklist would threaten to ruin the lives of those gamers who actually care about, you know, gaming.

[SaharaDrac]

Isn't this kind of only relevant to custom games? I mean for the most part, the AMM will be taking care of starting our games and pairing us with players, right?

[sandwich_bird]

Blacklist could be abused like if people blacklist you because you're were once a noob at a certain ums well this sucks. But of course, on the other hand, being able to blacklist leavers and hackers would be useful.

[Pandonetho]

People blacklisting you for being a noob are idiots anyway, I don't know why you would want to play with them.