Bashiok discuss chat channels with the community

[Keeganomical]

I'm giving them my cash, so they can just stuff it!

True, but so are millions of other people. I think sometimes we think about SC2 as what we as an individual would love in a perfect game and forget that Blizzards job is not to cater to any one group, but to try and make the most accessible game possible that is the most fun for the most people. With that in mind, I believe that Blizzard wants to make a good game for people to enjoy, turn a profit, and move on to the next one, and that they have already delivered a very fine product that with some well thought out changes has the potential of adding to an amazing franchise. I mean IMO I pretty much avoided chat channels because of all the spam and flaming it entailed.

[Hamshank]

Ham your view is different from most others and how could communication be obsolete at all

Like it or not Starcraft 2 is a game, not a chat room.

If you want to chat you can do it through your guild/clan and through adding friends and group chats.

Going into chats to talk to strangers for hours? Do that somewhere else.

[hyde]

3 pages of criticism not one person who would say what they would have named title.

Hilarious. I can't tell if that's sarcasm or more Fox News styled spin...right..of course...naming the thread...the most IMPORTANT topic in this thread!

Like it or not Starcraft 2 is a game, not a chat room.

If you want to chat you can do it through your guild/clan and through adding friends and group chats.

Going into chats to talk to strangers for hours? Do that somewhere else.

I have to somewhat agree. I've enjoyed VALVE/STEAM games for like 10 years. Those games and services had no real open chat channels. The more I think about it, I probably won't miss chat channels.
But at the same time...every damn Blizzard game including Diablo 1 has had it...why change something if it isn't broken?
The problem is that they are taking away something we've gotten used to.
That doesn't fly with most people.

[wraithguard]

Bashiok has talked to the community and alot of words have been said (and secrets revealed) alot of people probably didnt even hit the link up to see what was said here. if you read on you will see and realize what Bashiok and hell some of the community people have already said the answer and Bashiok pretty much agreed with it (with it verbally saying he agreed with it since it would mean his job to give away secrets like that). Sadly the thread is dead now as since it has fallen to trolls and spammers (i know right?) but none the less the key parts have been said and done.

So please read up on this discussion as since it has clearly been discussed through out the months ever since its announcements.

[Triceron]

Bashiok
So 10-15 channels would serve the millions that will inevitably purchase the game? Those are some busy channels. And one person would be able to moderate all those people by their lonesome?

ArcherofAiur
Bashiok, Teamliquid moderates thousands of posters....for free.

There's a clear difference between forum posts and chat channels, I hope you realize that.


Well, if they ARE adding private chat channels, that alleviates some of my worries. I don't really care much about pub chat channels, they're as bad as trade chat anyways. But something like a local channel is all I really want out of bnet.

[Hamshank]

Good point about Steam Hyde, I can def. relate to that having made friends over those games. I'm sure the people at Blizzard are looking at Steam and Impulse from Stardock.



Personally do I want chat channels? Sure I do, however, if it doesn't fit in Blizzard business model so be it. I'm not going to ruin the normal Starcraft discussion that takes place here by creating a million cynical threads about this. This could have been a post in response to Gifted's Battle.net 2 thread.

[n00bonicPlague]

Imma be a nice guy and go fetch the posts . . .

. . . brb.

[SaharaDrac]

I don't know what the title was, but I like the current one!

[n00bonicPlague]

Source: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...21649&sid=3000

Do the community managers actually manage the community and tell the big man upstairs that the community is pissed or do they just maximize a browser with the forums on it every thirty minutes and delete/ban half the forum? More importantly, do they notice the same people they have banned so many times its not even funny anymore, keep coming back?

Did Karune get hit by a bus? Has Xorbediah been destroyed by Kotick Private Security? Was Cavez put in a closet and told he can't come out until starcraft 2 ships?

We're painfully aware.

I won't make any excuses as to why forum communication took a dive, but it seems that we're starting to get our heads above water again and hopefully we can get our activity in all of our forums back up (SC2 isn't the only place that has suffered). I don't know. Maybe that's being too optimistic.

Personally I've really been waiting to get our information and responses solidified for the big key issues. There's almost no point in posting unless we can hit the main concerns. It's in the works. Soon. And all that.

cheeto lightsaber

Tell me more.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...34229&sid=3000

This is a valid question, I've seen this pop up on TL and other sites. Not answering equals admitting Activision is making all the decisions for you.

Haha, is that what it means? Logical.

Yeah, that's on our list of things we need to provide more info on.

HAI BASHIOK~

BUT YOU SAID!

You know, instead of making a list of when and how to "deal with an information problem", you could answer the damn question.

Think globally!

Heh. Well, we have to make sure what we're saying is what we want to say, there's enough misinformation out there that guessing what the answer is probably isn't a good idea. Also, we do have to create documents and make sure they're approved by the designers/producers in charge, and then sent out for localization or at least so we're prepared with the proper info in all languages.

Gone are the days of posting ad-hoc. They will be missed.

"Can I say this?" "No"

"But this?" "No"

"What about this?" "No.."

"But.." "Just shut yer mouth and wait for your orders!"

What? I've been at Blizzard 6.5 years. I've been a community manager... 4, or so? Things work now like they've worked since World of Warcraft got big and we became a large global company. We have to coordinate communication. It's how it's worked for many years.

Bashiok why was the main reason for no chat due to spam?

Wouldn't the whole "One account one cd key" eliminate the possibility of people spamming? simply permaban and force them to buy a new one if they want to spam.

Who is banning them, and what is generating their pay to patrol/moderate millions of users?

You could make it automated, I recall wc3 cd keys getting muted for countlessly flooding channels.

That's one specific type of channel abuse that could maybe be automated for a second until someone figures out the requirements to avoid it, and then continues to do it anyway.

The idea that viewing occasional spam is so horrifying that all forms of chat channels (including private channels which were the ones players actually used and were never spammed) needed to be removed insults my intelligence and service to this country.

We'll have private chat channels, they just aren't making it in for the release date.

In fact, the only thing I can think of that is more offensive is the idea that Blizzard cannot afford to pay someone $10 an hour to moderate the 10-15 public chat channels that Battle.net 2.0 would theoretically have.

So 10-15 channels would serve the millions that will inevitably purchase the game? Those are some busy channels. And one person would be able to moderate all those people by their lonesome?

I've worked in consumer product development, and it's been obvious from the beginning that the reason for not implementing chat channels is avoiding the (substantial) support cost associated with enforcing guidelines on their use.

Yes, WC3 and SC1 had chat channels, and yes, both were very popular games. However, World of Warcraft has both grown Blizzard's audience substantially, and has also set a particular standard of support that's been based on having a continuous revenue stream from the game.

It's quite likely that the choice with respect to chat channels came out of a realization that providing the level of support people expect today to deal with rule-breakers would require Blizzard to charge a monthly fee, and that the way it fell out was that not having chat channels was seen as preferable to charging a monthly fee to play the game, particularly since Blizzard's competitors in the RTS market do not charge such fees. Also, it's quite possible that Blizzard's leadership are unhappy, in retrospect, with the level of support they were able to provide WC3 and earlier games, given their WoW experience.

Now, in the long run it may be that Blizzard encounters such pushback on the chat channel issue that they basically have to eat the cost of that support. If this happens, I'm not entirely sure that the long-term result is what the community would want. That long-term result might be that the NEXT game simply includes a fee to play to ensure that the game remains profitable to support.

Blizzard is a very successful company, but they're already plowing the bulk of their profits back into new development and rapid growth. Their resources are not unlimited, and saying "Try to tell us you can't afford this!" doesn't make them so.

Enlightened, thanks!

Bashiok, Teamliquid moderates thousands of posters....for free.

Really? really.

These are the quotes that make me want to go lay down.

Teamliquid can get away with it because they're supporting the community with no profit incentive, so people volunteer to help out. If Blizzard tried that, here's how the conversation would go:

Them: "Hey, would you like to be a chat moderator, responsible for strictly adhering to our set of requirements for banning people from chat channels, with no flexibility to make your own decisions about what's acceptable?"

Me: "How much does it pay?"

Them: "How about $0/hr, with time and a half for overtime?"

Me: "No."

This.

[Nicol Bolas]

It can't be that hard to put in an auto ban.... a swear filter... etc...

Yeah, those things can't be worked around

Try to inform SCLegacy community about critical information.

I'm sorry, a conversation that peripherally relates to chat channels constitutes "critical information" now?

3 pages of criticism not one person who would say what they would have named title.

That's because we don't have to. Legitimate criticism of your title choice does not simultaneously require suggesting a better one. We don't have to play your game just because you ask a question.

Nice try at deflecting the conversation though. Obfuscation is one of the tools of last resort, when one finds that his nonsense has been thoroughly rebuked.

Ham your view is different from most others and how could communication be obsolete at all

No, the problem with your view is that you equate SC1-style Chat Channels to "communication," as though there were no other ways to communicate with someone.

Bashiok, Teamliquid moderates thousands of posters....for free.

Wow... just... just wow. I've heard Archers not-logic before, and it's been pretty bad, but wow. He's actually comparing:

1: a forum to a public, live chat system. As though these are at all the same kind of thing.

2: a forum that has maybe 30,000 people on it to a public, live chat system that will have millions. Hell, I bet that there are more people on Battle.Net 1.0 than there are on TL.net. TeamLiquid would be a rounding error in Battle.Net.

3: a forum that, even with so few people, is poorly moderated. Look at the SC2 forum. Daily, there are threads started, lengthy threads that go against the very draconian rules of the forum (requiring 8 high-level replays before you get to talk about balance, etc). People bitch constantly about the "n00bs", "scrubs" and what not in the thread. Is this how Archer wants SC2's chat to be moderated?