Why did Blizzard fail (so far) with Bnet 2.0?

[ArcherofAiur]

[SlickR]

SC2 is not a bad game though. Bnet2.0 is not unplayable, it's simply lacking in a few features. Bad games do hurt the future sales of a company, but this clearly isn't a case where that statement holds true.



They have more projects lined up ahead, and as Blizzard proves again and again, their support to the community only grows stronger. WoW never started perfect. Their support at the release of WoW is no comparison to the way WoW is handled now. I can tell you for a fact Bnet 2.0 of 3-5 years from now is not going to be the same as what we have now.

It's an ongoing thing. Yes, it does suck that many features are lacking right now, but it's not to say that this is a permanent thing. No matter WHAT Blizzard says, things are subject to change.



Says who? You?

For every person who complains about Bnet 2.0, there are 10 who won't know what's missing. There is a whole demographic out there that will be using the added features such as facebook/WoW integration that has been previously untapped. For every 'fan that they lose' they are gaining many more potential customers.

This is like complaining about Nintendo's choice of calling their system the Wii, not releasing mature titles, not making use of online features will fail them because they're not appealing to the hardcore audience. Sure, that's a sacrifice to make when you're trying to appeal to a NEW audience. The hardcore fans don't simply go away. They're simply going to be waiting for something to appeal to them.

What Blizzard is doing makes sense from a corporate/business point of view (And I don't mean from the evil eyes of Activision, I mean general business). WoW has brought in a HUGE demographic of non-RTS players into their world, and they are trying to make it less intimidating to migrate from game to game. Starcraft is a hardcore game, and Blizzard is trying to make their gaming hub more appealing and 'easy to use' for the casual player.

Blizz developers said themselves that they wanted battle.net to be premier online client, always connected experience and e-sports.

What they delivered is nothing of those 3 statements THEY made themselves.

Bnet 2.0 is worse than bnet 1.0 and I would gladly just have bnet 1.0 is starcraft 2, until blizzard can truly make a better online service.

This is me not mentioning LAN and this is me thinking the campaign will be great. We are yet to experience the campaign and it may suck big time for all we know, so I don't trust blizzard at all.

[Skyze]

@Skyze

Never knew the dirt behind ICCUP. I fairly enjoyed watching their streams at Justin.tv but that is a shocker. Interesting fact.

As for the Facebook thing... While I don't feel its all that detrimental to the game as a whole, it seems awkward to have it built-in when I get the feeling all this social networking bull is just a passing trend. I'm awaiting the day Facebook does turn into the now current Myspace haha. Throw Twitter in there too.

Basically, they found one person spamming in a channel or something, so they banned a WHOLE CITY in Florida somewhere.. like seriously.. people came and made complaints, but since the admins are so immature, they just said "Tough luck, we run the server, we do what we want, you cant do anything about it".. They have that approach, and all the times they redesigned their website and made promises they couldnt keep, they just say "Whatever, if you dont like us, go play somewhere else".. Thats what happens when you have a monopoly, you can do whatever you want and if people want to play BW, they basically have no choice but to agree with it.

Its like if there was only one grocery store in a whole city, and they knew everyone had to shop there or else they would starve.. The store could potentially say "Well, we feel like making more money, so we are making everything twice the cost as before, if you dont agree with that, go ahead and starve".. Thats exactly what iccup has done to the BW scene in the past 3 years solely because theres no competition (PGT or anything) other than a polish server which lags hard for everyone not in Poland.

Thats why I think its ESSENTIAL that Blizzard's platform is the main place for SC2 to function, because if ICCUP has to come in and make a system for SC2 competitive gaming because blizzard is focusing on "casual" players so much and not making a good ladder, then ICCUP will be able to do all the same shit they did before, which will eventually go too far.. ICCUP is hosted in Russia, whos to say if their head admin gets pissed at like an american someday, and bans ALL North American players?? I can definitely see something like that happening, due to how immature uurk is (or whatever his name is)..

[Skyze]

Blizz developers said themselves that they wanted battle.net to be premier online client, always connected experience and e-sports.

What they delivered is nothing of those 3 statements THEY made themselves.

Bnet 2.0 is worse than bnet 1.0 and I would gladly just have bnet 1.0 is starcraft 2, until blizzard can truly make a better online service.

This is me not mentioning LAN and this is me thinking the campaign will be great. We are yet to experience the campaign and it may suck big time for all we know, so I don't trust blizzard at all.

The thing casual players like him do not understand.. is e-sports MADE Starcraft.. Without e-sports, and competitive gaming in Korea, NO ONE would be still playing BW after 2002, except the crappy BGH/"no clutter" hackers.. You know its true, dont deny it. THere may be an odd 100-200 people from this website who would play it, but without ESports, this game would be the exact same as Warcraft 2, Red Alert, Total Annihilation, CNC1 or CNC2 (hell even CNC3).. DoW, etc. Every RTS game that died in ~5 years because their competitive scene hasnt been strong enough.

SO if blizzard messes up competitive gaming in SC2, due to "making more money now with WoW-Converts" who will only play the game for like 2 weeks then go back to WoW.. Sure, they might make a bit of money in retail sales in the first year, but after 2011, No one will give a rats ass anymore about SC2, and the game will just die out. I know personally, I have bought over 4 copies of SC1 myself, due to the game wearing out and losing and etc over the past 10 years.. but thats because there is something to strive for, Every other game I've bought with no competitive scene, you play it for 2-3 months max then you move on because you beat it/its over. Competitive gaming is literally 95% of what made Starcraft successful, and by Blizzard alienating this portion of their demographics just to get a few more copies sold at retail, is going to turn out to be a collosal disaster in the long run for the longevity of the game for sales/most importantly, reputation (which has taken a big hit lately with that Frank Pierce guy telling the truth about blizzard's current intentions)

[newcomplex]

I just emailed that to kotaku.

[Pandonetho]

The thing casual players like him do not understand.. is e-sports MADE Starcraft..

Yeah, I totally like how degrading you sound, categorizing him as a "casual" that doesn't even understand something as simple as how "e-sporst MADE Starcraft.."

Right, because being a casual means you don't understand something as widely known as StarCraft and how it was made through e-sports. Give me a break.

Bnet 2.0 is worse than bnet 1.0 and I would gladly just have bnet 1.0 is starcraft 2, until blizzard can truly make a better online service.

You're kidding right? It's not what we want it to be, but it's hardly worse than b.net 1.

Let's see, the ONE thing b.net 1 gave you was chat channels and a good messaging system. Don't even bring LAN into it as that's not a function of b.net.

[Hammy]

Yeah, I totally like how degrading you sound, categorizing him as a "casual" that doesn't even understand something as simple as how "e-sporst MADE Starcraft.."

Right, because being a casual means you don't understand something as widely known as StarCraft and how it was made through e-sports. Give me a break.



You're kidding right? It's not what we want it to be, but it's hardly worse than b.net 1.

Let's see, the ONE thing b.net 1 gave you was chat channels and a good messaging system. Don't even bring LAN into it as that's not a function of b.net.

Well on the other hand, Triceron is sort of saying that for every serious gamer who complains about SC2, there'll be 10 newbies who don't know any better and will buy and play the game. With only casual gamers, SC2 won't work any better than a recent EA game.

Also, you're wrong, right now Bnet1.0 has a bunch of things that Bnet2.0 doesn't have.
=> Friends lists (a real list, not the silly facebook/email stuff)
=> Global ranking
=> Chat channels
=> The ability to talk to people without having them in your friend list (for tournaments)
And I'm sure I'm missing some stuff...

What does Bnet2 have that Bnet1 doesn't?
=> RealID/Facebook friends (yay!!)
=> Improved AMM (from what I've seen, I like it)
=> Leagues (good idea)
=> Divisions (terrible for higher leagues)

I'd go for Bnet1.0. Is there any specific reason why you'd go for Bnet2.0?
Damn what would I give for a "[insert league] strategy" channel... or even division specific channels if they kept that whole system around...
Being able to find sparring partners by the dozen and a clan would have enhanced my beta experience to date sooo much.

Of course we're comparing a finished product with a beta, but still, the current Bnet2.0 isn't working for me. Hope they change tons of stuff.

[n00bonicPlague]

Yeah, we definitely need a better friends system. There needs to be people you kinda know (like that guy you played that one really good ladder game with), who can easily get a hold of you but you have a bit of a privacy barrier between them and you. There needs to be people who are good online friends (like that you know from a fansite like this), who know more about you and can get in touch with you even easier. Finally there needs to be real life friends (either an online friend that you trust enough or a real life friend that you hang out with in the flesh), who can see practically every bit of info about you other than your password. Each of those three categories would be called something like Contacts, Online Friends, and Real Life Friends, in that respective order.

Tagging along with all of that is the inclusion of privacy controls that allow you to change who can see what. Each aspect of your profile should be alterable to decide who can see it: Real Life Friends, Online Friends, Contacts, and/or even "strangers" (working name, lol). Instead of a format where if one level of friends can see something then everyone else above it can as well (like if my contacts can see it then my Online and Real Life friends can see it), it will be in a format where you have explicit control over who can see what. There could be some things that you have no problem with Online Friends seeing but that you don't really want your Real Life Friends to see, so this system would enable you to do such a thing. There would also be workings for creating exceptions for individuals. There could be this one person in my Online Friends group that I trust a little more than the others but not quite enough to know my real name and stuff. The custom settings for individuals would be there for that.

BTW, nice video, Archer. Gave me a chuckle.

[Triceron]

Casuals aren't the only people in my argument.

Dare I say it? There could be HARDCORE players who don't give a shit about Facebook, Chat channels (Public) and the other complaints. They simply don't use it, so it doesn't affect them.

Regarding the Ladder system, it's simply something we will have to wait and see if it works or not. There's no way to fully test out the Beta Ladder because there so few experienced gamers who are playing competitively. Skyze, you even said you have no reason to continue playing because you already reached the top. Do you think you're the only one in that position? Do you not think there are other people who may have reached the top of the ladder and thought "You know what? I've got nowhere else to go, and the ladder's going to reset, there's no reason to keep playing right now".

You need to look at the big picture, and that involves EVERY type of player. That's what I'm ultimately saying. I'm not saying 'Bnet is going to be overrun with 1-off casuals'. I'm saying you forgot to include them in your theory that you've beaten all the best players in the beta. I'm saying you've forgot to include them in your theory that EVERYONE hates lack of chat channels and facebook integration. It's simply not true. A lot of people may be peeved at it, but won't go to the extreme of doing something like boycott/pirating to give a big middle finger to Blizz.

You're pretty much making all your arguments based on a 'What If'. You're not saying Blizzard failed. You're saying IF Blizzard fails, and you have absolutely NO data to prove that they will. All you have are assumptions based on your own experiences, which I am telling you is FLAWED based on the nature of the beta.

What use do E-sports tourney holders have with Blizzard's own ladder system when they can run their own using people they know are already pros? What about the Pro Leagues that aren't even implemented into the game yet? Are you somehow worried that a lot of 'true pros' will be lost in lower divisions because some noob got up to Diamond league on an easy division? And that somehow an occurence like that will destroy all tourneys in the future? No matter what argument you have, there's nothing indicating it is a flawed system UNTIL we see it in practice.

War3's system which you hold so highly never started out perfect. The automatching system was atrocious, and it took YEARS to get right. The same is relevant here. Only time will tell.

[Dragoonx]

It seems like everyone just wants everything Nownownownow and cannot wait for further development.