Custom Games is an absolute mess now

[Wankey]

You can barely start a game now without a leaver. Custom games has completely failed in SC2. The 30 second countdown is just too long for people who want to start a game, and is too forced for people who just joined a game.

The fact that the countdown DOESN'T stop is irritating and dumbfoundingly stupid. What was Blizzard even thinking? Do they think at all?

It's pretty clear to me now that they fired their old Battle.net team or they left Blizzard for ArenaNet, and hired a bunch of xBox Live coders to do a half assed job.

I've gone to games that just cannot be played. Storm fo the Imperial Sanctum for instance never really starts because there is always one game to join (no Easy Mode or anything) and whenever the guy starts, you can't cancel and someone always leaves during the count down. Other games where it's bigger than 2v2, someone always leaves while counting down from 30 seconds. It's ridiculous bull that this is going on. I hope patch 1.1 does a complete redo of the custom game arena because it simply doesn't work right now.

[Kaiser]

I agree, always a leaver or two during Nexus Wars. Though I have to say I've gotten dropped myself at the beginning of the game.

[Gifted]

Wankey, while I agree that there are issues with it, I think you're exaggerating on some points. I don't believe that the custom game interface has completely failed. I feel that's just you raging all over your post. Secondly, the issue with leavers isn't a problem with Blizzard, it's a problem with people whom you can't control.

Also, maybe I'm just more perceptive of the whole picture, but I have a leaver about one out of five games.. it's just a small inconvenience, not a whole hearted problem. It's very easy if you play 10 games a day to focus on the 20% with issues. I'm still getting into a custom game that starts within 1-2 minutes which is way better than I can say of SC/WC3 B.net servers, for a 12 person game I'd wait 10 minutes... AND STILL GET LEAVERS.

And while you feel differently, it's still the same b.net coders there. They aren't the problem in this case, all they do is code what's been decided in planning. The issue is that the planning went on a direction that involves customer game creators to infer what's intended in their system. You see the "Category/mode" section? The issue is that there aren't multiple "modes" to select on the list.

Also, let's not get into the countdown, while I think that other parts of your post may be exaggerated, you and I both know that what you bring up here hits right on the money.

The only good news is that Blizzard has been asking for feedback and thoughts regarding the custom game interface since beta came out and have said REPEATEDLY that they agree that it can be improved greatly.

[dejai]

When you play 1v1 custom against a friend it is 10 seconds which is all I really care about. But certainly for these maps it seems important that the timer is reduced. Blizzard is concerned about users being forced into a game however the logic does not follow since they opt into joining the game lobby. Certainly needs patching in my opinion. Thanks for the question.

[dustinbrowder]

Agreed. The countdown time needs to be reduced.
Something along the lines of 7 seconds seems reasonable, even though its not a round number.

Good post and hopefully Blizzard bnet team gets their heads out of the sand and start listening and making stuff happen.

[Blazur]

30 seconds is WAY too long for the ADD generation of gamers to tolerate. They gotta reduce that number stat.

[Wankey]

Wankey, while I agree that there are issues with it, I think you're exaggerating on some points. I don't believe that the custom game interface has completely failed. I feel that's just you raging all over your post. Secondly, the issue with leavers isn't a problem with Blizzard, it's a problem with people whom you can't control.

Also, maybe I'm just more perceptive of the whole picture, but I have a leaver about one out of five games.. it's just a small inconvenience, not a whole hearted problem. It's very easy if you play 10 games a day to focus on the 20% with issues. I'm still getting into a custom game that starts within 1-2 minutes which is way better than I can say of SC/WC3 B.net servers, for a 12 person game I'd wait 10 minutes... AND STILL GET LEAVERS.

And while you feel differently, it's still the same b.net coders there. They aren't the problem in this case, all they do is code what's been decided in planning. The issue is that the planning went on a direction that involves customer game creators to infer what's intended in their system. You see the "Category/mode" section? The issue is that there aren't multiple "modes" to select on the list.

Also, let's not get into the countdown, while I think that other parts of your post may be exaggerated, you and I both know that what you bring up here hits right on the money.

The only good news is that Blizzard has been asking for feedback and thoughts regarding the custom game interface since beta came out and have said REPEATEDLY that they agree that it can be improved greatly.

Wise words as always Gifted.

However, I think some of my points do strike home. Compare the experience of B.net to Heroes of Newerth. While not nearly the same level of budget, you'd expect B.net programmers to get the simplest problems solved like shutting down the countdown when a player leaves. It's so backwards to the point where I think they purposely designed it into the game.

What I'd do to make custom games far easier:

Game the UI SMALLER. Jesus, i'm on my 27 inch 2560x1440 monitor and the resolution of the font is like 30 points. I can easily display 50 games in the list but it still shows 15.

Make "show more" dynamic ajax loading. When I scroll, it should load games dynamically, I shouldn't have to click show more.

Have the ability to open a game via drop down to see its various game modes

Add a button in the game lobby to join a different game (rather than quitting the game, then going back to game list and clicking it again)

Have the ability to filter games better

Have the ability to load maps from my harddrive.

[DemolitionSquid]

10 seconds max fo sho.

Also, the way they list it is utter fail. You should be able to separate the custom games through simple types like RPG, Defend, Race, etc.

[Gifted]

Wise words as always Gifted.

However, I think some of my points do strike home. Compare the experience of B.net to Heroes of Newerth. While not nearly the same level of budget, you'd expect B.net programmers to get the simplest problems solved like shutting down the countdown when a player leaves. It's so backwards to the point where I think they purposely designed it into the game.

It's points that this that I wholeheartedly agree with. Another good example is League of Legends. No matter the case, the countdown timer is something that lacks intuition and has no penalty to innovate or at least catch up to the innovation that exists in other games of this generation, or even match the "illegal" hosting bots of the previous one (Warcraft III had all these basic features)

Your list is as follows with my additional thoughts, your ideas, Wankey, are in purple.

[ Game the UI SMALLER. ]
Yes and no, I think the game UI should dynamically change based on your chosen resolution. The number of games on the list should change dynamically based on your resolution, no need to make the UI smaller for this, just change the font size based on resolution and increase the listing size.

[ When I scroll, it should show more games dynamically ]
While I agree with this idea.. I also understand some of the cons of allowing this style of work to be done. Unlike the countdown and UI improvements, this solution or others like them could possibly add some lag to the server. I'm not saying it should be done, but some semblance of this feature of this should be tested and considered.

[ Have the ability to open a game via drop down to see its various game modes ]
Same page, see Battle.net 2.0 concerns article.

[ Add a button in the game lobby to join a different game (rather than quitting the game, then going back to game list and clicking it again) ]
Same page, see battle.net 2.0 concerns article

[ Have the ability to filter games better ]
Same page, see battle.net 2.0 concerns article

[Have the ability to load maps from my harddrive. ]
Hrm... depends on what you mean, define this one a bit further if you don't mind.

10 seconds max fo sho.

Also, the way they list it is utter fail. You should be able to separate the custom games through simple types like RPG, Defend, Race, etc.

As mentioned above, completely same page, Mr. Squid.

[Pandonetho]

I myself am annoyed by the way they've done the custom games.

WHAT is the point of having a 30 second countdown? WHAT is the point of not being able to cancel, so instead you have to exit the whole game? WHAT is the point of not stopping the countdown when someone leaves?

I don't have any problems with leavers. What I do have a problem with is joining a game and having it instantly start a 30 second countdown not allowing me to leave. So what does this do? Force me to quit the game if I during the century that the game takes to start, a friend logs on or messages me about wanting to play, or I have to go, or I simply decide that I don't want to play the map anymore. And thanks to Blizzard's genius idea of not canceling the countdown, everyone plays with 1 less player.