The article is pretty accurate. What I don't understand is this: In SC:BW, players responded to an inadequate Battle.net by moving competitive Internet play to private and emulated servers. It wouldn't have taken much effort to keep them on Battle.net -- just a few nice organizational and ranking features.<p>Obviously, Blizzard isn't a fan of this, since it bypasses their copy protection as well as being totally out of their control. That's why they removed LAN, why they go after emulation projects legally, and I naively thought it was part of the reason they were motivated to make Battle.net 2.0 better. I <i>liked</i> their initial statements about why LAN was gone, where they said things like "we want to make Battle.net so compelling that everyone will want to be on it for all their games." Right on!<p>However, it appears that now they've done exactly the opposite. Battle.net 2.0 appears so unusable for any form of community or competition that I guarantee an iCCup or bnetd equivalent will be up a year from now, and the whole "hardcore" scene will be using it, and anyone will be able to pirate SC2 and connect to it. Why would anyone want this? It's not a complicated chain of inference; whoever is in charge, I'm sure they can see this coming equally well. Who benefits?
>That’s why your game is region-locked. Got friends in Europe? Too bad. You can’t play with them. Blizzard has international Starcraft tournaments to sell.<p>You know, even with online-play only I might have been compelled to buy SC2, eventually after the price comes down.<p>But without international play I will have no choice but to schedule when I play around when other people are playing. I stopped gaming regularly when I entered college, and now it's something I do every once in a while, when I need to disappear from life for a while - it's not scheduled, and I don't want to have to worry about scheduling unless I'm scheduling a LAN party. - also an impossibility.<p>So no dice. I'd rather hack on 0 A.D.
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I started to skim after:<p><i>Starcraft II is a marketing nightmare. It is the sequel to a twelve-year-old computer game, a beacon in the forgotten era of Deus Ex and Baldur’s Gate.</i><p>SC2 is <i>far</i> from a marketing nightmare. Gamers are eager for a new Starcraft; Blizzard would have to screw up much, much more than online-only play for it to bomb.
That article was horribly written. It went off in a thousand different directions and had no storyline. Also, the valid criticisms are entwined with misconceptions and inaccuracies that undermine them. I appreciate getting a read of the current sentiment but it was really hard to read.
I started to lose track of the narrative somewhere between Modern Warfare and Tiger Woods. I scrolled down and got the battle.net vs stone graphic, which seems like a nice summary, but I don't see how it relates to "the antithesis of consumer confidence".
The article is off base. Starcraft 2 is fun. The hardcore community accounts for a small portion of the sales, just like in anything. If you listen to the rabid fans you hurt the regular players.<p>This is the battle.net expierence to a normal player now:<p>* Login<p>* Optionally start a group with some friends (who can be conveniently imported from Facebook)<p>* Choose 1v1 2v2 3v3 or 4v4<p>* Wait for the match to start<p>* Play a game<p>* Repeat or Logout<p>It's quick, it's fun, and starcraft 2 is going to sell because blizzard is a golden goose until proven otherwise.
This article was horrible. It was reminiscent of when Valve first unveiled Steam. Back then everyone hated the idea of Steam constricting their games. There was a huge mainstream petition going around to prevent Steam from being released. Even I didn't want to accept Steam. But I think Steam is a huge success, I buy all my games off steam. I have all my friends on Steam and I know what they are playing and can jump into their games whenever I like. While BNet2.0 won't have the large scale digital distribution system that Steam does. I see a similarity.<p>Also, in this article the author focuses solely on Starcraft II. BNet2.0 encompasses ALL BLIZZARD GAMES. Even World Of Warcraft is getting updated in the new Expansion to support some of the BNet2.0 features. The idea is to build a platform that connects all Blizzard gamers to all Blizzard games. At Blizzcon 2009 on of the VPs of Blizzard gave a demonstration of BNet2.0, talked about the vision, and where they plan to go with it. They are trying make a quality system that will be useful.<p>Lastly, BNet 2.0 will introduce a kind of Map Store. SC II's game editor is very robust and allows you to create some very nice custom maps, campaigns, etc. Map editors will be able to sell their maps on this store. I think this may appeal to some people on HN more than the article itself.
Well, the SC2 beta phase one ended two days ago. With all this feedback, I wonder if Blizzard would make any changes to Battle.net 2.0 before the official release date (7/27). Usually Blizzard is very receptive to the feedback of the fans, but I think it's too late and too much work to get Battle.net 2.0 to a state where the author would be satisfied before the release date.<p>In any case, I expect Blizzard to refine their products after release until they are perfect, just like they always have. Hopefully, they will continue to refine Battle.net 2.0 as well.
I've played Blizzard games for years and years. All the Warcrafts, Starcraft, both Diablos. When I was younger I played them more obsessively, these days my gaming has been rather casual.<p>I've been in the beta for a couple months. SC2 is great. The matchmaking is fantastic. The loss of LAN play doesn't seem that big a deal (to me) when compared to all the gains.<p>However, I feel that not being able to create a custom chat room for you and your friends to chat is a big miss. The chat feature of Battle.net 1.0 is probably the biggest reason why the Starcraft / Warcraft X / Diablo X community is so strong and so persistent. It is the various custom chat lobbies (friends, public, clan, special interest, etc.) that created the community in the first place. Facebook integration simply cannot compensate (and, in fact, seems rather silly).<p>My concern is that Activision-Blizzard is doing THEMSELVES a great disservice by eliminating chat rooms (well, that and the fact that I enjoy the community aspect). The reason I'm concerned is that I want the company to continue to thrive and make more good games. (That and also because I own a bit of their stock in my ROTH.)<p>Additionally, I think the lack of LAN play and aggressive legal pursuit of alternate servers is currently aimed more at getting Activision-Blizzard a slice of the eSports pie than preventing piracy. Anti-piracy is probably as solved as it's going to get.
So this article was a wild ramble, but I like that there's interest. Let me sum some things up about SC2 and battle.net, completely unofficially and without inside information.<p>StarCraft II is trying some new things. They are taking control over more of the experience than they did before. That cheeses off a lot of people, but they have the opportunity and technology to do it and want to improve the experience in lots of ways instead of just the core game, which of course will be great.<p>The front end has been a mess by Blizzard's standards, I think. But it will evolve and get much, much better than its beta incarnation. StarCraft is a game that has held up for ten years plus and that is totally the intention on SC2. Blizzard released a patch for Diablo II earlier this year, so it helps to think about the long term.<p>And finally, Battle.net is an emerging network that's also in beta in its current incarnation. You can't serious if you think that it's not going to grow hugely in usability and capability in the next few years. And it's not like they're going to be supporting dozens of titles. Battle.net has got to be their avenue to making money off of non-MMO games, so they are very motivated to make it great.
Had a hard time reading this. Seems like you need to understand the problem ahead of time to really get what he's driving at - too many tongue-in-cheek references to really follow. Also, .main p{line-height: 18px;} should be removed.
I was in the Beta since the very early versions, probably patch 4 or 5, not sure. To be honest, I'm not a super hardcore player. I play every day, and I play a lot, but I'm not all gungho on clans and stuff. To me, Battle.net was just a clever way to keep piracy under control.<p>The game is still super fun, and I still will buy it when it comes out.<p>If I wanted a more social game, I'd play an MMO.