Is this the final Battle.net ?

[Deleted]

Hey after playing the beta through with every char I was really satisfied with what I saw. It really brought me back to D1 & D2 times.
Though there is one thing that really bothers me:
Is the char screen where you join games etc. the final battle.net?
Because it really sucks. The chat channels are confusing, you can't join the game you want?
Can you name your games somehow?
In D1&D2 you created a game with a Name like "Act 1 Help" and everyone knew what was going on.
Now as I see it joining is random except you play with your own friends...
Is that the case? If so then D1 and D2 b.nets were superior.
I hope they change that.

[Deleted]

I'm feeling the same way. The interface was anything but good. Everything is oversimplified, automatic and queued. I too hope we could have a server roster like in Diablo 2.

[Deleted]

Yeah I mean how am I supposed to join a game with someone who is the same level? Or another class I like to play with?
AS it is now I prefer the old battle net 100 times over this. When they announced B.net 2.0 I was like: cool now they can fix the issues the old one had and improve it but this thing is just a bad.

And what about trading games? I know there is the AH but if I still wanna trade what am I supposed to do? lol
Did blizz think about this.. I wonder...

[Deleted]

Yeah, joining public games is somewhat random and mindless. There should have been a more detailed interface with available games, who is in them and what they are playing.

So many years of development and megatons of resources, and this is the best they can come up with?

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm feeling the same way. The interface was anything but good. Everything is oversimplified, automatic and queued. I too hope we could have a server roster like in Diablo 2.

Welcome to console influences on gaming.

I take it you don't play SC2.

[Lolsteak]

Yeah I mean how am I supposed to join a game with someone who is the same level? Or another class I like to play with?
AS it is now I prefer the old battle net 100 times over this. When they announced B.net 2.0 I was like: cool now they can fix the issues the old one had and improve it but this thing is just a bad.

And what about trading games? I know there is the AH but if I still wanna trade what am I supposed to do? lol
Did blizz think about this.. I wonder...

Start a game, invite them and proceed to trade said items.

Simples.

[Deleted]

And what about trading games? I know there is the AH but if I still wanna trade what am I supposed to do? lol

That's why there is the battle tag, so you can invite specific people without having to use a real email address. Trading takes 2 seconds now, join an empty game, invite someone by their battle tag, trade, leave, done.

[Deleted]

That's why there is the battle tag, so you can invite specific people without having to use a real email address. Trading takes 2 seconds now, join an empty game, invite someone by their battle tag, trade, leave, done.

No no, you miss his point. If player X has let's say item A for trade, and player Y has item B for trade and these players do not k kw each other. How do they trade? In Diablo II you could create a trade game with the description. Now you cannot.

Frankly how are you going to meet new people if it's always randomised? in Diablo II you got to know people on your server by seeing them around the channels and in games etc and you could always choose who you played with to an extent. For example; Game: Duels is up, inside there is player A who is a dick, so you decide I don't want to join that game. You see another game; Duels2 that guy you have seen around a few times is in there do you join that game.

Basically what I am getting at is on Diablo III we have been restricted on many things.

[Deleted]

No no, you miss his point. If player X has let's say item A for trade, and player Y has item B for trade and these players do not k kw each other. How do they trade? In Diablo II you could create a trade game with the description. Now you cannot.

I didn't really do that sort of trading in D2, it sounds weird to me, just my opinion, can't imagine I'd do it. So you'd create a trade game with a description, play in that and hope that someone came along who read the description and wants to trade whilst you're in the game? Why not just use the trade public chat room and again, invite multiple people interested in trading with a battle tag? Or.. I'm guessing, 99% of people will just use the AH anyway, since that feature wasn't available in D3 I can see how most people would want to use trade games. Since the AH is so easily accessable in D2, do you really think many people would still scroll through hundreds of thousands of named games in the hope of finding a trade rather than use the AH? (I'm genuinely interested to see if people would prefer this).

But at the end of the day, you still can go to the public trade room and sit around talking to other people also interested in trading and go from there, which I know isn't what you want because you're not trading and playing at the same time but it's still a way to find trades if that's important.

Frankly how are you going to meet new people if it's always randomised? in Diablo II you got to know people on your server by seeing them around the channels and in games etc and you could always choose who you played with to an extent. For example; Game: Duels is up, inside there is player A who is a dick, so you decide I don't want to join that game. You see another game; Duels2 that guy you have seen around a few times is in there do you join that game.

Well, I suspect there will be rather too many people playing to really forge a sense of community outside player-driving community forums/guilds/sites etc... but of course there are still a choice of 9-10 public chat rooms, including a trade chat room. Whilst the chat rooms aren't the same as D2 they are still there.

But I get the point that perhaps D3 will not have the same closed-community feel as I think you're describing.

One of the trade offs for convenience, fast games, and easy trading like the AH is that you do lose some community feel, just like adding dungeon finder to WoW may have done. Unfortunately there is no perfect system, if you create a system that forces people to interact with each other in order to do things like choose a game or find a trade, then many people will complain that things are too hard/slow/inconvenient for the fast-pace that many modern gamers prefer.

I think a lot of people will rely on outside websites for finding people to play games with, there are a lot of community driven forums, a whole bunch of guild sites springing up etc. where a closer community will probably be found than in game.

[moff]

yeah I loved those channels, damn in diablo 1 and brood war eventuelly spent more time in the channels than the game.

but starcraft 2 made clear what direction they want to take with the bnet, so dont keep your hopes up for diablo3.

[Avelii]

Two years of Starcaft II without major improvements... I'd guess, yes, it's pretty much final.

battle.net 1.0 to 2.0 comparison.

[Kaharon]

Shamanic from what I read you didn't play diablo 2 in the battle.net very much. Because trading is like about 50% of the game. Of course in Diablo 3 you now can just use the trade chat (which was also there in diablo 2) but the problem will be: People want to play this game, they don't want to sit in the chat and hope to trade with someone. It will be all like WoW. Yes, you could sell your item on the AH for gold but the amount of people playing it... there will be regularily undercutting by a few gold.

Clarifications: You play Diablo 2 (+LoD if you wish). You finish playing alone to level 60 or so, you find a unique item (they call it legendary now -_-) and you think: well, this is worth a certain amount of runes (perfect gems/another item). After a while playing this game, maybe a few months you knew all the prices of almost every item in other items. Like a SoJ (stone of jordan) would bring you a shako (good helmet for casters mostly), a storm shield and a IST-Rune easily. Of course you can go for more but it will be harder to find someone to trade. You now think about what you need for your character and create a game, like "O SoJ N 'random items' ". Then you just play along and wait for someone to come and to trade and/or bargain with you, many people would come in and offer you something else than what you'd written down in the description/game name or just flame you.

In Diablo III it will be like this: You find an item and think to yourself "YEAH, NICE!" and after a while you go and try to sell it on trade chat, which will be spammed alot, especially in the early stages of the game because people won't know what's worth how much/what. BUT YOU CAN'T PLAY IN THAT TIME, so you actually just sit there and wait and hope for someone to trade with you. Next step would be Auction House, now there is another problem. In Diablo 2 gold was worth almost nothing, because you regularily capped on your chars on gold cap and maybe just tryed out your luck on gambling. I don't know how gold will be in diablo 3 but if it's the same, it will be awful. What will you do with the gold you get for items? Real-Money, I won't go deep into detail but I think it is a win-win situation, so no problem here, but if you don't have a very good item, no one will buy it for real moneyz (I guess).

But the fun part is lost: you can't actually open a game and offer your item and just play along without having to stop and wait for someone/something to happen.

So in my opinion it is one of the few bigger flaws in the new diablo. I completely agree with you, OP.

[alanm26]

I'm pretty sure they're really working to address the gold-is-worthless issue from D2, meaning the AH should be a much more convenient and viable way to do that sort of trading. Not sure how much undercutting will be a problem on the gold AH, as a) no half/automated addons like in WoW, and b) the "serious" AHers will be using the RMAH maybe. But yeah we won't know until the game's been out for a while how everything plays out with that.

[Archaeon]

You choose which quest you want to start from, and instantly get matched to an appropriate game. I find this far superior to the D2 system of: "oooh look act 1 new game, oh wait it's been running for 2 hours never mind" rinse, repeat. The Auctionhouse really streamlines the terrible D2 trading game of hoping someone is willing to trade the item you want for something you have. Less time wasted waiting around, more time slaying Demons.

[Riptide]

Yeah I mean how am I supposed to join a game with someone who is the same level? Or another class I like to play with?

You can select the difficulty, act and quest you want to join a game on. Which would give you people around the same level. As for the class thing even in old bnet you didn't have control of the classes that joined. You can have your friends auto-join your games or you can go to the Looking for players channel.

And what about trading games? I know there is the AH but if I still wanna trade what am I supposed to do? lol
Did blizz think about this.. I wonder...

You really don't need trade games. You can use a trade channel. I mean there will be the official trade channel, probably a sub-forum here, most definitely one on d2jsp, and the AH. How many avenues do you need to go down to get to the same place?

If you're worried about the social aspect of trade games I wouldn't worry to much. I'm sure you'll see people trading in public games too and you're free to initiate conversation.

[Fishyface]

And what about trading games? I know there is the AH but if I still wanna trade what am I supposed to do? lol
Did blizz think about this.. I wonder...

Ive got a question for you actually, this is coming from a first time diablo player, why do you want to trade in a game? I know for one that prices , no matter what you do, will still be set by the AH and there really isnt anyway to get around that unless you find someone who is dumb and doesnt check the AH first. So whats the benefit? At this point i dont see any reason to do that anymore other than its way your used to doing things.

Ive just seen people complaining about this all over beta and i just dont understand why. I would think the AH would be a vast improvment on the system because i dont have to spam to sell things like i did in ultima online.

[Eggowaffles]

No no, you miss his point. If player X has let's say item A for trade, and player Y has item B for trade and these players do not k kw each other. How do they trade? In Diablo II you could create a trade game with the description. Now you cannot.

Frankly how are you going to meet new people if it's always randomised? in Diablo II you got to know people on your server by seeing them around the channels and in games etc and you could always choose who you played with to an extent. For example; Game: Duels is up, inside there is player A who is a dick, so you decide I don't want to join that game. You see another game; Duels2 that guy you have seen around a few times is in there do you join that game.

Basically what I am getting at is on Diablo III we have been restricted on many things.

This chat is in game, has many different channels, including Trade. No one seems to use it, but everyone complains that it's not there.

[Riptide]

This chat is in game, has many different channels, including Trade. No one seems to use it, but everyone complains that it's not there.

Ya I like it. It feels like old bnet too. I do wish there was a way to join the channels while playing though.

[Deleted]

This chat is in game, has many different channels, including Trade. No one seems to use it, but everyone complains that it's not there.

Compare that pretty chatbox with what we had in Diablo II (Battle.net 1.0) and you will see what I am talking about.

- Cannot see who else is in channel
- Cannot see visuals of each others characters, inc level/class/hardcore/softcore (way to show of your pro looking gear - See classic if you all wore an enigma in LOD)
- No clan support
- Cannot see players on other Bnet games (wouldnt it be nice to be able to see the old d2 characters in channels?)
- No Magic GEM!

And those are a few

[varren]

Compare that pretty chatbox with what we had in Diablo II (Battle.net 1.0) and you will see what I am talking about.

- Cannot see who else is in channel
- Cannot see visuals of each others characters, inc level/class/hardcore/softcore (way to show of your pro looking gear - See classic if you all wore an enigma in LOD)
- No clan support
- Cannot see players on other Bnet games (wouldnt it be nice to be able to see the old d2 characters in channels?)
- No Magic GEM!

And those are a few

You can see who else is in the channel and inspect their profiles. Click the gear thingy at the top left.