Game status brain dump

I think most people agree that Warcraft 3 was the best online community of its generation of games. And arguably the best RTS online community client implementation ever, even though in my opinion the actual RTS game was rather lackluster.

Today I think DOTA 2 is probably the best current example of how to do a client, UI, and online community rolled together. Again, the game itself is not my cup of tea, but you have to be jealous of its client's community/UI features.

Im with IGNCom, in every game ive every played that features world chat etc, the world chat turns into a a bully fest (luckily its never affected me but looking at some of the stuff people cop is embarrassing) or the content of the chat invariably ends up MA15+ which is not good if there are younger players around. My personal opinion is that that whatever benefits are gained do not outweigh these negatives.

The possibility to share replays with other would be nice

Brian F. = Brian Fricks ?

I do not think an incredibly important feature like this should be held back any longer because some children might see some foul or adult language. It's really not Uber's or any of our responsibility to ensure that young people aren't exposed to adult content, it is the responsibility of their parents.

Settings -> Keyboard? If that's not enough, I believe there's a mod that adds more functionality?

Personally I'd like to see grouped hotkeys, so I can for example, click on a fabricator, press my 1 key to select the economy structures tab, then 2 for a power generator or whatever's second in that list... But that's not really a discussion point for this thread

Ive stated reasons. you've just stated that its incredibly important? why is it so essential?

There are two threads for the chat but I'll just post this here are a response to Stormie.

Pros:
-Community is better brought together.

-Easier to find groups with people if you are talking to them and get to know them first.

-Make it toggle-able, off by default, so those who dislike us talking don't have to read it.

-Without a Global chat, people feel alienated, even with lobby chats or any other system. Sure, we could whisper someone, sure, we can talk in whisper. But why restrict the community to that?

-There may be more trolls, but honestly, this is in ANY online community, and there will be trolls WHEREVER a chat is. If there is no Global, they will just move to lobby chats and harass the people there instead.

Cons:
-People who toggle it will still get annoyed, because it'll still push their "LFG" channel posts away.

-People who dislike talking also may get annoyed despite it being toggle-able.

-Despite it not taking very long to implement a feature like this, people seem to complain/argue that it'll take away from "better features."

-I have yet to see any other reasoning besides this, if I read/come across more I will add them.

A little bias with the cons.

Would you have rather I have no cons?

You would make a good politician.

So far the only viable cons that has been expressed can simply be filed under "Trolls." Other than that I personally don't see any downsides to a global chat.

A global chat is a opt out system.

But it works much better as a opt in system.

No it doesn't. It requires that you know the information is there.

Think about the people who ask repeated questions on the forums - the search function is an opt-in system.

It works much better as an opt-out system.

Ironically, my university had opt-out search functions on our course forums, and the company running it changed it so it was opt-in. The number of repeated posts increased dramatically.

The advantages are still superior to the former system.

Having a global chat i think is a good idea, but you will need multiple channels.

Ex. Main Global
LFG
Regional (north america, europe etc. in case main gets too busy/full of a language you don't want to speak in)
Linguistic? (separate channels based on language? like above)
private (simple invite system)

Just please make it minimized and out of the way by default.

Doesn't that counter the whole point of a Global Chat?

Mike

no, the point of a global chat is to have the ABILITY to chat, not have it shoved down your throat.

Go ahead an make a big "global chat" button so it is obvious that the feature is there.

But I don't want to constantly enter the game and have to see god knows what **** scrolling by.

That's pretty sweet. I don't even think SC2 has Twitch.TV integration.

I wonder if there will be a decent voice chat ability to have in game instead of third party (skype, vent, mumble) I've always thought it was way better communication to have then just typing everything out. I'm okay with it being an option and a mute button readily available.

I wonder why most games don't even bother including it.. not sure if its a lot of extra dev time just like multi unit transports.

I didn't see it mentioned, although I saw a topic close to it.
They mentioned private/password games
What about an ETA on ranked matches? (1v1 -> 3v3 to start?)