No online replays by launch! - Pardo Interview

Hello,
First, allow me to introduce myself - I'm the moderator for the Teamliquid.net Starcraft 2 forums, and a long time serious SC player. I've not posted here in the past, but I felt this is an issue worth registering over.

http://www.incgamers.com/Videos/763/StarCraft-2-Developer-Interview

Around the 8 minute mark, paraphrased:

So let me get this straight - they put in a minor (but incredibly hard) feature like replay rewinding, but decided to skimp on something as ESSENTIAL as this? Really?

I know some people here might never have even played SC (hey, it's an 11 year old game after all), and might be perfectly used to not being able to watch replays online. Well, in SC, we've been able to watch replays online together with others since.. 2001? 2000?

To me, the lack of online replays contributed largely to why I never got into WC3 - I bought it at launch, played a little, didn't REALLY love it and quit after a week, going straight back to SC. A large reason was the fact that I knew many people in SC, so even if I didn't want to play SC at that moment, I'd just login and watch some reps with them. Not possible in WC3.
So point 1: The removal of online replays takes away a ton of potential for social interaction.

Throughout WC3s history I've constantly kept sort of an eye on the scene, and always enjoyed how almost all leagues released their replays (since Korean SC leagues are super strict about this).. And constantly disappointed in having to watch them alone - where's the fun in that? It's like watching a live-cast on your own, or a football game alone..

Another thing I haven't even mentioned is how much easier this makes it to teach someone - you play, you watch the replay, and can have it pointed out to you were you went wrong.

I think everyone always assumed they'd have online replays for SC2, maybe to the point where Blizzard didn't see it as a desired feature since people weren't requesting it. Honestly, many SC players I've talked to about this are shocked when I tell them WC3 doesn't have online replays.

Removing a feature like this for a sequel is insane - I can live with the lack of LAN, but this? No way. WC3 has gone 7 years without a patch to add online replays, and I really do not want to risk the same thing happening with SC2.

Hopefully if Blizzard is made aware of how important this is, if it becomes a community wide issue, they will prioritize it. Rewindable replays are great, version independence is awesome.. but Online replays are ESSENTIAL.

Thank you for reading.

 

I'd have to agree on this one, I wonder why they aren't including it at launch? It can't be too difficult to facilitate....right?

 

I do agree, they have done this similar feature on SC and they are not doing online replays on this one? it doesn't make any particular sense (probably)

 

Are you gonna be hanging out here for a while
Anyway, that would be nice now that I think about it, coming from a strict w3 player. With a dash of sc.

 

Define 'short after launch' Blizzard. Few weeks, month or two is fine with me, but no more. But I wonder what happened to 'it's ready when it's ready' philosophy?

 

Holy crap, more info on bnet 2.0. "Being logged in at all times while playing SC or MP...not required, but it's what we're aiming at."

So, it's sounding a whole lot like Steam in that retrospect....playing a SP game, but you are still connected to Steam Community.
HMMM THE PLOT THICKENS.

 

there could be a conflict with another feature or within the program that will take some time to fix

features like these do not impact gameplay, as such do not need to be ready at launch

edit: the interview wont play for me... -.-

 

It wont work in IE for me, but is fine in FireFox. One of the reasons I'm so worried is that after 7 years, they still haven't added it to WC3 - "want to add it later" is something, but I'd prefer a "We WILL add it later" or "Will be in the game when it ships" (wouldn't it hurt reviews if it wasn't anyway).

 

Im agreeting with you FA too. I would suggest to write a serious letter to Blizzard about this topic with fans signing it from TL and for example here. Yeah the wc3 wanna add it later thingy has always been a problem. "we are gonna add balance later" kinda destroyed warcraft 3

 

Something tells me that SC2 is going to be babied a bit more with this team than the WC3 team. They dropped the ball on WC3 quite a bit...and I can only imagine that this group will take care of SC2 much better, due to it's status in the pro-scene. Of course, War3 is there also...we can all agree, not near as deep rooted as SC.

 

I cant view the video.

It just sits there buffering :*(

 

go to the site on firefox it works

lol Cyber, WarCraft is older than SC, and threw blizzard into epicness

SC vs WC for Blizz although they would say "both are equal" dont delude yourself into thinking they dont love WC more than SC

Merged posts. Please do not double post. Read the forum rules before posting.

 

They havent done anything for warcraft 3 of what they promised the last year though.

 

Well, at least Rob Pardo said 'in the future' so when they're gonna add it, they're gonna add it....hopefully......for SC2

 

Just because a game was released first, doesn't make it any worse/better than another.

And I'd have to say Lost Vikings took them to the higher levels first

And it's hardly a delusion on who they do more work on. Look at all of the things done for Starcraft VS Warcraft 3. It's obvious they would rather put their time/effort into WoW more than War3...and Starcraft more than War3.

 

Thankfully you CAN download and watch replays of matches, but it does suck that you won't be able to watch replays with a friend at the same time over battle.net.

Just don't don't read too quickly or you might think that they are releasing the game without replay functionality, lol.

@ 8:50 in the video

"Oh wait, by the way though, just be clear. We DO have replays. I'm only talking about, can you spectate cooperatively on replays."

He made sure to clarify that right away, because the first way he said it DID make it seem like there wouldn't be any replays. Yikes!

 

Hopefully I didn't make anyone think they weren't going to have replays at all

Not being able to watch them with others is a big enough deal for me hehe, no replays at all and I think there'd be a mob outside blizzard HQ (I would be at the front).

 

FrozenArbiter needs a red probe avatar

It's disappointing to hear that Blizz underestimates the value of multiple people watching a replay over battle.net. However, I'm sure that, this is exactly the kind of feedback Blizzard would be looking for in the beta. Since it should be an easy feature to implement I would then expect it to be included at launch or the first patch.

 

Haha, I think the Zerg would be proud of the the insane mob of players at Blizzard's door.

 

Being able to host a game as a replay is the best way to share good replays among the community... thats what i miss alot in war3