Difference between revisions of "Chat channels"

Revision as of 04:51, 15 October 2010

Chat Channels were a big pat of the Battle.net experience for Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. Blizzard has not revealed any firm details about what B.net will be like for Diablo III users, but they have said that chat channels will likely be part of that experience.

Chat Channels for Diablo III

Blizzard intended to phase chat channels out of B.net with their newer games, starting with Starcraft 2. They did not include chat channels in the design, and resisted adding them until continuous player requests wore them down. Chat channels were not supported during the beta or upon launch in July, but by October 2010 they were said to be well under development and due to be added in the future. There's no guarantee they'll be enabled for Diablo III, but if fans demand it they probably will.[1]

Bashiok: Regarding chat channels, they weren't a launch feature but are indeed coming, and the tech will be there and waiting for Diablo III, I'm sure.

Better Alternatives

The D3 Team has often spoken about their desire for better match making and game-finding options than were present in Diablo II. They have mentioned features such as the ability to instantly create a new game with all the characters in an existing game automatically joining. They've talked about ways to group into a game with characters of your level, who need your same quests.

No details have yet been revealed about these features, but the developers' goal is to provide better ways to join up than by hitting games at random, or trying to guess at appropriate games by their names.

Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson spoke on this from Blizzcon 2009. [2]

IGN: ...have you figured out anything you're planning on doing, with the exception of things like, obviously, easier ways of setting up co-op lobbies or creating panels so that everybody can immediately jump in and start up exactly where they left off?

Jay Wilson:' We're not quite at that stage. [Talking about B.net D3 features.] Some of our big hooks are really good matchmaking, there was some poor matchmaking in Diablo 2, it was kind of esoteric and hard to use. We want a platform that puts you right next to someone else who's into the same thing as you, at the same level. We want you to be able to open up that friends list and say, oh, my friend Steve's killing Diablo, join! And you're right there next to them. We want players to be able to play together very, very easily. That's going to be a lot of work.

...It's not in the game, so this is not a promise, but I can tell you that my desire for that is that you just be able to hit Escape, menu comes up, and you can say, I want to redo what we just did. I want to replay this part of the game, restart my game essentially, with all the same people. And I just get a confirmation thing, hey, you want to? If they say yes, we go, and if they say no, they stay in that same game.

Somewhere a programmer's heart exploded, but that's our intent, that you shouldn't have to have this really convoluted way to replay content. One of the other things that we'd really like to focus on is, that the endgame not actually force you…well, it doesn't force you, it's your choice, but not make the most advantageous way to play be to do the same thing over and over again.