So the amount of users players Warcraft 3 on Battle.Net is ranging between approximately 2700 players in low peak(week day mornings) hours to approximately 4200 players in high peak hours(week-ends in the afternoon).
The Warcraft 3 community is small, fragile, diminishing, and has been accustomed to specific playing habits for the past 10 years.
We already lost people along the way because of issues related to "complex" updating methods that you have put in place with the new patches.
Communication with the Warcraft 3 community seems to be one of your biggest weaknesses.
Why did you not try to see the public opinion about Automated-hosted bots?
Why did you not try to talk to the community and see what we think about them before implementing them in your builds?
We do need Automated-hosted bots and we have been using them for the past 10 years and they have facilitated the gaming environment for most people.
Now a lot of issues are worth noting concerning this whole matter:
1) Based on this whole abolition of Automated-hosted bots, how did you envision custom games?
Are we going back to the 2005 era where people used to host any game they want?
If so, this would mean that all players in those particular games will be dependent on the host user.
If the host user has a bad internet connection, all other users will also drop from the game.
Doesn't seem efficient to me.
2) Why can't both Automated-hosted bots and "standard human hosted games" co-exist?
Nobody would be forced to play the Automated-hosted bots.
You would have the choice to choose from.
3) If we are dependent on a "standard human hosted games", how does Blizzard guarantee us low latency in our games?
I remember the games we used to have in the 2005 era where we all depended on the host's internet connection and I remember very well people always complaining that they had a 2 second delay in their games and games were clearly unplayable at the time.
Do you know what happens when people have big delays? People simply leave the games and this ruins the game for everyone else.
4) How will "standard human hosted games" auto-refresh their games?
Will they need another 3rd party software to do the job?
Once again I do not see the efficiency of adding more software to do something that we already had "automated".
5) Automated-hosted bots have created very moderated environments where people play by logical rules. People who did not play by those rules get banned. This ensured a quality game environment.
When we talk about logical rules, we refer to:
-Do not abuse the !vk !draw, or !ff.
-Do not pause the game while playing in order to distract players and hinder gameplay.
-Do not save the game.
-Do not spam during games (chat, ping, etc.).
-Do not flame, rage, troll, or insult other players excessively.
-Do not leave before the game has certainly ended, especially if no other player has left.
-Do not delay a game from starting by joining/leaving multiple times or otherwise.
-Do not lie about modes. If you intend to choose a non-default mode or if there is no known default
mode, announce the mode in lobby or vote ingame/in lobby.
-Do not deceive players about rules in an attempt to get them banned/to force them to do something
they are not obligated to such as !draw.
-Do not dodge your bans. Dodging is defined as playing on a different account while being banned on
another account, often by a (purposely triggered) change of the IP. Dodging is considered a major
offense equal to maphacking.
-The use of any utility that hides your real IP (proxies/vpns, etc.).
-The use of any utility (
FCD, maphack, stream sniping, etc.) that gives you an unfair advantage over
other players will result in a heavy ban.
-Do not multibox. Using two computers/two accounts to be in one (and the same) game as one human
being is not allowed.
-Do not threat or mock community members and do not ddos or dox them.
-Do not teamkill (ex. blocking, maliciously using spells, destroying/hiding/stealing/massing items,
selling towers, etc).
-Do not go away from keyboard for an excessive amount of time, especially without telling other players
beforehand, and/or refuse to play the game in an attempt to ruin it. Neither are you allowed to grief by
resetting the afk timer.
-Do not feed or suicide on purpose which negatively affects the game.
-Do not purposely glitch or exploit the game.
-Do not ghost by leaking information to your enemies/opponents.
-Do not refuse to learn/and or cooperate: this does not mean being new/bad is bannable.
If teammates shared control, do not abuse it.
Those rules were taken from a well known Automated-hosted bots called "Enterprise Gaming".
Reference:
EntGaming:Rules - ENT Wiki
With that being said, if there will be no longer any Automated-hosted bots, how will Blizzard guarantee us game environments that are as regulated as Automated-hosted bots?
Those rules were there for a reason ; people want quality games and want to avoid game ruiners or maphackers.
How can Blizzard still ensure quality of games if games are unregulated ?
6) Automated-hosted bots also had websites on which you could track your personal improvement.
Basically you played on your account and kept track of how good or bad you were doing by using the "ELO measurement system" in which people can compare their skills to other players.
This whole concept created a competitive scene where people competed and played with a competitive approach at all times.
With your "standard human hosted games", there will be no more tracking system.
All our games would go unnoticed since we would be playing with a different human host every time.
7) Automated-hosted bots also track offenders. They are tracked by their IP address and people who change their IP addresses also get IP range banned.
This prevents maphackers and game ruiners to come back ruin your games simply because they changed their IP addresses.
How will Blizzard track any offenders? Blizzard will not be able to do that.
8) Automated-hosted bots have websites in which people can discuss.
This brings the Warcraft 3 community together.
Since we are a small community, why divide people into 100's of different hosts?
With Automated-hosted bots, at least people have a common area where they can meet and discuss their custom games on a common website.
All in all, I do not see the abolition of Automated-hosted bots as a step forward.
This will have a negative impact ; more specifically on the whole "Custom game scene".
As they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".