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Patch 1.30.2 PTR Update

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Patch 1.30.2 PTR Update

Patch 1.30.2 has been deployed on the Public Test Realm (PTR) and is bringing some new features to Battle.net. Most notably is the ability to filter custom maps based on realm and being able to see how any players are in a lobby. This means players from any realm can join any custom game lobby no matter the realm it was hosted on.



Read the full list of changes here
 
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Here's a screenshot of the new custom games list.
 

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~El

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Got it to work after a restart and 2 reinstalls.

Once again, I have my concerns over this. Once again, Blizzard destroys the work that the community has done, while providing very little in return. And, yes, I'm talking about host bots.

I must admit I was hoping for a bit more when this change would come, at least a revamped game browser, which in it's current state, is still leagues behind even the online listings of games that MMH and ENT have. It's clunky, it has no way to filter games by name, it's small... the list goes on.

Oh, and I just got this error when I tried to join:
upload_2018-9-27_21-48-6.png

Not to mention that plethora of useful features that came with host bots: ability to kick people, ability to mute people, tracked stats, ability to adjust the latency, an instant access to a wealth of literally thousands of maps. All now destroyed.

When Blizzard was talking about B.Net 2, I was hoping for more.

There was no urgency in fixing B.Net, not like this. The current system worked fine, even if it was flawed. I can only hope that Blizzard brings user-hosting back on par with host bot functionality.

Not to mention that now GProxy++, which was an immensely useful utility for people with unstable connections, is now broken as well.
 
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Why is the removal of hostbots a problem?

As I see it, the only valid reason to use a hostbot is if you cannot host the map yourself.
But if you do not need to portforward I see no excuse anymore. Sure if you have crap internet that sucks, but for the vast majority I think a less polluted lobby will be nice.

This is a huge problem.

The new hosting system cannot replace the utility hostbots provide.

Most importantly:
-Autohosting. Many players on Warcraft are here for one or two custom games such as Legion TD which they play exclusively. These popular maps have autohosts, which have several benefits, which include:
-Hopping on and playing is extremely easy. You know which bot to join, the game is always online.

-Quality control. You know what version of the map you are playing, you know the community you are joining, and you are not going to get kicked by a random host.

-Competition and elo. Autohosts for popular maps can be played competitively thanks to the elo system hostbots can provide. Example: ENT Gaming This site provides not just elo tracking, but also the ability to see your game history and view the chat and replay.

-Entire communities are built around hostbot systems. I am a moderator over at ENT. We have a set of rules (mostly simple things such as don't refuse to play) and the bots are moderated (only on autohosted competitive games). The players that play on our bots enjoy this as it allows for a competitive environment. I have over 3000 posts on the forum and have spent years moderating this community, and in one patch this will all be thrown away.

Other things:

-Low latency: This affects a number of competitive games such as Warlock which requires lower latency and are now essentially unplayable.
-Flexible hosting location: On ENT you can host from many server locations that you would otherwise be unable to.
-Online hosting list: the popular services entgaming.net and makemehost which hosts 90% of the games on battle.net have their own lists, making it incredibly easy and convenient to find what game you want to join. This is far better than the ingame list which only contains a fraction of the games hosted.
-Complete host control: in addition to autohosting there is a public hosting system. This allows users to utilise kick functions, maintain a ban list, set latency, set synclimit, and countless other benefits.



Throwing away bots already is destroying these communities, and there is not a good enough system to replace it.
 
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Level 23
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This is a huge problem.
Most importantly:
-Autohosting. Many players on Warcraft are here for one or two custom games such as Legion TD which they play exclusively. These popular maps have autohosts, which have several benefits, which include:

Honestly, that is actually one of the features I dislike the most about bots. So many empty autohosted lobbies spamming the list, so that you don't see user hosted games.
I do like on demand bot hosting tho, for your and mori's aforementioned reasons.

e: Also nothing in the patch notes about invisible model or select crash fixes :/
 

~El

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Why is the removal of hostbots a problem?

As I see it, the only valid reason to use a hostbot is if you cannot host the map yourself.
But if you do not need to portforward I see no excuse anymore. Sure if you have crap internet that sucks, but for the vast majority I think a less polluted lobby will be nice.

To me, personally, mostly because the WC3 game browser is so clunky. Basically what @Civiliznations wrote in his post, although I don't care myself much for ranked play.
I grew so used to MMH's and ENT's game listing that I refused to use WC3's game browser for 5 years now. It's cluttered, it doesn't show all games being hosted, etc. etc.

Although, I suppose now that the list is going to be less cluttered, that's less of a problem. Still gonna miss the ability to kick people in-game. But, alas. Let's see how this turns out.
 
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Now that we don't have a way to host using hostbots (which is for the better as we will have less desyncs due to old code and limited download speeds for bigger maps) I however think that someone should (maybe makemehost themselves) make a bot that indexes games created in battle.net and lists them in a website, that way we can have something similar in terms of searching.

Maybe blizzard themselves could implement a web interface that shows games currently hosted similar to makemehost (make it simple though)
 
Now that we don't have a way to host using hostbots (which is for the better as we will have less desyncs due to old code and limited download speeds for bigger maps) I however think that someone should (maybe makemehost themselves) make a bot that indexes games created in battle.net and lists them in a website, that way we can have something similar in terms of searching.

Maybe blizzard themselves could implement a web interface that shows games currently hosted similar to makemehost (make it simple though)

To me, personally, mostly because the WC3 game browser is so clunky. Basically what @Civiliznations wrote in his post, although I don't care myself much for ranked play.
I grew so used to MMH's and ENT's game listing that I refused to use WC3's game browser for 5 years now. It's cluttered, it doesn't show all games being hosted, etc. etc.

Although, I suppose now that the list is going to be less cluttered, that's less of a problem. Still gonna miss the ability to kick people in-game. But, alas. Let's see how this turns out.

You can view the list of games on my website.

Currently Hosted - WC3 Maps

I would prefer this functionality to be implemented natively in the game though.

I assume by "encrypted network traffic" they just mean using a standard secure connection system similar to HTTPS (SSL? etc) to prevent man in middle attacks

I would assume something like SSL. I cannot view any information with packet scanning like I could before.

Why is the removal of hostbots a problem?

As I see it, the only valid reason to use a hostbot is if you cannot host the map yourself.
But if you do not need to portforward I see no excuse anymore. Sure if you have crap internet that sucks, but for the vast majority I think a less polluted lobby will be nice.

Hostbots offer tons of useful functionality. Statistics, leaderboards/rankings/tournaments, bans (cheaters), fast connection, cross realm, reconnecting after disconnect, HTTP requests and more.
 
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You can view the list of games on my website.

Currently Hosted - WC3 Maps

I would prefer this functionality to be implemented natively in the game though.

Haha, didn't know you even had a website, seems useful, right now it's a little cluttered cause it's full of bot games, hopefully once bots die this will stop being a problem since only user games will be listed.
 
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They are killing the bot functionality... bad move. TBH I'm not surprised since they even killed the game for several weeks (1.30)

I don't get the people complaining about the game list being filled with bot games, it's a list issue, add a better filtering and problem solved

Does any of you have a VPS low latency tier connection at home to host? because that's what bots can provide
And doing multiplayer with the formula of one player has 0 latency and the rest suffer isn't a great either
And I don't think, even if blizzard hosted the game on their servers, which they aren't/won't?, would be able to provide the same connection quality that bots can
And I only mentioned connection quality but the bots provide additional features: ban, kick, stats, autohosting, setup computer slots with one just command, check the latency of the players...

I keep wondering about the rationale behind these decisions, 1.29 onward, because I can't make any sense of them.

Well at least I'm being forced (no guilty feeling) to say bye to the Warcraft 3 official release, so much for the added? features...
 
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~El

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You can view the list of games on my website.

Currently Hosted - WC3 Maps

I would prefer this functionality to be implemented natively in the game though.

Do you think you can keep it working after the PTR is on master? I'm assuming you use a bot account to connect to the realms and manually pull the list of games from there, and I can see the encryption tampering with that. Do you have a contingency plan? I'd love to see your game list up and running after all the bot games are removed.
 
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  • Maps will now be uploaded and downloaded from the cloud
  • All custom games from all gateways are now visible in the lobby browser
  • Port forwarding is no longer required to host your favorite map
  • Encrypted network traffic

I liked all of those changes. It will be easier to create lobbys and play games that are not on the hostbot site. However some people are saying that this patch can do end up with all hostbots, which has some interresting features.
I believe Blizzard will get a way not to end up with hostbots, however improving security to host without them, and also making it easier to host lobby without them.

Why are you so saying that you will end up with hostbots?

  • Maps will now be uploaded and downloaded from the cloud

When I create a lobby with a new map, this map goes to upload to Blizzard servers, so who enters my lobby downloads the map on Blizzard server?
 
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I hope it won't be like in SC2 where instead of seeing open lobbies you see the popular games.

Although wc3's game list is pretty shit, (and is flooded by auto-hosted bot games), you can just join any random game and give it a try. But on SC2 nobody will even see your hosted game, but they'll still see the most popular maps even if there's no lobby open...

That makes it almost impossible for someone to just make a map, host it, and play it / test it live.


Also, there's nothing wrong with auto-hosted bot games per se, just give the users the ability to filter them out.


But naturally, if blizzard goes with the SC2 route they'll basically replace the auto-hosted bot games with the most played gamelist which does the exact same thing as the auto-host bots—but worse...
 
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I haven't tested this yet, but these changes sound great to me. Back in the day before host bots, my lobby filled with no problem. When host bots came about and the game lists saturated with empty lobbies, I couldn't get a soul to join my games. Sure population had a lot to do with this, but it's all about supply and demand. Removing the host bots will reduce supply to an appropriate level. If I join a game now, I know they'll be at least 1 person in it and we can have a conversation without the automated spam the hostbots pollute the chat with.

I hope it won't be like in SC2 where instead of seeing open lobbies you see the popular games....

But naturally, if blizzard goes with the SC2 route they'll basically replace the auto-hosted bot games with the most played gamelist which does the exact same thing as the auto-host bots—but worse...

I''ll welcome change and improvements, but I agree Starcraft's way of doing things is substandard. Warcraft has a nice way of encouraging community, conversation and lively lobbies (which in my opinion was burdened by the hostbots). Big chat rooms automatically joined by default, emphasizing open lobbies actual people have created, etc.

This is a huge problem.

The new hosting system cannot replace the utility hostbots provide.

Most importantly:
-Autohosting. Many players on Warcraft are here for one or two custom games such as Legion TD which they play exclusively. These popular maps have autohosts, which have several benefits, which include:
-Hopping on and playing is extremely easy. You know which bot to join, the game is always online.

-Quality control. You know what version of the map you are playing, you know the community you are joining, and you are not going to get kicked by a random host.

-Competition and elo. Autohosts for popular maps can be played competitively thanks to the elo system hostbots can provide. Example: ENT Gaming This site provides not just elo tracking, but also the ability to see your game history and view the chat and replay.

-Entire communities are built around hostbot systems. I am a moderator over at ENT. We have a set of rules (mostly simple things such as don't refuse to play) and the bots are moderated (only on autohosted competitive games). The players that play on our bots enjoy this as it allows for a competitive environment. I have over 3000 posts on the forum and have spent years moderating this community, and in one patch this will all be thrown away.

Other things:

-Low latency: This affects a number of competitive games such as Warlock which requires lower latency and are now essentially unplayable.
-Flexible hosting location: On ENT you can host from many server locations that you would otherwise be unable to.
-Online hosting list: the popular services entgaming.net and makemehost which hosts 90% of the games on battle.net have their own lists, making it incredibly easy and convenient to find what game you want to join. This is far better than the ingame list which only contains a fraction of the games hosted.
-Complete host control: in addition to autohosting there is a public hosting system. This allows users to utilise kick functions, maintain a ban list, set latency, set synclimit, and countless other benefits.



Throwing away bots already is destroying these communities, and there is not a good enough system to replace it.

I don't really agree with everything you said but I do understand hostbots brought some nice features to the table such as banlists, ping checkers and elo measuring on players. Remember we've already seen some great additions from Blizzard like checking lobby size without joining the game, allowing everybody to host, reduced multiplayer delay, quicker download times (I presume Blizzard cloud hosting maps will improve download times) etc. Blizzard might even develop more features to mitigate our dependence on hostbots. For those Blizzard won't add, perhaps these third party tools can be adapted to be run by the hosts of games?

Again, I'm glad about these changes, but as they say; "To each their own".
 

Dr Super Good

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Does any of you have a VPS low latency tier connection at home to host? because that's what bots can provide
I suggest you lean how the internet works.
And doing multiplayer with the formula of one player has 0 latency and the rest suffer isn't a great either
Which was why there was forced latency of 200ms originally.
And I don't think, even if blizzard hosted the game on their servers, which they aren't/won't?, would be able to provide the same connection quality that bots can
Chances are their connection will be better. MMH especially had a trash connection.
 
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I suggest you lean how the internet works.
I suggest you learn how life works

Which was why there was forced latency of 200ms originally.
I haven't been specific, I don't know how it works for ladder, I'm referring to custom games. Since release, all the games I played the host player had no delay and the rest of the players had a noticeable delay, other players confirmed this because everyone wanted to be the host since it gave a clear advantage

Chances are their connection will be better. MMH especially had a trash connection.
You only mention MMH, chances are you need to do more research.
Blizzard using dedicated game hosting for Warcraft 3 confirmed?
 
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I hope it won't be like in SC2 where instead of seeing open lobbies you see the popular games.

Although wc3's game list is pretty shit, (and is flooded by auto-hosted bot games), you can just join any random game and give it a try. But on SC2 nobody will even see your hosted game, but they'll still see the most popular maps even if there's no lobby open...

That makes it almost impossible for someone to just make a map, host it, and play it / test it live.


Also, there's nothing wrong with auto-hosted bot games per se, just give the users the ability to filter them out.


But naturally, if blizzard goes with the SC2 route they'll basically replace the auto-hosted bot games with the most played gamelist which does the exact same thing as the auto-host bots—but worse...


Definitely hope that it is NOT this way, seeing popular games is even worse than having bots host the same 2005 maps over and over again, with bots dead user hosted maps will be the focus, hopefully they just manage to make it work better and add a web interface that displays hosted games so we can just copy/paste
 
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Definitely hope that it is NOT this way, seeing popular games is even worse than having bots host the same 2005 maps over and over again, with bots dead user hosted maps will be the focus, hopefully they just manage to make it work better and add a web interface that displays hosted games so we can just copy/paste

But copy/paste wrongly and you get banned temporarily...
 
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If the below source is correct, it confirms that removing hostbots was intentional:

https://image.prntscr.com/image/L2DRTDwVSJO9xlNCVeSPZw.png

Looking at people's opinions it seems lots of people are upset about this decision. Here's what I've seen so far:

Reasons for Hostbots:

- Hostbots may offer better ping
- Hostbots may offer player tracking - ELO, banlisting
- Hostbots may offer autorefresh
- Player hosts may unfairly kick players
- Player hosts may AFK and not start the game
- Player hosts may leave which can disconnect other players

Reasons Against Hostbots

- Hostbots often create empty lobbies which over saturate the game lists.
- Hostbots often spam chat log and make communication a little harder
- Third party tools cannot be easily moderated or controlled
- Not incorporated into game client making it harder for the average user to utilize.
- Uncertainty over player information data mined by Hostbot companies. Potential privacy implications.


Would it be possible to combine the best of both worlds? A dedicated server, but with rules unlike the current hostbots to ensure we don't get flooded game lists? A few different approaches:

1.) Create API's to allow hostbots to continue operating but enforcing rules
Perhaps a Hostbot lobby can only be created on demand and is closed automatically if it becomes empty? This implementation could save Blizzard operating costs.
2.) Blizzard hosts the game servers and provides some of the lost functionality
This could offer everything above but reduce the need to seek third party tools. It's already been speculated that this might be Blizzards next step.
3.) Leave things as they are or change back to bothosting
Be damned if you do, be damned if you don't. Not everyone would be happy having it one way or the other.
 
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  • Maps will now be uploaded and downloaded from the cloud
Will this work for replays too? It would be awesome that when loading a replay, we didn't need to have the map already.
 
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But copy/paste wrongly and you get banned temporarily...
Hey, at least they have their priorities straight!

I hope it won't be like in SC2 where instead of seeing open lobbies you see the popular games.

Yeah, it's the reason I left sc2. Not looking great though.
 
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Hostbots have ton of features which will never be available with new system(things like stat tracking, custom ELO systems, replay saving).
Breaking them would be a big mistake and huge blow to the community.

'Bots flooding game list' is completly artificial problem and could have been solved years ago with just implementing proper game list table like [name/map/player count/ping] with filtering and sorting.
It could be still implemented now, although I assume it would require some changes on bots side, but they likely won't be that major and I belive community would be able to handle it.

So please Blizzard, don't remove possibility to have non-blizzard hosted custom games.
 
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Every time the host disconnects from the game, everyone else will DC also right?

Just out of curiosity, will this lock out all the players from Ent and Eurobattle from connecting with Bnet players? One of the nice things about the bots was they allowed small different groups of players to play together.

Also, I know it has been pointed out above, but the systems for ELO/scores/Banlists that the bot system implemented actually really worked well.
 
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Reasons Against Hostbots

- Hostbots often create empty lobbies which over saturate the game lists.
- Hostbots often spam chat log and make communication a little harder
- Third party tools cannot be easily moderated or controlled
- Not incorporated into game client making it harder for the average user to utilize.
- Uncertainty over player information data mined by Hostbot companies. Potential privacy implications.
1 Like some users, and me, already mentioned add a better game list with filtering and sorting
2 This only happens when autohosting and it can be changed, I modified it on my bot to spam it every 30s, it can be changed to other values or completly removed
3 I don' understand what's your point mentioning "Third party = not official, not controlled by Blizzard"
4 Just tell them to use the help command when they join the lobby/channel
5 Those pesky Hostbot companies! Ghost++ is open source, at most you get a nick and an IP, which if you host normally you can fetch too
 
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1 Like some users, and me, already mentioned add a better game list with filtering and sorting
2 This only happens when autohosting and it can be changed, I modified it on my bot to spam it every 30s, it can be changed to other values or completly removed
3 I don' understand what's your point mentioning "Third party = not official, not controlled by Blizzard"
4 Just tell them to use the help command when they join the lobby/channel
5 Those pesky Hostbot companies! Ghost++ is open source, at most you get a nick and an IP, which if you host normally you can fetch too

Well I'm trying to represent the community, but I'll add my 2 cents then.

1. This would help somewhat, but it doesn't fix the problem. Oversaturation of games results in empty lobbies and games that don't start. Simple supply and demand.
2. My experience with all Hostbots has been full of automated spam. It's great to hear it can be turned off, but it seems it isn't most of the time
3. Third parties are operating independently from Blizzard. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Hostbots do what they want for the most part and it's hard to enforce change. They have upset many but nothing has changed since they were brought in.
4. Users must access tools outside of their client. This will always be harder to do than built in tools.
5. I'm just saying that average user will be unaware of what data is collected. There isn't a reasonable consent obtained before people use these tools and I doubt Warcraft 3's privacy policy covers this use. It's probably no big deal, but it's something Blizzard may need to consider.
 
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Anyone not understanding why bots are so important has probably been living in a cave for the past 10 years. The whole point is to run your own community with your own ladder elo stats system, banlist etc, independent from Blizzard. No matter how great the new "cloud hosting" is, this functionalities will never be replaced. An educated guess of mine is that bot ban will wipe a tremendous amount of currently hosted games on official.
 
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Blizzard is not a democracy. Warcraft is not Open Source. Once I've stated that, I'd like to add this:

For years, this game has been - literally - abandoned by their creators. During all these years of lack of support, people has built an extremely rich ecosystem around the game, investing outstanding amounts of time and effort.
This ecosystem has given us tools that have proven to be a huge improvement in every aspect they target, so in result: they make the playing experience better.

Now, after all these years of not even teaching the support teams that Warcraft III is not WoW, the "owners" of the game come back and try to make a series of changes that will COMPLETELY REMOVE one of the most hardcore tools made by the community.

Let's not be naive; coding a propper filter for the game list is one of the little things that would actually IMPROVE the playing experience without breaking the solutions we've made.

And, if there is an important reason why bots should be removed, Blizzard should make a statement about that.

Communication is the key. And once again, it's failing.
 
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~El

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Blizzard is not a democracy. Warcraft is not Open Source. Once I've stated that, I'd like to add this:

For years, this game has been - literally - abandoned by their creators. During all these years of lack of support, people has built an extremely rich ecosystem around the game, investing outstanding amounts of time and effort.
This ecosystem has given us tools that have proven to be a huge improvement in every aspect they target, so in result: they make the playing experience better.

Now, after all these years of not even teaching the support teams that Warcraft III is not WoW, the "owners" of the game comes back and tries to make a series of changes that will COMPLETELY REMOVE one of the most hardcore tools in made by the community.

Let's not be naive; coding a propper filter for the game list is one of the little things that would actually IMPROVE the playing experience without breaking the solutions we've made.

And, if there is an important reason why bots should be removed, Blizzard should make a statement about that.

Communication is the key. And once again, it's failing.

It pains me so much, but this. So much this. There are much more graceful ways to handle the situation with bots, to co-operate with the community, etc. etc.

But they choose the easiest path for themselves, not for the community.
 
Odd. There has been no reply as of late from any Blizzard employee. The community has been riled up, and I sense a growing cloud of confusion, anger, and suffering abound.

Be wary, lest the bots fall, so too does flesh and blood...


It is not the responsibility of one to implement the beneficial changes made by others on something, but it is one's
responsibility to ensure its' use. Thus, when the latter is threatened by the issuance of the former, the latter shall,
in all manner and dignity, supersede the former, in a manner deemed most agreeable to both parties.

Things change, and inevitable it is. The surprise is when and how it would take place.
Will we adapt to it, or will we be the trees of cedar, unyielding, only to give way in time?

Quality must be ensured. Bargains must be made. Dormammus must be annoyed.
 
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'Bots flooding game list' is completly artificial problem and could have been solved years ago with just implementing proper game list table like [name/map/player count/ping] with filtering and sorting.

That won't solve anything. The majority of hosted games are simply bots (Currently Hosted - WC3 Maps). I proposed they add official support for hostbots and allow an option to filter them in the game list (with hostbots not shown by default), however I do not think that will happen.

Every time the host disconnects from the game, everyone else will DC also right?

I think the game can migrate hosts in some cases, not sure. If not I would imagine it's something that could be added.
 
Well I already read people complaining about this but even as a modder/modeler that mostly plays melee if anything, I think removal of the bots will ruin everything really, not a wise move and I think noone can defend it sometimes we must say what must not be done so just a little chance(though it is probably less than 1 percent chance) that we can change Blizzard's mind.
Edit: I also think that hosting system (upload to blizzard, download it from there etc etc) is one of the main reasons of Sc2's failiure , and why Wc3 was prefered by people still.
 
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1. This would help somewhat, but it doesn't fix the problem. Oversaturation of games results in empty lobbies and games that don't start. Simple supply and demand.
2. My experience with all Hostbots has been full of automated spam. It's great to hear it can be turned off, but it seems it isn't most of the time
3. Third parties are operating independently from Blizzard. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Hostbots do what they want for the most part and it's hard to enforce change. They have upset many but nothing has changed since they were brought in.
4. Users must access tools outside of their client. This will always be harder to do than built in tools.
5. I'm just saying that average user will be unaware of what data is collected. There isn't a reasonable consent obtained before people use these tools and I doubt Warcraft 3's privacy policy covers this use. It's probably no big deal, but it's something Blizzard may need to consider.
1 With the new patch anyone will be able to host, over-saturation will still exist. The concept of "supply and demand" doesn't apply here, the game list is not a market.
3 Hostbots don't do what they want, they do what a normal user can do with the official warcraft 3 client, plus some gimmicks that blizzard has allowed like hosting without actively playing
4 Playing a game hosted by a bot doesn't require extra software/tools
5 The same data you can collect hosting a game using the official warcraft 3 client plus running diagnostic tools in your OS is the same a bot can get
 
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Jan 1, 2009
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1,608
3 Hostbots don't do what they want, they do what a normal user can do with the official warcraft 3 client, plus some gimmicks that blizzard has allowed like hosting without actively playing
4 Playing a game hosted by a bot doesn't require extra software/tools
5 The same data you can collect hosting a game using the official warcraft 3 client plus running diagnostic tools in your OS is the same a bot can get

You are kinda missing the point. It has already been explained, that "normal hosting" is almost pointless right now. Thus, users are "forced" to use a bot to get a game going.
To use a bot you need to either install third party software or use a third party website. Blizzard can't endorse these websites nor guarantee anything working when using them. Very standard procedure.
The same goes for privacy concerns. IP and other related data are considered personal in certain legislation, and have to be saved securely, deleted on demand etc. The key here is automation and storage.
Blizzard could potentially get in trouble over something like this, users might get issues with these services and come to blizz support, etc. pp. many possible bad scenarios.
Custom banlists might sound cool to people, but what if the victim comes to blizzard support, saying he can't join any games?

I think this is all fine and good, and I accept the change, but communication with the community sucks.
Why does the change come now, unannounced, unexplained, after years? What is the replacement gonna be? Why don't they talk with the big hosting services?
Just a "traffic is encrypted now, good luck folks" feels like a kick in the groin.

e: Also I think the "everyone DC if host leaves" issue is solved by not requiring port forward anymore(cloud hosted?). Might be wrong tho. Clarification on this topic would also be highly appreciated.
 
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Jul 15, 2015
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If you kill the bots then you are killing a part of Warcraft 3!
Imagine ANY map that has a gameplay mechanic where one player can be killed off or simply lose before others. Imagine if the host dies 1st, he then has the "responsibility" to stay in the game (for who knows how long it will take for the rest of the players to finish) just so that others can continue playing because if he leaves then everyone will disconnect... IS THIS NOT PLAIN STUPID? People will not want to host such maps then...
 
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