I just went out of my way to do some tests and asked people how many games they saw on their NM lists.
I saw 2, which then fluctuated down to 1.
I asked people in the channel lobby how many they saw. I got different answers. Some said 0, some said 1, some said 8, one guy said 20.
So I asked US West people (I’m on the West) to say how many they see, some guy had the same list as me, 2 games, same game names. But A few people from US West also saw a different list with different game names. One said 1, another said 8.
You see how BNet 2.0 functions? LESS efficient than Bnet 1.0.
On 1.0 I could select US East and see every game on the US East realm (from the West).
This is why you see 8 hour games flooding your list with 1 or 2 new ones every refresh, because there aren’t enough public games being created in your current server.
And this is also why you don’t see many Baal or cow games going around.
So the question is, will the PTR server address this? Will it stay this way for ladder?
You want to know how the peak D2 experience was in 2002? Cow games. Thousands of players. Cow games. No public botting games. Cow games. Everyone and their MOTHER. Cow games. There were thousands of people creating new cow games EVERY MINUTE, I experienced it and D2 was a BLAST.
So where the HELL are the baal/cow games?
This was posted during launch week and it sums up the D2R experience still TODAY:
I think it would be good to also ask about location from where player see it.
I dont remember many cow games in 1.10+ but Baalruns should be played yeah. I think there is several things which impact this:
no ladder rush to high levels so people dont have to do baalruns that much
issues with not being able to see all games made in region, I believe EU has 3 servers so they are probably 3 different regions where you will see different games.
Public baalruns are honestly freak show. Capable people run baalruns in private group in passwerded games.
Yeah that makes sense and they’re definitely contributing factors. Like you said a few days ago, people play a lot differently these days on different discords/forums/sites, etc.
I just think that there will always be that casual player base that prefers using the in-game features.
The D2 I remember was filled with people creating new characters, getting rushed, and doing cow runs all day. Like literally all day. They were so easy to find. And now it’s very difficult and time consuming.
I already know someones going to say “then you make the cow game” yeah no s*** sherlock, that’s besides the point. The problem is MY cow game isn’t being sent out to the majority of the playerbase, only in my area. And then I’m most likely going to be farming that cow game solo for 5 - 8 minutes before one person joins. That’s called online single player, and that is nothing like how it was 20 years ago.
If I could join a P8 cow/baal game at any moment, this game would be 10x more fun and efficient than it is now.
20 years ago I could have made a game called Free items, or Baal-001 and 8 players would INSANTLY join. Not anymore they won’t.