I wouldn't call the groups entirely useless. Whenever I can, I always recommend people join the Cruiser Command group and enter Chat whenever they log in as a signal that they're there and ready to play. The issue, well... not everybody cares to.Puddlejumper wrote:Actually we had a game with 12 players last night that I thought went well (if a little bit of a blitz). Also found another game a couple days ago of smaller but still enjoyable scope. All it took was resourcefully finding players through groups/teamspeak.
So I wouldn't call it dead at all. In fact calling it dead is the quickest way to kill it. The problem is in the marketing - really getting a game started requires a matching system beyond what Bliz gives since you need to find somewhat trained players.
Teamspeak is not marketed in a clear way to new players as a way to connect/find games in addition to communicate ingame - also the SC2 "Groups" have some use but once they get too large you can no longer see the members to PM them when they are online to ask if they are interested in a game.
I think all this game needs to be quite sustainable is a better matching system or way to notify if players are online / available to play. Then market it well and put that procedure into the tutorial and game info. Teamspeak may not in itself be enough.
As a rule of thumb I try to add anyone who says that they enjoy the game so I can pester them whenever I want to try and start a group up. I usually don't see many people when I'm on during the week, but during Fridays and Saturdays I can usually take part in a large number of games.
Again, it sort of gets back to the 'wall' of cruiser command that is called depth and teamwork. If there was a match making system, that would do a large part in overcoming the obstacle. However, we lack the method and likely the player base right now. If CC pulls into a standalone then things start to change significantly. However, CC's selling point is heavy teamwork orientation -- something many Starcraft II Arcade players don't want to bother with.
