sounds like a great start

This idea has some flaws to it.  Ok... Say Joe and Bob want to get on a team together.  They both log in, go to skirmish, and click go.  At this point, what can happen?

1: Maybe Joe clicks go 10 seconds earlier than Bob and oops, they end up in different matches.  Joe and Bob quit out because they want to play together.  This problem has been documented before and the consequences are known.

2: Joe and Bob get into the same match, but oops, they end up in a 3v3 when they wanted a 2v2.  They are grouped with a rook who decides the first thing he's going to do is run up and use structural transfer on an enemy tower while Erebus and UB are beating on him.  Joe and Bob are not pleased with Mr. Rook.  At worst they go back to playing premades in custom where they have control over who they play with, at worse they flame the newbie and ragequit to try and get matched up in a 2v2 like they wanted.

3: Joe and Bob end up in two seperate matches, Joe with Sue, and Bob with Mary.  Sure, Joe is friends with Sue and Bob is friends with Mary, but Joe and Bob wanted to play together.  For people with big friends list, this can be a real issue.

The system just seems so random.  Bob and Joe signing up to be automatched in a 2v2 would be far preferable.  I don't understand how it can be so hard to do this.  Use the existing loby code that makes a room in Custom, limit it to 1 team, click go.  The matchmaker searches out another room with the same size and matches them up.  Maybe it's just alot harder than it looks (I'm no coder), but I'd prefer a system that does it at least as well as other multiplayer games.

-- Tukulis

Tuk has some very valid points, part of the reason I said in an earlier post we really need to see more details on exactly how this friends check box system would work.  The best solution would be copy TFT's ladder or some other game, many have done it right or at least pretty good already, that's what blizzard always does and look where they are.  So here is a few more points to a new system I'd like to see and I think would help:

--Show ranking of players in lobby

--Seperate rankings for "random team, ie PUG everyone" and "arranged team, ie you pick your teamates and search for others who picked their teamates"

--Seperate rankings for custom games, they should be for experimenting and fun but instead they are all there really is right now unless you enjoy playing 1v3 matches on occasion or any other of the wierd things that happen in panth/skirmish

--Better friends chat and grouping, I'm amazed when I actually get a tell from a friend in this, also helpful would be a command to send them a tell in game in their chat window (again like many other games have, TFT comes to mind).

--Default chat lobbys you are auto logged into

--OH and number 1, fix stats and stats keeping, without it none of the above probably matters much.  I just looked at my game list from last night, one game the other team had a lagger and a few deaths, they got mad and started leaving, i believe the game went 3-6 minutes or something like that, I was the host, it gave me the win (as I think it should have) but showed both my teamates as losing.  How does host get a win and 5 players get a loss including the players on the hosts team?  That doesn't make any sense.  Also again, Disc=loss, it happens sometimes and it sucks when you legitly disc, but it sucks even more that people can disc on purpose to avoid losses, I've never seen any other game that treats it that way for that very reason.

Frogboy, if you implemented a "Clan" option im sure A LOT more players would like a "Pre-made" option in the game.

Thanks for the response, Frogboy!

QFT

I have a feeling it was my post...but there is no "Edit" button for it anymore so I cant go back and change it.

I think the thread got broken because I actually understood _Shadow's sense of humor and laughed.  My fault, all.