The video doesn’t show everything. The main feature obviously is the quickmatch as that’s rated with leagues and ladders. But the custom mode is indeed polished into perfection as well. It’s amazing.
I prefer the quickmatch over a lobby system. It tends to get you into a game faster.
Pug = Pick up group (or game)
Bot = Automated computer controlled shizzle
So a Pugbot is essentially a system that automatically puts players into groups ready to play
I guess the difference between this and the now more normal lobby system is that rather than staring at a menu or loading screen whilst waiting for a game you get to chat to everyone else who is also waiting to play
coolstory also makes the point that a “solo” player can more easily find other like-minded players that are currently online
Rather than relying on like-minded friends, who might not be online
Or public teams, that might not be like-minded
Would be kind of cool if the Brink lobby system allowed connection to irc (don’t know if that’s possible on consoles). But other than the global chat I still don’t see much difference between a PUG and Lobby except the former is by design less likely to attract non serious players.
Actually I’d like Steam to be able to do all this without needing to load the game. That way you can select what and how you want to play and then do whatever until the game is complete.
[QUOTE=Mustang;234742]
coolstory also makes the point that a “solo” player can more easily find other like-minded players that are currently online
Rather than relying on like-minded friends, who might not be online
Or public teams, that might not be like-minded[/QUOTE]
This.
Take l4d(2) for example, its a fun game when your playing with friends, but its frustrating and boring to pub. But if the devs put something like a pug system where like minded individuals want to enjoy the game, where ppl wont grief or rage and are willing to work together as a team. The game would be way more fun for new comp. players trying the game out.
PUG = Join IRC, send msg to bot, wait till bot has enough players, start game
L4D = Create Lobby, wait till lobby has enough players, start game
I understand what you want to achieve but the act of making the PUG process more widely accessible removes the quality filter that makes PUG games work.
To achieve what you want I think we’d have to see a different approach to lobbies (maybe group only lobbies) or the Friend system. That way you have some quality control on the players. However the problem is always going to be that any control or barrier is likely to impact your playerbase. 
I’ve posted in the past about my belief that there should be a peer review system for players where you can vote up/down players and then using this data have the option of using it in matchmaking or server administration. Something like that would at least allow you to weight the match making to hopefully pick players with higher approval than those prone to rage quitting and griefing.
Sockdog you failed.
L4D has a 4v4 lobby/matchmaking, it’s good to find scrims. 
I don’t play versus or team versus on L4D, I actually like the idea of survival versus but everytime I try to play I end up in a lobby or bitch fest (the former I put down to a playerbase too small to feed quick lobby fills).
I tend to quickgame on campaigns unless there are some friends on to play with. So I’m not entirely sure if your saying it does work fine or just being sarcastic. 
4v4 matchmaking worked out pretty well during l4d2 early days. You could find a game anytime of the day. However the game wasn’t balanced for comp play on vanilla. And playing scrims where you dominate a team and they win due to some luck was pretty frustrating, added to the long time it took to finish a game in versus.
Also Valve didn’t bother to balance the game then, they didn’t balance the game until now, even then their attempts to balance the game is slow and most of their updates/mutations break more stuff than they fix. Valve pretty much destroyed the l4d2 community, and drove all the comp. teams away. Most of the teams that still compete use a mod called Confogl.
Its good that SD is takin a year to polish and balance the game
So if Brink offered a 4v4 and 8v8 team matchmaking lobby similar to L4D2 would that be what you’re looking for?
I want it to be like tf2lobby.com but in game. Its linked to your acct., has stats, etc
I suppose it’s possible. I frankly prefer we saw Steam take on the whole lobby system out of game so you can do what you want while you’re waiting. I think that’s a big advantage of Steam of in-game friend/lobby systems. For me, when I load a game I want to play, not spend 20 minutes waiting for a lobby to fill.