Blizzards’ Battle.net

Facebook step aside.

For those unfamiliar, Battle.net is the name for Blizzards dedicated gaming servers. Gamers playing various Blizzard titles such as Diablo 2, Starcraft + expansions, and Warcraft 2 & 3, have always had the option to take their gaming online into a multiplayer realm using Battle.net. It is a free service that comes with unlimited use just by buying a Blizzard game. Remarkably unlike many companies that only offer their dedicated servers for a few years and then turn them off, Battle.net has been a permanent player support since its inception over a decade ago.

Originally the Battle.net website was merely a host of guides and forums. Playing a multiplayer game doesn’t involve accessing the website because games are loaded through the normal game launcher. Recently Battle.net has been merged with the Blizzard Store, allowing Blizzard game owners to create profiles and actually have access to digital copies of all the Blizzard games they own. I think the only other service that allows unlimited digital downloads of purchased software is Steam… but I might be wrong on that. Around the same time, all World of Warcraft accounts were merged into Battle.net accounts, setting the stage for the next phase of Blizzards project.

Many speculated when WoW became a part of Battle.net that there was going to be a lot more integration between all of Blizzards games, and they were right. Blizzard recently released information that details their current Battle.net plans, as related to World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.

The idea of the new Battle.net is that Blizzard is turning the system further towards a social media site. Players will now, if they wish to, automatically connect to battle.net when playing WoW or SC2, and will gain the ability to chat across mediums. So you can look at your Battle.net friends list while in the middle of a SC2 ranked match, or while you’re in the middle of a raid in WoW, chatting to anyone else who you know that happens to be gaming at the same time. While it may sound kind of silly, since if you want to talk to your friends there are so many other media mediums that you can converse through, somehow it works. Facebook and Gmail chats are proof of that.

While I mention WoW, the focus of the new Battle.net at this point is mainly SC2 driven, but I harbor no doubts that with Cataclysm, Diablo 3, and Blizzards as yet unannounced new IP, all of them will be fully integrated into the new system; hopefully pushing it even further.

There are four major SC2 concepts that Battle.net is pushing for: Players are always connected to the service so they gain a “persistent character experience”, matchmaking has been revamped and is better than ever for competitive play, social connectivity any time you’re connected, and full mod support. I do take issue with the first one though. The idea of being always connected when playing a game in order to get fast updates and achievements and whatever else, just seems pointless to me. Hopefully, unlike many Steam games, Blizzard gets it right and doesn’t require players to be connected to their service in order to play the single player game.

It’s actually a very poor move on Blizzards part if they go through with limiting player access to their game. They’ve already removed LAN play options from SC2, which is rather ridiculous; all because they want to force players to be connected to their service while playing. If this is meant as some sort of anti-piracy precaution, then Blizzard should come out and say that that’s the reason, and then let players decide if they want to deal with the looming or not. I honestly can’t see any other explanation, because there is nothing that players will gain from having to be permanently connected to Battle.net that they couldn’t get from only logging on occasionally and having their achievement status update then. If anything, Blizzard should offer the same thing they currently do in Diablo 2, offline play that doesn’t count towards anything but doesn’t require the internet, and online play which allows you to gain achievements and play against other people.

I do very much like the matchmaking, social connectivity, and mod support portions of the program though. That said, I don’t play RTS’s, I won’t be playing SC2, but I do hate not having the ability to play the game you want to play, when you want to play it. SC2 is not an MMO, and it shouldn’t force players to treat it like one. This brings up another important query. Is Blizzard going to start charging for Battle.net access? It’s another major speculation and one that there isn’t any word on yet. I don’t know what Blizzards server loads are going to be like when SC2 is launched, but Battle.net isn’t exactly free for them to run. I hope that they never do require payment, or even offer “premium service”. Everyone has seen what happens to companies that try to offer “premium service”, they die. They may still run, but their player numbers are gutted beyond repair.

Besides my complaint that went on for awhile, the real gem here is the social connectivity aspect. Imagine logging into battle.net and taking a look at what all of your friends are doing. You could get an invite to a quick dungeon romp in Diablo 3, challenged to a duel in SC2, or asked to go help out some “hot chicks’” alt that is getting GY camped in WoW. It’s a smart business move for Blizzard, providing them the potential to have players whom play WoW drag their guild mates into either SC2 or Diablo 3. It sounds very Win-Win to me.