Starcraft II: Battlenet 2.0 Preview

By Scott Pytlik
September 01, 2009 14:40 PM PST
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OMGStarcraft's Scott Pytlik gives us the lowdown on Battle.net 2.0.

Nearly a month ago, StarCraft fans were struck by a blow more disappointing then Brett Favre signing with the Vikings, and more devastating then Wall Street as of late. The only thing worse is a StarCraft fan from Green Bay trying to make a living as a stock broker.

OK, so maybe nothing in the video game world is comparable to the perplexing problems of America's economy - or to Favre's third un-retirement - but the delay of StarCraft II into the early part of 2010 was a huge deal for fans of the acclaimed RTS series. Blizzard Entertainment told its fans that the slow developmental progress of Battle.net 2.0 was holding up the release of its next big game. Well, at BlizzCon 09, I got a chance to see just what's so special about this Web application and why Blizzard is banking the future of its franchises on it.

Blizzard's goal for Battle.net 2.0 is to create an "always connected experience," and in order to achieve that they are basically rebuilding the application from the ground up. Borrowing ideas from various social networking platforms, this new version of Battle.net will take everything PC gamers are familiar with in Steam, combine them with profile pages similar to those in Facebook, and throw in AOL Instant Messenger-style chatting. They even plan to add status updates to allow you to broadcast your mood, location, or gaming intentions to your entire list of friends - virtual or real life.

Modding The Community

But, as I sat in Hall D next to a rowdy Blizzard fan known to some as Dustin Browder, none of the social networking aspects impressed me nearly as much as the micro transaction model that will allow map makers and modders to sell their creations on Battle.net. (See omgstarcraft.com's video interview for more on this)

"What we're doing for the mod community is awesome," said lead game designer Browder immediately following the Battle.net discussion panel. "They have had such an unexpected impact in the past that we want to make sure that they can thrive in the future. I'm excited to see what they do with the map editor."

This is an example of your Battle.net dashboard and will serve as an entry point into anything you'd like to do in the world of Blizzard. From here you can read the latest Blizzard-related headlines, check out what's going on in the community, view your profile page, watch replays, check your achievements, or jump into a single or multiplayer game. It's also likely that this is where you can check the status of your Blizzard titles to make sure they have the most recent patches and are up-to-date. Battle.net, like Steam, will auto download (if you so choose) updates as soon as they are available, but it was unclear if there will be a system tray icon allowing you to remain connected 24/7.