Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo revealed the planned features for Battle.net 2.0, which will launch in 2010 with StarCraft II and be incorporated into World of WarCraft. The biggest change is the introduction of what Blizzard is calling "Real ID" that should eliminate "smurfing" accounts and ensure better matchmaking. Games will be tied to a specific account much like Steam or other digital distribution services. Battle.net 2.0 will be free, however.
Pardo believes that the new matchmaking system is more powerful than Microsoft's TrueSkill and when paired with Real ID, it should help players of all skill levels get into games that they have a chance to win. On this point, the ladder system has been improved to take player skill into account. After a player completes around 10 games, they will be placed into a skill tier. Within each skill tier, the player is matched up with 99 other players in 100 player divisions. The focus of the season is on competing with these 99 other players with tournaments taking place at the end of each season between division leaders.
As a dashboard, Battle.net 2.0 is always on and will allow for cross-game/cross-realm chat and players will be able to see which friends are online while in singleplayer. There aren't any groundbreaking features here, but it brings Battle.net up to Steam's level and will help World of WarCraft players transition into StarCraft II.
StarCraft II will also support a Marketplace, which will not be available at launch, but added later. This is where custom map makers can offer up their maps for free or for a small fee, taking in part of the revenue. Pardo compared it to Apple's iPhone App Store. Custom maps can also be published to the server so players can see what is available, comment and rate them, and download them without having to join games. Custom games can also be filtered so you can find custom maps that aren't DotA.
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GamerNx
The problem is, are the maps going to be a few cents here or there? Or is going to be a dollar a pop? And as far as people getting paid for their work, most do it because they want to, most of those maps made in sc1 where from people who enjoyed doing it and obviously did it for free and will do it for free. These guys where talking like features that have been in games for the past few years are something brand new and completely awesome that they just introduced. All their energies have been on WoW and they have lost a bit of touch with their other fan bases. The fact that they basically ignored the crowd when they asked who still LANed or didnt connect to the internet. If you cant even play the single player offline with your own profile name, then whats the point. I dont want to play as a guest. I want to play as me. Some folks may be in a location they cant connect, example being service members on deployment. I know while I was on cruise in the navy, LAN was one of the few things we had to enjoy. I dont know, I think overall its a good system, I just wish they would quit acting like they came up with all of those features that have been around for a long time now.
BahamutKaiser
Sounds pretty ingenious to me. I'm sure they will include all new Blizzard products, what I want to know is if they will include old ones. The larger the community the better.
The idea for players to make their own maps and charge a fee is great too, Blizzard will have their own map additions anyway, but play additions are always good, and if they can make some quality User Map Settings or simply really cool maps, it will be worth a couple of cents. An awsome way for Bnet to share the wealth too.
I think the biggest concern is that people attempting to charge fees for their map, no matter how good, can simply have their map taken, altered or copied, and rereleased for free. So how functional that system really is, is uncertain.
GamerNx
pushing wow onto sc2 it seems as well.
GamerNx
I love how they are speaking as if half of those features are new, in that video.
VirusesField
PART 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=lF4BGNHJNoU
PART 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=Fx70OST0yIE
Sounds to me like Blizzard has taken a great deal of time to bring a game that will surpass the expectations of most. I can't wait to pwn noobs on StarCraft 2. Also, I hope they include the original Big Game Hunters Map. That would be fun with all the new characters and abilities. Happy Gamming.
SaintV
Skill tiers ftw! No more smurfing and unbalanced games.
Peynor
Small fee my ass, I've got like a thousand UMS starcraft maps, I wonder how much that many maps will cost in the new Bnet? Bnet was always the weak point of every Blizzard game I've played, and there's no way they can get me excited about being charged to use the same features features that I didn't have to pay for in the past.
RedRingsOfDeath
"free or for a small fee" hmmm..... making money off of maps...SOUNDS AWESOME!!!
renderings
Hopefully they'll have a better matchmaking system then they did with WoW Arena...
teabags
well, it actually says free or for a fee..and blizzard takes a cut?..wow..like they dont make enough right now..well, im just glad bnet will be free and it SHOULD include D3 with it too
Slymerz
just like the old Battle Net before WoW you could talk to anyone on WC, SC, and Diablo. It will be the same with BNET 2
Schweiny91
they said both free and for a small fee do u guys not listen
Masquerade
"Custom games can also be filtered so you can find custom maps that aren't DotA."
Finally! I can't stand DotA and all the elitism it entails. As for purchased maps and ladders, I'm going to go ahead and assume that matchmaking games will only be played on official Blizzard maps. It'll be interesting to see how they integrate D3 with BN 2.0.
KevinJames23
Charging for custom maps? Only one account? No LAN? The more and more I hear about Starcraft 2, the more and more disappointed I am. I sincerely doubt the game is going to live up the original at this point, both in terms of gameplay, and now longevity too with the way this B.net 2.0 system is going to work.
mengplex
thank god they decided against charging for it , monthly fee's would have been BS
djowalsen
It seems like this system of map selling could be not all that good. With console games, there are map packs, but this seems to act more like the Apple App store so it will have no structure. Seems like there will be a lot of people who will buy maps and never get a chance to play on them. Against people at least.
atx88
all of this sounds awesome
BOcaHEMIAN
im not looking forward to being charged for maps. I see bad things from this, like ladders or tourneys where you MUST have that map...fail. And yes, Zylo, read the report and it says WoW is gonna be incorporated into this new system, im not sure how, but it will be
ZyloWolfBane
Any word on whether or not it will be blended into Diablo 3 and WoW?
Necronomoly
Sounds great!
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