Blizzard's Next-Gen Battle.net Detailed for StarCraft 2, Diablo 3

September 3, 2008 9:55 AM

Battle.net--Blizzard's online matchmaking portal and community for games including the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo series--is getting some modern touch-ups in time for the releases of Diablo III and StarCraft II.

Fan site DIII.net has compiled a list of new features gleaned from statements from Blizzard higher-ups. Among the new expected features are:

Achievements
Clan support
Advanced friends list
In-game chat and voice chat
Enhanced cheat detection and punishment
Web community overhaul
Avatars
eSports support and automated tournaments

Most of these features are clearly the result of lessons learned from Blizzard's online juggernaut World of Warcraft, while new eSports features should satiate a competitive following frothing at the mouth for StarCraft II. The revamped Battle.net is expected to premiere with next year's probable release of RTS sequel StarCraft II.

Blake Ellison

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A Sponge

 reply
September 3, 2008 10:03 AM

#1 most wanted feature: not deleting accounts for inactivity :|
- RogerDandy
  
   reply
  September 3, 2008 10:49 AM
  
  oh dude totally second that... replaying D2 right now and just thinking about the items I used to have pisses me off.
- code-e255
  
   reply
  September 3, 2008 11:13 AM
  
  /signed
- Ziggurat
  
   reply
  September 3, 2008 12:34 PM
  
  I think there is a high chance that characters will be stored forever. To facilitate this, you'll likely be limited to just one account created per cdkey with a limited number of character slots. All of this and all blizzard games will use a universal "Blizzard account" and we can see that functionality already being tested with the wotlk beta.