Battle.net
Description
Battle.net is supported for Diablo I, StarCraft, Diablo II, WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition and WarCraft III, including expansions. It is announced to also support StarCraft II and Diablo III when those games are released. The network will get a complete overhaul with the release of StarCraft II, and games media are anticipating a great range of features.
- Battle.net Main Page
- Battle.net Diablo III Section (Arreat Summit)
- Battle.net Forums
Current Status
Already, Battle.net is quite popular, but Diablo II players are on average 1.2 players per game, meaning the overwhelming majority of games are really net-based Single Player experiences. Blizzard is putting focus on making sure people will have a good time alone, and an even better time in groups.
Cheating
Jay Wilson said this about cheating:
- The way we handle cheating is almost the same across all our games. Battle.net is the same group for all of us except WoW - but they have representation there as well. Can I give specific examples? Not really, because it's kind of technical and I'm not very technical. But the same group that work on Diablo 2 worked on WoW; worked on StarCraft; worked on StarCraft 2 - Security is their obsession. I would hazard to say we have the most security conscious and experienced staff in the world at solving this problem and that's what they will focus on. It's one of the reasons why the online group is a common support group for all us - we all benefit from the experience of all the previous games.
Details
Diii.net have an article series about Battle.net and Battle.net 2.0 in their articles section that handles all known features of Battle.net 2.0:
- Battle.net 2.0 - The Next Generation Gaming Network
- Definite Battle.net 2.0 Features
- Rumoured Battle.net 2.0 Additions
These are also mirrored over at StarcraftWire.net.
You can also find more general information on the Diablo 3 Basics page.
Cost
Blizzard has always (so far, as of January 2010) maintained that it will be possible for gamers to play Stacraft 2 and Diablo 3 for free over Battle.net.
- "When a player buys the StarCraft II box at retail, they will have the ability to play on the new Battle.net for free."
- --Kevyn "Karune" Yu, Starcraft 2 community manager [1]
Though "free" is a good thing in the opinion of most fans, it's clear from how carefully-worded all these statements have been that Blizzard is considering ways to monetize Battle.net. [2]
- Wired.com: So you don’t want to say if you’re going to monetize through Battle.net or is that going to be discussed later?
- Paul Sams: What we’re saying is, if you buy a copy of StarCraft II, you will be in a position to play the game on Battle.net with no additional cost. That’s not to say there are no other things there. But, you’ll be able to play and have a great experience. But they’ll be a lot of different elements; we’re going to be pulling a lot of social networking into the Battle.net experience, and they’ll be a much more significant focus on e-sports, and so the competitive elements of that gaming experience with ladders and rankings and tournaments and everything you could imagine and more.
- We’re going to integrate the games that we have into that Battle.net experience so that it feels like a much bigger and more meaningful community made up of all these Blizzard gamers. When I think of StarCraft II, and if there are other things we’re going to do from a monetization perspective, it’s certainly possible. But again, if you buy the game, you can play on Battle.net with no additional cost.
On top of the monthly subscription fee, World of Warcraft has added various additional revenue streams through allowing players to pay to move their characters between realms or switch their alliance. It's expected that we'll see similar options with Diablo 3; players may be able to pay to move characters between servers, pay for larger stash sizes or to create more characters on a given account.
Another possibility is that Diablo 3 might offer something like the current Diablo 2 ladder character system, but only to paying subscribers. Currently, Diablo 2 realm characters who are created in each new ladder season have special perks non-ladder characters do not. There are numerous high level unique items, cube recipes, and end game quests that only ladder characters can access. This is free in Diablo 2, but in Diablo 3? Other potential bonus content for Diablo 3 subscribers who pay the (monthly?) fee might include ladder rankings of various types, the ability to create more characters per account, special subscriber-only quests, tournaments and PvP rankings, and more.
Note that this is all speculative; the Diablo 3 developers have not yet made any official comments on what will or will not be offered for free over Battle.net.
- In terms of the financial model, our ideal, our goal has always been to make the game first. You know, what’s going to make the best game? And then we’ll figure out what we need to do to support that on a financial model side.
- --Leonard Boyarsky [3]
Other quotes have been much the same; entirely non-committal about fees in either direction. It's clear that the developers are keeping their options open, but hoping to include some additional revenue streams -- if they intended for Diablo 3 to be just as free as Diablo 2, they've had plenty of opportunities to say so.
We'll get a much better idea of their plans for Diablo 3 when Starcraft 2 is released and we see what sorts of fee vs. free services it offers, and how those go over with players.
