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Though the Battle.net gaming service wasn’t the first of its kind, ever since its debut, it has been widely regarded as the prototypic example for all others to follow. Originally available as a platform for Diablo players, it has since been used for almost all of Blizzard’s games – WarCraft 2 and 3, StarCraft, and the Diablo sequel – everything but World of Warcraft runs on Battle.net servers.
It’s been almost 10 years since the first players had logged on to Battle.net to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft, and while it still holds up well, there’s a lot of room for evolution.
Blizzard is putting a lot of effort into improving and refining every aspect of StarCraft, and the new Battle.net version that will launch with it will be no exception. This month’s official discussion topic involves Battle.net, and Blizzard is, again, looking for input from the fans.

As promised, feedback and suggestions from the previous month’s official Mothership discussion have been passed directly to Karune and the Dev team, and will surely be noted.
Karune starts the post by thanking the fans for their input for last month’s discussion topic:
Thank you to all those who have participated in last months discussion about the Protoss Mothership. It was a fierce debate over what the community felt about the Mothership being unique or no unique. I will relay feedback from both the Battle.net and Fan Site Community to the Dev Team and give you an update later in the month.
Next, Karune informs about a new feature already present in the new Battle.net version:
As our Dev Team works hard on StarCraft II, so is our Battle.net team, in creating an online experience that will achieve the same pioneering spirit of the original Battle.net, as well as evolve the StarCraft II Community in refreshing and innovative ways. One of many new features that have been included in Battle.net is voice chat, providing better communication for more precise attacks and counterattacks with your teammates.
This part is directed at you, our readers and StarCraft fans:
Battle.net Questions for Fans:
* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?* Additional Feedback you would like to give
The more specific your input is, the more it is of help to Blizzard’s developers – and in the long run, to the gamers themselves, who will be enjoying the new and improved platform once it’s deployed.
Related Posts:
- » Battle Report 3: StarCraft 2 is Freaking Awesome
- » Karunology: EMP Vs Protoss Shields; Q&A 52: MapMaker Series
- » StarCraft 2 Beta Key Contests: 38 Beta Keys to Earn
- » Death Animations, StarCraft 2 Q&A 51 and Fansite Q&A 5
30 Comments to “StarCraft 2 October Discussion Topic: Battle.net Wishlist”
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A. What I loved about battle.net is that it is easy to use and it is FREE
B. I have come to expect other multiplayer servers to be;
1. Easy to use
2. Fast, reliable service
3. Good tech support
C. I would like to see:
1. More services (FAQ, Tech help etc.)
2. Combatibility with players that have my skill level
3. Hacker free
4. Faster, lag free games.
D. DO NOT CHARGE A MONTHLY FEE!!!!—Or I will NOT play it. I dont like to be reminded that I am spending money every time I play a game. It ruins the experience/fun
* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
-> It’s Free, One-click away, LOTS of people. can always find a fight.
* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
-> Was the first that I use, it had all that was required, speed was okay too.
* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
-> Chat is ok, not necessary, but some people will want it. Want it to stay free. Made MUCH more hacker resistant.
* Additional Feedback you would like to give
-> Maybe from the login, if you can choose your language it will be great. I am from Asia, and I keep logging into these Korea channels which I have no clue what they are talking about, if there’s a click for me to go back into english before they auto log me in.. that will be great.
Hopefully the voice chat issues get worked out from the WoW problems, though a matchmaking and information server may have an easier time.
The original battle.net seemed fine to me, though stuff like voice chat does come in handy and is nice to have. I would like to keep some of the fast equal skill matchups. Otherwise I can’t think of anything, though the “fast, free, easy to use” bit is important.
What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
- A private tournament function for clans, where clan leaders can create a tournament which works in a similar fashion to the current warcraft iii tourneys run by blizzard
- VoIP for chat channels and multiplayer games
- Automatic conversion of server time to local time so that players in a different time zone can figure out when tournaments are on in their local time.
Starcraft 2:
When a player has a map, there will be a sign for that! PLZ!
And a more exact laggometer
What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
Official implementation of the third party plugins:
1) Pings. Better yet, pings that go through firewalls. With ICMP, there are limitations, but if you use the same protocol as the game, the number will be accurate and will get through all the firewalls.
2) Clan support. I hate joining a game only to get kicked out immediately because one side is all on a team. Perhaps this is also a “one side by invitation only”.
3) Banlists. Let us generate private banlists, or even semi-public ones we can share within a community. Some sort of reputation that will suggest a player will stick it out and be a good sport until everybody agrees it’s over (feeders, pluggers, leavers should be able to be banned).
Battle.net feature: Post-game reviews.
Let me give some motivation first. I play on the WC3 ladder semi-regularly. One day, I played a weaker player, and as my army was pillaging his base, he asked something like “how did you build so fast?”. All I could tell him was “Watch the replay.” Now I play Warcraft and Starcraft because they are strategy games; I also enjoy playing Chess, Go, and other heavily strategic games. In board games, it’s customary for both players to go over the game together immediately after it finishes, and discuss strong and weak moves, etc. Good online servers have a capacity for doing this.
Immediately after the game ends, there would be an option: “Reveiw?(y/n)”. If you click yes, a replay of the game automatically starts. The players could discuss what was going on, stronger players could offer weaker ones tips, etc. You could invite people in the channel to watch your replay. I really think this would help new players learn more quickly and give stronger players a chance to help out with the community. I think of starcraft as a kind of real-time chess, and this would be one step closer to making that true.
Awesome idea above. (Seconded heavily for suggestion.)
I second Tom’s idea, when I was training with members of my team we used to do that every single match. Play, Save Replay, Watch Replay and learn.
* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
>> that it was free!
* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
>> that it will be free!
Comment #10 – Wins the Nobel Prize for comments.
Yes, I sincerely think that this is the only issue of concern.
LOL i am almost 100% sure that it will be free.
Also i think the new commmand and conquer has this feature where you can watch games other people are currently playing, but 10-15mins in delay. Something like that would be pretty sweet, obviously opening up every game to be watched might be a bit hardcore, but maybe a watch game feature for all games with players in the top 1000 would be cool.
Best feature for me?
The matching system in WC3. Not only matched me with players at my level, it
PREVENTED EVERYONE FROM PLAYING MONEY MAPS!
no money maps except in custom was the best thing about BNET.
free. free. free.
that is the most important thing.
you buy a game – you get to play online free of charge.
everything else is not so important.
I would say free is the major part, after-all I would not play multiplayer otherwise, Although I hope that we can actually see the map before downloading it, in WCIII that was annoying…
This comment was spam, and has been moderated
(Anderson)
* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
A lot of things, one which includes no service charge, and very stable.
* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
It is the first place any Blizzard customer should go to start learning the Multiplayer aspects of the game. It has helped me improve a lot and make new friends.
* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
we get our asses kicked and there are equal number of gamers outside of China and Korea who play on Battle.net albeit with poor pings and bad scores.
- Better clan page functionality, I mean more, and more functionalities to a custom Tournament page with a simple Id for anyone to type in, with optional passwords, and enter after authentication. Yes, calender support to that would be just awesome.
- Please, we need another server for Asia. The Asia server is full of gosus
* Additional Feedback you would like to give
- The voice comm feature is good, but I believe it will tax the overall bandwidth, and country like ours we cannot afford cheap bandwidth. Do not charge for playing without voice, but you could charge a little for having voice support with a CD-Key/account, and out source it to Ventrilo or Skype.
- I love the way Blizzard has incorporated the customers themselves in the involvement of the game. I hope you do get input from Koreans and Chinese gamers too.
Thats all.
I like to spam.
Me too.
Spam.
Spam.
I like StarCraft.
Yeah, StarCraft is great.
I’d go as far as saying that it’s a perfection of the RTS form.
I agree with that statement.
A Rewind option in the replay would be EXTREMELY useful.
Keep it free, and hacker free. Voice chatting would be very nice.
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how cool would it be if you could do video chat with a webcam while playing the game? a face to face experience and put our face into the game (like where the characters face showed up when they were talking on SC1). I know it sounds like it would create a lag nightmare but if i can do video chat on my cell phone, blizzard can figure out a way to make it work, we have the technology, what better way to use it than video games and porn! AINT THAT AMERICA
How about taken the idea that has been shown to us on the Terran campaign. Battle net having a clan base. where a character can walk around your clan base. Measage boards and your leaders are know by medals and ranks, shown in your uniform. You don’t want enough things to do to detract from the game. But imagine haaving a space set battle Defendig your clans base? The out come they bad guys go home beat, their pride taken, Or your made homeless.