There's both good and bad stuff here. A lot of this sounds interesting, but... PAY download maps? Seriously? No, that's NOT a nice thing to do. They should all be free, without question.
Quote: * History of Battlenet for various Blizzard games and what looks like a very brief glimpse of the UI for the upcoming version for Starcraft 2
* Launched originally with Diablo in 1996
* The world's first matchmaking service integrated completely into games, has been used with starcraft D2 and War3
* Battle.net actually has more players on it than WoW with 12 million players to 11.5 million for WoW
* Lessons learned from War3, The Good, great matchmaking, easy to play with friends
* Random teams feature was incredibly successful "if you're going to lose, you might as well lose with a teammate you can blame"
* Mod community was great too
* The Bad - disorganized chat, disconnected from the single player experience, wasn’t integrated at all, new players got pwned in a hurry, felt intimated, ladder system served only the most hardcore and elite
* Core values for Starcraft 2 BNet always connected experience...
* Battlenet and Star2 will be integrated into 1 unified experience
* Battle.net characters and persistent accounts, remember Diablo 2 how you had to play your toons for a certain amount of time or they got deleted? Not anymore
* Always connected to news, new content and friends (sounds like steam)
* Demo of Battle.net...
* Starcraft 2 login screen...looks like a sci fi version of the WoW Login screen, comes up when you first load the game, enter your battle.net account info and login
* Layout is very nice; top of screen has a single/multiplay option, top right has a profile pic of you, and what looks like achievement points?
* Main part of screen has a start campaign button, possibly saved games, right side has news
* In the campaign screen the main part of the screen shows the campaign, and on the right side you see options for skirmish and challenges
* Friends list is integrated into the game when connected, even when playing single player
* *cough* steam *cough*
* Demoing replay feature in single player, can play replays during single player
* Profile shows your achievements, your info, match history, etc
* Full achievement system in Star2, will get a pop up when your friends get achievements, achievements unlock player avatars (profile pictures), also unlocks decals, these decals show up on your units, structures etc
* Game will auto update
* Cloud system, can play some single player on one computer, go home and pick up where you left off (assuming you connect to Bnet)
* Competitive Arena For Everyone
* Improved match making, play options that all players can enjoy, casual, coop competitive or hardcore
* Ladder play not just for hardcore players anymore
* matchmaking lets casual players compete with casual players, as you play on the service you get put into different leagues
* Leagues range from practice, all the way to elite, in your league you are ranked against 100 players of your skill level, everyone has a chance to win their division in their league, there are end of season tournaments
* Casual Play Features - Practice league, co op skirmish, random teams, challenges, and custom games
* Different rules for casual players, friendlier, slow down game speed, anti rush, etc
* Party System - works like WoW, you get invited to a party, lets you join games together, party leader selects game types, after playing about 10 games you get placed in a league of your skill level
* Join a Custom Game screen - easier to find games with maps, game play types, and player skill levels
* Lots of filter options
* Game Lobby...can have a private lobby, invite friends, configure teams, and after you can then broadcast to the game list so that random players can join
* Very handy, lets you set up a game with your friends the way you want first prior to opening it up to random players to join
* Prevents Smurfing (experienced players creating a new account with a new profile to pwn noob players)
* Blizzard community - keep informed about all the games you are involved with
* You can keep informed of all Blizzard titles
* *seriously its steam*
* *but like all in game based and pretty, the features are just steam*
* Chat system is an IM style chat; bottom of screen has a windows like taskbar with all your different IM windows
* When in game PM's will pop up like IM's
* Connecting the Blizzard Community together
* Observations - people like to play with real life friends, real life friendships can be based on in game friendships... and stalkers
* *ok I added that last part*
* Players want to play with the same people in future games
* Discussing limitations of WoW, Xbox Live, Myspace/facebook, Google Talk community services
* Battlenet Real ID, see and communicate with friends based on how you know them
* Talk to friends cross game, and cross realm
* Achievement system that spans across games and characters
* Achievements will carry over from character to character, so you don’t have to redo them on every character you make
* Friend network stays intact for all future battle.net games
* Will be able to know who your starcraft 2 friends are in future games such as Diablo 3
* Can keep in touch with friends from one game to another, for instance, in WoW can tell someone from starcraft 2 to come and raid in WoW
* The friends list changes are happening in WoW as well, this functionality is on top of the existing friends list on WoW
* Battle.net real ID has to be mutual, can’t just add people as friends without them acknowledging you too
* Parental controls and choosing what information you wish to share will be present
* One more announcement... :-( not the beta
* The big huge one more announcement is... the custom map community, warcraft 3 custom maps were more popular than the original games, ie. Defense of the Ancients
* Starcraft 2 map editor more powerful than Warcraft 3, map publishing, you can publish your maps onto the service so everyone can find it easily
* SC2 Marketplace, easy to find and browse maps
* Able to rate maps, free and premium, yes free maps and premium maps
* Portion of the revenue goes to the map creator
* Doing this for mod creators to be able to create bigger and better content
* Plan to have a lot of free content though
I'm not sure what I think, it's still the same concept we heard from GW2 several years ago, and I still think that turning the overworld into one area instead of instanced for each player is VERY un-Guild Wars and is definitely not a good idea. Will I like GW2 as much as I have loved the first one? I don't know, I don't know if it's going to be the same game anymore... hopefully, but we'll see. I mean, I'll probably like it, but without the gameplay of exploring zones with yourself and your heroes/henchies, doing quests and exploring out the zones, killing the enemies as you go and challenging the zone... if it's instead the way it'll probably be, just standard boring MMO "other people killed the monsters, wait for them to respawn" garbage (monsters don't respawn in GW until you go to another zone and come back and reset the zone!)... that's just not right. :(
Oh, Arena.net definitely still has some of the best artists in the industry, that's for sure... this trailer shows that yet again. :)
The upcoming season's edition of the Winter Classic will be held at Fenway Park (the Winter Classic is a new NHL tradition started in 2007-08, based off the success of the Heritage Classic in 2003, which was in turn inspired by the Cold War between Michigan and Michigan State in 2001. It's a regular-season game played outdoors). Awesome! It's not quite Yankee Stadium, which will happen in the future most definitely, but it's still going to be a pretty awesome event. The game at Wrigley Field last year was really cool and they incorporated some elements of the stadium (i.e. painting ivy on the boards) in pretty neat ways. I'm sure there will more of the same this year for Fenway.
I love the Winter Classic and it's great for the league. It's an awesome way to reach out to new fans and is a great service to old-time sports fans, even if they aren't hockey fans. I'm sure some long-time Cubs fans who never really cared about the Blackhawks were interested in the game at Wrigley last year. As great as they all have been so far though, none of them have really matched the success and magic of the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton, which I was fortunate enough to attend. I got to see Gretzky and Messier and Kurri and Anderson and Fuhr and Lafleur play for the first time ever.
Apparently it was between Philly and Boston this year for the rights to hold the outdoor game, so maybe that means it will be in Philly for the 2010-11 season. New York will definitely hold one; they could pop the dome at Roger's Centre and the Leafs could have one; Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa don't really have the proper facilities; Detroit would definitely be very popular. And with the surging interest of hockey in Ohio, why can't Columbus host the Winter Classic? Could you imagine filling up Ohio Stadium for a hockey game? There have also been talks of hosting the game in a warmer climate, and the Rose Bowl has sometimes been included in these discussions as a potential location. Holy shit, the fucking Rose Bowl.
![[Image: heritageclassic-edmonton.jpg]](http://www.onfrozenblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/heritageclassic-edmonton.jpg)
![[Image: stadium.view(3).jpg]](http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0801/nhl.winter.classic.pens.sabres/images/stadium.view(3).jpg)
![[Image: 2009WinterClassic7.jpg]](http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp162/slipshine/2009WinterClassic7.jpg)
