Battle.net
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 The revamped Battle.net interface in StarCraft II |
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| Developer(s) | Blizzard Entertainment |
| Type | Multiplayer online service |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | http://www.battle.net/ |
Battle.net is an online gaming service provided by Blizzard Entertainment. It was launched in January 1997 with the release of Blizzard's action-RPG Diablo. Battle.net was the first online gaming service incorporated directly into the games that make use of it, in contrast to the external interfaces used by the other online services at the time. This feature, along with ease of account creations and the absence of member fees, caused Battle.net to become popular among gamers and became a major selling point for Diablo and subsequent Blizzard games. Since the successful launch of Battle.net, many companies have published online game services mimicking Blizzard's service package and the user interface.
Blizzard officially unveiled the new revamp Battle.net on March 20, 2009.[1] It later revealed further details of the Battle.net revamped features at Blizzcon 2009 which will be supported by Starcraft II, Diablo III and World of Warcraft. The original Battle.net would also be renamed to Battle.net classic.[2]
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[edit] Supported games
[edit] Diablo
When the service initially launched with Diablo in 1997, Battle.net offered only a few basic services like chatting and game listings. Players could connect to the service, talk with other gamers and join multiplayer games of Diablo. Besides user account data, no game data was stored on the Battle.net servers. When a player connected to a game, they would be connecting directly to the other players in the game. No data was sent through the Battle.net servers. While this made the service quick and easy to use, it quickly led to widespread cheating since players using cheats could modify their game data locally. However, since there was an option to create private games, many players ended up playing with people whom they knew.
[edit] StarCraft
The release of StarCraft in 1998 increased usage of the Battle.net service significantly. Features such as ladder ranking and game filters were added to the service. Battle.net grew even larger after the release of the expansion pack StarCraft: Brood War, with tens of thousands of players logged on at any given time. StarCraft Battle.net was especially successful in South Korea, where the number of players logged on was often many times that of the United States.
StarCraft also brought with it a new copy protection scheme using CD keys. Under Diablo, Battle.net would allow any client to connect to the service. With StarCraft, only those players with a valid and unique CD key - a generated 13-digit number distributed with each boxed game - were allowed onto the service. Only one person could connect to Battle.net using a specific CD key at a time. Accounts could also be muted (unable to chat), voided (restricted to The Void channel) or banned from Battle.net entirely. Every Blizzard game since StarCraft has used the CD key system to connect to Battle.net excluding Starcraft: Brood War, Starcraft's 1998 expansion. With the release of the Gateway system in Brood War, two players can play at the same time, as long as they are on different gateways, though they cannot play in the same game, chat with each other and so on.
[edit] Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
The next year, seeing the popularity of StarCraft on Battle.net, Blizzard decided to re-release their previous RTS game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness packaged with its expansion pack Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal in a version that could be played over Battle.net. This version was titled Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition. Previously, Warcraft II could only be played over the Internet using the IPX network emulator Kali or the now defunct online service Engage. The new version also included support for ladders and a host of other non-Battle.net related features.
[edit] Diablo II
Diablo II was released in 2000 to much fanfare. The main highlight of Diablo II as it relates to Battle.net was that the game was completely client-server based. The game was no longer simulated on each player's computer, but instead was run on Blizzard's server. This also meant that all of the character data for the game was stored on the Battle.net servers. This effectively prevented cheating. The game also has an open character feature on Battle.net which stored the player's character on the client. This allowed players to play characters locally or on a LAN, and then use those same characters on Battle.net. However, any open games played on Battle.net were not protected from cheating by other players since they could have modified their characters locally. Diablo II also had a unique feature that would show the players in the Battle.net chat room as avatars who looked like their characters did in the game. It also used a different Battle.net interface than previous games, where previously there were mainly only color differences. There was also expanded ladder support including a "Hardcore" ladder which listed players whose characters would be removed permanently if they died in-game. Again, with Diablo II usage of Battle.net increased steadily, climbing even higher with the release of the expansion pack Diablo II: Lord of Destruction in 2001.
[edit] Warcraft III
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was released in 2002 and, combined with its expansion pack Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne which was released in 2003, are the most recent games Blizzard released which support Battle.net. The release of these two games brought with them a number of new features to the online service. The most significant feature to be added was probably the concept of Anonymous Matchmaking. This feature allowed a user who wanted to play a game to simply press a button and automatically be matched up with one or more other players who were similar in skill (based on ranking) and also wanted to play a game. This allowed for people to get into games quickly and easily. It also reduced win-trading, where two people would purposely win and lose games to artificially raise their rank on the ladder. The matchmaking concept was also expanded to team games in a feature called "Arranged Teams". In an arranged team game, you could make a team with one or more friends, which was then anonymously matched up with another team of the same size and rank. However, a strategy was introduced on how to cheat the automated 'fair' matchups, called 'Abusing', simply by someone losing the Arranged Team Games intentionally with one ally so that with another ally (who wants to gain wins easily) won't find it difficult because the automatic matchups would put the two players up against relatively unskilled players. Automated tournaments were added in the expansion, where players would compete to be crowned tournament champion in a series of games played throughout the day. In addition to the new game styles, a slew of other features were added including selectable chatroom icons unlocked based on the player's number of wins, a friends list, and clan support.
[edit] Starcraft II
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will be released in early 2010, it will be the first game to natively support the new revamped Battle.net online interface. Online play in Battle.net will allow players to engage in online play on both work and home computers without the need to transfer files by signing onto one unified account. The new Battle.net will also allow several online competitions to be held simultaneously which Blizzard will use to host competition leagues, each with their own level of play. The new Battle.net will feature a marketplace for Starcraft II which would allow player to download both free and paid maps, maps can be searched for online and rated by players. The new interface also includes a chat service which is similar to that of Instant Messengers which would allow players to interact across different games as well as showcase their own achievements. The game will also support VoIP support for players.[3][4]
[edit] World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft initially did not support Battle.net, having separate accounts from Battle.net ones until the revamp of Battle.net on March 20, 2009 which allowed players to merge their World of Warcraft accounts with the new Battle.net accounts.[5] The features of Battle.net utilized in World of Warcraft include allowing players to engage in cross-realm, cross-faction and cross-game chat which allows players to chat with other players from other factions, other servers as well as other games.[6] On November 11, 2009 Blizzard made Battle.net a mandatory feature for World of Warcraft players.[7]
[edit] Diablo III
Blizzard confirmed on June 28, 2008 at the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France that Diablo III would feature Battle.net support.
[edit] Revamped Battle.net
Battle.net was revamped by Blizzard in 2009 and was officially unveiled on March 20, 2009, it was further elaborated on during Blizzcon 2009. The new Battle.net(unofficially known as Battle.net 2.0) contains three unique sections. The first allows players to connect all Battle.net accounts, World of Warcraft characters and friends list together and integrate them into a unified single Battle.net account. Players can also unlock achievements in-game which would in turn unlock avatars and decals which would be shown on the player's profile, the decals can also be seen in-game on the player's units.[8]
The second section consists of making Battle.net into a competitive arena for players which involves a new improved matchmaking system which simplifies the process of players locating their friends and organizing games. The ladder system has also been revamped so that it will not be dominated just by the most hardcore players instead after a short period of play, the system would classify players into certain leagues according to their level of competitiveness. Within each league, players would compete against other players who have a similar skill level to that of the player. There is also a special practice league for the casual players to practice and hone their skills, this league slows down the gameplay using "anti-rush" maps to allow players to get used to the game. The party system works similar to that of World of Warcraft where players with friends would join together and enter games as a party.[8]
The final section involves connecting the Blizzard community together by making it easy to locate and stay connected with friends. This involves the new chat system which involves a new system similar to Instant Messaging across games. Players would also be able to stay together in groups which allow them to remain together when new games are released. This is done by allowing players to communicate with friends across games, servers, and characters.[8]
Another new element is the use of an online marketplace which allows player or map makers to create and sell their maps online through Battle.net, Players can also browse and search through maps online and rank them by player ratings as well as download both free and paid maps.[8]
[edit] Growth history
According to Blizzard's claims, Battle.net is the largest online gaming network in the neighborhood. Blizzard claims "millions of active users" on Battle.net, and that they are the leaders of online gaming, noting that "even Xbox Live is not even close".[9] By November 1997 they had 22 million games played, had 1.25 million different users, and averaged 3,500 new users each day.[10] By April 1999, it was reported that Battle.net had 2.3 million active users, and more than 50,000 concurrent users.[11] By September 2002, their active user count had jumped to 11 million.[12] By September 2004, their active user count was up to nearly 12 million, spending more than 2.1 million hours online each day, and they had an average of 200,000 concurrent users, with a peak concurrent user count of 400,000.[13] In November 2008, Blizzard banned over 357,700 accounts that were found to be using third-party hacks.[14]
[edit] Community
A community of developers has arisen around Battle.net. Many unofficial clients are available for Battle.net, and most of the protocol used by Battle.net-enabled games has been reverse-engineered and published by volunteers.
Also, several communication tools have been made, like a "whisper" tool, so that a player could talk to their friends even if they are in a game.
Custom games (using maps that were not made by Blizzard) have helped build the community, and now are a substantial portion of the games played. Among the most popular of these games in WarCraft 3 (Blizzard's most recent Battle.net game) are tower defense maps and Hero solo maps (like DotA, and arena maps) or pure RTS games like Civilization Wars, where the player develops their economy, tech, and unit diversity but the player has no control of their units.
[edit] Controversy
A group of gamers reverse engineered the network protocol used by Battle.net and Blizzard games, and released a free (under the GNU GPL) Battle.net emulation package called bnetd. With bnetd, a gamer is not required to use the official Battle.net servers to play Blizzard games.
In February 2002, lawyers retained by Blizzard threatened legal action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against the developers of bnetd. Blizzard games are designed to operate online exclusively with a set of Blizzard-controlled servers collectively known as "Battle.net". Battle.net servers include a CD key check as a means of preventing software piracy.
Despite offers from the bnetd developers to integrate Blizzard's CD key checking system into bnetd, Blizzard claims that the public availability of any such software package facilitates piracy, and moved to have the bnetd project shut down under provisions of the DMCA.[15] As this case is one of the first major test cases for the DMCA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation became involved. For a while negotiations were ongoing to resolve the case without a trial. The negotiations failed however, and Blizzard won the case on all counts: the defendants were ruled to have breached both StarCraft's End User License Agreement (EULA) and the Terms of Use of Battle.net.[16] This decision was appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled in favor of Blizzard/Vivendi on September 1, 2005.[17]
[edit] List of Battle.net games
Current
- Diablo II
- Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
- Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
- Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
- World of Warcraft
- World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
- World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
- StarCraft
- StarCraft: Brood War
Restricted Chat Functionality
- Diablo Shareware
- Diablo Spawn
- Diablo
- StarCraft Shareware
- StarCraft Spawn
- Japanese StarCraft (public beta of a Japanese version of StarCraft)
- Japanese StarCraft Spawn
Disabled
- CHAT (Telnet)
- Diablo II Stress Test (internal alpha of Diablo II)
Future Releases
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Blizzard Unveils New Battle.net
- ^ http://kotaku.com/5342994/upcoming-blizzard-battlenet-feature-draw-from-warcraft-xbox-live-life Upcoming Blizzard Battle.Net Feature Draw From Warcraft, Xbox Live, Life]
- ^ StarCraft II General Discussion
- ^ BlizzCon 2009: Battle.net 2.0 features revealed [Update]
- ^ Merge World of Warcraft accounts with battle.net accounts
- ^ Battle.net 2.0 to allow cross-faction communication
- ^ Wow -> Archived News -> November, 2009
- ^ a b c d Upcoming Blizzard Battle.Net Feature Draw From Warcraft, Xbox Live, Life - Blizzcon 09
- ^ GC: WOW Factor // GamesIndustry.biz
- ^ Gamasutra - Features - "Battle.net Defines Its Success: An Interview with Paul Sams of Blizzard" [11.28.97]
- ^ Salon Technology | Online gaming's store-shelf chains
- ^ http://www.dragonpage.com/archives/paul_sams.html
- ^ Court's Memorandum and Order | Electronic Frontier Foundation
- ^ http://battle.net/
- ^ Linux.com: Open Source game server shut down by DMCA, February 21, 2002
- ^ Court document: Davison & Associates vs Internet Gateway & Associates, September 30, 2004
- ^ Chillingeffect.org: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Freezes On-Line Gamers with an Eight Circuit Court Victory, September 19, 2005. As of 11/11/2008 blizzard launched The Warden which in its self launched a mass ban affecting 350,000 people closing accounts and disabling cd keys as a marketing plan. This is inferred from the fact that all game stores were mysteriously overstocked on Diablo 2 battle chests.
[edit] External links
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