In the months leading up to BlizzCon, it was anybody's guess as to what the new Battle.net might look like. During interviews, Blizzard developers mostly mumbled about matchmaking, leagues and other features, but were always quick to note that everything was still up in the air. But following the official unveiling of the Battle.net feature list, Blizzard isn't mumbling anymore. On top of the Real ID system and other Xbox Live-esque features, the new Battle.net will also see Blizzard experimenting in radical areas of online service. A prime example is the post-launch StarCraft II Marketplace, which--in addition to supporting the upload of free maps--will allow users to sell high-quality maps and mods, a monetary incentive largely untested in the industry.

The man behind Blizzard's big online push is Greg Canessa, former head of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade division. During an interview with Shacknews this weekend, Canessa touched on topics such as the marketplace, console potential, LAN play, and whether we might see games other than Blizzard's on Battle.net in the future. ... Read more

Blizzard has released some crisp official images showing off its work on the upcoming revamp of Battle.net.

The service will launch in early 2010 alongside StarCraft II. For more details, check out our Battle.net writeup from earlier today.

Blizzard revealed new details on the upcoming revision of its multiplayer service Battle.net during BlizzCon today.

"Battle.net has actually got more players on it than World of Warcraft," Blizzard's Rob Pardo reminded the crowd at the beginning of his talk. The service has 12 million players to WoW's 11.5 million.

The new Battle.net will feature standard panes for news, profiles/avatars, and achievements. The biggest news was the new "Real ID" system, which allows players to communicate across all of Blizzard's games in Xbox Live fashion.

Real ID also links achievements across all of Blizzard's games and characters, meaning players won't need to re-earn achievements on one character that they earned on another.

Pardo went into detail on custom map support. Map makers can ... Read more

Blizzard today opened the redesigned version of its Battle.net website, combining several of its game services into a unified portal.

Players can now merge World of Warcraft accounts with a Battle.net account to create a single consolidated handle.

The account also interfaces with the Blizzard Store. A game management display allowing the automatic download of titles purchased on the service. Additionally, users of the new Battle.net will be automatically entered for future Blizzard beta key drawings.

Though merging accounts is currently optional, Blizzard noted that World of Warcraft players will eventually be forced to consolidate their accounts on Battle.net.

"As we continue to build additional functionality into the new Battle.net, we will eventually require all active World of Warcraft accounts to migrate over to Battle.net Accounts in order to continue playing," reads the site.