Diablo III Kore

The History of Battle.net

The engine is Blizzard's Battle.net multiplayer platform, which is home to millions of players since 1997 and played on the games of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo series. Recently, also for World of Warcraft, a Battle.net account requirement. Anyone can log on as long as you possess a valid CD-Key. The service is divided into four known realms: Asia, Europe, U.S. West and U.S. East.

Currently, Blizzard is working on Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 on a new version, the Battle.net 2.0.

Battle.net - The Past

In January 1997, Battle.net went online with the release of Diablo 1. Shortly before, in December 1996, the online website was still [www.battle.net]. The Schaefer brothers at Blizzard North promised a lot from their project. Initially, there was this free service; a slimmed-type IRC chat with the ability to bring up to 4 players in a diablo 1 game, which was all it could offer. However, it inspired players into a new type of multiplayer experience. Before, there were really no way of directly integrating into a multiplayer game platform, so they had to resort to an external solution. Which means, Battle.net was a huge success, and by the end of November 1997, the numbers of active users on Battle.net was around 1.25 million and it was long before the expansion of DSL. In April 1999, well before the release of Diablo 2, it was already on 2.3 million active users, probably due to the released of RTS - Starcraft and Broodwar.

In 2002, the number of users on Battle.net sky rocketed with the release of Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction. The number of users was at 11 million active players in September of 2002, of whom about 400,000 at peak times while playing and continues to rise steadily. In Diablo 1, it was quiet easy to cheat, since all data were stored on the computers of users and Battle.net was just a gateway to connet to other players. Players could change their game and characters locally, which created an unfair advantage for others. The success of Battle.net was clear in 1998, and with that, Blizzard added a few additional features to go with Starcraft. Starcraft was set to connect to a ladder system, which represented the players in a ranking system. It was used as the first Blizzard Starcraft CD-Key system which only allows one person to play online per version of Starcraft. Therefore, the same account could be muted or even eliminated.

After Starcraft: Broodwar has established itself to be a successful hit on Battle.net, in 1999, Blizzard decided to make an older classic to be included on Battle.net; Warcraft 2 Edition. It was no longer depenedent on the IPX emulator. In 2000, Diablo 2 saw the light of the world and immediately brought some changes to Battle.net along with it. In the past, cheating in Diablo 1 was fairly easy, it was noted that it couldn't happen to Diablo 2 at all. This is the first time, it was set on Blizzard's client server based architecture. The characters were stored on the servers and the game ran from there, preventing from going to local manipulation. In addition, the interface got a major overhaul, the players were no-lnger represented only by their names, but also by an avatar, their game character. There was also a different ladder system, since players are divided into hardcore and softcore version. The distinction continued when the characters of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction appeared in classic and expansion were shared.

In 2002 - 2003, Blizzard introduced Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne to the Battle.net engine, and added a few extra features; most important, a new matchmaking system, which allows players to find equally skilled opponents, randomly. It prevented manipulations of the ladder, because players could've taken the easy route to achieve a high rank, by allowing friends to be the dummies for wins, over and over again. It also worked with team matches, which allows up to 4 players, and automatically going up against a similar skilled team.

Battle.net - The Present

Well, how about today's Battle.net? Blizzard reported that Battle.net is today's largest multiplayer platform in the world and reached number of users, even XBOX Live could only dream of. Unfortunately, it wasn't perfect. The StarCraft community has now largely withdrawn from the Battle.net and play on pvpgn-based servers such as iCCup because Blizzard initially gave the ladder system to the external WGTour and the Garkeine Ladder. Moreover, these private servers offer many new features such as improved protection against hackers, better latency, and many tournament and ladder features. Diablo 1 is still playable after 12 years, and has enjoyed great popularity but not any longer.

The plan was to keep Diablo 2 client-server clean of hacks, and exploits. There were people out there that was able to exploit bugs in order to create an unfair advantage with powerful items, and the possibly of doubling objects [DUPES] to sell in Item Shops for real money. The creation of Maphack, bots to TPPK represents the Battle.net of the past/present that nearly destoryed the gameplay. Especially the chance of being killed in hardcore while playing in public games, since the person is in constant danger of other players trying to end his life with no opportunity to respond. Recently, Blizzard has taken actions of these machinations on Battle.net, closing over 350,000 accounts in November 2008, unbeknowned to us of the questionable success. Almost every account has been closed due to the use of modified file to start Diablo 2 for example, spambots that populate public channels and follow the players in public games. Well, despite all the problems Diablo 2 had on battle.net, after 9 years of high popularity, the Diablo 2 community seems to be relatively painless. The calming of the storm sets in every other year by the announcement of a major content patch, which is always being delayed. It took several years after the announcement of patch 1.10 to be released, and now with the upcoming patch 1.13, the possible release date was April of 2009, but it is October, entering November, still nothing in sight.

Warcraft 3 players populates most of Battle.net nowadays, with an exisiting active ladder, and DOTA, enough said, DOTA. The good thing is that players are regularly invited by Blizzard to play on the BlizzCon Invitational, or World Wide. The ladder is still restarting regularly and is divided into the solo versions Ladder, Arranged Team (2n2, 3n3, 4n4) Random Team (2n2, 3n3, 4n4), and FFA. There are currently some 50,000 people who regularly play online.

World of Warcraft didn't intiaitly start on Battle.net, on march 20, 2009, it was announced that all WoW players need to convert their account to their Battle.net account, which as of Nov. 11, 009 will be required in order to be able to play WoW. Thus, the final mark will be permanently integrated into the Blizzard's Battle.net. World of Warcraft - Battle.net 2.0

Battle.net - What now?

At BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard has unveiled the first of the new features of 2.0 based on Battle.net Starcraft 2nd in contrast to the recent history of Battle.net, we could see the improvements from game to game only marginally, hopefully, Battle.net 2.0 will be a huge improvement.

        

Battle.net 2 Summary

• As soon as one has created a Battle.net account, you can register your games on it. From then on, it is possible to load the game at any time for free download and sign up for future beta tests.
  

• The company's profile will contain a lot of information, unless they themselves provide. So it should be possible to change the avatar to indicate his own interests, which previously obtained Achievements and statistics of other players are looking at us and much more.

• Also new is the integrated voice chat, which allows communication via the headset without having to resort to TeamSpeak or the like to have. Even complex tactics should be discussed while you play. As the matter remains to be seen, currently, it is difficult to imagine that someone comes into play, you immediately via voice chat, only "pp pp pp pp pp tp tp tp tp tp" hears. ;) ;)

• Cloud computing, what must one for them? Well, all game data will be managed online, including the single player games. This makes it possible to access any time from any computer in the world from its data.

• The statistics are greatly expanded. For Starcraft 2, this will be mainly about the races, their own skill, his own league affiliation and the rank of the player.

• The chat functionality is properly drilled and should function as a recent instant messenger. So it will be possible to receive messages even when you're offline. You will be notified as soon as it re-enters the Battle.net 2.0. In addition, it will be possible to operate simultaneously different chat window, for example, for private, chat will be. The latter will offer the opportunity to speak as Diablo 3 players with his friends when they are playing Starcraft 2.
  

• Achievements should not be missing.  These little mini tasks bring rewards (mainly his own ego and of course strengthen the envy of others).  Let us rejoice on the "Kill one million traps" serial killer. Achievement!
  

• Game list filters are easier to find the perfect game.  How often has already sat on the search for the right game and saw the sheer Trade Games Baalruns not? 

• The friends lists are exactly like the Cross-game chat also. So you can always see what your friends do what Achievements you just win or whether they are playing the single player.

• Facebook was yesterday, here comes Battle.net 2.0 with Real-ID! . All today's popular social network features to make it into the new Battle.net. Thus one can choose whether you want reallife to specify where his name, to enter his friends sort where they are known and classified into groups.  Clans and Guilds will support stronger growth.  Whether it will be seen visually in the future, which player belongs to a certain clan

• So Starcraft 2 is now available in different leagues in each one is sorted by skill level or your own tournaments. This system would be a Diablo 3 PvP mode certainly a good thing too.  It is also possible to consider his options again as the replay previously played games.

• Marketplace is called the new feature with which you can buy directly on Battle.net small additional services. This could be on Diablo 3 for example, involve name changes for characters or special Clan features. In Starcraft 2, one can also special card purchase, which should lie in scope than the popular Warcraft 3 DotA modification.

• The best comes to the conclusion: Battle.net 2.0 will contain a comprehensive cheat and Hacks to keep such people from Battle.net.  Seeing the LAN mode is removed, there is almost no free network code, creating what the hacks much harder. There will also be a control mechanism for parents.  Perhaps we could save ourselves as indeed some extremely pubescent figures.
  

Conclusion

The new Battle.net promises a lot.  If it can hold everything, we face a rosy times. Finally a Battle.net without dupes, cheats, hacks and bots, but with support and modern features.The Game spits us at any time filtering out the game that we were looking. Other players find and keep contact with them is greatly simplified.  And for your own ego, there are not just items, but now also clearly visible awards in the separate account. If all this is implemented, one can look forward to being part of the upcoming Battle.net 2.0 world.