The Battle.net 2.0 features and screenshots were officially released at Blizzcon 2009 by the developers. In this revamp, Blizzard aims to integrate all friends across all the Blizzard games into a single monster-sized community where you can keep track of friends playing WoW, Diablo III, Starcraft II and other games; and communicate with them either by text or voice-chat.

Blizzard provided us a Press Kit CD with the official FAQ and fifteen screenshots of each of the features we may find in Battle.net 2.0 platform. I will attempt to describe for you what you may find in each of these screenshots in case you overlook something.

LOGIN SCREEN

In the first screenshot, we can see the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Login Screen.  It’s pretty simple and resembles the way World of WarCraft’s Login Screen is set up.

Here you enter your Battle.net Account and password, rather than your old StarCraft screen name, and press the login button.  Below the login are two options: Remember Account and Remember Password.  Very convenient to save you time if you want to get straight into the action without hassle.

On the right side, there are three buttons: Play As Guest, Manage Account, and Options. In the background, you can see a space view with a Saturn-like planet to the right. A Battlecruiser is slowly crossing your view and will suddenly go into warp-speed and disappear over the planet’s horizon. I saw this at the Blizzard campus back on July 20, 2009.

DASH BOARD

The Dashboard can leave you speechless. Not only is the Terran-themed UI looking awesome in 3D with all those gadgets and cables keeping everything together, the amount of info we can discern at first glance is breathtaking.

On the top-right frame, is your account avatar, screen name (EnoyIs) and your achievement score (9001).  There’s another option there that isn’t known to me. Below, is the Battle.net logo and the details of how many users are playing, how many games are played, and how many gamers are on Battle.net. Your last login is displayed here too.

Beneath is the Starcraft II News feed straight from the website showing the latest headlines and the community headlines (Q&As, Patch Notes, Race changes, etc.)

On the bottom strip, to the left we see the menu button, and to the far right we see the local time (8:23 AM), followed by a microphone icon indicating voice chat and a man-icon with the number 12 (which is probably 12 friends online that you can voice chat with by clicking on this icon and browsing their names). Kinda nifty.

Now the content on the top-left of this dash board is interesting. You see two green icons: Single Player and Multi-Player.  When hovering over the Single Player button you get a small window displayed below with the following info:

“Campaign.  Start the single player campaign for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty” followed by the Start button.

Why is this amusing?  Because in contrast with old Battle.net, you no longer need to logout to play the single player.  As we commented a month ago during our single-player hands on preview, even if you are playing single player you can still voice chat with your friends in WoW, Diablo III or Starcraft II.

I do not know what all the icons beneath the Single Player and Multi-Player buttons are, but some are user-friendly.  The film icon probably means you can access the cinematics there.  The ladder, chat channels, the star icon means Achievements, and your character profile.

SINGLE PLAYER SCREEN

In this screenshot you can see the single player campaign screen which gives you a bit of lore about Mission 3: Zero Hour. You can create a new game or load a saved game.

A very interesting feature here is the “continue” button which allows you to pause a game and move back to the Battle.net UI to access other features, before resuming your single player game.

The game tracks your current campaign achievements, and gives you access to special single player features such as Skirmish and Challenge modes.  Both offer separate Achievement-tracking, increasing the value of playing the campaigns and maps more than once.

Note that on the upper-left corner you still have access to Battle.net features such as ladder, general chat, achievements and profile.  Voice chat may be found on the lower corner where it says 12 friends are online.

FRIENDS LIST

On the bottom-right in this screenshot you can see the Friends List within a Starcraft II game.  You can browse up and down, and by the looks of it you might be able to stretch the window’s height. The microphone icon can be seen on the bottom of the Friend List.

REPLAY UI

The Replay UI offers an interesting extra info: you can see in real-time within the Units tab each of the players represented by colors (in this screenshot: yellow, orange, blue, and purple) and the units they have currently and the amount of each unit.

For example, in the screenshot to the side we see that the yellow player has 8 SCVs.  Orange has 7 SCVs.  Blue has 1 zerg egg, 2 larvas, 8 drones, and 1 overlord.  Purple has 8 SCVs.

On the lower-right corner we have two frames. The first one allows you to pause, rewind or fast-forward the replay. To the right the Plus and Minus signs are to decrease or increase the replay speed.  You can see the full length of the replay (12:45 minutes) and the minute the replay is currently playing (5:30 / 12:45).

The frame underneath seems to indicate you can change the video settings and audio volume levels of the replay.  You can also choose to see everyone in the replay, or specific players only using a drop-down menu.

ACHIEVEMENTS UI

This screenshot is going to blow your mind with all the info it contains about your gaming.  There are six tabs on the left edge of this screenshot: Summary, Achievements, Statistics, Match History, Avatars/Decals, and Player Maps.  The summary gives you a shortened view of all those at once, but clicking on those tabs will give you a much longer list of statistics.

In this Achievement summary page, you get the Statistics - Multiplayer 1v1 (this seems to indicate this is the match you have most played).  Career Wins 132.  Most Wins as Zerg, Most wins against Protoss.  Most Successful map: Lost Temple, Highest Rank Achieved, Current highest rank achieved.

Under Match History there are two icons. The Trophy (Win) or the Blue skull with crossed bones (Loss).  In the screenshot you see 1v1 Defense of the Ancients (trophy) match date 5/25/09.  2v2 Lost Temple (Skull) match date 5/25/09 and so on.

The Achievements list on the right edge gives a comprehensive list of info: Overall progress (390/670); Campaign (51/55); Skirmish (53/72); Challenge (18/95); Multiplayer (72/80); MODS (6/42); and Combat (75/200).

Recent Achievements reveals that each achievement you complete has a specific artwork icon to identify them. This is the achievement list that everyone will be able to see online on the website.

PROFILE ACHIEVEMENTS

The very same icons you saw displayed horizontally at the bottom-right in the previous screenshot can be seen here with more comprehensive info.

• Zerg Temple Grunt: Win Zerg Temple skirmish on easy mode.
• Negotiations Terminated.: Destroy an enemy players base.
• You and What Army?: Build 100 Marines.
• I Hates Ta Read!: Shoot a book many times, especially the letters “A” and “B”.
• Get Lost: Use a poorly constructed compass to get lost and then find your way back before starvation sets in.

Each achievement displays a laurel-wrapped star icon with the amount of achievement points gained (in this case 10 points) and the date the achievement was obtained on.

On the far right, there’s a button to compare your achievements with a friend’s.

IN-GAME ACHIEVEMENT UI

The previous one showed you how the Achievement UI looks like when accessing it through Battle.net, but not how it looks when you want to access it from within a single player game.  This screenshot shows you the amount of total achievement points you got at the top (In this case: 3,125).

Whenever you have accomplished a new achievement, you will see it pop in real-time onscreen the very same way that happens in World of Warcraft when you complete one.  In Starcraft II it looks pretty cool, and may come accompanied with a loud sound clip to alert you.

AVATARS / DECALS

I might be wrong on this one, but here goes my interpretation:  From the Achievement Profile in Battle.net you can access the Avatar / Decal page.  It displays hundreds of avatars that you can set as your avatar. All races avatars are displayed here at once.

However, the Decals tabs seem to separate them per race.  So you can click on the Terran tab (Sons of Korhal insignia), the Protoss or Zerg Decals tabs to access race-specific avatars.

Now what makes me curious is that when you click on an avatar, you can see in the screenshot a blue-text that reads: “View Achievement”.

What we can extrapolate from this is that all the greyed out avatars after Zeratul need to be unlocked by earning achievement points or completing specific achievements.  It’s a way to get ranks and set yourself challenges. If you wish to use a specific avatar, you will have to work hard to earn it, and then set it as your avatar (with bragging rights).

One of them is a Marine with a panda on its visor (Warcraft easter egg).  I can see Kate Lockwell (the reporter), the Adjutant, and Dr. Hanson among the avatars.

This screenshot in particular reveals something cool that you don’t get to see in the original Starcraft.  There are three tabs: Korey, DreamX and Flywheel.  Apparently you can open separate windows for private messages, minimize them, and browse through them.

MATCHMAKING UI

I’m sure everyone wanted to find out how this looked like, eh?  Here you can use Battle.net 2.0 Matchmaking to find opponents of a comparable skill level for ranked online matches.  No more noobs getting owned by veterans pretending to be noobs (smurfing) and no more Veterans wasting hours fighting noobs.  This matchmaking system will be setting you up with players that are at your skill level.

Choose a Game Type: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, or Free For All.

Choose a Race: Terran, Protoss, Zerg or Random.

You can set up your map preferences for this matchmaking: i.e. 2v2 Silver Leagues.

Estimated Wait Time: 02 minutes.

Start Search button.

On the far right there are two boxes. You can choose to play Co-op Skirmish (Play a non-ranked skirmish game with others); or Play Custom Games (User Map Settings.

Something in this screenshot that we haven’t seen before is on the top-right to the right of your avatar. You can see the avatar of your party members and their name.  Kinda cool. (i.e. EnoyIs as Zeratul, and Flywheel as Adjuntant in the screenshot)

JOIN CUSTOM GAME UI

ZOMG !!!!  Can you see in this screenshot the REFRESH button?  Do you know how annoying it is to wait 20 seconds or longer for the list to auto-refresh?  Now you can refresh the list yourself in Battle.net 2.0—and that’s not the only cool thing.  See the Only Show New Maps checkbox? And the Popularity bar? You can actually see how popular your map is.

The Genre drop-down menu might make you curious.  It is set to ALL in this screenshot. If you look at the Genre column—that means: Hero Defense, Tower Defense, Co-op Skirmish, Melee Versus, Other (Racing), Other (Snake), Other (Bomber), Other (Frenzy), Hero Arena, etc.

One of the games listed there is SC Grand Prix and DOTA Allstars .... (Drools!)

CREATE CUSTOM GAME

This screenshot shows you how big the list to choose a custom game is. No longer a tiny window that you need to browse patiently to find your wished map among hundreds of maps.

Additionally, you can filter the maps by Genre or by Type when you are on the Create Game UI.

On the right column, above the Create Game button you have some nice options there.

• Genre: Melee Versus (dropdown)
• Type: 2v2 (dropdown)
• Speed: Normal (dropdown)
• Popularity (LED bar)
• Lobby: Public or Invite Only (checkbox)

GAME LOBBY UI

The Game Lobby got a complete overhaul.  First, you can see the button [Open to Public] displayed in this screenshot.  The Game Lobby is set to Private. Since you are the one who created the game, this is what you see.  You can probably toogle the game to be public or private by clicking that button.

You can see how teams are set up by reading on the right: Team 1, Team 2 and Team 3.  In Team 3, the sockets are empty.

See the microphone icon on EnoyIs?  He is the one talking. Everyone else: Flywheel and DreamX are listening (Speaker icon).  Gawd’s icon probably means he is not using Voice Chat.

It’s a very simple Lobby Room. You see the map image, Host, Genre, Type, Speed.  Beneath is the Game Lobby Chat, and where you input text.  The Quit and Start button (take in mind this is the UI for the one who is creating the game).

BATTLE.NET 2.0 SOCIAL UI

Remember when the developers said they wanted Battle.net 2.0 to be a social hub for all Blizzard gamers?  Well, Holy cow. I bet you weren’t expecting this.  In this screenshot there are a lot of nice things going on.

At the bottom-left, Dustin Browder has just come online.  You get instant popup alerts letting you know which friends are coming online.  You can create multiple channels (minimize and max).  You can create separate Private Message windows and as seen on the screenshot you can drag them around the screen (Minimize or max).

The party chat let’s you see your friend’s avatars.  The green icon now I noticed means that person is active. The yellow clock icon means that person is idle.  A red circle icon probably means that friend is playing a different Blizzard game other than Starcraft II. Someone offline will show up as grayed-out or semi-transparent in your Friend List (as is the case of Avin in the screenshot).  The party and private message windows are brown-reddish.  The Friend List window is orange-light-brown. Am really loving this UI design.

As seen in the Friends List, there are two interesting communication features.  Dustin Browder is asking: “Anyone up for some heroics later in WoW?”—that message oddly shows up as a bubble chat coming out of his avatar. It adds the time-stamp in gray at the bottom of the bubble chat.

What’s so intriguing about it?  It didn’t show up in any of the private messages nor in the public chat—it appeared on the Friend List itself.  Global Friend List messages without a chat window?  Now that’s some serious business Friend List.  Finally it’s not just a list, but an interactive UI to communicate globally with all of your friend list at once!

Another thing you can get out of that screenshot is that Greg Canessa is playing World of Warcraft, Dustin Browder is playing a Starcraft II 1v1 Match, Flywheel is probably sitting on a Battle.net chat, and DreamX is probably playing Single Player (In-Game).

WORLD OF WARCRAFT FRIEND LIST

To wrap up the description of each of the 15 Battle.net 2.0 screenshots provided to us by Blizzard Entertainment, here you have a screenshot of how the World of Warcraft Friends List is going to look like once Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty hits the airwaves over Battle.net 2.0.

Dustin Browder (Daedoo) appears as playing a Starcraft II 1v1 Match.  Greg Canessa (Silver) appears as playing in WoW - Dalaran. Jack Sterling shows up as playing in WoW: Archimonde - The Barrens.

The World of Warcraft Friends List doesn’t look much different.  Makes you wonder if it will get an overhaul later on. I dig the looks of the Chat UI in Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty a lot. Did you like how Battle.net 2.0 is shaping up?  Make sure to bring a towel with you before answering, please. (for excess drool)

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