Battle.net was the world’s first fully integrated matchmaking service, which was launched in 1996 with the release of Diablo. Battle.net evolved over the years to fully incorporate online game-play for StarCraft, Diablo II, a re-release of Warcraft II and Warcraft III. [...]

The Battle.net system has been in its current form, without major changes since 2003. The new Battle.net experience is a full-featured online game service designed specifically around Blizzard Entertainment titles, and will include a complete set of “around the game features” including a state-of-the-art matchmaking system, achievement system, social networking features, structured competitive play options, a marketplace, and much more Blizzard’s vision is to create an environment where gamers can compete online, develop an online persona, and stay connected to friends and the rest of the community, while enjoying their games.

Blizzard Entertainment has learnt over the years how incredibly creative their community is and has noted they excel at creating new ways to play their games, such as DOTA. This has served as an inspiration for Blizzard Entertainment to create a rich set of content authoring and publishing tools in Battle.net for gamers to create the next big game type in StarCraft II.

Friend tracking, communication and grouping with friends or ‘guildies’, will now be easier than ever with the Real ID feature which is planned to be implemented into the new Battle.net. Beyond simply seeing your friends’ names and having to remember which character goes with which friend, gamers will be able to see their friends Real ID and chat to them across Blizzard games. Blizzard Entertainment stated that Real ID will be a completely optional feature and gamers will be able to choose how they build their social network within Battle.net as they see fit.

Information courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and sourced from the press release kit which can be found on their website http://us.media.blizzard.com/blizzard/_downloads/presskits/presskit-battlenet-blizzcon2009.zip? All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.