Battle.net Interview: Greg Canessa

@ITQcaleb If you worked for 3-4 really hard wouldn't you want to make some money off of what you just built?

THIS GAME WILL HAVE ONLINE ACTIVATION? IS OURS AFTER WE WILL BUY IT?? THERE WILL BE IN OUR RACK AS LONG AS THERE SERVERS???? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS!!!! THE REST IS BLAH-BLAH...

LoL school is the one that suffers the most :-P

lol.. EARN PORTRAITS??? wtf, give me all the 1000 portraits from getgo or custom portraits man, whats wrong with you. do you want all the 10million users to have the same avatars the first month and then when they get their new portraits they all have the same portraits the month after that? lame always online? you talk like internet was free? i have limited internet access and have to go to my friends house whenever i wanna play online. i get online when i wanna update or play online multiplayer. WHY oh why would i wanna be online ALL the time and risk lagging when playing skirmish/singleplayer?? WHY would i risk disconnecting in the middle of an intense singleplayer game? WHY do i need to be connected when i just wanna tinker with my mods and have some lonewolf fun? power all blizzard games? haha talk about downtime/maintence. you gonna have that one day in the week where you just totally cant play any of your blizzard games... smart...

Will Battle.net still be free? Does anyone know?

@Dragon240sx, wouw your comment is awesome

So it's not possible to upload your own community pic? What a shame =(

Battle.net one of my favorite phrases ever. Thanks for helping me do real bad in school blizzard, it's been fun ;)

Blizz said in one of their podcasts a few months ago that the company focus right now is Diablo III and Starcraft II, along with the next WoW expansion. Of course, they also have a team of people locked in a bunker somewhere creating their new super secret MMORPG. Somewhere after those priorities are hit, the guy in the interview from Blizz said they would love to shift focus onto a Warcraft IV. So yes, it would be a while before you see that, most likely.

Come on already. By the time this comes out I will be too old to be playing games. I might have a wife and kids by then and not even have time to play. I think they clearly need to speed things up a bit.

@ GarbageGnome How about the fact that they changed the add on policy in WoW its not bad enough that people spent so much time fixing/ updating there game they take there ideas all the time without so much as a thanks and then they make it even harder for those people to recieve any compensation for there hard work. But thats buisness right so you would be ok if they started charging another $15 dollars a month for new Bnet service on top of WoW monthly fee?

@ LordAinav yes you are right there are tons of people still playing WoW and there are a few reason why that is. The main reason is that most other MMOs on the market are similar to WoW in one way or another look at Eve its got a great fan base because its got nothing to do with WoW. Also why would someone whos invested 4-5 yrs of there game time want to change to another mmo thats close to the same concept? Now how do you think all horrible wow players , grandmas and girlfriends got started playing? It wasnt the Mr. T commercial they more than likely know someone that plays. yes bnet was awsome back in the day but there are so many other services out there now that do this already and i would imagine if you play alot of blizzard games this is the service for you. But they would never abandon PC good MMO and RTS console games are few and far between not to mention how hard the controls are. @ITQcaleb Your right i have no clue what Blizzard is about ive never talked to the CEO or board members all i know is what they show us / tell us on the fourms and there buisness decisions that they have made. Like for example the Pandaren Monk pet where only a percentage of the profits went to charity and the rest went in there pockets. How much effort does it take to mail you a pet? I would be ignorant not to see that.

valent1n, think of it like this. It's not one story broken into three parts. it is three seperate games. all three to make up for the 11 year delay. why you complaining?

Damm blizzard hurry up... we're been wating around 11 years? still you made me happy by saying "CUSTOM GAMES"

makes me sick when I think about this game and how both starcraft and warcraft are a rip off the warhammer franchise

What a bunch of party poopers on this site. I seriously doubt that WoW will fall to the wayside anytime in the near future. Their fan base is too strong not to mention hopelessly addicted. I can still see a Warcraft 4 as well, Blizzard is pretty good at keeping the interests of a broad audience and they know that there are still fans of the strategy version of the WarCraft world. This new Battle.net sounds fine by me, it sounds like a more streamlined and versatile server. Why is that such a bad thing? And as for being "money hungry" how are they any worse then say EA as far as being money hungry? I've never been disappointed with Blizzard and they have yet to betray their players.

@abecale with WoW Wotlk release in china it will surely get more subs and yes with the upcoming expansion. If Blizzard still manages to make WoW popular for the next decade then I am proven wrong, lets just wait and see(hope i'm still alive by then) lol If WoW still growing, i doubt we will see WCIV. :(

@caleb What I mean is that WoW's popularity will surely die soon it may be the next 2 years or more, obviously it won't forever be the top hombre of the mmo genre. But it doesn't matter WoW is definitely an over achiever it made it mark of one of the greatest in pc gaming.

@ LordAinav I really doubt WoW is going to die anytime soon, or at all, for that matter. 3rd expansion in, it will only get more subs, and blizz obviously know what they are doing when creating and mantaining games with online features (Starcraft, WoW, Diablo, which still all get played online to this day)

@ITQcaleb: I concur, Blizzard is one of (if not the) most successful gaming companies in the world, and has the most successful MMO in history (WoW). They do not have a history of being asshats with their intellectual properties or their research and development, and the new Battle.net looks to achieve some simple, yet very compelling goals. Of course they are "money hungry" because that's capitalism, but they know the best way to get that money is to put out great products that people want to buy. That's what separates them from the Interplays of the world, business sense.

Apparently there's a lot of people who believe that they know what Blizzard is all about. Good job, you have successfully shown how ignorant you can be. Blizzard being money hungry is so last year. @Ainav: WoW, die soon? What the hell are you talking about? Cataclysm is not out, and there's still more down the line, so WoW is far from dead.

@valent1n its called piracy, and no it wont rise on these three games. blizzard games have a nice story and single player but you will be spending 90% of the time online with endless user-maps and mods. Hell there's a TON of people still playing warcraft3/diablo2 all online which i still do from time to time. And for the three separate games they have said that the first one will feature all the races for the multilayer and the other two will just be for the single player/story. Also, they don't say that they will charge $50 for EACH game.

If WoTLK is that bad why there are still millions of people playing WoW? Even with the latest report the game still holds 11.5 million subs and the game is almost 6 years old already, yes it will die soon but no doubt the game aged pretty well. FYI Battle.net was the first online gaming service to be incorporated into games and it was launched with Diablo 1 in 97. Bnet is fully integrated within the game you don't need any other 3rd party application like Steam or GFWL to run sp and it's online mp. That is Bnet 2.0 total advantage over steam, any blizzard game makes use of it's fullest potential and it will develop over time just like the extensive updates of war3 bnet over starcraft bnet. Just like Greg said they will keep updating the platform and progress forward with the community behind it and yeah I'm eager to see what will happen next. Just take your time blizzard, thanks for not abandoning the pc platform even with these whiny kids around. In the end I know blizzard will prove them wrong. PC 2010 GOTY baby !! looking forward to it :)

So, yet another online "community" service, yet another friends list, except this one limited only to games from one developer. Why bother? Steam does fine thank-you-very-much, and works with a vast number of games. This strikes me as just another GFWL type attempt to get players invested in a "community" that offers less than those already out there.

i think the piratery will rise on these three SC2 games

let's talk about Starcraft 2 : this is so stupid, 3 stories for a single game, i know you want money Blizzard, i want them too, but not f**** your fans that made you this. Hey, i have an idea for you: why don't you make several releases of Diablo 3 for each hero class another game so will get more money from... YOUR FANS ?

@Dragon240sx so true you speak !

im sorry to say Blizzard was a way better company when they were small time they really cared about there fans. Now that there activision blizzard they are the most money hungry company out there last blizzcon all there fan sites couldnt report on anything inside unlike previous years and why? so they could make more money from the direct tv special and live internet feeds. Like the millions of WoW users times 15$ a month isnt enough for them. Look at how much effort was put into the rushed launch of WotLK which is worst expansion yet trying to milk more money. Not to mention the blizzard store were u can buy ingame pets for real money like we needed another way to hand them more MONEY. Whats next buying levels , gear , or mounts? o wait you can already level super fast if you get your friends to spend there money too. I wont be the least bit shocked if this new battle.net will cost money in some way or another. its really up to us as consumers to say ok we have had enough. But this generation of gamers seem to not care and have no problems handing over there hard earned dollar and why because gaming is cool and mainstream now. Blizzard could wrap dog crap in a Starcraft 2 box and it would still sell millions of copys. I cant wait till the next best mmo isnt activision blizzard owned so I can stop funding them to play with my friends.

great step for Blizzard

I like what I see. As long as the singleplayer is possible without being online

As long as we don't have to be online to play the single player versions of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. But I give Blizzard credit, They have always delivered.

The next gen of Battle.net! Isn't that kinda like 'the Next GEN Walkman - it now plays mp3s!' Great job for catching up with like every other gaming service out there, but did you really need to do some BS promo to let us know?

(I do agree WoW needs to be brought down so that people stop compareing every mmo to it or talk about it in other mmos.) *Hold Sign* I am Happly Free From WoW for over 2 years x) just say NO to "WoWDrug" (My Money is on Blizzard Next MMO/Guild Wars 2/ and FFXIV)

Sounds like everything steam already offers.. probably will come with better customer service tho

I think what some people here dont understand is...... First, the company is creating service with battle.net for only their video games that hardly any other companies cant do because they are (honestly put not up to bar with Blizzard) to improve the experiance players both old and new can have with classic games that some of us older gamers been growing up with and future generations with Diablo 3/Starcraft 2 and their "Secret" mmo in making. While i am reading alot this about they stole all ideas from PSN/Xbox Live/ Steam or we and took everything best from them and created something better people shouldnt be complaing..... oh and battel.net was around before (was even dreamed of) PSN/Xbox Live/Steam/Gamespy who you think this places ripped off from? Second, That they such successful company (I personally think since following them since Warcraft 2/Diablo/Starcraft) never was let down by their Quality Over Quanity on video games. If more video game companies out in the world did what Blizzard those now we wouldnt have any games under 9/10 rating. Blizzard Will Never Release A product unless they are trully satisfied with it. And i find myself comeing back even year or two coming back to Blizzard classics like Diablo and Diablo 2 playing all over again even 10 years after they were out and still have more fun playing them than some newly realsed games. I wish more companies ripped off from Blizzard's Geniues

Let's just hope that Activision doesn't pull them down with lame titles like Guitar Hero: Lady Gaga before they finish the Battle.net upgrade. Everyone in this merger should be bathing in gold coins at this point, but now we are hearing about major losses due to Activision's lame titles and mismanagement. It will ultimately be Blizzard's games to pull the company out of the red...if the CEO's can stop giving themselves bonuses for a couple months at least. I'm all for a Battle.net upgrade cause the performance as it is now is still about as bad as it was during the Diablo days with disconnects and lag. They need to accompany their aspirations with massive bandwidth and servers to actually pull it off.

Ah, wonderful. More people complain about something that Blizzard is doing for people who enjoy their games.

By all means, PLEASE focus more on battle.net. I'm sure battle.net will do just fine with out some new games. 1D10TS, I haven't purchase a blizzard game since D2 and that was almost 10 years ago. Blizzard it's more concern about WOW and has forgotten about it's other games.

I have a feeling that quitting wow was the least of my worries

Will be great when SC2 and D3 are released so we can see what this new battle.net is all about. Who is with me?!?!

Despite that I'm mainly looking forward to the single player campaign and the galaxy editor/custom maps, the new upgraded battle.net truly seems like a powerful technology that has never been used in any other RTS game.

Hooraaaaay, its more like steam!!! Now I can die happy! Man, why are these guys not releasin the games we wanna play. I've been waiting for starcraft 2 for a looooooong time. And World of Warcraft is okay and all, but these guys seriously need to make more RTS's in the Warcraft Universe.

and.. battle.net will work with steam??..

i dont understand all the hate towards a company that strives for quality and gameplay above all else...if only all companies worked that way. i would rather play 1 gem a month than 4 turds a week.

chaosbrigade - yes uncharted 2 and Mgs 4 were great games, but will you still play them almost daily nearly a decade later for hours on end? i appreciate blizzard taking their time to get a game right and knock it out of the park everytime. they arent known for innovation so much as extreme polish and longetivity. they are also a small company that grew exponentially in recent years, so with that growth comes some growing pains. also, all their RTS games are made by ONE team. it takes time to make greatness. for example God of War is a great game - took 5 years to make. Uncharted took years to make. if you want a crappy game, go buy a typical EA release.

It is pretty apparent that the people that buy Blizzard games require perfection something that is UNACHIEVABLE. Until you are willing to develop a game and understand the time, resources and company stability it takes to produce a game of true quality (like most blizzard games) you need to shut your doucher mouth.

you had to love the character inventory steal hacks in D2.... sitting there starring, as you drop every item in your inventory, watching the hacker pick up all your items. epic.

Yeah yeah yeah, fancy DRM dressed up with achievements, big deal. When is Diablo 3 coming out?