What happened to basic multiplayer features from Battle.net v1.0?  How about innovative new features?

Up until recently, I was heavily focused on the campaign – Kerrigan portrait unlocked, thank you very much – for StarCraft 2.  Naturally, this caused my multiplayer game count to remain low.  After completing the game on Brutal, I set my sights on bringing my campaign skills – *cough* – into the multiplayer game.  It took me a few dozens games to notice, but StarCraft 2, and its incarnation of Battle.net, is actually less feature-rich than Battle.net for Warcraft III or the original StarCraft.

This struck me as incredibly odd.  After all, haven’t the multiplayer options for video games far surpassed that of 1998?  Look at Xbox Live, Steam and PlayStation Network.  Heck, even the “small” fish, like Stardock’s Impulse, have robust systems and blossoming communities.  Outside of Nintendo and its friend codes (sorry), gaming landscapes have exploded with features, taking humble home entertainment devices into the Internet age.

So it left me and the other MMOcast members scratching our heads when there were some glaring omissions from StarCraft 2’s “upgrade” to Battle.net v2.0.  Simple features that have been removed:

• tournament support
• guild support
• chat rooms, public and private (hello 1995)
• profile customization, mainly notes
• annoying custom game settings including searching, sorting and observation games

Battle.net v1.0 features be damned.  This is the 21st century.  We want new toys, new ways to antagonize our friends and new activities to waste time on. Continue Reading