the net raiders

Son of a… well I guess there is no sense in getting upset about this. I mean this is what Blizzard does. Not to mention it is an amazing amount of free press for their “eventually-to-be-released-games” list.

So by now most of you have heard the news. It just takes me a little time to get around to reporting on it. StarCraft 2 has been delayed until first half of 2010. This is both ambiguous and crappy for those of you waiting with bated breath to get destroyed by some Koreans. I mean this is their national sport and all. Personally I blame the new Battle.net 2.0 they are working on. But their PR team had this to say about the matter.

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

Now pull up a chair and let’s have a chat. I think this is a good thing. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t like waiting for games. I hate waiting for Blizzard games, making that brutal mistake in ‘97 when I heard that Diablo 2 was scheduled for a ‘99 release….

But the fact of the matter is. Blizzard isn’t going to even bother with a game if it goes out the door with notable issues. Something that Bill Roper and Co. didn’t have the pleasure of solving with HellGate London and FlagShip studios (R.I.P.). So at least we can sit here, pissed of, but with confidence that they are working hard enough to make the experience as fun as possible. After all, we don’t have a choice either way.

Also, when you have a game like this which can be taken way to seriously, there is plenty of room for customer betrayal. What do I mean by this? I am saying that there are political factors going on in the Blizzard sphere that doesn’t particularly concern us gamers until we log on to Battle.net and get haxor’d to death by a sickening [exploitable] bug. The competition is fierce in SC. And in the arena of Egames, this can potentially make or break the game. And with so many people wanting Blizz to fail (admit it, you guys are out there), this would just be an excuse to pounce. The emotions of love can quickly turn to hate, people get upset that they wanted this long, feel betrayed and develop a stigma toward the brand. Quite an admirable (and miserable) position for Blizzard to be put into. Make a good game…. and you are kings among men, make a poor one… and it could break the company.

Besides, most of the post was about Battle.net. They are rebuilding their [free] system fromt he ground up. And so far I am pretty excited with everything I have seen. They are finally streamlining all of their games into one system. Which means, more importantly for you action RPG’ers, that a crisp brand new, relatively debugged Battle.net will be waiting when Diablo 3 (!!!) rolls on by in the 2010 framework. I’m sure this is going to be addressed at Blizzcon 2009, and I will do my best to report everything back to you.

In the mean time, stay cool, Blizz is making a solid game and play a little StarCraft for old times sake.

***Edit: Am I right or am I write. Blizzard just posted this today….

Mike Morhaime:Our vision for Battlenet is ambitious. As I have said before, we intend to make Battlenet the premiere online gaming destination. We view the next generation of Battlenet as strategically important to the future of our company. It’s the foundation for all future online games at Blizzard and will be the cornerstone of our community.

In addition to supporting tournaments, rankings, and multi-player game matching for Starcraft 2 and future Blizzard games, the next generation of Battlenet will add social networking features, cross-game communication, unified login and account management, and more. Battlenet will bring together players from across all of our games including World of Warcraft, eventually allowing them to connect, communicate, and share experiences with each other through the service regardless of which Blizzard game.

The new version of Battlenet is being integrated with Starcraft 2 more tightly than in any previous Blizzard game. Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battlenet for the launch of Starcraft 2. This means, as Bobby mentioned, that we will not be ready to launch Starcraft 2 in 2009. We recognize that we only get one chance to make a first impression. It’s much easier to retain a player that has a great initial experience than to bring them back after a mediocre one.

While we could rush into beta and launch an inferior game and service experience this year, fixing that experience over time, our track record has proven that there is a far greater value for us and for our players in making sure that the experience is great right from the start.