This article was horrible. It was reminiscent of when Valve first unveiled Steam. Back then everyone hated the idea of Steam constricting their games. There was a huge mainstream petition going around to prevent Steam from being released. Even I didn't want to accept Steam. But I think Steam is a huge success, I buy all my games off steam. I have all my friends on Steam and I know what they are playing and can jump into their games whenever I like. While BNet2.0 won't have the large scale digital distribution system that Steam does. I see a similarity.
Also, in this article the author focuses solely on Starcraft II. BNet2.0 encompasses ALL BLIZZARD GAMES. Even World Of Warcraft is getting updated in the new Expansion to support some of the BNet2.0 features. The idea is to build a platform that connects all Blizzard gamers to all Blizzard games. At Blizzcon 2009 on of the VPs of Blizzard gave a demonstration of BNet2.0, talked about the vision, and where they plan to go with it. They are trying make a quality system that will be useful.
Lastly, BNet 2.0 will introduce a kind of Map Store. SC II's game editor is very robust and allows you to create some very nice custom maps, campaigns, etc. Map editors will be able to sell their maps on this store. I think this may appeal to some people on HN more than the article itself.
When Steam first came out, people didn't just hate the idea of Steam constricting their games, they hated the actual implementation of the client. The client was bloated and unstable, and the Counter-Strike community in particular was upset by the fact that Steam was being forced on them even though it didn't confer any significant advantages over WON. During the first week, people had authentication issues with the client not allowing them to play games that had previously worked fine. At one point, someone cracked the exe to not use Steam and the result was better game performance, which was further evidence of how poorly the client was implemented.
The main thing that people like about the Steam client now, as you mentioned, are the client's community support features. People also like the Steam store's frequent discounts. Steam community integration didn't exist until late 2007, and 2007 was also the first year that they did a major holiday sale. Before that point, most people were either neutral on the system, or disliked it because the client was a waste of resources. Its memory footprint was big enough to make a significant performance impact on older machines, which is significant when you consider that Counter-Strike, the most popular game on Steam at that point, was a game from 1999.
People eventually came to like Steam, but that wasn't until Steam began functioning as a service that added value to a product, rather than an impediment that devalued a product. The Battle.net 2.0 is plagued with many of the problems of the original Steam client, and it confers very few of the benefits that the present-day Steam does. People don't just hate the idea of it, they hate the very client itself and will continue hating it until Blizzard does something to fix it. Forcing it on the playerbase when it is still in its current unpolished state is making a lot of people very upset, and reasonably so.
Also: He focused on the Starcraft 2 features of Battlenet 2.0 because that was, you know, relevant to an article on Starcraft 2.
Additionally, how is Battlenet 2.0 going to "connect" Starcraft 2 to World Of Warcraft? How does your Starcraft 2 rank matter, at all, in World Of Warcraft? This is a genuine question, since I haven't played either game.
> Additionally, how is Battlenet 2.0 going to "connect" Starcraft 2 to World Of Warcraft? How does your Starcraft 2 rank matter, at all, in World Of Warcraft? This is a genuine question, since I haven't played either game.
The only tie-in I've heard of deals with SC2 Collectors Edition. Purchasing it gives you a rare "Mini-Thor" pet in World of Warcraft.
The connection is actually not very metaphorical; it's being able to chat across the two games.
The use case is that you can jump into SC2 and invite your 2v2 teammate to play with you even if they're playing some WoW character you don't know and you don't even have a WoW account.
Also, in this article the author focuses solely on Starcraft II. BNet2.0 encompasses ALL BLIZZARD GAMES. Even World Of Warcraft is getting updated in the new Expansion to support some of the BNet2.0 features. The idea is to build a platform that connects all Blizzard gamers to all Blizzard games. At Blizzcon 2009 on of the VPs of Blizzard gave a demonstration of BNet2.0, talked about the vision, and where they plan to go with it. They are trying make a quality system that will be useful.
Lastly, BNet 2.0 will introduce a kind of Map Store. SC II's game editor is very robust and allows you to create some very nice custom maps, campaigns, etc. Map editors will be able to sell their maps on this store. I think this may appeal to some people on HN more than the article itself.