Battle.net Overview Content
Find out what’s new on Battle.net and how to play online with your friends
The original StarCraft became an online gaming phenomenon, redefining professional gaming and spawning several pro gaming leagues. The StarCraft II multiplayer mode embraces its storied legacy and provides you with an online gaming experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
Battle.net Accounts and Characters
If you want to play StarCraft II online, you have to create a StarCraft II character for your Battle.net account. Think of this as Battle.net’s way of pinning all your achievements, rankings, and other game-specific data to a persistent character that makes it easy to interact with other players on the service.
We want you to be able to create a character with exactly the name you had in mind – no one likes it when the first people on a service snatch up all the “good” names – so we made all character names non-unique. This means that two different people can create characters that have the same name. If you want to be Zealotblade, then you will be Zealotblade, regardless of whether there are any other players on Battle.net who call themselves Zealotblade.
If your character is your face in the multiplayer mode of StarCraft II, then your profile is your score card: it keeps track of all your achievements, unlocked rewards, and your match history. As you play StarCraft II, you will hit certain milestones such as completing the single-player campaign or winning a certain number of multiplayer matches. Reaching one of these milestones will reward you with Achievements, a kind of merit badge that appears in your profile once you’ve earned them. Completing certain Achievements unlocks special rewards such as new character portrait options or special decals. Your profile also contains your complete multiplayer match history and ladder rankings.
Battle.net Interface
Ranked and Unranked Multiplayer Games
There are two basic types of game you can play online with StarCraft II: ranked games, and unranked games.
Ranked games will pit you against worthy opponents selected by Battle.net’s automatic matchmaking system. As you play, you earn your place among the StarCraft II competitive ladder. Winning games will improve your rank and move you up on the ladder; losing games will do the opposite. Ranked games are fast, fun, and fair. The opponents you’ll face will be a tough challenge – but so are you to them.
Getting into a ranked game is easy. Clicking on the main navigation’s multiplayer tab will bring up the quick match screen. Select your race and mode for this game (1v1, 2v2, various kinds of team games, etc.), then hit the quick match button to find a match.
Unranked games will not influence your ladder placement, but they offer greater variety in the types of game you can play. You will be able to create or join games with user-specified settings, play custom maps, take on A.I. opponents in team games, and much more. Unranked games can be just as challenging as ranked games, but you do not have to worry about demolishing your rank.
Custom games are not ranked, so they are a little more relaxed than competitive matches. You also have more control over the game’s settings when creating a custom game.
When you first start playing ranked games, Battle.net will give you the option to spend some time in a practice league. This will allow you to brush up on your skills in slower-paced matches with more relaxed settings to ease you into the more competitive matches later on. You can leave the practice league at any time.
You can create a custom game by selecting the map you want to play on from the map list and clicking the game creation button. Some maps may have custom settings or other exotic rules; you can filter the map list by game type to narrow down the results. You can invite other players to your game’s lobby, or you can launch the game and let Battle.net search for players to join you.
Once you are ready to leave the practice league, Battle.net will try to determine your actual skill level and then place you accordingly. To do this, you will have to complete a number of placement matches.
Joining a game is easy; simply select your preferences on the Join Custom Game screen, then click the join game button to find an open game. Custom games can offer gameplay that is vastly different from normal multiplayer matches, including brand-new game types such as DotA (Defense of the Ancients) or Tower Defense. If you’re interested in creating your own custom game maps, make sure to check out our StarCraft II Editor guide to learn how to use the suite of mapmaking tools that come with the game.
Battle.net’s StarCraft II ladder is made up of several leagues which each comprise a number of divisions; each division is a group of 100 players of similar skill level. As you win games and get better, you may eventually graduate to a higher division. Leagues are grouped by alloy, divisions by number, e.g., Silver League / Division 281.
If you prefer to battle computer-controlled opponents instead of other human players, you and your friends can launch a cooperative versus A.I. game where you play as a team against the computer.
There are two types of team games: random and arranged. In random team games, players are matched up with other randomly selected players into teams. In arranged team games, you must add one or two of your friends to your party and then launch a quick match. The rankings for each arranged team you form are tracked separately, so you can be on several different teams, each with their own ranking.
You can check your different rankings on your profile screen. You will be ranked individually for each type of ranked game you’ve played; for example, your 1v1 rank will be different from your 2v2 random team rank, etc.
Adding Friends
Dominating multiplayer matches on Battle.net is fun, but there is nothing more enjoyable than playing with people you know, people you share jokes and stories with, people who game on the same wavelength as you. In other words, friends.
One of the first things you will want to do on Battle.net is to populate your friends list with people you meet online and who you like to play with. You can maintain two kinds of friends lists on Battle.net, your “character friends” and your “Real ID friends.” Access friends controls via the button in the bottom right of the Battle.net interface.
If you have a Real ID friend, you will be able to see the status of all their characters across all games, and you will be able to chat with them even if they are in a different game on Battle.net, such as World of Warcraft.
you can either enter their character name and character code in the Add Friends screen, or right-click their name and add the character as a friend. That’s it! After you’ve added a StarCraft II character as a friend, he will show up on your friends list and you will see when that character is online.
you will need to enter the email address associated with that player’s Battle.net account. Furthermore, the player who is being added will have to approve your request before he shows up on your Real ID friends list.
import your Facebook friends
via the Add Friends screen.
This will take email addresses that your Facebook friends share with you and use these addresses to determine which of your friends are on Battle.net. You could do this manually, but chosing the import function will save you time. Simply click the Facebook button, enter your credentials, and agree to allow the service to search for your friends’ email addresses on Battle.net.
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