Posts with tag Battle-net

Logging on to do my dailies last night, I was confronted by this dread error message. What horrible doom had befallen me? Oh, I'd forgotten to pick up a new game time card. While I'd previously given Blizzard my credit card information and let them bill me as needed, lately I've gone the game card route -- mostly because it was easy to pick up game time cards using gift cards after the holidays. But I have a feeling that laziness will win out moving forward and get me back on a credit card subscription plan. That way I can never forget and get this login error again... though on the flip side, it also means I could go weeks without playing and still pay for it.

And what about you? How do you pay to play?

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A much asked for feature is on its way into the game -- you will soon™ be able to set your Battle.net status to "appear offline," letting you have some much needed peace and quiet from the clamor of all those friends playing Blizzard's various games.

Currently, if you're logged in and have Real ID, Battle Tag, or character-level friends, then they can see you online no matter what. While this doesn't present a huge problem, sometimes people just want to go in a game and play by themselves, without the presence of a group. And even though WoW will never be a single player game, this upcoming change will certainly allow you to disappear into the masses when you want.

Blizzard's full release as follows:

Blizzard

In the coming months, we're planning an update to Battle.net that will give you more control over your online presence when playing Blizzard games. Soon, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III players will be able to select "Appear Offline" as one of their Battle.net social-status options (along with Available, Busy, and Away) for those times when they want to wander Azeroth by their lonesome, dominate the galaxy in radio silence, or slay demons in solitude. When you choose this option as your status, all of your Real ID friends, BattleTag friends, and character-level friends will see you as "Offline" in their friends list whenever you're logged into a game.

The "Appear Offline" status option will be added to World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III separately in future updates for each game. For Diablo III, we expect to add the feature in a patch after 1.0.5. For World of Warcraft and StarCraft II, we expect to add the option sometime after the release of each game's upcoming expansion.

Thanks for your continued feedback, and we'll share more information on the availability of this new feature in the months ahead.

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While we've heard nothing concrete, evidence continues to accumulate that a Mists of Pandaria digital preorder will be available sooner rather than later. The latest reveal was spotted by one of our eagle-eyed commenters, who notes that the blank box art listed next to a PTR account on Battle.net has been replaced by an actual Mists box. (Incidentally, this also means that the leaked box art we saw a month ago was apparently right on the money.)

That's not all, however. Another sharp-eyed commenter noticed that Cataclysm-level accounts now have the little green arrow next to them, indicating that they're eligible for an upgrade. Unfortunately, trying to upgrade the account fails; when I tried, it indicates only my Starter Edition is eligible. Still, it's exciting to see the pieces fall into place. What about you? Are you planning on buying digital or retail this time around?

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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For reasons unknown, World of Warcraft and Battle.net web services are all down for the count this morning. Social media speculation lays blame at the feet of Diablo III, but judging by my barbarian's continued ability to run roughshod over Azmodan's legions, that may not be the case -- the Diablo III service appears to be operating perfectly fine.

Of course, the possibility remains that some aspect of Diablo III's current operations is placing excessive strain on other areas of Battle.net's infrastructure, and the targeted blame may yet be accurate. We have yet to see a statement from Blizzard on the downtime, but we will update you as soon as we do.

Update: The game-side issue appears to be an issue with the login server. If you are already logged into World of Warcraft ... don't log off if you want to keep playing!

Update #2: The Battle.net downtime appears to have been resolved.

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With the advent of transmogrification, void storage, account-wide pets, and lots of other item-dependent features, it's seemed a little odd that Blizzard hasn't been allowing item restores via the GM queue. Well, that apparently ends today -- both the inability to do so and requesting to do so via GM ticket. Now, your Battle.net account page has a brand-new service: Item Restoration. It's a free service that you can perform once every 30 days to retrieve lost, deleted, or vendored items immediately. In the event that you disenchanted an item instead of deleting or selling it, you'll still go through the regular GM ticket line to have your case looked at.

Kudos to Blizzard for finally making this service available -- it was a huge stress on the GM queue and an inconvenience for players. Now everybody's happy. Probably.

Announcing: Battle.net Item Restoration

Starting today, players can access a new system that will allow players to recover World of Warcraft items that they may have sold, destroyed or disenchanted: Battle.net Item Restoration.

With this new self-service option the recovery of an item or items that were recently deleted or sold to a vendor can be restored to a character immediately when using the ticket submission system on our support site. For any items that were accidentally disenchanted the same method can be used to request a review by Customer Support for restoration.

This restoration option may only be used once every 30 days on active World of Warcraft accounts that are in good standing. As this option has a limited availability and use, we still encourage caution when selling, deleting or disenchanting items.

While Customer Service always strives to help whenever we can, with the introduction of this self-help feature we will no longer be able to assist with these types of requests.

Additional details can be found in the following Support Article: Battle.net Item Restoration.

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No matter how much we may love playing with our guilds and friends, sometimes we just want to take some time off and play in single-player mode. However, with the pervasiveness of the RealID system, is it truly feasible to go off the grid to do this? Syl over at Raging Monkeys attempts to tackle this very problem, arguing enthusiastically that we should be allowed this option, that it would not only be convenient but also would benefit those relationships we have built both in-game and out.

Personally, I'm a bit torn on the issue. On the one hand, I can identify with this situation, as I have been there many times before. My own friends would always want to level alts together, but our goals for those characters never quite lined up. I'd find myself creating secret alts on another faction, sometimes on another server -- not only to experience more of the story and lore than I had before, but to just be alone. Of course, this was all before the RealID system was implemented, because after its debut, I was not able to start a new draenei paladin or blood elf rogue without being flooded with questions and, admittedly, a little guilt.

On the other hand, there is a very simple solution to all of this: Put your foot down. If someone asks why you're on Area 52 rolling a worgen warlock (or why you're even rolling a warlock in the first place, yuck), I think we all can agree that the best solution would be to honestly and delicately state that you need some time off, away from all of your in-game obligations -- including those inquiring minds. But is confronting your pursuers really that easy? For some, this type of thing comes naturally, and I for one am extremely envious of these people. For others, confrontation of this sort is not something we want to deal with, and the option to hide from RealID becomes a safe, albeit passive-aggressive, option.

What do you think? Is this a feature that Blizzard should be working on, or should these players find other means of enjoying the game in solitary peace?

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Blizzard has just announced and posted a FAQ about its upcoming Battle.net feature BattleTag, a feature separate from Real ID that connects players across all of Blizzard's games with a screen name rather than your own full name. BattleTags seems to be Blizzard's response to the community's privacy issues with Real ID, in which many players want to make new connections with people they meet in game but are not willing to share so much personal information. BattleTag will eventually have access to all of the grouping and queuing features that Real ID users currently have access to.

Not only will your BattleTag be your identifier across Blizzard games, but it will also be used as your forum handle on the community websites. These handles are not unique, so you could potentially have the same name as someone else, but you'll have an identification number that appears after your name in your profile so that people can find you and send you messages. BattleTags do not interrupt your Real ID friends or any other feature. Again, BattleTags are optional, and you are still able to post on the forums using your World of Warcraft characters or StarCraft II account. BattleTags are rolling out soon in the Diablo III beta and will be available for everyone at a later date.

Personally, this is exactly what I wanted from Real ID, now pared down to a manageable, private screen name. My real friends can stay on my Real ID list, and my online friends, guildmates, and other people can use my BattleTag. This new feature is a great response to players' concerns, and I cannot wait to try it. Hit the jump for the full FAQ and learn all about BattleTags.

Moments ago, Daxxari announced that Battle.net is coming down for immediate urgent maintenance. Players logged in to Battle.net should be able to play as normal, but the system may prevent people from logging on. Maintenance is expected to last from 2:30 p.m. PST to 4:30 p.m. PST.

Daxxari announces urgent Battle.net maintenance

We will be performing an urgent maintenance on Battle.net which may prevent players from logging into the system. Players who are currently logged in should be able to continue to play normally.

We expect this downtime to begin at 2:30 p.m. PST and end at approximately 4:30 p.m. PST. Thank you for your patience while we improve the Battle.net system.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

On Wednesday, Blizzard announced that PayPal would be its payment service partner for the new Battle.net wallet and Diablo 3 real money transaction Auction House coming with the release of the next Diablo game. Was anyone really surprised at this announcement? I sure wasn't, but that's because I already knew PayPal would be the payment service partner for the Diablo 3 real money Auction House from the moment the Diablo 3 real money Auction House was announced. I'm not trying to be smug here, because you knew it, too. You just didn't know that you knew.

The relationship between Blizzard and PayPal is an easy one to decipher because of the nature of the business Blizzard is getting into with the Diablo 3 RMT Auction House. Auctions for real money are firmly in PayPal's wheelhouse because, shocker of shockers, PayPal is owned by eBay. When you think about the feasibility of the RMT Auction House and all of the legal ramifications that go along with it, you point to the eBay model of online auction facilitation for what works and provides the path of least resistance.

This article is not a critique of PayPal as a service. There are plenty of places on the web to find that type of article. Instead, The Lawbringer will look at the actual services that Blizzard provides with PayPal, why PayPal was the obvious choice for real money transactions, and how PayPal's integration into Battle.net is not the potentially apocalyptic scenario that a few have presumed.

Those players using the iPhone Mobile Authenticator in conjunction with their Warcraft accounts may want to note the latest news from Community Manager Lylirra on the official Blizzard forums. Due to an issue with the latest version of the authenticator, the app has been removed from the iTunes store, to be replaced with a new version at a later date.

Don't panic if you happen to have the authenticator tied to your account -- all current authenticators will continue working as usual, but players looking to download or update the app for their iPhone or iTouch devices will have to wait until the new version is released. Also note that whatever this issue may be, it is not a security issue; your account is perfectly safe.

Follow after the break for the full announcement.

If you think we've scratched the surface of Battle.net cross-game implementation with Real ID, you are going to be amazed at what is coming next. Do I know any of this for sure? No, of course not. I base my predictions on three simple facts:

1. Blizzard has created an account-based loyalty program that has encapsulated each and every one of its games;
2. Blizzard is chock-full of smart individuals who understand community, as illustrated by the new community website; and
3. Blizzard has made your account mean something into perpetuity.

If you think Battle.net is sharp at 2.0, you can't even imagine 3.0.