CivII Battle.net

[xgmx]

years ago Blizzard Entertainment made Battle.net open source. However Bnetd was shutdown because Activision tried stealing Bnet. However if only Civilization 2: Test of Time had a server like Battle.net.



Bnet features
*700 billion registered members
*around since 1995
*stat tracking
*ladder
*customizable profiles
*chat rooms
*live tech support by company reps
*live tech support by normal people
*5 gateways to reduce lag
*number 1 online gaming service (more members than Xbox and Nintendo)
*free
*auto patching
*all games are supported by Xfire (except Japanese StarCraft)
*War3 players can talk to SC players, same with D1 and D2 players.
*built into games, no download required
*in 2004, 400 thousand hackers were banned
*over 50 million people login a day
*over 70 million games are played a day



Bnet disadvantages
*cd-key is required (except on Diablo 1)
*Diablo 1 players can't go into private channels
*Diablo 1 demo players can't go into private channels
*StarCraft demo players can't go into private channels
*StarCraft Japanese players can't go into private channels (public beta)
*Diablo 2 Stress Test players can't go into private channels (internal alpha)



games supported
Diablo Shareware
Diablo
WarCraft 2 BNE
StarCraft Shareware
StarCraft
StarCraft: Brood War
StarCraft: Renegade
Diablo 2 Stress Test
Diablo 2
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction
WarCraft 3 Reign of Chaos
WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne
Japanese StarCraft
StarCraft 2 multiplayer demo
Stratagus (support has been removed)
StarCraft: Retribution (map pack)
StarCraft: Insurrection (map pack)
Diablo: Hellfire (unsupported)
Diablo 2 demo (unsupported)
StarCraft 2 (in development)
StarCraft: Ghost (in development, however indefinatly postponed)
StarCraft 2 multiplayer demo
Pax Imperia Eminent Domain (support has been removed before completion)
Bos Wars (support has been removed)