Blizzard Revamps Battle.net With a New Focus on Social Interaction
Blizzard takes a cue from social media and chat services in their latest refresh of their Battle.net portal. The revamped site, which also comes with desktop and mobile app versions, introduces new social-oriented features and new profile options.
Right from the main screen, logged-in users will be greeted by the new Social tab. This new addition features the new Blizzard Groups feature that hosts group chats and player-to-player interactions like private messaging and even gifting, as Blizzard details in their blog update.
Chat via Battle.net has been improved with new features, with the new channels able to deliver messages even to offline users. Messages are now archived as well, so players can check their chat history anytime.
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Blizzard Groups are another new addition to Battle.net, and it is one that users of the Discord chat service will be familiar with. Just like the free Discord app, Blizzard Groups can have several multiple text chat and voice chat channels, moderation, and administrator features.
With expanded chat and groups features, Battle.net also has new avatars and profile options. Now, players can share more with an About message, as well as add snippets that show links to social media profiles or a list of recent games that they have recently played.
New avatar options have been added as well, with more than 100 Blizzard characters to choose from.
Blizzard has also added Player Gifting, a new feature that lets players send gifts to others in the form of card packs, loot boxes, and other options. Players who just got gifted will see a notification on the upper right corner of the app immediately.
To claim the gift, users can just tap the notification and click Claim to add the item to their in-game collection.
These features have been available for select users that took part in the beta tests and is now available via the browser version, or via the new Battle.net mobile app.
