Blizzard has posted a preview for their new Battle.net service. The new service is built around 3 main themes: the always-connected experience, competitiveness, and social interaction.

The first theme, the always-connected experience, involves Battle.net being more prominent in Starcraft 2 and future Blizzard games. Character stats and achievements will be included and tracked in both single player and multi player games. A nice feature is that all of your character info will be saved online. So if you wipe and reinstall, or move to a different computer, just sign in and you’re good to go!

The second theme, competitiveness, is the main reason behind Battle.net. This incorporates all the aspects of the multi player experience. It will include many game modes, including ranked matches, custom games, practice league, co-op vs. AI, challenges, and more. The one thing they’re touting above all else is the improved matchmaking service. It will be able to better measure player skills and match them up appropriately. Since it also tracks your single-player action, it should be able to gage players well. Big Brother Battle.net is always watching you…

The third theme, social interaction, includes everything you would expect to see: text chat, voice chat, friends list, etc… It will also feature the ability to interact with players across games, which for now is Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft.

The more I read about the new Battle.net and Starcraft 2 the more I want to play! *sigh*