Battle.Net User Interface

The Battle.Net UI (User Interface) are all the buttons and windows within the BNet platform. Right now, we will talk about each element in this awesome platform. Get ready, because this is damn hard!

Connecting

Let’s get this going! When you start the game, you will notice the awesome background and then a standard login window. If you have a valid account, type in your credentials and hit “Connect”. Or you can click the “New User” button, which will open your browser and you can purchase an account at the official website. The other buttons are:

• Credits - information about game’s developing team.
• Play as Guest - you can test StarCraft 2 without purchasing an account. However, you can’t use the Multiplayer, you don’t have achievements and you can only play a handful or missions from the campaign.
• Options - tweak your Graphics, Sound, Voice, Controls, Gameplay and Battle.Net in-game.
• Manage Account - this button will redirect you to the Battle.net website, where you can adjust some account setting and/or buy another Blizzard game.

Your home

When you log in, apart from the cool background, you will see two windows. The top one is static and it controls the bigger window below. You can think of it as your navigation. In the center of this panel you will see a cool animated StarCraft 2 logo. There are two very important buttons on the left:

• Single Player. This is to portal to the…well…single payer of StarCraft 2. There you will find other cool buttons: Campaign, Challenges, Player Versus AI and Tutorials.
• Multi Player. This is why you bought the game. This is what you want to press, if you want to play versus people from all over the world. In the Multi Player you can select the type of game you want to play (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 or FFA) and the race you wish. Beneath these options, you have a little window, where your rank in the league, your bonus pool points and wins are displayed. Next, there are the Find Match and Map preferences buttons. On the right you will see:
• Play Cooperative - you can team up with other players to play unranked matches against AI opponents.
• Custom Games – You can create or join custom-made maps.

Beneath those two buttons, additional 7 are located:

• Home – this button brings up the home screen.
• Profile – brings up your profile, where you can see: Profile Summary, Achievements, Match History, Rewards and League and Ladders.
• Achievements - here you can view all of the achievements you have or can get for playing the Campaign, versus an AI opponent, Cooperative game or Quick Match. What; more, you can pick 5 achievements and place them in the Showcase, so that people viewing your profile can see them.
• Leagues and Ladders – here you can get detailed information about your current position in the various leagues. The three main windows illustrate the leagues and division, where you are most active. On the left you can get some additional information like your Career history, last season ranking and current season ranking.
• Replays – the full archive of your game replays and all the other replays you have downloaded.
• News and Community - the latest news in a chronological order. The Forums and Community Site buttons will both open your browser and direct you to the appropriate website. Note that you can only view snippets of the news; if you want to read the full article, you have to click the tiny icon in the bottom right corner, which will bring up your browser.
• Help - you have a Help Guide and a Playing Guide. Beneath them you will see three smaller windows: Play Tutorials, Online Guide and Support. The first one starts the learning tutorial, while the rest will open a web browser.

Miscellaneous

We are almost done! All we have to do is talk about the final three buttons at the bottom of the platform:

• Menu – this is pretty standard, here you have access to: Options, Manage Account, Hot Keys, Log Out and Exit.
• Friends List – this is one of the coolest features of BNet 2.0. Here you can see all of your gaming friends, regardless whether they play WoW, StarCraft 2 or Diablo 3. You can even add real ID friends from Facebook. When you right-click someone’s name you can choose to chat if he/she is online, view his/her profile, achievements, invite him/her to party, remove him/her from your list or even report the player. You can obviously add people to your list by clicking the “Add Friend” button. Here you can also change your status: available, away or busy.
• Chat Channels – here you can join and/or create chat rooms. What’s more, you can pick the language of the rooms you see.

Well, that’s pretty much all the basic buttons and windows of the BNet UI. Please, note that changes may occur due to patch changes, but we will make our best to update this information.